by Shannon Page
Jeremy came to my house for our next date night. He’d offered to take me out, but I couldn’t get the image of potentially going into labor in public out of my mind, so I suggested my place.
I let Petrana help me cook this time. Again, we kept it simple—a small pork roast, with potatoes and carrots in the pan with it.
Jeremy was gracious as ever, and we had a polite, even comfortable conversation. Yet it was clear that we both knew that whatever spark we’d once had was just gone. I liked him, and he was sophisticated, intelligent, and easy on the eyes, but…had the terrible thing we’d done together killed our passion forever? Or was I just having a hard time trusting Gregorio’s son?
Maybe I just wasn’t feeling passion for anyone, being this pregnant? But of course, Raymond had stirred thoughts in me…
I was quite sure that Jeremy had no idea of his father’s—well, machinations. Jeremy truly believed this was his child I was carrying, and that his father was delighted by it, and eager to see us in a formal union. It was all the more credit to the warlock that he didn’t pressure me about the situation at all. I could, and did, appreciate that.
What if we never reconnected at a more passionate level? How long would we go on like this—polite, friendly strangers, trying to raise a daughter together? I mean, of course I—and my coven—would have the greatest part of the raising of Rosemary. But I wanted her to have a father figure, even if he shared no biology with her.
After he left that evening, I sat in the front parlor for a long while, thinking. Could I see being domestic with this warlock? Setting up a household here with him, so that Rose wouldn’t have to travel around so much? My house was plenty large enough; Jeremy and I could each have our own spaces, to live and work and sleep and entertain; we wouldn’t have to interact any more than we chose to. It seemed clear that he would have no objections to my leading my own life, within certain reasonable parameters. Why was I being so stubborn?
I sighed, leaning back against the couch cushions as I thought. I knew that unions generally had very little to do with true love, with passion and romance. And yet…I looked at my parents’ union. They so clearly adored one another; they brought each other joy and delight, even though their lives were separate most of the time. And they’d renewed their union, which was far less ordinary.
I guessed I’d always sort of hoped to find that kind of love for myself. Even though a union contract was for a specific period of time, I imagined that at least my first one might be a purely emotional decision.
That is, if I’d thought about it at all, which I realized I hadn’t, not really. I hadn’t been looking for any of this, when first Jeremy and then Rosemary had tumbled into my life. I’d been working on growing my magic, and I’d been straining at the bounds of coven life. I’d wanted more freedom, more independence…not less.
Not a daughter and what amounted to a husband.
I rubbed my belly, absently, and then with more attention. Gentian’s question from weeks and weeks ago came back to me. If this baby was coming as soon as it seemed she was, shouldn’t she have communicated with me by now? I knew she was strong and healthy, growing robustly—not just because I could sense that myself easily, but all my checkups with Nora and Manka, and Sebastian’s probes, had shown her to be in excellent condition.
Perhaps I should ask them, at my next appointment.
Assuming the baby didn’t come first.
I heaved a sigh as I heaved myself to my feet and began the slow waddle upstairs. Petrana was still rattling around in the kitchen, washing pots and pans, when I went to bed.
— CHAPTER NINE —
As my due date drew closer, I essentially moved back into the coven house, making camp in my old room. I wanted to be there for the delivery and thought maybe I’d even be allowed to help with the preparations for our annual Samhain party.
Well, that’s what I’d imagined; what happened was some of the most profound sleep of my life. Night after night, sometimes lasting well into the following day, I lay down and tumbled into deep unconsciousness. I slept and slept, waking briefly for small meals and a bit of conversation with my coven sisters, only to plunge into sleep again. Sebastian and the healers came to see me and pronounced everything to be just fine, so nobody worried much about it. My tiny, crowded bed became the center of the universe, the most comfortable place I’d ever been, and I barely stirred out of it. Elnor greatly approved of this development; she curled against my body, while Rosemary curled inside it.
