Chapter Seven

Banneker, your tour is over as of this afternoon, correct?" asked Maguire the following morning, when she showed up with market bags full of lettuce and greens and two dozen flat-fold diapers.

Twyla didn't bother to glance up from the dry sink where she was scraping the remnants of a pancake off an iron skillet. "Yes, but…"

"But what?"

"Obviously, I can't leave Frank." She gestured toward the northwest corner of the barracks, where, on the other side of the walls, Frank was attempting to bathe himself in the small bathhouse while a no-longer-extinct creature clung to him.

"You can leave him and you will leave him. Marshall Ellis is going to pick up overtime this week, while you and Duckers go home to your loved ones and behave as if everything's normal." Twyla was about to protest, but the chief cut her off. "He already knows this is what we're doing. He's the one who suggested it."

Twyla threw her dish towel on the counter. "If that isn't just like him! Infuriating man."

"I'll check in on him this week. And I'll bring him more diapers, too."

Checking in with Frank wasn't the same as being there for him. Twyla looked hopefully to the dracologist. "Quill, are you staying?"

"In fact, I am departing with Chief Maguire this morning. My plan is to return to Quindaro on the earliest ferry out tomorrow to carry out a bit of research at the university library. If we can identify the exact species of dragon we're dealing with here, it would be most helpful, especially for Marshal Ellis."

Did Maguire—or Frank, for that matter—actually expect Twyla to leave her best friend alone under these circumstances? "I don't like this."

"I'm sure you don't," said Maguire. "To be honest, I don't like it either, but we need to keep this dragon business on the down-low for as long as possible. Go home, Twyla. Get some rest. You've earned it. Dr. Vanderlinden, I'll meet you at the stable."

The words were uttered with finality, and Maguire took up her overnight pack and departed before Twyla could make any further arguments. She was about to storm to the bathhouse to protest Frank's heavy-handedness (without actually going inside, of course) when Quill stopped her at the barracks door.

"Marshal Banneker—er, Twyla—might I have a quick word?"

She wanted to talk things over with Frank, but she also didn't want to be rude. "What's up?" she asked with as much patience as she could muster.

"I wanted to express my gratitude. You've been most helpful these past two days, and I have enjoyed working with you."

"Thank you. I've enjoyed working with you, too."

"If you don't mind my asking a rather delicate question, is Marshal Ellis your partner, or is he… your partner?"

It had not occurred to Twyla until that moment that a highly educated man in an ascot might find her demeanor with her best friend unprofessional on the job, a thought that mortified her. "Me and Frank? No!" She tittered involuntarily, sounding ridiculous even to her own ears. "We've known each other for ages, but there's never been anything romantic between us."

"I see."

"I know that we might come across as casual, but I promise you, we take our work seriously."

"In that case, would you care to have dinner with me tonight?"

A pregnant pause filled with the grapping of graps and the strange call of exotic Tanrian birds followed the question as Twyla attempted to make sense of the words.

"You want to have dinner with me?"

"I would, yes."

"As in, a… date?"

"If that is amenable to you?"

Twyla knew she needed to say something, but her mind was a blank. She couldn't make herself believe this was really happening.

"Ah. I see," Quill said after an agonizingly long pause. "Forgive me. I misread this situation."

True, he had misread the situation, but more in the sense that it had never occurred to Twyla that a reasonably attractive man her own age with years of education and worldly experience might want to have dinner with her. Several locals had asked her out in the years since Doug had sailed the Salt Sea, but those men had had personal agendas that Twyla had not found appealing. One was on the hunt for a stepmother for his three children. Another had wanted a woman to keep house for him while he tried to get a new business up and running. Not that any of these men were consciously thinking, I need a wife so that I don't have to pay someone for all the things a married woman does for free, but Twyla could see the quiet motivations lurking beneath the surface.

Quill, on the other hand, didn't live here. He would stay for as long as it took him to carry out his work, and then he would go home to Quindaro. He wasn't looking for someone to take care of him. He was looking for a little company to pass the time on Bushong. And why shouldn't his company be Twyla?

