The Art of Stealing Time

TWO

“Hello, my old friend.”

The stone Animal Wall is one of my favorite places in Cardiff city proper. I was just a child when it was first carved, and I have vague memories of being taken to see the original painted animals. Sometime in the early 1920s, about thirty years after it was placed outside of Cardiff Castle, it was moved to the edge of Bute Park, where it still resides.

“You’re looking as placid as usual,” I told my favorite animal where he sat atop the wall, the stone images illuminated by the floodlights planted along the base of the wall. Directly in front of me, a stone seal gazed serenely into the distance, his flippers poised as if he were about to leap off the wall. “You know, Mr. Seal, I used to think that a spell would turn you to flesh and blood, and I’d beg my moms to give it to me so that you could slip out into the bay and swim away. They never did.”

The statue said nothing, for which I was extremely thankful—the last thing I needed was an animated statue, or a nervous breakdown. Although at times, I was ready to swear that the latter had some good points to it . . .

Around me, music sounded from a stage across the park, where a local Welsh band was entertaining folks who were out enjoying the history festival.

The air was filled with scents as well as sounds: the cooling of the sun-warmed lawn had a pleasant earthy note that mingled nicely with the salty tang wafting in from the bay. A more artificial, but no less pleasing, aroma came from the food stalls that had been set up for the festival, selling everything from Indian food to fish cakes to Welsh beef burgers. I salivated, my stomach rumbling uncomfortably while I contemplated enduring the crowds to feed my soon-to-be-uncontrollable hunger.

Common sense prevailed. I would never find my mothers in the throngs of people who queued up in front of the food area. Blue and red and gold lights lit Cardiff Castle beyond the Animal Wall, but I turned my gaze from its familiar ramparts to the crowd that moved like so many fireflies in a random pattern around the park. Fake torches lined pathways, while vendors in small pushcarts sold the inevitable glow sticks, bracelets, and necklaces. Soft neon glows of green, blue, and orange lit up faces old and young, but I ignored them to try to pick out the familiar shapes of my mothers: Mom, short and somewhat round (unfortunately, I inherited her propensity to abundance, although not her lack of height), and Mom Two, as tall and angular as Mom was the opposite.

I glanced at my watch, tilting it to catch illumination from a nearby faux torch. The fireworks would start in about fifteen minutes. “I swear, if I have to come and find you—” I started to grumble under my breath, pulling out my phone to call one of my mothers, but at that moment my peripheral vision caught the flicker of a familiar form.

“Mom!” I raised my hand and moved toward the three shapes. “It’s about time. I’ve been waiting for almost fifteen minutes. Hello.”

The last was spoken to the tiny old lady that both moms held in a firm grip.

“Gwenny, dear, we’re late, aren’t we? We had to stop for a wee. You know how your mother is.”

Mom Two made a grimace. “Pessary, you know. Makes me have to go sometimes. Must have shifted. Will have to have it checked out again.”

I wrinkled my nose. “Yeah, we don’t really need to talk about your bladder-holder-upper device right out here in the park. Is this Mrs. Vanilla?”

“Yes, it is. Oooh, is that Chicken Korma I smell?”

I grabbed my mother’s nearest arm and held on, as she was about to head straight for the food booths. “Yes, it is, and if I have to starve myself, so do you. It’s not on our diets.”

She sighed, and her shoulders slumped. “I know. But it smells so very delicious, and we’ve had a very stressful day, what with you returning to the States, and then the rescue of Mrs. Vanilla. Oh, I haven’t introduced you. Dear, this is my daughter, Gwenhwyfar. Mrs. Vanilla is our student, as I think I told you.”

