The Second Summoning

FIVE

“CLAIRE!”

It was a voice that required a response regardless of circumstances. A voice that could be heard across a crowded shopping mall, that could blow past headphones, and could cut right through indifference. Had Hannibal used it on his elephants, he’d have not only made it across the Alps and conquered Rome but he’d have done it with clean dishes and folded laundry.

Claire recognized it in spite of the Summons careening around inside her skull like roller derby on fast forward. “Mom?”

“Uncross your eyes, dear. You don’t want your face to freeze like that.”

After a long moment, Claire figured out just where her eyes were attached to her face, and a moment after that she got them working again as a set. Gradually, the multiple images of her mother merged and nodded approvingly.

Worry lines pleating his forehead, Dean leaned into her line of sight. “Claire, are you okay?”

“I…I can’t feel my fingers.”

“Sorry.” He loosened his grip. “What happened?”

Shaking the circulation back into her hand, she sat up. “It was a Summons. Is a Summons.”

“Do Summonses usually…?” His gesture took in the fine patina of broken glass that covered the carpet three feet out from the Christmas tree creating a perfect reproduction of “The Last Supper” with the Teletubbies replacing four of the Apostles.

“No.”

“Thought not.”

Tinky Winky appeared to be arguing with St. James.

Gripping Claire’s chin between the thumb and forefinger of one hand, Martha turned her daughter’s face up into the light. “Your pupils are dilated, and your pulse is racing.”

“Mom, I’m fine. The Summons has blown off its stored energy and is settling down to same old same old. Give me a minute or two and I’ll have totally recovered.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“Good.” Straightening, she folded her arms and frowned. “What were you thinking? How could you have trapped a Summons in a privacy barrier!”

“How could she?” John repeated thoughtfully before his elder daughter could muster a defense. “That’s a good question. It shouldn’t have been possible, not even for Claire.”

Martha turned to face her husband, brows lifting as she reconsidered all the implications. “Do you think the resolution of the situation with Dean has actually added to her power?”

“It’s possible. I’d like to run some tests.”

“But it could have just been the timing. I doubt that she deliberately tapped into the sexual energies.”

“True, and an accidental surge would be harder to reproduce under measurable conditions, but…”

“Excuse me?”

Both Cousins turned.

Claire was on her feet, arms folded. “No one is running any tests.”

“But…”

“No, Dad; I have a Summons to answer. And I only knocked it aside because it felt like Diana.”

All heads turned.

Diana pulled a candy cane out of her mouth and shrugged. “I don’t know what she’s talking about. I had better things to do last night than…wait a minute. Santa!”

Her father sighed. “Diana, are you suggesting that Santa was spying on Claire and Dean?”

“No!” And then less emphatically. “Although there is that whole sees you when you’re sleeping, sees you when you’re awake schtick, which I strongly suspect is not entirely legal.”

“Diana.”

“And he does know,” she added, “if you’ve been naughty or nice. Or specifically in this case, if Claire’s been naughty or nice.”

“Diana!”

“Okay. Something hit my shields just as Santa showed up. I figured it for his annual distraction and flipped it…”

“To me.” Claire nodded. It was all beginning to make sense. “When I felt your touch, I leapt to an understandable conclusion…”

“Hey!”

“…and trapped it in the barrier.”

“So!” Diana bounced to her feet. “This is really my Summons.”

“Are you feeling it now?”

“What difference does that make? It hit me first.”

“Perhaps…”

“Perhaps?”

Claire ignored her protest. “…but it hit me last and besides, from the intensity of the thing we’re practically on top of the site. I can run out, close the hole, and be home before the turkey comes out of the oven.”

“And don’t you think highly of yourself,” Diana snorted. “You think because you can find it, you can close it. You’ve forgotten what it’s like around here.”

“I’ve forgotten more than you know.” Claire tossed a superior smile across the room.

Diana tossed it back.

When the smoke cleared, Martha had her right hand clamped on Claire’s left shoulder and her left on Diana’s right. “Both of you answer it.”

