The Wild Ways (Gale Women #2)

The Wild Ways (Gale Women #2) Page 2

A HUNT?" Behind the shield of the counter, Allie wrapped her fingers around Charlie's. "Because Grandfather wavered?"

"Weakness at the heart of the family cannot be tolerated, Alysha." Auntie Bea's dark eyes narrowed. "You know that."

"But there hasn't been a Hunt for generations." Allie's grip tightened past the point of pain. Charlie gritted her teeth. "Why hasn't one of the uncles just challenged him?"

"Just challenged him?" Auntie Bea snorted.

"David's tied here," Auntie Carmen sighed, thin fingers twitching at the hem of her pink polyester blouse. "I'm sure it was the only solution at the time, but no one else is strong enough."

Auntie Gwen shook her head. "Even if one of the others could defeat Edward . . ."

"And we're not saying anyone could," Auntie Bea interjected.

"If they could," Auntie Gwen continued, "they couldn't do it easily."

Auntie Carmen sighed again. "Not easily."

"David could have," Auntie Bea snapped.

Auntie Gwen turned on her. "David had a different destiny."

"Without David . . ." Auntie Carmen's voice trailed off.

"Without David," Auntie Gwen continued, "it has to be a Hunt."

"Without a Hunt, the center will be too damaged to hold," Auntie Bea pointed out, as though that, at least, should be obvious.

"If the center doesn't hold . . ." Auntie Carmen's eyes glistened and Charlie tried not to think of crocodiles and tears.

"If the center doesn't hold," Auntie Gwen said definitively, "then the family falls."

Outside the store, an SUV roared past, bass thumping, two kids walked by arguing about a television show, and half a dozen pigeons muttered amongst themselves as they wandered desultorily around the sidewalk directly outside the door looking for food.

Another moment passed, another SUV, and Charlie realized the aunties were waiting for a response. They'd finished talking. Good. The three of them had been very close to starting in on the eyeball swapping thing and that never ended well.

"So let me see if I can sum up." When no one objected, Charlie continued. "Uncle Edward wavered. That makes him weak, and we can't have a weak anchor. Unfortunately, David was the only male strong enough to take him out without taking the kind of damage in return that would keep him from doing his . . ." It wasn't exactly a job. " . . . thing. Duty. Under those circumstances, in order to put a strong male at the center of the family, there has to be a Hunt. That it?"

"That, Charlotte . . ." Auntie Bea folded her arms over a large, glittering image of a gossamer winged fairy distorted into caricature by the shelf of her breasts. " . . . is what we said. Edward's replacement will, of course, be temporary. He will be replaced by challenge and that replacement will last for a while longer."

Charlie borrowed an eye roll from Allie. "Of course."

Auntie Bea ignored the sarcasm. "As you've grasped the situation, we'll be off. We need to tell the others who've relocated." She made it sound as though the family had relocated to dirt roads, wooden sidewalks, gunfights at high noon, and saloons with sawdust floors. Auntie Bea made no secret of having come west to keep an eye on things.

"You're not telling David," Allie growled.

Auntie Carmen reached over the counter and patted her on the arm. "Of course not, dear. You anchor second circle; that's your job."

The expected protest never materialized. Allie merely closed her eyes for a moment and, when she opened them, asked, "When?"

Not when should she tell David, Charlie realized, but when was it happening. Second circle made connections. Allie was upset not surprised. She was part of the process now.

"Full moon's tonight," Auntie Bea sniffed as she headed for the door. "No time like the present."

"No time for second thoughts," Auntie Carmen sighed, following.

Auntie Gwen lingered a moment. "We'll take to the air and head out beyond the city limits. We don't want to be on territory David holds when we get caught up. Yes, we will," she said in response to a sort of cough from Allie. "We spent years with Edward; we're too connected not to react. But we'll find something to . . . take the edge off. David will be . . ." She bit her lip and tapped French-tipped nails against the counter.

"In a state?" Charlie offered. "Freaked? In no danger from the three of you but likely to trample you flat anyway?"

Auntie Gwen ignored her. "He'll be agitated. It might help if you were with him, Alysha."

"I plan to be."

"I'll be there, too," Charlie pointed out. Allie squeezed her hand a little tighter.

"Of course you will." Auntie Gwen frowned, sharing her disapproval equally between the two of them, and opened her mouth, but, before she could speak, Auntie Bea stuck her head back in through the door.

"I'm not paying for this cab to sit at the curb, Gwen!"

"You're not paying for the cab!" Auntie Gwen pointed out acerbically. The aunties needed a cab - a cab appeared. Never the same cab twice, so at least they spread the free rides around. Charlie wasn't sure if it was a result of the family's tie to the city or the aunties being cheap, but both were likely. Also, Auntie Bea's lime-green Capris were terrifying when seen through the door's clear-sight charm.

Auntie Gwen took a couple of steps away from the counter, paused, and pinned Charlie with a look that suggested a conversation involving the words, we need to discuss your future was in the offing. "Just to be on the safe side, Charlotte . . ." And I shouldn't have to tell you this, added the subtext. " . . . stay out of the Wood tonight."

"I'll be with Allie."