I eyed the old lady between my mothers, trying to assess how likely she was to lodge a charge against them. If she was as confused as my mother made her sound, perhaps she wouldn’t remember anything that happened once she was returned to her nursing home. She was a tiny little thing, smaller even than my five-foot-three mother, but as delicate as a bird. She had narrow little hands that flitted about with graceful darting gestures that reminded me for some reason of shorebirds as they ran up and down the beach looking for food. Her hair was mostly white, cropped short, but there was an unusual black stripe right down the middle. A cowlick in the back made the tip of the stripe stand up on end, giving her a somewhat comical appearance. Her eyes were dark, but clouded with cataracts, and her hands had the faintest tremor to them. A thick greenish-black dressing gown covered her from neck to ankles, embroidered with what looked to be fanciful creatures from mythology. All in all, she looked like a perfectly nice little old lady.

I sighed, shaking my head at my moms, noting that a short distance away a family that was in possession of a bench had gathered up the remains of their dinner and moved off to a trash can. I steered my mothers’ captive over to the bench and turned to give both mothers the eye. “You two know you’ve gone way over the line this time, yes?”

Mom startled to bristle, while Mom Two looked haughtily down her long nose at me. “We have a duty to our students, Gwen,” the latter told me. “Not to mention a duty to save those who are under the protection of the god and goddess. We couldn’t hold up our heads if we were to let Mrs. Vanilla languish away in the mortal old-person prison.”

“OK, first, it’s a nursing home, not a prison. And second, you are not supposed to steal mortals. Third, and most important of all, you have no right taking this nice old lady from the people who care for her. What if she needs special medicines? Or stuff like adult diapers?” I gave the little old woman a twisted smile. “Sorry. Don’t mean to imply you need them. For all I know, your bladder is stronger than my mothers’ is.”

“It’s not,” Mom said with a wry look. “We thought of that, naturally, Gwenny. We’re not monsters, you know. We brought all of her medicines, and bought her a jumbo pack of bladder pants, as well as a pair of really warm wool socks in case her feet get cold at night like Alice’s do.”

“Always had poor circulation,” Mom Two said with a nod. “Got that from my father. He was a mage. Mages are notorious for their cold feet.”

“Regardless,” I said, attempting to keep the conversation from wandering, which I knew full well it would do if I didn’t keep the strictest control over it. “The fact remains that you stole a mortal woman. You can’t keep her, Moms. You have to take her back.”

“We will naturally take the very best care of her—” Mom Two started to say, but I cut her off with a sharp gesture. Mrs. Vanilla made little eeping noises of distress, her hands fluttering like the wings of tiny doves.

“She is not a pet! She’s a person, a mortal, an innocent woman who needs the care of the people who are paid to take care of her.”

“Pah,” Mom Two said, while my mother added, “We don’t want money to take care of her. We will do it because she is our student, and is in need of help, and the god and goddess have charged us to take care of others whenever possible.”

I took a deep breath. “I know full well what the Wiccan creed is, so don’t try to blow smoke up my ass.”

“Gwen!” my mother said, waving a hand at the old woman. “Not in front of Mrs. Vanilla!”

I glanced at her. She had stopped squeaking, but her hands were still flittering a few inches off her lap, almost as if she was trying to use sign language. “Sorry, ma’am. Mother, might I have a word with you?”

“What do you need?” Mom Two asked the old lady, bending over her to bellow. “Do you need to use the toilet again? No? Paper? You want paper?”

“Gwenny, I think you’re being very close-minded about this whole thing—” my mother started to say when I pulled her a few yards away.

Mom Two was digging through the messenger bag she always had strapped across her torso, pulling out a tattered notebook with pen attached by means of a grubby bit of string. She gave that to Mrs. Vanilla.

“I am through explaining why you can’t kidnap a mortal and keep her. What I need from you and Mom Two is your plan on how to return her. She doesn’t look like the sort of woman who remembers much, so we’ll have to trust that once you get her back to where she belongs, she won’t file a charge with the police. But the fact remains that she has to go back.”

“We can’t take her back,” Mom Two said, moving over to stand with us. The old lady was busily drawing on the notebook, which I gathered was her thing to do in spare moments.

“If you’re worried about that video of you and Mom taking Mrs. Vanilla, then you could throw a glamour or something on yourselves so the mortals wouldn’t recognize it was you bringing her back.”

