Lily was born one bright March day with ten little fingers, ten little toes, a head of strawberry gold hair, a love of overalls and metal and a hatred of the dresses Leila tried to put her in.

Leila found very early on in her mothering that she didn't know any lullabies. In fact, the only songs she knew were the ones her brother's had made up added to the ones they heard on the hunt. None of them, she guessed, was appropriate to sing to a child. She knew her memory was playing tricks with her, for she had once learned some to sing to a younger cousin. However, try as she might, she couldn't remember them.

One day a week after giving birth to Lily – an appropriate amount of time, she reasoned, for the others to believe her hunter-trained body had healed (She felt ready to set to work again within the hour but was certain no one would believe her.) – she asked Beth about lullabies. The older woman chuckled at her – "No, I don't suppose you would know any, would you?" – but had taken the child into her arms and showed the new mother how to rock her and had even taught her one or two lullabies. It was all in vain though: the moment the baby had left her mother's arms, she began howling. At the end of the lullaby session when Beth placed the child back into Leila's arms, only then did she go back to sleep.

Beth brought Leila a baby sling on her request to the doctor to leave the village hospital, explaining to Leila that then she could carry Lily around with her. The following day, she and Jeremy dressed their screaming baby in a little floral print dress, to Jeremy's insistence of "Like mother, like daughter." Leila slapped his back with one of Lily's clean diapers, causing him to whistle in pain, before she tucked her daughter into the sling and left for the garage.

Hearing their approach, Maxwell climbed down from the loft they'd affectionately nicknamed their "design room," though by the time they entered, Lily was quiet again. "Wow! What's her name?" Maxwell asked, staring down into her big brown eyes.

"Her name's Lily." Leila leaned over so he could see her better.

"Can I hold her?" he asked.

After a week of not building, Leila was ready for him to do just that. She trusted Maxwell with her daughter and ran up the ladder into the design room, spreading out her own design for the miniature car and proceeding to fix a sheet of cast-off metal she'd found in a town junkyard into a floorboard. Maxwell, sitting out of the way, explained what she was using to build the car to Lily, who quietly watched some of the proceedings before falling asleep.

That was the only place she would wear a dress without howling. After Leila found this out, she brought the baby to her job with her daily, where Maxwell would fawn over the little girl, showing her the pieces of machinery her mother was using and telling her what they were called. This was why, by the time she learned to walk, Lily knew the uses of most of the tools in the garage. It was also why her first words were "Puppy", "Mommy", "Max" and "car". Her next few words were "metal", "Aunt Bee", "Uncle E", "Chris," "wrench," "hammer," "garage" and "build". The following week, under Max's watch, she learned the phrase "Give me" and also "idea!" followed very quickly by an "Ouch!" said without tears.

The next week, Leila decided to take her to a junkyard field in a neighboring town. She told Jeremy in the no-nonsense tone she used to reserve for her brothers where she was going, and that she was taking Lily along. Jeremy raised an eyebrow at the tone and didn't protest.

So, bright and early the following morning, Leila set out with Maxwell and Lily. For once Leila had given up on having the girl wear a dress and had clothed her in a coverall much like the ones she had once enjoyed, and the toddler was giggling as her mother bounced her on her hip. Maxwell was skipping with excitement, too, never having gone out of his village before and feeling that this opportunity made him very grown up.

They arrived at the junkyard at noon and spent until five that evening rummaging through the junkyard, Leila teaching both Maxwell and Lily about what the "junk" had once been. She didn't say this aloud, but the finds were disappointing. If she had been alone, she would have thrown the catch back and searched for other streams. However, with two children in tow, she had to put up with what was here.

At five, it got dark enough for Maxwell to get jumpy. They were after all, not in the cover of a village, and the boy had been taught all his life that it was suicide to remain outside after dark. He had heard Leila's tales and wanted desperately to believe them, but this was pushing his belief. Having watched the sun set, he couldn't take it anymore.

"Mrs. Leila!" He ran towards her. "We should check into the town inn soon, shouldn't we?"

Leila looked up from the pile she and her daughter had made in the cart they had brought and looked at the boy. "It's time to head back."

Maxwell blinked in confusion. "Wait! You mean we're not staying in the town?"

Leila chuckled, shaking her head. "Max, I was Leila Marcus, Vampire Hunter, and there's nothing in these parts that could get through me to you. I was planning to stay for another hour, then head home, but if you want to go now, I'll come back in a month or so. You wanna leave?"

Maxwell nodded, impressed by her nonchalance even in the face of night. They headed out, and though Leila was on alert the whole distance home, not even a mist devil attacked them. The lack of even typical night creatures made her jumpy. The past three year without fighting had made her bored, though this leisurely walk home was the first time she could admit it. She needed something to happen and began wondering what had become of the lone, famed Hunter, D.