“Is Callie sick?”

Zaira turned away from her meal prep and looked to Hannah who was in the living room playing with Callie.

“No. Why?

“Well, we’ve known her for months now and she’s barely grown.”

“Oh. Right. Yes. Don’t worry, she’s right on track for a little witch. They grow at roughly half the speed of humans, they have longer lives too.”

“Oh, that’s kind of neat.”

“Yes, I like it.”

“You’ll have more time with her.”

“Exactly.” Zaira smiled and returned to the week’s meals, listening to the other two’s exchange.

“Mail’s here.” She said when she spotted the truck roll onto the street.

“Mind getting mine too?”

“No problem.”

Zaira left the house and walked to get the mail out of both mailboxes. The car wasn’t in the Rosses driveway. Ryan was at his first vet’s meeting since being in the hospital. He’d been out for a couple months now, his last treatment being yesterday. He was back to his regular self. Zaira would daresay even happier despite everything. Julian had kept his promise and made sure to see his parents a day every couple of weeks with the boys.

Zaira flipped through the mail as she walked home. She noticed both she and the Rosses had received identical envelopes from the police. She opened her copy.

It was a notice. To let her know that Arthur’s trial was starting in two weeks. It also requested her presence to speak on the prosecution’s behalf.

Zaira and the Rosses hadn’t spoken about Arthur since she told them about the phone call. It seemed to her as if they were pretending that he was still being his normal distant self. Like he hadn’t ever shown up and tried to murder his father. Guess it was finally time to face the truth.

Zaira tucked her letter back into its envelope and returned home. She planned on at least being there. Maybe take the witness stand. Granted they had a recording of her conversation with Arthur. What kind of questions would they ask her? She’d never paid much mind to the courts. She faced enough tragedy at work she’d never felt the need to relive other’s pain.

She placed the mail on the dining table and returned to her meal prep.

A couple of hours later Hannah and her had switched places. She was playing with Callie and Hannah was making supper in the kitchen. There was a knock on the door and Hannah went to open it without waiting for Zaira. It was Ryan, carrying a large box.

“I stopped by the store.” He said as a greeting. “This is for Callie.”

He took his shoes off and brought the box to the living room. He put the box on the floor and the baby started smacking the box, giggling.

“What is it?” Zaira circled around the box. There was a picture on the front of a parent pushing a baby in a colorful swing. “A swing? Oh, that’ll be fun. Right, Callie? Thank you, Ryan.”

“Of course. You can install it inside too if you want. I was thinking of that beam actually.” He pointed to the large beam on the ceiling separating the living room and hallway.

Zaira smiled. “I think that’s a great idea.”

“I have something else in the car. I need your help to get it into the house, it's rather heavy.”

“OK, want to bring it in now?”

“Yeah.”

Zaira had expected the car to be in the Rosses’ driveway. “If it's that heavy maybe we should park the car in your driveway to cut the carry time.”

“Oh no, it's for you.”

“Callie doesn’t need to be spoiled that much.”

Ryan shook his head. “No, not for Callie. It's for you.”

“Me? Why?”

“As a thank you, and apology.”

“You didn’t need to.”

Stolen novel; please report.

“I know. But – thank you for being there. And thank you for finally getting Julian to talk to us. I wasn’t planning on getting you something for it, but I saw this and thought you would love it. I’m not sure how much of a window you will have to use it before the cold weather hits though.”

He pulled the car door open. The box took up the entire back seat, it would not have fit in the trunk.

“It’s a free-standing hammock. No trees needed.”

Zaira had been watching him since his thank you. He was avoiding eye contact. She wasn’t surprised. Not only was he not someone who voiced his emotions very often, but she didn’t have her human glamours up. He was still very uncomfortable with that. She had actually kept her glamours up during suppers at their place since coming home from the hospital.

Zaira gave him a small smile. “Thank you. I’m sure I will use it often.”

