A Birth day

Ruby watched as Edward headed up their stairs then returned and she nodded " he said 1 cup of milk to 4 drops of Vitamin E. heat the milk carefully just until it hits 100 degrees C. Just til it hits the boiling point--but absolutely do not let it boil. The very second it hits 100, take it of the heat, add the vitamin e, and stir it gently with a wooden spoon " she said repeating what Angus had told her as she took the two bottles with droppers on. she placed Caprice down in the play pen again.

Standing up she listened to Edward talk about the voles and nodded " I'll let Poppy know , shes looking after them" she said smiling as she held the bottles and the vitamin E in her hands. "thank you Edward, and Angus is looking much better today" she said and looked to the adjoining door " okay I'll get these back to Poppy." she said and chuckled as she saw Caprice and Amari both wave to her, with a wave back she headed into their side of the duplex. " okay I got the Vit E and dropper bottles" she said walking to wards the kitchen to make the milk.

"So do what he tells you with the stuff he gave you to finish making the formula and please dont do what some of our ground crew used to do. They'd make up formula, not label it, and put it in the fridge right next to the coffee creamer. And then someone was innocently adding mammal formula to their tea.  I'm glad he thought of the disposable pipettes because  after Poppy's done feeding them, we can just throw those pipettes away. I think that's a better idea than trying to clean those because they're so small. I'll order a box from our suppliers so she can get a new, sterile pipette every time she feeds them. Besides, when the kids all get home, they're all going to want to help feed. So we're going to need bunches of pipettes."

Poppy said something softly to Marcus, and Marcus went over to the cookie jar and got her two cookies and a cup of tea. Angus realized what had just happened. Lunch was late, and Poppy was, understandably, hungry. 

"Ru, when you get a chance, could you finish making lunch please? Its running quite a bit behind schedule," Angus suggested. 

"Who is the blonde woman that I sense here?" Iya asked. "She's a protective spirit of a strong whitelighter."

"If she has shoulder length blonde hair, that's my gran," Angus said. "Caprice Donohue. Edward's first wife. She was a fighter like Edward. She and Edward raised me."

"That's why she's here. She seems to feel she has to stand between the forces of good and evil, but she seems to feel strongly that we're off track somehow. I haven't figured out how yet, but I feel that if she can't communicate that to me, she will try to get that to you," Iya replied.

"Being off track is not a good thing," Angus said. "If we're wrong in the direction we're going, we need to know that. I'll try to see if she'll tell me, but by all means, feel free to talk to her if you can."

"I fully intend to," she said. She got up and headed to the kitchen to get a cup of coffee.

Ruby nodded to Edward " that would be good" she said then headed to the kitchen " I'll make sure its labled " she said as she began making the milk . Hearing Angus say lunch was late she looked at the clock and nodded " sorry dear I'm on it" she said and started gathering the things she had made for lunch witch consisted of Chorizo & mozzarella gnocchi bake along with Pork noodle stir-fry.

With the milk done she placed some in a small cup and with a pipet in hand she walked over to Poppy placing it down next to her on a table " its warm " she said " I made it just as Angus and Edward instructed so should help the babies" she said smiling as she handed her a full pipet of milk.Ruby now looked to Aria who headed to the kitchen and takes out the food placing it on the side bard " I made a light dish for Angus knowing he can't eat anything too heavy Turkey meatball Caesar salad." she said sending a medium plate over to Angus with some lemonade again.

"Poppy," Angus said, "let me show you how its done. You'll have to be careful so the little buggars don't end up with formula in their lungs instead of their stomachs. If it goes to the wrong place, they could, essentially drown. Here. Its in how you hold them. Don't roll them on their backs. Don't overextend their necks. Tipping their heads up is a natural tendency for us because its easier for us, but try not to do it. Try it like this." He accio'd a couple dish towels from the kitchen and put one on his lap and gave the other to Poppy. He took one of the tiny baby voles, filled his pipette and gently opened the mouth of the vole, put the tip of the pipette just inside the baby's mouth and slowly squeezed out one tiny drop of formula at a time until the vole got the idea, and then it suckled on the pipette readily.

"The more they do it themselves, the less chance you have of the baby aspirating."

"Like this?" she asked Angus, copying his movements.

"Exactly! Good job. Look how hungry yours is. Remember his stomach is teeny weeny. The whole vole only weighs about 2 ounces right now. It's not going to need more than a few drops to be full."

"Then it shouldn't take long," she said.

"Not long at all," he smiled. He fed three of the babies, and she fed two, and all in just a couple moments. He let her put the voles in the nesting box and get the supplies ready to give back to Ruby. Angus handed Poppy a bottle of hand sanitizer to clean her hands before she ate. He used it himself, and then they both tucked into their lunches.

