Archive of Our Own

By the time she returned from her meeting with her mother, the sun was already gone. Though she didn’t need any light on the path between the two buildings, she thought about suggesting that they add some, for Grace and Emily. She entered her home to find Emily setting the table while Grace finished cooking.

“Right on time,” Grace told her.

Bela discarded her heavy coat, hanging it on the hook, all too glad to be back in the perpetual warmth of the lodge. As she entered the kitchen, she ruffled Emily’s hair, then went to kiss Grace. The shorter blonde returned the kiss eagerly before turning her attention back to the pan of green beans in front of her.

“How did it go?” Grace asked her when they pulled away.

“Good. She’s agreed to hire a couple of helpers for the harvest, under my supervision. I took a walk around the fields and they have officially started to bud. We’ll need to be careful if the night gets too cold.”

“Are you sure you’re not a bud of grape?” Grace joked as she served the green beans on two plates.

“I’m a Cabernet Sauvignon aged in an oak barrel,” Bela told her, and Grace gave her a confused looked. Bela kissed her temple and said, “One of these days I’m going to sit you down and make you try every type of wine out there so you can finally understand my perfect metaphors.”

“Just say you want to get me drunk,” Grace chuckled.

Bela grabbed a wine glass from the cupboard while Grace pulled the chicken out of the oven, placing a piece on each plate. Unlike Daniela, who had made a hobby of devising all the ways she could incorporate the substitute into human food, Bela usually took hers in a glass of wine. Not the expensive collection she kept in her mother’s basement, just cheap wine that lost its taste with the powder anyway. Mostly it reminded her of Sanguis Virginis, with far less flavor.

Once she’d incorporated the powder into her glass, Bela joined Grace and Emily at the table. The girl was still wearing her school uniform. The problem with living upstate where their closest neighbor was a country club with an eighteen hole was that the nearest school was private. So, though Grace wasn’t too hot on it, Emily had been enrolled in September.

“How was school?” Grace asked.

Emily was shoving green beams in her mouth quickly, hunched over her plate, and Bela recognized her weary face. It happened more and more often when Emily came home from school. She supposed the girl must be tired after a full day of classes and a meeting of the school’s newspaper. Emily shrugged.

“It was okay,” she replied between two bites.

“Did you do anything cool?” Grace prompted, but the girl only replied with another shrug.

After taking a sip of water, Emily added:

“I need to ask you something. Mrs. Irwin said next week is orientation day, and they invite parents to talk about their job.”

Grace pursed her lips, took in a deep breath, and swallowed thickly, all signs that Bela recognized as her preparing to speak.

“I guess I could come and talk about working for the FBI, yeah…”

Emily pursed her lips than replied:

“Actually, I was hoping Bela would do it.”

Bela, surprised, looked between Grace and Emily.

“Y-Yeah, s-sure,” Grace replied. “I d-don’t see why not. Bela, d-do you…” she stopped and sighed. “D-Damn it…”

Bela placed a comforting hand on her back. Since winter had been so quiet, Grace had decided to start seeing a speech therapist. Bela had never minded her stammer, but Grace had wanted to, as she’d decided that this was one specialist she’d hold off on seeing for long enough. And while she’d made a lot of progress, her stammer tended to return when she was anxious or flustered.

“I’m sorry,” Emily told her.

“No,” Grace replied with a shake of the head. “T-this isn’t…” She inhaled. “It’s fine. I’m just s-surprised. But if you want Bela t-to do it, then…”

Both of their green eyes landed on Bela, who took a sip of wine to delay her answer.

“Making wine is cool, right?”

“I don’t know. Do you think it’s cool?”

“I think it’s cooler than working for the FBI. Sorry, Grace.”

“No, she’s right,” Grace replied, having somewhat calmed down from the shock. “Making wine is c-cool.”

Bela was still hesitant. Though Grace had given her contacts to Emily’s school in case of emergency, she’d never been there. She couldn’t attend the Christmas pageant because of the snow. Grace had dealt with everything school related, and for good reason. She was her mom.

“If you want me to, and if you’re fine with it, Grace, then sure.”

Grace smiled at her, and it seemed her surprised had passed, replaced by genuine joy. Bela supposed she was relieved to not have to speak publically in front of a classroom of third graders.

