Darius didn’t come home until late. I had been listening for him, but he must have come in the backdoor. When I heard his footsteps moving through the hallway, I left the children in the TV room and went to find him. He had already disappeared from the front hall by the time I got there, but I heard the soft murmur of voices coming from the sitting room.

As I got closer, I could tell it was Darius and Iset. I knocked on the side of the doorway because I wanted them to know I was there, but I also tucked my hand in my sleeve to muffle the sound because I’m a big coward.

Iset looked up. “You can come in, Emerra.”

I came in a few steps.

Darius was slumped on the couch with a hand over his forehead to keep some of the dim light out of his eyes. He usually only looked that weary around noon.

He tried to smile when he saw me. “Aren’t you supposed to be watching your Japanese cartoons about now?”

I had long ago stopped trying to correct him about the whole anime-verses-cartoons thing. Considering how quick he was to pick up on most things, I was pretty sure he was doing it to tease me.

“Usually,” I said, “but the kids do better with Pingu and Shaun the Sheep.”

Darius’s forced smile morphed into a real one. “I can’t imagine Conrad watching a kids’ show.”

“He usually doesn’t,” I mumbled.

I felt bad about that. I knew I was basically driving Conrad away, so I tried to use the TV room only every other night. By rights, tonight should have been his night, but it had been a long day.

“Is everything okay?” I asked.

“No one’s dead who isn’t supposed to be,” Darius said. “Is that what you mean?”

“You went into town, didn’t you?”

The count moved his hand away from his forehead to look at me.

I stuttered out, “After what Mrs. Park said—didn’t you go to check it out? Was there…was something wrong?”

“I talked to the deputy. She said it was a bear.”

“Do you think it was a bear?”

“I don’t know what to think. I’ve never seen anything like it. On the other hand, I’ve never seen a bear eat its way through a butcher department either.” He turned his head. “Iset?”

“This is black bear territory. It would be rare for one to go into town, but if it’s preparing to hibernate…” She shrugged.

“Didn’t it leave tracks or something?” I asked.

“Smears,” Darius said. “No good tracks.”

“Then what makes her think it was a bear?”

“As far as I can tell, she was desperate for an explanation.”

“Oh.”

I didn’t think that was much of an answer, and I was willing to bet that Darius agreed with me. Judging by how tired he looked and the fact it had taken him hours to get home, he had probably spent some time looking into the matter himself.

“Emerra, were you worried about something?” Iset asked.

I squirmed. “Nobody likes it when weird things are going on in their town.”

There was a short silence, then Iset, with her unfailing ability to drive the dart right to the point, said, “Are you worried it has something to do with the children?”

Bullseye.

After groping my way over to the nearest armchair, I sat down and squeezed my fingers with my other hand. “They’ve never left the house.”

“We know.”

“It wasn’t them.”

“A ghost wouldn’t do something like that anyway,” Darius said. “The strongest might be able to throw things around, but a ghost couldn’t eat a mass of food.”

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

“So you don’t think it has to do with them?”

The count hesitated. “I never said that.”

“Does it?”

“I don’t know. I’ve lived with Jacky for a long time. I’ve learned to be wary of coincidences. One strange thing?” He shrugged. “That’s practically normal. But two strange things? At the same time?” He shook his head.

I stared down at my hands. “But there’s no proof?”

“Not yet. And there may never be. I don’t like coincidences, but they do exist.”

“Okay.” It felt good to say, so I repeated it, with an emphatic nod. “Okay. Thank you.” I stood up to go.

“Emerra,” Iset said, “you’ll tell us if you learn anything, won’t you?”

“You mean from my dreams? Of course I will.”

“Is that a promise?” Darius said.

I glitched. For a sliver of a moment, my body and brain locked up. When the moment passed, my stomach was still tight.

Darius’s voice had been gentle, but that only made me feel more uneasy, and my unease grew as my gaze moved between them. Darius’s face was grave, and the way Iset leaned forward, her rigid arm pushing into the couch, made me realize how closely she was watching me.

“Why would I hide something from you?” I said.

“Emerra—” Iset started to say.

“Have I ever done anything that would make you not trust me?”

“You’re very close to those children,” Darius said.

My voice rose. “So? They haven’t done anything wrong. I haven’t done anything wrong!” I turned my back on them. “I promise I’ll tell you if I learn anything—not that my word means much to you.”

I left. It was probably a good thing there was no door to slam.

