The black door ahead of us swung open and Mara stepped out onto the landing. “Oh my! Is it past time for lunch?” she asked, looking at the baby. “Oh, there’s a hungry lad, aren’t you? Better come in, then. I’m so glad I thought to make extra. What’s this little one’s name, then?”
Sam gazed up at the tall, redheaded woman as if she’d never seen a more welcome sight. “Martim. And I’m Samantha—Sam Rebelo. This is my daughter, Soraia.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you all. I’m Mara Danziger and you’re welcome to stay as long as you like.” Mara held out her arms and offered to take Martim off Sam’s hands, which earned her a smile of a radiance fit to blind angels. Mara wiggled her fingers at the baby, letting tiny blue stars sparkle off her fingertips as she cooed what sounded like nonsense. He quieted down at once and watched her with complete fascination.
The apartment seemed to glow with soothing golden light, just as their house had, and I felt the brush of Mara’s magic, as warmly reassuring as a fireside after a night in the cold. I could see the tension and paranoia dropping away from Sam as she walked inside.
Soraia also watched Mara and my friend noticed her as we straggled through the doorway.
“Hello, there, my little love,” Mara said.
Wavering, Soraia murmured, “Hello, Miss Witch.”
Mara laughed her whooping, infectious laugh. “My! You’re a polite one. Welcome to my home, little witchling.”
Soraia almost smiled. “I’m not a witch.”
“Oh, but you might be. It’s never wise to assume otherwise.” Mara winked at her and Soraia finally smiled.
Sam didn’t even seem upset by the exchange, though she did look a bit puzzled.
Mara turned her gaze on me and graced me with the same beaming grin. “And you! Harper! I feared you’d never cross my threshold again. I’m that pleased to see you!” She threw her free arm around me and pulled me into a hug. “I hope you’ve not been spreading yourself too thin as usual,” she whispered in my ear. “You look done in.”
“I’m better than I look.” I backed away far enough to see her whole face, rather than just an ear. “Rough night, that’s all.”
“So I gathered. Oh, Ben’s in the study with Brian. They’ll be out in a bit.” She turned her attention to Sam and Soraia. “Let’s go to the kitchen. The best parties always happen there. The lads’ll be along in a moment and I’ve got fresh flan, if you care for it. Brian’s decided it’s the best food in the world, so I’ve been making it by the busload!”
Like most boys, Brian seemed to have a well-honed radar for food, and he came scrambling into the kitchen a few minutes later with Ben in tow, chattering with glee.
“I saw one this time! I swear I did!” Brian had grown leggy and gangly like his father, his dark hair falling in his face and a sparkle of mischief in his eyes that was pure Mara. He looked older than Soraia, but it could have been his unusual height as much as an actual point of age. “We’ll catch one next time, Da!”
He saw all of us and stopped dead at the edge of the large painted table Mara had ushered us to. She was busy putting Martim into a wooden high chair and looked up at Sam to introduce them. “These beasts are my son, Brian, and my husband, Ben. You’ll excuse the lack of manners—they’ve been off down the alleys hunting snarks, I suspect.”
Brian rushed forward, ignoring his mother completely, and threw his arms around my hips to give me a hug that almost knocked me down, while he shouted, “Harper!”
“Wow,” I said, giving him a half hug from my constrained position mostly above him. “I didn’t think you’d recognize me, Brian.”
“I would always rec’anize you, Harper. You’re all glowy. I missed you!”
Mara barely turned her head to chide her offspring, “I’m sure she was after missing you, too, y’little hellion. And did you wash your hands, or will I have to dump you in the sink and scrub you like an oyster again?”
“I washed!” Brian objected, letting go of me. “Da made me.”
Mara laughed and turned around, having secured the baby to her satisfaction. “Brian, say hello to the rest of our guests. This is Mrs. Rebelo and her children, Soraia and Martim. They’re going to stay with us for a few days.” Sam and Soraia both looked stunned. Martim just laughed and pounded on the high chair’s tray.
“Hello,” Brian said, nodding at Sam and Martim. Then he looked to Soraia. “Do you like flan? My mother makes the best flan in Spain.”
Soraia nodded, biting her lip and Brian abandoned me to go stand closer to her and discuss important things, like food, instead of how much soap he’d saved.
Mara looked at Ben who was standing where Brian had been a few seconds earlier. “And you?” she asked. “Was this one-sided washing?”
“You can’t tell from the water stains?” Ben, tall, stooped, and still looking more like an escapee from a road show production of Yentl than he did like an esteemed scholar of things religious, linguistic, and paranormal, was wet all down the front of his shirt and his black hair hung in damp curls around his face.
“Ah! That should have been a giveaway. You’re soaked through!”
Ben looked at Sam and started to offer his hand, then thought better of it. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. Please excuse my drips. Brian thought he saw a nixie, so we had to chase it. I say it was pipe leak, but I’ve been wrong before.”
Mara scoffed. “Well then, dry off and sit down before our guests die of hunger.”
Martim made a fussy gurgle as demonstration. Ben darted out of the room and returned with a towel around his shoulders, but not much drier. He looked over the kitchen full of guests and his face lit as he saw me. “Harper! You made it! Where’s Quinton? Is he coming?”
I shook my head. “No, he’s ill. I tied him to the bed and made him stay in it to get some sleep or he’d have been here, too.”
Ben strode around the table and gave me a hug even more exuberant than his wife’s or son’s had been. I had to gasp for breath before he put me back down—Ben being one of the few men I know who’s substantially taller than I am.
“It’s so good to see you! I want to hear about every creature you’ve met in the past three years—any really good monsters? Didn’t you have a run-in with some merfolk and dobhr chú a while back? I’d have loved to see them!”
“I’m sure you would, but you’d have been a lot more wet than you are now,” I said, shooting a glance at Sam to see how she was taking all this.
Sam still seemed utterly confounded, her mouth slightly open and her eyes blinking. I wasn’t the only one to notice.
“Oh, Ben,” Mara said. “Don’t be pestering the woman already. There’re children starving in Spain, you know.”
He looked at her and tried to appear contrite. “Are there? Are any of them black-haired nixie-chasers?”
“No!” Brian shouted back, dragging up a blue chair next to Soraia’s red one. “I’m not starving. But Soraia and Martim are. C’mon, Da. We want to eat!”
Sam fell into her chair as if she were giving up all attempts at rationalizing any of the conversation so far. Ben helped Brian into the blue chair and made sure Sam and Soraia were comfortable while I helped Mara put the food on the table.
“She’s managing fairly well,” Mara whispered to me as she handed me a bowl.
“Who? Sam or Soraia?”
“Well, I was thinking of the little girl, but her mother does seem a bit dazed by it all.”
“She’s not too comfortable with the magic angle. And the kidnapping . . .”
Mara pursed her mouth and made a speculative sound. “True,” she said, and went back to getting the meal on the table. I wondered what she was thinking, but I couldn’t ask.
I should have realized that meals with the Danzigers wouldn’t have changed except to become more noisy as Brian got older.