Her expression shifted, but before Charlie could define where it ended up, a car horn sounded. "Who tied Bea's sensible cotton briefs in a knot," Auntie Gwen muttered. Her rubber sandals made less of an aural impact than she'd probably intended as she stomped out of the store.

Still clutching Charlie, Allie stood in silence. Watched the cab drive away. Watched the traffic pass.

"Allie-cat," Charlie said at last, "could I have my hand back? I can't chord with broken fingers."

"You're not going because you could put Allie in danger!" Charlie snapped at last, stepping between Allie and Graham and waving a flip flop, first at Graham . . . "Sure, you married in, but the whole seventh son of a son of a thing gives you gnarly powers of your own and you know that." . . . and then at Allie. "He anchors ritual with you; stop treating him like he doesn't know what's going on." Back at Graham. "You want to be there to protect her." Back at Allie. "You want him not to be there to protect him. Oh, joy. True love. Stop making me nauseous and consider that we don't know how Graham would be affected and that could put Allie in danger and so you're not . . ." She slapped him on the chest with the flip flop. " . . . going! End of discussion."

After a long moment, Graham sighed. "If music doesn't work out for you, you could go into marriage counseling."

"Music is working out just fine," Charlie muttered, yanking her crushed flip flop from his grip. "Thank you."

"No way!" Jack folded his arms, brows nearly touching over his nose. "You can't make me stay in tonight, that's not fair! And, it's totally . . ."

"The aunties are Hunting."

". . . totally the night I'm gonna kick Graham's ass at Madden."

Hand in the small of her back, Charlie pushed Allie toward the apartment door. "Told you he'd understand."

Charlie kicked at a chunk of dirt by the boulder that marked a hidden cache of David's clothes. Nose Hill Park was deserted. At seven, it was two and half hours until sunset, but there were no runners. No cyclists. No dog walkers. No surprise really; the air felt heavy, thick, and hot. Body temperature. Blood temperature. The moon would be full at seven thirty-seven - nine thirty-seven Ontario time. "He's not going to come, Allie. He knows what's happening; all the Woods are joined, and he's going to need to run."

"Nothing's chasing him." In spite of the heat, Allie had her arms wrapped around her torso.

"Even if nothing's chasing him."

"I wanted to tell him . . ."

"What?" Charlie suspected Allie wanted to tell pretty lies. I won't let this happen to you. David probably knew they were lies as much she did and wanted to hear them even less.

Finally Allie stopped scanning the visible acres of the park, and sighed. "He's strong. So many lives in the city, and I can feel every one of them through him. Not just the bright, clear touch of family, not just the land, but every little . . ." She flicked her fingers, right hand, left hand, right hand.

"That's weird." Charlie slid down the boulder, sat with her back against the rock, and repeated the movement. "Because Calgary never struck me as a jazz hands kind of city."

Allie sat beside her. "You'd be surprised," she said, tugging the hem of her shorts back into place, her voice tight. "Things are happening here."

Charlie bumped her shoulder. "Let's not start that again."

The grass on the hill was gold, the sky a heated silver blue. Leaves hung motionless on the trees. Charlie could feel the way into the Wood through them, feel the point where Jack and his mother had broken through from the UnderRealm, the ancient site sealed with modern ritual. She felt the city beyond the park only because her family was a part of it now. But Allie . . .

"Every life? Isn't that distracting?"

She felt Allie's shrug where their bare shoulders touched. "When you're listening to music, do you hear every note?"

"Sometimes."

"Sometimes it's distracting, but mostly it's just an awareness. It's what second circle does. Here, we tend our bits of the city the way the older piece of the family tends their land."

Although, because she'd been the primary conduit, Allie tended on a deeper level than any of the cousins who'd joined them. Her, Charlie corrected hurriedly. Joined her. In fact, Allie likely tended on a deeper level than any of the second circle back east. Odds were, she wasn't even aware of how often her attention drifted away from conversations, eyes unfocused slightly as she twitched a bit of the city back the way she wanted it. The whole uber connectedness freaked Charlie out a bit. Personally, she needed to have her options just a little more open than that.

Open enough to go all the way to Fort McMurray with a bar band?

Wow. Her inner voice had gotten sarcastic of late.

"You'd know if you crossed," Allie began but Charlie cut her off.

"Not going to happen, Allie-cat. I don't care how much the aunties want a seventh son of a Gale. I'm not crossing to second circle - it's express lane all the way to first - and I'm not splitting Graham's mystical lineage with you."

Given the way Gales skewed to girls, producing a seventh son of a seventh son of a seventh son in the Gale family meant approximately thirty-five babies. Gales liked babies, hell, Charlie liked babies, but that, that was heading into rodent territory even if Allie's unusual sibling situation - one brother, no sisters - helped adjust the numbers.

Allie snorted, sounding more like herself than she had at any time since the aunties had dropped the bombshell about the Hunt. "I'm not suggesting you split Graham's mystical lineage with me. I'm not even starting on Graham's mystical lineage until Jack's . . ." She waved a hand. " . . . resolved and even then, since it's not the aunties knocking me up, we're talking four or five tops - not fifteen or sixteen. But that doesn't mean you can't cross."

