***
By the time Claire and I left the hospital, the sun was creeping over the horizon in a fiery splash of brilliant orange, red, and yellow. Mike had made himself scarce since our train wreck of a discussion on the way to the hospital. Somehow, for his sisters' sake, he and I had actually managed to get through the night without bloodshed. In fact, we hadn't said more than two words to each other throughout the long night. It was not one of those easy silences.
I'd been hyper aware of the dark looks that he would periodically shoot my way from across the room when he thought I wasn't looking, and clearly I irritated him. At least Megan hadn't seemed to notice the tension. That in itself was a miracle, I thought with a little half-smile as I fell into step beside an exhausted-looking Claire.
She had already confided that earlier, when Megan went into labor, Claire and Mark had been in the middle of a very loud argument over Claire's plans to accompany us to Coztal. Added to the tension in the crowded birthing room was the fact that Carl had insisted on following the family to the hospital when Megan's labor began, and Megan had been equally insistent he stay for the duration. Basically, the only people who weren't on the outs with each other were Mr. and Mrs. Roberts.
I said as much to Claire as we dropped into opposite sides of the car and I turned the key in the ignition.
"Give them time," she muttered on a huge yawn. "Oh God, I need sleep."
"Hmmm." I nodded. "That's quite a baby girl your sister brought into the world, though."
"Yeah." She rolled the window down and let a rush of cool morning air wash through the slightly stuffy interior of the car. "Rose is definitely worth a little sleep deprivation."
"Do you realize Rose is the first foreign child to be born in Terlain?" My lips curved and I blinked back a sudden sheen of moisture. "That's pretty amazing. She's probably the only person who will ever hold that title."
"I hadn't thought about that," Claire murmured. "To be honest, I've been so focused on Megan's husband leaving her and the baby. Rose," she corrected, "and this whole thing with Carl." She sighed and caught her bottom lip between her teeth. "Well, I don't really need to go into all that again, do I?"
"You don't trust him." I shrugged. "That's a normal reaction, don't you think?"
"Hell, yes. He tried to kill me." Claire thumped her fist against the armrest before settling back into the tan leather seat. "Well. He was planning on it, anyway, which is more or less the same thing."
Wisely, I remained silent. The moment we crested the hill that would take us up the rest of the long driveway to the house, bright shafts of sunlight speared the windshield and I had to squint to make out the bend in the road and not run us into a tree.
"Are you ready for Coztal?" I asked quietly, navigating the final turn and heading up the mostly straight section of the drive.
"More or less." Claire shrugged and answered without opening her eyes. "Once, I would have been excited about a road trip to the beach. But somehow, said beach being infested with mutant vampire coatyl and probably littered with dead bodies kind of ruins it for me."
"You obviously have no sense of adventure," I murmured, a smile tugging at my lips.
"I'm ready," Claire answered somberly. "What about you?"
"I'm as ready as the next person. This should be a quick trip."
"Yeah."
"We're almost home," I pointed out, figuring Claire wanted to talk about the tension that had run rampant in the delivery room, and in another half-mile or so we would reach the house and probably wouldn't get another chance at personal conversation for the rest of the day, maybe even the rest of the week.
Claire opened one eye and peeked at me from beneath her lashes but remained silent.
"Things aren't going so good with Mike." I took a deep breath and eased up a little on the accelerator.
"Oh. Yes, I noticed. My parents noticed, too."
"No doubt. I think the only person who hasn't noticed is Megan and I'm pretty sure it's because she was busy giving birth, that and her own life is in turmoil right now, although for how much longer?"
"What do you mean?" Claire twisted around to stare at me.
"That her life seems to be slowly righting itself." I smiled. "Did you see the way Carl looked at her and Rose?"
"I saw," Claire muttered darkly. "I also saw Mike staring at you every ten seconds."
"You mean glaring."
"That, too. I didn't know if you'd want me to ask?"
I took another deep breath. "He walked to the cabin to find me and instead he found Aranu and I together."
"Is that all?" Claire's brow furrowed. "Aranu is usually somewhere close by, like the rest of the warriors." She shook her head. "And didn't the two of you grow up together?"
"Something like that. Men have never permanently resided in the dome but his village isn't far. We used to play together as children?" I frowned at the memories. Good as they were, it served no purpose now to think of those days. Just the opposite. Remembering an Aranu who was guileless and full of adventure was hard. It muddied the waters between us even further and I didn't want to deal with any of it. Not now. Not when we were about to embark on a journey that could very well get us all killed.
"Anyway, you don't understand." I sighed. "Aranu was kissing me."
Claire blinked. "Aranu kissed you?"
I nodded.
"Oh." She stared out the window for long moments. "Has he ever??"
"No." I hesitated. "But looking back, I think there have been times when he wanted to." What was I saying? Of course there had been times when Aranu had seen me as something more than an old friend and fellow soldier. I wasn't well versed in the ways of men, not very experienced, anyway, but I wasn't so na?ve that I thought last night was the first time something like that had ever occurred to Aranu.
"Do you?" Claire plucked at the hem of her pink T-shirt, "have feelings for him?"