When I was out in the hall, I leaned against the wall, and took a moment to compose myself. I felt stupid after my outburst, but what I mostly felt was tired. If I had spent the day walking around with bones made of cast iron, I couldn’t have been more weary.

I blamed it on the fact I wasn’t prepared to suddenly become the nanny for three children. They were a lot of work, even though I was only playing with them. I spent every hour trying to split myself three ways—trying to give the best of my time and my attention to each of them so they would stay strong.

I took a deep breath, pushed myself upright, and walked back to the TV room. The three ghosts were still there, still mesmerized by the antics of Shaun and his flock.

Only Anna looked up as I came in the room.

“Emerra?”

I sat down on the couch behind them and pulled my blanket over me. It helped mitigate some of the ghost chill.

“Hey, sweetie,” I whispered.

“Is everything all right?”

“Everything’s fine. I’m just tired.”

Jan crawled up onto the couch so he could sit beside me and tell me everything I had missed in a garbled list of details. I nodded and said “oh” and “wow” in all the right places. Then, at the first opportunity, I directed his attention back to the screen where similarly exciting things were still happening. Once he was distracted, I was able to lean back and relax. I didn’t fight it when my eyelids drifted closed.

I don’t know how long I dozed for, but when I woke up, there was a familiar smell and the soft sensation of fur brushing over my arm.

“Conrad?” I muttered.

I was vaguely aware that I didn’t expect him to be there.

“It’s late,” he said. “You should be in bed.”

My blanket lifted away.

“You woke me up to tell me to go to bed?”

“You’ll sleep better in bed.”

Geez, I was groggy. “I don’t sleep very well.”

“I know. Can you walk, or am I carrying you?”

“I can walk.”

He helped me to my feet. When I saw Anna and the boys watching us, I glanced at the TV. It was dark. The whole room was dark. The light was coming from the hall.

“Did you turn it off?” I asked.

“Yes,” Conrad said.

“They were watching.”

“You need sleep. If they’re going to stay here, I’ll turn it back on.”

I looked at Anna. “Do you want to keep watching shows?”

She shook her head. “Jan’s tired.”

I should have noticed that. Jan was leaning against her, eyes half closed and swaying on his feet. We could have been fatigue twins.

Jacob shrugged. “The show was over. Another came on, but we couldn’t understand it.”

I took a breath. “Okay, guys. Let’s get some rest.”

Jacob led the way upstairs. Whenever he got too far ahead, he’d stop to wait. Anna held Jan’s hand so she could guide him up, step by step. I couldn’t do anything to help, but I hung back in a pointless gesture of solidarity. Every time he stumbled over his own feet, I wanted to hug him.

Me too, little buddy. Me too.

We were halfway up when Conrad said, “Darius and Iset are worried about you.”

I felt a pang of guilt and mumbled something about apologizing to them.

His ears twitched back. “They’re worried, Mera. They’re not angry.”

I pressed my lips together.

The wolfman said, “You’re sad?”

Every once in a while, I felt the terrible urge to buy a jar of Mentholatum and shove the whole thing up his stupid nose.

“They don’t trust me,” I said.

He rubbed my bald head with his massive, furry hand. “You idiot.”

“And you think I’m an idiot.”

“That’s what I call anyone whose heart is bigger than their head. You could be as smart as Iset, you’d still be an idiot.”

“Maybe you’re just a big meanie.”

“Darius and Iset don’t think you’re a liar, Emerra. We’re worried you’re getting too close to the situation.”

“It’s ‘we’ now?”

“You haven’t been taking care of yourself.”

“Where’s Olivia? At least she doesn’t give a crap about me.”

“You can take some time off. Those ghosts have existed for hundreds of years without you. They can survive a little longer.”

Tears rushed up to my eyeballs, because…why not? I sniffed and blinked with brutal determination not to shed them. Screw you, traitorous body, I decide when I’m going to cry.

Conrad added, “And you seem more tired than usual.”

“I have to dream.” I don’t know why I said it. It came out as an involuntary whine. “All I want to do is sleep, but I have to dream too.”

“Then sleep in late or something. Just take care of yourself, okay?”

I nodded.

We made it to the top of the stairs and stepped onto the great landing. The small tree glowed, bright and beautiful. The ghosts and I paused to admire it.

Jacob muttered, “It looks so pretty this way.”

I smiled.

I had done my best to explain Christmas to them. They had accepted most of it, but the trees had baffled them. Maybe I had tried too hard to explain it—maybe we did things simply because it looked pretty that way.

“Come on.” I waved my hand to summon him. “Let’s get some rest.”