Robbie pointed at Ursa Minor—the little bear, Addie realized—and continued. “The mother bear leapt high, swung up on the stars, and started chasing her errant son. The Fae came boiling out of Faerie, ready to shoot them both down. The shamans of the native tribe used their magic to change the mother and son into stars. The Fae couldn’t reach them and went back home. So now the mother chases the son around and around the North Star.”
Robbie moved his arm to illustrate as he talked, and Addison listened, enchanted.
“It’s not the story I learned,” she said when he finished.
“There’s all kinds of stories about the stars,” Robbie said. “Dad knows them all. He told us.”
Addison sent Kendrick a look. “Did he?”
Kendrick rounded up his sons. “Inside, you three. It’s getting late and colder. Seamus?”
Seamus, without saying a word, started for the house. He leaned down and picked up the smaller boys on his way, and Robbie, with a hopeful look at Addison, went after them.
“I’ll be in to put you to bed,” Addison promised, then she turned to Kendrick. “Is he going to be all right? Seamus, I mean.”
Kendrick looked after his tracker, who had reverted to his good-natured ways with the boys. “I don’t know. There’s something going on with him.”
“Will you tell me?” Addison gazed up at him as wistfully as Robbie had. “The Shifter stories of the constellations?”
There were many—the Lovers, which humans thought of as the twins of the Gemini, the Tiger, and the Wolf Cubs. Kendrick had a tale for each of them.
“Yes,” he said in a low voice. “When this is done, I’ll tell you the legends of the stars.”
Addison didn’t answer for a time. She studied him with her clear-eyed watchfulness, then gave him a nod. “Good. I’ll hold you to that.”
* * *
Charlie made no comment about having to accommodate yet another Shifter in his house and had a bedroom ready for Seamus by the time Addie walked back in with Kendrick.
“Does me good to see the place so alive again,” Charlie said to Addie as he bustled around with pillows and blankets.
Seamus disappeared into his room, and Addie heard him on the phone as she lingered in the hallway. Seamus was speaking in a gentle tone, obviously to someone he cared about.
“I’ll be all right, sweetheart,” he said. “Home as soon as I can.”
His voice was so full of love that Addie’s heart ached. How wonderful to have someone care that much for you that every word was a caress. She thought of her conversation with Charlie when he said that not everybody was lucky to love someone who loved them back.
Addie sighed, hid her longing, and went to put the boys to bed.
The little ones seemed happier tonight, less afraid. Uncle Seamus was here, they were safe in Charlie’s house, and Addie could tell them more stories.
Addie repeated stories from the Oz books, which she knew by heart—the originals, not the 1939 musical. All three boys were fascinated, listening, mouths open, until they finally drooped and slept.
Addie had to wonder whether she’d be sleeping in the bed in this room or in the big bed across the hall, and whether it would be with or without Kendrick.
When she checked their bedroom, it was lit but empty, as was the living room. Charlie must have gone to bed, because he was nowhere in sight.
Addie poured herself a glass of water in the kitchen and carried it back down the hall with her. She heard voices from Seamus’s room but it didn’t sound like he was on the phone anymore. Kendrick’s rumble answered Seamus and Addie tiptoed along the hall until she stood outside Seamus’s door.