"It's a girl?" Martha's hazel-green eyes stood on stalks. Valori nodded. Martha smiled. "I guess you'd know the baby's gender if you knew how far along I am."
"A little girl for Daddy to spoil." Biff kissed his wife on the forehead. "We couldn't be happier."
The excited conversation and congratulations circled the room several times before Moira stepped into the middle of the party and cleared her throat. "Ahem! Would someone tell me what's going on? Olivia, you haven't introduced us properly." She nodded toward Valori and Annara. "These are your special guests?"
"They are." Olivia indicated for her BloodDark friends to stand. "You already know Hernando."
"Hello again." Moira nodded and wiped her hands on her apron. "It's good to see you looking well, Mr. Ambassador. It seems the other day I read you were in Moscow. You do get around."
Hernando gave a slight bow and a grin. "The peoples of Earth invite me to all sorts of events. I'm learning a lot about your world and its customs and traditions."
"I'm sure you are, as well as jet lag."
"It is difficult to grasp the idea of a world revolving on an axis faster than its star." Hernando shook his head in wonder. "To see night and day by turns from the same place on a world amazes me."
"BloodDark is tidally-locked," Olivia explained. "It means one side always faces the sun, the other is always in darkness."
"Fascinating." Olivia's mother took a step closer to Annara to shake hands, eyes narrowing as she took in Annara's paramilitary-styled leather outfit and short-cropped black hair. "I'm Moira Brown. Are you Hernando's bodyguard?"
"I can be if necessary. Today I am simply Annara—friend of Olivia and fighter for the liberation of the slaves of BloodDark." She bowed with a flourish of her hand. "At your service."
Moira raised an eyebrow. "Thank you. I'll keep that last part in mind when it comes to washing the dishes after dinner."
Olivia bit her lip and flashed a warning look. Very funny, Mom. Not. As Moira took a step toward Valori, Olivia felt her whole life flash before her.
"Who may you be, ma'am?" her mother asked, shaking hands. "Another embassy official?"
"I'm a seamstress and herbalist from BloodDark City," Valori replied without pretense. "I am not a rival for your daughter's affections as you fear. She loves you dearly, but she does not enjoy you embarrassing her in front of her other relatives."
Moira froze, her extended hand still in Valori's. The corners of her mouth turned down and a deep furrow appeared on her brow. She leaned back. "And how would you know how I feel or how my daughter feels about such things?"
"Because I can sense it quite strongly. It's all right. You are in safe company and well-loved, Moira."
Olivia blanched. The cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents muffled their giggles and grins the best they could. Valori's gentle tone and friendly smile did little to calm her mother down. She could see the smoke pouring out of her mother's ears as Moira withdrew her hand from Valori's grasp. Moira Brown didn't care much for being disrespected in her own home.
"Mom, why don't I help you finish the last few dishes so we can get dinner on the table?" Olivia took her mother by the shoulders and tried to steer her toward the kitchen, but Moira would have none of it.
"You didn't tell me you had a psychic friend, Olivia," she said in measured tones. "Do you do Tarot cards as well? Some of the committee members thought a gypsy fortune teller at the International Festival at the college in a few months would help raise money for our study abroad program."
Valori pursed her lip, thinking hard. "I don't know what a Tarot card is, but I could learn."
"Enough, Mom," Olivia said under her breath. She could tell where her mother was headed, and she didn't appreciate it. "We should get dinner ready to serve these hungry people."
"The turkey has at least another twenty minutes, and we can work on the side dishes while it's resting." Moira Brown wasn't going to be dissuaded. "Your costume and hairstyle are perfect for a fortune teller, Valori. Maybe you have a little gypsy blood in your human ancestry somewhere?"
"It is possible. My human side goes back many centuries into the dawn of BloodDark, so I have little knowledge of where my people came from on Earth originally." She cocked her head. "Why do you think my dress and hairstyle make me look like I am gypsy?"
"Well, you don't see many women wearing a long, black gown and granny sandals, and very few would pile their silver hair up in a tight bun nowadays—"
"Enough!" Olivia took her mother's arm and pulled her toward the kitchen. "We're cooking. Everyone else, entertain yourselves."
The loud murmur of the cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents accompanied them as Olivia half-dragged her mother back to the stove. She was grateful her father had been out of the living room with her young cousins, only to be startled upon finding him alone in the kitchen stirring the gravy.
"This is going to be even lumpier than usual if you don't keep checking on it, Moira." Julian Brown narrowed his eyes and considered his wife for a long moment. "What were you up to in there? I caught the tail end of the conversation with our special guests, and I didn't like it very much. In fact, I didn't like it at all."
Moira shrugged and picked up an oven mitt to check on the turkey's progress. "Nothing. I just thought Olivia's friend appeared to be a natural to help out at the mid-winter International Festival."
"I'm sure she'd love to help out, but not as an object of curiosity and covert bigotry." Julian sighed. Olivia started to back out of the kitchen when his gaze rested