“But…”

“No buts. While I’m willing to regard your childish behavior as an inevitable result of the amount of sugar ingested this morning, I am not willing to see it continue. You are both far too old for this.”

“But…”

“What did I say about buts?” She turned them toward the door. “Claire, try to make it a learning experience for your sister. Diana, try to learn something. Dean, I’m very sorry, but you’ll have to drive them. As long as you’re here, I suspect no other transportation will make itself available.”

Trying to hide a smile, Dean murmured an agreement.

“Austin, are you going or staying?”

A black-and-white head poked out from under the front of the couch and raked a green-gold gaze over the tableau in the doorway. “Let me see, stuffed into the cold cab of an ancient truck with tag teams of young love and sibling rivalry or lying around a warm kitchen on the off chance that someone will take pity on a starving cat and give him a piece of turkey. Gee, tough choice.”

“You’re not starving,” Claire told him, rolling her eyes.

“I’m not stupid either. Have a nice time.”

“Diana, stop shoving.”

“Oh, yeah, like you care. You’re practically on his lap. Moving that stick shift ought to be interesting.”

Thankful that he’d taken the time to back in—reverse would have approached contributing to the delinquency of a minor—Dean slid the truck into gear, eased forward, and jerked to a stop at the end of the driveway.

A lime-green hatchback roared past, the driver’s gaze turned toward the Hansens’ house, whites showing all around the edges of his eyes.

Diana waved jauntily.

“Diana!” Claire reached into the possibilities just in time to keep the small car from going into the ditch as it disappeared around a curve on two wheels. “You know how nervous Mr. Odbeck is, why did you do that?”

“Couldn’t resist.”

“Try harder. We need to go left, Dean.”

“I don’t know about nervous,” Dean observed as he pulled out, “but he was driving way too fast for the road condition, and he wasn’t watching where he was going.”

“That’s because Diana keeps things interesting around here.”

“Interesting how?”

“Strange lights, weird noises, walking trees, geothermal explosions.”

“Hey, that geothermal thing only happened once,” Diana protested. “And I took care of it almost immediately.”

Almost. Dean considered that as he brought the truck up to the speed limit and had a pretty fair idea of why Mr. Odbeck was so nervous. “Is that what you meant when you told Claire she’s forgotten what it’s like around here?”

“It’s not her,” Claire told him, “it’s the area.”

“He asked me.”

“Sorry. Turn right at that crossroads up ahead.”

“The area?” he prompted, gearing down for the turn and trying unsuccessfully not to think about the warm thigh he couldn’t avoid rubbing.

“Is he blushing? Ow!” Diana rubbed her side and shifted until she was up as tight against the passenger side door as she could go. “Mom’s right, you’re too skinny. That elbow’s like a…a…”

“Hockey stick?”

“The area,” Claire said pointedly—Dean realized a little too late that was not a blank he should have helped fill—“is covered by a really thin bit of barrier.”

“The fabric of reality is T-shirt material where it should be rubberized canvas. Your mother told me that back in Kingston,” he added when the silence insisted he continue. “She told me that’s why they’re here, her and your father, because stuff seeps.”

Diana snickered as she exhaled on the window and began drawing a pattern in the condensation. “Jeez, Claire, and I thought your explanations were lame.”

“At least I haven’t turned the McConnells’ fence posts into giant candy canes.”

“Oops.” She erased the pattern with her sleeve and reached into the possibilities.

Claire squinted into the rearview mirror. “Now they’re dancing.”

“It’s not my fault! It’s Christmas. There’s so much peace and joy around it’s messing everything up!” This time when she reached, she twisted. “There, those are fence posts.”

“Definitively,” Claire agreed. “You do know you’ve anchored them in the barysphere?”

“At least they’re not dancing.”

“Yes, but…”

“Why don’t you finish telling Dean why closing this site may not be a piece of fruitcake. Not literally fruitcake,” she amended, catching sight of Dean’s profile. “Although fruitcakes have punched holes through to the dark side in the past.”

