Chapter 12 Lina
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Lina
Five Years Later
I wiped down the coffee shop counter for what felt like the hundredth time that morning, stealing glances at the corner where my four-year-olds had set up camp with their coloring books.
Rowan was meticulously filling in a dinosaur, tongue poking out in concentration, while Thea had apparently decided her unicorn needed to be every color at once.
Possibly some colors that didn’t exist in nature.
“Mama, look!” Thea held up her masterpiece, rainbow streaks going well outside the lines. “It’s a special unicorn!”
“Very special, baby,” I agreed, unable to hide my smile. Everything Thea did was special, according to Thea. Yesterday her sandwich was special. This morning her socks were special. I was waiting for her to declare her bowel movements special.
The morning rush had finally died down, leaving just the regulars scattered throughout the shop. Mr. Garrett was in his usual spot with what was definitely not the financial newspaper but another paranormal romance. Mrs. Patterson hummed while working on her knitting. Normal Tuesday morning stuff.
Well, mostly normal.
“More green,” Rowan muttered, digging through the crayon box. He pulled out three different shades, holding each to his nose and inhaling deeply before selecting one. Because apparently my son was a crayon sommelier now.
The bell chimed and Jake Morrison walked in, construction boots leaving dusty prints I’d have to mop later. Again. The man was like a dirt fairy, spreading construction dust wherever he went. He navigated between tables, accidentally bumping the back of Thea’s chair as he passed.
The growl that came from Rowan’s throat made every hair on my neck stand up.
It wasn’t a playful sound. Not the kind of noise a four-year-old should be able to make. It rumbled deep and threatening, pure animal instinct that made Jake freeze mid-step.
“Sorry about that,” I said quickly, moving around the counter. “Rowan, we use our words when we’re upset, not our... animal sounds.”
My son looked up at me with those gray eyes that never failed to make my chest tight. Mostly because they reminded me of someone I refused to think about. “He hit Thea.”
“He bumped her chair by accident. There’s a difference.”
Jake forced a laugh that sounded about as natural as my kid’s growl. “No problem. Kids, right?” He placed his order quickly and chose a seat on the opposite side of the shop. Probably updating his Yelp review to mention the feral children.
“You scared him,” Thea informed her brother, going back to her coloring. “Mama says no growling.”
“He shouldn’t touch you,” Rowan insisted, but picked up his crayon again.
I caught Mika’s concerned glance from behind the register.
She’d been here through it all - the morning I’d thrown up in the back room and she’d guessed before I’d even taken a test. “Either you’re pregnant or the expired milk got you.
My money’s on knocked up.” The shock of twins.
“Of course you’re having two. You never do anything halfway.
” The rebuilding after the beast attack that had nearly destroyed everything.
Some anonymous benefactor had paid for all the repairs, leaving a cashier’s check with a lawyer who wouldn’t reveal their client.
I’d spent weeks paranoid it was drug money or some weird mob thing, but the check cleared and the shop came back better than ever.
Pine Valley had embraced my little family with the aggressive enthusiasm of a small town with nothing better to gossip about.
Sarah had been incredible, stepping into the grandmother role with ease.
She watched the twins when I worked late, taught them to bake cookies, and never once asked about their father. God bless her.
But lately, the twins’ odd behaviors were becoming harder to explain away with “kids are weird” and “must be a growth spurt.”
“Mama!” Thea’s voice pulled me from my thoughts. She’d dropped her favorite purple crayon and it had rolled under the heavy oak table in the corner. “Mama, help!”
But she was already gripping the table’s edge, little face scrunched with effort. The table that took two grown men and a lot of creative swearing to move during our last deep clean shifted an inch.
“Whoa there, tiny Hulk,” I swooped in, grabbing her hands before anyone could notice. “Let me get that for you.”
I retrieved the crayon, trying to keep my hands from shaking. Four years old. She was four years old and trying to move furniture that I could barely budge. What was next, bench pressing the espresso machine?
“You know what? Let’s practice using our gentle hands,” I said, settling them both with fresh coloring books. “And Rowan? You have such a good imagination when you pick colors with your eyes instead of your nose.”
“But they smell different,” he protested.
“I bet they do! You have a super nose. But let’s save the smelling for flowers and cookies, not art supplies that have been in a dozen grubby hands.”
“You’re weird,” Thea shot back loyally.
