voice, and I realized I was staring open mouthed at his backside, like two full-moons dripping down out of the night sky.
I quickly reassembled my expression and nodded. "I'd love to go down."
Esme kept a few feet behind me, and I wondered if she was still being careful not to frighten me. She matched her stride to mine without seeming impatient at the pace.
"You don't play with them?" I asked shyly.
"No, I prefer the role of air traffic controller—I like keeping them honest," she explained.
"Do they like to cheat, then?"
"Oh, yes! You should hear the arguments they get into. Actually, I hope you don't, you would think they were raised by a pack of wolves."
Or vampires, I thought with a shudder. "You sound like my mom."
She laughed. "Well, I do think of them as my children in most ways. I could never get over my mothering instincts. Did Fredward tell you I had lost a child?"
"No," I murmured, stunned, scrambling to understand what lifetime she was remembering.
"Yes, my first and only baby. He died just a few days after he was born, the poor tiny thing," she sighed. "It broke my heart—that's why I jumped off the cliff, you know," she added matter-of-factly.
"Oh? Fredward said you just fell," I counter-matter-of-factlied.
"Always the gentleman." She smiled, as if remembering a time that she'd thought of him as more than a child... "Fredward was the first of my new sons. I've always thought of him that way, even though he's older than I. In one way, at least." She winked at me with all the warmth that her cold, dead eyeballs could muster. "That's why I'm so happy that he's found you, deary." The endearment sounded very natural on her lips. "He's been the odd man out, so to say, for far too long; it's hurt me to see him so alone."

369

Chapter 17

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