Sleepy Fox Hollow Folk star

What Mahler proposed in that moment was so preposterous that Wylla wanted to laugh in his face. Surely he was joking. But her searching yellow eyes, sharp for the signs of a jest, saw no such betrayal in his expression and for once she curtailed her tongue before it could deliver the stinging kiss of yet another barb.

Um, said Wylla, drawing away from him with a suppressed snort of nervous laughter. I don't know if I believe all that, but you can... talk to them, if you want. This was delivered just ahead of the realization that she had no idea how this worked. A sheepish smirk lifted her lips then. How stupid. She'd had a kid and she still didn't really know how to be a mother, and she didn't know why the idea of Mahler talking to her mute stomach was so endearing, but it was. As endearing as it was silly.

What do I have to do? she asked, having angled herself so he might reach her growing flank, but was there more to it than that?