Coyote gave me a push, the action gentle enough to go unnoticed by the thing that held him captive. I drifted out of the place that should have been the garden of his soul, and went bounced like a tumbleweed through the desert, all the way back to Melinda’s bedside.

I spent a little while longer hovering at Mel’s side, trying to get more sense of what was keeping her—and Billy, and Coyote—asleep. The only thing I came out pretty sure of was that whatever it was, it didn’t have any idea Mel had a baby along for the ride. The only energy drain I could find was Melinda’s, with no connection to her daughter. Moreover, there was a sense of sheer, raw power, a shield itself that protected the child’s presence from the dangers of the outside world. I didn’t think it was something she’d cooked up just for this occasion. I was willing to bet there were still remnants of that kind of shielding lingering around all of her children, Melinda’s love made manifest. That was great for the kids, but not useful in the larger sense. I was feeling like a big fat loser when Dr. Brad tapped on the door and let himself in.

“She’ll need to go to the hospital,” I said, hoping to head off any disgruntled lectures. “They won’t be able to do anything for her except keep her fluids up and stuff, but I guess she needs to be there for that. It seems stupid,” I added, mostly to Mel. “Hooking you up to an IV at the hospital will just cost more than hooking you up to one here would.”

“There are other reasons for Melinda to be hospitalized,” Brad said. I looked at the bump that was going to be the Hollidays’ fifth child, and nodded.

“Yeah. I guess so.” I could feel the baby’s energy if I wanted to, all bright and vital and rosy pink. She was busy, that little person, busy growing and being made and buzzing with enthusiasm for the whole process. In another few months she’d be making her mother’s life miserable with great wholloping kicks and punches as she turned somersaults in her confined growing space. My own stomach cramped with sympathy, and I rubbed it, wishing the flutter of power behind my breastbone would let me wipe stuff like that away. Apparently it considered them to be part of the hardships of living, because it showed no interest in responding. “I can stay with the kids if you want to take her over and get her admitted. I don’t work until eleven.”

A silence in which it became very clear Brad Holliday didn’t trust me with his nieces and nephews followed. I finally looked at him, trying to keep my expression neutral.

Apparently it didn’t work. His eyebrows drew down and his mouth tightened, which was enough to allow me an exasperated sigh. “Look, Brad. I’m Billy and Melinda’s friend. Their kids know me. I get you don’t like me, and I even get why. That’s fine. But do you really want to wake four little kids up and herd them while you’re trying to admit their second parent to the hospital? I’m here, and as far as I know, neither of them have any other family in the area. Who’re you gonna call?”

There was one brief moment of camaraderie where Brad and I both all but swallowed our tongues, struggling against the obvious response. Brad passed a hand over his eyes and muttered, “That question is ruined for all time,” under his breath, while I turned a nearly violent grin at my hands. Dr. Brad was human after all. “All right, fine,” he said more loudly and very decisively, as if doing so could wipe away the moment of sympathy. “I should be back well before eleven.”

“I think Robert’s old enough to watch the little ones for a while, if there’s a gap. I—crap.” I turned my wrist up, looking at the watch I’d finally gotten fixed. Now that it worked again, I kind of missed it telling me the time in Moscow. “I guess I’ll call Gary and get him to stop by my apartment for my stuff. That way I won’t have to leave until a quarter till or so.” I wouldn’t be more than a few minutes late, unless traffic on Aurora was critically bad. Morrison would probably want to bust my ass for it, but that was nothing unusual.

I got out of Brad’s way so he could bring Mel to the hospital, and stopped by Robert’s room to tell him, as I’d promised, what was going on. He looked worried and sleepy, but when I whispered, “Shh, go back to sleep, kiddo,” the coil of energy inside me sent a soothing warm splash of power over him that seemed to weight down his eyelids and help him fall asleep again. I actually thought that was kind of cool. It wasn’t anything big or dramatic, but it was the first time I could remember being actively pleased with the gift I’d been given. I’d been relieved in the past, and sometimes glad to have been of help, but this was a little warm bubble of genuine pleasure, and at something as simple as making sure a kid got some sleep. Maybe, just maybe, if I could learn enough to fix the crises that kept lurching into my life, it would all smooth out to little happy-making moments like this one.

That thought got me through the next several hours, in which Erik got up and vomited again and Clara discovered neither parent was at home anymore and cried until her face turned purple. Robert got Jacquie and himself breakfast while I cleaned up after Erik’s Technicolor splatters, but Clara was too busy hyperventilating to eat. I liked kids in a sort of abstract way in general, and Billy’s kids in particular, but by the time Gary showed up at ten-fifteen with my work gear, I was trembling with exhaustion. I had no idea how Mel got through a single day of this, much less three hundred-sixty-five of them, year after year.

Gary got Clara to stop crying by picking her up by the ankles and carrying her around like a sack of flour. Within ten minutes she was giggling and willing to eat breakfast, and I was collapsed on the living room couch staring at the old man in admiring disbelief. “I thought you didn’t have any kids.”

“Don’t,” he said. “Old army technique. Distract and redirect. Works, too, don’t it?”

I said, “You’re a god among men,” which Gary rewarded me for with a toothy white grin.

“’Course I am. That kid called while I was at your place, to say he had a nice evenin’ and to check up on you. You went out with him, Jo?”

“I—” I shot a guilty look at the kids that Robert, at least, read clearly. “Yeah,” I mumbled. “Last night. I kind of crashed the evening by having a vision and passing out, though. And if I hadn’t maybe I’d have been doing something useful and Mel wouldn’t be in the hospital right now.”

“Mebbe,” Gary said. “Mebbe not. The last few weeks you’ve been steppin’ up to the plate with your shamanism, and I’m proud of you, doll, don’t get me wrong. But runnin’ away from the rest of your life ain’t gonna help matters any.”

“Damn it, Gary.” Great. I sounded like Morrison. “I’m sorry, but at what point did you turn into Mr. Bossy Telling Jo to Get Her Life Together, anyway? Who says you get to do that?”

“You.” Gary sat down in Billy’s easy chair and kicked it back, folding his arms behind his head and giving me a steely gray-eyed look. “Or didja forget the part where you said you had lots to learn from this old dog?”

I really hated it when people got all supercilious at me. Especially when they were right. I was searching for a biting rejoinder when I noticed there were four small people watching Gary and me as if we were the final pair at Wimbledon, bright interest writ large across their little faces. I said a word I absolutely should not have in front of Billy’s kids, and they all brightened even further. I lifted my hands in defeat. “All right. Maybe you’re right. I’ve got to get to work, Gary. Can you keep an eye on them until Brad gets back? He should be here any minute.”

“Yeah. Told dispatch I was runnin’ late today. Who’s Brad? You got another guy on the line, Jo? Good for you. About time, I say.” Gary looked pleased and I smacked myself on the forehead, then ran for the door, leaving poor Robert to explain who Brad was.