“You’re both my little weirdos,” I said, kissing the tops of their heads. “My beautiful, terrifying little weirdos who are going to give me gray hair before I’m thirty.”
The rest of the morning flowed into afternoon.
Customers came and went, Mika and Vivi kept the coffee flowing and the pastries stocked.
The twins moved from coloring to “helping” me organize books, which mostly meant Thea creating a new library classification system based on “pretty” and “boring” while Rowan arranged them by smell.
“This one smells like vanilla,” he announced, holding up a romance novel.
“That’s because Mrs. Patterson was reading it earlier, and she bathes in vanilla perfume,” I explained, gently taking it from him. “Good noticing, bloodhound.”
The knot in my stomach grew tighter with each passing hour. They were changing, developing abilities that belonged in a Marvel movie, not my life, and I had no idea what to do about it. WebMD was useless. “My child can smell colors” wasn’t exactly in their symptom checker.
The afternoon brought the usual after-school crowd, teenagers claiming tables for “homework” that involved a suspicious amount of Instagram.
The twins had moved to their fort - a corner I’d set up with cushions and more books than any two four-year-olds could possibly read unless they were speed-reading prodigies.
Which, at this point, wouldn’t even surprise me.
“Mama, story?” Thea asked, holding up their current favorite.
“Which one?” I asked, though I already knew. It was always the same damn book.
“The lonely wolf!” they said in unison.
Always that one. A children’s book about a wolf searching for his pack that I’d read so many times I could recite it backwards in three languages. They never tired of it. Ever. I was starting to suspect it was some form of toddler mind control.
“Maybe we should try a different story today,” I suggested. “How about the one with the dragons? Or the pirates? Or literally anything else?”
“No,” Rowan said firmly. “The wolf.”
So I read about the lonely wolf again, watching their faces light up at the same parts, their lips moving along with the familiar words. When I finished, Thea sighed contentedly.
“He finds his family,” she said. “That’s the best part.”
“Everyone needs a pack,” Rowan added solemnly.
My throat tightened. Great. Now I was getting emotional over a children’s book. “Well, you two have each other and me. And Aunty Mika, Aunty Vivi, and Grandma Sarah. Best pack ever.”
By the time we walked home, the sun was setting and both kids were dragging their feet dramatically, as if the one block journey was equivalent to climbing Everest. Our house sat just a block from the shop, a cozy two-bedroom with a big backyard perfect for running around.
No stairs to worry about tumbling down, which had been my main requirement when I’d been house hunting while looking like I’d swallowed a beach ball.
“Bath time when we get home,” I said, which triggered protests worthy of Shakespeare.
“But Mama,” Thea whined, “we’re not dirty!”
“You have marker on your face and what I really hope is chocolate on your shirt. Unless you’ve taken up abstract expressionism with bodily fluids.”
“It’s chocolate,” she confirmed. “Aunt Vivi gave us cookies.”
Of course she did. My baker had the survival instincts of a lemming, sugar-loading my kids right before home time.
Bath time unfolded with its usual negotiations that would make UN peacekeepers weep.
Rowan liked the water precisely two degrees cooler than Thea, because God forbid my children agree on anything.
I’d just gotten them both in the tub, bubbles threatening a hostile takeover of the bathroom, when Rowan suddenly tilted his head.
“Mrs. Kelly is walking her dog,” he announced.
I laughed, squirting shampoo into my palm. “That’s nice, baby.”
“She’s saying ‘good boy, Mr. Whiskers’ over and over,” he continued, letting me wash his hair. “The dog doesn’t like it.”
“How do you know the dog doesn’t like it?” I asked, working the suds through his dark hair while mentally adding ‘pet psychic’ to his growing resume.
“He keeps pulling on the leash.”
I was about to make another joke when I heard it. The distant sound of Sarah’s neighbor passing by our house, her voice carrying on the evening air. “Good boy, Mr. Whiskers! Such a good boy!”
My hands stilled. We were in the bathroom at the back of the house. The window was closed. There was absolutely no way a four-year-old should be able to hear a conversation happening on the street before me. Unless I’d given birth to some kind of bat-child hybrid, or unless I was fucking deaf.
“Mama, soap in my eyes!” Rowan protested, and I quickly rinsed his hair, trying to keep my expression normal instead of ‘holy shit my kid has superhuman hearing.’
“Sorry, buddy. All done.”