"I haven't been on a date in so long, I've forgotten how to do this," she said. "Yes, I'd like to go out to dinner. With you. Tonight."

He beamed at her. "Excellent."

"Where are you staying?"

"The Sunny Hill Hotel in Eternity."

"I live in Eternity. I can pick you up, if you want?"

"Nonsense. I have my own duck with me, and since I'm the one inviting you, I should be the one picking you up. Say, six o'clock?"

As Twyla dug out a small notebook from her supplies, she saw his eyes land on the Gracie Goodfist backpack and thought that perhaps the time had come to invest in a bag designed for an adult. Blushing furiously, she scrawled her address, tore out the page, and handed it to Quill. "See you then."

"Indeed."

Indeed. The Stenish accent was making the knee socks and ascot more endearing by the second. She hoped he found her son's old backpack equally charming.

Twyla walked him out the door and saw him off to the stables as Duckers returned from helping Frank.

"How is he?" she asked him.

"Not bad, all things considered. I think the bath cheered him up."

"You were able to get his shirt off?"

"Yeah, but I doubt he can get another one on. He's glad to be wearing clean underwear and pants, though."

"Oh, the indignities of motherhood," she commiserated. "Did you hear Maguire ordered the two of us to go home this afternoon?"

"I knew I was leaving, but you are, too?"

Twyla nodded.

"So we're all ditching Dragon Daddy?"

"Yep."

"Sucks to be Frank, although I gotta say, I'm looking forward to my time off. This tour has been batshit."

"No kidding. I'm about to ride out on rounds. Want to come with?"

"Sure. I'll meet you at the stable in fifteen?"

Twyla patted him on the shoulder in agreement and went to check on Frank. He was behind the bathhouse by the clothesline, hanging up his old shirt, which he had tried to scrub clean in his bathwater. He had plaited his wet hair into a braid to keep it out of his way, and, of course, he had a small shell-pink dragon attached to his now naked torso. The only other item he wore from the waist up was his silver ID key on a chain around his neck, a holdover from more dangerous times when everyone entering Tanria was required to have a prepaid funeral package on file should they die inside the Mist.

Twyla had seen Frank's bare chest and arms and shoulders and legs—pretty much everything but his privates—countless times, mostly to patch him up after a particularly nasty drudge fight, and he'd seen quite a bit of her unclad skin, too, for the same reason. And yet it was jarring to behold so much exposed Frank-ness in the peaceful morning sunlight. He was in his fifties, and his physique had softened with age, but Twyla sometimes forgot that despite his slightly below-average height, he had a powerful frame.

Built like a battering ram, and I mean that in the best possible way, one of his ex-lady-friends had once slurred over margaritas at a party in Twyla's backyard years ago.

She did not want to think of Frank as a battering ram, but as he stood there before her, damp and sun bronzed, the phrase battering ram and all that went with it burned itself into her brain. Her cheeks went hot, and she was certain that her face had turned the color of a vine-ripe tomato.

"Don't lay into me, darlin'," pleaded a blessedly oblivious Frank as he hung his pants on the line beside his shirt. "There's no point in both of us being stuck here."

Yes, that's right. I'm supposed to yell at him, Twyla reminded herself. "You could have asked me for my opinion before you made decisions on my behalf."

"And you would have insisted on staying."

"Because you're my best friend."

"And you're mine."

She couldn't argue with that, especially not when he picked up his clean shirt from where it sat neatly folded on the fence and struggled into the sleeves as a baby dragon meeped in protest.

"Need help?"

"Please."

She walked around him, surveying the situation from every angle. "There's only six inches of space between the wing tips, but I can maybe make this work if I stand behind you."

"Do what you can do. I'd rather not walk around Tanria half-naked if I don't have to."

Twyla suspected that there were a few marshals who would love nothing more than to see Frank Ellis traipse about half-naked, but she kept that opinion to herself.

Battering ram, her traitorous brain whispered. She crammed that thought into the recesses of her mind, like a railroad worker tamping dynamite into a hole before blowing up the side of a mountain. Which, come to think of it, was another extremely unhelpful analogy.

