Chapter 13

"I thought I was dreaming. I could hear voices – like they were in my head. I opened my eyes, but I couldn't see anything. But in my mind, I 'saw' these two girls walking through the ruins of the city, like they were just walking down to the corner market or something. At first, I thought they were ghosts, more of the hundreds of people that floated through my mind while I laid there, trapped in that foot-wide airspace. Then I recognized Aunt Katie.

"Anyway, she and her friend turned away, so I yelled at her. And here I am!"

Jake Hedron finished explaining to his mother. Alicia, still stunned by her son's miraculous rescue, looked around the cabin. Most of the kitchen chairs were now in the living room to accommodate everyone who was here.

Alicia's entire original family was all in one place for the first time in about forty years. Jake was here. She recognized Béla from the pictures she had seen when she was growing up. It was strange, thinking of the original Vampire Girl carrying Jake's child, as well.

That was the only secret that was visible in the room, but she could feel many more. She could feel something special about Jake's child. She could feel something special about the way Katie and Béla stayed close together. It didn't appear to be sexual; it was more ... defensive. The most amusing was that her mom and dad kept looking at each other like they were teen-age lovers, unable to get away...

Jake and Frank Junior were talking to each other about something. Her dad had gone out into the kitchen to fix something to eat. In her brother's conversation with her old lover, Jake, the word Praetor kept coming up. Alicia wondered what it meant.

"Hello, Alicia," Béla was suddenly standing next to her. "I'm glad to finally meet you! If you want, I can show you someplace where you can stretch out and relax after your long trip."

Alicia followed Béla upstairs to the spare bedroom; two women, both carrying Jake's child. 'Are you sure that's only four months? It looks more like six or seven, but you're pretty small... '

"Your folks are sleeping on the couch downstairs. Your brother and sister have been staying in here, but I'm sure you guys can work out who gets the second bed and who has to share. The water ... bathroom's right there. If this one's busy, the other one's right around the corner."

"Thanks," Alicia said. She looked at Béla for a moment, wondering what to say to an icon – a legend that she grew up learning about.

"So, um, is this your first baby?" Alicia asked. 'Boy, that sounds lame! Of course it is! She's been dead decades and has only just now come back!'

Béla smiled, easily seeing Alicia's anxiety, correctly recognizing it as travel lag mixed with the happy but unnerving discovery that her son was alive after all. 'Humans don't like surprises – no matter what the surprise is. No matter how happy it makes them, the surprise itself upsets them. How odd.'

"This is the first child I'll have carried to term," Béla answered truthfully. "I'll have Jake bring your bag up." She turned away and went back downstairs, not really wanting to be friends with someone who obviously considered her a rival for her own husband's affections.

'Wow!' Alicia thought to herself. 'Touchy subject ... Does she suspect that it's Jake's child that I'm carrying, and not my husband's?'

Her brother Frank suddenly appeared in the doorway. "Your bag, madam," he teased, formally bowing and dropping her suitcase on the second bed. "You and the Bug can have the beds – I'll sleep wherever I can find a corner to curl up in."

Alicia got up and hugged her brother. They'd hugged when she first arrived, but then, she'd been much more interested in why she'd been misinformed regarding her son's death.

"Long trip?" Frank asked.

Alicia nodded.

"Well, you can go ahead and relax and sleep for a while if you want," her brother said. "Jake's stashed enough supplies to feed him and Béla for at least a year. Should last us a couple weeks, anyway."

Alicia laughed at her brother's little joke, remembering only too well how much a family of five immortals could eat in a week – there were seven here, and both she and Béla were eating for two. 'And there are only three beds and a couch... '

Alicia left two days later. She would have gone sooner, but that was as soon as her husband's limo could return for her. She actually enjoyed visiting her relatives one at a time, but the entire bunch packed under one roof was more stressful than she cared to admit, especially since she'd awakened with morning sickness every morning since she got here.

Over the last sixty-two years, she'd borne eleven children and had never (that she remembered) gotten as sick as she was now. After she found herself sniping at her siblings over who wanted what last biscuit that she couldn't even eat, she spent most of her time in the spare bedroom conducting her affairs from the portable console there.