Mortdale

7. Chapter 7

Willow

Iwoke up from my nap with a startle, narrowly missing hitting my head on the wooden bed slats. It didn’t help that a little human stood crouched only an arm’s length away from me, peeking under the bed with a frown.

“Mother of Hell!”

The little girl just blinked at me. She was somewhere between one, two, three, four, and five.

The shrunken attire was throwing me off.

Totty all-colours wore a blue-striped frilly top with no sleeves that only reached midway down her belly and a pair of too-tight red pants that only covered her just below her knees.

A cross between a court jester and a prisoner.

Her hair was sparse and very blond, set up into the tiniest ponytails in existence which made her look like a bald, middle-aged toddler with a potbelly poking out of her slightly too tight of a shirt.

“What are you?”

Her pale blond brows gathered in a very familiar scowl. “A girl.” Her nose scrunched up a little as she studied me. “Are you stupid?” she asked, sounding a little worried.

To be argued.

“What are you doing here?” I asked, attempting to crawl out. “Should you even be in this house?”

I leaned all the way back when she shoved something in my face.

Lady Death!

That’s where my rat was.

She had the poor thing grasped around its fat middle, squeezed so tightly in her hands his paws were pointing all the way up to the ceiling. Why…why was he wearing a yellow, frilly dress? “He says his name is Thomas and that he belongs to you.”

I just stared at her, trying to decipher what she’d said. It was like her tongue was stuck to the roof of her mouth because all her s’s came out like little hisses.

She studied me curiously when I stood there confused, lowering Thomas on the floor and then dashing out while yelling ‘bear’ at the top of her lungs.

Where?

I rolled out from under my bed, glancing around my room.

Where was the bear?

“You little asshole,” I whispered to my familiar, shaking him a little. “Were you trying to eat her?”

I dragged him back to me by his ratty tail when he tried to scurry away. “How did she know your name?”

Only a witch could hear fiends.

His little jaw nearly tore his skull in half as he shifted into a tar-like shapeless puddle with two deep sets of red eyes floating on it. “The child,” my familiar’s rattling voice croaked, its liquid body sliding off my bed and pooling on the floor, “smells odd.”

My attention shot up to the door when I heard what seemed like a gentler version of my husband’s voice saying, “Bunny, what’s wrong?”

I got up so fast that I got my right foot stuck right into the Thomas sludge. He was back. I hadn’t seen him more than in passing since that night in his smoke room.

Christof gave me a hand when I came out limping.

“What’s that?” I breathlessly asked, still limping.

One of his brows flew up. “A child.”

“You don’t say. What are we doing with it?”

The old man brushed his duster down my face. “Nourishing, educating, and loving it on most days.”

I sputtered out feathers. “That’s a lot of things to be doing to a random child.”

Logan was crouched to the ground, standing at her eye level as she animatedly told him something. I could only catch the tail end of it. “—she’s stupid, Bear.”

I presume she was talking about me. Because I might as well be.

What was a child doing here?

Wait.

A drench of cold sweat peeled down the back of my neck.

Was she…my husband’s love child?

Did he keep his lover in the mansion, too?

How many did he have?

And where was this bear?

My husband raised his eyes in my direction, then gently pressed his palm to her round cheek, whispering something only for her to hear before picking her up in his arms and heading downstairs.

I’d tried my best to avoid him since that day in his smoke room.

He seemed to be doing the same because he’d never stuck around the house for more than minutes, and mostly remained in his study.

She looked so small tucked against his side. Her tiny arms couldn’t even wrap all the way around his neck.

“Lady Piper Clemonte,” Christof said, materialising right behind me again, dusting a painting and pointing the end of his fluffy brush to a portrait down the corridor. “Daughter of Cassandra Duncan-Clemonte, his lordship’s sister.”

Piper. So this was Piper.

“I didn’t know he had a sister.”

“Her ladyship has passed away. Lord Duncan is Lady Piper’s legal guardian.”

“When did she die?” Piper looked tiny in size; she couldn’t be more than two or three. Potentially four if we discounted her funny talking.

Christof was quiet for a long while. I thought he wasn’t going to answer me. “A few weeks after wee Piper was born.”

When I opened my mouth to ask more questions, he added, “I am not at liberty to tell you more about Duncan family affairs. If you’re curious, inquire with your husband.

” He bowed at the waist. “Some of your garments were delivered from the store. I shall iron them and have them brought to your room.”

“Sure,” I threw over my shoulder, leaning to peek over the balustrade at the uncle and niece who were still talking. “Just be careful not to step on Thomas.”

