It was dark in the house. All the lights had been turned out, and an army of candles had been lit and placed on the kitchen table. The effect would have been spooky in an older house, but it only gave Isobel the impression of a power outage. She kind of wished that she had bought the weed that Glory had suggested, because if she had, she could at least pretend she was communing with the spirits.

Isobel had her finger on the planchette. They had just received a message from beyond the veil. She looked at the paper, then at Glory.

"I don't think the spirits made us write that word, Glory. I think you did."

Glory had her eyes closed. "Nonsense. You're just being a Doubting Debbie. You aren't in the beyond yet."

"I'm fully in the beyond. I also know the spirits don't have a potty mouth as bad as yours."

"Hush. Trust me, I'm Catholic, that's definitely a message from an evil spirit."

"It just says the F-word."

"Evil spirit!" shouted Glory, and she theatrically clutched her rosary. She waved her hands in the air and started making ululations, which made Isobel laugh and laugh. "I can feel its demonic presence coursing through my veins as we speak! Possessing me and putting wicked thoughts in my mind!"

"You think wicked thoughts on your own."

"Isobel, I can't believe you would suggest such a thing. I am a paragon of feminine grace and elegance," she said, before lighting a cigarette with a candle flame. "You need to drink more, then you'll be fun."

Isobel moved the planchette and picked up the Ouija board. The back of it had a spiral goddess and a triple goddess symbol burned into the back of it. Clearly, Glory believed enough in this stuff to think such a measure was necessary.

"Okay, hang on. Let me get another hard cider. Maybe we can get the spirits to say a different bad word."

"I'm hoping for the C-word," said Glory.

"You mean crap, right?"

"Yes, Isobel, I mean crap," said Glory, rolling her eyes. "Get me one too. You bored? We could cast runes. I got some of those too."

The sliding glass door opened and Evan stood in the doorway. "What are you two doing in here?"

"Communing with some spirits who need their mouths washed out with soap," said Isobel. "Is it seriously so late?"

She looked at her watch. "Christ, Glory it's three-thirty."

"Are you seriously playing with that damn board?" Evan asked Glory. "What the hell, Gran?"

Glory raised her chin. Isobel stood with the two bottles in her hand. She froze. She wasn't sure what to do.

"You gonna bring me that drink, kid?" Glory asked her, and Isobel did.

"You know how Grandpa would feel about—"

"Well it's a good thing we're communing with the dead, so he can tell me himself," Glory snapped. "He can yell at me about the tarot we did too, and the tea leaf divining. He can tell me about how he approves of your little one-night stand too."

Evan looked furious. "That's none of your business. It's the anniversary of his death. This seems like a pretty poor way of remembering him—"

"Well then, how come my divination is your business?" Glory interrupted.

Evan glanced to Isobel, but it was the only acknowledgment of her presence she was going to get during this conversation. It was obvious that this was a long-running thing and it was best for her to just stay out of it. The two of them had a stare-down.

"You gonna stand there with the door open, boy?"

Evan came inside and closed the door. Glory flicked her ashes into a coffee cup. She looked remarkably like she had this morning. It made Isobel sad to see.

"Do you know why I didn't do this when your grandpa was alive, boy?"

Evan flexed his fists. "I'm sure it had something to do with the fact that he was a lifelong Catholic."

"Well, I'm glad you think that's the truth. Here's the thing, kid. Your grandpa beat the shit out of me if I so much as mentioned witchcraft."

Evan's fists went limp. His whole posture went limp, actually. He looked weakened and tired. "I know."

"You know? So you know about the fact that he hit me whenever I tried to be myself, my truest self, and you're still getting all mad about how I'm not respecting him on the day of his death? What about all the respect he gave me? Maybe you should give Isobel a little of that respect, or maybe Tanya? I'm sure they'd be thrilled that you respect them so much."

Isobel felt violently uncomfortable about being dragged this far into the conversation.

"I don't beat women."

"Good! But your grandfather did. I bet you spent the day remembering all the good times you had with him. All the fishing, or the day he taught you to throw a punch."

Evan's face said he did. Evan's face also took on something like a new understanding. Isobel felt a little sorry for him, but worse for Glory.

"He was a complicated man. I'm a complicated old woman. You take that hero worship and shove it. I'm sick of pussyfooting around the family when I'm finally free to do as I like with my time. And Isobel is having fun, aren't you Isobel?"

"Damn straight," she said, more forcefully than required. Her own hands were shaking. A terrifying thought occurred to her—Evan's fist barreling toward her. Evan's angry voice. Evan apologizing for losing his temper, swearing he'd never do it again, even though he would.

Glory took a drink of her cider.

"Go to bed, you brute. Apologize to Isobel first, because you have pulled her out of the beyond and it's gonna take a lot more hard cider to pull her back into it."

Evan sighed. He ran his hand through his hair. Glancing up at Isobel, he said, "Sorry you had to see that, Isobel."

"Way to apologize like a dirt bag, dirt bag," said Glory.

His jaw worked, but he ended up just saying, "I'm sorry for interrupting your night, Isobel."

"I'm sorry that you decided to act like a dirt bag. I had finally gone into the beyond."

