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Two thoughts occur to Hilda as she watches the door to Cerberus Books swing open.
One--keeping a low profile since having recently kidnapped a newborn, belonging to the High Priest no less, had obviously not extended to the mortal world and the town of Greendale.
And, two--Zelda must be dangerously bored or lonely or both if she had set foot into the bookshop.
None of those have ever boded well for Hilda.
Only her sister could have timed an arrival with such dramatic flair: a beam of sunlight cuts through a cloud just in time to backlight Zelda, setting her golden hair aflame. She’s dressed in typical Zelda-fashion which means she’s entirely overdressed for a small-town coffee shop in the middle of a weekday--and she’s pushing an antique pram to boot.
Hilda feels panic bubble in her chest. What if something has happened to Sabrina? Surely Zelda would have astral projected if there were an emergency.
She probably wouldn’t be slowly making her way to the counter, casting disdainful looks at the decor if there were an actual emergency.
At the counter, Zelda peers at Hilda over the rim of her sunglasses, arching an eyebrow before glancing down at the occupant of the pram and chuckling, “ I know.”
Hilda exhales the breath she’s been holding. She also refuses to entertain the notion that the infant, her ill-begotten niece, had criticized her costume, but she does unconsciously sweep her fingers up to tidy the wig she’s wearing.
“Zelda? What brings you in . . . here ?”
Zelda draws a brown paper bag from the depths of her stylishly over-sized bag and sits it primly on the linoleum counter between them.
“You forgot this.”
Hilda smiles, stares at the bag, and is genuinely perplexed.
“What is it?”
“Your lunch.”
“Oh? I didn’t make lunch. I’ve just been grabbing something here. Must’ve been Sabri--”
“I made you lunch,” Zelda snaps. “I,” she softens her tone and smiles, “ we brought it to you.”
Hilda snorts at the sheer absurdity, but soon covers her mouth with her fingers as Zelda’s lips pinch into a hard line.
“You cooked?” She can barely finish the question without laughing again. “For me?”
Zelda nods.
Surely, it’s a prank.
When she opens the bag, she’ll find an unpleasant offering from Vinegar Tom and then it will burst into spectacular flames as Zelda has a hardy laugh at her expense.
Or, there’s the far more likely option.
Hilda frowns. She truly thought Zelda had turned a corner after all that bad business with Sabrina and poor Tommy Kinkle.
Cold turkey had obviously proven impossible.
“Is it poisoned?” Hilda whispers, in deference to the scant few customers who’ve come in for coffee on a school day.
“You’re not the only one who can cook, Hilda Spellman. ”
Realizing that more than one head has turned in their direction, Zelda adds more quietly, “I’ve supped with the finest chefs on all seven continents.”
Hilda pokes a finger into the side of the bag and hears the crunch of plastic wrap.
“ Fine ,” Zelda hisses. “Eat it or don’t. I don’t care.”
Hilda knows that when her sister falls back on such childish retorts, she does care very much indeed.
“I’ll just put it away until my break then, shall I?” she offers, forcing a smile.
Zelda seems pacified and glances over her shoulder into the bookstore.
“I also thought I might pick up a new book to read to the baby.”
Hilda’s been gone all of two minutes--just long enough to put the “lunch” in her locker and out of harm’s way and to drop a coffee off at table 4, when she hears Dr. Cee’s voice coming from the stacks.
“They’re really voracious readers at that age, huh?” Awkward laughter. “You must be the Zelda I’ve heard so much about.”
She’d thought he was out running errands.
“And who is this little one?”
Hilda throws herself between her sister and her boss, propping her elbow on a shelf of Pre-Raphaelite poetry in an effort to look effortlessly casual.
“Zelda adopted a baby,” she blurts to Dr. Cee, a bit too loudly for the close quarters. “Quite unexpectedly,” she finishes under her breath and for her sister’s benefit.
“That’s--wow. That’s big. Congratulations.” He grins. “Hilda didn’t mention it.”
Hilda feels her cheeks flaming pink as two sets of eyes turn to her.
Then, Dr. Cee, sweet man, gives her the opening she’s looking for.
“What’s her name?”
“She doesn’t have one yet!” She’s all but pushing Zelda down the aisle as her explanation gets away from her. “And Zelda should probably be getting home now to think of one. Big decision. Best made in the comforts of one’s home. The home that is miles away from here.”
Once Zelda’s safely on the other side of the door--having neither hexed Dr. Cee nor made any scathing remarks about his polyester cape--she can finally take a breath. (Honestly, she’s going to lose consciousness before lunch at this rate).
“I’ll get Sabrina’s old books down from the attic tonight,” she offers. “Petunia might like Peter Rabbit too.”
