Page 36 of Mortdale

Leaning close to her, I murmured, “Because I was drunk and high enough to kill a horse and didn’t know any better.”

Her eyes sank into a scowl. “I don’t know what you said.”

“It’s for the better.”

She pouted. “I’ll ask Bear for a rat who talks.”

Dear Lady Death! “No! No, please, can we keep it a secret between us?”

She itched her belly. “Why?”

“Because at best, there’s a slight risk they might call you a looney, send you off to live by the sea to cure your hysteria, and at worst they will behead me for witchery.”

Her tiny finger was hooked in her nostril as she shook her head. “I don’t know what you said.”

“We have to work on your vocabulary.”

“I don’t know what that is either. I want a talking rat.”

“Trust me, you don’t. They come with pricey conditions.”

“Bear’s got money.”

Closing my eyes, I sighed. “Great. She has a bear with money.”

She blinked at me.

“I’ll let you play with Thomas,” I offered, and felt a chill down my neck. He was going to haunt me down cold in my dreams tonight.

Her tiny yellow eyes glittered. But she, in Duncan fashion, managed to contain her emotions, only shrugging a tiny shoulder with a nonchalance that succeeded her uncle’s. “Are you really a witch?”

“Depends what angle you look at it from.”

She tipped her head to the side, itching her cheek. “Do you really eat children? Leona from my swimming lessons says you eat children.”

“No, but Thomas does. And this Leona needs to mind her business. What the Hell does she even know about my diet?”

She giggled, and I had a front row peek at her tiny fangs.

Okay, we were getting somewhere.

“You’re okay, I suppose,” she said, substituting every ‘s’ with a ‘th’. “Bear says you’re funny sometimes.”

“Who’s this Bear?”

She tipped her head up in the direction of the stairs where her uncle was coming down, hair wet and dripping down his white shirt. He shook his head once, splattering water everywhere, and then combed it all back before reaching for the jacket Christof was offering him.

I tried my best not to laugh. Or stare too hard at him.

He was Bear?

Well, he was as big as a bear, so she was right in that aspect.

She looked like a speck of dust in his arms when he picked her up to kiss her cheek. “You’ll be late for your piano lessons.”

There was a tiny pause in my thoughts as I took in the two of them together. Something about the two made me awfully, violently melancholic. Maybe it was the way she felt so safe and free in his arms. Maybe it was the fierce look in his cold eyes that warmed up when he was looking at her.

Her tiny grubby fingers grasped his ears. “She says she’ll let me play with her rat.”