Thea Harrison - Oracle's Moon

While Chloe played happily in her castle with Lala Whoopsie and several stuffed animals, Grace looked through the bills twice. She came up with the same answer both times. Keep the water, electric and phone bills paid. All the medical bills got stacked on top of a neat, growing pile. She put student loan deferment notices in another pile. Each one was like the ticking of a time bomb that would eventually blow up in her face. Then, her stomach in a clench, she spent a half hour calling around to bankruptcy lawyers. Fun times.

She folded laundry, looked through her unfinished senior history project and set it down again, fed the children lunch and found the note in her purse about calling Katherine to set up a time when Joey and Rachel could come over for a playdate. Feeling guilty about asking Katherine to babysit yet again, Grace picked up the phone and stepped into the kitchen so Chloe couldn’t hear the conversation. No point in getting Chloe excited if Katherine couldn’t take them. She hit Katherine’s number on speed dial.

Katherine picked up on the third ring. “Gotta love caller ID,” she said. “Hi, Grace, how are you doing?”

Grace could hear the cheerful shouts of children in the background. She said, “Hi, Katherine, we’re doing all right. I know you’re working, so I want to keep this brief. Is there any chance you could take Chloe and Max on Saturday? The second quarterly work day is coming up, and last time I had a hard time keeping track of them while I dealt with everybody’s questions about what needed to be done.”

“Of course,” said Katherine immediately. “You know how much I love them. Why don’t they spend the night as well? That way you can just crash when everybody leaves.”

Grace felt a rush of love for the older woman. Katherine had grieved almost as hard as she had at Petra’s death. Katherine was always willing to help out in any way she could, while Grace’s friends had drifted away after the accident. Grace tried not to take it personally. Her friends were as young as she was, and when Grace had taken on the children, she had been catapulted into a completely different reality from theirs. Still, the lack of connection with her old friends felt like an abandonment.

“That’s so good of you,” Grace said to Katherine, her voice thick with emotion. She would pack up the serving platters and give them to Katherine as a thank-you, and if Grace had to explain how she got them, so be it. “I wanted to ask you about something else too. I’m looking to trade Chloe’s toddler bed to someone for a twin-sized one. Would you be willing to tell the parents of your daycare kids, to see if any of them might be interested?”

“Be delighted to,” said Katherine. “I’m sure we’ll find someone who’ll be happy to trade.”

“Great, thanks so much,” Grace said. “Can I bring the kids over at eight? The work day is supposed to start at nine, and that will give me time to get ready.”

“You bet.”

Grace ended the call quickly and turned her attention to other things. She washed the lunch dishes. Their stack of library books were due in a few days. She bagged and set them by the front door. Then she put the kids down for an afternoon nap. That sent Chloe into another meltdown, and when things finally quieted down, Grace did her physical therapy exercises. After that she worked on her resume. She had two versions going. One of them listed her actual college credits. The other was a resume built on hope and included the bachelor’s degree she had not yet earned. Louisville was still hurting from the long recession. Jobs were hard to find, and she had to make her resumes look as good as she could.

Something had to give, somehow, sometime. The law of averages said it had to. Meanwhile, Grace felt like she had been locked in a pressure cooker and set on a burner that was turned on high. It wasn’t going to be a pretty sight when that pressure cooker exploded.

She hit another wall, staggered to the couch, and a black hole sucked her down again. She slept hard, and when she woke a half hour later, the house was still silent. When she checked on the children, she found both still sleeping.

My goodness. Could she actually grab some time for herself?

She went to the kitchen and used the leftover coffee from that morning to make herself a glass of iced coffee, then she sat to stare blankly at the clean table.

She wondered what her high school friend Jacqui was doing this summer. The last time they had talked, Grace had just gotten home from the hospital. Jacqui had stopped by the house to say hi. The visit was awkward. Grace watched as Jacqui looked everywhere in the living room except at Chloe and Max, who were playing on the floor. Jacqui said she couldn’t stay long because she had to study for a test the next day, then she looked stricken. After that, they had exchanged a couple of e-mails. Then silence. Grace wondered if Jacqui was even still in the area or if she had gotten a job somewhere else after graduation.

The ghosts were silent. Nothing moved, either in the house or outside. The summer heat blanketed the land like a lover.

She didn’t want to have quiet time to herself. She didn’t want to think about that terrible vision, not when she was alone. She closed her eyes, wrapped her arms around herself and huddled in her chair.

This time when Khalil appeared, he did so gently. His presence curled into the kitchen like a tendril of soft breeze. Her heart leaped, but not from irritation. She opened her eyes and turned in her chair and tried not to show how glad she was that he had come.

Khalil wore black, and once again his long raven hair was pulled back. The afternoon sun slanting through the kitchen window touched his ivory features with gold. His regal face was grave, contemplative. For a moment he looked like a sculpture created by one of the masters, his impossibly graceful form freed forever from priceless marble by Michelangelo’s genius.

She cleared her throat. “I thought you were coming tonight.”

He walked toward her, pulled out a chair and sat down. “You said to come when the children were asleep. They are. You have also rested.”

Just as before, he filled the entire house with his presence. She took a deep breath and let go of the tension that had built up between her shoulder blades throughout the day. She asked, “How did you know I rested?”

“I checked in earlier. You were asleep on the couch.” His too-keen diamond gaze focused on her face.

She nodded and looked away, feeling awkward under his scrutiny. She could waste time feeling strange about him looking in the house when she was asleep, but that seemed like a little too much, too late, when he’d already shown he didn’t have human sensibilities or boundaries.

What should she say or do now? Her social skills were not the most refined at the best of times, and she had no idea how to behave with him if they weren’t sniping at each other. She noticed her glass of iced coffee, sweating rivulets of moisture in the heat of the day, and she started to rise to her feet. “I’ll get you a drink. What would you like?”

His hand came around her bicep. She looked sideways at the long ivory fingers curled around her arm as he eased her back down into her chair. “I do not require refreshment,” he said. “We must discuss what happened this morning.”

She nodded again. He had not removed his hand from her arm, and she decided not to remind him of that. His grip felt heavy and reassuring. She noticed again how hot his touch was, as if his presence was a fire his skin barely contained. With her free hand, she touched her cold, sweating glass then took a quick swallow.

She said, “I’m scared to look at it too closely.”

“Do not be frightened,” Khalil said quietly. “You and the children will be safe. I have said so.”