black bats flying round and round

[colorshapes]

They're not really colors or really shapes, but Addy's tastes aren't really tastes, so Kerron thinks it's okay to call them like that anyway. Addy does too and they talk about colorshapes every week. He likes Addy. She has simple colorshapes that are easy to understand and he can help with lots of them. Other people have more complicated colorshapes but he's getting better at reading them while they fly through the air.

He's on his way back to the quarters he and Mummy and Daddy share, and he's just pushed open the door that usually leads to the right building in the Forks compound.

It doesn't.

Kerron has only opened this door twice before in this direction, but he sure remembers where it used to go. Probably Mummy or Her Majesty did a magic here. He wants to see what kind. He goes in and lets the door swing shut behind him.

Comments

[pythbox]

"I think you might have to ask him that."

[colorshapes]

"You don't know?"

[pythbox]

She hesitates for a moment.

Then she says, "I don't think I understand your father very well, either."

[colorshapes]

"Can I help? I bet I can help!" says Kerron. "Daddy's simpler than Mummy. Mated vampires are kind of like that. Most of his colorshapes are about wanting her to be happy and safe. Most of the rest are about me. Some of the ones that are about me are about her too."

[pythbox]

"Does he have any about... other people your mother... loves?" she asks, slowly, like the word 'loves' is causing her serious trouble.

[colorshapes]

"He's fine about me, and she loves me, I'm her favorite munchkin," says Kerron brightly. "I'm not sure about anyone else. It's harder to tell who a colorshape is about if it's not about somebody who's close to me. I could tell that yours were about Mummy, but I can't tell when Henry has a colorshape that's about his mummy because Rosalie's not close enough to being a part of me for the witch part of my power to help."

He thinks. "There was this one colorshape that I couldn't read because I didn't know what it was about at all, and I asked Addy for help with it and she said -" He switches into a higher register, generic Midwestern accent with a trace flavor of German in place of his forty percent Manx to sixty percent assorted American - "'it means your dad is insecure and everything would be much simpler for him if your mum would just turn already' - but then she didn't explain what that means. Is she in love with somebody besides Daddy? ...Is she gonna fall out of love with Daddy? Humans can do that and she's mostly one! Then what would happen to me? All the hybrids I know with broken-up parents are grown up already but I'm still little! And Daddy would be so sad!"

[pythbox]

She hesitates.

Then she says, "I'm sorry, I don't know."

[colorshapes]

"Most vampires are in love with other vampires, and then the colorshapes go in both directions, and Mummy's not a vampire and now I'm scared she won't want to be with Daddy forever."

[pythbox]

"I'm sorry," she repeats.

[colorshapes]

Kerron frowns and folds his arms on the table and puts his chin on them.

"Anyway you didn't answer my question, you just asked another question. Why doesn't Daddy like you?"

[pythbox]

The bat lady shakes her head.

"I don't know exactly."

[colorshapes]

"Do you know inexactly?"

Kerron may be two months old, but a perfect memory means that he has never gone through a period of overregularization and knows how to contradict the word "exactly".

[pythbox]

She shakes her head again.

[colorshapes]

"It sounded like you were about to guess."

[pythbox]

"I don't want to guess."

[colorshapes]

"Why not?"

[pythbox]

"I don't like thinking about it very much."

[colorshapes]

"How come?"

Ah yes, the infinite toddler litany of why?

[pythbox]

"Because I don't."

[colorshapes]

"That's only a pretend answer."

[pythbox]

"Are you sure?"

[colorshapes]

"Yeah."

[pythbox]

She shrugs. "Well, then, I don't know what to tell you."

[colorshapes]

Kerron drinks his smoothie, looking suspiciously at her.

[pythbox]

She raises her eyebrows.