“You’re not helping,” Dean pointed out, and turned left following Claire’s silent direction. “There’s a hole in the T-shirt fabric…”

“…and because the fabric’s so thin you can’t just pinch the edges together nor will it take anything but the most delicate of patches. It can be tricky, but it’s nothing I can’t deal with.”

Driving left-handed, he caught Claire’s fingers and brought them to his lips. “I never doubted you for a moment.”

She smiled and rubbed her cheek against the shoulder of his jacket. “And why’s that?”

“I’ve seen you in action.”

“Oh, barf.” When two pairs of narrowed eyes glanced her way, Diana shrugged. “Austin’s not here. Someone had to say it.”

“True enough.” Claire straightened as Dean murmured an agreement. “Stop there, at the gray brick house.”

As Dean brought the truck to a stop, Diana squinted at the mailbox through a sudden swirl of snow. “Giorno.”

“You know them?”

“I go to school with a Lena Giorno. She’s a year behind me, though. I’ve never been to her house.”

Seat belt unfastened, Claire turned slowly on the seat, feeling the summons pulling at her. “Well, you’re about to.”

“Mr. Giorno, hi, Merry Christmas. I’m Diana, a friend of Lena’s, and this is my sister Claire.”

Even standing out of the line of fire, Claire could feel the charm Diana was throwing at the glowering man in the doorway. The air between them practically sparkled, but it didn’t seem to be having much effect—the glower never changed, and he remained standing squarely in the doorway as though defending the house against all comers.

“Francis! We can’t afford to heat the whole world! Close the door!” Mrs. Giorno’s shout carried with it the distinct odor of burned turkey.

“Don’t you start!” He turned his head just far enough to bellow his response back over his shoulder. “I’ll close it when I’m good and ready to close it! Lena,” he said, facing the porch again, “is not going out. Maybe when she’s thirty, I’ll let her out, but not until. You kids shut up in there!”

The background shrieking changed pitch.

A little worried about all the head swiveling, Diana cranked it up a notch. “We didn’t want Lena to come out, Mr. Giorno. We were kind of hoping we could come in and see her.”

“I don’t…”

“Please.”

His expression changed so quickly it looked as though his cheeks had melted. “Of course you can come in. Girls like you should not be left standing on the porch unwanted. You’re good, nice girls. Good girls. My Lena’s a good girl.” He sniffed lugubriously and rubbed the palm of one hand over his eyes. “You come in.” The now damp hand gestured expansively as he moved out of the way. “You come in, you talk to my girl, and you find out why she should break her father’s heart. Come.” He squeezed Diana’s shoulder as she passed and beckoned to Claire. “Come.”

It looked as though a bomb had gone off in the living room and the debris field had spread through the rest of the house. That it was Christmas Day in a house with three children, two teenagers, a cat, and a pair of neurotic gerbils might have been explanation enough another time, but this time, neither day nor demographic came close to explaining the level of chaos. The Christmas tree was on its side, half the lights still on, the cat—wearing a smug smile and a half-eaten candy cane stuck to its fur—curled up in the broken branches. Nonfunctioning toys and run-down batteries were scattered throughout, two AAs had been hammered into the drywall of the hall as though someone at the end of their rope had tried every battery in the economy-sized package and these were the last two and they still didn’t work. The gas molecule racing around turned out to be the five-year-old with a stripe shaved down the center of his head.

“Lena’s downstairs in her room,” her father told them, pulling a handkerchief out of his pocket and blowing his nose on the bit that wasn’t covered in melted marshmallow Santa. “Go. Talk to her.”

Diana glanced at Claire from the corner of her eye. When Claire nodded, she smiled. “Thank you, Mr. Giorno.”

“No, thank you.”

As they started down the stairs, he turned away, hand over his face and shoulders shaking.

“I didn’t mean to make him cry,” Diana murmured, as the two Keepers picked a careful path down through the mess.

“You didn’t. The energy seeping from the site is warping the possibilities. Can’t you feel the fine patina of darkness?”

“Yeah, but I figured it was smoke from the turkey. Or maybe the Christmas tree—it seems to be smoldering in spots.” As they stepped down onto the painted concrete floor, she looked expectantly toward her sister. “Well?”