Since Bela technically didn’t have her driving license, Grace drove them to the school. Bela had asked Cassandra to buy Grace a new car, and her sister had picked a black BMW 5 series, which mingled fairly well with the other cars on the school’s parking lot.

“Have a good day, you two,” Grace told them as she parked by the curb.

“Thanks,” Emily said before opening the back door to get out.

Bela still took another second before she felt ready to get out. She’d dressed for the occasion in a black power suit. A brooch with the Dimitrescu rose was pinned on her lapel. Her hair flowed down her shoulders and she was wearing sunglasses.

“Nervous?” Grace teased her.

“They’re a bunch of nine-year-olds. I’ll be fine.”

Grace smiled knowingly, which only made Bela more nervous, though she would die before admitting that. They kissed, and Bela stepped out of the car.

Bela had never been to school, as far as she remembered. Everything she knew, be it about viticulture, etiquette, or music, her mother had taught her. From what Grace had explained to her, most schools were not like Emily’s. They were not housed inside a brick building that looked like a castle, or had a church in the backyard and a stained-glass window in the library. The architecture of the school was pleasing to Bela, and she decided that it had been a good choice, worthy of Emily.

While Bela had taken her time stepping out of the car, Emily had gone across the law to greet her friends. Bela had heard about Emily’s two friends, a girl and a boy – she tried not to judge him too harshly, it wasn’t his fault he was a boy. With grand, dramatic strides, Bela joined their little group, towering over Emily with a hand over her shoulder. As soon as she’d appeared behind the girl, her two friends looked up at her with awe. A man in a Yankees baseball cap stood behind the boy, and he at least had the decency to not ogle her when she stopped in front of him.

“This is Alfie and Jin, and Alfie’s dad,” Emily introduced to her.

“Wow,” Alfie whispered as he continued to stare up at her.

The boy was mostly eyes, magnified by his big and very thick glasses. The rest of him was a scrawny body, dwarfed by his uniform, and Bela wondered how he managed to balance such an enormous pair of glasses on his nose. The girl was the opposite, tall and with chubby cheeks. Her black hair was tied back in a ponytail and a row of multicolored hairclips made a rainbow headband on top of her head.

“This is my mother, Bela,” Emily introduced her next.

Bela smoothed her feature to hide her surprise. The only time anyone used ‘mother’ and her name in the same sentence was when her sisters teased her. To hear Emily say it warmed her dead heart, but she wasn’t about to let the man across from her know that. He reeked of the same kind of male perfume than the men who usually buy their wine, so she knew exactly how to deal with him when he held out a hand.

“Trevor,” he introduced himself. Bela gave him a firm handshake. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“Have you now?” she doubted.

“Oh yeah, from Grace. We met at the Christmas pageant. It’s nice to finally meet you too.”

He was friendly enough, she supposed. If it remained that way, he might stay on her good side.

Emily stiffened beneath her hand and Bela scanned the front of the school for the source of her discomfort. She saw it soon enough as she spotted three girls climbing up the stairs to the front door, followed by, she assumed, their mothers. Before she could ask her about it, the bell rang. The sound was so deafening that it triggered all the bugs in Bela’s body, and she had to grit her teeth to stay in human shape. Grace would kill her if she let so much as a fly escape on school grounds.

The three kids hopped up the stairs and Bela followed them.

The hallways didn’t feel like a place that welcomed children. They smelled like wood varnish and dust. The only decoration on the walls were dozens of black and white pictures of the previous generations. Bela grimaced when she saw that, for a great many years, only boys had been admitted. She lost sight of Emily as she and her friends entered one of the rooms. When she tried to follow her inside, she was stopped by a woman at the door.

“Hello, I don’t think we’ve met before. I’m Mrs. Irwin.”

Bela looked her up and down as she couldn’t place the woman. She had a short bob that did nothing for her face and she wore a long skirt and shirt. It took a second for Bela to remember where she’d heard the name before.

“Emily’s teacher, right. I’m Bela Dimitrescu her… mother.”

It felt so strange saying it out loud, like she was robbing Grace of something and her Iubire wasn’t even here to defend herself. However, it was enough to placate the teacher, who gave her a polite smile.

“Of course. Emily was very excited when she registered you for today. Here.”

