Chapter 19
Chapter Nineteen
“First things first.” Amara rubbed her temples and willed the migraine back the way you’d fend off a rabid weasel. Back! Go on, git! “Where does Dad keep the scrolls these days?”
They were in the kitchen, because Amara couldn’t bear talking about taking on her father’s duties with the man in (unconscious) earshot.
It would have been like divvying up a person’s belongings while you were at their funeral.
Skye had volunteered to sit with him, which was the only reason Hilly agreed to leave her husband.
Hank and Penny had been nowhere to be found, no surprise, and no one wanted to go looking for them.
Arawn was putting the houndlets through their paces.
And La Croix had also vamoosed, which was unlike him.
Usually when he was in residence he was on Amara or Hilly’s heels.
Had he left the property? And if so, when?
If he hadn’t left, why make himself scarce?
She’d ponder the mystery later. For now . . .
“Mom? The scrolls?”
“We’re out of bacon but I can heat up some venison stew.
Or a salad? I could make a big harvest salad with arugula and squash and goat cheese and bacon.
You like salads, Amara. With sunflower seeds, and I’ve got bags of them in the pantry.
Or something sweet? Belgian waffles—which aren’t Belgian, but never mind .
. . or perhaps some fudge? I could make homemade ice cream, is maple nut still your favorite? ”
“Unfortunately,” Gray replied.
“Mom. Please.” Amara crossed the room and gently closed the fridge in her mother’s face. “Nobody’s hungry. If I eat anything larger than a sunflower seed, I’ll vomit. Where are the scrolls?”
“Oh. Those.” Hilly’s head was cocked to one side and her gaze was vague. “We don’t—your father doesn’t use those anymore.” She forced a laugh. “It’s the twenty-first century, darling. We have all new equipment.”
“You do? That’s great! Show me?”
“It’s this marvelous device that receives information via—how did your father put it?
” Hilly closed her eyes, then opened them and smiled for the first time since she discovered Death at death’s door.
“Telephonic transmission!” At the look on Amara’s face, Hilly elaborated.
“I know, it sounds complicated—my understanding is, the machine takes data and forms it into something called a bitemap.”
“Bitmap, ma’am,” Gray said with a determinedly straight face.
“Yes! And it’s all done by transmitting the bitmaps through telephone lines. Think about that! And then a machine reassembles it on our end and spits out a copy. Quick as all that!”
Amara blinked. “You’re talking about a fax machine.”
“No, it’s a telefacsimile machine.”
Not now, migraine. “Okay. Where is your telefacsimile machine?”
“The library!” Gray piped up. “I saw it when I was poking around there earlier. It’s in the cabinet with—”
“Another obsolete device?”
“Don’t be such a whatever-our-generation is called,” Gray said. “Plenty of people still need printers.”
“It’s that archaic mindset that has kept us from the paperless offices we’ve been promised for the last fifty years. All right, I guess I should take a look and see what the telefacsimile has reassembled on our end.”
“Stay here with your mom, I’ll get it for you.” Gray paused. “If—if that’s allowed? A regular person intercepting Death’s bitmaps?”
“Gray, you don’t have to—”
“I want to, Amara. My best friend is in a mess and a half. I want to help.”
“You’re a good boy,” Hilly said. “If Amara has no objection, I don’t, either.”
After Gray scampered out, Hilly added, “You have fine taste in friends.”
“Thanks.” She spread her hands and smiled. “What can I say? I love that delightful weirdo to death.”
“. . . Does he know?”
Amara said nothing.
“Ah, my poor poor dear. Why are you chasing heartbreak?”
“I like to keep busy?”
“Is he, ah, prepared?”
Amara said nothing.
“If you wish, I could talk to your fath—” Hilly choked off the word, then buried her face in her hands.
“Mom! Dad’s not dead.” Amara wasn’t used to the role reversal; it felt odd to pull her mother into a hug and make ineffectual soothing noises. “He’s just, um, resting. Which he wholly deserves. When was the last time he went on vacation? Or took a mental health day?”
Her mother pulled back. “What on earth is a mental health day?”
“Never mind. I’m crap at the comfort thing.”
“You just need more practice.”
Perish the thought. “But I meant every word. You wait. He’ll be coughing up backhanded compliments and sneaking Cokes when he thinks you aren’t paying attention in next to no time.”
“I wasn’t prepared.”
“No, of course not. Who is? Plus, you’re not an ordinary woman married to an ordinary man.”
“No, I mean . . . this wasn’t supposed to—” They could hear Gray galloping back along the passage, so Hilly forbore to finish her sentence. “That boy can move when he gets the urge.”
“You should see him on Free Scoop Day.”
“It’s good to have you both here what with all this—I mean, especially since—we didn’t plan for this, obviously . . .”
“Mom?”
Hilly shrugged.
She didn’t used to cut off her own sentences like that. If anything, she’d babble until I got tired and gave in. Is there something she’s holding back? Or is it just stress?
And, again: NOT NOW, MIGRAINE.