Page 171 of Pack Baby for the Silver Foxes

Her mission became clear.

She crossed the room with the determined wobble of a person who had recently learned walking and was never crawling again. Then she climbed onto the chair by the window using both hands, one knee, and a noise of immense effort.

I set my brush down and moved closer. “Can I help?”

“No,” Mila said.

“Fair. Very modern of you.”

She hauled herself into the chair and sat there, pleased and breathless, looking out over the grounds as if she had conquered a minor nation.

“Comfortable?”

“Da.”

“Excellent. I agree.”

Mila pointed at the canvas.

“That’s a painting,” I said. “Or the start of one. Or a cry for help with a frame.”

She babbled back at me, serious and fluent in a language I didn’t speak. She had many words in her vocabulary; just today she chose to make some up.

I nodded. “Yes, I’ve considered adding more green. But then it becomes too obvious, doesn’t it?”

Mila slapped the arm of the chair and laughed.

“Exactly. Restraint. You’re very wise.”

Mac appeared in the doorway with a biscuit in one hand and a look of disappointment, which was strange for a boy of his age. “She asked what you’re painting.”

I looked at him. “No, she didn’t.”

“Did,” Mila said.

I stared at her, then at Mac. “Oh. You really do have superpowers, don’t you?”

Mac stepped into the room, crumbs on his sweater. “Not yet.”

“Mila does, apparently.”

He looked at his sister with the resigned air of someone who had suspected this for some time. “She knows things.”

Mila kicked one foot and looked smug.

“Can she close her eyes and tell me what Hudson and Lincoln are saying?”

Mac’s face changed. That was when my hand tightened around the edge of the table.

“That’s why I came up,” he said.

My chest went cold. “Why?”

Mac looked down at his biscuit. “They’re downstairs.”

For a second, the room disappeared. Not fully because Mila was still in the chair, humming to herself and smacking one palm against the window as if testing its strength. “Hudson and Lincoln?”

Mac nodded. “Daddy A said they could come in because Mama said you said the gates can open.”