She handed Bela a purple felt pen and a piece of paper. Most of it was blanked, but ‘Hello, my name is’ was printed at the top. Bela stared at the items with absolutely no idea what she was supposed to do with them. A minute later, Trevor arrived behind her.

“Good morning, Mr. Dotson,” the teacher greeted him, and Bela figured they must be familiar with one another.

“How many future pilots do you think you have in your class?” he joked as he took the green pen and piece of paper she handed to him.

“Well, as you know, it’s school policy that the kids are capable of everything they set their minds to.”

Bela rolled her eyes behind her sunglasses. Trevor leaned against the wall to write on his paper, then he removed the back, and stuck it to his shirt’s breast pocket. Hello, my name is Trevor, it now read. As soon as Bela understood what she was supposed to do with the tag and pen in her hands, she thought about refusing. This was beneath her, a most childish display, and if anyone in her family heard she’d ever considered doing it, they would make fun of her for the next century. She sighed, then scribbled her name on the tag and stuck it to her black leather jacket.

Bela slithered in the room like a cold wind. Eighteen desks sat in neat rows in the center of the room, across from an antique blackboard. Old motivational posters hung on the walls, and the windows overlooked the running tracks. Emily sat near the middle, and when she saw Bela enter, she smiled at her. Bela returned a smaller one, constricted by a strange pressure in her chest. Was that anxiety? Was that what Grace felt all the time? How could she stand it?

Emily’s smile disappeared when the girl beside her nudged her. Bela realized it was one of the girls whose presence had made Emily nervous, earlier. Light chestnut hair loose down her back and a most banal face, Bela wasn’t sure she would have been able to pick her out of a line-up of a dozen brown-haired girls. She strained her ear to hear what the girl was saying to Emily when a hand touched her arm.

Bela glared at the person who had dared to touch her. It was a ‘blonde’ woman – perhaps the result of the worst hair dye she’d ever seen. Bela didn’t know that a human nose could look like that until she remembered something Grace had told, back in September, when Emily had started school. There must have been a discount on nose jobs, and all the moms at the school ran for it.

“Excuse me, but you have the most flawless skin I’ve ever seen,” the woman told her.

Bela didn’t think it was a compliment, especially with the layer of foundation Grace had had to apply to cover her forehead tattoo. Apparently, even though it was a rose, forehead tattoos weren’t an acceptable thing to show around the school. She ignored the woman, her attention shifting to Emily and that brown-haired girl again. Emily was frowning, clearly bothered, and Bela wanted to intervene, but that stupid woman wouldn’t leave her alone.

“I know a thing or two about skincare, I have my own brand. All natural. You wouldn’t happen to be using it, would you? Perle?”

Grace had asked her to keep the sunglasses on too, because her eyes were too yellow to not upset someone. However, Bela wanted this woman off her back. She lowered the glasses to give her a judging look. Her tag said Sharron. When her gaze returned to the woman’s face, Sharron looked a little shaken. Bela smirked.

“I don’t have a skincare routine.”

She pushed her sunglasses back on, hoping the woman would finally leave her alone, but she kept insisting.

Forgive me, Grace, she thought, but this woman would be dead within the hour.

“It used to be the blood of the innocent, but my girlfriend made me cut back.”

Sharron’s eyes widened and Bela reveled in the reaction. Before she could look back at Emily, however, Mrs. Irwin closed the classroom door and all the kids stopped talking to focus on their teachers.

Bela had to consistently remind herself that she was doing this for Emily, otherwise, she would have flown away a long time ago. Every parent had the most boring, insipid job. They owned companies, resorts, invested money in tech start-ups. Perhaps it was for the best that Grace wasn’t participating, or her actual job would have confused the kids into thinking they could do something with their lives.

Instead of listening to the parents brag about their ‘careers’ Bela kept an eye on Emily. For the most part, she was quiet, and doing what Bela wasn’t. She kept her arms crossed over the desk while she listened. But during the two minutes of chaos between parents moving about the room, the brunette beside her gave her little pieces of paper and whispered things to her that Bela could never make out. Emily, to her credit, was doing her best to ignore her.

