Oracle's Moon (Elder Races #4)(33)

She nodded. She didn’t see how she had any choice. As fast as the earlier vision had taken her over, he was the only entity she knew who could get here quickly enough to make some kind of difference. “I can’t lose control like that and leave the children unsupervised. You saw what happened with Chloe and the milk. If I pull really hard, when you come, look after the kids, do you hear? Make sure they’re safe.”

His expression turned fierce. “I have promised both you and the children protection, and you will all have it.”

Her eyes grew moist. She wouldn’t thank him again. She had thanked him enough, and anyway, he didn’t like it. Instead she leaned back against his hand.

He tilted his head as he studied her. “You are doing all this on your own, while looking after the children.”

She lifted one shoulder. “Not quite. Petra’s best friend, Katherine, kept the kids until I got out of the hospital and could bring them home. Remember Janice from yesterday morning, the one who babysat when I spoke with Carling and Rune? Janice belongs to a roster of witches who are on call to babysit whenever someone petitions to speak to the Oracle. They do it as part of their community tithe. More people are coming on Saturday to put in a quarterly work day. They’ll beat back the worst of the weeds and mow.”

She braced herself for another one of his contemptuous looks. That had stung when she didn’t even like him very much. Maybe she did like him after all, now that she had gotten to know him better. Now his disdain would hurt worse than a sting.

But he didn’t look contemptuous. Instead, his face tightened. He said, “It is good that you have some help. And now both you and the little ones have me for protection. But you are still too much alone in all of this. You should be surrounded with a House filled with associations.”

She had to press her lips tightly together and look away before she could say, after a moment, “Well, nobody ex-pected things to turn out this way.”

The afternoon sunlight had deepened as they talked. From down the hall, Chloe started to chatter. She was talking to her toys, but Max burbled a wordless reply.

Grace turned back to Khalil. His hard face had eased into an indulgent smile again. “Thank you for the talk,” she said. As the words fell out, she clapped a hand over her mouth. “I swear, that one just came out. I’m sorry.”

Instead of looking angry or disgusted, this time he looked amused. He stood. “I will come back tomorrow to visit with the little ones.”

Grace stood too. “We’re going out. It’s story time at the library, and we have books to return, and…” He was listening to her with such close attention, she grew self-conscious. She ended, awkwardly, “Well, you don’t need to hear about all that.”

“What is their schedule in the evening?”

“Dinner at five, bed by eight.”

He raised his eyebrows. “May I come to visit with them before they go to bed?”

Grace was impressed. He actually asked; he didn’t dictate. She said, “Sure.”

He studied her for a moment, his gaze unreadable. Then she felt his presence slide along hers in a scorching, invisible caress. As she sucked in a breath, he inclined his head and disappeared.

She shut her mouth with a click. What was that—his version of a hug good-bye?

“Even Samantha was surprised when people appeared and disappeared without warning,” she muttered. “And she was a witch too. I am not Darrin. I’m not.”

There was nobody around to argue with her, so she went to get the children up from their nap.

As entertaining as arguing with Khalil was, she had enjoyed talking with him even more. She tried not to dwell on that too much, either that evening or the next day.

After she put the kids to bed, she took the baby monitor and tackled the stairs to dig through her wardrobe for more clothes. She seemed to have broken through some sort of emotional barrier about the scars on her legs. Not only did she collect several pairs of shorts, she also rediscovered a couple of pairs of capri pants she had forgotten she owned. She shook her head, exasperated with herself. If she hadn’t been so frozen over examining her summer wardrobe, she could have been wearing those all along.

In the morning, she took the children to the library. The early learning program for babies Max’s age was at nine o’clock. It involved little more than sitting in a circle, playing with soft, plastic-coated books and singing nursery rhymes, but he adored it. Chloe declared she was too big to sit in the circle and sing with the babies and their caretakers, so she usually sprawled nearby with a coloring book and crayons, and hummed along with the songs.

On the way home they stopped at a few stores to pick up some essentials that Super Saver didn’t carry. Then it was naptime for Max, lunch, back to the library again for Chloe’s story time, home again and a nap for both of the children in the afternoon. While Max and Chloe slept, Grace finished polishing one resume and worked on tweaking the other version.

A knock sounded hesitantly at the front door. She peeked out the office window. A middle-aged couple stood on the porch.

She braced her shoulders and stifled a sigh. When an Oracle died, the witches’ demesne sent out a public notice to ask that people grant the new Oracle three months’ transition time before approaching her with a petition. For Grace, that transition time was now over. More and more people would begin to petition for a consultation. She went to answer the door.