Page 37 of Mortdale

He smacked another loud kiss on her fat cheek. “You have to be gentle with it. Or your aunt will fine me handsomely.”

“I be gentle,” she said somewhat defensively.

The kid swung her hands back and forth when he put her down. “Bye, Boo.”

I waved back. “Name’s Willow, kid.”

She shook her head once. “I can’t say that.” With that, she dashed to her governess’s side.

Logan hadn’t stopped looking at me for a second since he’d come down. “You’ll get a nickname until she has your name figured out. Everyone in the house has one.” He buttoned his jacket. “But I wouldn’t hold your hopes up. So far, only Liam has made it on the other list.”

I reached to fix his tie, and he let me. “I was wrong. She’s cuter than my rat. Actually, my rat isn't that cute at all. Maybe sometimes in certain angles. Darkness works in his favour mostly. Especially if you’re partially blind. Or like completely.”

“Willow.”

My fingers slipped down his tie as I tucked it in his vest, and I felt his heartbeat against my knuckles. “Yes?”

“I’m sure your rat is fine.”

“He’ll be very flattered.” I glanced up at him. “How bad is it out there?”

He watched me button his jacket. “I’d skip the library today.”

I nodded, holding the door slightly ajar to watch him join Henry and Arthur. The latter spotted me and shook his head when I waved my fingers at him.

The estate fell back into its ghostly state, as it always did when he wasn’t here. A disjointed off-key piano melody crashed and shattered against the dark walls. Taking the opportunity of the distraction caused by Piper’s horrid playing skills, I slipped from shadow to shadow until I reached my husband’s study.

I held Thomas up against the keyhole as he morphed into his gelatinous tar state, fitting through the keyhole. Not even ten seconds later, the door lock clicked open.

The air was filled with the scent of cloves, vetiver, and bergamot. Brown leather armchairs lined the front of his mahogany desk and another sat behind it. The walls were all lined with bookshelves. Only one tiny section of it stood out from the rest; every book was in colour. I ran my fingers down them, picking one out and flipping through the sticky, colourful pages. Piper had of course doodled on all of them. I somehow could imagine her on his lap as he read her these stories.

“The vampire will be back to eat you if you keep messing about,” Thomas warned, sniffing the pages. “He really wants to.”

“Not everyone is a little greedy, peckish monster, Tommy.”

“You don’t know what he is,” he hissed, humour coating his raspy tone.

Wiping away my ridiculous smile, I set the book back in place and tiptoed to his desk. A few documents were piled on the corner, right next to a pen holder filled with all kinds of colourful chalks. On the other side stood a few account books. Ten minutes into flipping and skimming through them, I set them back in place with a groan. He was surely strict and meticulous on how he managed his estate, that much I could say.

A rich crimson tie with golden leaf veins was draped against his chair. I brought it to my nose, inhaling the scent of cloves.

“What?” I whispered to Thomas who loomed over me in his dark, foggy shape.

“You want to eat the vampire. You think he tastes good.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” I said, sliding it under my corset.

“I am Thomas,” my ridiculous familiar fiend echoed. “I don’t know who ridiculous is. I can’t be like him.”

His hot, stinking-of-corpses breath hit my face. “If you eat the vampire, I eat the little girl.”

“No one will be eating anyone.”

He scoffed. “Ethel would have eaten the vampire.”

Ethel. My Ethel.

I grabbed a piece of paper from his desk and dipped the fountain pen in ink and scribbled: My dearest horror, it’s me, your favourite grotesque paramour. My husband hasn’t eaten me. Yet. I hold up hope I am not to his palate. Despite my odds, I’m alive and still kicking. I love you. Do not mourn me.