The baby’s just starting to wake up and squint wide, dark eyes against the sunlight.
There’s time for a quick snuggle now that she’s awake, Hilda thinks, but Zelda adjusts the pram’s shade and pushes past her.
“That is not her name.”
caoscaoscaoscaoscaoscaoscaos
She’d called, “Hullo, I’m home,” and been met with dead silence so when Hilda walks into the kitchen later that night, she lets out a truly unbecoming yelp before she can stop herself.
She hadn’t expected anyone to be in there, much less Zelda standing at the sink.
“You gave me such a fright,” she laughs, hand on her chest to settle her racing heart.
“I heard.”
Zelda’s shirt-sleeves are rolled up to her elbows and her hair is pulled up into a bun at the base of her neck save for a few little fly-aways that make Hilda’s fingers itch.
“Doing the dishes too?” Hilda teases. “Call the Church of Night. They’re ice skating in the seventh circle.”
There’s no biting retort or even a smirk cast over her shoulder. Zelda just shifts her weight from one foot to the other and continues whatever she is doing.
A few steps closer and Hilda grins, brings her hand back to her chest again and is absolutely not going to get teary eyed. Nope . Not getting involved and most certainly not getting attached.
But when she’s standing hip-to-hip at the sink with Zelda, watching her sister carefully bathe the baby, she admits, “I have missed this bit.”
Zelda smiles softly but otherwise ignores her. She has one hand beneath the baby’s neck, supporting her head, while the other releases a cupped handful of water over the baby’s stomach.
“We’re all done,” Zelda says finally. She nods her head in the direction of a towel on the counter. “Does Auntie Hilda want to dry?” she sing-songs.
“Yes, please.”
Freshly dried and powdered, the baby girl is bundled in her arms and sleeping. Hilda plants a kiss to the soft whirl of dark hair atop the baby’s head and inhales.
“You smell absolutely scrummy, yes, you do.”
“She does, doesn’t she?”
Zelda holds out her arms and Hilda gives the baby back rather sooner than she would have liked.
“Goodnight, Hilda,” Zelda calls behind her as she leaves the room.
“Goodnight, Zelda.”
As an afterthought she adds, “Goodnight, Rosemary .”
She hears, “Not her name,” from the stairs.
Sitting down for a cup of tea--miracles may never cease; there was actually a kettle warming on the stove--Hilda notices her sister’s suit jacket draped over the back of her chair.
Zelda’s never been one to leave her things lying about, even as a child.
When she picks it up on her way to bed, intending to leave it on the banister outside Zelda’s room, her sister’s perfume wafts up around her--scrummy in an entirely different way.
She resists the urge to bring it up to her nose.
She’s working on being less pathetic, after all.
caoscaoscaoscaoscaoscaoscaos
Having a room of her own was not turning out to be all that Hilda had hoped. Truthfully the mattress still stank of moth balls and she was half convinced the wardrobe was haunted.
She might finally try a macchiato double cafe today just to stay awake.
She comes to a dead halt in her own kitchen for the second time within less than 24 hours.
She doesn’t scream this time, just gapes open-mouthed at her half-naked sister.
Lucifer knows no one has ever accused Zelda Spellman of being inhibited, but it’s not even 7 AM and her stocking clad legs are on full display.
“Oh, Hilda. Good.” Zelda turns her attention away from the skirt in her hands. “You’re finally up.”
“I am.” And, dressed too, she thinks.
Since there doesn’t seem to be a reasonable explanation forthcoming, she asks, “And what are you doing . . . exactly?”
“The hem’s come loose on my skirt.”
Zelda bites a thread between her teeth like there isn’t a perfectly good pair of kitchen shears in the drawer right behind her.
She shakes out the fabric then leans a hip against the counter.
She shimmies into the tailored skirt.
Thankfully, she turns her back to Hilda to smooth the fabric across her hips and misses the way Hilda bites down on her bottom lip.
No matter the reason, the laughter about to bubble out of Hilda is going to be inappropriate.
“Your eye’s more trained than mine. Does the hem look straight to you?”
“It’s fine,” she chokes out.
It wasn’t. Zelda was fairly useless at sewing.
”Well, I’m off.”
“You’re lunch is on the table.”
Right .
She needs to put a stop to this before Zelda sprains something.
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It’s early in the evening when she knocks on Zelda’s door but Zelda’s already in bed, propped against a velvet pillow like a queen, book in hand.
“We need to talk.”
Zelda carefully marks her place and deposits the book on the side table before answering--with a question: “Do we?”
“Yes.” And she needs to say this quickly or she will lose her nerve.