"Have the aunties been chewing at you about this?" That could definitely explain Auntie Gwen's expression. Every now and then, opinions shifted from don't waste a Gale boy on her to breed the Wild Power back into the lines and at nearly twenty-eight, Charlie knew she was reaching the age where the nagging started in earnest. "Second circle ties you down. I need the open road, the wind at my back, and a new horizon out in front of me."

"It's quite possible you also need to sing a little less country music," Allie muttered.

"Not to mention," Charlie continued, ignoring her, "that the Wild Powers usually skip right from third circle to first."

"Gran didn't."

"Yeah, well . . ." Kicking off a flip flop, Charlie used her toes to comb the dead grass into parallel lines. If the aunties hadn't been chewing at her, then Allie had brought the second circle stuff up on her own and that freaked Charlie out a bit, too. " . . . if your grandmother had been a boy, the aunties would have taken her out by now."

"Not telling me something I don't already know," Allie sighed.

They sat quietly for a few minutes. Charlie buried her toes in pale dirt, uncovered them, buried them again, until she couldn't stand it anymore and glanced at her watch. "Ten minutes left to kill."

Allie stiffened.

"Sorry." Charlie pressed closer, but Allie didn't relax.

Eight minutes.

Five minutes.

Two minutes.

The leaves shivered. A faint line of dust feathered off the top of the hill.

When the wind reached them, it smelled of the dark hollows under tree roots and the sharp, bitter scent of fear.

Allie shivered. Charlie wrapped an arm around her shoulders.

Between one heartbeat and the next, the moon was full and Nose Hill Park went wild.

Back in Ontario, the aunties would be crossing the cornfield behind the big white-and-green farmhouse and gathering on the edge of the wood. Uncle Edward would be out of sight, racing through the deepening shadows under the trees, antlers catching at branches. If this were a modern story, there'd be an out if he survived until dawn. But this was a much older story than that.

Blood would be spilled.

Bonds would be renewed.

The Hunt would feed.

Charlie could hear Allie's heartbeat, or maybe it was her own. Or David's hooves slamming into the hard, packed dirt as he ran because he couldn't not run. Not tonight.

She thought she could hear baying in the distance. Wild laughter beyond that.

Except it wasn't so much wild as self-satisfied.

The sun had reached the edge of the mountains when Allie jerked and said, "First blood."

Charlie hadn't felt it. Third circle clearly wasn't connected enough and that was fine with her.

It was dark when it ended. Darker than it should have been in the center of a major city under a full moon.

Charlie felt it end. Through her bare feet and legs pressed against the dirt, through her back pressed up against the rock, through all places she and Allie were touching.

Breathing heavily, she turned when Allie did and saw David silhouetted against the light bleed from the city. It was exactly what she'd been looking for driving in from Tony's house, although she wouldn't have felt such a wave of irrational relief had she seen him then. He stood for a moment, sides heaving, pelt streaked dark with sweat, then he half reared and ran for the trees.

Allie let out a breath she'd probably been holding the entire time.

They didn't speak on their way down to the car. There wasn't a lot to say. Charlie's stomach growled. They both ignored it.

"You okay to drive?" Charlie asked as they stepped over the low barrier into the gravel parking lot.

Allie threw her the keys.

"I wonder who . . . ?"

"Probably Uncle Evan," Allie answered before Charlie could finish.

Uncle Evan had the Canada Post contracts for two rural routes. Someone else would be covering them now.

"You know . . ." Leaning on the open door, Charlie frowned into the shadows at the edges of the wood. " . . . we only have the aunties' word that Uncle Edward wavered.You ever wonder?"

"If they lie?" The quiet question drew Charlie's gaze across the top of the car to meet Allie's, the pale gray of her eyes darker in the moonlight. "We'll be aunties one day."

To anyone outside the family, that wouldn't have sounded much like an answer.

"Evan," Auntie Gwen confirmed the next morning. She'd stumbled in at five past eight, brushed her teeth twice, then had three glasses of water and a glass of orange juice. Her eyes were still mostly dark from lid to lid; there were unidentifiable stains on her sleeveless blouse, and a scratch up the length of her right arm. Graham had taken one look at her, and his fingers had twitched toward the weapons he no longer carried. Jack had taken a slightly faster look and decided to go into the office with Graham even though the job sucked and Tuesdays were usually a day off. Joe had come over from the apartment but stayed in the store.

"She knows where I am if she wants me," he'd pointed out when Charlie'd gone down to ask if he was coming upstairs. "And if she doesn't want me, I'd rather not be in her way." Joe, Charlie decided, was smarter than he looked.

"Turn the pancakes, Alysha, or they'll be overcooked on that side."

Auntie Gwen had poured the pancakes herself, charms were too easy with a ladle of batter and a hot grill, but she'd seen no point in standing over the stove in midsummer when there were younger members of the family available.

Any other morning, Charlie knew Allie would have turned the command into a test of will; this morning, she flipped the pancakes.

When they came to the table, Auntie Gwen buttered each one carefully, poured syrup over the whole stack, chewed and swallowed two dripping forkfuls, and pushed the plate away.

Cradling a mug of coffee between both hands, Charlie could feel the buzz traveling under her skin, trying to get out. She'd spent the night sitting cross-legged on the sofa bed, quietly picking out the melody lines to songs she couldn't quite hear. A glance at the abandoned pancakes, and she heard herself say, "Still full?"

