"Happy birthday, Amy," Annette said with a smile as she handed her adopted daughter a glittering green paper-wrapped box about a foot square and four inches thick. The freckled face in front of her was alight with curiosity, making her very happy.
Amy had blossomed into a cheerful little girl after moving in three months ago, although she'd never be the chatterbox Taylor tended to be. She was still fairly quiet but was even so clearly much happier than she'd been when the other girl had dragged her home and overwhelmed her with kindness, something Annette was very pleased about. Both for the attitude shown by her birth daughter to a stranger in need, and by Amy as she'd opened up.
As Taylor, Emma, and Vicky watched with interest, Amy carefully accepted the box and inspected it gravely, turning it over and watching the lights on the two tables to the sides of the sofa, and the one by the window, reflect off it. "I like the color," she said in a quiet pleased voice.
"You're supposed to open it, Ames," Taylor suggested, prodding her in the shoulder. Vicky giggled and Emma was grinning. Annette glanced at Danny who was also watching with a small smile. She knew full well he'd become completely attached to their new child in minutes, and he found her oddly serious nature endearing. The girl could get nearly as manic as Taylor and Emma at times, but other times found her sitting and thinking in a manner that was somewhat unusual for someone so young.
It was oddly similar to how Taylor could get, she mused, looking at her birth daughter, who was poking Amy again and again, very gently but very persistently. Most of the time she was almost excessively happy with life, but every now and then she got very quiet, very thoughtful, and rather intense. Odd things tended to happen in the immediate vicinity of such moods…
Mind you, odd things tended to happen when she was happy too, so that wasn't particularly unexpected.
"Go on, open it, I wanna see what it is," Vicky shouted, poking Amy's other shoulder. The blonde was at least as exuberant as Taylor was, although if anything even louder. She'd become a frequent visitor to the Hebert household, nearly as much as Emma was, and clearly still held great affection for the girl who had for a year been her own sister. Annette was pleased to see that, in fact. Both Taylor and Amy needed friends outside their own groups, which up until recently had consisted almost entirely of Emma for Taylor and Vicky for Amy. All of them meeting each other was undoubtedly a good thing even aside from getting poor Amy out of a very unpleasant situation that was none of her own fault at all.
Vicky's cousins Crystal and Eric tended to turn up on occasion too, but Eric was still too young to really be over unsupervised by his mother, and Crystal was still finding the whole thing a little weird and hadn't quite got to grips with it yet. Sarah Pelham and her husband seemed fine with the new status quo although Annette had caught Sarah looking at her and Danny with a quizzical air a few times, a number of unasked questions clearly in there somewhere. Those questions tended to multiply when Vicky turned up without her knowledge and Annette had to, yet again, phone and apologize for Taylor's overenthusiasm.
She was pretty sure that they still didn't believe Taylor when she said she'd talked the monster under Vicky's bed into bringing her over.
Which was hilarious but understandable.
Annette was quite curious to see how long it would take before they finally accepted it. Danny clearly was too and had no intention of ruining the joke as he saw it, finding the entire thing very amusing. And of course Mal thought it was a vastly amusing little prank and had told Taylor to use common sense but to do what she thought was right.
This, of course, was taken as the encouragement to cause chaos that her mother had intended, making Annette sigh but not interfere. She'd found Carol annoying, still did, and felt that a little confusion was not only good for the soul but a fairly mild payback for how she'd treated Amy. If she'd thought that it had been a deliberate attempt to harm the girl rather than basic intolerance and neglect, which was bad enough, she'd have been considerably less charitable. Her mother might be terrifying when she was angry, but then she wasn't exactly unable to extract a measure of vengeance herself if required.
She was just more subtle about it.
Looking at Danny, who was watching fondly as Amy started to very carefully peel the tape back on the paper, her tongue sticking slightly out of the corner of her mouth in concentration, she pondered that he would probably be the worst of all of them if circumstances warranted.
That was one of the many things she loved about her husband. Slipping her arm around his waist she smiled as he looked at her, then returned it, before both of them went back to observing Amy.
Vicky was nearly vibrating with impatience by this point. "Come on, come on..." she urged, leaning forward with her eyes wide. Amy looked up at her, stuck her tongue out which made Taylor and Emma both start laughing, and went even more slowly. The blonde after a moment sighed extravagantly and flopped backwards onto the floor, her arms out to the side. "You're so slow!" she complained to the ceiling. "Just rip it off!"
"It's pretty," Amy replied absently, finally removing the last of the tape and leaving the paper entirely undamaged. She unfolded it to reveal a polished wooden box, dark and shiny, with silver fittings and hinges.