She raised one eyebrow. “I’m surprised to hear you suggest that we should do something so illegal as to use magic to fool a mortal being, Gwen.”

“Balanced against abduction? Yeah, not such a big worry, especially when it’s done in order to return the old biddy.”

My mother whapped me on the arm. “It’s not nice to refer to the elderly by that term.”

“Kidnapping isn’t nice, either.” I took a deep breath, wondering if I’d be able to change my ticket for one the following day, and said, “OK, here’s the deal: you guys clearly don’t want to take her back. Yes, I know, you rescued her. That’s not the point. She has to go back to her home, and since you won’t take her, I will. Keys.” I held out my hand.

Mom Two looked mulish for a moment, but dug into her pocket and pulled out a set of car keys. “I do this under protest, Gwen.”

“Duly recorded. Where’d you leave the car?”

She described the parking lot where she had taken the car after dropping off Mom and Mrs. Vanilla at the entrance to the park.

“All righty. I’ll bring the car around to the disabled people’s entrance and will meet you there to pick her up. Once I have her back at her place, I’ll come back here for you two. We’ll have to stop by the train station for the luggage I left there, but that shouldn’t take long.”

“And then?” Mom asked, sniffing like I’d said something mean to her.

“And then we’ll find somewhere safe to park both of you while the dust settles.”

“Where, exactly, would that be? We can’t go home, not with the mortal police seeing us. And don’t say that we should wear a glamour for however many months or years it will take the police to forget about us.” Mom Two gestured toward my mother. “Mags dislikes glamours. She couldn’t tolerate one for longer than a few hours.”

I slapped my hands on my legs, frustrated but aware that I owed them some sort of an answer. “Well . . . maybe you could go away. Go to the U.S. with me?”

“We don’t have passports. The authorities want passports nowadays. You remember the trouble we had getting you one?”

“Yes, well, the people at the passport office just don’t expect to see people born in 1888 needing a passport. Besides, we ended up getting me a fake one. We could just do the same for you two.”

“And where are we to stay until that is ready? It took you four months to get one made that would pass scrutiny by mortal security personages,” Mom Two said.

She had me there. I racked my brain for somewhere that they could lie low, somewhere they would be safe from all contact with the mortal world. “Well . . . I don’t know exactly.” I bit my lip and tried to think of all the places I’d ever been. I said, with an ironic little laugh that was to come back and haunt me later, “What we need is a place like Anwyn. You could stay there and the mortals couldn’t touch you. I don’t think that even the Watch has jurisdiction there. It would be ideal, except, of course, that you’d have to be dead to go there.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Mom snorted, giving Mrs. Vanilla’s arm a reassuring pat when the old lady started squeaking and drawing sharp little lines on her tablet of paper. “We wouldn’t go to Anwyn. It’s a Welsh afterlife.”

“Mom, you are Welsh, just like me.”

“I’m also a Wiccan, and since your other mother wouldn’t be eligible to rest in Anwyn, not being Welsh by birth, I certainly wouldn’t go there without her. When our time comes to depart for the next stage of our lives, we shall go to Summerland.”

I eyed her, thinking hard. “Can you . . . this is crazy, I know, but needs must and all that . . . can you get into Summerland without being dead?”

“Of course,” she said, murmuring softly to Mrs. Vanilla. “So long as you know where the entrance is, you can enter its domain. Mind, you can’t stay without permission of the lord and lady, but assuming you have that, it’s an easy thing to do.”

“Then that’s our answer!” I said, feeling as if a great weight had been torn from my shoulders. “You and Mom Two can go to Summerland. You’ll like it there, I’m sure, and I can’t imagine why the lord and lady wouldn’t let you stay there. You’re both super Wiccans.”

“They might grant us permission, but we could never do that,” Mom Two said, and my mother nodded her agreement.

“Why not?”

