“Ley sounds familiar…it’s in the Alder Land, isn’t it? Or is it Rowan?” In addition to not knowing about my queenly status, Rowan also didn’t know there’d been a complete upheaval in the Alder Land.

“Rowan,” I said. “But very close to, um, Alder. There’s supposedly a crossroads near there. Do you know where it comes out?”

“No…nowhere around here, I’m sure.”

“Any way you could find out?”

“Is this tied in to the demons?”

I hesitated a moment and opted for the truth. “No, it’s something else. A different thing I’m helping them out with.”

“Eugenie!” Roland rarely lost his temper, but I could see the anger in his eyes now. “What are you doing? You can’t do this. You can’t get entangled in their affairs. Your job is to protect this world, to keep them and the other monsters and ghosts out of here.”

“They’re not all bad,” I said, surprised as the words came out of my mouth.

“Do I need to remind you about your mother’s abduction and the assorted attempts to rape you?”

Hearing him say those words stung, but I held my ground. “I’m dealing with that. It’s not an issue.”

“It’s always going to be an issue,” he argued. “And I’m not going to help you keep getting into more trouble with them.”

“What, are you threatening to cut me off from information?” I exclaimed.

“Maybe. If it’ll keep you safe.”

“Well, it won’t. The only thing you’ll do is put me in more danger if I keep going there uninformed!”

His eyes narrowed. “So now you’re the one threatening me?”

“What’s going on?”

My mother stuck her head in the den’s doorway, concern on her face. “Is everything okay? I thought I heard shouting.”

I stood up. “Roland’s just getting hard of hearing, so I was helping him out.”

I followed her back to the other room, where Kiyo watched me curiously. Even in human form, he had a fox’s hearing, and I wouldn’t have found it surprising if he’d heard the whole argument.

“We have to take off,” I said. “We’re going to hear Tim recite some poetry.”

Kiyo’s raised eyebrow was his only sign of surprise at our evening plans. I’d neglected to tell him earlier because I was pretty sure he would have never left the house with me. He smiled politely at my mom. “Thanks for dinner. It was great.”

My mom was sad to see us go. “Well, you should come back next weekend. I’ll make lasagna. And cherry pie.”

I kissed her cheek. “You don’t have to bribe us to come over.”

“No, but it doesn’t hurt.”

Mad or not, I gave Roland a hug too. In that brief moment, he murmured in my ear, “I’ll talk to Bill.”

He sounded weary and defeated, and I hugged him closer. “Thank you.” Bill was a shaman friend of his in Flagstaff.

Once we were finally able to leave, Kiyo didn’t waste any time in getting to the point. “Trouble on the home front?”

“Like you don’t know,” I said.

“Told you he hates me.”

“I think he hates me making all these trips to the Otherworld more.”

“But he still thinks I’m a bad influence.”

“You are a bad influence.”

We drove in silence for a few moments. Then Kiyo noticed that I wasn’t heading toward my house. We were going downtown. “No,” he groaned. “We are not actually going to hear Tim, are we? I thought that was just an excuse to leave.”

I shook my head. “Sorry. I promised.”

Kiyo sighed but took it like a man.

We went to one of Tim’s regular venues, a place called the Fox Den. I thought Kiyo would think that was funny, but he didn’t. When we walked in, there was a girl on the stage reciting poetry about the bleakness of existence and litter on the side of the highway. Kiyo looked around, taking in the patrons and tables-and then realized we were in a coffee shop, not a bar.

“They don’t serve alcohol here? There’s no way I can do this without hard liquor.”

“Oh, just hush,” I said, trying to hide my smile. We found a small round table in the middle of the crowded café, and I left him there while I went to get hot chocolate. I would have loved coffee but had enough trouble sleeping without the addition of caffeine this late at night. When I returned, I saw three visitors had pulled chairs up to our table.

“Hey, guys,” I said.

“Nice to see you again, Eugenie.”

The speaker was named Barbara. She was an elderly woman, belonging to the Pascua Yaqui tribe. Their religious beliefs, while having some similarities to the nature-oriented views of neighboring tribes, had picked up a lot of Christian influences over the years. Indeed, she wore a cross around her neck but was also still regarded by many as a type of holy woman. She had no problem with me calling myself a shaman, as those of other Indian tribes sometimes did. Her grandsons, Felix and Dan, were with her tonight, and they didn’t have a problem with me either. Tim, however, was a different story.

“Please tell me your asshole roommate isn’t performing tonight,” said Felix.

“Watch your language,” said Barbara in a very grandmotherly way.

I shifted uncomfortably. “Well…he might be up there tonight….”

“Jesus Christ,” said Dan, munching on biscotti. He looked apologetically at Barbara before turning to me. “We’ve told him a hundred times not to do that.”

“Come on, guys. Don’t start something again-it took forever for that last black eye to go away,” I reminded him.

Felix shook his head. “Look, impersonating us wouldn’t be so bad-and it is bad-if his poetry wasn’t such shit.”

“Felix!” warned Barbara.

He turned sheepish. “Sorry, Grandma. But you know I’m right.”

“It’s the only thing he knows how to do,” I said lamely. “Besides, he’s going Lakota tonight-if that helps.”

“I don’t think it’ll improve the poetry,” noted Kiyo, stretching back in the chair.

“Agreed,” said Felix. “His poetry’s crappiness transcends all cultures.” He looked smugly at his grandmother, pleased that he hadn’t sworn this time.

She turned to me, ignoring him. “How’s business?”

“Good,” I said. “Weird.”

While she had no issues with me being a shaman, she was sometimes troubled by the thought of me fighting Otherworldly creatures. She seemed undecided about whether they were holy or not, though she had seen her fair share of evil ones and knew what I did was sometimes necessary. She was about to ask me more when Tim suddenly walked onto the stage. He had on the feather headdress, no shirt, and leather chaps.

“Oh God. No,” groaned Felix.

Tim held up his hands to silence the scattered applause. “Thank you, friends,” he said in a deep, flat voice. “The Great Spirit welcomes you and your joining of our holy circle tonight.”

“I am not even joking,” said Dan. “I am this close to walking up there and dragging him out back.”

“Please,” I hissed. “Not tonight.”

“For my first poem,” continued Tim, “I would like to read you something I was inspired to write while sitting outside and considering the way the beating of a butterfly’s wings are just like the beating of our hearts in this transient world.” Spreading his hands wide, he recited.

“Sister Butterfly upon the wind

Wings so yellow

Let us fly with you into the sky so blue

Our souls soaring in the clouds so white

As we look down on those who dream to fly

But are too afraid

And must stay earthbound

Like Brother Beetle so brown.”

“I’m going to help Dan,” said Kiyo as the audience applauded. “I’m going to help him drag Tim off.”

“Seriously?” said Dan, excited.

“No,” said Barbara and I in unison.

Tim’s next poem was about a mythological woman named Oniata, a girl of divine beauty and youth who came to Earth and caused men everywhere to fight over her. The story was interesting, but like all of his poems, the verses were pretty bad and filled with horrible metaphors.

“That’s a real story,” I challenged my companions. “I’ve heard it before.”