Frank had already struggled into each sleeve up to his elbows, so Twyla stood behind him to work the shirt's front panels under the wings. Mary Georgina huffed in annoyance at her efforts, but Twyla was able to slide several inches of cotton canvas past the baby's clutch, all the way to Frank's sides, allowing her to pull the collar up and cover his shoulders, which were much bigger than she remembered them being. The struggle now was to get the placket to meet the buttons in front underneath the dragon's belly. The only way Twyla could pull it off was via a full-body hug. She had to press her chest flat against Frank's back and her pelvis against his butt. His body was a pleasing combination of hard and soft and comforting warmth.

Not alarming. Not alarming at all.

"Good thing I took a bath," he joked, but his voice sounded strangely husky. And since his speaking register was so deep, Twyla felt the words vibrate all down her front.

"Your baby had better not bite me," she told him, praying to the Mother of Sorrows that he didn't notice her fluster as she did up two more buttons.

And then it occurred to her that Mary Georgina really might bite her, and that sounded fairly awful.

"Want to hear something nutty?" she asked, as much to distract herself as to deliver interesting news.

"Sure."

She got another button through a buttonhole. "Dr. Vanderlinden asked me out."

"He…" Frank went very still. "He did what, now?"

"He asked me to go out to dinner with him." She got another button through its corresponding hole. "On a date." Another successful buttoning. "Tonight."

She stepped aside to assess her work and smooth the fabric over his shoulders. They were broad and strong. Romance-hero shoulders. Twyla snatched her hands back at the disconcerting thought.

"I am so sorry that happened to you, Twy. Are you filing a complaint?"

This was not going as planned. Not that she had planned it. She stepped to his front side and pulled down on his sleeves. "No, I'm not filing a complaint."

"I think you should. It's unprofessional of him."

This was awkward.

Why was this awkward?

"The thing is, I said yes."

"You did what?"

His shock and surprise were beginning to offend her.

"I said I'd go out with him."

"Are you pulling my leg?"

Twyla moved from offense to anger. "Do I sound like I'm joking?"

"You're going out with Professor Vanderlegs?"

"Yes, and his name is Vanderlinden."

"On a date?"

"It's been a few decades since I've done this sort of thing, but yes, that's my understanding."

"What in the Salt Sea are you thinking?" burst Frank, and now Twyla wasn't mad; she was hopping mad.

"What is the problem? He's not my boss, and I'm not his. There's no ethical dilemma here."

"But you're working together."

"So? You've dated other marshals in the past, haven't you?"

He clamped his lips, because he couldn't deny it.

Meep? said Mary Georgina, looking first at Frank and then at Twyla.

"How many people have you dated since you and Cora split up?" Twyla pressed, hands on hips.

"Well now, I don't rightly know."

"Exactly. Too many to count. Do you know how many men I've dated since Doug died?"

Frank hunched his shoulders. "None."

"That's right. None. Zero. In thirteen years. Why can't I be the one having fun for a change?"

"What are you saying? You think I'm some kind of womanizer?"

"Of course not."

"When was the last time I went on a date with anyone, Twy? Do you even know? Or care?"

Mary Georgina buried her face in the crisp blue cotton of Frank's clean shirt.

Twyla hadn't seen Frank this worked up… possibly ever. But she was too livid to concern herself with him when he was awfully busy not being happy for her.

"That's beside the point. A nice, attractive man asked me out, and I said yes."

"So he's attractive now, is he?"

"As a matter of fact, yes, he is. You know what? Forget it. My love life doesn't have a thing to do with you." She turned on her heel and marched toward the stable, but Frank matched her, stride for stride.

"Forgive me for looking out for you."

"I am a grown woman. I can look out for myself."

"You can look all you want. You sure as shit don't see much."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing," he growled.

Twyla urged her mare out of the water trough and began to towel off her scales as Frank glowered at the stable door. "I'm going out on rounds."

He remained where he was, watching as she got the equimaris saddled up. He finally spoke when Duckers arrived to get his own mount saddled.

