She nodded slowly, looking perplexed.
"Well, anyway." He cleared his throat. "I know you're upset about this, but--"
"But I have to learn to feed before I can leave here," she interrupted.
"You do?" he asked with surprise. Then he corrected, "I mean, you realize that?"
"Of course. It wouldn't do for my teeth to pop out at work, or for me to take a bite out of a family member, coworker, or our priest."
"No. No, that wouldn't be good," he agreed, grinning with relief. She was being very sensible.
"So we should probably get down to the business of teaching me to feed."
"Yes." He nodded but just stood there, staring at her until she arched her eyebrows.
"Where should we do it? The kitchen?" she asked.
"Yes, of course." Etienne forced himself to move forward, but his mind was racing. She seemed determined to conquer this problem, which was good, but he'd rather she didn't resolve it too quickly. He wanted to keep her in his home for a while.
There were ways to delay her managing to ingest blood, but it meant he'd have to put in a call to Bastien. "Why don't you sit down and relax a while?" he suggested, pausing at the door. "We have to wait on an order of blood to be delivered anyway."
"I thought you had lots," she said with surprise.
"No," Etienne lied. "We used the last of my supply last night. I had to change your bag several times."
"Oh." Rachel sighed. "Okay. I'll read a while."
Smiling, Etienne left her to it and hurried out of the room.
"Oh, God!" Rachel spat the blood back into the mug and pushed it away with disgust. "How do you drink this stuff? It's disgusting! Gross! It smells like skunk! Are you sure it hasn't gone bad?"
Etienne tried not to look guilty. The blood hadn't gone bad. It was bad blood. It was basically reject blood--a combination of the thick clotty blood of cigarette smokers, the skunky corpuscles of pot smokers, and a trace of the blood of patients on Valium. It was nourishing enough and wouldn't really hurt her, but it was vile to consume and had the unpleasant side effects of wooziness and nausea.
Not knowing what he was giving her, Rachel was of course putting her physical response down to a psychological aversion to the idea of drinking blood. Etienne didn't correct her misconception. He was also insisting she be able to consume it from a glass rather than a bag, telling her she had to be prepared for all occasions before she would be ready to leave and rejoin the world. During the last two days, since the reject blood had been delivered, Rachel had tried three times a day to consume the bad mix, only to spit it back up. After each attempt, they either played his latest game or talked, or simply sat reading together in the library.
Other than the unpleasant attempts with the blood, it had been a nice couple of days. Unfortunately, to keep her from being suspicious, Etienne had been forced to drink the bad blood too. He wasn't sure how he had managed without gagging.
"Well, I suppose that's enough for today," he said empathetically. "You gave it a good go. Maybe tomorrow--"
"Tomorrow is going to be just like today," Rachel predicted gloomily. "I'll never get used to this stuff."
Etienne was searching his mind for some way to cheer and encourage her--and maybe even distract her so that he could avoid finishing the mug he had poured for himself--when the doorbell rang.
He wasn't surprised to find his mother on the doorstep. He was surprised when the first words out of her mouth weren't a greeting.
"Where is Rachel?" she asked.
"Right here."
Etienne glanced over his shoulder to see Rachel approaching. "Is something wrong?" she asked, looking anxious.
"No, no. I just thought you might be getting a little housebound and would want to get out," Marguerite said lightly. She ran her eyes over the outfit Rachel wore. "That will do, dear. Would you like to come play?"
"I don't think--" Etienne began.
Rachel stepped to his side and interrupted. "Where exactly?" she asked.
"To Lissianna's wedding shower, dear. Our side of the family only. It will give you the chance to meet other young women like yourself."