"Claire?"

"Mom..."

"What's the matter?"

Startled by the intensity of the question, Claire jerked around but could neither see nor hear anything moving up on her. "What do you mean? What do you know?"

"You were choking."

"Oh, that." Wiping her chin with her free hand, Claire relaxed. "The phone startled me, and I tried to breathe spit. It's nothing." Breath back, she explained the problem.

"Oh, my."

"Exactly. Do you think you could come and have a look at it? At them. Tell me what you think."

"I'd like to help you, Claire, but I don't know. If I were needed, I'd have been summoned."

"I need you. Who says a summons can't use the phone?" She could feel her mother weakening. "This is huge. I'd hate to screw it up."

"Under the circ.u.mstances, that wouldn't make anyone very happy." She paused. Claire waited, poking her finger through the black coils of the cord. "It would be nice to spend some time with you. Would you like me to bring your sister?"

"I don't think so, Mom."

"You haven't seen her for almost a year."

"We talk on the phone."

"It's not the same."

"Yes, I know. But, please, leave her home anyway." The thought of Diana within a hundred miles of an open access to h.e.l.l brought up an image of the Four Hors.e.m.e.n trampling the world under their hooves as they fled in terror.

After supplying detailed directions, Claire hung up, glanced out into the shadowed lobby, and sighed. "Are your work boots dry, Dean?"

He looked down at his feet. "They should be. Why?"

"You walk too quietly without them. Please, put them on."

With no memory of turning, he'd taken three silent, sweat sock m.u.f.fled steps toward the back door before he recalled what he'd come out to the lobby to say. "I made a fresh pot of coffee, if you're interested. And pecan cookies."

Dean stared at Claire over his seventh cookie. "So your mother is your cousin?"

"No. She's a Cousin."

"And your father's...?"

"A Cousin, too."

"And you and your younger sister, Diana, are both Keepers?"

"Yes."

Behind his gla.s.ses, his eyes twinkled. "So, you're your mother's Aunt?"

"No."

"But..."

"Look, I didn't make up the stupid nomenclature!" Strongly suspecting that Dean was being difficult on purpose, Claire tossed back her last mouthful of coffee, choked, and ended up spraying the tabletop and both her companions.

"Oh, thank you very much." Austin jumped down onto the floor and vigorously shook one back leg. "I just got that clean!"

After handing the still sputtering Keeper a napkin, Dean quickly used another to mop up the mess. When things got back to normal, and when the cat had been placated, he asked, "Why won't your mother be here until tomorrow afternoon?"

"That's when the train from London gets in. Tomorrow morning she'll get a lift from Lucan into London, then catch the train from London to Toronto to connect with the 1:14 out of Union Station, which means she'll be here about four."

"Oh." He'd been half hoping to hear that the delay involved vacuuming the flying carpet or waiting until the flight path cleared for low alt.i.tude brooms. After the excitement of the morning, he was ready for his next installment of weird. Things hadn't been this interesting since he'd left home. Actually, things hadn't been this interesting at home, although his granddad's reaction to his cousin Todd getting an eyebrow pierced had come close. "Why doesn't she drive?"

"Because she can't. None of us can."

Dean blinked. Okay, that was the weirdest thing he'd heard so far. "None of your family?"

"None of the lineage."

"Why not?"

"Too many distractions. We see things other people don't."

There'd been a couple of members of Dean's family who'd seen things other people hadn't, but they were usually laid out roughly horizontal and left to sleep it off. "Things like blue mice?" he asked innocently, biting into another cookie.

"No. They're nothing at all like blue mice," she told him curtly. If she responded to his teasing, he'd keep doing it, and she already had one younger sibling; she didn't need another. "They're bits of the energy, small possibilities that... Austin! Get out of there!" Leaping to her feet, she s.n.a.t.c.hed the b.u.t.ter dish out from under the cat's tongue. "Do you know what this stuff does to your arteries?" she demanded. "Are you trying to kill yourself?"

"I'm hungry."

"There's a bowl of fresh, geriatric kibble on the floor by the fridge."

"I don't want that," he muttered looking sulky. "You wouldn't make your grandmother eat it."

"My grandmother doesn't lick the b.u.t.ter."

"Wanna bet?"

Claire turned her back and pointedly ignored him. "Small possibilities," she repeated, "that sometimes seep through and run loose in the world."

Dean glanced around the dining room. "What do they look like?"

"That depends on your background. You're a McIssac so, if you had the Sight, at the very least you'd see traditional Celtic manifestations. Given that Newfoundland has a wealth of legend all its own you'd also probably pick up a few indigenous manifestations."

"You're not serious?" he asked her, grinning broadly. "Ghoulies and ghosties and things that go b.u.mp in the night?"