"Take the big crossbows with you."

Twyla led her equimaris to where Frank stood by the large stable door. "I. Can look out for. Myself."

"Whew, you could cut the tension here with a knife," Duckers whispered none too subtly to his gelding before he mounted up.

Several hours in the saddle did nothing to assuage Twyla's fury at Frank. It didn't help that Duckers spent half the circuit prying into what had happened in the time between when he left Twyla to stuff some breakfast down his gullet and the moment fifteen minutes later when he'd come out to the stable to find the friends at each other's throats.

"Everything's fine," she told him through gritted teeth.

"Obviously."

Twyla was tempted to confide in Duckers, if only to vent her frustration with Frank, but she decided it was best to keep the details of her love life—if it could be called a love life—to herself for the time being.

Frank was sitting in one of the deck chairs outside the barracks, waiting for them, when they returned.

"Can we talk?"

Twyla nodded.

"Mm-hmm," Duckers hummed as Twyla and Frank walked away from the barracks together.

"Can it, rookie," Twyla told him, making him snicker.

They walked in silence for several yards, long enough for Twyla to realize that she was now taking it as a given that Frank had a baby dragon stuck to him.

"I'm sorry," he said abruptly. "I don't know why I… I was taken off guard, is all."

It was his shock that bruised her, the fact that he apparently could not fathom anyone finding her attractive. Which meant that he didn't find her attractive. Not that she wanted anything beyond friendship from Frank, but his complete lack of interest cut her all the same.

"Is it so surprising that someone would ask me out?"

"Of course not."

She thought she was doing a creditable job hiding her hurt feelings, but of course Frank saw right through her.

"Twyla Jo." He tilted her chin up, forcing her to look him in the eye. "It does not surprise me in the least."

She could see that he meant it, and the big, unwieldy, weepy feeling she'd been experiencing ever since she witnessed his near death by dragon spit bubbled inside her. His fingertips pressed a drugging warmth against her chin, and all she could think to do was bat his hand away with an affectionate swat. "Pfft. I'm not exactly hot stuff over here."

"Darlin', what you don't know on this subject is a lot." He addressed this comment to the toes of his boots rather than to Twyla directly, a lack of eye contact that ratcheted up Twyla's anxiety for reasons she could not identify.

"Meaning?"

"Meaning I wasn't surprised that the professor asked you to dinner. I was surprised that you said yes. I can think of at least four men who have asked you out over the years, and you turned them all down. I kind of assumed that you'd taken yourself out of the game, but I guess not."

He picked the head off a gray tuft flower and rubbed it with his thumb, sending the seedlings billowing through the air.

"In your defense," said Twyla, "the whole thing has taken me by surprise, too."

He stopped suddenly, took her hand in his, and stared at their joined hands as he spoke.

"I don't say this often enough, but your friendship means the world to me. I wouldn't do anything to jeopardize what we have. I hope you know that."

"I do. And I feel the same way."

He finally met her eye. "That was my long-winded way of saying I'm sorry, by the way."

"And I forgave you before you even opened your mouth."

Frank released her hand, draped an arm over her shoulders, and began to haul her toward the barracks. "You'd better move along. Rumor has it you have a hot date tonight."

"I don't know about that. I'm going to have to take your duck to get home, since you drove this time. I hope that's okay."

"Of course. The keys are in my pack."

She touched his fingertips, which dangled from her shoulder. "I hate leaving you alone like this."

"I'm not alone. I have Mary Georgina. Right, darlin'?"

It took Twyla a minute to realize that he had called the dragon darlin', not her, and she was mildly offended. Then again, she, of all people, knew how easy it was to be lonely, even with a baby clinging to you.

Since there were no nimkilim boxes inside Tanria, Twyla offered to take Frank's response to Lu and Annie's letter and slide it into the nimkilim box at the station for him.

She also offered to give Duckers a ride to his apartment since their tours ended at the same time, but Zeddie Birdsall was waiting for him in the parking lot. The youngest of the Birdsall siblings leaned against the family's old autoduck, his golden curls and pretty green eyes and poreless tawny skin screaming, I am young and beautiful!