“Have you not listened to any of our teachings? Summerland is a place of great importance, Gwen. It is a holy place, if you will, one sacred to us. We do not tread on its green fields and fertile pastures unless we have been sent there.”

“But—”

“No,” Mom Two said firmly, giving me a sharp nod that let me know she was done discussing the subject. “We will not go.”

“Well, hell!” I said, doing some more of that hand-thigh-slapping thing that no doubt looked juvenile but did so much to release unpleasant emotions. “You can’t go to Anwyn, you won’t go to Summerland. . . . Where else can you go that would put you out of reach of both the mortal and immortal worlds?”

“We could go to Anwyn if we wanted,” Mom said complacently, glancing in surprise at Mrs. Vanilla when she began to squeak again, shoving the notebook toward me. “What is it you want Gwenny to see, dear? Your lovely drawing?”

“Mom, you just got done saying you couldn’t go to Anwyn because Mom Two isn’t Welsh—”

“That has nothing to do with it,” Mom Two interrupted, leaning forward to see the paper. “We could get in if we wanted.”

“But you were born in Scotland.”

“Location of birth has nothing to do with whether or not Arwyn will allow you to stay in Anwyn.”

“Who’s Arwyn?”

“The king of Anwyn, of course. That’s very interesting, Mrs. Vanilla.”

My mind was a whirl of frustration and worry. “So, you’re saying that if we found the entrance to Anwyn, you would go there?”

Mom Two looked thoughtful for a moment or two, then raised her eyebrows at my mother. “I would have no objection to visiting there, assuming we would be left to our own devices. Mags?”

“Well, I wouldn’t want to spend much time there, but I suppose it wouldn’t hurt us to drop in and see it. I have one or two friends who might still be there, and it’s always pleasant to renew old friendships.”

I got all hopeful for about five seconds, then remembered the snag. “We don’t know where the entrance to Anwyn is. Unless one of you knows how to find it?”

“No, but—”

I mused aloud, worrying the problem like a terrier with a chew toy. “I didn’t see a door or anything when I was there and, of course, I died to get there, so it’s not like I just walked through an entrance. Damn. It was such a good idea, too.”

“Gwenny, you did not die—” my mother started to say at the same time Mom Two said, “I think you should look at Mrs. Vanilla’s drawing.”

The first of the fireworks went off, dragging my attention from the offered bit of paper to the sky, then down to my watch. We were fast running out of time. The longer it took me to get the old lady back to her home, the harder it would be for me to explain how I’d found her.

“Later. I’ve got to get moving right now. Stay here, and don’t get into trouble,” I said, grabbing my purse in preparation for heading off to the car park. “I’ll meet you in about ten minutes at the entrance.”

Mom Two straightened up to her full height (about an inch taller than me) and said with injured dignity, “We are not children, Gwenhwyfar. You do not need to speak to us as if we are. Mags, I believe that in view of the evening’s events, we deserve to treat ourselves to an ice cream. You stay here with Mrs. Vanilla, and I’ll fetch us all a cone.”

I bit back the urge to tell them that I would treat them like adults when they stopped indulging in the harebrained (and illegal) plans that threatened to get them banished to the Akasha, or worse, but as I turned around and took a step, I bumped into a large body that had his back to me.

“Whoops. Sorry.” I started to apologize to the man, but stopped when he turned to face me. “Oh, it’s . . . uh . . .”

“You!” he said, a smile spreading over his face, going so far as to touch his eyes. Which, as I remembered, were a remarkably clear shade of topaz blue. “Gwen Byron, right? What a surprise meeting you here. A pleasant surprise.”

I stared at him for a few seconds. He was the man I’d met two days before, the one who had wrestled to the ground—and later arrested—the lawyer who had threatened my mother and, incidentally, tried to throw me over the edge of a cliff to certain death. My mind, annoyingly, went blank at the partial use of my name, but luckily, before I corrected him, I remembered that in my attempt to hide my relationship with my mom, I had given him only my first and middle names.

