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“I don’t know. I was outside since I can’t be around the other kids with you all the way over here.” Andromeda lifts a large bundle that looks like a box wrapped in cloth. “Yama-nii-nii just dropped this off and said Daddy wanted me to let you know I got it.”
“What is it?”
She sets the stack down, undoes the tie, and presents a multi-tier, Japanese-style lunch box. Pulling the wooden lid off, she displays rice and nori seaweed sheets cut and shaped to look like pandas, tiny veggie hot dogs cut into squids, fruit in heart and star shapes, egg rolls, tiny cubes of cheese with dice dots, smiley fries, pizza bites. She grimaces. “Lunch, he said.”
It is the most beautiful lunch I have ever seen.
I’m sorry.
What?
Why is this starting now? All of a sudden?
Why did he specifically want me to know she had it, today of all days?
“It’s an awful lot,” Andromeda murmurs. “I’m normally still full from breakfast, and then we have lunch right when I get home. I’ll make a snack in the evening. And then Daddy and I go hu…to work. So that’s more food.”
I stare as she uncovers another section with an assortment of friendly-looking baked goods.
Zahra grabs a chocolate chip cookie. “Yoink.”
“Zahra,” I snap.
She pops it in her mouth. “What? Stealing food from single children is good for them. It teaches them defenses that can only be attained with siblings.”
Andromeda brightens and pushes the boxes toward me. “Maybe Daddy really made this for you.”
Dearest.
My heart hits my ribs as I force my smile to stay right in place and my hands not to tap against each other. I’ve been hyped up on energy ever since my dream, hence the chaotic crocheting. “Meda, why would your father make a lunch for me?”
“He’s shy.” She giggles as her attention falls on the little oven mitts I forgot I took out just minutes ago, then she gasps. “Bees!”
“Kass made those for you,” Zahra says around another stolen cookie.
I swat her hand. “Stop eating her lunch.”
“It’s a lot of lunch for such a tiny creature. It’s my duty to make sure it isn’t poisoned.”
I scowl, then I realize Andromeda’s huge blue eyes are pinned on me. “They’re for me?” she asks, so softly, like she can’t believe it. Like she can’t believe anyone would ever get, or make, her anything.
My heart squeezes. “Oh, sweetie. If it’s okay, yes, I made them for you. Do they fit?”
She drops her gaze, picks one up, and puts it on. Putting the other on, she holds her hands up and stares. “My very own real ones?”
“Well, you are going to be eight in a few months, so it seems an appropriate enough early birthday present.”
She looks past the mitts. “Birthdays have presents?”
If her father appears in any more of my dreams, I will somehow manage to stab him. I swear.
“Cake, too.” Zahra steals a perfectly cubed brownie. “Do faeries not have birthdays?”
“Faeries tend to not have obligatory sorts of celebrations. The elves do throw a night party in the woods each month, but Daddy says it’s a not-for-children party. And Zy likes to go. So I’m not allowed. It’s every third Tuesday, if you’re interested.” She claps her mitts together, seeming dazed. “Even normal humans can hear the essence of the music and smell the faerie wine if they believe hard enough.”
Zy.
The library.