There were two bedrooms and a bathroom to their right. Laundry room, furnace room, and wine-making equipment to their left.

Following the Summons, Claire turned right.

The door to the front bedroom was shut. Claire knocked.

“Go away! I hate you!”

“Wow.” Diana took half a step back. “She really does hate us.”

“What do you expect? She’s in there with the site. You try,” Claire suggested when her second knock brought no response at all.

“Lena? It’s me, Diana. From the decorating committee, remember?” She jiggled the knob. The door was locked. “Let me in.”

“No!”

It was one of the most definitive “no’s” Diana had ever heard, and she’d heard her fair share. “You sure it’s in there?”

Claire nodded.

“Then it’ll take more than a cheap lock to keep us out.” Diana reached into the possibilities. The door came off in her hand. “Okay.” She staggered back under its weight. “I didn’t mean to do that.”

“You never do,” Claire sighed, “but that’s not important now. Look.”

“Oh, man, I knew she was into angels, but this is just too much.”

“Not that. Look down.”

The hole had opened just off the corner of Lena’s bed; a dark, ugly, metaphysical blemish on the pale pink carpet.

Lena lifted a blotchy face from her pillow and glared out into the basement. “Put that door back! I am not coming out! I don’t care what my father says!”

“Look, Lena, you don’t have to come out. We’re not here to…” Realizing a little late that she wasn’t going to get into the room while holding the door, Diana leaned it against the opposite wall and stepped over the threshold. “We’re here for you.” Skirting the hole, she circled around to the far side of the bed and sat down. “We want to help.”

“You can’t help me.”

As she turned her head toward Diana, Claire came into the room, knelt by the hole, and used her fingertip to brush a symbol against the nap of the carpet.

“No one can help me,” Lena continued, rubbing her nose on the back of her hand. “My father took my angel away!”

Wondering how she could tell there was an angel missing given the number remaining in the room, Diana patted her shoulder in a comforting sort of a way. “Well, you’ve got more…”

“No! He was a real angel. He came out of the light last night when I lit my candle! And I don’t care if you believe me.”

“I believe you. Did your father happen to hit this angel?” Claire asked in such a matter-of-fact tone that Diana swiveled around on the bed to stare at her.

“Yes. He just barged in like he does, all mad, and when he saw him, he like totally lost it and he hit him and took him away, and I am never speaking to him again.”

“Where did your father take the angel, Lena?”

“To the priest! I so totally hate him!”

“The priest or your father?”

“Both of them!”

“Diana.” Bending, Claire traced another symbol, then hurriedly erased it as a bit of the carpet melted. “I think Lena would feel better if she got some sleep.”

“No! I don’t want to…”

Diana adjusted Lena’s head on the pillow, then turned back to her sister. “Are you suggesting that Lena actually got visited by a real angel?”

“I’m not suggesting anything. You heard her: a Bystander can’t lie to a Keeper.”

“But they can lie to themselves. Lena once honestly believed she saw an image of Leonardo DiCaprio in a bowl of butterscotch pudding, throwing the female half of the ninth grade into hysterics for the remainder of lunch.”

“Really?”

Diana nodded. “It wasn’t pretty.”

“Well, this time she isn’t lying to anyone, herself or us.” Claire sat back on her heels and waved a hand around the room. “There’s distinct residue under the darkness. It’s obvious once you know to check for it.”

“Oh, yeah. Obvious angel residue. That’s something you don’t hear everyday.”

“Diana, this is serious.”

“Okay, I’m being serious.” Picking up the Backstreet Boys mug, she made a face and put it down again. “Question is, why would an angel appear to Lena? Obsession isn’t enough to open the possibilities that wide. You think it was sent with a message?”

“Can’t have or it would have vanished once the message was delivered, and she said that her father took it away.”

“Maybe it got taken away before the message got delivered.”

“No, it would never have allowed that to happen. A message from the light gets delivered, regardless. An angry father would’ve stood about as much chance facing down a determined angel as he would have facing down a runaway transport with pretty much the same result. Here’s a better question: how could the possibilities have opened that wide without me noticing?”

