“We need to tell Olly.”
Brennen raised a brow.
“Would it be fair to ask what it is we need to tell him, lass?”
“Fair, yes, but redundant,” his wife crossed her plump arms.
“Ten years we’ve kept him… Why now?”
Dagmar slammed her palms on the solid oak table, “Because I said so!”
“That’s enough, mother,” Astrid said, punctuated by a loud snore from the loft above. They all looked up and remained silent for a moment, assured Oliver was still out.
Brennen looked sheepishly at his wife, “You’re the boss, my rose, of course, anything you say shall stand.”
“Father has every right to know our reasons.”
Dagmar sighed, “It’s that Alistair. You’ve more trust in him than I, and you’re a fool for it. Whyever did I marry such a fool as you?”
“Bahah we all know it’s because I’ve got a way with my tongue, my salty, sweet little-”
“STOP! Stop,” Astrid interrupted the moment her mother began to blush and lean in towards her husband, “I can’t watch whatever is about to happen. You two are disgusting, and we’re getting side-tracked. Mother’s right. Alistair knows too much, and he’s too unpredictable. He’ll only become more so as he effectively becomes a teenager.”
Astrid lit a cigarette.
“I wish you wouldn’t smoke up here, my dear, it’s bad for your brother.”
“...fine.” she curled the lit cigarette onto her tongue past a sharp set of canines and swallowed with a hiss.
“Trying to intimidate your own old man now my delicate fluer-de-lis?”
“Al and Olly have become close,” Dagmar ignored him, “It’s better he hears it from us than him. Trust is built on honesty.”
“And it can easily be swept away,” Astrid interjected, eyeing her left index finger, “...and never rebuilt.”
“Alistair has been honest about himself with Oliver, more than Oliver’s own family has. It’s time we put an end to that.”
“Right then,” Brennen said, “So how do you propose to tell him Queenie abandoned him here in the care of people she knew full-well were a couple o’ Scandinavian blood-drinkers?”
“What’s a ‘Scandinavian blood-drinker?’” Olly blinked, standing in the doorway.
The Smith family sat, frozen, at the table, all eyes on Oliver.
“What?” he asked sleepily, “Some kinda’ new drink?”
Dagmar smacked Brennen in the back of the head, hard.
Astrid pulled out a chair for her younger brother, “Sit down, Oliver.”
But ever since Al had done... well something to her, be it drug or poison or hypnosis, all the horrifying shadows that she'd managed to keep at bay had lept back up to engulf her.
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