“Uh . . .” I felt utterly and completely stupid standing there staring at him. I didn’t know his name, but the one thing I knew for certain now filled me with a spike of pure, adrenaline-fueled fear: he was with the Watch, and my mother was not ten feet behind me, chatting pleasantly to her kidnap victim.

Without thinking of the wisdom of my act, I grabbed his arm and walked past him, forcing him to turn so that his back was to Mom. “Hi!” I tried to think of something to say that wasn’t a shriek of fear, but my brain didn’t appear to be up to the task of witty banter in the face of danger. “I . . . I don’t think I ever got your name.”

“Gregory Faa.” He made a bow, an old-fashioned move that was simply elegant on him. But that was no surprise; everything about him was elegant, from the dark blond hair that swept back off his forehead to his mobile, sensitive mouth and firm chin, right down to the sapphire blue raw-silk shirt and what had to be Italian shoes. He had said something at our only previous meeting about being born in Romania, which went a long way to explain the polished manners. “I had no idea you were still in the area. But then, I had no idea why you ran away from me so quickly the other day.”

I gave him what I hoped was a placid smile, but which I fear turned out to be more of a grimace, and endeavored not to look over his shoulder at the bench where my mother and Mrs. Vanilla sat. Watch members were notoriously sharp and intelligent, and I was certain that he would notice if I kept looking over his shoulder at the bench.

“I was . . . um . . .”

I focused instead on his chin, but that just filled my mind with wholly inappropriate thoughts about biting it, so instead I stared at his left earlobe. An earlobe would be safe to look at. “I was . . . er . . .”

He wore a sapphire stud earring. It glittered darkly in the torchlight, contrasting pleasantly with the hair that curled around the back of his ear. I had the worst urge to run my fingers through his hair, wondering if it was as silky as it looked. I shifted my gaze to his cheek. The faintest hint of golden stubble was visible in the warm light of the torch. “I was . . . erm . . .”

Dammit! What was wrong with me? I was no stranger to the attraction of a handsome man, but neither was I a giddy young thing who couldn’t talk to a good-looking man without wanting to bite his chin and run my hands through his hair and lick his mobile lips.

“Were you, now?” he asked with a little laugh that made the lines around his eyes crinkle up in a way that made my stomach go warm and happy.

“Sorry. I’m an idiot,” I finally said, my brain evidently deciding that I’d had enough time to make a fool out of myself. “Nice to meet you, Gregory. Or do you prefer Greg? Or . . . Rory? That sounds kind of like a long shot, nickname-wise, but sometimes people go that way.”

I was babbling, pure and simple, and for that I blamed him. If he didn’t look so very . . . golden . . . in the torchlight, I could have concentrated and behaved in the manner of a normal human being. In desperation, I dragged my gaze away from the stubble that made my fingertips tingle with the need to touch it.

“‘Gregory’ is fine. Only my cousin Peter calls me Greg, and usually then it’s to tease me.”

A question rose in my mind, and I’ll be damned if it didn’t just pop out of my mouth even though this man, this golden, crinkly-eyed man, was about the most dangerous person I could ever come up against. “Why would calling you Greg be considered teasing?”

“It’s the way he says it,” he answered, smiling again. “He’s around here somewhere with his wife. Perhaps I might introduce you to them.”

Great. Just what I needed—a member of the Watch and his family. A little shudder went through me at the thought of what would happen if Gregory-not-Greg were to turn around and see my mother, the very woman he had been sent out to arrest two days before.

“Sounds lovely,” I lied, and taking his arm, I tugged him in the direction opposite Mom.

A look of surprise flitted across his face for a moment, but he walked next to me docilely enough.

“Are you here for the fireworks?”

“Fireworks?” I asked stupidly, my mind busy wondering how far I could drag him away from the bench before I released him and called my mother to warn her of his presence.

He pointed upward. I looked. A burst of red and silver and green exploded overhead.

“Oh, those. Yeah. We always come to the park for the big festival.”

“‘We’?”

He stopped.

