Read Oracle's Moon for Free Online Page B

patted her back. She felt warm and soft and a little lumpy under a light summer blanket. “Do you know that you should not pull a real doggie’s tail or a real cat’s tail either? And you should not poke them in the eye?”
    She popped her thumb out of her mouth and whispered, “Indeed?”
    He frowned, suspicious. “Do you understand what that word means?”
    She shook her head.
    He sighed. “I see we have things to work on.”
    She asked, “Can you be a horsie too?”
    Ah. Small, noisy and remarkably tenacious. He was learning a great deal about new humans.
    “I don’t think we should be having this conversation right now,” Khalil whispered. He wanted to pick her up and hug her but restrained himself.
    She snickered sleepily. “Indeed.”
    He patted her back again.
    Indeed.
    T he Bane of Her Existence might have disappeared from sight, but he still hadn’t left. Grace could still sense his presence hanging in the air, like the aftermath of a bonfire.
    Why hadn’t he gone? What attracted him, and how could she change it, so that he would lose interest and leave for good?
    Grace considered the problem of the unwelcome Djinn, while the matronly ghosts murmured to each other and she cleaned up the kitchen.
    The babysitting roster wasn’t the only assistance Grace received from the witches. Jaydon Guthrie, the head of one of the oldest covens in Louisville, had arranged for a quarterly community work day to help her with basic maintenance on the property. As Jaydon said, the work days would benefit more than just Grace. They would also provide a way for witches to volunteer several hours at a time, which would help those who were behind on their community service tithe. Grace had been too desperate to consider turning the offer down.
    On the first work day, she had used their help to arrange things so that she and the children were mostly using the ground floor. The kitchen was spacious and had a dining nook with a table, a high chair and four chairs, so they didn’t need a separate dining area. When Petra and Niko had decided to have children, they had installed a stacked washer and dryer in the kitchen so that Petra wouldn’t have to go into the basement very often. The ground floor also had a half bath.
    Grace had the large dining table and chairs stored in the garage, the downstairs office moved into the dining room and Chloe and Max’s bedroom set up in what had once been the office. She slept on a futon in the office/dining room. That meant she only had to climb the stairs when it was bath time or when she needed to get a change of clothes. The downstairs was cooler in the summer, and it was easier on her leg, so the solution worked for now. Gradually her clothes were coming down the stairs and not making it back up again. She had started storing things in a filing cabinet in one corner of the office.
    Saturday was the next work day. Maybe she could get someone to move a dresser downstairs. Simple things like that could make a hard situation a lot more bearable. She put the wet load of clothes from the washer into the dryer. Then she washed up at the kitchen sink, sticking her head under the faucet and soaping her fine, short hair with the baby shampoo she had used on the kids.
    Even with two fans running downstairs, the house was too hot. She gave in and went into the office to dig through the filing cabinet for lighter clothes, slipping on a tank top and cutoff shorts made from a pair of old, soft sweatpants. After all, she wasn’t expecting company, and she didn’t have to look at herself if she didn’t want to.
    Anyway, it was time she got used to how her body had changed. Maybe she shouldn’t ignore how she looked. Maybe she should look at herself until the scars didn’t matter anymore. They would fade over time and become less noticeable. At the moment they were still an angry, raw-looking red.
    Grace had been riding in the backseat of the car at the time of the accident. That had saved her life.