"Yes," I finally admitted. "I didn't think of him that way before he?well?not much anyway." I drew in a breath. "What I'm trying to say is I've always known that Aranu is an attractive man. But I've never?" I shook my head. "He's always been there, you know?" I glanced at her before steadying my gaze on the road ahead. Tiny bits of gravel pinged the underside of the car as I left the tree line behind and pulled up in front of the house.
"I think-" Claire's mouth dropped open. "What in God's name?"
Lights. There were lights everywhere. Pink, blue, green, red and yellow. They hung in ultra long strands from?everything. They edged the entire roof line of the enormous house. They hung in wide sheets over all the hedges in the yard and draped every tree in the immediate vicinity. In the early light of day, the house and grounds were lit up in multi-colored brilliance.
"Wow," I whispered reverently, coasting to a stop and throwing the car into park. I didn't bother removing the keys from the ignition but climbed from the car without taking my eyes off the spectacular scene before me. Beside me, Claire did the same.
Tara came skipping out the wide front door as we approached the house. She danced down the walkway and in her exuberance narrowly avoided colliding with us.
"You're finally here!" She peered over Claire's shoulder, to the empty car. "Where's your sister and the baby?"
"They're still at the hospital, Tara. They won't be released for another day or two."
"Oh." Tara looked crestfallen for a few seconds before perking up again. "Right. What was I thinking? Of course the doctors can't send them home so soon. Well, what do you think of my surprise?" The blonde nymph was practically jumping up and down now. "Do you think Megan and little Rose will like it?"
"I-it's?so colorful," Claire stammered, still swiveling around to take it all in. "And so bright." Tara's smile slipped a notch. "But so gorgeous," Claire was quick to add.
"Yes, it certainly is," I agreed, smothering a grin. "This must have taken hours."
"Well," Tara grinned and squared her shoulders, "the ha
rdest part was braiding the leather to make the strands. Ashley said that where you come from, the lights are attached to wires and have to be plugged in." Tara winked. "We didn't need to use electricity to power ours."
"Good thing," I murmured, eyeing what was easily a hundred strands of lights.
"I didn't really need the leather cords, either, but the children decided they should look as close to the real thing as possible."
Claire bent to examine one of the lights that clung to the thin, braided leather cord. "This is truly amazing, Tara. It does look like the real deal."
"Once I got the hang of elongating the lights just a bit, it was easy. And it's so beautiful!" Tara gushed over her own handiwork. "I just love Christmas!"
"Christmas?" I asked, turning away from a towering, lit-up tree at the edge of the yard.
"Turkey dinner, presents," Claire explained.
"Umm?" I searched through my memory of the many talks we'd had of Claire's traditions and celebrations from home. It was a subject we had spent hours discussing and comparing.
"Santa," she reminded me.
"Oh right. Santa Claus." I nodded. "Now I remember."
"Maybe when Megan and little Rose come home, we can have a real Christmas, with the works," Tara suggested. "Wouldn't that be great? We can exchange gifts and have a true feast. We'll need more lights, of course. I didn't get to the backyard," she said apologetically. "But with Megan and Rose not due back for a couple more days, I'll have plenty of time."
"Oh." Claire and I blinked and exchanged a look. "Well, uh?the girls would probably love to help braid the cords," Claire finally said. "It will give them something to focus on while we're gone." She swallowed.
And there it was, I thought grimly. The ugly truth that for months had managed to darken every moment of happiness in Terlain. The sun was breaking through the horizon, bathing the world in increasing shades of pink and reddish gold and Claire, Tara, and I stood in front of a beautifully decorated house. No matter that it was a little on the flamboyant side-everything Tara did was a little over the top. It was a nymph thing.
The occasion still should have been a happy one; we were celebrating a new life in the world, the reunion of an entire family, and the addition of so many good friends.
Over the past year we had all been slowly but steadily becoming one large extended family. Claire and Mark and the children and the woodland nymphs. Bob and Marta and many of the warriors. The sprites and some of the tribal warriors-like Aranu-tended to be a little standoffish, but the children already had several they were familiar with and whom they regarded as distant aunts and uncles.
We should have been preparing for life, our blended lives together. Instead we were preparing for war.
It invaded every part of our existence and every triumph and celebration with the knowledge that some of us may not make it back from patrol, or the coast, or the inevitable battles that lay ahead. Too many had already been laid to rest. But more would follow.
"Tara, you've done amazing work." I smiled wearily at the other nymph. She beamed in return. "But Claire and I need to get some rest. We're leaving tonight for Coztal. Let's plan a big celebration when we return, okay?"
"Sure." Tara nodded, a little less exuberant now but still smiling. "Ashley and Sienna are still sleeping. Juliette and Marta and I let them stay up a little late," she confessed.
"That's all right." Claire smiled and we followed Tara into the cool stillness of the house. "I'm sure they had a great time."
"Oh, they did!"
"Thank you." Claire caught Tara in a quick, brief hug before we headed up the stairs and off to bed, branching off toward separate rooms and a few hours of sleep, each lost to our own thoughts and worries of what lay ahead.