4. Winnie #3
A long-suffering groan emerged from beneath the blankets before he finally pushed himself upright.
Success. For approximately four seconds. Then his head tipped sideways, and he fell asleep sitting up.
Okay, I had to admit it was an interesting talent.
“CJ.”
No response.
“CJ.”
He flopped backward dramatically.
“Already awake,” he mumbled.
“You are actively unconscious.”
Eventually, after repeated attempts involving opening curtains, cold washcloths, and Billie jumping onto his bed yelling “the eggs know!”, all three children made it downstairs.
Breakfast resembled a gathering of elegant zombies. Bianca ate mechanically as she read. CJ blinked blearily at his plate, and Billie attempted to wear a slice of strawberry as an earring.
But they were eating. Too quietly, though.
In my experience, this indicated the calm before the storm.
I watched them carefully over my second cup of tea. They weren’t malevolent, merely wounded children who viewed nannies as temporary intruders who disrupted their fragile routine with their father.
I understood that.
Unfortunately for them, I had survived considerably worse than emotionally complicated rich children. And occasionally things not entirely human. Compared to the things I’d witnessed, Billie Lawrence throwing produce hardly registered.
Eventually, breakfast ended, backpacks were gathered, shoes were located after dramatic negotiations, and children were ushered out the door.
CJ hugged me on impulse, then looked startled by his own behavior. Bianca thanked me for the presentation-quality lunch, which I believed was sincere praise. Billie informed me she would miss me “with medium intensity.”
Progress already.
Once the house emptied completely, silence settled around me at last. I wasted twenty minutes feeding the squirrels before starting my security preparations.
Experience had taught caution thoroughly.
Tiny motion sensors went near lower entrances and vulnerable windows. Not magical exactly, though lightly enhanced. If triggered, the system would sound an alarm directly inside my casket.
Was I paranoid? Possibly.
Alive—or adjacent enough to alive—far longer than most vampires I knew?
Also, yes.
Preparation was essential, especially because the world contained far stranger things than humans realized.
Finally satisfied, I slipped outside toward the hearse parked discreetly beneath the trees.
The rear compartment looked nothing like death from the inside. There were soft blankets, battery-powered lanterns, a hidden refrigeration compartment, tiny velvet curtains, and even emergency blood storage.
I didn’t require blood nearly as often as popular culture suggested.
Humans seemed attached to the idea that vampires spent every evening dramatically lunging at necks in ballrooms. In reality, I typically fed every week and a half, sometimes longer if I was careful.
Fresh human blood remained the strongest, unfortunately, but I had not fed directly from a person in decades.
It was too intimate, too personal. Too easy to become careless once affection entered the equation.
Instead, I purchased from a dealer named Emil who operated out of the basement beneath a legitimate funeral home a few towns over.
Officially, he specialized in mortuary cosmetics and grief services.
Unofficially, he maintained a discreet network involving hospital workers, magical practitioners, one terrifying hospice administrator, and a werewolf phlebotomist named Denise who threatened customers with parking violations if they overstayed pickup appointments.
Emil packaged everything meticulously in temperature-controlled medical coolers with handwritten labels and little gold stickers denoting quality.
Vampires either adapted or perished, and I preferred adapting.
After carefully removing my hat, I settled into the casket with a long, soft exhale. It had started raining, and the drops pelted the roof of the hearse, lulling me to sleep.
Waking before sunset never became pleasant.
Manageable, yes. Necessary, certainly. But pleasant? Absolutely fucking not.
My alarm dragged me upward through heavy sleep with all the grace of an exorcism. I slapped blindly at the brass clock inside the casket until the ringing stopped, then lay there, miserably staring at the quilted interior lid above me.
After nearly two centuries, I had learned how to function against instinct. Humans did it constantly, especially parents. Exhaustion rarely cared whether one possessed a pulse.
Rain still tapped softly against the roof of the hearse as I pushed open the lid with a groan and sat up slowly.
It was still daylight outside. Survivable daylight, thanks to the stormy weather and enough sunscreen to preserve a corpse indefinitely, but my body was deeply offended by the concept regardless.