I dreamed much during this time, though I never saw the pair of white cats again. Instead, I visited complicated worlds, far beyond the planes I knew. Fiery demons and silver wolves floated past me, harmlessly. I dreamed of this world too, of my house, of my sturdy golem, of the terrible secret I held, and my search for answers, for other half-human witchkind. I dreamed of my mother, who had been ill and had recovered and yet still seemed somehow…remote, and as though she too held a secret. I dreamed of Raymond, kind and loving and sexy, and entirely inappropriate for me. I dreamed of dear Logan, returned to life, smiling and happy before me.
I dreamed of my body, slender and babyless once more, and the sensual pleasures I’d taken from it: my pleasure in Jeremy’s body, and in Raymond’s, and other lovers before them; eating and drinking my fill; filling my lungs with fresh air and working strong magic. I sighed and dreamed of other things, cold winter afternoons lazing by a fire, my body flying through space over an unknown realm, battles and heroes from books I’d read, dangerous children who knew too much. What was real and what was not melded in my dreams, tangled together in a smooth braid. Time passed, and I slept.
At last, the day arrived. I slept late as usual, but woke feeling refreshed and almost energetic. I knew the excessive sleeping was finished: perhaps I’d been preparing myself to have a newborn; my body had been stockpiling rest. I stretched and yawned, pulled on a silk robe, and went to wash my face before making my way downstairs.
It was long past breakfast, but Sirianna, Peony, and Organza were in the kitchen, cooking up a huge batch of moonberries for the fermentation of Witch’s Mead. Our Mead was famous. It blew Gregorio’s “safe for pregnancy” stuff out of the water; even his regular stuff couldn’t touch ours.
Too bad I wouldn’t get to drink any.
Not that I cared, honestly. I didn’t want any; alcohol had never started sounding any better to me.
“Good morning,” I said to my coven sisters, going over to the window seat and arranging myself gingerly down onto it.
“Good afternoon,” Sirianna said with a chuckle, though it was barely ten a.m. She handed her spoon to Peony, who took over stirring. “I’ll make you something to eat.”
“Thanks.” I leaned against the window frame. “It feels funny in here.”
Organza said, “Well, it is a full moon. Plus, Leonora has begun loosening the house-wards for the party.”
“Oh, that must be it.” I’d liked it when my own house was ward-free (before Jeremy and I had built my own personal ones), but it felt really peculiar here. Like a missing step.
Sirianna lit a burner and suspended a piece of bread in mid-air, toasting it. “How are you feeling?”
“Pretty good. Awake, finally.” I put a hand on my belly. “Full moon. Today’s the day,” I added, completely unnecessarily.
“Such a blessing on our house!” Sirianna said, smiling as she buttered the toast and brought it to me on a china plate. “Tea?”
I took a bite. “No thanks. I shouldn’t fill my stomach, right?”
“True.”
After the toast, I felt entirely stuffed. As usual. And I would be hungry again in an hour. “What can I do to help?” I asked them.
“Nothing. We’re good here,” Peony said.
“Are you sure? Leonora has hardly let me do anything.”
“You’re pregnant!” Sirianna said.
I gaped at her. “I am?! Why didn’t anyone tell me!”
“Oh, hush.” She gave me a g
entle swat on my arm. “You just relax and keep us company.”
“Want me to stir that?” I asked Peony.
“No, thank you.”
We chatted a while, but it became clear that they needed to concentrate on what they were doing. I drifted out of the kitchen, looking for something to do. But though all my sisters were frantically getting the house ready for the party, nobody else would let me help with anything either.
I should have had lunch with Christine after all, I thought. And then, Come on, Rose.
With a sigh, I sank onto the couch. Elnor jumped up, gave my bulging non-lap a disdainful glance, and settled on my legs.
Lunchtime came. I nibbled a little and didn’t have a baby.
The afternoon passed. I didn’t have a baby.
Just before dinner, I felt a little something. Was it a contraction? No, it was just my meager lunch shifting. I didn’t have a baby.
The evening wore on. I didn’t have a baby.
I stayed up almost until midnight, quite sure that things would start any minute.
But they didn’t.
