Page 62 of Mortdale

“Stop holding your breath,” he murmured as he captured my bottom lip with one last pull.

I finally inhaled, feeling blood tickle the top of my lip.

Piper squealed, wrapping her arms around our legs.

He still hadn’t moved away. “I’m not your friend,” he said, brushing the blood off my lips. “You’ll call me Logan.”

“No, I’ll call you Bear. But I am sure I will have it figured out as soon as Pipe here has it,” I said, hiking his niece up on my hip. “Say hi to Art for me. I kind of miss having him around the house. He’s good to talk to.”

He stared at me under his lashes, the tip of his tongue pressed to his fang. “Is he?”

I waved my fingers in his face. “Goodbye, Bear.”

“Do you hate Arthur, or what?” Liam asked, tugging on Piper’s tiny blond tails as we all watched Logan trot away in the direction of the stables. “Did he say something to piss you off?”

“What? No. I’m pretty sure we’re best friends.”

He shook his head. “Arthur, that poor mucker. He’s probably going to lose his tongue.”

Piper turned to me, pressing the tip of her nose to mine. “Are we friends?”

Was I friendth with a four-year-old? “Only if you teach me that spin you did.”

She nodded, grabbing my cheeks with her clammy paws. “I don’t have lotta friends.”

“How come? You’re stinky and adorable. More so on the stinky. But children like some funk.”

She giggled like crazy, tears nearly springing out of her golden eyes. Then she went quiet, resting her still-sticky cheek against mine. “I don’t have a mommy. People say she was crazy. They’re scared of me.”

Cassandra’s words from her letters came back to me. How she’d been scared of losing her mind. How she’d felt different in her last few weeks before her death. And that what Theodora had told me made the entire situation even more severe.

I pushed her forehead with mine. “What are their names and do you have a lock of their hair?”

Her tiny little tooths were all visible as she smiled. “I wish I had a mommy.” I could see the sorrow in her tiny face. I could recognise it so well—that moment of self soothing, of choking back the tears, sucking the comfort out of an empty place just to feel yourself swallow something down so nothing could come up. Her voice was small as she said, “I have Bear.”

“Bear’s nice.”

She nodded, still holding back tears. “He’s good.”

Piper had given herself permission to pick my dress for her recital. And since this was her day, I had reluctantly decided, after many hours of negotiating, to just let her. If I’d heard another sweet, pouty pleath, I was for sure going to Hell. It looked like Logan had come to the same conclusion. Since he, too, was wearing a coloured suit only a few shades darker than the agony-in-red, eyesore of a dress I was wearing.

Logan had spread in his seat across from us, holding an unlit cigarette between his lips, and had taken upon himself to stare me blind. I felt odd in these ridiculously adorned garments; he didn’t need to make it so obvious that I looked odd, too.

What? I mouthed at him, while his niece went on and on and on like a broken rotator about some girl in her class who’d accidentally bitten her teacher’s ankle. I didn’t know how anyone did that accidentally, and I had in fact argued against it. So, she was now telling me all the ankle biting logistics using building blocks terminology.

His lips pursed as he shook his head. Nothing.

“You aren’t listening!” Piper said, smacking her hands on her stiff white tutu that had eaten more than half of the seat.

Logan lifted her up and plopped her down in his lap. His voice was so much softer with her. “You’re nervous, Bunny. I know.”

“Am not,” she said, nearly in tears.

His thumb moved back and forth over her fat cheek. “You’re going to do so well, sweetheart. And even if you don’t, I am so proud of you for trying. What have I told you?”

Her head was lowered as she nodded. “Only people who try have the opportunity to fail.”

I almost snorted.