The first half of the presentations ended with Sharron, who had so heroically left her father’s company to create her own skin care brand, and she distributed samples to the kids to give to their mothers. Bela rolled her eyes. She could have brought samples too. She was certain third graders would enjoy the refined taste of a Frontenac. Once she was done, Mrs. Irwin stood from her desk chair and explained:

“We’ll take a little break and start again after recess. Parents, we have refreshments for you in the gymnasium.”

While all the kids stood and exited the classroom, Bela noticed that Emily and her friends lingered back, whispering to each other. As much as Bela would like to take her aside and ask her what was going on, Mrs. Irwin was pushing all the kids away from their parents.

“Emily,” she called anyway.

The girl stopped, and Bela knelt in front of her to straighten the collar of her shirt. In doing so, she deposited one of the flies under the fold, out of sight. She’d done the same thing on Grace when they’d met, so she could tail her.

Bela gave her a nod and Emily walked to join her friends. Bela stood, watching her shrink down the hallway. Then, reluctantly, she made her way to the gymnasium.

She would have loved to be left alone so she could focus on the little piece of her spying on Emily, but unfortunately all the parents gathered in little groups to talk. Trevor found her again, a glass of coffee in one hand and a pastry in the other.

“There’s plenty of everything,” he told her between two bites.

“I’m not interested,” she replied.

“Not even a coffee? Damn, you might just be the first adult I’ve ever met who isn’t fueled by coffee. What’s your poison?”

“Blood, mostly.”

He laughed.

“Very funny. I don’t know what I wouldn’t do without coffee. I’m a helicopter pilot, see. There was this time…”

Bela completely tuned him out while he launched into what was probably a riveting story. All her focus was on that little fly tugged under the collar of Emily. She couldn’t see anything, but she could hear Emily, Alfie, and Jin talk about Jin’s cat. Bela crossed her arms. Maybe she’d been worried over nothing. She didn’t know anything about kids. If there really was trouble at school, Emily would have told Grace.

She was about to leave the kids alone when she heard a new squeaky voice interrupting their conversation:

“So is your entire family just a bunch of freaks?”

Bela frowned and crept the fly as close to the edge of Emily’s collar, so she could see. She caught a glimpse of three girls facing Emily and her friends. In the middle of the trio was the brunette from earlier.

“What do you mean?” Emily replied.

“You’re such a freak,” the brunette insisted. “I mean, I already knew your mom looked weird but the other one is so spooky.”

“What are you talking about, Erica?” Jin replied. “She’s so pretty, she’s like a top model.”

“Of course you have such terrible beauty standards, Porky,” Erica sneered back.

“Or what are you going to do?”

Enraged, Bela crawled even closer until she had a better view of the interaction. Emily and her friends were standing their ground against the mocking trio, and she was very proud of her for that, but Bela felt bloodlust tight in her throat. She’d never eaten children before, but if not now, when?

She must have crept too close, as Erica noticed the fly on her shirt and shrieked.

“Ew. You’re so gross you attract flies. I don’t want to be anywhere near you.”

She and her friends turned away, leaving Emily thankfully alone. Bela tried to return behind her collar, but when Jin swatted her away, she flew off.

“Don't,” Emily stopped her. “She’s the stupid one for being afraid of a fly.”

The morning had been so long that when Mrs. Irwin called Bela up to do her presentation, Bela had almost forgotten what she was supposed to talk about. It took everything she had in her not to pounce on Erica and kill the little bitch. She thought about Grace. Do not do anything that would get Emily kicked out of the school, or get Grace in trouble with the BSAA. So she just explained, to the best of her ability, how to run a vineyard and how wine was made. Once she was done, none of the kids had questions, and she returned sulking in her corner.

What the hell could she do about Erica and her little gang? Should she tell Grace? She probably should, but then, why hadn’t Emily told her anything? She decided to confront the girl about it first.

The final presentation was given right before lunch, and Mrs. Irwin sent the kids to the cafeteria. However, before Emily had left the room, Bela stopped her.

“Hey, Iepuraș. How about we get lunch together?”

Though Emily nodded, her teacher, who’d overheard, replied:

“You’re supposed to clear that with the front office ahead of time.”

“Oh, come on,” Bela replied, playing up her charm like she was dealing with a client. “Since I’m here. Emily will be back on time, you have my word.”