It was for the best that Zeddie had come to pick up Duckers; Twyla needed the solo drive to Eternity to process all that had happened on this tour. Dragons and romance were two things she had not envisioned in her future ten days ago, and now both had fallen into her lap. She felt a twinge of remorse for leaving Frank—and driving his duck home without him—but she was also looking forward to a peaceful several days in her quiet house.

After her date that evening.

Home at last, she put her key in the lock, but there was no answering click of the bolt when she turned it, which meant the door was already unlocked. She heard a familiar commotion coming from inside the house—her house—and she sent a silent prayer to the Mother of Sorrows before opening the door. Her grandson Sal was singing a full-throated rendition of the children's song "Now I Know My New Gods" while jumping on her sofa, which had been denuded of its cushions. Each time his bare feet hit the springs, she swore she could hear her sofa cry for mercy. Wade's oldest son, Manny, was lying on the aforementioned cushions, which had been cast to the floor and were now surrounded by a sea of spilled Cheezykin crackers, some intact, some pulverized into orange crumbs. Manny's face was hidden behind, of all things, one of Twyla's more salacious romance novels, which, at age nine, he could neither understand nor appreciate (or so she hoped). He shouted "Would you shut up, Sal? I'm trying to read!" to which Sal retorted, rather predictably, "You shut up!" From somewhere deeper inside the house, possibly her bedroom, Twyla could hear Teo pitching a fit and Wade's helpless pleading with him to "Stop touching the poo! Don't touch! Poopy no-no!"

Twyla hoped she would not have to wash toddler poo out of her coverlet. She turned to the family altar beside the front door, dipped her fingers in the teal-colored porcelain dish that had once belonged to her late husband's grandmother, and touched salt water to Doug's key. "It's just like old times, honey," she told him before tackling the uphill battle that was getting Sal Banneker Padilla in line. By the time Wade emerged from her bedroom with a tear-damp Teo in his arms, Twyla had marshaled Sal into putting her sofa back together, while Manny clumsily swept the floor.

"Mom! You're finally home!"

"Hi, honey." She went to hug her son, but he mistook the gesture as an offering of help and dumped the child into her outstretched arms.

"Wammy," said Teo with a tiny-toothed smile. Manny had called her Wammy in his infancy, and the name stuck. All the grandkids called her Wammy now.

She kissed Teo's big black curls with a loud mwah-mwah-mwah and inhaled his milky scent. "How's my sweet Teo?"

In reply, he sucked the middle two fingers of his left hand and mouth-breathed on her neck as he lodged the fingers of his right hand into her hair above her forehead. His diaper was already loose beneath the soaker, and since Twyla did not want Teo to leak on her person or on her floor, she took him to the guest room, where she had a changing station already set up and had for years, and why didn't Wade know this?

"Not that I'm not thrilled to see all of you," she lied to her son as he followed her, "but why are you here?"

"Anita's grandma isn't doing so hot. Her mom said she needed to come home to say goodbye."

"Oh no!" Twyla exclaimed in all sincerity, but in the privacy of her mind, she fretted over the fact that Wade referred to Herington as his wife's hometown when they had been married for eleven years, and Anita had been living in Eternity for twelve.

"The guys and I are going on a camping trip. The duck's already packed and everything. We've had it planned for weeks. Can you watch the kids today and tomorrow?"

The fact that he was packed and ready to go indicated that he took her affirmative answer as a foregone conclusion.

"But I can't tonight," she said, even as she felt herself caving. Setting boundaries had never been her strong suit, an unfortunate truth that bit her in the butt with frequency.

Speaking of butts, she thought as she regarded Wade's shoddy handiwork in cleaning up Teo. She reached for one of the washcloths she kept by the changing area and sent her son off to get it damp.

"Mom, please?" Wade begged from the bathroom. "The guys are waiting for me. We're supposed to get to the lake before sundown to set up camp, and then we're fishing first thing in the morning."

Wade returned with the washcloth, which was dripping wet and cold. Teo squealed in surprise when Twyla touched the cloth to his poor bum.