Allie gasped. Charlie thought she caught a whiff of decaying leaves, saw Auntie Gwen lift her head, and was most definitely not feeling reckless enough to look her in the eye. After a long moment of weighted silence, Auntie Gwen's fork hit the table at the edge of Charlie's peripheral vision.

"I'm sorry, Charlotte, I didn't quite catch that. Would you care to repeat it?"

"Not fucking likely." When the silence grew more weighted still, she realized she'd answered out loud.

But Auntie Gwen merely sighed and said, "I could use a coffee, Alysha."

Charlie watched Allie move around the kitchen, watched her walk up and set a full mug on the table, and finally looked at Auntie Gwen because Allie's path had put the older woman in her direct line of sight. "Are you okay?"

"Me?" Allie asked, frowning.

Charlie shook her head and watched Auntie Gwen wrap her fingers around the mug. They all pretended to not see them shake.

"It was hard not to be there," she said at last. "Bea and Carmen and I, we have years of ritual tying us to Edward." She took a long swallow of coffee and added another spoonful of sugar, the spoon rattling against the sides of the mug. "And we lost Janet, Abby, Betty, and Dot."

"Those horns aren't just for show," Allie said softly.

Charlie stared at her cousin. "Well, duh! You knew we lost four aunties and you didn't mention it?"

"We didn't lose four. They did."

"We are them!"

"We were them."

"Is she still them?" Charlie demanded, nodding at Auntie Gwen.

"She is the cat's mother." Auntie Gwen flinched. "Oh, dear God, I sound like Jane." She took a deep breath and stared at her coffee. Charlie had to bite her tongue to keep from asking if she was scrying, maybe checking the box scores while she gathered her thoughts. Auntie Gwen had a touching belief that the Jays would pull it out of their collective asses after the All Star Break. A long moment later, she exhaled and squared her shoulders, clearly having come to a decision. "New branches of the family separate, Charlotte. Given modern technology, connections won't be entirely severed this time - beads on a string is the inane analogy Meredith is using given that there's only two beads."

"This time?"

"Don't be stupid. You don't honestly think the entire family, from the bright beginning, is there in rural Ontario?"

Charlie glanced up at Allie who didn't seem surprised. "You knew?"

She shrugged. "Seemed kind of obvious."

Auntie Gwen sighed. "You haven't thought about it at all, have you?"

"Why would I?"

"Why, indeed." This second sigh held subtext Charlie ignored. "To answer your question, Carmen, Bea, and I will always be at heart a part of them - we have too much history there to ever break entirely free. As for the younger members, with every ritual the emphasis will shift until their ties are entirely here. As for you, Charlotte . . ."

"Me?"

"The assumption was that you were too wild to settle. We've been reassessing."

"I haven't settled!"

"Easy to say." She smiled a familiar self-satisfied smile and finished her coffee as Allie made faces at Charlie suggesting she disengage. "Bea's right. Evan isn't strong enough to hold for long," she said, putting her mug down.

The aunties didn't bother with graceful segues.

"There will be challenges. Multiple challenges. We'll have to tell the county we're extending the family plot - Ruby's talking dahlias. Things will be topsy-turvy for a while."

"Topsy-turvy?"

"Jane again. Remind me to fight that. The point is, we're looking at uncertain weather patterns, more boys being born, cakes not rising, unnaturally tough pastry, and cabbages shaped like Elvis."

"Elvis? Seriously?"

"Oh, for pity's sake, Charlotte, why would we get cabbages shaped like Elvis?" She stood and stretched, her shirt riding up enough to show a bruise just above her hip and a scrape rising up from the blotch of purple-green.

Charlie scratched at the buzzing under her left forearm and showed teeth in what wasn't even trying to be a smile. "So, since you couldn't go home, what were you hunting last night, Auntie Gwen?"

"None of your business, Charlotte. Alysha, you'll need to cover the store. Joe's leaving."

Allie paused, about to remove the rejected pancakes. "Auntie Gwen, we talked about this. He's my employee."

"And he's my . . ."

"Never mind." When Allie cut her off, Charlie nearly applauded. Auntie Gwen's descriptions of what Joe was to her made it difficult to look Joe in the eye. And Gales weren't exactly shy. "I'll be right down."

"Good." She paused at the door and swept a dark gaze over both of them. "There's a chance Jane engineered this whole thing because she's afraid Catherine might decide to spend some time at home. Your grandmother always had a frightening amount of influence on your grandfather. The last thing we need is a Wild Power playing at being domestic."

"Worked out the last time," Allie muttered at the closed door.

"She wasn't talking about your grandmother." The buzzing under Charlie skin revved up.

"Yes, she was. She said . . ."

"She meant me. She thinks I've settled."

Allie smiled, the curve of her mouth an invitation. "Would that be so bad?"

Before Charlie could respond in a way that wouldn't get her cut off - the sofa bed was a choice not a necessity - she remembered Auntie Catherine's call. "So, a funny thing happened . . ."

"It could be a coincidence," Allie allowed a few minutes later, leading the way downstairs.

Charlie snorted. "We don't believe in coincidence."

Their reflection showed them joined at the hip.

"Still not double-jointed," Charlie muttered as they passed.