“That’s easy. If they opened last night, you were busy.” Eyes narrowed, Diana grinned suddenly. “Are you blushing?”

“No.” Claire didn’t even try to make the denial sound convincing. Given the heat of her cheeks, there didn’t seem to be much point. “So why didn’t you notice?”

“Beats me. Must’ve gotten lost in that whole peace-and-joy stuff. You know what it’s like around this time of the year.”

“True enough.”

“And since it was from the upper end of things, it’s not really our problem anyway.”

“True again.” She traced a third symbol, and the noise level upstairs began to fall off. “That’s put a temporary cover over the site, but I’m going to need details to actually seal it.”

“Like?”

“Like why would a basically decent man take a swing at a messenger of the light.”

“Is that what opened the hole?”

“Diana, Mr. Giorno punched an angel; what do you think?”

“Just checking.” Leaning forward, Diana brushed a bit of thick, dark hair back off of Lena’s face and softly called her name. “Don’t wake up,” she instructed when the sleeping girl began to stir, “just tell me, without getting angry, why your father hit the angel.”

“He was naked.”

“Your father?” Given the amount of hair curling up through the opening of Mr. Giorno’s collar and right down to his knuckles, that was an image Diana quickly banished.

“Not my father. The angel.”

“The angel was naked?”

“Uh-huh.” She smiled slightly. “I saw his thing.”

“Lena, angels don’t have things.”

“I know that.” Even asleep she managed the emphasis. “But he did. I think…” Her brow furrowed. “I think my father gave it to him. It was big.”

“And your basis of comparison would be?”

“Diana!”

Without turning, she flapped a hand at her sister to shut off further protests. “You can get back to me later on that, Lena. Right now, you drift off again and I’ll call you if I need you.”

“O…” A long sigh. “…kay.”

After checking to see that she’d gone deep again, Diana stood and spread her arms triumphantly, modifying the gesture somewhat to catch the cherub she’d knocked off a shelf. “Ta dah. Her father burst into her room as Lena’s obsession was manifesting a naked angel, jumped to the fatherly conclusion, and slugged the guy.”

Claire rolled her eyes and added a little more power as the cover shifted. “Only a teenager would manifest a naked angel.”

“Get over it. You manifested a naked Dean all last night.”

“That’s not the…”

“And ignored a Summons—this Summons—while you were doing it. And I’m not saying I wouldn’t have done the same thing under similar circumstances. All I’m saying is that you have no cause to be pointing the finger at someone else’s hormones.”

After a long moment, during which several high-pitched voices could be heard insisting that they hadn’t touched the gravy and they didn’t know what was floating in it, Claire sighed. “Okay. You have a point. And since he might have had clothing had things not been interrupted and since her father seems to have added the…uh…thing…”

Diana snorted. “You know, Claire, if you’re playing with one, you really should be able to name it.”

This was more than Claire could take from a sister ten years younger. “Good,” she snapped, “because I was thinking of calling it Floyd!” She regretted the words the moment they left her mouth and snapped her teeth closed just a little too late to catch them. From the way Diana’s eyes lit up, she knew she’d be paying for that comment for the rest of her natural life. And possibly longer. “Let’s just get back to work,” she suggested sharply, her tone a preemptive strike. “I’ll seal this. You clear the hatred out of your friend.”

“Sure.”

“Diana…”

“Don’t worry, I’ll be careful.”

“That wasn’t…” When Diana lifted an eyebrow in exact mimicry of Claire’s best sardonic expression, Claire had to laugh, in spite of what would be inevitable later. “…what I meant, as you very well knew.”

“Yeah. But I’ll still be careful.” She sat back down on the edge of the bed and gently turned Lena’s face toward her. “Although the urge to do something about her decorating is extreme.”

“…but did you ever stop to think that perhaps they didn’t want quite so many chestnuts in the stuffing?” Claire asked as they picked their way up the icy front path to the truck.

Diana shrugged. “Beats what was in there before I fixed it. And that, by the way, is why you should never keep the litter box in the kitchen.”