Panic hit me. I moved forward, urging him along with me, needing to put as much space between him and my mother as was humanly possible. “Me. Not we. I meant to say ‘me.’”

“Me always come to the park for the big festival?”

“Ha ha ha ha ha!” The braying laughter was of a quality that was well over the border of merry and smack-dab in the middle of deranged, but honestly, my brain refused to come up with any sort of an explanation, feeling that laughing it off was the way to go. My brain was wrong. “No, of course I meant to say that I always come to the park.”

The look he gave me was no longer one filled with amusement, and that, for some bizarre reason I didn’t even want to examine, made me sad. “I see. Would you think me boorish if I were to inquire where you’re taking me?”

“Taking you? I’m not taking you anywhere,” I said, pulling on his arm when he tried to stop again. “We’re just out for a little stroll to see the fireworks. Oh! Unless you’re here with someone. Someone female? Or . . . er . . . male?”

He gave me an odd look. “You’re the second attractive woman in two months who’s hinted that I’m gay. Do I give off some sort of homosexual vibe of which I’m unaware?”

“No! Far from it! That stubble is really . . .” I coughed and sternly reminded myself that he was the Enemy and I needed to stop thinking of him as a sexy, sexy man. “I don’t like to assume. People’s sexuality is their own business, and I’d hate to presume.”

“I appreciate such thoughtfulness, but in my case it’s unnecessary. I assure you that I am as heterosexual as they come. Risqué pun not intended.”

We reached the far edge of the open park area, and I judged that we were about as distant from my mothers and Mrs. Vanilla as we could get without actually pushing him off the park grounds altogether. I dropped his arm and gave him a bright smile. “Nice to know that! Well, it’s been super fun, but I really have to get moving. I’ve got a plane to catch.”

“A plane?” He looked moderately interested.

“Yes. I’m returning home to Colorado.” I didn’t want to have to lie outright to him again—I’d already done so once, and many members of the Watch had very finely tuned mental lie detectors. In addition, my mothers had taught me that every lie was returned threefold, so I didn’t say any more than that I was returning home. That, at least, was true enough. “I’ll let you get back to your girlfriend. Or wife. Or significant whatever. Thanks for the walk!”

“You’re welcome, but I feel obligated to point out that the fireworks display is still going on, and the only people I’m here with are my cousin and his wife. They are newly married and probably are enjoying my absence more than they would my presence, so if you’d care to drag me back toward that wall with the stone animals, I’d be happy to oblige.”

“Ha ha ha ha!” I did the hysterical laughter again, looking around quickly for the nearest means of escape. Damn him for noticing where I had bumped into him! One thing was certain: I couldn’t let him go back there. I ignored the odd look he was giving me and said quickly, “I hate that wall. It gives me the willies every time I’m near it. You couldn’t pay me to go back there.”

“Do you know,” he said slowly in a near drawl, “I get the oddest feeling that you don’t wish for me to see the Animal Wall. Which is a very odd thing, for which I have very few explanations. And yet, the sensation is there. It leads me inevitably to the question of why you have so carefully hustled me across the width of the park.”

I stared at him in abject horror for the count of seven, then spat out, “I have to run!” And I did. I turned on my heel and ran like the hounds of Anwyn were after me, weaving in and out among people, hurdling small children, and dashing past booths and tents to the parking areas beyond the edge of the park. I ran until I had a stitch in my side, whereupon I slowed down to a jog until I spotted my mothers’ car. I stopped next to it, gasping for air, searching the lit streets behind me for signs of pursuit. There were none, thank the gods, but that didn’t mean anything. Hurriedly, I dialed Mom Two’s phone number.

“Where are you?” I gasped in between panting breaths.

“At the entrance. I thought you’d be here by now. Mrs. Vanilla has something to show you.”

“The Watch is there.” I unlocked the car and got in, starting it up as I continued. “He’s blond, about six one, and is wearing a sapphire blue silk shirt and black pants. Fancy shoes. Little cleft in his chin. Golden stubble. Earring. Hair slightly curly in the back and crinkles around his eyes. If you see him, get the hell away and call me. I’ll be there in about two minutes, traffic willing.”

