"Right." She bolted down the hall and up the stairs.

I resolved to get a kids' joke book, to copy out a joke each day to put in Beverley's lunchbox. Not her mom's thing, but something else, similar. I promised myself I'd get that book today. "Thanks, Nana. I forgot to set my alarm."

Johnny entered and tossed the rag into the laundry room.

"Are you going to live here all winter, Johnny?"

We both straightened at Nana's question.

"Truthfully, Demeter, I hadn't thought that far ahead." He approached her. "With the wards reinstated, though, I guess there's no worry of that vamp or his flunkie coming back."

"That vamp" again. And by «flunkie» he meant Goliath, Menessos's emissary.

"I suppose I could move back to my apartment." He shot a glance my way to see how I reacted to the idea.

How did I feel about it? Goddess help me, I felt incapacitated by my indecision. I needed to talk to Amenemhab and sort my feelings out.

"Are you tired of my cooking already?" Johnny asked Nana.

"Oh, hell no! I just thought the broken wards were the only reason you were staying. They've been fixed for a week now, so it must be something else."

She knew, or she caught the glance, or something!

"Yeah," he said naturally. "You're right. I probably should get out of the way."

"You're not in the way. Not mine, anyway." Nana tapped her cigarette into the ashtray, then took another drag, watching me. "I was just wondering if your reason had changed."

The sound of Beverley's feet on the stairs came again, this time in conjunction with Ares's paws as they clamored down together, rumbling like a herd of elephants. It was, for once, a welcome noise. "Gotta get her to school," I said, grabbing my purse and keys as I hurried out.

I sat in my Avalon staring at the garage. The motorcycle was gone again.

Facing Nana alone, not knowing what she and Johnny might have discussed, made me uneasy. I fully expected her to start in on me again about the Eximium, the stain, the vampires, Johnny, and anything else she might have thought of. She'd probably bombard me with all of it in order to wear me down. Worst part was she could claim Johnny said this or that and I wouldn't know if he actually had or if she was playing me.

Stay blank. Unreadable. Don't be goaded.

I planned to busy myself getting a start on the next column and running errands today. Then I could get to meditation and discuss things with my totem animal and spirit guide, Amenemhab.

I got out of the car and slammed the door.

"I've decided something," Nana called as I came through the garage door into the kitchen.

"What's that?" Doubtless she had a great plan that I somehow figured into. I walked through the kitchen into the dining room.

There was a pause. I took off my coat, hung it on the back of my desk chair, and then I heard the sound of her slippers shuffling on the linoleum. "I'm going to call my auto insurance man," she appeared in the doorway, "and have him add Johnny to my policy."

I refrained from reacting visibly, sat down, and flipped my laptop open. "That's very sweet of you, Nana." I wondered how Johnny had reacted to the notion of driving Nana's old Buick Le Sabre with the AARP sticker in the back window.

"I told him that I thought having him around was nice and that he should stay."

Her sneaky thinking during sewing must have paid off in a devious and complex trap she was laying for us.

"I said he could take my car to work this winter. If I need to go somewhere, you can take me in your car."

Aha. That was how I figured into it. Probably safer for other drivers on the road if my hands were on the wheel anyway. "Okay. That's a great idea." I started to check my email.

The phone rang. Nana reached for it. "Hello? Oh hi." Pause. "Yes." Long pause. "Okay. I'll tell her." Pause. "Bye." She hung up and said, "That was Johnny. He said he's going to stay at Erik and Celia's tonight."

"Oh," I said.

She headed back into the kitchen.

Shit. Was he mad? Or what?

"Did he say why?" I asked casually.

"No," she said.

I squinted at her back and wondered if that was the whole truth. She had paused on the phone long enough to get some details.

"Guess we're cooking for ourselves," she grumbled.

Nothing important in email. After sorting through sticky-notes with ideas for my next column, I selected one and stared at my little desk statue of Seshat, the Egyptian scribe-goddess, while I mentally considered the points I wanted to make in this week's column.

I made a good start—so good that the morning got away from me. And, miraculously, Nana never interrupted. No hounding. No browbeating. Nothing.

I got my grocery list, grabbed cash from the duffel under my bed, put my coat on, and left. At the superstore, I gathered my groceries and impulsively added a digital camera to the list. I'd have to get photos of Beverley's Hallowe'en costume and school events and such, right?

I managed a stop at the bookstore to pick up the national papers so I could see my column in print, and to buy that children's joke book, before it was time to pick up Beverley at school.

I hid the joke book and put the groceries away while Beverley did her homework. Then she and I made dinner with the radio on, dancing around the kitchen singing into wooden spoons. We snapped a few pictures of each other and laughed at ourselves. During dinner she told Nana and me about recess with her friend Lily and a science project involving weather.

After cleaning up the kitchen, we went out to finish up the pumpkins.

"Aren't we waiting for Johnny?" she asked.

"Something came up and he won't be here this evening. I'm sure he won't mind if we finish without him."

I probably would have given more thought to why he wasn't coming back tonight, but Beverley was eager to handle a knife. That kept me well grounded in the moment. Remembering my youth and my first experience handling an athame in ritual, we had a serious knife safety discussion, then started stabbing into the dotted-lines designs we'd poked into the orange hulls.

When we placed the finished pumpkins on the porch, with tea-lights glowing inside, we oohed and ahhed for a while, congratulating ourselves on the fantastic carving we'd done. When we went inside, Nana joined us for warm cider and cinnamon-pumpkin muffins I'd bought at the store.

"These taste wonderful," Nana said after a bite. "I bet Johnny could make muffins even better, though."

Was I being baited? I didn't know, so I simply replied, "I bet you're right."

Nana and Beverley soon headed upstairs to begin their routine. I had a pumpkin-carving table to clean, and a totem animal to consult.

I went out to the garage and cleaned up the pumpkin mess, folded up the table, and stored it. I pulled a clean rag rug from the storage shelves and laid it in the middle of the garage floor. Squirting water from a plastic bottle, I made a wet-line circle around me and sat down on the rug inside.

"Mother, seal my circle and give me a sacred space.

I need to think clearly to solve the troubles I face."

Meditation being second nature to me, I slipped into an alpha state almost as easily as I flipped a light switch. Visualizing the grove of old ash trees beside a swift flowing river, I imagined myself walking to it, taking my shoes off, and sticking my toes into the cool water. Cleansing my chakras, I thought about the last time I'd spoken with my totem animal, the jackal Amenemhab, here.

He'd told me I was a big part of the Goddess's plan. I hadn't known a Lustrata from an Electrolux at the time and since we were discussing my dilemma with Vivian, I thought he meant the Great Mother wanted me to be an assassin. He even had me wondering if perhaps my absentee father was a killer for hire.