Page 120 of The Eighth Isle

For now, I was just going to have breakfast with Grey and Mama Si—andbreathe.

We foundher sitting alone in one of the rooms around the Paradise that was half open. We were far from the heart-shaped pool, though, so we didn’t see any of the girls—or any guests, for that matter. Come to think of it, I was half-sure that this room didn’t exist at all in the time I lived here because there had been no open space behind the orchards where Mama Si and Assa had first taken me to talk that day.

A housekeeping position was what I’d been after then. God, it was almost funny to me now how drastically my life had changed, and in just a few months. All because of that womanwho sat at the head of the table with a big smile on her face, and not a hair out of place.

Mama Si looked as impeccable as ever, with a pale mauve dress and those tight curls framing her unearthly face. She was indeed beautiful, and it seemed the better my eyesight, the more of her I saw, the more beautiful she became.Agelesssomehow. So young, but old—and it was all in the colors of her eyes and the expression in them.

“Welcome,” she said, standing up from the table to greet us. “I take it you slept well?”

“Thank you,” I said, looking around at the unfamiliar faces of the help, two women I was sure I had never seen before wearing baby blue dresses and fake smiles as they looked downward. At one point back then I’d gotten so used to the help being around me all the time that I had begun not to notice them at all, but now I did.

Now I was aware of how they moved as soon as Grey held my chair for me to sit, how they came on either side of me, one pouring me a glass of orange juice, the other a cup of coffee.

“Thank you,” I repeated when they moved onto Grey and did the same. Grey didn’t really pay them any attention—he was focused on Mama Si.

“Tell me, Fall Doll, how do you feel? I don’t imagine you’ve felt him kicking yet,” she said, eyes wide and curious, and it took all I had not to flinch.

“I’m barely a couple of months in,” I muttered, feeling awkward as fuck, and I could have sworn Grey was stifling a smile as he turned his head the other way and brought his cup to his lips.

“So that’s a no?” said Mama Si again. “That meansno, right?”

I don’t know why that was so fucking funny, but I was stifling my own smile now, too. “Yep—that means no. He doesn’t really have legs to kick with yet. It’s too early.”

She flinched. Mama Si actually flinched as she ate her food slowly.

“How many more months until he’s out?”

Out—what an awful way to put it! I was going to tell her that, but then the look on her face.

God, I never thought Mama Si could look so…solostand excited and confused and impatient at the same time. She really didn’t mean it in a bad way, so all I said was, “Probably about seven.”

“But that’s too long,” she told me. “We might only have days or weeks to live—seven months is too long.”

There went my stomach, twisting and turning as I drank my juice, and the help then put a big plate in front of me—my breakfast. Claus had made me waffles with a million berries and lots and lots of melted chocolate on top.

My mouth watered despite the situation. Fuck, it smelled so good.

“So, how do you suggest we make our son grow faster then?” Grey said, and it was a miracle I didn’t burst out laughing—he kept a neutral expression and his voice serious, too. “Maybe a succubi spell?”

“No, there’s no such thing that I know of,” Mama Si said, and I really didn’t think she could tell he was messing with her.

“Really? No way possible?”

I kicked Grey on the leg—he was in an awfully good mood this morning.

“That’s not possible, no. And I wouldn’t do it even if it were,” I said and threw Grey a look he pretended he didn’t see as he hid his smile behind his cup again. I turned to Mama Si. “Thank you for breakfast. It’s de?—”

“Oh, please,” she cut me off with a wave. “Don’t thank me. This is basically your home.” And she tapped her fingers furiously on the tabletop.

“Itreallyisn’t.” This had been my first real prison, even if I hadn’t known it at the time.

Again, Mama Si waved me off like I was talking nonsense. “But the baby. I want to see him. Ihaveto meet him—there has to be a way.”

I blinked and blinked and the look on her face didn’t change at all. She really was serious, and she looked properly distressed about the fact—not that the end was coming, but that she might not meet the baby.

I looked around at the help and the walls and even the sky outside—was there a hidden camera somewhere? Because this was not the Mama Si I knew. Was she pretending again, was that it?

“Maybe if the end of the world doesn’t happen, Fall might allow you to come visit when she gives birth,” Grey then said, and again—he was still teasing her, and I couldn’t even figure out why. Or where he got the energy.

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