The season of risks ended in another summer of love. But this time I was a spectator, not a participant. My parents were about to renew their wedding vows.
How two people who disagreed and misunderstood each other so frequently had arrived at this decision-that was one more thing I couldn't figure out. But during all the weeks of worry, something had happened. I knew it that night when I saw my mother's hand stretch across the restaurant table to touch my father's fingertips. And the idea that my parents would reunite soothed me as much as it elated me.
The ceremony, that was Mae's idea. She chose the date: a Saturday in late August that she claimed would be lucky. My father went along with it gamely. When he wasn't working in the lab, he helped her address the invitations and pretended to be interested in the menu planning.
But his heart and mind were more invested in his work. He spent ten-hour stretches in the lab, and he always looked preoccupied when he came out.
I helped my mother with the invitation list, sitting at the round oak table in the castle kitchen. Dashay would be coming, as would Bennett, and a variety of vampire friends I'd never heard mentioned before. In a phone call with Mae and me one afternoon, Dashay suggested inviting Sloan Flynn.
"We don't have his address," I said. I wasn't sure I wanted Sloan around, in any case. He'd hurt my pride when he deserted us in favor of the goth kids.
"I have his cell phone number," Dashay said.
"Good," my mother said. "Invite him by all means."
"He's probably too busy with his friends," I said. I told myself that I hoped he hadn't charged his phone.
"Dashay?" I said. "Could you bring Grace with you when you come?"
She and Mae patiently explained Ireland's policies about bringing in pets. They were kept in quarantine for six months to ensure they weren't carrying rabies. In short, Grace would not be in attendance.
That night at supper, my parents agreed to invite Dr. Cho, which surprised me. "Although I doubt she'll be able to come," my father said. "She's been appointed to COVE, to take Truckler's seat. She'll be busy."
Truckler had been removed from the council as a result of my father's testimony. It pleased me that Sandra Cho would take his place in future sessions.
Then Mae said, "We should invite Malcolm."
In an instant the room's atmosphere darkened.
"No," my father said. The word hovered over the table, black as coal.
"But he saved Ari's life." She gazed at me, her lapis blue eyes warm, then at him, her gaze sharper, colder.
My father's eyes met mine. His asked for support.
"No," I said, my voice almost as emphatic as his had been. "It would be too risky to invite him here." I hadn't told them yet that he was a necromancer. Even the idea of talking about it frightened me-as if mentioning the word might somehow summon him and who knew what else.
My mother hated to lose an argument, but this time she held her tongue. She rose to clear the table. I changed the subject, tried to dispel the tension that mentioning Malcolm always seemed to introduce.
But tension still lingered in the air when I told them good night and climbed the stone steps to my bedroom in the turret. I couldn't sleep, so I leaned on a stone sill and stared out the narrow window at the moon. Nearly full, it kept the colors of my mother's gardens alive, even in twilight.
Then I saw them: my mother and my father, in the courtyard below, dancing. They'd been practicing for their reception. The night before, I'd watched them waltz. They didn't need music to dance.
Tonight they were rehearsing a tango. I'd learn later that it was called the milonguero style. Their shoulders and upper bodies touched, and Mae's left arm draped around my father's neck.
From my vantage point, high in the turret, they seemed to move as one person. Whatever kept them apart had disappeared. Perfectly balanced, their bodies swayed to an elastic rhythm, bending, sliding, turning across the stones-as if that one person had just invented the tango and was making up the steps as she went along.