April 21, 2012

Today a bad thing happened. I brought Jennie home with me after school and we snuck up into Aunt Dawnie's room to play dress-up. We locked the door just in case. I was under the bed looking for her sequined high-heels that she thinks Mommy doesn't know about when I pulled out a shoebox. But there were wooden sticks and bottles of water in it, not shoes.

Aunt Dawnie is awfully weird. Even Mommy says so.

While I was playing with the sticks, Jennie was also looking for the shoes. She pulled a box off a high shelf in the closet, but it fell off. A second later Daddy was banging on the door.

"Daddy, it's just me and Jennie," I said loudly. I remember another time when I didn't say anything and Daddy broke the door down and Mommy got really mad and then she had to call Uncle Xander to fix it.

"Open up, pet." He was talking in that no-nonsense tone like the time I dumped all his Kool-Aid into a punch bowl last Christmas and Uncle Rupert drank it and make funny faces.

I opened the door and Daddy looked really mad, but his hair was stuck up on one side so he looked funny, too.

"Give me the stake," he had said, dead serious. His voice scared me, all growly and deep. Then he sent Jennie home and made me stay in my room till dinner.

I can hear Daddy yelling at Aunt Dawnie downstairs:

"Bit, what were you thinking keeping stakes in your room? Don't you know how dangerous those things are? She could have hurt herself!"

"Spike, I said I was sorry. Besides, what was she doing in my room in the first place?"

Daddy's name was William. So why did Aunt Dawnie always call him "Spike" when she was upset?

"Platelet, I know they were only a couple of stakes. But now she'll wonder why her aunt has sharp, wooden objects hidden in her room. Buffy and I decided long ago to give our child as normal a life as possible."

"So are you never going to tell Angie why her father doesn't have a reflection or go out into the sun like other people? Why her parents always go out at night with weapons? Or why one night one or both of her parents won't come back from patrol?"

A pause.

"Sorry, Spike. I didn't mean it like that."

"'S al'right, Bit. I'll go start dinner."

And then the conversation stopped and I heard the stove being turned on and the fridge being opened. Aunt Dawnie's coming upstairs…