He paused. “What’s a Thomas?”

“My fam…rat!” I gave him a toothy grin. “He’s my rat.”

“A rat,” he mulled, his bushy grey brows almost meeting his sparse hairline. “I presume his lordship doesn’t know of your pet rat?”

I pouted, rubbing my hands together. “Do we have to tell him?”

“Tell me what?”

Ignoring the chills that spread down my spine, I stayed put.

All my life, I’d been the butt of most jokes.

The funny-looking witch. The witch with the curse.

The witch who sleeps with the dead. I’d heard it all.

My looks, my simple, unclaimed existence, my profession, what I loved and who I loved, they all had been poked and prodded at.

I knew what it felt to be laughed at. I’d gotten used to it.

For some reason, I couldn’t bear for him to think of me as ridiculous and farcical.

“She has a pet rat, sire.”

“Christof,” I hissed under my breath, lowering my head in defeat.

“Were they out of cats and dogs?”

I twirled around to him, locking my hands behind my back. “Should he be loved any less because of his kind’s ill reputation?”

He stuck a hand in his pocket and leaned against the balustrade, all tall and extremely well dressed. “We’re still talking about this rat, I presume.”

Asshole.

“Cute kid. Almost as cute as my rat. I’ll let you keep the kid if you let me keep my rat.”

His bottom lip rolled between his teeth as he briefly turned to stare away from me. “She’s been waiting to meet you for days,” he said after a moment.

“The disappointment must have left her sore. Hope you didn’t build too much of her expectations.”

He took a tin out of his pocket and brought a cigarette out of it. “You’ll grow on her.”

Well, the only one who had room for more growing was her. “Where did she come from? I haven’t seen her around.”

“She stays with her paternal grandmother on the weekends and holidays. They get her for a few weeks in the summer and then in winter.”

“I’m sorry to hear about your sister.”

His eyes dropped down at the entry hall where Piper was sprawled over the floor, playing with some toys. “She left me a piece of her. I can’t be too mad about it.” Pushing from the balustrade, he passed by me. “You can keep your rat.”

I got on my toes as I shouted after him, “I’m glad we reached an agreement. It would have been sad to see Piper go.”

He brushed a hand over his face, and I thought I saw his shoulders shaking as he entered his room.

Christof was still dusting in my close proximity even when I descended to the first floor, hiding behind a newel post. “She won’t bite.”

“You think?” Poking my head between two balusters, I watched her run around. “I haven’t been around many small people before. What on this Hellish earthly realm is she even wearing?”

“It’s her Tuesday outfit. The sire lets her choose one day a week where she can pick what she wears. A compromise after many, many intensive negotiations of her refusing to get dressed in the mornings.”

That explained why she was dressed like a court jester likely arrested for aggravated nose-picking.

I jumped back when she appeared next to me.

She glanced at me warily. “How come your rat talks?”

“He’s a special rat,” I carefully said, shooting a look at Christof, who was stifling a smile.

“Why do you get a special rat?”

Leaning close to her, I murmured, “Because I was drunk and high enough to kill a horse and didn’t know any better.”

Her eyes sank into a scowl. “I don’t know what you said.”

“It’s for the better.”

She pouted. “I’ll ask Bear for a rat who talks.”

Dear Lady Death! “No! No, please, can we keep it a secret between us?”

She itched her belly. “Why?”

“Because at best, there’s a slight risk they might call you a looney, send you off to live by the sea to cure your hysteria, and at worst they will behead me for witchery.”

Her tiny finger was hooked in her nostril as she shook her head. “I don’t know what you said.”

“We have to work on your vocabulary.”

“I don’t know what that is either. I want a talking rat.”

“Trust me, you don’t. They come with pricey conditions.”

“Bear’s got money.”

Closing my eyes, I sighed. “Great. She has a bear with money.”

She blinked at me.

“I’ll let you play with Thomas,” I offered, and felt a chill down my neck. He was going to haunt me down cold in my dreams tonight.

Her tiny yellow eyes glittered. But she, in Duncan fashion, managed to contain her emotions, only shrugging a tiny shoulder with a nonchalance that succeeded her uncle’s. “Are you really a witch?”

“Depends what angle you look at it from.”

She tipped her head to the side, itching her cheek. “Do you really eat children? Leona from my swimming lessons says you eat children.”

“No, but Thomas does. And this Leona needs to mind her business. What the Hell does she even know about my diet?”

She giggled, and I had a front row peek at her tiny fangs.

Okay, we were getting somewhere.