To Ainslie’s confusion and surprise, there was no confrontation with Maria. It wasn’t that they never saw each other—she was still working while Malik searched for a replacement, so she was still at the house most mornings—but Maria simply… carefully pretended that Ainslie didn’t exist. They occasionally passed through each other’s orbits, but that was about it. Frankly, Ainslie was perfectly okay with that.
Time passed. She supposed eventually she would stop tracking time in terms of “when is the next full moon?” but for the time being, that was how she was keeping track of things. It would become normal eventually, but she suspected that would be a while down the line.
Two weeks meandered past. Fall was in full swing and Halloween came and went. Paisley dressed as a bat, Lily was a superhero, and Andy was about as glamorous of a Rockstar as Ainslie had ever seen. Ainslie simply donned a green cape that had a hood and was easy to move in and Malik dressed up as a cowboy, and all of them piled into the car to go trick-or-treating in Grey Chapel.
And time continued to pass after that. Malik and Ainslie kissed and held hands and she was able to distract him for longer and longer periods of time in the den, because once he was home from work he was supposed to feel like he was allowed to stop working. Nothing extreme happened—the closest they got to undressing was Ainslie’s hands up his shirt—but she was alright with that. She was content to take it slow. She wanted to do it right.
Malik deserved for it to be done right. For it to happen in a way that wouldn't disrupt his life or his family. And besides, Ainslie didn’t want it to seem like she was just trying to swoop into the girls’ lives. She adored Andy, Lily, and Paisley, and they deserved better than that.
Besides, she was content. She was happy. Even Carrie commented on it on the phone from time to time. Considering she seemed to be allergic to emotions and examining them most of the time, if Carrie was actually bringing it up then Ainslie supposed it was pretty hard to ignore.
So she was willing to count herself lucky.
*
There were two weeks until the next full moon. Fourteen days. Absentmindedly, Ainslie pondered plans for Thanksgiving. Malik had mentioned it a few times. Never very seriously, but enough that Ainslie still knew it was something the family celebrated.
Personally, it was her favorite holiday. Christmas had never seemed so important without her family around. They were so rarely able to come together from so many corners of the country. On Thanksgiving, it was more excusable to include found family rather than just blood family or married family.
Malik found her in the kitchen scrolling through recipes on her laptop at the table. She didn’t even notice him at first, until he came up behind her and leaned over her, his hands folded on top of her head and his chin resting on top of them.
“I don’t think that’s how an armrest is supposed to work,” Ainslie observed eventually. “But I could probably be wrong.”
“Obscure were-animal tradition,” he stated earnestly, nodding against the top of her head.
Ainslie rolled her eyes and reached back to swat at his shoulder with the back of one hand. “You are so full of shit,” she informed him wryly.
He didn’t object to that statement, but Ainslie was pretty sure no one appreciated how full of shit Malik could be quite as much as Malik did.
He started pointing out a few links to recipes that looked good. He felt no need to move from his spot behind her and Ainslie felt no need to dislodge him.
*
There were thirteen days until the next full moon, and Ainslie found herself quietly wondering why most calendars automatically had full moons and new moons marked on them. It seemed like the sort of thing the average person wouldn’t really need to know. Maybe there was more influence from were-animals in the world than she was aware of.
She was contemplating that line of thought in an aimless, meandering way in the morning when Maria stepped into the kitchen.
They stared at each other for a long, drawn-out moment. Slowly, Maria pasted her polite, polished, perfect smile into place and asked, “How is your morning going so far?”
Ainslie cleared her throat. “Pretty well,” she supplied. “You?”
“Just fine,” Maria assured her, and her smile seemed to get even more polite. “I just need to get started compiling some important information for whoever takes over for me.”
It was meant to be a jab. That was pretty clear. But Ainslie wasn’t going to rise to that bait. She didn’t flinch. She didn’t apologize. She just nodded her head in a manner that conveyed that she thought that was a perfectly good idea.
“Makes sense,” she agreed. “I take it you gave Evey that idea?”
Something in Maria’s expression clouded, like thunder clouds rolling over the sun, but her smile stayed in place and she nodded once. “Of course,” she replied. “It’s always best to make things as easy as possible for whoever’s coming next. Otherwise it would just be impolite and inconvenient.”