Mrs. Irwin sighed like she was all too used to the whims of the parents, then nodded. With a satisfied smile, Bela took Emily’s hand in hers and led her out of the school. They walked down the street in silence, and Bela could tell that Emily was anxious, because she had the same tell as Grace, shifty eyes and an elevated heartrate. The first restaurant they came across was a seafood place, and after analyzing the menu for a moment, Emily agreed to eat there.

Inside, the smell sea food was overpowering, and Bela knew she was going to need a shower when she returned home. They sat in old leather booths by the window. Only half of the restaurant was busy, though Bela supposed it was because it was the middle of the week. When their waitress came by, Emily ordered a hot dog with a side of mac n cheese. Bela would have paid for a full lobster if that’s what the girl wanted, but then again, she was nine.

“Alright, spill,” Bela told her once the waitress had gone.

“About what?”

Bela gave her a look of disbelief. Sometimes, Emily looked so much like Grace it was hard to confront her about anything, but Bela wasn’t about to let this one slide.

“Recess. Erica.”

Emily rolled her eyes.

“How long has this been going on?”

“Always. She was being mean to Alfie and Jin before, so when I became friends with them, she started being mean to me too.”

“Why didn’t you tell Grace about this?”

Emily shrugged.

“The adults all know Erica is being mean to everyone and they’ve never done anything about it. There’s nothing Grace could do. But you could do something.”

Bela was stunned. Meanwhile, Emily grabbed one of the straws beside the napkin rack and unwrapped it to dunk it in her glass of water.

“Is that why you asked me to do this parent job thing?”

Emily sipped on her water with a shrug. When she released the straw, she said:

“I figured I could kill two birds with one stone.”

Bela wasn’t sure whether this was her own influence on the girl, or she’d really been spending too much time around Cassandra. She had to admire her ingenuity, though.

“We can’t hurt her,” Bela replied, as much as she would love to. “You know Grace would kill me if I did anything to disrupt our deal with the BSAA, and she would kill me a second time if I got you kicked out of school.”

“Maybe not hurt her, but we could scare her, right?”

Emily sounded so enthusiastic at the idea that Bela felt a little proud. However, that little voice in her head that sounded like Grace kept telling her that she couldn’t indulge their worst impulses.

“I’m sorry, Iepuraș. I’m going to have to say no.”

Emily pouted, and she looked so much like a kicked puppy that Bela almost caved. However, with a shake of the head, she insisted.

“No. We are not doing that. Grace would be really mad.”

“You know, Erica and her mom have been super mean to Grace too.”

Bela frowned.

“Who is her mom?”

“Sharron. She made fun of Grace’s stammer at the Christmas Pageant. And Erica has been calling her a whole bunch of names. She called us ‘albinos’ and I didn’t know what it was, so I had to look it up, and she’s wrong, but when I tried to tell her that she was wrong, she didn’t care. And she keeps saying that I won’t be at the school for much longer anyway, because once you break up with Grace, then we’ll go back to being poor. She keeps calling her a GD.”

Bela was fuming. Wrath burned in her chest like she’d rarely felt.

“What’s a GD?” she asked between her teeth, afraid of the answer.

Emily leaned in close, all conspiratorial, and whispered it like she was saying the worst insult:

“A gold digger.”

Bela could not let this stand.

“I assume you have a plan?”

Emily looked hesitant.

“I have ideas, but I don’t want to get into trouble. Do you have an idea?”

Bela pondered their predicament while the waitress returned with Emily’s plate, then made a couple more trips to bring her various condiments. They would need a third party to scare Erica and her friends, someone who could sneak into the school undetected. Someone who would most definitely be on board with their plan.

Emily was halfway through her hot-dog when Bela told her:

“I have a plan, and I think you’re going to love it.”

A week later, once their plan went without a hitch, Bela knew she was in deep trouble. She’d spend most of the day keeping Donna company, and when Angie had sauntered into the basement, she’d warned Bela that her woman was pissed. The quiet chilliness of their home when she entered only confirmed the sentiment.

She found Grace on the couch, arms crossed and a displeased expression on her face. Bela didn’t try to avoid her or pretend that nothing had happened. There was no point when the house was so small. If she’d truly wanted to avoid her, she would have stayed at her mother’s. Instead, she sat on the other side of the couch.