"Honey, I have plans."

"What plans could you possibly have that you couldn't cancel?"

"For your information, I have a date."

He burst out laughing, clapping his hands as if he were applauding a particularly good performance. When Twyla did not join him in his mirth and when her typically clueless second child finally noticed that she was pissed off, he said, "Wait, you're not kidding?"

"Why does everyone think I am incapable of dating?"

"Because it's unnatural. Fifty-five-year-old ladies with grandkids don't date." He shuddered.

"I'm only fifty-three, and last time I checked, I'm not dead yet."

She pinned the diaper, pulled up the wool soaker, and handed Wade his child so that she could wring out the washcloth in the bathroom sink and put it in the laundry. She returned to the parlor in time to see her son set down his youngest to toddle on the floor. Teo made a beeline for a stray Cheezykin. Twyla lunged and snatched him up before he could stuff the dirty orange cracker in his mouth.

Sal and Manny burst into the parlor through the kitchen door, Manny holding the box of snack cakes that Twyla kept on the top shelf of her pantry. There was no way they could have reached it without standing on a chair, so she sent up a prayer of thanks to the Bride of Fortune that neither of them had broken their necks in their attempts to retrieve the sugary loot.

"Wammy! Can we have one?"

"Yeah, go ahead," Wade answered for her.

"Can I have two?" asked Sal, a master of angling for more than was on offer.

Once again, Wade beat Twyla to the punch. "Sure," he said, blissfully unaware of sugar's effect on the children, whom he persevered in assuming Twyla would babysit that evening.

Manny and Sal looked at each other, their eyes wide in disbelief. Twyla barely had enough time to holler "Eat them in the kitchen!" before they took off running with the unopened box of snack cakes, knowing that what Dad giveth, Wammy might taketh away. Twyla was about to follow after them to limit them to one each, when Wade spied the novel Manny had been reading on the lamp table. He gaped at the half-clothed couple in old-fashioned clothes who were clinched together in a passionate embrace on the cover, and read the title aloud in a stilted voice.

"The Rogue of Redwing Ruins. Salt Sea, Mom, is this the sort of thing you leave out when the kids are around?"

"Give me that!" She snatched the paperback from his hands, feeling ashamed of herself both for enjoying a good, sexy romance and for letting her offspring scold her about it in her own house.

Pivoting like the professional callow fellow he was, Wade asked, "Can I have a snack cake, too?"

"Go ahead. At least that way the kids won't wolf down the entire box."

"Thanks!"

He followed his two oldest sons into the kitchen, leaving Twyla in the parlor with an armful of toddler and the urge to cry. She tried to wrest The Rogue of Redwing Ruins from her grandson, but Teo had a death grip on it and squawked like an angry parrot when she tried to tug it free of his grasp. Giving up, she went to her bedroom to check on the state of her coverlet.

"Did you get poo on Wammy's bed?"

"Wammy!" he answered, and gnawed on the corner of the book as Twyla inspected the damage.

"It's not as bad as I thought it would be, but ick."

Making a mental note to chuck the coverlet into the hamper at the earliest opportunity, she returned to the parlor in time to see Sal wrestling Manny to the floor and smashing a frosting-filled snack cake into the side of his face, with Wade nowhere in sight.

"Boys!" shouted Twyla. "Where is your father?"

Wade appeared in the kitchen doorframe, shoving a cake into his mouth. "Mom, they're fine. See? They're laughing."

"And making a wreck of my house!"

"Calm down."

Maybe it was the exhaustion of coming off a difficult tour; or maybe it was a middle-aged woman's lack of sleep; or maybe it was the way everyone seemed to dismiss her hopes and dreams and needs as if she were barely human at all; or maybe it was the sensation that no matter how much she gave to her family, it would never be enough, and that every time she thought she was empty, she'd dig a little deeper and find a little more of herself to fork over. Whatever the reason, her patience snapped like a worn pistol crossbow string, and she fired a seething retort at her son before her better judgment could stop her. "Do not tell me to calm down in my own fucking home!"