I finally went to bed. Now it will be at least another two weeks. Until the moon waxed again. Ah well. These things were never all that predictable; Leonora had said this to me several times throughout the day.
But wow, I was tired of being pregnant.
Samhain morning, the house was crazed with the final preparations, and still no one would let me do a thing. I might as well work on my costume. I hadn’t given it any thought; I had expected to have a newborn, and to be relaxing with her, enjoying my recovery.
Upstairs in my tiny room, I leafed through my closet, then studied my stout physique in the mirror, frowning. Dressing as any kind of animal was out; I had no intention of showing up as a hippo or a hedgehog or a roly-poly bug. I could magic myself to appear smaller, but the illusions involved with that were more than I felt up to at the moment.
Gracie should be here. She loved dress-up. I realized that, without consciously thinking about it, I’d been holding out hope that she’d return by Samhain.
“I should just put a sheet over myself and be a great big ghost,” I grumbled to Elnor.
But that gave me an idea: I’d be an ifrit. Ethereal, insubstantial, and my size wouldn’t matter. All I needed was a few yards of magical fabric.
I searched through the æther, looking in several stores before I found what I needed. The coven even had an account there. Within minutes, I had armloads of shimmery fabric in several shades of white, from opaque to a ghostly mist, which I draped around myself strategically. It would have gone more smoothly if Elnor hadn’t taken a fancy to the cloth. She batted at pieces of it as they slipped by her nose, getting her claws stuck in the netting. “Out!” I finally commanded. She slunk away.
When I was done, I looked in the mirror. I was pretty much see-through, except I wasn’t, except I was. I spun slowly. Or maybe I was invisible. It was a weird, cool effect. I even felt lighter.
Unfortunately, I hadn’t managed to use up much time.
Well, that’s what naps were for.
Apparently, I had a little more sleep left in me after all.
I awoke—and the party had started. I levered myself out of bed, smoothed my rumpled costume, and headed downstairs.
I hardly recognized my staid coven house. The furniture was shunted away and the rooms were stretched to their full supernatural capacity, but even so, the throngs of guests threatened to burst the house’s edges. Witches and warlocks mingled, flirting and chatting as they dipped into the smoking vats of Witch’s Mead and sampled from plates of delicious munchies my sisters had spent days slaving over. It seemed like there were even more guests here than at Gregorio’s party, though that was probably just because our house was smaller.
Everyone was in costume. There were the usual vampires, fangs dripping with real human blood, and the faithful old fallback looks of sexy-witch or scary-witch—cleavage or warts, respectively. A horse, a mynah bird, and a griffin were in conversation in a corner of the living room, monopolizing the Mead-vat they stood over. A knight in full armor stood in another corner—he must have been roasting in all that metal. I saw a mermaid with a real fish-tail, and looked to see what the sloppy thing was doing to Leonora’s precious parlor rug—but of course, the rugs had all gone the way of the furniture. Our inlaid pentagram gleamed from the polished wood floor; a magical sheen protected the finish.
I was nearly invisible in my costume. Which was great. The gauzy fabric even covered my head, leaving only my eyes exposed through a Salome-like veil.
I moved into the room, taking in the mood, the laughter, seeing if there was anyone I didn’t know—or couldn’t recognize. Sirianna found me. She sipped from a smoking cup of Witch’s Mead, and wore a catsuit, complete with furry tail and tufted ears. “Oh, look at you!” she said, grinning through her whiskers.
“You look great too. How did the Mead turn out?”
“Pretty good.” She frowned. “Last year’s was better, but this is all right. Oh—we made punch too.” She pointed to a pitcher on the sideboard.
“Ah, thanks,” I said, and got myself a cup as she disappeared into the crowd.
I stood at the edge of the room, enjoying the punch before putting the empty glass down. My belly was full again. The punch was not an intoxicant, but it had been brewed with health and well-being in mind. It rolled lovingly through my veins, relaxing me.
