Page 38 of Claiming Starlight
“Maybe we’ll get lucky and Avó will explain that so I don’t have to, or maybe not.” He gave her a grin and tugged at a braid.
Feeling bold, Sophie asked, “That guy at the Red House yesterday… what did he do?”
“You gonna get involved in my business and make judgments, Sophie? I’ve been bad longer than you’ve been alive. Where I come from, my kind aren’t the only monster on the food chain. Around here, little girls don’t ask questions. Questions get you in trouble.”
“I know nothing about you,” she said in a small voice.
“You know plenty, baby. And I’m gonna love teaching you more. I want you to drink this. We gotta get outside. Hear those stories.” He handed her a bottle of water from a cooler under the table. The bottles had broken seals, and Sophie guessed the water had been boiled.
“You may have stayed clean with the vampir, but I am gonna make you dirty. You ready for that?”
Sophie wanted to hide, not ready to have this conversation again, especially with doom and gloom hovering just outside. “I don’t know.”
“Honest enough. Doesn’t matter for you, right? Because I know what I smell and what your body is saying, and that’s what I’m gonna listen to. You pick a hole yet?”
“What?” She was slow to catch the question, then flushed red again. “Micah please!”
He laughed and put his arm around her shoulders, leading her towards the yard where everyone had gathered.
Sophie couldn’t stop herself from looking for Alexi’s blond head among the people gathered outside. An entire neighborhood had shoved itself into Avó’s backyard. Alexi’s friend was here; maybe he was too. The overflow of people and unnaturals filled up the neighbor’s yards around them, peering over fences and leaning on gates. They watched from crowded windows and the balconies of the houses bracketing Avó’s.
She didn’t see him anywhere. The dread from earlier returned, stronger than before.
As one of the last couples to leave the house, all eyes fell on them as the screen door slammed shut behind them, making them the center of attention. Male shifters dominated the numbers of watchers, their expressions ranging from curious to unfriendly.
“So, the old man shows himself after all.” Seated in a big Adirondack chair like a king, legs spread wide, a shifter at the back of the yard raised his voice in a taunt. Tantie sat on a blanket on the ground at his feet with her daughter. Sophie saw Pek and Eli behind his chair in a crowd of shifter males.
“Behave yourself, Ranalf,” Avó said as she waved to Sophie and Micah over to her. “I have something to say.”
“As you like, Grandmother, but—” Ranalf sounded like he had a lot to say, but Avó ignored him, turning to Sophie.
“You can sit here, girl.” Avó patted the empty seat of a wicker chair next to hers. “And Micah, you can—”
Micah took a place next to Sophie. “I will stand here, thank you, Avó.”
Avó grinned. “I guess you will. I guess you will.”
Tantie sat up on her knees, raising the paper cup in her hand into the air, “Well, you have us out here, Mama. It’s as good a time as any to raise a toast and say happy birthday. I’m grateful to have had you in my life for so long. May we have many more years, feliz cumpleaños!”
In the chair, Ranalf raised his cup in the air and added, “Arriba, abajo, al centro, pa’dentro!”
Everyone with drinks in their hands repeated Ranalf’s words, raising their cups in Avó’s honor. She beamed back at them and waved them all down with the same blend of Old City Spanish and English that Micah sometimes used. “Thank you, children, you are good to this old woman. Now settle yourselves. Your old Avó wants to tell you a story. The flames have whispered secrets to me.”
As Avó said the word ‘flames,’ the afternoon sky turned storm dark and the flickering light in every hanging oil lamp brightened–flaring, answering her call. But not one of her red-blood family or friends and none of the blue-bloods looked around in surprise. No one stepped away from the ominous burst of flame, no one gave a startled glance at the clear late afternoon sky. No one moved. They all behaved as if nothing had happened.
Who was this woman? What was going on? She had to be more than just a seer.
Avó said, “This will be a part of our history. Some of the players are here, some are not. Agehya, you will record this one, please.”
Agehya, sitting near to Avó’s side of the yard, waved the digital notebook in her hand in agreement.
Still holding her walking cane in one hand, Avó settled into her chair. “It is difficult to begin this story, my children, because it is not about me, but concerns many of my dear ones. This girl next to me is Sophie, and Micah has brought her as his guest, but I have seen her hair in the fire for years.”
Avó reached over, giving Sophie a pat on the knee before she could withdraw out of reach. She had an old woman’s hand, the blue veins prominent beneath thin, time-tested skin.
Because Sophie was looking for it, she felt the smokey magic of the cane and heard the beat of bone drums as Avó used the touch to peek beneath Sophie’s surface. Like what Syrinx had done with a touch—but Syrinx tasted Sophie’s soul and Avó only scanned it.
Avó said, “I believe her family line is like mine. But she is a child of the Apocalypse, like some of you, her mother pregnant with her on the day of the great Breaking—and we know there are many a red-blood who did not escape that day untouched.”