Poppy was fine at eating her lunch at first but then Angus noticed she was soon getting slower and slower. Marcus had already seen.

"You don't have to finish if you don't want, Half Pint," Marcus told her. "You let me know when you're finished, and I'll take you back downstairs." He knew she was hungry but she was just entirely too tired. "You've done exceptionally well for your first time up, but its time you give it a rest when you're done there."
 
She quit when she was just a bit more than halfway done. Marcus took her back downstairs and put her back to bed. By then, she was hurting again. Marcus took it upon himself to give her another dose of pain potion, and when she stopped hurting, she went back to sleep.

"Suppose she'll go to sleep?" Angus asked Marcus when he came back upstairs.

"She was asleep about five seconds after her head hit the pillow. She's comatose," Marcus laughed. "Thanks for spending so much time with her. She loves meeting people she has something in common with. She thinks you're brilliant, you know."

"God, I've got her fooled,' Angus said. "I'm just a jack of all trades. master of none."

"Not true. Captain Donohue, Chef Donohue. Swashbuckler, and all the rest. I really think she needs to meet Kate."

"I'll make sure she gets to meet her whenever Kate is free to do it," Marcus said. 

"Thanks for the salad, Ru," Angus said. "It was great, but I'm stuffed now."

"I think he did really well," Marcus said. "He did somewhere between half and 3/4 of it. That's good, under the circumstances, I think."

Angus sipped a bit on his lemonade, and as everyone else ate, the house grew quiet. He started to doze. Marcus took the lemonade glass from Angus's hand and set it aside to let him sleep.

Downstairs, Victor had finished his lunch and was looking through paperwork. 

"Jessie, where is Highgrove at, and why is there an old bill from them here? What is it, anyway? " he asked

Ruby smiled watching Poppy feed the vole babies as did Aria. Once they were finished Ruby took the rest of the formula and put it in the fridge labeled what it was and then finished her own food. Hearing Marcus she nodded as Jess noted the amount down on the clip board for Andrew to look at later. " that's a good amount, slightly more than yesterday" she said smiling to him but saw he was falling asleep, once Marcus had taken his glass Ruby walked over and took it replacing it with some water with a chill charm on the glass.

Jessie after many hours of sifting threw paper work he looked up at Victor " Highgrove?" he asked " I know of Highgrove house Nestled in the Cotswolds with a picturesque market town, boasting beautifully preserved wool merchants’ houses and a splendid 17th-century Market Hall, Its also the home of the uk's king right now, I looked it up.. " he said " as for a bill from there not sure" he moved to take a look at it , put it to one side , Robert can look at it with anything else we find."

As they were sifting through paperwork, Sam saw something on one of the shelves behind Jessie start to move. Curious, Sam watched as one of Angus's old Hogwarts textbooks slid apparently on its own to the front of the shelf and then fly off the shelf and fall right on Jessie's head. 

The breeze from the textbook caused Victor's paperwork about Highgrove to flutter off the table, along with an old, yellowed newspaper clipping. The clipping landed upside down on top of Victor's Highgrove paperwork, showing part of an ad from a funeral home about a sale on tombstones, with a picture of a tombstone. 

"What the heck?" Victor frowned.

"That might not have been accidental," Sam said slowly.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that darned book slid to the front of the shelf all by itself, launched itself off the shelf, flew sideways and then cracked Jessie on the head?"

"Suppose that's Gran Caprice?"

"Unless there is some other spook here," Sam shrugged. And, as if almost in reply, something headslapped Sam on the back of the head.

"Nope. It's Gran," Victor laughed. He looked at the papers and saw the Highgrove paperwork now with a picture of a tombstone on top. 

"So, Highgrove tombstones?" Sam asked.

"Or we need to be seeing if there is a Highgrove cemetery someplace," Victor replied.

Jessie had been looking at the clipping when he felt something hard hit his head he wanted to curse but chose not to but his hand rubbed where the book had hit him. He saw Sam act as if struck and nodded " yep" he said then looked down at the upturned clip picking up he looked at the tombstones ad " huh, was this what you wanted us to see?" he asked looking around. then showed the boys " its possible we need to ask them about burial records for that cemetery, I know they keep them for years." he sighed and rubbed the sour spot on his head " wish you have shown us in a less damaging way.

Ruby finished cleaning up and watched as Aria walked over to Poppy " they still sleeping?" she asked as she sat down next to her watching the voles as they sleep in the nesting box. Ruby moved to Angus and Jess .