“Despite your frequent, hurtful , assertions to the contrary, I am not an idiot.”
Zelda quirks an eyebrow.
“Nor are you the domestic goddess you’ve been playing at this week. Stop this.”
“You came into my room just to insult me? And to make accusations?”
“ Zelda.”
Instead of staring Hilda down the way she’s prone to, Zelda’s eyes fix on her own hands, fingers balling into fists against the sheets.
“Bed that silly man. Burn through the whole town one by one if you must.”
Hilda wrinkles her nose at the thought.
“Run for mayor.” Zelda waves a hand into the air then seems to deflate. “I don’t care.”
“Zelda, you’re an idiot.”
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“Will you stay here tonight?”
Before she has time to decide whether she’s going to argue or agree, Zelda adds, “I’ll do that thing you like so much.”
“Really ?”
Zelda scoots closer to the far edge of her bed. She tosses the quilt back in invitation and pats her hand against the mattress.
“Come here, Hilda.”
Even though she greatly dislikes the phrasing, when her saucy romance novels describe a voice as quote dripping with sex end quote, this is the voice Hilda always hears.
She stumbles, as always, trying to kick off her bedroom slippers.
So much for setting boundaries and standing firm.
caoscaoscaoscaoscaoscaoscaos
“Zeld?”
Her sister’s only response is a non-committal hum.
It’s not that she minds being the little spoon.
Not with Zelda’s breath tickling across her earlobe and Zelda’s arm thrown across her waist, holding her tight; however . . .
“This isn’t the thing I thought you were talking about.”
That thing, she thinks, feeling her knees start to blush, had been admittedly messy--but Hilda had laundered all of the sheets herself the very next morning--though Zelda had carried on for the better part of a week about finding raspberry jam in every “nook and cranny.” (Finally, when Sabrina, bless her, had proudly announced over breakfast that she’d personally scrubbed every inch of the kitchen counters free of the wayward preserve, Zelda had choked on her morning cigarette and not mentioned it again.)
“Hilda ,” the voice at her ear scolds, sounding positively scandalized. “There’s a baby in the room for Satan’s sake.”
But she can feel the soft quake of her sister’s laughter against her back, the nudge of Zelda’s thighs curling closer against hers.
“Probably best.” She tugs Zelda’s hand into her own and tucks them both beneath her chin, settling down deeper into the pillow. “Wouldn’t want little Daffodil to hear the things that come out of your mouth when I--”
A smart kick to her shin cuts her off and sets off a fit of giggles.
Zelda’s arm is gone from around her waist as she props herself up on her elbow and starts to lecture down at her: “First, enough with the flowery names. And second, I believe you may be grossly overestimating your prowess.”
“That’s why you were stood in the kitchen in your knickers? Because of my grossly overestimated prowess ?”
The blush that starts at Zelda’s collar bones is Hilda’s personal favorite.
“Narcissism doesn’t suit you, sister.”
Hilda leans up to whisper against the shell of Zelda’s ear.
“You made me a sack lunch.”
Zelda shivers.
Hilda resists the urge to bite Zelda’s earlobe. She’s not starting something neither of them obviously plan to finish tonight.
Instead she enunciates each word with a finger into Zelda’s ribs: “A. Sack. Lunch.”
Zelda wriggles and shrieks.
Ticklish . Hilda’s secret weapon against her elder sister—though she had paid dearly for using it in the past, once even with her life.
But Zelda soon straddles her hips and holds her hands down at her sides.
Zelda’s face turns serious as she catches her breath.
“She’s not part of some plot.”
“I know.”
Zelda shakes her head so her hair falls down her back and out of her face—mostly.
“I just so happen to look particularly fetching holding a baby.”
“I know you do.”
Hilda reaches up and twirls a wayward strand of Zelda’s hair around her finger.
“I took a part-time job and the room across the hall. I haven’t left you.”
“I know.”
Hilda leans forward and kisses Zelda properly for the first time in ages, draws a familiar bottom lip between her teeth and leaves Zelda’s eyes fluttering closed--before reaching behind her and pulling the quilt up over both their heads.
Caoscaoscaoscaoscaoscaoscaos
“Zelda?”
“Yes?”
“What are you going to make me for lunch tomorrow?”
“It’s certainly not going to involve raspberry jam.”
“You made such a mess.”
“Me ?”
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“Zelds?”
“Yes, Hilda?”
“How about you just snog me until we fall asleep tonight and then you can visit me in my room tomorrow night after Poppy’s asleep?”
“That sounds . . . agreeable .”
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“Hilda?”
“Yeah?”
“Her name is not Poppy.”.