A Discovery of Witches - Deborah Harkness [288]
“Amazing!” Matthew looked at the pumpkin with delight.
She bit her lip, regarding her work critically. “I’m not sure the eyes are right.”
I laughed. “At least it has eyes. Sometimes Sarah can’t be bothered and just pokes three round holes in the side with the end of a screwdriver and calls it a day.”
“Halloween is a busy holiday for witches. We don’t always have time for the finer details,” Sarah said sharply, coming out of the stillroom to inspect Sophie’s work. She nodded with approval. “But this year we’ll be the envy of the neighborhood.”
Sophie smiled shyly and pulled another pumpkin toward her. “I’ll do a less scary one next. We don’t want to make the little kids cry.”
With less than a week to go until Halloween, Em and Sarah were in a flurry of activity to get ready for the Madison coven’s annual fall bash. There would be food, free-flowing drink (including Em’s famous punch, which had at least one July birth to its credit), and enough witchy activities to keep the sugar-high children occupied and away from the bonfire after they’d been trick-or-treating. Bobbing for apples was much more challenging when the fruit in question had been put under a spell.
My aunts hinted that they would cancel their plans, but Matthew just shook his head.
“Everyone in town would wonder if you didn’t show up. This is just a typical Halloween.”
We’d all looked dubious. After all, Sarah and Em weren’t the only ones counting the hours to Halloween.
Last night Matthew had laid out the gradual departure of everyone in the house, starting with Nathaniel and Sophie and ending with Marcus and Miriam. It would, he believed, make our own departure less conspicuous—and it was not open to discussion.
Marcus and Nathaniel had exchanged a long look when Matthew finished his announcement, which concluded with the daemon shaking his head and pressing his lips together and the younger vampire staring fixedly at the table while a muscle in his jaw throbbed.
“But who will hand out the candy?” Em asked.
Matthew looked thoughtful. “Diana and I will do it.”
The two young men had stormed out of the room when we broke up to go our separate ways, mumbling something about getting milk. They’d then climbed into Marcus’s car and torn down the driveway.
“You’ve got to stop telling them what to do,” I chided Matthew, who had joined me at the front door to watch their departure. “They’re both grown men. Nathaniel has a wife, and soon he’ll have a child.”
“Left to their own devices, Marcus and Nathaniel would have an army of vampires on the doorstep tomorrow.”
“You won’t be here to order them around next week,” I reminded him, watching the taillights as they turned toward town. “Your son will be in charge.”
“That’s what I’m worried about.”
The real problem was that we were in the midst of an acute outbreak of testosterone poisoning. Nathaniel and Matthew couldn’t be in the same room without sparks flying, and in the increasingly crowded house it was hard for them to avoid each other.
Their next argument occurred that afternoon when a delivery arrived. It was a box with BIOHAZARD written all over the sealing tape in large red letters.
“What the hell is this?” Marcus asked, carrying the box gingerly into the family room. Nathaniel looked up from his laptop, his brown eyes widening with alarm.
“That’s for me,” Matthew said smoothly, taking the box from his son.
“My wife is pregnant!” Nathaniel said furiously, snapping his laptop closed. “How could you bring that into the house?”
“It’s immunizations for Diana.” Matthew barely kept his annoyance in check.
I put aside my magazine. “What immunizations?”
“You’re not going to the past without every possible protection from disease. Come to the stillroom,” Matthew said, holding out his hand.
“Tell me what’s in the box first.”
“Booster vaccines—tetanus, typhoid, polio, diphtheria—as well as some vaccines you probably haven’t had, like a new one-shot rabies preventive, the latest flu shots, an immunization for cholera.