“Funny,” remarked Grace. “I didn’t hear any tornado sirens going off.”
“Why would you hear a tornado siren?” Phaedra asked impatiently. “The sky outside is perfectly clear.”
“I—you—never mind,” Grace said. Olivia didn’t bother to hide her grin any longer as Grace’s dancing eyes met hers. Grace limped to the breakfast table, trailed by Phaedra. She announced, “Phaedra did quite well changing a diaper for her first time. And believe me, Max can produce some stinky diapers.”
“Of course I did well,” said Phaedra with a sharp frown. She crossed her arms. Her physical form stood taller than either Grace or Olivia, and she had chosen to appear in severe black clothing. Her white, regal features were very like her father’s, while the straight fall of her shoulder-length hair was blood red, and black talons tipped her long fingers. “The contents of the diaper were remarkably unpleasant, so I simply stopped breathing until the end of the procedure.”
“Yes, you did great,” said Grace cheerfully. “In fact you did so well, I think you’ll be ready to watch Max on your own in only sixteen or seventeen years.”
“There, you see,” said Phaedra as she turned to face her father. “Your concerns were for nothing.”
Khalil’s eyes narrowed and his expression turned guarded. He looked from his complacent, arrogant daughter to Grace’s compressed, mischievous expression, then to Max. He opened his mouth and shut it again.
“Silence is a wise choice,” Grace said to him. “She’ll figure it out eventually.”
Olivia burst out laughing. Exhausting though it could be, she loved this wacky household. It was completely different from her quiet life back in Louisville. Her job was demanding and she enjoyed her life, but the most exciting thing that happened in her house was when she gave catnip to her nine-year-old cat Brutus.
Khalil held his hands out for the baby. Max had jammed a forefinger up one round nostril. He stuck out his tongue and, grinning, blew a raspberry as Grace set him on his feet. Then Max high stepped his way over to Khalil, who swung the baby into the air and settled him in his lap.
Olivia noted fondly, and not for the first time, how much Max had changed in a year, but then they all had. Max was twenty months old, a healthy chunk of boy. At five years old, Chloe had started kindergarten, and normally she loved it, except when something exciting was happening at home.
But the biggest change Olivia saw was in Grace. The previous year, when she and Grace had become friends, Grace had been pale and tense, with shadowed eyes and lines of pain and exhaustion on her face. Grace was a good ten years younger than Olivia, but a year ago she had looked older.
Last year, Grace and her niece and nephew had lived in their old family home in Louisville, Kentucky. She had been recovering from the same car crash that had killed her sister and brother-in-law and left her with a permanent disability. She had also been struggling to come to terms with the Power of the Oracle, which she had inherited when her sister died, along with a mountain of debt.
Now Grace had regained her health. She would never lose the limp. Her knee had been too badly damaged, and at the time of the injury, she hadn’t had access to high cost, premium magical health care. But despite that challenge, she looked happy, truly happy. The hollows in her face had filled out, and she was vibrant with color, with strawberry-blonde hair, sparkling hazel eyes and lightly suntanned skin.
By comparison, Olivia felt as if she looked like Grace’s older, duller sister, with her short chestnut hair, gray eyes and pale skin that did not suntan well. It wasn’t that she looked bad, she thought. All of her features were regular sized and in the right place, and while she had a sprinkle of freckles across her nose and cheekbones, they were acceptable enough. She just didn’t look interesting, not like Grace’s colorful, fiery blaze.
It seemed a metaphor for the difference in their lives. Even though she was young, Grace had already lived a life filled with heartache and drama, and she was involved with Khalil in a seriously smoldering love affair.