“Yeah.” And she was still trying to wrap her head around how that had happened. “I hope Evan knows what he’s doing.”
Daniel just shook his head, amused. “You’re second-guessing a ghost?”
She grinned. Probably a waste of time-especially when she was curled up in an escape pod with her husband and all five children were otherwise occupied. “Nope. But I am wondering just why you came out here.”
His chuckle sent familiar need curling in her belly. “Took you long enough to figure that out.”
Marcus looked up at the sound of his front door bursting open, wondering who they’d sent to keep tabs on him now. Not that it mattered-a baby who howled if he left the room made it difficult to shower or brush his teeth, much less run for the hills.
He wondered, only somewhat idly, if there was a spell for permanent deafness. Good for loud babies, and probably somewhat discouraging of visitors as well.
Whoever it was wasn’t trying very hard to find him-the cottage was tiny.
He looked down at the small girl tied to his chest, put down the carrot peeler, and sighed. “It appears my nice, peaceful salad is about to be interrupted. Let’s go find the interloper, shall we?”
It had always perplexed him that people insisted on conversing with infants who clearly didn’t understand a word they said. Now he understood it as a desperate attempt to hold on to the last remnants of a saner world.
One not limited to sleep and poop.
Perhaps the new visitor would be willing to change the next diaper. Morgan produced one every day at 4 p.m. like clockwork.
He gave his almost-ready salad one last wistful glance and headed down the hall. “Who goes there?”
“Hi, Uncle Marcus. I brought you flowers.”
Marcus left-turned toward the invader in his living room. Sure enough, there stood Lizzie, an enormous armful of flowers making a precarious journey, stem by stem, into a vase he was very sure hadn’t come with the cottage.
He was being furnished, like it or not. “Does anyone have any flowers left in their garden?”
The invader giggled. “Gran said I could have as many as I could hold.”
“And who provided the container?” asked Marcus dryly. Might as well identify all the plotters.
“Gran.” Lizzie slid a blindingly orange flower into the vessel in question. “She said it’s an important family treasure and if you break it, she’ll feed you to the fishes.”
On Aunt Moira’s scale of threats, that one was pretty minor. “In that case, perhaps you should carry it over to the inn. Aaron always appreciates fresh flowers.” Marcus had no idea if that was true or not, but Elorie’s husband had better manners, so he’d probably find a use for Lizzie and her flowers.
His pint-sized visitor’s eyes flashed triumph. “I already took him some. Two whole armfuls. Gran says the flowers are really happy this spring.”
Probably had something to do with the hordes of witches raining blessings down on their heads. He was very grateful the flowers had kept Aunt Moira alive-but her garden had become a damned tourist attraction.
One last flower and the table display apparently met with Lizzie’s approval.
He tried for dismissal. “The light sabers aren’t here yet. I’ll send you a message when they are.”
She ignored him, much as he’d expected. “Can I play with Morgan now?”
He looked down at the bundle on his chest. Any more time there and she was going to be permanently attached. “Maybe I can put her down somewhere.”
“Sure.” Lizzie looked around. “Do you have a baby blanket? I’ll spread it out on the floor.”
He had no blessed idea. “I have several of Aunt Moira’s throws. Is one of those acceptable?”
“Uh, huh.” Lizzie was digging around in the bag of mysterious wares they’d first sent him home with. “But Aunt Elorie put one of her floor blankets in here. See?” She pulled out a big, quilted square of seawater-blue fabric. “You can put that down on the floor and lay Morgan on it. I’ll play with her, and you can go find a clean shirt.”
Marcus froze, the baby halfway out of her pouch. “What’s wrong with my shirt?”
Lizzie giggled. “It looks like you’ve been wearing it for a week.” She reached into the bag of baby paraphernalia again, coming back out with an enormous handkerchief-thing covered in pink elephants. “This is a burp cloth. You can use it to try to catch Morgan’s puke if you want. Then you wouldn’t need a clean shirt so often.”
He’d put on a new shirt after Ginia’s departure-he was quite sure. His last clean one, no less. And the burp cloth looked very poorly designed to be a catcher’s mitt. He carefully laid Morgan down on top of the floor blanket. She waved her limbs around like a stuck turtle, but seemed otherwise content.
Lizzie crouched down by the blanket and started to talk in the sing-song voice of a comic-book chipmunk. “Hey, cutie girl. Lizzie-Fizzie came to play with you today. Oh! I see your toes.”
“She refuses to keep her socks on.” It was already a thorn in his side. One of many.
“Babies like to be nakey.” His expert child entertainment chased toes as Morgan drooled happily. “Gran says they come that way to remind us how beautiful we are.”
Foolishness from an old woman who liked to walk barefoot in her flowers.
Lizzie grabbed the baby’s foot and blew some kind of entirely rude nose into its sole.
And then Morgan opened her mouth and giggled. Big, rollicking giggles straight from her toes.
Marcus took a step closer, moth to bright flame. “What did you do?”
“I gave her a raspberry.” Lizzie grinned and demonstrated again, giggling along with her tiny playmate. “See? She likes it.”
“No one else does that with their babies.” Marcus ignored the strange tugs inside his chest.
“That’s cuz they’re still wee tiny. Morgan’s older, so she likes to play.” Lizzie leaned over, pulled up the baby’s shirt, and planted a raspberry on her belly. “I have to go, Morgan-Zorgan, but I’ll come back and play soon.”
She shimmied up from the floor and straight out the door, still making raspberry sounds.
Morgan was older than the other babies? Marcus watched the small girl on the floor, waving her hands around in search of an imaginary friend, and wondered just how much he didn’t know.
Purple eyes stared back at him solemnly.
Gingerly, expecting her to wail at any moment, he reached a hand toward her toes. They curled up around one of his fingers like a little monkey.
They sat there in silence, man and little monkey girl. And then, gripped by momentary insanity, Marcus leaned over and blew a raspberry into her toes.
The giggles that washed over them both were pure magic. The headless demons of hell would have scared him less.
Chapter 11
Jamie walked into the Witches’ Lounge bearing beer and pizza. He had no idea why they were having a guy huddle, but he knew what to bring.
Daniel and Mike, sitting on the couch, brightened at the sight of beer.
Jamie tossed two over. “Any idea why we’re here?”
“Nope.” Mike pulled up the top of the pizza box and rubbed his hands together. “Score-you brought the good stuff.”
He had. Middle-of-nowhere Nova Scotia didn’t run to greasy deep-dish pizza. Neither did Nat’s stomach. Jamie reached over and grabbed a slice. “Brings back memories.”
Daniel grinned. “Late-night coding sessions.”
Jamie snorted. “You don’t get out enough, dude.”
“Right. Says the guy who ate at least half of my late-night pizza.”
Likely more than half-witches tended to be pizza hogs, and Daniel had put in some serious hours on Realm in the early days.
“You only brought one?” Mike eyed the pizza box mournfully. “We should probably save Aaron a slice.”
“Aaron lacks the proper appreciation of grease.” Jamie intercepted the drip of cheese goo sliding down his arm. It was pretty much Aaron’s only failing, but as guy flaws went, it was a big one.