Vicky raised her head and stared. "Oooh."
"It's beautiful, mom," Amy said after peering at the box for nearly thirty seconds. Taylor leaned in and hugged her, as did Emma on the other side.
"Open it," Annette suggested. Amy looked at her, then down at the box in her hands, before putting it on the carpet in front of her and carefully feeling the two latches, one at either end of the lid. She quickly worked out how to press them in with a click, then lifted as the lid folded back with a clever internal mechanism that made it accordion out of the way. Inside, there were a number of smaller compartments, the second-largest of these holding a dark metallic necklace in the form of a fine chain with a little pendant on it, this a small teardrop of opal that glittered with internal multicolored fire. Amy's eyes widened comically, as did Vicky's.
"Oh, wow," the blonde said, watching as Amy very gently picked up the chain and pulled it out of the box. The pendant swung around on the end, little flecks of fire in every color that existed coming and going. She simply stared at it in awe. Vicky sat up and leaned forward, her nose almost touching the thing, as she did the same.
"It goes on forever," she said in a wondering voice. Amy looked at her, then held the pendant near her own face, her eyes getting even wider.
"So pretty," her voice exclaimed softly as she peered into it.
"It's a traditional gift to girls in our family on their seventh birthdays, dear," Annette said, smiling at the reactions. "We've been giving them for… a very long time indeed. One day you'll probably give one very like it to your daughter. Or something a little different to your son."
Amy kept looking into the depths of the pendant for some seconds, then slowly lowered it, turning to her and Danny with a massive grin. "Thank you, mom."
"You're very welcome, dear." Annette got off the sofa and knelt next to the girls, gently taking the thing from her and holding it up. "My mother gave me mine many years ago and it's never left me since then," she continued, pulling the collar of her blouse down with one finger, and causing all four girls to peer at her. "Everywhere I go, it reminds me of where I came from and who my family is. And now you have one to do the same." She worked the small clasp on the dark chain with a fingernail. "Hold your hair out of the way," she said. Amy slipped her hands behind her neck and lifted her hair, then Annette put the necklace around it and refastened it, draping the chain down her daughter's chest.
Amy let go of her hair and looked down, smiling. "Touch it," Annette suggested.
The girl glanced at her, then held the small stone on the chain in her little fist. She looked surprised. "It's warm," she commented.
"Yes. It knows who owns it." Annette smiled. Amy lifted her hand and opened it, revealing the pendant, which seemed to be almost glowing.
It pulsed with light, making the older woman and her husband smile, and the girls all gasp, except Taylor who grinned widely.
"Wow," Vicky breathed, watching the pendant visibly glow brighter for a moment, the colors intensifying to the point that they made flecks of light on the walls, then dim back to merely a slightly sparkly stone.
"It likes her," Taylor exclaimed, looking very pleased.
"It does indeed," Annette replied, stroking Amy's hair. "It does indeed. I didn't doubt that." She looked at her husband who nodded silently to her.
"What's all this other stuff?" Vicky asked, examining the open box, while still casting impressed glances at the pendant which Amy was watching closely in case it did something else interesting. At the blonde's words, though, she looked at the box too, releasing the necklace to rest on her chest and leaning forwards.
"Some things that we thought might be useful, some things that are just for fun, and one very special item from my mother," Annette replied. She crossed her legs and made herself comfortable. "You're probably too young yet for this other jewelry, Amy," she said as she pointed out a pair of earrings and a ring that were in two of the smaller compartments. Both were apparently silver, with gold-copper highlights. The ring was in the form of a tiny dragon holding its tail in its mouth and it had minute golden chips of stone as eyes. Amy carefully picked it up and looked at it in amazement.
"That was a gift to the family from an old, old friend," Danny said quietly. "It's been with us for a very long time indeed. I thought it was appropriate that it went to you for… various reasons." The shorter of the two brunettes looked at him, then went back to admiring the ring. "One day it will fit, but that's not for a while yet," he added with a smile.
She nodded, then handed it to Taylor to examine. "Thanks, Dad."
"You're very welcome, dear. The earrings go with it, of course." She picked those out of the box and looked at them too. Each was of a similar theme to the ring, although somewhat more abstract. Held one way they were a couple of little dragons, another way and they were just an interestingly unusual shape that suggested movement even when there was none. Amy and the other girls all watched with amazement as she turned them in her fingers.
"Wow," Vicky said again, very softly and sounding mightily impressed.
"Definitely something you'll need to grow into," Annette said with amusement.
