Chapter 25 #2
“I would be imposing, and I have no intention of doing that. Have a wonderful party. Small and big joys ought to be celebrated whenever we can. My greetings to your Black Shuck.”
“Thanks, I’ll tell him.”
She walked back to the elevator, her long coat reminding me of Soyer’s, oddly enough.
I closed the door and joined Laura and Soyer in the kitchen. “Her sitter says hi. Laura, I forgot to ask her name. What is it?”
Laura was on her knees in front of the oven, watching the pumpkin. “I can’t say. It’s a secret. But you can call her Black Widow.”
I cocked my head. “Like the spider?”
Soyer looked up from plating a few cookies and pouring a small cup of cider. “The double meaning is probably intentional. The black widow gave you her name, kid?”
“Yeah. But I can’t tell you either.”
He raised his left eyebrow. “Fair enough. You shouldn’t break a promise you’ve made a black widow. So, you want these cookies while you knit or not?”
Laura looked up at him. “I want them. Where did you get this giant pumpkin?”
“From the ghost of Halloween.” He pointed to our table, where I’d folded the napkins. “You can sit there with Amory. If you can teach him how to knit, you’ll get a cash reward.”
Her eyes went big. “Do you mean that?”
“Yup.”
Laura looked at me. “It’s not difficult. I’ll show you. Come on.”
I didn’t get to ask what a black widow was, but about half an hour later, I’d produced a blob of fabric.
“The fuck is that?” Soyer asked, refilling both Laura’s and my cups.
I hissed at him, glancing at Laura for emphasis. “Soyer, language.”
He put his hand on his hip. “I know it’s fucking language. Expressing myself in interpretive dance is too much work.”
“You can curse in front of me,” Laura said, trying to move my finger in an unnatural way.
“Dwayne says I can’t do it randomly though.
It has to be like a punch to the face, and I have to know the exact right word to use and when to use it.
He has a swear jar, and there’s candy in it. If I swear right, I can have one.”
“Wow.”
Soyer nodded. “Dwayne’s reasonable like that. When is he teaching you self-defense, kid?”
She looked up at him. “You mean like how I’m supposed to kick or punch men between the legs if they bother me?”
Soyer nodded. “Yes, that. And about that knitting needle—”
“Soyer! I think I need—ugh. This is more difficult than I thought. Can you make me some coffee with the hazelnut syrup?”
He shrugged. “Fine. Kid, you’re not getting money if he can’t at least knit in a straight line by the time the guests get here.”
Soyer walked off. Laura looked at me. The sternness in her gaze reminded me of Jenny. “Look, this isn’t that hard. I’ll show you again, and you do what I do.”
She then took the creation I had worked so hard on and unmade it all by pulling on the thread. I sighed. This wasn’t how I’d thought Thanksgiving would go.
When there came another knock on the door, Soyer opened it on account of the fact that I was trying to get the knitting right without stabbing myself.
“You’re holding it funny,” Laura said.
“Yeah, well, these aren’t easy to hold.” As I spoke, I dropped the yarn again, something I knew shouldn’t have happened. “Shit. I mean, shoot.”
She sighed. “I’m not going to get paid, am I?” Then she pouted. “I should’ve just worked on my present.”
“Amory? Amoryyyy!” Elias was rounding the guest table when he spotted us. He came closer, but stopped short. He and Laura looked at each other. “There’s a little human next to you, Amory.”
Laura straightened in her chair. “I’m not little.”
“That’s Elias.” I pointed with the knitting needle, seeing as how I wasn’t supposed to drop any more of the yarn or the finicky little loops.
“What is that?” Elias looked at the fruits of my labor with a delicately balanced mix of shock and disgust.
“I’m learning to knit. Laura’s teaching me.”
The little girl glanced at Elias but didn’t quite meet his eyes. “The principal at my new school says you can learn anything if you really want to and work very hard at it.”