“W-What were you thinking?” Grace asked finally. She sounded less angry than Bela would have expected and more worried. “I-I was so panicked when the s-school called me. I-I thought something b-bad had happened. A-And then I get th-there and I learned that Emily w-was being bullied.” Grace sighed and Bela tried to reached for her hand, to comfort her, but Grace didn’t let her. “What… What did you d-do?”

“Didn’t Emily tell you?”

“I-I want to hear it from you.”

Bela shifted against the couch so she faced Grace, who continued to obstinately not look at her.

“Emily convinced me that the only way those girls were going to stop was if we forced them to. She said the school hadn’t done anything so far, so I figured it was our duty to do it. When she told me her teacher wanted them to do a presentation on a job of their choice, I figured it was the perfect opportunity. So, we went to Angie…

Angie had been waiting for them in a giant armchair that made her look even smaller than usual.

“So, you’ve exhausted all your options, and you’ve decided to come crawling to the best,” the doll said, making Bela roll her eyes. “What do you want me to do to these missies? Scalp them? Bite off their noses? Tear off their fingernails?”

“You can’t hurt them,” Emily replied.

“Just scare them will be enough,” Bela explained.

She shuffled off of a folded piece of paper and threw it toward Bela. It landed short, and she had to bend down to pick it up. Unfolding it, she saw it was a printed page from the Internet, on that website that Daniela liked to use to shop. The listing was for a toy horse.

“You want a horse?” Bela asked, confused.

“A real horse?” Emily exclaimed as she looked over the piece of paper.

“Not a real horse. I want this horse. It’s the perfect size for me. I’m gonna set it beside my throne here, see, so I can jump between the two.”

Bela decided not to negotiate on this one. She’d just ask Daniela to buy it for her.

“It’s a deal.”

“Hold on. How to you supposed you’re going to protect me?”

Bela frowned.

“Protect you? You’re very much capable of protecting yourself.”

“I’m a doll, blondie. What if they smash me to pieces?”

“Then you don’t let them.”

Angie kept staring at her with those round, unblinking eyes, and Bela caved.

“Fine… I guess I can leave you with a couple of flies. But I can’t bite them. Best I can do is distract them.”

“Emily cleared it with her teacher, who allowed her to bring Angie for her presentation. I snuck a couple of flies in Emily’s bag this morning while you weren’t looking. To Angie’s credit, she managed to play the doll all morning long. And Emily’s presentation on doll making went really well. And, to be fair, our plan wouldn’t have worked if those brats had left Emily’s stuff alone. But during lunch break, when she left Angie in the classroom, Erica and her friends returned to steal her...

Bela followed the girls through the hallway, four little flies that kept pace with the bullies. Emily had told her that they liked to steal and destroy people’s stuffs, and they usually congregated in the bathroom to do so. Indeed, they entered one of the empty girl’s bathrooms, and Bela snuck under the door.

“It’s so ugly,” Erica’s blonde friend said as she surveyed the doll.

“It’s freaky,” her redhead friend confirmed.

She yanked the doll from her friends’ hands and looked it over.

“We should find a hammer and smash it to pieces.” She grabbed both arms and pulled on them, as if to break them off, however, they didn’t budge. “Stupid doll. Let’s just flush it down the toilet, see if the freak will dive into the sewers to get her back.”

She opened one of the stalls, and both of her friends huddled on either side of her as she hovered the doll over the bowl.

“Is it really gonna flush?” the blonde asked. “It looks too big.”

“Who cares?”

“I do,” Angie’s voice replied.

The three girls jumped.

“Who said that?” Erica asked.

“It’s your conscious. I know we never speak.”

The girls were already frightened, looking over and under the stall to find the provenance of the voice, however, they were definitely alone in the bathroom.

“Emily?” Erica called. “You think you can prank us? You’re going to have to do better than that.”

She let go of the doll, except it didn’t fall in the bowl. Instead, it had wrapped its arms and legs around her arm. Wide eyes, Erica shook her arm to get rid of it, to no avail.

“Help me,” she ordered, and her voice already had an edge of panic.

Her friends grabbed onto Angie but neither of them could remove the vice grip that the doll had on her. Angie cackled, and her friends jumped back. Her head pivoted backward until she was looking at Erica.

