Robin had the thought, grabbed his laptop, looked toward the crossing racks to see those troublesome skeins of blue and black yarn, which he had put on top of skeins of warm white merino. He thought of that trilling laugh and froze.
“Oh.” His familyhadinvited Lucas here for help; they had truly needed young blood around and had said so more than once. But Robin had just told them about himself that spring, and he didn’t think that was a coincidence. They’d been matchmaking, all of them, living and dead. Trying to pair gay Robin up with the first queer witch they could find. Let Robin find love but keep it inside the coven. It was a very witch attitude and must have been mortifying for Lucas if he’d twigged to it then.
Or had it been? Maybe he’d been hoping to experiment there, too, and little Robin Blessing would have done.
That made sense. Robin scowled anyway, mostly at the relatives around for him to scowl at.
“Even if he was interested, that wasn’t going to get you more young blood around here, now was it?” he hissed at them. Unless they’d meant for Robin and Lucas fall in love and for Lucas to stay. But they’d been teenagers, and it wasn’t the 1800s—or earlier—so he and Lucas would probably have eventually broken up anyway.
Lucas was going to be done with the sandwiches soon, but Robin paced in front of the shelves to burn away some of his agitation. He stopped a few times to gather the skeins by color, then hated that idea and thought the yarn should be arranged by weight and materialand thencolor. Or just skeins about to be used in projects should be in there, and everything else should be finished and put away in the storeroom.
Which also needed a new system of organization, now that he thought about it. That last one had probably been originally set up in, like, 1910, and then hastily added onto as needed instead of restructured from the ground up.
There was one weaver here and the system should suit his needs. Saving space for Flora and the others didn’t make sense anymore, unless… until… Robin found anyone else willing to work here.
He stopped, breathing hard, and heard Lucas call his name.
Robin pointed an accusing finger at all the yarn for trying to trick him into making plans. He had enough of those at the moment, and no energy or space to deal with them. His thoughts on the future hadn’t even extended as far as dinner yet.
“You will wait your turn,” he commanded the yarn, and spun on his heel to go find Lucas, and the sandwich and herbal tea no doubt waiting for him.
Eight
Robin never got a chance to think about dinner, slow-cooked or not. The question was taken out of his hands in the earlyafternoon when Mallory arrived with Rixon, Persephone, and Stromwell in tow. Mallory had a paper bag full of odd and ends, along with half of a Swiss roll covered in chocolate whipped cream and confectioner’s sugar, making it look like a log covered in snow.
“Practice,” she confided in Robin. “I decided to try to make their “Christmas” log for the solstice. This is the simple version. For our Yule, I’m making one with branches and maybe animals or holly. Maybe not. Fondant looks pretty but no one wants to eat it. Anyway.” She put the lid back on the container holding the cake and pushed the whole thing into Robin’s hands. “Enjoy. Eat it all yourself, if you like. Lucas doesn’t like chocolate all that much, and he can get some of the final product in a day or so anyway.”
Rixon had already slipped out the side door to talk to Lucas or help him with something, Robin wasn’t really sure. Rixon was as tall as the rest of them, though not quite fully grown. He had taken to construction work easily but Robin thought he’d heard something about Rixon preferring outdoor projects, pools or gazebos or garden paths, things like that. Maybe the Greysmiths had finally found their version of a gardener. Robin was going to have to pull him aside for a moment if he could, and ask him about Josiah Hawthorne and apologize for volunteering him.
Persephone had come here after work, arriving seconds after her mother and brother, as if the visit had been coordinated among Greysmiths and they’d forgotten to pass that along to Robin. In any event, she had apparently been commanded to pick up food for a meal, and so she had.
Robin stared at the combination of massive bowls of grocery store salads, a foil tray of stir-fried tofu and a large carton of rice, and a staggering number of burgers and fries from the walk-up ice cream and burgers place by the highway. She’d broughta milkshake for Lucas without being asked to, which had put another soft, quick smile on Lucas’ face even though Robin privately worried it would make him sick.
The Greysmith siblings all loved each other, but Lucas and Persephone were clearly each other’s favorites. That was the real reason she’d invited Lucas to her “Girl’s Night,” Robin realized, and decided to forgive her for it before going back to staring at all the food on the kitchen’s center island.
Robin hadn’t had fast food in…. He had no idea when he’d last eaten a burger, for that matter. If he wasn’t preparing it himself, it was from a can or frozen. Or, this week at least, Lucas had made it.
“It’s nice, not having to worry about dinner once in a while,” Mallory had remarked as if understanding Robin’s bewildered staring, then asked him where the plates were.
It still seemed like a lot of food—until Rixon and Lucas swept back in and much of it disappeared within seconds. Robin possibly would have joined them in devouring scraps like locusts if he’d been fully recovered and had done anything today more exhausting than yelling at skeins of yarn.
The Greysmiths talked as they ate, none of them making a move toward the dining room, instead standing around the kitchen. Robin thought, too late, of getting out the good china, but it was probably covered in dust, and anyway, Rixon nearly dropped his plate three times while gesturing emphatically, so the nice dishes could stay safely where they were.
Mallory started to ask Lucas about the house. Rixon leaned over a few times to question Robin about the plum trees and garden—which made Robin give Lucas a narrow-eyed look. Persephone, in the midst of all that, was reading aloud from her phone: pieces from the news and occasionally texts from Gwynnthat sounded generally disapproving—but that could have been Persephone’s impression of her.
Robin watched them all in amazement, ate some sort of carrot and raisin salad and some sort of cabbage-heavy salad, some crispy tofu and rice, and a whole bag of French fries. He tried a burger but he was too used to not eating much and had to wait a while to finish it.
He was glad he wasn’t hungrier, since Rixon cleaned out whatever the others left behind. Greysmith Construction and Restoration must do very well if they’d kept enough food in the house for Rixon as a teenager, never mind the other children.
Every dinner at their house was probably like this one. Meals in this house had hardly been quiet, but conversations had tended to be several older people discussing the price of green beans, or making plans to drive to a fiber expo, back when they’d gone to those, or worrying over Robin’s grades or if he needed more chewable vitamins.
Robin sighed at the memory. He’d been fourteen at the time, long past the need for chewable vitamins shaped like cartoon characters but taking them anyway every morning before school.
When the last grain of rice was gone and Rixon and Lucas had vanished out the door again, Robin meant to ask Mallory what was going on, and to politely insist that she didn’t need to worry about the house; that was his job, and when he had the energy, he was going to try to budget… something… for the roof.
Then Persephone said, “Lucas mentioned that all your bottles of hand lotion were empty, so since I was picking up stuff for him, I brought you some.” She frowned delicately, maybe at Robin’s lost expression. “We don’t sell the kind he said you use. Something with stitching or knitting in the title? Anyway, I justgot you this body butter stuff in the meantime. Consider it a solstice gift.”
Robin looked from her down to his hands, which were, in fact, noticeably dry from the cold and the lack of added moisture to replace what wool wicked out as it was handled. Dry skin could catch on fibers. He was supposed to take care of his hands for that reason.
