Part III

Monday dawned bright and clear.

The view I got of it was actually rather good, despite the overabundance of concrete and steel. It was one of the reasons I liked that line of work. Every single morning—with the exceptions of Sundays, when I tended to oversleep—I was able to watch the sun rise.

I’ve always loved to watch the dawn, for the last forty years at least. True, my current environment added no beauty to the scene, but then again it didn’t need augmentation. Those first few rays of light peeking over the horizon, followed by the rush of brilliance as the sun itself showed its face: there is nothing more beautiful to me. Not even Seth’s little pink aes sídhe comes close, even if she is bonnier with every passing day.

Another worker called for my attention and I turned from the spectacle in the sky.

The labor of this work was not difficult… not for me, at any rate. We are strong, Seth and I, like all our kind. Heavy lifting means naught to us. If I had wanted, I could have made quite the name for myself, doing all sorts of heavy work in a tenth the time. I didn’t want it, though. I just wanted to pass the days in peace, and earn myself a few dollars in the meanwhile. The labor kept my mind from wandering to other things. I put enough effort into my job that I could blend right in: not too fast, not too slow, and easily forgotten when it came time for me to move on to the next town. I saved the most of my strength for the nights, when I would truly need it. It was a damned sight more difficult to hunt without Seth by my side, but he had a family to tend to, and he had promised Rosalie when he married her that he would never go into an uncertain fight. I don’t have a family to consider. Not anymore. I’m free to hunt as often and as dangerously as I please.

I keep myself busy. I work all day, and I hunt all night. It doesn’t leave me much time to be sleeping, but I don’t need much sleep when I hunt well.

Seth sleeps all the time, the lazy git.

Anyway, it passes the time. Work and the hunt are the only things that do the trick, now that whisky is out of the question. That particular week, they passed the time straight through until Saturday. I destroyed as many as three suckers in one night that week, which put me in a better mood than I’d had for a while.

Picnics are always a grand old time. They’re really just an excuse for all of our cousins in the area to come and socialize, Seth and myself included of course. Every few Saturdays, the lot of us go out to the park, practically in the forest, bringing food as well as toys for the children. These reunions were mainly the work of Rosalie, despite her only being in the family through marriage. She had help, of course, tracking down all the cousins and making sure nobody was forgot. Fortunately for her, we have a lot of practice keeping track of each other—that’s a lot of Sari’s job—so it wasn’t too hard to manage despite the numbers. There’s dozens of us, just in that area alone.

The thing is, most of us don’t have many friends outside of the family. Sure, we all of us had other acquaintances from before, but it doesn’t work so well to keep them around. None of us stuck around in one place very long, so neither did our friendships. The fact of the matter is that there are just too many complications. Too many questions that start to be asked and too many reasons that keep piling up as to why we shouldn’t be spending much time with anybody who’s not a cousin. After a while it’s far easier to simply forget all about everybody else, save what’s necessary for getting along in the world.

And that’s, then, the reason for having these gatherings so often. When you can’t be socializing with anybody but cousins, you find yourself wanting to spend as much time with those cousins as you can. We are, on the whole, a sociable lot—it’s one of the ironies of our existence—and we get all kinds of lonely without friends around. It used to be that we would visit with each other randomly; calling on whatever cousins we knew whenever we got the inclination. If we’d just moved to a new town, we’d call whoever in the area had the list of names. It worked well enough, but it was harder to find new cousins. Socializing with just the same group of people for that long tends to wear on a man.

Now, thanks to Rosalie, we all saw each other all the time, and there’s hardly enough time to get tired of the same people because we can just start talking to other people if we do.

Not that I was likely to be getting tired of Seth. He and I have been like brothers for the last forty years, even if he did go off and get married a few years back. I’ll admit I was a slight bit put out that he chose to settle down rather than hunt with me, his best friend. I may have been a bit put off, and gone off to Australia for a few months immediately after. Actually, it was more like a year or two. The point is, now we were finally in the same town and back to being the best of friends. Now all I had to do was get him back to the hunt. Well, I had time. I wasn’t getting any younger, no, but I’m not getting any older either.

On Saturdays I only worked a half-shift. It gave me time to be taking care of all the things I may have put off during the week, like shopping for groceries or getting all my dirty laundry clean. I suppose I might have also used the time to clean my little house, but to be perfectly honest there wasn’t much to be cleaning. I had only moved to New Jersey a bit over a year ago, and a year isn’t much time to be collecting any clutter. It’s hard to collect much of anything when I never stay in one place for longer than a few years at a time.

Well, it didn’t look like I would be doing much grocery shopping on that particular Saturday. I headed straight home from work and changed into clean clothes, thanking my lucky stars that I had remembered this time to fetch my laundry from Rosalie. Unfortunately, I also found myself with very few options as to what I could bring to that picnic. It wasn’t as if my cousins would turn me away without an offering, but I did feel bad about showing up and eating everyone’s food without giving something of my own in return.