After a few minutes, I worked my way through the living room and into the kitchen, also jam-packed. The door to Leonora’s office stood open. All the furniture was gone, leaving only the window seat and its comfy pillows. Three witches from Purslaine’s coven were in there, making goo-goo eyes at the old fellow who watched the university portal in Berkeley.
Which made me think yet again of Logan’s body, and Gregorio, and everything else. Was Gregorio here? He must be; it would be politically awkward to avoid our party.
Which didn’t mean I wanted to see him.
“How are you feeling, Calendula?”
I turned. Leonora was at my shoulder, wearing one of her Elizabethan gowns, complete with diadem. “I’m good—I got a nap.”
She smiled faintly, focusing most of her attention on reading my energy. Then she nodded. “Yes, all seems well. But take it easy this evening.”
“I will.” I glanced around the kitchen. “Is Dr. Andromedus here?” Better to be prepared than blindsided, I figured.
“Yes. He and several Elders are in the dining room. Along with your warlock.”
Jeremy. Though we were on more comfortable terms, it was still all pretty surface-level. And I hadn’t seen him in a week or more, not since I’d been spending the nights here, since I’d fallen down the sleep-well. “Good, thanks.”
Leonora smiled, then moved off to greet more arriving guests. I made my way toward the dining room, stopping every few feet to catch up with folks. There were witches I hadn’t seen since last year’s party—witches I liked. It made me realize yet again how different this past year of my life had been. How distracted and isolated I’d become. I looked around for Shella and Gentian, but the crowd was so thick (and in disguise), I couldn’t spot them even if they were here.
“Callie!” Mina’s happy burble stopped me again. “Look!” The young witchlet stood before me and twirled. Her costume changed with every inch of her turn. She was a cat, then a dog, then a princess, then a warrior, then flowing water, then—
“That’s awesome,” I said, closing my eyes a moment. It was dizzying. “Stop—hold still a minute! I can’t focus on you.”
She laughed but stopped. Now I saw that she was drinking Mead. I raised an eyebrow, looking around for Leonora.
“Coven Mother said I could!” Mina blurted, before I could say anything. “She said we all could.”
“All right, if she says so,” I laughed. “I guess Samhain is a night to be naughty.”
“Tragic that it’s only one night of the year,” Sebastian Fallon sai
d, joining us. “Where are the rest of the witchlets?” he asked Mina.
“In there.” She waved vaguely toward the front parlor. “Bye!” She dashed off.
“You’re almost invisible,” Sebastian said to me. “Great costume.”
“Thanks.” I looked him over. “Are you…Peter Pan?”
He laughed. “I’m supposed to be a wood elf, but I guess that’s close enough.” He took a sip of a dark blue cocktail. “Have you seen Dr. Andromedus?”
“No, not yet. Leonora said he’s in the dining room?”
“I don’t know. I just meant his costume.”
“Gregorio dressed up?” I gaped at Sebastian.
“Yeah.”
“As what?”
“An eminent warlock scientist,” he said, with a perfectly straight face.
“Jerk.” I snickered. “You had me going there.”
He bowed, doffing his little green cap. “My work here is done.” With a raise of his glass, he sauntered back into the crowd.
I stood in the kitchen a few minutes longer, working up the energy to walk all the way to the dining room. The very next room. Goodness, I’d be glad when this pregnancy was done…Two. More. Weeks. I put my second empty punch glass down, steeled myself, and headed in.
The dining room looked strange without our huge table. It was just as crowded as the rest of the house, but the mood in here was far less festive. In fact it was almost gloomy, I realized, as my eyes adjusted to the dim light. My father stood in one corner, talking very seriously to Gregorio. Neither was in costume. Dad does like to take his cues from Gregorio, I thought, with an inward eye-roll. I looked around for Mom, not seeing her. She, at least, would totally be in costume; she loved dress-up parties.
I watched my father and his old friend, who hadn’t noticed me. What could be so dire? I wished I could hear them.
Only then did I see Jeremy. He was also part of the conversation, behind them, partly in shadows, seeming to be mostly listening. I walked across the room to join them.