“Very conscientious,” Ainslie praised, her tone polite. “Did you want something for breakfast?” she asked, gesturing around at the fact that they were, indeed, in the kitchen.
Maria sighed out a slow breath and shook her head. “No, thank you.” Her voice was turning stiffer. “I ate before I got here.” She left it at that, though she didn’t move for a moment, as they instead just stared at each other for a moment that seemed to stretch for an hour. It was Maria who broke her stare first. She continued across the room and out the other side, into the family room.
Ainslie couldn’t even remember what she had been thinking about before that, but she was pretty sure it hadn’t been that important, so she let it drop.
Quietly, she decided that she should do some baking that evening. She needed comfort food, if things were going to be like that until Malik found a replacement for Maria.
Rather than stages of the moon and calendars, from there her thoughts drifted to baked goods and various recipes.
*
There were twelve days left until the next full moon, and Ainslie found herself looking forward to going back to the farm. They hadn’t actually discussed it, but they hadn’t needed to; everyone had simply assumed that she would be going along when the time came, and she saw no reason to say anything about it when that was her plan, too.
Even so, one of the girls asked. Ainslie was in the family room, dusting and humming to herself, just a senseless stream of upbeat notes, when Lily poked her head into the room. “Aaaaiiiiinslie?” she called, drawing the first syllable out because people thought it was endearing when she did that and she was well aware of it. It usually meant she wanted something.
“Liiiiiily,” Ainslie called in reply. “What can I do for you?”
“You’re coming with us to Grannie and Papa’s next time, right?” Lily asked slowly, finally creeping into the room. “Dad seemed to like having you there.”
Ah, right. There was a topic Ainslie still had to broach.
“I’ll be there,” she promised. “But speaking of your dad, there’s something I need to tell you.”
Lily’s eyes narrowed slightly in suspicion.
“Your dad and I like each other,” Ainslie stated bluntly, because she wasn’t going to try to explain how feelings worked to a second-grade student. At the uncomprehending look she got in return—as if Lily was silently saying “yeah, , obviously’’—Ainslie clarified, “We like-like each other.”
“Oh!” Lily replied, realization dawning. “I know that.” She scoffed and rolled her eyes, shaking her head slightly to herself as she turned and left the room. She mumbled a quiet, “Duh,” under her breath as she left.
Ainslie stared after her, blinking slowly. That… had been easier than she had expected it to be. But she supposed she wasn’t surprised that she and Malik couldn’t really be considered subtle. Not that she was going to argue the point; she had no real complaints.
Even so, being called out like that by an eight-year-old child was a bit of a blow to Ainslie’s pride.
*
There were eleven days until the next full moon, and the yard was coated in leaves. Ainslie attempted to rake them up like a responsible human being who was generally in charge of smaller human beings, but those attempts didn’t really pan out.
Paisley jumped in the pile first, because of course she did. She was three years old and had the self-control of a starving wombat. Leaves scattered in every direction, and when Paisley emerged from the pile, she had them stuck in her hair.
Lily was the second one to jump in the pile, dive-bombing into it like she thought it was some sort of Olympic sport. Were that the case, Ainslie definitely would have given her the gold medal.
She thought that would be the end of it after that, but then, unexpectedly, Andy decided she needed to take a leap into the pile, cannonballing into it with great aplomb. Ainslie applauded for her as she emerged from the pile.
After that, surely, that would be the end of it.
And then her feet left the ground as Malik scooped her up from behind. She hadn’t even heard him come outside. She thrashed, squealing, as he tossed her into the pile, and then she tumbled aside as he dove after her.
Looking around at the yard afterwards, she supposed that maybe having a leaf-free yard was overrated, and she stuffed a handful of leaves down the back of Malik’s shirt to watch him try to frantically pull them out as they poked at him.
*
There were ten days left until the next full moon, and it seemed as if time was passing so quickly as if everything was unusually perfect.
Well. Not quite perfect. There was still one person who didn’t know the full scope of what was going on. She wasn’t sure how much Paisley would understand—love and romance in cartoons was a lot different than it was in reality—but that was still no excuse not to tell her.
They were outside as Paisley collected leaves, saying something about wanting them for a decoration. They would dry out and crumble up soon enough, but Ainslie knew that Paisley’s attention span could be short enough that if she replaced them with fabric leaves, Paisley would never notice.