I pulled out into the traffic, my fingers tight on the steering wheel. How on earth could the man see through me so easily? What if he found the moms? How was I to get them off of a kidnapping charge? The people at the L’au-dela had been very specific when they arrested me, believing I was my mother—they’d said one more crime, one more incident of straying from the path of righteousness, no matter how small, and they’d toss my mother into the Akasha, where she’d stay for all eternity.

“That was an unusually detailed description, Gwen,” Mom Two said thoughtfully. “What is this golden man’s name?”

I turned onto the road leading to the park drop-off zone. “Gregory Faa. Don’t call him Greg.”

“Why not?”

“He doesn’t like it. I’m almost there. Stay safe.”

The three of them were waiting for me when I pulled up a minute later. I was nervous as hell as the moms assisted Mrs. Vanilla into the backseat of the car. I scanned the people around the entrance until everyone was strapped in.

“Right,” I said, jerking the wheel and slamming my foot on the accelerator. “Now we take you to Summerland.”

“What?” My mother shrieked a little at the way I took the corner and clutched madly at the back of the driver’s seat. “Dear, you almost knocked Mrs. Vanilla to the floor, and she’s already been down there when your other mother was driving.”

“Told you to strap her in,” Mom Two, who was riding shotgun, said complacently. “Not my fault if you didn’t do that.”

“I did strap her in, but she must have unhooked it. No, dear, leave it on.” Mom was addressing Mrs. Vanilla, gently patting her hands. “Gwenny is a very . . . intrepid . . . driver, and you’ll need to be wearing that for safety’s sake. Gwenny, we cannot go to Summerland.”

“You don’t have a choice now,” I said through my teeth, swearing under my breath at the red light. Every ounce of my being urged me to flee the area, to take my mothers and hide them somewhere safe, out of the reach of the handsome Gregory and the organization he worked for. “The Watch is here. They’re still looking for you. And that damned man is too smart for my comfort. Why can’t you go to Summerland?”

“The man you fancy?” Mom asked.

I shot her a startled look in the rearview mirror. “Huh?”

“Alice said you fancy him. I’m pleased for you, naturally, because you’ve been alone for a hundred and forty years, and you’re not getting any younger.”

“I am only a hundred and twenty-four, thank you,” I said somewhat acidly. “And I’ve had boyfriends. Now, about Summerland—”

“Pah.” Mom Two said, gesturing away my past. “Emphasis on the ‘boy.’ Your mother has always said that what you need is a real man, not one of those manosexual flibbertigibbets who walk around with their messenger bags and their manicured hands and such. I believe you can’t go wrong with a woman, but that doesn’t seem to be something you wish to pursue.”

Manosexual? It took me a few seconds to work that one out. “There’s nothing wrong with metrosexual men, Mom Two. They tend to like arty movies and visits to Starbucks. And, no, I’m sorry. By now you know I prefer men for romantic relationships.”

“Pah,” she said again, then returned to the previous subject. “We can’t go to Summerland, and that’s that.”

“You have to go!” I said, pounding the steering wheel when another light turned red. “Dammit, I don’t want either or both of you sent to the Akasha! You have to go somewhere to lie low until the Watch gives up trying to find you. I’ll take Mrs. Vanilla back right now, and then we’re getting you two to safety. They won’t keep after you long once she’s back. You’ll only have to stay there for a few months. Six at the most.”

“No,” my mother said, and I could see in the mirror that she was shaking her head. Worse, she had that stubborn look on her normally placid face that I knew boded ill for me.

“Then where do you want to go? It has to be somewhere beyond the reach of the Watch.”

She gave a little half shrug. “I suppose we could visit Anwyn, as you suggested.”

I wanted to bang my head on the steering wheel, but knew that would do no good. Besides, the light had just turned green. “I’d take you there in a heartbeat, but we don’t know how to get in.”