The store was empty, the door was locked, and there was a note from Joe on the counter. "I sold a yoyo. We're going to need another box of rhinestone p . . ." The shape of the "p" suggested Auntie Gwen had waited as long as she intended to.

"So . . ." Allie unlocked the door, flipped the sign, and turned to stare measuringly at Charlie. Charlie had no idea what was being measured but had a funny feeling she was coming up short. "Are you going to take the apartment over the coffee shop? It wouldn't be hard to put in a connecting door."

Charlie clenched her jaw to keep her teeth from chattering as the buzz reached a crescendo. Before she could answer, before she knew what she was going to answer, her phone ran. "Looks like things are getting back to normal," she muttered digging it out of the pocket of her shorts. Normal in the Gale family wasn't over twenty-four hours of phone silence.

"Hey, Chuck! Got a minute?"

"Mark?" It's Mark, she mouthed at Allie who mouthed back no shit as Charlie moved in between two sets of shelves and made herself comfortable. Back before Calgary, and Dun Good, she and Mark had spent the Nova Scotia summer festival circuit in a band called Wylde Chylde. The spelling had made Charlie's eyeballs ache and the band itself had been a high-energy mix of styles that had never quite jelled. When Wylde Chylde blew apart, Charlie and the bass player had headed for Toronto and the blink-and-you-miss-it punk revival movement while Mark had formed and re-formed the remaining pieces into something closer to east coast traditional. Their friendship had survived time and distance and step dancing. "What's up?"

"Aston got bit by a seal."

"He what?"

"He was out in his cousin's boat, saw a seal swimming by, and reached overboard to pet it."

About to poke her finger into a box of plush toys, Charlie reconsidered. "He's an idiot."

"Way to state the obvious, Chuck. Fucking seal bit off two of his fingers. Clearly the stupid fucker isn't going to be playing much for a while." Mark seldom swore. He considered it the sign of a weak vocabulary. Things must be bad back east. "We need you."

"I'm already in a band."

His sigh was deep enough she nearly felt it against her cheek. "Look, Chuck, I wouldn't ask, but we've got five weeks of festival coming up, a good chance of taking top prize, and I know you'll mesh.You're at the same e-mail, right? I'll send you the set list; you'll be covering guitar and mandolin and you've got range enough to sing backup vocals without key changes left, right, and center. You take Aston's lead; we can change the pronouns on the fly."

"I don't . . ."

"Think it over, that's all I'm asking. Okay, that's not all I'm asking, I'm totally asking you to ditch the band you're with for us, but you don't have to tell me right away. What time is it there?"

She stopped running a die-cast tractor along the edge of the shelf and checked her watch. "Almost ten."

"Where the hell are you?"

"Calgary."

"Why? Never mind. Look, get back to me by four, four oh five, four ten maybe your time and we can figure out the best place for us to hook up. We're in Cape Breton, but you'll fly into Halifax, right?"

"Mark, I don't . . ." He'd hung up.

Allie was perched on a stool behind the glass counter, the yoyo ledger open in front of her, when Charlie emerged from between the shelves. "So?"

"So Mark's guitarist lost two fingers to a seal, and he wants me to head east and finish the festival season with him."

"Seals bite?"

"Apparently." Charlie waited while Allie recorded the latest sale, put the ledger away, and straightened.

"Your hair's blonde."

Okay, not what she'd expected. "What?"

"Your hair . . ." Allie gestured at the top of Charlie's head. " . . . is blonde. It was blonde when you woke up this morning."

"It was turquoise when I went to sleep," Charlie muttered pulling an orange plastic hand mirror off a shelf. One of those trick Halloween mirrors, it substituted a skull for her face, but the hair above the empty sockets was definitely her natural ash blonde.

"You're leaving, aren't you?" Allie's tone made the question almost more of a statement.

Cape Breton seals in Fort McMurray. Then on the news in the coffee shop. Then eating Aston's fingers. That was three.

Meet me in Halifax and we'll talk.

Okay, four.

The last thing we need is a Wild Power playing at being domestic.

Fine, five. But who was counting.

The buzz under her skin made it hard to stand still.

"Yeah, I'm leaving."

And the buzz stopped.

Oh, really? she thought, putting the mirror facedown on the shelf. Subtle much?

The thing was, Dun Good had only made it as far as it had because of Charlie. It wasn't ego and it wasn't like she'd done it on purpose, but sometimes she wasn't as careful as she could've been with the music. Charm a set of broad shoulders here, a rounded cleavage there, don't stay on top of the way it's spreading and, well, it was no surprise people loved the band.

Literally.

Without her, things wouldn't go as well.

Not ego. Fact.

All right, fine; a little ego.

She didn't owe the other members of Dun Good anything. They weren't family. But they had been together for over a year, and breaking up via text seemed like a bad high school cliche, so Tuesday evening found Charlie at Taylor and Donna's one-bedroom basement apartment, guitar slung on her back, fully aware she might have to charm the lot of them if things got ugly.

Noise spilled out through the open door. Charlie'd arrived last by intent. She stepped over a grubby gray backpack, moved down the short hall to the living room, and saw a natural redhead she didn't recognize. Strange. The apartment was so small, even Donna usually vacated the premises when the band met there.

"Charlie!"

"Tony!"

Tony grinned a little too broadly. "This is Kristie!"