I just had to figure out what I could possibly offer.

I didn’t think bringing a box of cold cereal would go over all that well. I checked my ice– …refrigerator, again, as well as my cupboards. Most of the latter were nicely well stocked with my Cheerios. I actually did consider it for a moment or two, holding the cupboard doors open while I stood there, deciding.

No… no, there had to be something better that I could bring.

There was a fresh loaf of bread in the breadbox, and some sliced meat in the refrigerator. I did what I could with the two, cutting the sandwiches into triangles as an afterthought. That did it. I piled my little sandwiches onto a tin plate I had gotten from somewhere feeling quite pleased with myself. Sure, no, maybe they weren’t the fanciest tidbits, but then again we’re not the fanciest people. Rosalie doesn’t count—she does all that fancy French cooking from scratch and I’ll be damned if I know how. She has downright spoiled old Seth, that’s certain.

It took a bit of doing, but I got those sandwiches into my new car—covered with cloth to keep them from sliding about—and over to the clearing where we have our picnics. Most of my cousins had already arrived, and were setting up their own plates and platters on folding tables out on the grass. There were a few dozen of us living in the area at that time, some with families like Seth, some without like myself. What little ones had already arrived were chasing each other around and laughing at their play. Seth and Rosalie were there, of course. I finally found Lily running along the grass on the other side of the clearing, her chocolate curls flying out behind her and her pretty ruffles smudged with dirt. I’m sure Rosalie would have had something to say about that.

I set my plate of sandwiches down on one of the tables. Sari was there. I had already told her about the sucker I had killed the week before, as well as several others in the same area. I think she writes them down on a map or some such thing.

“Hello, Sari,” I said, nodding at her in greeting. “Good day for a picnic, isn’t it?”

“Not bad at all,” she replied with the barest of accents. “How’s the hunting?”

“It’s been good lately. I got as many as three the night before last, and two more yesterday. Mostly vampires, though you already know that.”

She laughed and tucked back a stray black hair. Her dark, almond eyes sparkled. “Boy, I wish I could go out hunting like you. You folks keep me so busy I barely have time to sleep! It’s a good thing my own children have grown and gone, or I’d never have a moment’s peace.”

“How are they, by the way?”

“Oh, they’re doing fine. Lavanya has found herself a husband back in Maharashtra, and Dhaval and Prabhat are out in Northern California.”

“Keeping good track of them, I take it?”

“Of course! I am an organizer, after all. It’s in my job description!”

“And keeping an eye out for potential grandchildren has naught to do with it, I’m sure,” I joked, a twinkle in my eye.

I soon excused myself to collect a better assortment of food from the tables. There was plenty to be had, and I intended to take full advantage of this opportunity. If I was not to be making it to the market, this would do in its stead.

I met Seth at one of the empty tables, the like of which had been set up so that we might actually have a place to eat all of this lovely food. He and his Rosalie had finally managed to catch hold of their little aes sídhe, who was now seated quite politely on the grass, a plate of food on her lap. It consisted mainly of Rosalie’s contributions, of course. I don’t know that she would have approved of any less for her little daughter.

“Hello, Seth,” I said as I set my plate down on the table. “And how was your week?”

“No different than it was when you asked me yesterday,” he replied laughingly. “A legal clerk sees very little variety in his days—I’m afraid I have no exciting stories to tell.”

Not to be dissuaded, I turned instead to Rosalie. “Surely you had some excitement in your own week?” I asked. “Come now, that lass of yours must give you some awfully entertaining escapades. It’s the age, you know.”

Rosalie laughed. “No, no. Not at all! Lilianne is always a little angel for her Maman. It’s my husband who tries to spoil her at every chance.”

“Is that right, lass?” I asked the girl, bending down to her. “Does your da spoil you rotten?”
She giggled through a mouthful of crumbs and shook her head vigorously. We often had this exchange.

“And of course I don’t spoil you either, do I?”

Again she shook her head.

“Well, that settles it,” I told Rosalie. “Neither of us has the slightest idea what you’re talking about.”

She groaned in mock frustration. “You will be the death of me, I know it!” she told me.
I just grinned and dug into my food.

 

 

 

Two months. Two months, and not a day later, and that’s all the longer it took for the happy young couple to realize that they had a little one on the way.

The first month had been spent in newlywed bliss. Gabriel and his Aoife went to live in a new house not a mile from his father’s workshop as soon as they were wed, that both his parents and hers had helped to furnish in the weeks before. Even Aoife’s new bed had been moved, being just large enough for the two of them. Gabriel, who was full of nerves starting with the entire previous week, only made a slight bit of a fool of himself in the first few nights they spent together; fortunately, his wife was quick to forgive and it was not long before they had sorted themselves out.

Aoife took to her new role naturally and happily, finding all manner of fabrics for the curtains and purchasing odds and ends the use of which Gabriel could only guess. Before he knew it, their new home truly had the appearance of a home, and not just the empty potential of a newly-built house.