Her daughter nodded slowly, then almost reluctantly put them back. Emma, who had taken possession of the ring and had been feeling the surface with her fingers, handed it back. It also went into the place it had come from.
"Now, this is a very special thing indeed," Annette said after the girl turned to her again. She reached out and tapped the cover of the book in the largest compartment. Bound in leather, it had a gold leaf symbol of a pair of feathered wings, half unfolded, on the otherwise unmarked cover. It looked ancient but at the same time was pristine. "My mother sent this for you."
With a glance at her, Amy lifted the book out and opened it. Inside the cover an elegant copperplate hand written inscription read,
My dearest Amelia, I hope and expect that the knowledge you will learn from this gift will set you on a path to great things. May you have many, many happy years coming into your abilities and talents, with the knowledge that your family stands beside you always. Always remember that family comes first, honesty is important, and loyalty is its own reward. Show mercy to those who transgress against you without malice, but be merciless to those who would threaten you and yours. And enjoy life for it comes only once and we must make the most of it for as long as we can.
Your Grandmother Mallie.
Amy slowly read the inscription out loud, puzzling out the unfamiliar writing, her voice filling the silent living room. She stumbled a couple of times but made it through. When she finished, she looked at the inscription for a few seconds, then up at Annette. "I'm not sure I understand all of that, Mom."
"You will, Amy," Annette assured her, putting her arm around the girl and flipping the page. "I got something very like it when I was your age, and it took me a while too." Amy nodded, looking back at the diagram in the book with interest. Taylor leaned over from the other side, Emma got up on her knees and peered over her shoulder, and Vicky shuffled around from behind Annette to do the same. "That looks familiar," Emma commented, speaking for the first time in a while. She'd been content to listen and watch, as she'd quickly become very fond of Amy too and had helped Taylor get her through a number of nightmares when they'd had sleepovers.
"I showed you something like that at Christmas, remember, Ems?" Taylor said. "Grannie Mallie told me about it and said I'd learn more later."
"As you will in three weeks, Taylor, on your own birthday," Danny smiled.
"I don't think we need to wait that long, Danny," Annette commented with a small grin. She looked at the redhead and blonde. "In fact, I think we can probably extend some of the learning outside the immediate family, considering who's here."
He looked at them too, thought for a moment, then shrugged one shoulder. "If you think that's a good idea, dear."
"It may not be a good idea, but it's certainly a Hebert idea," she chuckled. He sighed faintly but also laughed under his breath.
"True enough. Although I have a feeling we may come to regret this in later years," he replied.
"Remembering your own childhood?" she teased.
He stuck his tongue out at her, making the girls all giggle. "You're one to speak. Mal's told me a few stories..."
"We don't talk about those," she said firmly.
"We do," he retorted.
"Hush, you," she laughed.
"What does this mean?" Amy asked curiously, running her fingers over the page.
"It's really cool," Taylor said.
"This is just the beginning of true learning, dear," Annette said softly, putting her own finger over the much smaller one of the girl as she ran it around the complex diagram on the page. "There's a long road ahead of you, but it's worth it, and I believe you can handle it well. Mal does too, or she wouldn't have given you this. She saw in you a spark that's all too rare. Taylor certainly has it, and she told me she's sure that Emma has it too. I believe that Vicky also does." Putting her free hand on the blonde's head, she smiled. "So I think we can have some cake, then I will show you some little tricks to begin with."
"Tricks?" Amy asked.
Annette smiled impishly at her, snapped her fingers, and giggled when Amy and Vicky gaped as the seven candles on the cake sitting on the sideboard popped into life.
"Tricks," she repeated, standing up gracefully and holding out her hand to help the young girl up.
Taylor was grinning like an idiot, and Emma seemed to be trying not to giggle out loud, both hands over her mouth.
Amy looked at the cake, then at the book, then at Vicky, before grinning manically and grabbing her mother's hand.
"I like tricks," she said happily.
"I have a feeling that this may get a little strange," Danny sighed, but he also stood up to move over to the table, pulling a long knife from somewhere to cut the cake.
Feeling that all was well with the world, Annette sat down with the children and sang along as he brought the cake over and put it in front of Amy, who blew hard. All the candles went out.
She snapped her fingers under the table, then smirked a little as Amy stared, before blowing hard again, a smile on her face.
Eventually they were eating cake and enjoying the rest of the presents.
All in all, it was a very good day.
"Don't forget to save some for Bob and the others," Taylor said urgently as Amy reached for a second piece of cake. Her sister nodded and gravely put several pieces carefully to the side, making Annette smile.
Yes, a very good day for everyone.
And the cake was superb.