Things were back to normal in the Giorno household. Tree and dinner had been restored, gifts repaired, the cat appeased, and family tensions resolved. The site it had involved considerably more cleanup than a Keeper would normally perform, but—as Diana pointed out just before the cat knocked the tree over again with no help at all from the dark possibilities—it was Christmas.

Dean jerked awake when Claire opened the passenger door. “Everything fixed, then?”

“Everything we could fix,” she acknowledged as she kicked the snow off her boots and slid over beside him. “Sorry it took so long.”

“That’s all right. Your thing kept the truck warm.”

“Her thing?” Diana snickered, climbing in. “Got a name for it?”

“Ignore her,” Claire advised, hoping Dean would assume her ears were red from the cold.

From the look in his eyes, he didn’t.

He glanced at Diana, then back at her, but only said, “Where to now?”

“Back to pick up our stuff and then south, we’ve got another Summons.”

“Another Summons?” Martha Hansen set the roasting pan on the stove top and lifted an indignant Austin down off the counter before she turned to face her daughters. “Do you think it concerns the angel?”

“Unlikely. Mr. Giorno took him to Father Harris over at St. Patrick’s, so that should be the last we see of him.”

“Him?”

Claire shot a look at Diana, saw she had a mouthful of dill pickle, and reluctantly continued. “Apparently, he somehow acquired gender during the manifestation.”

“Gender?”

Diana swallowed and snickered. “Means just what you think, Mom.”

“Oh, the poor boy! He must be so confused.”

“Confused? Surprised maybe,” Diana allowed, perching on the corner of the kitchen table and tossing a hot roll from hand to hand. “But it’s not like they’re that difficult to operate. It’s pretty much point and click.” She glanced around the suddenly silent kitchen. “You know, metaphorically speaking. Okay,” she sighed, “they don’t actually click, but you’ve got to admit they point.” Catching her parents exchanging a meaningful look over the mashed potatoes, she tossed the roll to Dean and spread her hands. “What?”

“We’ll talk later,” Martha said tightly. “Right now,” she turned to Claire and gathered her into her arms, “you’d better get going.”

Austin’s head snapped up from where he was investigating a bit of spilled grease. “Excuse me? I have been waiting five hours for that bird to come out of the oven; that Summons can just wait for twenty more minutes.”

“We don’t know how long it’s been waiting already,” Claire reminded him as she crossed the kitchen to hug her father. “Things got a little stacked up, remember?”

“So I should suffer?”

Martha bent and stroked his head. “Don’t worry, I’ll pack up a box of food while Claire and Dean are getting their things together.”

“You know that this is your second Summons this morning,” Diana complained, sliding to her feet as Claire stopped in front of her. “You’ve had two today and I’ve had none. How unfair is that?”

“You’re not on active duty yet.”

“But I’m on vacation. And I’m so available.”

“And if something opens up that’s serious enough to need you, you’ll be Summoned. Just like you were when I needed you in Kingston.” Reaching out, Claire touched her sister on the cheek. “Everything’ll change once school’s over in June. I know it’s hard when there’s so many more important things you feel you should be doing, but you’ll get through it. I did.”

“Don’t patronize me.” The answering shove rocked Claire on her feet. “And don’t forget your presents. And be careful. And let Dean help. Really help, not just hang around and pick up after you.”

“I will.”

“I doubt it.”

“I’ll try.”

“Good enough.” She stepped back. “Well; go.”

About to turn for the door, Dean found himself pulled into a motherly embrace. He hesitated for a moment, then he returned it and was curiously reluctant to let go when Martha pulled away. Although his mother had died when he was a baby, he’d always felt her love in his life. He’d had no memory of ever feeling her arms, though. Until now.

As though she could sense his reluctance, Martha reached up and touched his cheek. “I’m very glad that you and Claire have found each other, Dean McIssac. You’re a good man; strong, steady…”

“Mom,” Diana interrupted, sitting back on the edge of the table and picking up another roll, “Claire’s trying to answer a Summons. This isn’t the time to write Dean’s eulogy.”

He shot a questioning glance at the younger Keeper. “Eulogy?”