For his part, young Gabriel worked harder than he ever had so that he might be able to provide his blooming family with anything and everything they could need or want. While I could not honestly say that the young man’s wood crafting skill was by any means legendary, it was more than plenty for him to make a name for himself and a fair living, too. He still worked beside his father, of course. In those days, Gabriel could not even conceive of there ever being a reason great enough to be parted from his beloved Da for long. Now, though, the two men worked as equals, sharing all work and profits from their joined labours.

Instead of going home to his brothers and sisters and parents, however, he now went home to his bonnie wife and passed the hours in happiness. It was different than living with such a passel of children underfoot, of course, and him merely being the eldest of the lot. Now he was a grown man, and he had his own responsibilities.

One particular day, for example, he came home to find his Aoife fussing with one of the windows.

“Thank heaven you’re here,” she said when she saw him walk through the door. “The window is broken, and I’ve no idea how to fix it.”

Gabriel hung up his hat and went to where she stood. The window had indeed broken—or, rather, the frame of it had. Where the pegs should have held open the sliding glass of the window, it instead fell straight down despite poor Aoife’s best efforts. It was not, perhaps, the most dire of circumstances, for winter was coming soon and they would not be wanting the windows to hold open for long, but it was certainly frustrating for the young couple, who had only moved into the house just months before, and especially for the bonnie Aoife, who had been busy tidying their home and was expecting besides.

“I see the problem,” Gabriel finally announced. “It’s not the pegs that are giving you trouble. It’s the window itself. See there?” He pointed. “The bottom edge is not staying in the slot as it should, so it’s falling out and over.”

“Can you fix it, Gabriel?”

“Aye, I can,” he said. “Though I’ll have to have my father in here to lend a hand. This glass was too expensive not to handle with absolute care. Leave it in there for now, Aoife, and we simply won’t open that window until it’s fixed.”

“As you say, Gabriel. You don’t think it’s something I did, do you? I was only cleaning up a bit, and trying to get a little dust out before winter comes.”

Gabriel smiled at her and took her in his arms. “Don’t worry yourself,” he said. “It’s nothing you could have done. The carpentry was bad, is all, or perhaps the wood itself. You would have needed to strike that window hard enough to splinter wood in order to have done that damage all by yourself.”

“Well then, it wasn’t me,” she agreed, laughing. “I only lifted it to dust, is all.”

“Then there you have it. Now, what’s that wonderful smell coming from the kitchen?” he asked.

“Oh, it’s nothing fancy,” she said. Having been completely satisfied that the window—broken through no fault of her own—would be mended in all due time, she left off fussing over it and instead hurried back to their little kitchen. “I made us some stew from potatoes and the rest of that chicken. Hopefully it should last us a few nights.”

Gabriel looked into the pot she was stirring with no little amount of eager anticipation, and found a spoon in the drawer to give it a taste. His attempts to sneak a bit of it early, though, were thwarted by Aoife, who shooed him away with the ladle.

“You ought to be careful near the fire, husband of mine,” she said, playful teasing in her voice. “I’ll not have my carpenter husband having burnt fingers. Don’t you worry, you’ll get your supper soon enough.”

He put the spoon on the table and sulked for a moment, before his nose reminded him what he had in store. “I don’t know what you’ve put in that stew, Aoife, but it can’t be naught but chicken and potatoes.”

“Then the aes sídhe must have come and added their magical spices while I was looking away,” Aoife said, the tease not having left her voice.

“Is it quite safe to be eating, then?” Gabriel asked. “I’ll not be a frog by morning?”

“Silly man, the aes sídhe don’t turn men into frogs,” she reproached him. “Or have you listened to none of my tales?”

“I listened to every one, and will gladly listen to hundreds more if it means that I will hear your lovely voice all the more,” Gabriel countered.

Aoife laughed merrily and ladled out the stew into bowls. “Such a silver tongue you have. I wonder I haven’t found an aes sídhe here in my own kitchen!”

“And yet I mean every word, so how could it be that my tongue is silver? It speaks naught but the truth,” he asserted. He found himself a seat at their modest table and did his best to wait patiently for his supper.

Her cheery grin melted at his words into a warm, shy smile, and she like to floated between the fire and the table. Such was the effect each had on the other.

They ate their dinner in happy companionship, their accustomed banter not pausing for such a trivial thing as a meal but rather becoming even more so, for the compliments Gabriel lavished upon the stew and its creator made the sweet Aoife blush and protest her own ordinariness… which of course did not dissuade him in the least. The fine stew did indeed last the couple for several more days, during which Gabriel insisted that Aoife rest as much as she could. She, of course, would not hear of abandoning her household completely—she insisted that such things were her domain as much as she insisted that Gabriel leave well enough alone. To his peace of mind, however, her mother and sisters began to pay visits more and more regularly in order to look after her and lend their assistance in the household chores.

His own mother came as well, doting on the expectant mother and unborn child as if he or she were already born and well.