A Storm of Paper Starlings

37. Uncanny Valley

The day after we drive Leia back to Bristol, I meet Amethyst at the clumps. We sit on the springy forest floor, an old beech tree at our backs.

"Daniel wants to meet Sean," she says.

"Really? Why?"

"To clear the air, so he says."

"What did Sean say?"

"That he'd give anything to make peace with Daniel."

I'm reminded of Lilith, gnawed to death by guilt. I haven't even told Amethyst about her yet. "So, when are they meeting?"

"Tonight," she says. "At a pub in the next village."

"A pub?"

"Father says their Guinness is excellent."

"I didn't know vampires drank Guinness."

She laughs. "They're just like normal people, Violet. Some drink coffee, some drink tea. Albert loves tea."

Yeah, I'm not talking about him. "I have some news, by the way, but it's... complicated."

"I'm sure I can keep up."

"Alright, but I don't understand all of it myself yet."

"Just tell me."

"Eden told me she met a demon years ago." I drag my palm over the mossy ground. "What she didn't tell me was that he got her pregnant. Her baby was stillborn, or she thought it was, but her mother took the baby and—"

"It was our mother?" she says.

"How did you guess so quickly?"

"I just knew what you were going to say, and it explains your aura."

"What about it?"

"Yours is descended from Eden's. So is mine. Then again..." She shakes herself out of an almost daze. "Auras aren't always reliable."

"I saw an aura," I say. "At the funeral. It was around everyone."

"A group aura," she says. "I saw it too."

"What do the colours mean?"

"What colours did you see?"

"Pink and blue, like blossom and sky."

"Same. At funerals, people open their hearts and become strong in their vulnerability. It's a pure sort of reverence."

"Right, so it's a group feeling. So, if they were an angry mob instead?"

"A red mist," she says. "But red also signifies health. It's not always bad."

I read that in Seeing Rainbows. "Could Amy see auras?"

"Yes. Father said so."

"So, if Amy's father was a demon...?"

"It makes her a cambion. They often have magical powers." She drifts away, deep in thought. "Merlin was a cambion."

"Merlin? Like... Merlin?"

She does her how-can-we-be-related face. "Yes, Violet. Merlin of Arthurian legend."

"He was real?"

"Of course, he was real."

"I thought he was just a myth."

"How it works is this: if, with our rational brains, we can make sense of it, we call it science. If we can't, and our brains deem it too illogical, we call it mythology or magic and become blind to its reality."