“I’ll go change now,” I said, willing to trade points for more time with my niece. “Who’s fetching Papi and Mama?”
Cue the eyeroll. “I shall,” Malvyn said, adding a short sigh to the eyebrow acrobatics. “Any bets on which of Papi’s four sermons are on tonight’s menu?”
I smiled at my beloved brother and patted his recently shaved and cologned cheek. “Just wait until you’re his age, visiting Leilani. Remember this feeling. Give the old man your ears. It’s the least we can do.” I pirouetted away before Malvyn could rope me into entering our parent’s wing of the house, and made my way to my rooms.
Sanctuary.
I could not live on this pile of rock year-round. My planned three-and-a-half months with Malvyn and James seemed like a crazy, murder-inducing idea when we first began negotiations. When they decided I would be provided one wing of the house, we agreed my stay would overlap with Margarita and Carlos’s twice-yearly trek to wherever their children were situated. Our sister, Moira, had died seven years ago, leaving Papa and Mama with only one choice of destination for their summer sojourn.
James and Mal had been situated on Salt Spring Island for less than five years. James, a half-witch and botanist, wanted land for his greenhouses and space to explore his magic. His dream would would have been astronomically expensive—even with my brother’s ability to manufacture coin—had they stayed in Vancouver.
Both men expressed concerns I would overstay. I expressed concerns about excessive sunshine affecting my growing necromantic powers and reminded them I would spend many daylight hours resting or absorbed in my studies.
Decomposition was my jam.
I asked for—and received—the north wing. The deck off my bedroom jutted into a stand of fir trees. Untamed patches of salal and native undergrowth cluttered the forest floor, scenting the air with decay. James had added a few bat houses to the trees, and evenings spent on the deck, in the dark, watching them swoop for bugs sent my heart pitter-patting.
Alabastair would be ensconced in the wing catty-cornered to mine.
A chime sounded near the door, followed by Malvyn’s disembodied voice. “Ten minutes to cocktails. Ten minutes.”
Gracias, hermano querido.
I divested myself of the blouse and slacks stinking of onions and herbs on the way to my walk-in closet, and dropped my bra and underwear in the laundry as I passed through to the bathroom. One minute under the showerhead was all I needed.
Eight minutes wasn’t enough time to stitch a dress together. My needles rattled their displeasure. Poor darlings had spent the entire day locked up. I lifted the lid of the oblong, black velvet case and cooed. One day, I would assemble the dress of needles I had been dreaming about my entire life. One day, soon.
Bare wood and flat stones marked the long hallway connecting the various wings of Malvyn and James’s palatial home. The tap-tap of my heels set up a hypnotic rhythm. Had the hallway been circular in design, I could have kept walking. As it was, I had to remind myself in the middle of a thought that I was not on my way to reanimating a dead body. I was having dinner with my family and my newest apprentice.
Passing a niche where a life-sized statue of Mictlantecuhtli resided, I tucked myself against the Mexican god’s torso. At the carved stone’s silent invitation to continue, I wrapped one arm around the figure’s waist, rested my palm in the uplifted hand, and closed my eyes.
Who knew the God of Death liked to dance.