"I'm assuming Andrew might pop round soon?" she asked sitting with her book and continued reading " I'm at  Qilin, part-dragon, part-horse, sound fascinating." she said as she smiled and looked at the picture in front of her.

"I'm sure he will be," Marcus said, "it isn't really quite time for his shift to begin yet, I don't think. I understood they were splitting the day into two shifts. So that would mean that Andrew's shift would start at about supper time since he was here til after breakfast. That would be about an even twelve hours. I am presuming that Robert probably figures that in another day or so, Angus might not need overnight care. I think Poppy is doing well enough that she doesn't need that now, so its only to look after Angus during the night. I do rather expect Evan to be here soon with the girls, though. Poppy will look forward to that."


It was another twenty minutes or so before the girls arrived, but when they got back, Evan came in with a couple of large insulated food bags.

"Tara cooked supper for you lot. I hope you can use it," Evan said.

"We haven't started anything yet, not that I know of," Marcus said, going to Evan and taking the bag.

"You have two very large lasagnas. One is a traditional lasagna with meat and ricotta and a lot of sauce. The second is a vegetable lasagna with broccoli, carrots, sweet onion, and cauliflower in an alfredo sauce. They're both very good. She's also enclosed an antipasti salad in an Italian dressing, and an extra large chocolate tiramisu. Rather than the vanilla custard, it has a chocolate custard. Is there anything else that we can do to help you?"

"I can't think of a thing, Evan," Marcus said. "Angus is slowly improving, I think. We're working on trying to unravel the mystery of who is controlling the elementals, and Iya is here from New Orleans, so we're doing all we can."

"If you go on anything, you take me along," Evan said.

"Absolutely. We will. Thanks," Marcus said.

"Okay, i guess I'm going to get home to my own lasagnas then," Evan smiled. 

"Thanks," Marcus said. Evan left and ported home. The girls were already setting out the lasagnas and setting up the sideboard for supper

Jess listened to Marcus talk of when Andrew was due and she nodded " that's about right" she said writing down Angus stats on the clip board. Ruby looked up as Even and the girls returned and she smiled seeing the food bags " oh thank you , thank Tara for this too" she said helping the girls place the food out and around the side board.

Smelling food Jessie looked at the stairs as the girls came down to change out of their school clothing . " I smell food, I'll show Angus what we found and see if he can make sense of it all so far." he said and picked up everything from the floor. Taking teh clipping and paper he headed up to the living room " Gran realy dosn't like me , clocked me with a book " he said as Jess walke dover and checked him.

"no real damage" she said seeing nothing but a small bump and some redness. " you have a pretty hard head, so I'm not worried about concussion" she said chuckling a she went back to Angus.

"find anything?" Aria sked as Jessie waked over and sat down on the couch.

"yeah this" he said and brought out the clipping and ad in the paper, " she hit me with the book then made the clipping flip over onto the newspaper article, so I'm guessing there related , was thinking of going to the grave stone shop and check out whose buried in the grave yard since they should have records."

"What's this about graves?" Angus asked. 

"Can I borrow this?" Sam said, taking the papers from Jessie and showing them to Angus.

"Well, I don't disagree that it does seem to point us in the direction of a cemetery," Angus said. "Has anyone considered that Highgrove Cemetery in London is one of the most famous cemeteries in England? Seems to me that we need to rule that out. Now, you lot can pursue the tombstone, but it might well be that Gran used the images of tombstone to help steer you lot from other places named Highgrove because they're the wrong path. And, if we're now thinking that maybe, just maybe, we're looking at Highgrove Cemetery, then we need to pass that lead on to Robert or Michael since Robert was going to have Michael do whatever digging he could do about Charlotte and all the rest of them. Now, with a possible cemetery, maybe there are some dots we can finally connect. That would be lovely. Why do I smell food?"

"Because Evan and Tara sent two different lasagnas," Anise replied. "Antipasti salad, and chocolate tiramisu."

"Sounds great."

"I think we're pretty much done setting out the sideboard. Can call everyone to eat since the boys are here already?" Ginger asked. "We'll fix Poppy's..."

"I can fix Angus's. I think food is a great idea. I'm starving," Marcus said, heading to the kitchen to set out a pitcher of ice water and one of iced tea. 

"Is there a right and wrong way to serve lasagna?" Ginger asked.

"Maybe Ruby or Aria would cut it for you. I would cut them in maybe smaller portions because most people will probably want a square of each," Angus said. "And they arent going to want to miss Tara's salad either. If there's enough, you could invite Edward and Simone to come get some."

"There's enough to feed two platoons," Marcus laughed, "with leftovers."