“You’ll be fine.” Martha patted his arm.

“I know.” He shifted his weight. “I just wondered what eulogy meant.”

“Obituary.”

“Oh.”

She patted his arm again. “You’ll be fine.”

“Sure.”

“As long as he’s ready for what he’s dealing with,” John Hansen reflected, putting down the carving knife and wiping his fingers on a dish towel.

One hand still outstretched and hovering over Dean’s sleeve, Martha turned toward her husband. “Won’t it be what he’s been dealing with?”

“That’s not a certainty. Thing’s have changed between them. Probably for the better, but he’ll be in some unusual positions for a Bystander.”

Dean’s ears were suddenly so hot he was afraid they’d ignited. Unusual positions? How had Claire’s father found out about…then he realized he’d misunderstood.

“Well, they’re not going to run into anything he can’t handle,” Martha declared. “I can’t imagine anything worse than what he’s already faced in the Elysian Fields Guest House.”

“I can.”

“Austin, be quiet.” Claire bent, scooped up the cat, and handed him to Dean.

“Hey! Support the back legs!” Hooking his front claws into a flannel collar, Austin heaved himself into a more comfortable position as Dean adjusted his grip. “I’m old. I don’t dangle.”

“Sorry.”

“Dangling! Honestly.”

Claire smoothed the ridge of fur along his spine. “Let it go, Austin.”

“He was holding a roll. I have crumbs in my tail.”

“I’ll brush them out as soon as we’re on the road.” She hooked two fingers in behind the faded blue of Dean’s waistband and tugged him toward the door. “Say good-bye, Dean.”

“Good-bye, Dean.”

At least he made the cat laugh.

It isn’t fair. Diana ran the vacuum at the bits of broken glass and felt a sulky satisfaction as Laa Laa and Saint Matthew disappeared. I should be out changing the world like Claire—not going to stupid school. Stupid, useless waste of time. A swath of clean carpet appeared, bisecting Jesus and Po. I’m so tired of Claire getting to do everything first. Got to get her ears pierced first, got to graduate from high school first, got to travel to a tropical island and narrowly avoid having the entire place follow Atlantis to the bottom first. No, wait, that was me. And in the end, the whole thing had been nothing more than a damp misunderstanding.

The head of the vacuum cleaner was too broad to reach the last few pieces of glass. Realizing that she needed an attachment, Diana bounced it impotently against the hearth instead. My life sucks. Claire gets a Summons. Lena gets an angel. What do I get? A bunch of burst lights.

And let’s not forget Claire also gets Dean. And Floyd. Snickering to herself, she started on Dipsy and St. Peter. A memorable Christmas Eve for all three of them. Which may not be what I want from life, it’s just…

…just…

Something lingered at the edge of memory, almost but not quite dredged up by her train of thought. Absently running the vacuum over the same bit of carpet, she started working back.

Christmas Eve.

Claire gets Dean.

Burst lights.

Lena gets angel.

She stepped on the switch and shut the vacuum off and could just barely hear Dean’s truck starting up over the sudden pounding of her heart.

Her mother hurried into the front hall as she yanked open the door. “If you’re going out to the truck, take this with you.”

The smell of turkey rising from the box made questions about contents redundant. She snatched it up without breaking stride.

“Diana, your boots!”

“No time! I’ve got to catch Claire before she leaves.” As Claire would say, Keepers didn’t keep vital information from other Keepers. Which was not to say that Diana ever actually listened to what Claire said or had any intention of telling her what had actually happened to that Best of John Denver CD. Box tucked under one arm, she sprinted forward.

“Yes!” Austin jumped up onto the top of the seat where he had an unimpeded view through the back window. “Here comes the food!”

Claire twisted around until she could see Diana racing down the front path. “How can you tell what she’s carrying from here?”

“I’m a cat.”

A vein began throbbing on Claire’s forehead. “Why do I even ask?”

Wondering that himself, Dean rolled down the window as Diana hit an icy patch and slid to a sudden impact against his door.

