Page 27

Starring Jesse, J.J., and Mr. Minegold, from Pale Girl, and so many other books.

References to Mr. Minegold’s origin story, Missing Stars.

“ J esse Jakob, don’t eat all the jam, sweetheart.”

The three-year-old slowly puts down the spoon.

“Silly boy of mine. The little hat cookies will be done soon, then you can have one, warm out of the oven. It’ll be much better than just the jam—even if it is very good jam.”

“They don’t look like hats.” J.J. peers into the oven.

“Not hats like your baseball cap, or your winter hat. These are old hats.”

J.J. laughs. “Eating old hats! Daddy! Daddy, we’re going to eat old hats!”

Mr. Minegold scoops up his grandson. “Jesse! Your son does not know the story of Purim.”

“He’s also three.” Jesse comes in, a soft pink bundle in his arms. “Look who’s awake.”

J.J. waves at his sister and kisses the air near her as he runs past, off to the play area in the old mansion where his grandfather, a vampire, lives; where his father, also a vampire, brings them a few times a week, because family is everything. Worth risking everything for.

“You and Sophie do not have to teach him my faith. I am a man of many faiths. Many traditions.” Jakob Minegold suddenly looks tired—old, even though he stopped aging long ago.

“We know that. But we want to. We just haven’t had much time or experience teaching him these big things.

This world is full of monsters—I don’t mean like Orcs and vampires, I mean like horrible people who do horrible things to each other.

I don’t want to burst his bubble yet. I want him to believe Pine Ridge is a beautiful, wonderful place for as long as he can, and to learn that there are still ugly things inside of it later. And outside of it—much later.”

Jakob Minegold remembers how things started in Poland. How he wanted to keep his students safe. His children safe. How he made light of the signs.

“Dad? Dad, are you okay?” There’s a firm hand on his arm, and someone calls him father, but his own children have not called him father in so long. They are gone. Saved, and gone.

Maybe he has grandchildren. He must.

But right now, he has J.J. and Mary, and Robert, and Selene and Matthew... Three are only here because of the gift he gave their fathers. Two are tag-along grandchildren, and he loves them dearly.

“Dad!” Jesse’s voice is frantic. “J.J.! Bring me my cell phone! It’s by Mary’s baby bag!”

There’s panic in Jesse’s voice.

He hasn’t heard panic and terror in one of his children’s voices in a long time.

“Because we sacrifice. And we risk. We do not hear the evil and the screams because there are still good men and women who do what they must. What they can.”

“Oh, thank God.” Jesse hugs him, the little pink bundle of dark hair and pale skin smushed between their chests. “I thought... I don’t know what I thought. I was so scared for a second. You went far away. You wouldn’t answer me.”

“I was far away and long ago. May I hold the baby for a little?” he whispers.

“Of course! I’m not going to work today. You don’t seem—”

“Sometimes I forget my blessings. You know... If the people of this town had been in my town, long, long ago, almost ninety years ago—I would not be who I am today. I would not be a vampire with a soul. I would be resting peacefully with my wife, buried side by side, and my city would be standing. My children’s children would come to visit my grave.

I truly believe that—if all of us who are here together now had been together then—”

“I wouldn’t have been here, Dad. Neither would J.J. or Mary. Or Robbie, or Robert,” Jesse says softly.

“Here’s the phone, Daddy!” J.J. careens into the room, tiny round face frozen in fear, eyes wide. “What’s wrong?”

He is galvanized, the old warhorse, the man who made a deal with a demon, but then played the beast at its own game. Kept his soul, saved his family, and started a new one—but never forgot either. Never stopped loving any of them.

“Nothing is wrong, J.J. Nothing is wrong here. Do you know that? In this town, you are everyone’s favorite little boy?

” He picks them both up, his little granddaughter and his big grandson, and squeezes them close, feeling a phantom flutter in his chest, heart still racing in his memories as he made sure that the train carrying his family went somewhere safe, somewhere far, far away from the wicked.

“I’m not everyone’s favorite little boy! Max’s mommy would say Max is her favorite little boy.”

“Ah, yes. Maybe. But you are my favorite little boy—but it is a tie, of course. You must understand that it is a tie.”

“When you both win?”

“And no one has to lose. Like the cookies.” Minegold puts the baby back into her father’s arms and lets the boy sit on the counter, the wide, beautiful counter in a spacious home that has been a safe haven to many.

He bends, swoops, whirls, oven mitt on, cookies out, steaming and smelling of citrus, red and golden orange jam bubbling inside the centers.

“Like the cookies.” He slides one strawberry and one apricot onto a small white china plate. “They can both be your favorites. And you can have them both.”

Like his families. He can have them both. One past, one present. More in the future.

But he will never have to say goodbye again, not like that—not if he can help it.

He looks at his son blowing on the hot cookies, and the baby sleeping in his arms, and the little boy daring to poke the golden edges of the sweet triangles on his plate...

They can have their innocence.

Because if the wicked come near us, we will drive them out. We will make them pay.

“Are you going to have a cookie, Grandpa?” J.J. holds out one cookie, and to a three-year-old who has waited patiently from start to finish, there is no greater sacrifice than sharing a warm cookie.

“I would love one, sweetheart.” Mr. Minegold takes the cookie and kisses the mop of brown-black curls.

They taste like joy after all.