Charlie nodded at Kristie and glanced around the room. Taylor stood in the doorway to the kitchen, arms crossed. Jeff straddled a chair over by the television. They were both watching Tony. The redhead, Kristie, gave a little wave.

"You replaced Kristie, you know when you started, last um . . ." Tony's voice trailed off, then his smile broadened back out again. "She had a baby! Uh, anyway, she was thinking of coming back and well, me and Jeff have known her since high school and . . ."

"You're kidding, right?"

"I know this is . . ."

Charlie raised a hand and cut him off again. "I'm talking to the universe, Tony. But thanks for playing."

Allie twisted the end of her braid around her finger, perilously close to pouting. "I don't want you to go."

"I've left before," Charlie reminded her, checking to make sure she'd put a couple pairs of underwear in the outside pocket of her gig bag.

"Sure, a week or two touring with the band . . ."

"Before that."

"That was before this." Her gestured somehow seemed to take in the entire city of Calgary. "This is the first time after this. And the first time since this when I don't know when you'll be back."

It took Charlie a moment to parse that. Since Calgary, she'd toured on a schedule, out and back like an Emporium yoyo. This trip, no string. She wanted to say, I always come back to you, but the words got stuck, so she wrapped a hand around the back of Allie's head, pulled her in close, and kissed her instead.

"Yeah." Allie's smile looked bittersweet as they pulled apart. "That's what I thought. Are you going to talk to Gran?"

"No, I don't think so. I'm feeling manipulated enough."

"It hardly counts as wild when the whole universe is telling you to hit the road," Graham muttered. His arms were crossed and his brows drawn in, but odds were he was reacting to Allie's mood not Charlie's imminent departure.

"That's what I'm saying." Charlie moved in close, waited pointedly until he unfolded his arms, then kissed him, too, tracing a quick charm on the damp skin behind his ear for Allie to find later. "You'll have to be the man of the house while I'm gone," she said, as she stepped away. "Think you're up to it?"

"At the moment, I can't think why I let you hang around."

Charlie grinned. "Takes a village to raise a dragon. And speaking of . . ."

"He won't come out of his room." Allie half turned toward Jack's door.

"Then I'll just have to go to him."

"He slammed the door and a power grid went up."

"Sorcery?"

"You think? He knows he's not supposed to do sorcery in the apartment."

"He was angry. He probably didn't do it on purpose."

"You're always making excuses for him." Allie tossed her braid behind her shoulder. "He won't let you in."

"He won't let you in," Charlie corrected, crossing the living room. So what if she occasionally made excuses for Jack; she knew what it was to be the odd Gale out.

The power grid flashed gold when she knocked. Charlie leaned in as close as she could without getting singed and said quietly, "Open the door, or I tell Allie about . . ."

The grid vanished, the door swung open, and a voice muttered out of the smoke, "I never thought you were a snitch."

"Dude, empty threat. If it happened in Calgary, Allie knows about it." She slipped in as the door closed again, waving a hand in front of her face. The temperature was in the high thirties, making the sulfur smell stronger than usual - could be dragon, could be teenage boy. Impossible to tell for certain. "What do you have against open windows?"

"Stupid neighbors keep calling the fire department."

"All right, one last freebie before I go." Right hand on the outside wall, Charlie came farther into the room, only tripping twice over the debris on the floor before she found the window. "Back in the day," she grunted, forcing the casement up, "there was a time or two I didn't want my parents to know what I had going on." Pressing only enough to lightly etch the weave, she dragged the edge of her thumbnail over the exposed screen. "This will filter everything coming out of your room. No visible smoke. No . . . uh, nosable smell."

"Nosable?"

"Shut up, I'm doing you a favor."

"You're leaving."

The smoke had already started to clear. When Charlie turned, she could see Jack sprawled on his bed, wearing a pair of shorts and an award-winning sulky expression. "Yeah, I'm leaving. So?"

"So, nothing." He scratched at the gold scales scattered over his chest and stomach. "Go ahead. Leave."

"They have these things called phones in this world." Jack wouldn't get his family phone until fifteen, but even considering Canada's crappy cell coverage, there were other options. "You want me, call me."

"Why would I want you?"

She kicked a pair of enormous, glossy, red board shoes to one side and leaned against his dresser. "Maybe because you can't stand how uncool it is around here without me."

"You're in a country band." He balled up a dirty sock and threw it at the poster of Inner Surge taped to the back of his door. "That's not cool. And cool's not cool, it's sick."

"Okay, point one, not in a country band anymore; I'm in an alt Celtic band."

"Wow. So much better." Teenagers did sarcasm almost as well as the aunties.

"And two, what's really up with you?"

Jack threw another sock. After a long moment he sighed, a gust of smoke wafting toward the open window. "I'm trying really hard to be what they want me to be."

"Allie and Graham?"

"Them, too." Another sock. "There's too many stupid choices here. You're the only one who gets that."

"Thanks. I think. For what it's worth, being fourteen is all about making stupid choices."

"Not for me."

"Are you lying on your dirty laundry?" Charlie asked as another sock hit the poster.

He turned to glare at her. "What if I am?"