She pulled the box from the car and lifted it onto her shoulder. “I’m going to go put it on the deck.

Ryan nodded. “Sounds good. I’m going to go to park the car and come back to help you install the baby swing.”

The swing was simple to install. Drill holes in the beam for the fixtures. Screw the fixture in and hook up the baby seat. In the meantime, Callie played with the box. Crawling in and out, flipping it on its sides. Zaira left her to play with it even after the swing was up as she was having so much fun. That was – until she set it on fire. Zaira put the fire out with the extinguisher and Callie started howling. Mommy was so mean, preventing her play area from erupting into flames.

Zaira figured that it was now an ideal time to try the swing. Callie fought desperately against being lowered into the hanging trap. Zaira had to guide the feet in several times. Then one pass of the swing and some cooing from mommy and she had exchanged crying for huffing. A second pass of the swing and Callie decided it wasn’t quite as bad as she had thought. A third swing and there was a smile, then finally giggles.

“Yay!” All the adults encouraged the little girl who smiled widely.

The rest of the evening was close to normal. They ate supper at Zaira’s. Zaira had decided to compromise on her looks, keeping the wings and horns, she switched her skin to a more human color, hoping to eventually help acclimatize Ryan. And honestly, she was still getting used to it after years of hiding her demonic features from herself. It was easier now that she had a daughter and a friend who didn’t even flinch at her looks. They had given Callie a small plate of food. She ended up wearing most of it. Then after a change, Ryan spent some time with Callie on the swing while Hannah gossiped with Zaira.

It was rather late when the Rosses left, and Callie was already falling asleep by the time Zaira carried her up the stairs. Despite the late hour, Zaira decided she wanted to build her new hammock. She grabbed the baby monitor and her toolbox and flipped on the deck light.

A large porcupine scuttled across the yard. She growled. She opened the door and stepped out into the middle of the yard.

“I saw you.”

A face poked out from the tree line. A pukwudgie. She wasn’t sure if it was the same one that had been in the Rosses’ yard, she had never gotten a good look at that one.

“You can stay as long as you don’t cause trouble.” She growled. “But I’m not feeding you.”

She thought she saw the cryptid nod before disappearing into the tree line again.

Zaira shook the encounter out of her mind and returned to her deck.

----------------------------------------

The stars sparkled overhead. It was a little chilly, summer was giving way to fall. She had brought a blanket out and now she was so cozy in her hammock she contemplated spending the night.

“Oh, there you are.”

Zaira sat up a bit and saw Ryan come around the house.

“I knocked on the door, but you didn’t answer. You built that quickly.”

“Yeah, I’m really enjoying it actually. Thank you.”

Ryan smiled and approached. He pulled one of the deck chairs closer and sat down.

“Did you get one of these?” He held up the letter about Arthur’s trial.

“Yeah.”

“Did they ask you to testify?”

“Yep.”

“Do you plan to?”

“I was thinking yes. I – I might be persuaded not to if you really want. But the evidence against him is pretty damning even if he only did do the second poisoning.”

Ryan nodded his head as he stared at the letter, lost in thought.

They only really had two major pieces of evidence that Zaira knew of, but they were concrete. One of course was the recording where he admits to the second poisoning. The second was the only open bottle of windshield wiper fluid in the garage. It was the brand that Arthur had brought with him when he had asked his father to work on his car, not the brand Ryan had bought in bulk. Arthur had probably used the bottle after seeing it was open following the pukwudgie’s attempt. He probably had thought she had used it and would have evidence of her prints on it too. It didn’t. She wondered why he didn’t wipe it down.

“I believe every action has its consequences,” Ryan said. “Hannah does too… We are just… Sad? Angry? That it was our boy. We really fucked up with him it seems.”

“I doubt it was you, you don’t know the other people in his life.”

“Maybe.” Arthur sounded unconvinced. “Hannah plans on testifying. She was there for both events. I guess we are just going to have to pretend the first one was him too.”

