Damsel Under Stress

The dog finished greeting Owen and came over to investigate me. Even if I managed to screw up with Owen’s foster parents, I was pretty sure I could make a good impression on his dog. I bent and patted his head the way my old Lab used to like. This one increased the speed of his tail wagging, which I took as a sign of approval.



Then a voice rang in from another room. “James? Are you back from the station already?”



Both James and Owen automatically snapped to attention. Even the dog moved into the position you’d expect him to assume if you shouted, “Sit!” and faced in the direction from which the voice had come. I started to get a sense of why Owen was so nervous.



Eight



“We’ve just arrived,” James called out, then he said more quietly to us, “This way.” Owen followed him, looking like he was heading to his own execution, and the dog trotted faithfully at Owen’s heels. I grabbed the tin of homemade cookies I’d brought as a hostess gift from my bag, then brought up the rear, feeling more than a bit nervous, myself. I’d seen Owen in all kinds of scary situations, including an all-out magical battle involving monsters out of my worst nightmares, and I’d never seen him look this anxious.



The woman who stood waiting in the parlor was certainly formidable. She looked like the kind of character Katharine Hepburn played in her later years—the crusty, sharp-tongued, aristocratic octogenarian who turned out to have a warm, gooey center. It remained to be seen how gooey this woman was inside. She was tall—almost as tall as Owen, even with the shrinkage and slight stoop of age—and angular, with almost no hint of softness anywhere on her body. She had the kind of white hair that looks like it once was red, pulled up in a tight bun on top of her head, and her blue eyes were so sharp and piercing that I wouldn’t have been at all surprised to find that one of her powers was X-ray vision.



She swept those all-seeing eyes past each of us. I got the sense she was collecting data to analyze later. The whole time, she stood totally still. If it hadn’t been for her eyes, I might have thought she was carved from granite. Or maybe ice.



But then she suddenly melted as her face softened into a smile. She stepped forward, took Owen by the shoulders, and kissed him on the cheek. He looked like he might faint at any moment, while James did the kind of double take Bob Hope built a career on. Even the dog made a funny little “whuh?” sound.



Just as abruptly, her eyes focused on me. It took every ounce of will I had not to step backward. “You must be Katie,” she said, clipping her words brusquely.



“Yes ma’am,” I said, fighting off the urge to curtsy. “Thank you so much for having me.” I thrust my tin of cookies toward her and tried to keep my hands from visibly shaking. “These are for you.”



“You’re quite welcome,” she said as she took the tin from me. “And thank you.” I wished I could tell if her tone was particularly frosty or if that was the way she always talked. I’d felt warmer right after I fell through the ice than I did with her looking at me like that. She turned back to Owen and softened again. “Did you have a good trip?”



“It—it was fine.” He darted a glance at his foster father, and the two of them exchanged baffled looks.



She didn’t seem to notice, or if she did, she pointedly ignored it. “You’ll want to get settled in. Lunch will be in half an hour.” Then she swept out of the room, and Owen gestured with a twitch of his head that we should follow her. Out in the foyer, he picked up our bags and had to hurry to catch up with Gloria, who was halfway up the stairs. Arawn settled himself at the foot of the stairs. I had to step over him to run up after Gloria and Owen. I now knew where Owen had learned his rapid walking pace.



“Katie, you’ll be in the blue guest room,” Gloria said as I reached the top of the stairs. Without waiting for me to respond, she turned to the right and led me down a short hallway to a room that overlooked the front lawn. “You have your own bathroom through that door. Towels are laid out for you. There are empty hangers in the closet, and you may use the top drawer of the bureau. Let me know if there’s anything you need.” I was still opening my mouth to respond when she left the room. Owen set my bag down in front of the bureau and then followed her. I could hear her voice in the hallway, sounding softer and gentler now, as she said to him, “You’ll be in your old room, of course. I have it ready for you.”



The room I’d been assigned was furnished in delicate, feminine antiques, with pale blue floral wallpaper, white lace curtains, and a blue-and-white quilt on the four-poster bed. Because I had a feeling Gloria would check, I unpacked my bag and arranged everything as neatly as possible. Then I freshened up a bit to make myself presentable for lunch.