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“Hmm.” Birdie finished her tinkering and walked to the front door to flip the sign. Time to open shop.
Her aunt then weaved her way back and stopped in front of her.
“That’s an awfully long date.”
No censure. No judgment. Just a statement, and a true one at that.
She opened her mouth to defend herself, although she had no idea what she would have said, but Birdie cut her off.
“You don’t have to explain to me,” Birdie said. “I’m just surprised it took so long.”
“What do you mean? I—”
“Was with that creep Tyler, I know.”
Up until now, her aunt had never said one bad thing about Tyler. Come to think of it, she hadn’t really said anything kindly either. She had tolerated him, Toni supposed.
So to hear Birdie use such strong language, for her . . .
Toni didn’t know what to say.
“Don’t look so shocked, my dear. You knew it deep down too. But since we’re talking revelations . . .”
The hairs on Toni’s arm stood up straight. The way her aunt was looking at her . . . it was as if she were made of glass and Birdie could see right through her.
“I would like to know what your friend Lawrence and Alessandra’s fiancé have to do with the Cheld.”
She’d been waiting for this all summer. Earlier that summer, before she and Alessandra knew anything but the sparest information about the Cheld, the two of them had come to Birdie for help. This curiosity shop was no accident. For as long as she could remember, her aunt had been fascinated with all manner of strange and supernatural things. Once when she was younger, she and her uncle had taken her to Salem, Massachusetts, and Toni could still remember the look of awe on Birdie’s face nearly the entire trip.
They’d told her as much as possible without giving her the complete truth. And though Birdie herself had never heard of the Cheld, an old acquaintance of hers had recognized the name. The woman hadn’t known anything useful, but it had helped them verify that the Cheld were, in fact, real, and not an invention of Kenton’s imagination.
They hadn’t told Birdie why they were interested in the Cheld, something Toni regretted, if only because her aunt was the one person who would likely embrace the unbelievable fact that vampires were real.
“I told you,” she said, trying the same explanation as before, “they’re both fascinated with people like Alessandra. People with . . . special abilities. When they were enemies, we didn’t know which of them to trust. But now that they don’t hate each other, for the most part—”
“I know what you told me,” her aunt prodded gently, “but if you’re going to be in a relationship with one of them, the truth would be nicer.” With a tone that sweet, it took a moment for her words to sink in.
“The—”
“Truth, please.”
They’d come up with a reasonably good explanation, and Birdie had accepted it. And frankly, she had no other . . .
“Your mother did the exact same thing when she tried to hide something.”
Toni realized she was twisting the ever-present hair tie around her wrist.
“Hers,” she nodded toward Toni’s wrist, “was a bracelet.”
Toni remembered vividly. “The silver and gold one I gave her two Christmases before she—”
Even now, years later, she could not say it.
“That very one.”
Her aunt took her hand, stopping the movement. Toni stared at Birdie’s enlarged knuckles, sorry for her aunt’s condition, which sometimes made even the simplest fine motor movements painful.
The tinkling of the bell above the door indicated a customer had arrived.