"Then you're doing better at being a fourteen-year-old boy than you think. Look . . ." She crossed the room, shoved his leg out of the way, and sat on the edge of the bed. ". . . Allie's not going to send you back if you don't want to go, no matter what you do." The bed quivered as he stiffened. Bingo. "She fought the aunties for you. She sends you back, she's lost the fight."

Those were the kind of power dynamics Jack understood. His eyes narrowed thoughtfully, showing a glimmer of gold.

"Don't waste energy worrying about Allie, just concentrate on finding who you are here. And that advice was so tree-of-life tote bag, I think I'm going to hurl."

He snorted. "Yeah, I didn't want to say."

"I promise I'll keep trying to come up with something more interesting for you to do than working Graham's skeezy newspaper."

A pair of underwear hit the poster and slid to the floor. "Push pins melt."

"Good to know. Remember, I'm only a call or text away because I'm so totally sick you're going to miss me like crazy." She closed her hand around his knee. The skin under her fingers was just on the edge of scorching. "Pretty much the way I'm going to miss you."

He had enough white showing around the gold to make the eye roll obvious. "You won't miss . . ."

"Call me a liar again, and I will use the charm of disgusting backney I created for my sisters."

"Gross."

"Exactly." She shook his leg. "We good?"

"I guess," he admitted reluctantly. He stood when she did, kicking a stack of old comics under the bed.

"If those are Graham's, I'd be a little more careful. He doesn't carry them anymore, but he didn't actually get rid of his weapons. Now, come're." Dragging Jack into a hug, she found his skin had cooled to as close to Human body temperature as it got. Always a good sign.

"If you just drew a charm on my back, I'm telling Auntie Gwen who ate that rhubarb pie," he snarled, jerking away.

"You shared it."

"You cut it. And I'm just a kid, remember? You led me astray."

"That's part of my job." Reaching behind her for the doorknob, she sobered. "Be careful with the sorcery. I know it usually just happens," she cut off his protest. "But that's part of the problem. The aunties think you have no control."

"Yeah, but they don't want me to do it on purpose or practice." Jack scratched at the old crescent scar on his cheek. It looked like a hockey scar but had probably been a near miss by one of his uncles. "They say practicing accumulates power. They can't have it both ways."

"How long have you been here?The aunties have it any way they want it." She opened the door about two centimeters then closed it again. "Keep an eye on Allie for me, would you? Graham's cool, but he's not blood."

Her reflection in the mirror was so close to how she actually looked - jeans, sneakers, tank, gray eyes, short blonde hair, three gold rings in her left ear, one in the right - that it took her a moment to find the changes. Change. Probably.

Just in case, she checked her gig bag. Guitar tucked safely away, mandolin case piggybacking, small pockets on both cases stuffed with the essentials - nothing matched the image in the mirror where something was struggling to get out.

"I hope you're telling me to free the music," she murmured patting the edge of the frame. "Because if my underwear were any freer, it'd be illegal."

She had to put her knee to the door to get it open. Given that Auntie Gwen was in the window of the loft, glaring down into the courtyard, it was possible that the weight of her gaze had been holding it closed.

Charlie waved, then laughed delightedly, as Auntie Gwen flipped her off. If they'd wanted her to cross, if that's what all the we have to talk eyebrow waggling had been about, it wasn't going to happen now. She didn't look up to see if Jack was standing by his window, he'd only be embarrassed to be caught. There was no reason to look for Allie and Graham because she knew damned well they were watching.

The shrubs leaned toward her, leaves quivering.

"Hang on, kids." Freeing her guitar, she hung the gig bag on her back then settled the guitar strap over her shoulders and checked the tuning. A flat G had once resulted in a detour through a bed of decorative plantings at the Illinois State Fair and a fast dive for cover while she figured out what had gone wrong. Like many celebrities, the Budweiser Clydesdales were shorter up close. She'd had to throw out her shoes. And socks.

Tuned and ready, Charlie gave her assembled audience her best Ahn-old . . . "Ah'll be back." . . . started the melody line that would take her to Mark, and stepped into the shrubbery . . .

. . . and stepped out again in a fringe of trees about a hundred meters from a red-roofed building in the middle of an acre or so of mowed lawn. She could smell the ocean, but given that Cape Breton had more coastline than the interior geography could account for, that didn't give her much of a clue. Recent rain had stopped, but the cloud cover was still too thick for her to even pick up a direction from the sun.

"Guess we'll do it the easy way then." Guitar stowed safely back in the bag, she crossed the wet grass to the sign.

"Celtic Music Interpretive Center. Wednesday Ceilidhs 7:00 PM to 9:00 PM, five dollar admission. July 27th starts the Samhradh Ceol Feill." Charlie traced a charm over the sign and the letters rearranged. "Ah, Summer Music Festival. Makes sense. And as today is July 27th, the only question remaining is, where's . . ."

"Chuck! Where the hell did you arrive from? If you hitched over from the airport, I'm going to slap you silly. It's not the summer of love, baby. Well, not officially anyhow."

Charlie turned to watch Mark charge down the path toward her, wearing a CIJK-FM T-shirt over a black utility kilt barely held within the bounds of decency by his blue fake fur sporran. He had a set of drumsticks shoved through his hair just above the elastic that held his ponytail.