Elias took the chair Soyer and I usually put our feet on. “That is correct. Is that Headmaster Farrow? He is ever so entertaining.” Elias looked at me. “We socialize at fundraisers and such.”
I had questions about that, and was about to ask them while holding on to the wool when Valentin walked in and spotted us. “Ah, Bennet, you set up a children’s table. Excellent.”
Elias narrowed his eyes. “This is the artists’ table, and you have not been invited to join us.”
Valentin walked up right behind Elias and put a hand on his shoulder. “As you say, pet. Amory. A blessed harvest season.”
“Oh, this is more of a friends-giving rather than anything harvest related. No reason to make it sound so serious.”
It hadn’t escaped me that Valentin was wearing a nice suit and tie, though Elias had on a cardigan and a plain shirt.
“We do celebrate the apple harvest with apple cider though,” Soyer said as he came back to the kitchen, carrying a crate of wine. Simeon was behind him, carrying another.
Valentin followed my gaze. “We found something in our wine cellar. Red and white.”
“Dwayne says wine is for boring people,” Laura informed the ancient vampire.
Valentin took the remaining chair next to Elias. “Is that so, little one?”
“It’s what Dwayne says.” She took a sip of her own apple cider, looking right at Valentin.
“Mr. McArthur certainly knows what he’s talking about, so I wouldn’t argue. I suppose we lot are rather more boring than you, Laura.”
“Look, she taught Amory how to knit, Valentin,” Elias fake-whispered. “Behold the way his forehead warps when he attempts to concentrate.”
“Elias, I made sure you’d get your juice today,” I said while trying to keep another one of those little hoops from slipping off the needle. Why the knitting needles had to be that slippery, I didn’t know.
“I like juice! Can I have potato juice today, Amory? Please?”
Soyer walked up to us and handed Elias and Valentin a cup of cider each. “You mean you want vodka in your fucking fruit juice, young Hawthorne?”
“Bennet, I believe it’s de rigueur to rather keep your cursing to yourself in front of children these days,” Valentin said.
Soyer stood close behind me and put his warm hand at the nape of my neck. “I see. Sorry about that, Elias. My heart, I don’t know what you think this is, but a piece of knitting it is not.”
“I really tried, but he’s holding it weird,” Laura said.
Soyer nodded. “I can see that.”
I craned my neck back. “She did a good job teaching me. I guess I’m a bad student. You should probably compensate her for her time, at least.”
Soyer narrowed his eyes at Laura. “You definitely tried your best?”
“Yeah. I showed him how my sitter showed me.”
Soyer pretended to pat down his own pockets, then pulled out a bill. It was so obviously staged on his part that it simply warmed my heart. Soyer, without me realizing, had planned to be the doting fairy godparent to Laura somehow, and as far as I knew, they’d only met briefly.
He handed her the bill. “There you go, then. I apologize for not giving you a better student to practice your teaching on.”
“Oh!” Elias brightened. “I could be a student, couldn’t I, Valentin?” He looked at Simeon, who’d walked up, his own cup of cider already in hand. “Simeon, you always say I’m beyond teaching, but maybe it’s not me, maybe it’s you? Don’t you think I might be able to pick up knitting?”
Simeon tried to hide his smile as he and Valentin exchanged a look.
Valentin cleared his throat and looked at Laura. “Well, Miss Laura, would you be willing to attempt teaching Elias here? Should you succeed, I’ll double that pittance Bennet just paid you.”
“Why’d you call him Bennet?”
“For fondness. It’s the name his oldest friends use for him.”
She nodded, pondering this. “Fine. I need these back, sorry.”
My admittedly poor knitting efforts were taken from me, and Laura walked around the table to show Elias how it was done.
“Well, this should be interesting,” Soyer said. “I’ll go grab the vodka for the knitter.”
“Laura, you can sit here,” I told her, and gave up my chair to follow Soyer to get the juicer running and control the amount of vodka that was being distributed.