“I want to change into my regular clothes first!” Jillian obviously wanted to warn Nikola that they were going to be gone for a long time.
“You both can change into the first dresses that you like.” Anna had a hold of Jillian’s wrist when she announced her plan. She used her hold to gently but firmly tow Jillian toward the front door. “It will make it easier to deal with the sales staff if you’re wearing something better than your normal clothes.”
Celine appeared in the foyer, blocking the stairs back to their room. Louise had little choice but to follow behind Anna.
It was still raining outside, a literal downpour that well reflected Louise’s state of mind. The limo waited under the shelter of the portico with two elves in black suits pretending to be men. Considering that the car could drive itself, two drivers was extreme overkill.
Louise tried to get a better idea of the neighborhood where the mansion was located, but the rain smeared the windows.
Anna outlined her shopping plans, ending with. “Until we can get things settled out, you’ll need dresses, socks, and underwear.”
“We like T-shirts and pants,” Jillian stated firmly in Peter’s voice. “Dresses are sissy.”
“We will get those too,” Anna said as if she won some point. “If we have time, we can look at furniture for your bedrooms. We’ll remodel one room and then the other, so you both can have your own space.”
“We like being together.” Jillian leaned forcibly against Louise to underscore her point.
“And we like the room we’re in.” Louise liked to imagine Esme was protecting them in her old bedroom, even though she knew that was impossible.
Anna breathed out a small sigh. “I indulged Esme’s grief after her father was killed and Lain had her accident. I let her make that room into a cave and fill it up with so much escapist whimsy. I thought it was good for her, hammering nails instead of heads but looking back, it seems exactly the wrong thing. It was the beginning of the end.”
Anna spoke as if Esme was dead instead of just in another star system, billions of miles away. The colony sent audio updates on a regular schedule, delayed by a dozen years. Esme’s ship would have arrived nearly eighteen years ago; did she not send messages home?
“She’s not dead,” Louise said.
“To me, she died the day she jumped out of Earth’s orbit. She’s lost to me. That damn gate has stolen all my baby girls from me. I hate it.”
“What about…” Louise caught herself. She and Jillian shouldn’t know anything about the rest of the family. How could she salvage her question? “Were Lain and Esme your only kids?”
“No.” Anna didn’t seem to notice how horribly the question was cobbled together. She sighed and looked out the window, although it was so hazed by rain it was unlikely she could see anything but her own blurred reflection. “I wanted rafts of children and Edmond was more than willing to indulge me. After several—failures—we had two little boys. The doctors said I wouldn’t be able to safely have any more. We talked about using surrogate mothers; India had a booming business in it at the time. We went so far as to take the first steps, and have some eggs harvested and fertilized. I still dream of the little girls they might have been; the grown women they would be now. The doctors said, though, that the genetic testing showed that all the girls inherited the same genetic illness as our little boys.”
“Our two little boys were so ill. They didn’t sit up until they were nearly one and didn’t start to walk until they were three. They were always so small for their age. When they were twenty, they were smaller than you are now. I couldn’t bear to subject more children to that, and Edmond agreed. I had the embryos disposed of.”
Louise stared at her. Bitter sorrow and self-blame was obvious in her voice. Anna didn’t know. She didn’t realize that her sons were half elves. It took a hundred years for elves to reach “adult” so it was probably no surprise to Edmond that the boys had grown so slowly. He had left his wife believing that somehow she was responsible for their lack. How did he fool Anna for so many years? Had she never considered it because when the boys were born, elves were still mythical on Earth?
Louise glanced at Jillian, who shrugged. She scrambled to come up with more questions. “Do—do they live at the house?”
“No. They might look like little boys but they’re full-grown men. They moved out years ago.”
But they weren’t really adults—they were still children.
And who were Tristan’s fully human half-sisters? The missing Bethany and the otherwise unmentionable Adele, Chloe, Felicie, and Danni? Had they been the embryos that Anna thought destroyed? Had the DNA tests been a lie so Edmond could do what he wanted with the unborn children? Louise remembered the loathing in Celine’s voice as she called the girls “inbreeds.” What had Edmond done to the girls?