As soon as he was close enough, he pulled her into an enthusiastic hug, then pushed her back to arm's length and said, "I don't suppose you've learned to play the fiddle since we talked?"

"Another two waiting for you in the Sydney office? Good news. I haven't seen much in the way of support from them yet, but this should certainly encourage more active participation in the process." Leaning back against the butter-soft leather, Amelia glanced down at the papers spread out on the seat beside her. "I'll be done at the studio by seven, but I expect there'll be a bit of necessary socializing with the producer to keep his opinion sweet, so there's no point in me leaving Halifax tonight. I'll head out in the morning and meet you at the office at eleven. That'll give you plenty of time to find off-site storage unconnected to the company in case they get desperate enough to try something. Better to be safe than sorry," she continued before Paul could speak. "I leave the details in your hands."

She switched her attention to her notes as she hit the disconnect. The moment Two Seventy-five N had taken them public, Paul had done his usual excellent job and put together an inarguable list of facts that supported their position as well as a number of anecdotes that sounded inarguable but had no factual support at all. All she had to do tonight was hit the emotional beats and start swaying the voting public onto their side. Sway the voting public, sway the politicians they voted for.

In a just world, the honorable minister would have gotten his shit together and issued the permits before the application for the well had been thrust into the public eye by a group of environmental extremists. Amelia, well aware the world was far from just, believed in contingency plans.

"Ms. Carlson." Her driver flicked open the communication hatch. "We're five minutes out."

"Thank you, Val."

The papers, edges parallel, went into her briefcase; she wouldn't be referring to them again. Paul had provided a printout of the facts, not only clear, concise, and bulleted but available for the station to copy and give to their researchers.

Well, researcher, the CBC budget being what it was.

She slid her phone into her Italian leather bag. It was starting to look genteelly worn, but then she'd had it made to her specifications right after she'd gone to work for her father and it had rarely left her side since. The craftsman had included enough interior sections and outside pockets that she'd never be caught rummaging about like a north shore granny looking for a lozenge.

Yes, I have an assistant who could handle my minutiae, but I prefer not to waste his talents dealing with the sort of thing that every other woman in the world manages on her own.

The purse told the world that she wasn't helpless. She was aware of her privilege. She was of the people.

It was a killer shtick.

The car slid into VIP parking under the studio.

Showtime.

Earbuds in, music loud enough to rattle the scales on his tail - if he had a tail right now which he didn't because it wouldn't fit in this stupid room and yeah, okay, it didn't suck that he could let down his guard because he didn't have to worry about his uncles sneaking up on him - Jack dragged another one of Graham's old comics out from under the bed and propped it up against his knees. Earlier, he'd tried to make issue seven, Crisis on Infinite Earths hover in the air above his eyes and two hours later still wasn't able to get it down off the ceiling. That was the stupid sort of thing that happened when he actually tried to do sorcery instead of just letting it happen. If Graham saw what had happened to one of his precious comics, he'd be grounded for a month. He wouldn't have even tried, but he wanted his hands free to deal with a bag of frozen cookies with his name on it.

After the first time he tried claiming food the way he would have back home, Allie'd put his name on everything he was allowed to eat.

And bought a new freezer.

Those things really stank when they melted.

"Find out who I am here," he muttered, around a mouthful of gingersnap. "I don't even know what that means."

He was a dragon. But no one outside the family was supposed to know that. He was sorcerer, but even some people inside the family weren't supposed to know that. He was a Gale and that was all about family who weren't trying to eat him.

That was cool.

Maybe Charlie'd meant he should work on being more of a Gale.

Turned out that Mark's fiddle player wasn't missing, just very late, arriving as the band before them took their bows.

"Look, it was an emergency," he snapped before Mark could actually articulate all the jumping around and hand waving he was doing. "Tanis, my girlfriend, couldn't find a family heirloom and she's a little hysterical. I left when her sisters showed up and I'm here, so calm down. Hey." He waved the hand not holding his instrument. "You must be Charlie. Bomen Deol. You might as well call me Bo, I can't get Mark to stop, and before you tell me I don't look like a fiddle player, I'm ethnically Indian. The Romany came out of India, and some of the best fiddle players in the world are Roma, QED."

Charlie grinned. "You get asked that a lot?"

"You'd be surprised." He took a deep breath, shook out his shoulders on the exhale, and nodded toward the now empty stage. "Okay. I'm calm. Let's do this."

Tim Waters, the keyboard player and the underreaction to Mark's overreaction since they'd met playing soccer in university, led the way out onto the polished maple half circle, accordion slung around broad shoulders. Shelly Simpson followed, wrestling her upright bass into position before the stage got any more crowded, muscles moving smoothly under the golden freckles covering her bare arms. "I use the electric a lot of the time," she'd told Charlie earlier, "but this place seemed to cry out for the all-natural sound." A few people in the audience cheered when Bo took his place - this was a crowd that appreciated fiddlers.

To keep things moving, all the bands used the Center's drums and keyboards. Mark had a set of sticks in his hands and two more plus a pennywhistle tucked in behind the waistband of his kilt.

"So," Charlie said as they stepped out of the shadows, "I forgot to ask; this band got a name?"

"Grinneal! Scot's Gaelic for bottom of the sea." Mark grinned and saluted her with the sticks. "It's sink or swim time, Chuck!"