Page 30 of Installment Immortality

Like any good girl who’d been babysat by a ghost since she was born, she squealed and whipped around to hug my upper legs. I ruffled her hair with one hand.

“Did you get like a foot taller in the last six months?” I asked.

“She’s growing like it’s her job,” said Shelby. She was taller than most of the Healy women I’d known, which made sense, since she was a Tanner. As far as I knew, she had yet to marry into the family, although Charlotte was probably a lot more binding than a wedding ring. “You going to tell me how you’re here?”

“Not until we have everyone together,” I said. “I don’t really feel like going over the whole story eight more times.”

“You’d top out at four,” she said, amiably, and turned her attention to Elsie and Arthur. “Oi! You two look like hammered shit. What have you been doing?”

“Driving, mostly,” said Elsie. “We just got in from Portland.”

“And you drove?” Shelby raised an eyebrow. “That’s a bit of an undertaking. Someone trying to murder you?”

“No, but we’re on a job,” said Arthur, trying to sound professional and serene, and not like he was talking to someone he couldn’t remember ever meeting before. “Mary needed help dealing with a Covenant outpost in Boston.”

“That’s simplified,” I said quickly. “We’re looking into some Covenant ghost hunters operating somewhere between Boston and theotherPortland. We’ll have to find them before we can ‘deal with them.’”

“Hoping the ghosts they didn’t hunt yet will lend you a hand?” asked Shelby.

I nodded, finally letting go of Charlotte and straightening up. Charlotte responded by squeezing my leg like a boa constrictor trying to keep hold of dinner. “Hey, sweetie, can you let go before you cut off circulation?” I didn’t actually have circulation anymore, but encouraging her to hug me hard enough to hurt would only mean she’d have trouble hugging other people later in life. We learned that lesson with Kevin, the hard way. It took him years to stop hurting people when he was just trying to show affection.

Charlotte replied by shaking her head and burying it against my side, covering her face. I looked to Shelby. “Still not talking much, is she?”

“Not really. She and Isaac have everything they need without using their outside voices more than absolutely necessary, so why should they bother? We’ve been working on Lottie, trying to get her to understand that she’ll eventually want to talk to people outside the house, but we haven’t quite managed to get her there yet.” Shelby sighed, looking put-upon. “Since Isaac won’t be old enough for kindergarten until next fall, we’ve decided to hold her back and send them together. It’s not perfect, and it doesn’t helpto get her over her dependence on him, but it means they’re more likely to go without tantrums, and doesn’t leave us with a preadolescent telepath having a fit because we’ve taken his sister away.”

“Poor buddy,” I said.

Shelby rolled her eyes. “Poor all of us. You lot want to come inside? Alex is at the zoo, but he’ll be back in an hour or so.”

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but I would legitimately give you a kidney in exchange for the use of your shower,” said Elsie.

“Oh? Whose?” asked Shelby.

“Dealer’s choice,” said Elsie.

Shelby laughed and stepped to the side, letting the rest of us get to the door. Not that I could exactly walk with Charlotte still latched on to my leg the way she was. I looked mournfully down at her as Elsie and Arthur walked inside.

“Hey, kiddo,” I said. “I know I was gone a long while, and that wasn’t very fair of me. I didn’t mean to be gone for so long, I swear. And now that I’m back, I’m going to be doing my very best never to be gone that long again.”

Charlotte pulled her face away long enough to give me a mistrustful look.

“I’ll still have to go sometimes,” I said. “Olivia’s younger than you and Isaac are, and her mommy is expecting a new baby soon; she’s going to need my help. But I’ll still be here when you need me, and when your parents want to have a night out to themselves. I’m not going to go away the way I did before.”

Charlotte frowned, deeply. “Sixmonths,” she said.

For her, that was a speech. “Yes,” I agreed. “I was gone for six months, but I’m not going to be gone for six months again, and your cousins are here. Don’t you want to go in the house and see Arthur and Elsie while they’re visiting? I bet your mommy is a lot like their mommy, and brings out the specialest treats when there’s company, especiallyfamilycompany.”

“I’m six years old.”

I stopped to blink at her, trying to figure out why this was the message important enough to deliver out loud. “Yes, sweetie, you are.”

But Charlotte wasn’t finished: “You were gone one month forevery year.”

This was apparently the greatest offense the world had ever known. “I’m so sorry, and it won’t happen again,” I said. It wasn’t really a surprise that a child growing up surrounded by cuckoos would fixate on the numbers. Johrlac are the greatest mathematicians in all reality. Math comes as easily to them as breathing.

I crouched to put myself on eye level with Charlotte, and looked at her gravely. “I wasn’t gone six months because I wanted to be,” I said. “I didn’t have a choice. I got hurt in a special, bad way that only ghosts can be hurt, and it took six months for me to heal enough that I could come back to you. I’m not going to do the thing that hurt me again, so you don’t have to be afraid I’ll go away for so long.”

Charlotte seemed to consider this for a long, solemn moment. Then she nodded, blonde curls flying, and turned to run back into the house, presumably in search of either her mother or the special treats I had essentially promised her.

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