“This is not a prank,” she chortled. “This is retribution.”

The three girls screamed so loudly that they rivaled the school bell. They pushed each other to get out of the stall while Erica shook her arm harder and harder, incapable of getting rid of the doll. Angie started crawling toward her shoulder, laughing all the while. When the three girls made it to the bathroom door, the redhead yanked the door a little too hard, knocking it into Erica’s face. She slammed down onto the ground, crying while her friends deserted her. She was still rolling in pain on the ground when Angie came to sit on her chest.

Erica shrieked, pushed the doll off her, and ran out of the bathroom.

When a teacher came to check on the bathroom, a couple of minutes later, all he found was a wooden doll limp on the floor.

Grace did not look as satisfied by Bela’s story as Bela felt. As she waited for Grace’s reaction, Bela pursed her lips. Finally, Grace sighed.

“A-And of course, Emily was outside, w-with her friends, playing, so i-it couldn’t be her.”

“Is she in trouble?” Bela asked with a frown.

“N-Not with the s-school, but she’s most definitely in trouble.”

“Please don’t be too hard on her. Erica has been bullying her friends for years, she just wanted to stop her because the teachers did nothing.”

Grace sighed again. When Bela reached to take her hand, this time, she let her.

“H-How did I not… I s-should have noticed t-that she was being bullied.”

“She didn’t want you to know. How were you supposed to know? You’re not the one who can turn into flies to spy on her.”

“No m-more spying, or messing with her c-classmates.”

“I promise.” Bela clenched her hand. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be a bad influence on her.”

Grace shook her head and met her eyes.

“I d-don’t agree with what you two d-did, but… I-It was really nice t-that you tried to help her. I w-wouldn’t have had any idea on w-what to do. I… I got bullied a lot w-when I was a kid.”

Bela scooted closer so she could wrap one arm around Grace. The shorter woman let herself be drawn in the hug.

“What did you do?”

“M-My mom told me to ignore them. That they were j-jealous, that’s why they w-were being mean to me. And anyway, w-we moved so often. I n-never stayed in the same school for more than a semester.”

Grace sank deeper in her embrace and Bela felt a little thrill. Everything about Grace electrified her: her warmth, her smell, her heartbeat, the softness of her skin and the taste of her lips. Bela liked to curl against her. As she soaked up her closeness, however, she heard faint footsteps in the staircase. She pulled away to motion to Grace who understood her right away.

“Emily? Can you come here?”

Emily dragged her feet as she entered the living room and came to stand in front of them. She had changed out of her uniform and had let her long hair out of its ponytail. It was longer than Bela’s now, still that silvery color, and she brushed it back in a nervous gesture that was completely Grace’s.

“It’s not Bela’s fault,” Emily told them. “It was my idea.”

Grace shook her head.

“It was both of your faults. Never again, do you hear me? I-I don’t want to hear that you brought a bioweapon to school ever again.”

Emily nodded.

“Next time someone is mean to you, just tell me?”

“But I didn’t want you to worry.”

“That’s what parents do. We worry. You know you can tell us anything, right?”

Emily nodded again, and Bela swallowed thickly. Was Grace including her? Was she Emily’s parent? If anything, this whole prank should have shown Grace that she was completely unqualified to be a parent. Both Emily and Grace were looking at her and she hoped she didn’t look too disconcerted.

“No more vendettas, deal?” Bela added, and Emily shook her hand in agreement.

“For your punishment…” Grace started, then fell silent. Both Emily and Bela waited for her to continue, but the silence stretched on. “No… No more…” she muttered a couple of times. Finally, she sighed. “Just don’t do it again.”

Emily smiled and launched herself to hug Grace, who looked like she was trying very hard to be angry, but she was failing completely. After a couple of seconds, Emily pulled out of the hug and returned upstairs. Bela tried not to laugh, but a couple of chuckles still made it past her lips, and Grace glared her at.

“Do you have a better idea?”

“Mother’s favorite punishment was to make us clean the basement, but we don’t have a basement, so…”

Grace sighed and sulked deeper into the couch.

Bela leaned to place a kiss on her cheek then whispered:

“And what is going to be my punishment?”

Grace’s heart skipped a beat and her face turned carnation red. Bela loved eliciting this reaction from her.

“I-I’ll think about it…”