As Paisley searched for a leaf that was just the right shade of gold, Ainslie said, “So, you know the princesses and the princes in all those movies, how they kiss at the end?”
“Uh huh,” Paisley replied, straightening up as she evidently found her perfectly gilded leaf.
“Your dad and I want to be like that,” Ainslie informed her.
Slowly, Paisley blinked at her. And then she grinned and shrugged and said, “Okay.”
Ainslie couldn’t even say she was surprised by the easy acceptance, considering she wasn’t sure how much of her mother Paisley actually remembered.
Even so, it was comforting to know that none of the girls were against it. If she was going to be part of Malik’s life then she was going to be part of theirs as well, and what they thought of her could very well be even more important than what Malik thought of her.
*
There were nine days until the next full moon, and when Malik got home, he didn’t immediately head straight for his den. It was odd, but not quite as odd as it used to be, and for that Ainslie was grateful.
He joined her in the kitchen as Andy studied by explaining her science unit out loud to an audience of Ainslie and Malik. And technically Lily, though she was paying remarkably little attention as she doodled across a few pages of printer paper.
It didn’t take long before Andy finished her impromptu lecture and then stole Lily away to help with a set of flashcards, leaving Malik and Ainslie alone in the kitchen. For a few moments, they simply enjoyed the silence, before Malik got to his feet. Ainslie watched him curiously as he circled around the back of her chair until she couldn’t see him anymore.
His hands landed on her shoulders and she sighed out a slow, contented breath as his fingers began to knead her shoulders.
“It seems like you’ve had a long day,” he observed wryly, thumbs digging into the muscle at the base of her neck. “Why don’t you tell me about it?”
*
There were eight days until the next full moon, and Ainslie and Maria had managed to avoid each other pretty well. They saw each other in passing, but they felt no inclination to talk to each other. They hadn’t before the proverbial shit hit the fan, and they certainly felt no need to by that point.
Even so, it did still happen occasionally.
Ainslie was carrying a basket of laundry up to her bedroom when she practically ran into Maria in the downstairs hallway. They jostled back and forth for a moment before Maria stood well to the side to make space for Ainslie and the hamper, and she bowed Ainslie past with a flourish. It was… not exactly the most respectful gesture Ainslie had seen.
She simply walked past without comment at first, but she paused a few steps passed her. “Stop blaming it on me,” she finally stated, forcing the words out before she could rethink them.
“…Excuse me?” Maria asked, her tone carefully, cordially polite.
“You’re the one who went in my room and touched my stuff,” Ainslie reminded her. “You’re the one who didn’t come clean about it. Paisley figured it out, and then you never mentioned it until I showed up at your house.” She turned to glance over her shoulder. “So, stop blaming all of this on me. You brought it on yourself, and I’m not going to pretend to be a villain because you have no concept of boundaries.”
For a moment, Maria’s mouth gaped open and closed in a manner not entirely unlike a fish. Had she been anywhere else, talking to anyone else, Ainslie would have found it funny. Just then, though, she could only muster up some vague annoyance.
Finally, Maria closed her mouth with an audible click before she regathered her composure and said sweetly, “I’ll try to be more cheerful about the impending loss of my job.”
Ainslie rolled her eyes as Maria turned and stormed down the hall. Ainslie watched her go for a moment before turning back in the direction she had been going and continuing on with her laundry hamper. She still had a job to do, regardless of any run-ins she had with Maria.
*
There was a week to go until the next full moon, and it seemed as if time was passing in a flash, as if one day simply bled seamlessly into the next without any true day or night. Every day and night piled on top of the one before, but Ainslie couldn’t complain. If life passed in a flash, that was better than everything slowing to a crawl.
Besides, it meant that she could appreciate it more whenever everything slowed down for a little while.
Like when she made a pumpkin pie in the middle of the afternoon—a trial run for Thanksgiving, she called it—and she knew it was cool when Malik brought her a slice on a plate and a mug of coffee, awkwardly balancing his own plate and mug with his other arm.
They sat on the couch in the family room, criticizing the judges of a cooking show on the television and appreciating the relative quiet until Lily poked her head into the room and loudly announced that the pie was ready.
Everything was a flurry of activity after that, in excitement at first and then in a sugar rush once the pie was properly doled out.
Even so, the slower moments were nice, and Ainslie appreciated whenever she ran into them. Sometimes it was nice to just sit back and smell the pumpkin pie.