Twyla was not one to drop an f-bomb—certainly not in the presence of children—as evidenced by the shock waves that ensued. Wade coughed so hard on his snack cake, he launched half-masticated doughy bits in a three-foot radius, and Manny and Sal dissolved into giggling fits, squealing "Wammy said f!" to each other in unadulterated delight.

Into this chaos walked Hope Banneker, stepping through the front door with a mustard-yellow hard-shell suitcase in hand and blue eyes alight with amusement.

"Hi," she said, humor bubbling in her throat as she took in the pandemonium of the parlor. Her friend Everett peeked his head in, as if he were a turtle that might duck into his shell if the environment proved too dangerous.

"Honey!" Twyla surged forward and extended her free arm to hug her daughter. Everett hovered on the doorstep behind her, a bespectacled man in his midtwenties wearing his Allgodsday best. He smoothed the front of his jacket with one long, graceful hand and clutched a bouquet of daisies in the other.

"Hi, Twyla," he said with a wave. An uncertain smile plastered itself across his face as he peered over Hope's shoulder to watch Manny and Sal roll with laughter on the floor, screeching, "Wammy said f!"

"Everett! So good to see you. And my, don't you look dashing today." Twyla smiled at him, even as her mind whirred into a hostess's panic. If she put the boys in DJ and Wade's old room, she could borrow Frank's inflatable mattress and have Hope and Everett sleep in the same room, if neither of them minded. Or maybe Twyla could sleep on the couch and let Everett have her room? Could she spot clean the coverlet in time?

She realized that she was smiling blankly at Hope's friend, whose own smile was beginning to show signs of panic.

"What am I doing? Come in! Come in!" She stepped aside to let Everett through the door. Teo remained in her arms, contentedly sucking on the book. Twyla looked to her son, who was shoving yet another cake into his mouth. "Wade, come get the luggage."

"I need to get going."

"If you have time for snack cakes, you have time to be helpful."

He rolled his eyes but obeyed. "Hey, Sis. Hey, man." He hugged Hope and shook Everett's hand before he took their suitcases.

"You're early. I thought you weren't coming until Wisdomsday."

"I know, but we were both finished with finals, and it's cheaper to take the Sorrowsday ferry. I thought you wouldn't mind."

"Of course I don't mind. I'm so glad you're home. And that you brought Everett with you."

"That's good, because, as it turns out…" Hope's eyes went soft as she touched Everett's arm, and he smiled shyly at her. "We're getting married."

Twyla blinked at her daughter in stunned silence.

Married.

She blinked again.

Married?

Married?

"I know this is sudden, but I hope it's good news?" said Everett, his voice cracking, and Twyla realized that she was being unpardonably rude, when Hope was the one who had failed to inform her of the most important thing going on in her life.

"Don't be silly!" She hugged Everett. "Welcome to the family!"

"Thank you," he breathed in relief.

"I couldn't be more thrilled!"

But Twyla was not thrilled, although she had no idea why. She loved Everett. She ought to be thrilled.

She stood back and squeezed his hand to make him real, to make all of this real, but she couldn't seem to get her bearings. How could Hope be getting married? She glanced at the family altar, where Doug's key glinted, damp from the salt water she had pressed against the metal.

"Congrats, Sis," Wade told Hope, granting her a rare, brotherly hug.

"Thank you." Hope turned to Twyla, expectant.

"This is wonderful!" said Twyla, trying to sound convincing as she hugged her daughter.

Hope beamed at her mother before leaning down to kiss Teo's curls with a loud mwah-mwah-mwah. She raised an eyebrow when she saw the book in his hands. "The Rogue of Redwing Ruins, huh? You must be a very advanced reader, kiddo."

"Don't get your brother started," muttered Twyla.

There was a rapping at the open front door. Quill, dressed in a dapper tweed suit, peeked into the parlor.

"Hallo? Am I too early?"

Twyla hung her head. "Mother of Sorrows."

Teo grinned at Quill and repeated, loudly, the one new word he had acquired that day: "Fucking!"