Zaira shrugged. “They’ll draw that conclusion I’m sure, but you don’t need to point the finger at him, just tell the truth.”

“You’ll at least be there, right?”

“Definitely.”

A heavy silence settled over them as Ryan twirled the letter in his hands. Zaira leaned back to watch the stars once more.

“Have you always struggled with mental health?” Ryan asked after a while.

“Yes.”

“Is it like humans? Suck it up and move on? Well, that’s how it was when we were young.”

“Depends on the location, species, and time. I was raised like that.”

“Have you ever been to therapy?”

“I plan on starting relatively soon. As Rushka suggested I do.”

“It sounds like a lot of hooey to me… But if even the angel thinks it’s a good idea… Hannah and I were debating going to therapy to deal with all… This.” He waived the letter around.

“That might not be a bad idea.” However, she was certain Arthur’s betrayal was going to leave a permanent wound. “I can’t imagine having my own child come after me. Do you know why he would do that?”

“We changed our will.”

Zaira frowned at him.

“We added you to it.”

“Why?”

“For being there.” Ryan sighed. “Hannah and I were talking. We didn’t remove Arthur and Julien from it, but we did add you. We think that may be why Arthur showed up.”

“But why kill you?”

“I don’t know. Whether or not he was planning on killing me from the start, we aren’t sure.” Ryan wiped his face. “And how he thought my death was going to change anything, I don’t know.”

“Maybe he was hoping he could convince Hannah to change it back?”

Ryan snorted. “Maybe, but she was the one who wanted to add you in the first place. I just didn’t have a good reason to argue with her.”

The elder human stood and slapped her knee in what she assumed was ‘good ol’ dad’ affection.

“I’m going to bed. Have a good night.”

“You too.” She smiled at him sadly. “And thank you. It has been nice to have family around. Apart from Asher, I haven’t had a family since I was a teenager.”

He reached out and squeezed her hand. “Oh, and Julian is coming by in a couple of days. With his new beau and the children. You are welcome of course.”

“Thank you.” She said as he disappeared around the corner of the house.

----------------------------------------

The trial was rough. Hannah sobbed through her entire testimony. Ryan and Zaira had held her hand when they weren’t on the stand. Just as much a comfort for them as for Hannah. Ryan and Zaira had also answered some questions, but they had managed to keep their emotions in check. Julian had come for support, sitting next to his father. The trial lasted only 3 days. A minor blessing. Arthur had gotten 10 years. Hannah sobbed through the sentencing, even Ryan had shed tears. Arthur had remained stoic through everything. He’d tried to lighten the sentence by blaming her again. It didn’t work. The cops hadn’t even brought her in for questioning at the station.

A week later Luke’s sixth birthday helped everyone out of the rut the trial had put them in. They had gone to an indoor playground and arcade with about a dozen five- to six-year-olds. Zaira and Callie had been invited. It was a lovely afternoon with love fun and cuddles all around.

Zaira launched off her balcony. She needed to stretch her wings. Callie was safely asleep in her crib. She closed her eyes and enjoyed the cool night air. Then she flipped and watched the stars. As she returned home a wave of nostalgia washed over her.

She landed on her balcony and walked to her nightstand. After slight hesitation, she took a silver ring out of its drawer. She twirled it around as she headed back to the balcony, leaning on the railing. There used to be a pattern engraved on it, but the years had worn it away. In fact, they had worn most of the ring away, it was now too fragile to wear.

It had belonged to the witch who had kept her from starving as a child. She had taken it back out of her ever-bag, along with Asher’s box. He was on the mantle, to be with the family. The ring was in her nightstand drawer, a silent presence for Zaira.

“Nana.” She said to the ring as she rubbed it. “Things aren’t perfect, but I’m ok. I’m looking forward to the future for the first time in a long time.

She moved her hand up to her face. There were very few scratches compared to what there had been before. Yeah, things were looking up.