“Mrs. Vanilla does,” Mom Two said.

I shot her a startled look. “She does?”

“Yes. That’s what she wanted to show you. Mags, do you have it?”

There was a click as my mother unfastened her seat belt in order to lean forward and wave a piece of paper in front of my nose.

Suddenly blinded, I swore and jerked the car to the side of the road. Luckily, it was empty of parked cars. “Mom!”

“See? Mrs. Vanilla drew a map showing the entrance of Anwyn.” Mom sat back and with a smug look snapped her seat belt into place.

I stared at the crumpled piece of paper, willing my heart rate to slow down as I smoothed out the wrinkles. “OK, this is a mistake.”

“I doubt if it is, dear.”

“No, see, this can’t be right. The old biddy—sorry, Mrs. Vanilla, no offense intended—the old lady is a shrimp or two short of a cocktail. She has to be.”

Mom Two frowned. “Why would you put a shrimp in a cocktail?”

“That was a reference to a shrimp cocktail. I was trying to be witty. It relieves the feeling that I’ve gone insane.”

“Mags,” Mom Two said, her gaze never wavering from my face, “I have changed my mind. A second visit to Dr. Gently may well help our girl.”

I shook the paper at her. “I am not the one who needs to see a mental health counselor! I didn’t the first time you guys dragged me in to see her, and I sure as shootin’ don’t now, although all the little gods and goddesses know that I’m entitled to one, given what you’re putting me through.”

“Gwenhwyfar Byron Owens!”

I looked upward, knowing full well what was coming next.

“You are very well aware how offensive we find it when you say things like that. We raised you to be a proper Wiccan, one who worships the Deity, not a mingle-mangle of assorted gods and demigods.” Mom had her sternest face on, the one I had run into quite a bit in my teenage years when I rebelled against their Wiccan beliefs.

I was older and wiser now, however. “I don’t think ‘mingle-mangle’ is technically a word, and don’t try to change the subject. We need to be focusing on how to find the entrance to Anwyn, and no”—I held up my hand with the paper in it—“this isn’t it. The entrance to heaven isn’t in a Krispy Kreme shop.”

“Have you ever had their cocoa?” Mom Two asked. “It’s pretty close to heaven.” With a hurried look over her shoulder at my mother, she added, “If I believed in such a thing, which of course, I don’t.”

“Anwyn is not in a Krispy Kreme,” I said firmly.

“How do you know? Have you been there?” my mother asked.

“No, but—”

“Then I don’t think you have the right to say harsh things to Mrs. Vanilla about her lovely map.”

“Mom, it just doesn’t make sense. She’s either kidding, or . . .” I made a circular motion with my finger.

“I don’t think she is either. She seems to know where the entrance is. Perhaps she has been there herself.”

Mrs. Vanilla made her peculiar squeaking noises and fretted at the seat belt.

I looked up and over to Mom Two, shaking my head as I said, “This is crazy.”

Mom Two smiled and patted my hand. “I’ve always said that crazy is in the mind of the beholder.”

“Yes, but we can’t indulge in that when so much is at stake.”

“Drive,” my mother ordered, tapping me on the back of my shoulder. “We’ll see when we get there.”

“Oh, for the love of all that’s shiny and sparkly!” I took a deep breath and pulled out onto the road, mentally plotting the fastest route to Mrs. Vanilla’s nursing home. “Fine, we’ll go to Krispy Kreme, although the mall is sure to be closed at this time of night. First, however, we’re going to take Mrs. Vanilla back where she belongs.”

Both mothers opened their respective mouths to protest, but as I stopped at an intersection, waiting to turn onto the road that led to the nursing home, two police cars suddenly zipped across our line of vision.

I swore under my breath and jerked the wheel in the opposite direction, pissing off the car behind me. “Right. Krispy Kreme it is. But when we get there and it’s closed and there’s no entrance to Anwyn, you guys will owe me a great big apology. And a hot chocolate. With extra whipped cream.”