“I know where the angel came from,” she announced before anyone in the truck could speak. “I was right, Lena’s obsessions didn’t open the possibilities, and I was also right about you being distracted.”

“What are you talking about?”

Diana grinned, passed the box to Dean, and poked the forefinger on her right hand through a circle made by the thumb and forefinger on her left. “You opened the hole and Lena’s desire to see an angel was strong enough to define what came through.”

“No.” Claire shook her head. “Even if we did open the possibilities…”

“You did.”

She looked down at the cat. “Excuse me?”

“Way open. Way, way open.” He scratched his shoulder. “It was pretty impressive actually.”

“So much for all those safe sex lectures, eh?”

“Get stuffed. And stop making that disgusting gesture. It wasn’t like that.”

“Was it like this?” Diana barely had time to change the position of her fingers before Dean reached out and enclosed both her hands in one of his.

“No,” he said quietly, ears scarlet. “It wasn’t like that either.”

Suddenly feeling both embarrassed and mean and not much liking the feeling, Diana pulled free. Teasing Dean was somehow not the same as teasing Claire. But I’m not apologizing. I mean, if he can’t take a joke…“Look, I saw it, too, what Austin saw, but I never connected it with Lena because that kind of thing always dissipates after, giving everyone in the immediate area a happy.”

“It should have dissipated,” Claire agreed. Her eyes narrowed as she read her sister’s body language. “Why didn’t it?”

“My bad. Sort of.”

“Sort of?”

“Okay, jeez. Totally. I made this decoration for the school’s Christmas dance that would gather up all the good feelings and spit them back out intensified to make more good feelings, and I think I made the attraction too strong…”

“Quel surprise,” Austin muttered.

“…and it pulled in the light, giving it sort of a proto-form that kept it together until it got to Lena.”

“Where it became an angel.” Claire sighed. “Well, it could have been worse. He probably returned to the light as soon as his head cleared from that punch.”

“You think?”

“All the background information we have suggests angels can come and go through the barrier as they please. If you were him and you’d had the welcome he’d had, wouldn’t you go back where you came from? Now, as nice as it is to have those questions answered,” she continued when Diana nodded, “the hole created by reaction to the angel’s appearance has been sealed, and I’ve got other work to do.”

“But…”

“Merry Christmas, and I’ll try to stay in touch.”

“We really made an angel, then?” Dean asked as he turned out onto the road.

“In a manner of speaking, yes.”

“Seems a little…”

“Light on the sausage stuffing.” Austin lifted his head out of the box, his eye gleaming indignantly. “there’s barely enough here for two people, let alone three.”

“First of all, you’re not a people, you’re a cat.” Sliding one hand under his chest, Claire lifted him onto her lap. “Second, if you’ve stuck your litter-poo paw in the sweet potatoes, I will hurt you. Third…” She stroked a finger down the back of Dean’s thigh. “…I think we could’ve made an angel without Diana’s or Lena’s help.”

It took him a moment, then he grinned, caught up her hand, and brought it to his lips. “Really?”

“Really.”

“Are you two planning on continuing this sort of behavior?” Austin demanded from Claire’s lap. “Because I’m old, you know, and I don’t think my insulin levels are up to it.”

Claire pulled her hand away from Dean’s mouth and smoothed down a lifted line of fur. “Someone’s jealous.”

“Of him?” The cat snorted and dropped his head down on his paws. “Oh, please.”

“You sure?”

“Cats don’t get jealous.”

“Really?”

“They get even.”

“Austin.”

“I’m kidding.”

Diana stood in the driveway until Dean’s truck disappeared from view, and then walked back to the house kicking at clumps of snow.

…as nice as it is to have those questions answered…

Nice.

There were times when she just wanted to take Claire by the ears and shake loose that more-Keeper-than-thou attitude of hers.

She’s always thought the sun shines out of her butt…

Having carefully negotiated a tight curve, Dean glanced over at Claire and smiled. He loved the way the light shone up and through the chestnut highlights in her hair, how it made her eyes seem dark and mysterious, how it.…Hang on. “Where’s that light coming from?”

Claire sighed. “Just drive.”