Аманда Хокинг - Wisdom

“I’m going to go feed her.” That’s all Mae said on the subject, then turned and carried Daisy out of the room.

“That was so ridiculous,” I sighed, running a hand through my hair.

Milo inspected the wound on Bobby’s arm, but despite the blood, it was fairly shallow. The intoxicating, sweet scent of him filled room, and my stomach rumbled.

It had been months since I’d bitten Bobby, but often times when I was hungry, I found myself craving him. I hungered for Bobby’s blood more than any other human. Standing this close to him, smelling him, reminded me that it had been over a week since I had eaten.

Milo had not taken it well when I bit Bobby before. Sharing a human with another vampire is unsettling. For weeks afterward, he’d followed me around like a puppy, causing many a fight between the three of us. Biting intensifies the feelings you already for each other. Eventually it faded, but even now, I felt protective of Bobby.

As Milo looked over Bobby’s wounds, he wrinkled his nose in disgust, smelling Daisy on the bite.

“You need to get it washed up and put a Band-Aid on,” Milo said, dropping Bobby’s arm.

“Alright.” Bobby climbed down off the bed. He looked down at his pants, splattered with droplets of blood, and sighed. “I’m gonna have to throw these pants out! Dammit! I loved these pants.”

Bobby took the whole “getting attacked by a vampire” thing pretty well, but he actually had more experience with them than either Milo or me. He got involved with them when he was eighteen, so he had two more years dealing with this than we did.

He went into the bathroom to get cleaned up, and I looked back at Milo. “Mae has completely lost her mind,” I said in a hushed voice, but Milo didn’t say anything. “You can’t tell me you’re on her side.”

He hopped off the bed and wiped off the blood on his side. Using the mirror hanging on the wall, he studied his wounds, and some would’ve been serious if he wasn’t a vampire. The bite marks on his shoulders and arms were nearly healed already.

“I’m not on anybody’s side,” Milo said at length.

“Daisy almost killed your boyfriend,” I said. Milo turned back to look at me, meeting my eyes evenly.

“So did you.”

“That’s different.” I shook my head. “I was dying. She’s an out of control child.”

“Maybe,” Milo admitted. “But what are we gonna do about it? You want me to go kill her?”

I didn’t know what I wanted him to do, but Daisy clearly wasn’t safe. This was the first time anything like this had happened since we’d been here, but she was crazier than any vampire I’d seen.

I didn’t have a good answer, and Milo didn’t want to talk about it. I went back to my room to sulk, since there wasn’t anything better to do. Peter came up a little while later to fix the bedroom door, and he warned us that Bobby shouldn’t be left alone anymore.

I was mad at Mae, so I wanted to spend a long time hiding out in my room. Then I realized that she was mad at me, so hiding would probably please her. To spite her, I decided to get up.

When I got down stairs, Daisy sat in the dining room. Coloring books and crayons were spread out all over the round table. Her hair had been tied up with a ribbon, and she had changed into a frilly pink and white sundress.

Her fingers healed up completely, making it possible for her to hold the crayons as she colored. She sang “Across the Universe” in an angelically perfect voice, and I’m sure that her Beatles repertoire was all Mae’s influence.

It wasn’t that I didn’t understand where Mae was coming from. Daisy had been terminally ill, and if Mae hadn’t turned her, she would’ve died. Daisy was her greatgrandchild, and she was an adorable, sweet girl… when she wasn’t a terrifying demon from hell. She was just much too young to have any impulse control, and she was going to be stuck looking like a perfect five-year-old for the rest of her life.

“Hi, Alice,” Daisy chirped. She kept coloring and didn’t look up at me, but she’d stopped singing. Under the table, I could see her legs swinging back and forth.

“Hey,” I said stiffly. I wasn’t the best at interacting with children, especially sometimes monstrous ones. “Where is Mae?”

“Hanging up laundry on the clothes line. She said I could stay inside if I promised not to go anywhere,” Daisy informed me.

Mae had left her completely unsupervised a few hours after she’d nearly killed us.

Awesome.

“That Mae sure does love doing laundry,” I muttered.

“Do you wanna color with me?” Daisy looked hopefully at me with her honey-colored eyes. She really was a miniature version of Mae.

“Um, no, that’s alright.” I didn’t want to get invested in an activity with her, but I stepped closer to the table to see what she worked on. She had a My Little Pony color book splayed out next to her, but she drew something on a blank page that I couldn’t decipher. “What’s that you’re doing?”

“I’m making a card for Bobby cause I hurt him.” Daisy held up the paper so I could look at it.

From what I could tell, it appeared to be a poorly drawn pink unicorn with a rainbow behind it. The words “sorry Bobby” were spelled correctly but with letters turned around.

“That’s a really nice card.” I forced a smile at her. “I’m sure he’ll like it.”

“I hope so. I didn’t want to hurt him.” Daisy sounded sad and stared off for a second, then went back to coloring. “I need glitter. Peter says he’s going to get me some the next time he goes to town.”

“That’s pretty nice of him.” I rubbed my arms and noticed the heat didn’t seem to be bothering her that much. But when I was a little kid, the heat never seemed to get to me either.

The screen door slammed shut behind me, and Mae came into the kitchen. She smiled tightly at me, so I figured she hadn’t forgiven me yet. Which made sense because I’d done nothing that I needed to be forgiven for. I subdued Daisy the only way I knew how in order to save Bobby’s life, and she hadn’t really been hurt. She couldn’t really be hurt.

“Daisy said you were hanging up laundry,” I said.

“I like the way the fresh air makes the clothes smell,” Mae replied, her British accent sounding colder than normal. She wore her loose curls in a bun, and sweat dampened her sundress. She brushed past me and went over to Daisy, admiring her pictures and giving her a kiss on the top of her head. “That’s a beautiful card, love.”

“Thanks,” Daisy smiled up at her. “Alice says that Bobby will really like it.”

“I’m sure he will.” Mae glanced up at me, and some of her anger dissolved. She sat down in a chair next to Daisy and colored a picture of her own. “Daisy ate and took a nap, and she’s been coloring just fine all evening. She’s just fine when she eats.”

“I’m sure she is.” I couldn’t really argue with Mae. What could I say while Daisy was right there coloring? So I changed the subject. “Have you heard anything about the air conditioning?”

“Not yet,” Mae shook her head. “But it’s cooled off since the sun went down.

Outside, it’s not that bad at all.” She looked up at me. “Peter’s sitting out there.”

I wasn’t sure if I should join him. Since coming here, I’d tried to spend very little time alone with him. But the heat was still stifling inside the house, and I could really use a break, so I went outside.

The one thing I would say about the outback is that the stars were amazing. Without all the light pollution from the city, they twinkled above me like nothing I had ever seen.

I stepped down off the front porch to get a better look at them. It was much cooler outside than it was in the house, so I let the night enchant me for a moment. I heard a sound to my left and looked back over to see Peter sitting on the end of the porch, his legs dangling over the edge.