My boots waited near the lantern shelf beside a stack of books. I checked the hidden clock mounted beside the interior wall. Three thirty-eight. The children would arrive at four.
Resigned, I reapplied my layers of SPF100, adjusted my hair, straightened my coat, and slipped back into the house through the side entrance just as the first school carpool vehicle rolled down the drive.
Perfect timing.
The front door burst open four minutes later.
“I saw a goose fight another goose!” Billie said, barreling into the house with the speed of artillery fire.
Behind her, Bianca removed her coat carefully and sighed. “It was not a fight. It was territorial posturing.”
“There was biting,” Billie insisted.
CJ stepped inside, his tie loose around his neck. “I respected the geese for handling conflict directly.”
“I think one of them died,” Billie announced.
“It absolutely did not,” Bianca said.
“Then why was it lying down?”
“It was sitting, Billie.”
I took their backpacks before any of them could abandon them in the foyer. “How was school?”
Three entirely different reactions. CJ launched into an elaborate retelling involving cafeteria corruption and a charismatic substitute teacher. Bianca gave concise factual summaries with visible impatience for narrative embellishment. Billie mumbled that she had accidentally licked glue again.
What an interesting little ecosystem.
Once their coats and shoes had been dealt with, and I’d persuaded Billie not to bring “sad” sidewalk worms inside, I gathered them into the kitchen.
“Right,” I said. “You all have thirty minutes to decompress after school.”
They regarded me with tremendous suspicion.
“Then homework until dinner. Another half hour’s rest to allow your food to settle. Then any remaining schoolwork before free time.”
Silence.
Absolute silence.
“That schedule may present a medical issue,” CJ said.
“Oh?”
He nodded gravely. “For Billie specifically.”
Billie looked intrigued, and she clearly had no idea where this was going.
I folded my hands calmly. “How concerning.”
“It’s rare,” CJ continued. “Dad says we shouldn’t make her feel different about it.”
“I see.”
Bianca slowly lowered her water bottle.
CJ leaned closer across the island. “Billie has a neurological sensitivity to academic pressure.”
Billie sent him an alarmed look, then quickly nodded in agreement.
“She does?” I asked.
“Yes,” CJ said firmly. “Doctors discovered that forcing structured homework environments can trigger cognitive inflammation.”
I kept my expression perfectly neutral. “How terrible.”
“It’s very serious.”
“Life-threatening,” Billie added.
CJ nodded once. “Potentially.”
Bianca rolled her eyes and shook her head.
“What are the symptoms?” I asked, only feeling slightly guilty for encouraging his elaborate lie.
CJ didn’t even hesitate. “Fatigue. Emotional fragility. Outbursts of temper. Temporary pencil confusion.”
Billie clutched her chest. “The pencils become pointier.”
“Mm.”
“The only treatment,” CJ continued solemnly, “is allowing the afflicted child complete academic freedom while siblings quietly complete homework elsewhere out of compassion and respect.”
I watched him for another beat, then nodded thoughtfully. “CJ.”
He blinked. “Yes?”
“Do you ever write your stories down?”
The expression on his face changed so quickly it almost hurt to witness. “What?”
“Your stories,” I said. “They’re quite good.”
Bianca made a strangled sound.
Billie looked between us wildly. “Wait. That was fake?”
“Oh, unquestionably,” I said.
“But…” He frowned. “You knew?”
“Instantly.”
“Then why did you let me finish?”
I tilted my head. “Because embellishment is an art form when done well.”
He sat there, trying desperately not to look pleased while absolutely looking pleased.
“Sometimes,” I continued gently, “stories tell us interesting things about the people creating them.”
Bianca studied her brother, a slight frown on her face.
Billie climbed halfway onto the counter. “Do I have cognitive inflammation?”
“No,” Bianca and I said together.
CJ rubbed the back of his neck. “It wasn’t really a story.”
“No?”
He hesitated. “Maybe partly.”
“You really should write them down.”