* * *

Isobel went to class the next day feeling a like she finally knew how a hangover felt. She felt like a dried up old mummy. Her sketching class didn't help anything, because the feeling of dry paper and ashy charcoal just made her feel even worse. All through her literature class, she sipped on a giant water bottle, so that by the end of the period, she was desperate for a bathroom break.

All the while, she couldn't stop thinking about her dysfunctional new family.

How Evan's heart had clearly been broken by this news about his grandfather. How Glory had viciously defended herself. How Isobel had been caught in the middle of the whole thing.

If Hilary knew how this had happened, how she had become a piece of this weird pie, then Isobel would have been immediately pulled out and probably fired. It probably would have broken Glory's heart.

Isobel had a healthy sense of her own self-worth, thanks to all the therapy she had gotten after the Troy incident. She knew that she was important. She just wasn't sure how important she was to Evan. He hadn't touched her, or even spoken much to her, since that event in the garage.

She almost wished he would. Just once. Just looked at her, or came close, so she could smell that musky smell instead of his douchey cologne.

Tanya had gone so far as to assure her that what had happened between them was a one-off thing and that Evan was easy as Sunday morning. Was it so obvious that she liked him? Isobel had even asked her that, and Tanya had said she looked as thirsty as a desert traveler. However, she also warned her that Evan was pretty popular at work, and if she wanted to make a move, she should do it soon before some dumb bottle girl got herself knocked up on Evan's dollar.

Once her morning classes were over, Isobel looked at her phone. Tanya had given Isobel her number and said to call her if she wanted some nail treatment. Isobel did call her, because she needed somewhere to go, something to do with herself.

"Hey Tanya, is there any chance that—"

"We're on the corner of twelfth and Reilly. Just come over. It's slow."

So Isobel went to the nail salon.

It was pristine and smelled distinctly chemical. There were several women practicing nail art on each other and speaking in a mix of Vietnamese and English. One very old woman was painting on a girl's nail in precise, quick movements. She looked up as Isobel came in, and greeted her happily with that old customer service charm before going back to her work.

Tanya appeared, dressed professionally, and said, "Come over here," before leading her to a workstation. She opened a drawer full of polish and said, "What color do you want?" as Isobel set her bag down.

"Oh, um . . . Green."

"What kind of green, light green, dark green?"

"You got any teal?"

"Yeah. It's glittery."

"Ooh, yeah."

Tanya got to work. She was in her early thirties. Her long black hair was tied up in a messy bun. She wasn't wearing the stage makeup now, and Isobel thought she looked just as nice, probably nicer. Not nearly as trashy.

"So, I was wondering if you could—"

"Tell you more about Evan?" she interrupted as she cleaned Isobel's nails.

"Yeah . . ."

"He's twenty-nine, kind of a dick. I don't know what he told you he did but he is a street fighter for the little drug lord in this town. It's a gambling racket, I guess you would call it. People bet on either him or the other guy, and whoever wins gets a piece of the pot and sometimes dope, if they did good enough. Usually they bet on the other guy because Evan's kind of small, and he likes to fight big dudes, so people lose thousands."

Isobel was both shocked and completely unsurprised that Evan did such violent, shady work. She imagined Evan fighting some huge guy, but imagining him as the little guy was pretty hard. She remembered how big he'd seemed to her in the garage, so close they could have kissed.

"Evan's not small."

Tanya chuckled, and said, "Well, I mean, maybe not to you, short stack, but compared to the assholes he fights? He might as well be as tiny as you."

"But Evan's so . . ."

"He's got that alpha bad boy thing, I know. It's hilarious. It's because he's got a big dick."

Isobel turned red from her scalp to her chest.

Tanya laughed. She rolled the nail polish bottle in her hands. "I know you want to know, it's obvious! So what happened in the garage? I'm dead curious."

"I . . . I dunno, technically nothing, but . . . I think we were about to kiss. But he was being a bastard."

"Ugh, don't you hate it when guys posture?"

"It's the worst."

Tanya painted Isobel's nails and put her hand under a black light. The light felt a little strange, but it didn't hurt or anything.

"So . . . Are you guys, like . . . Still seeing each other?"

"No, I just wanted to do him. We're still work friends, but, y'know. I remember when he first started coming around. He was probably around your age, I think. He wasn't such a puffed-up turd then. His grandpa had died recently."

"Do you know anything about that?"

"Evan's chatty when he's drunk. So yeah, quite a bit. His grandpa died in a car crash all of a sudden and Evan had been studying architecture at the time and the school money dried up. All his brothers and sisters moved away and both of his parents were either dead or long gone, so he stepped up to take care of Glory. I can see why, now—I'd never met her before. She's cool as hell."

"You have no idea, dude. So wait, you work here and in the club?"

"Well, this isn't quite enough to pay the bills. My kids are in private school."

"Wow!"

"I went to private school too. My mom put my sister through medical school and me through college too. But she's getting old so she needs the help."

Isobel said, "You're a really nice person, Tanya."

Tanya looked up at her, and said, "You're already getting the polish for free."

Isobel grinned and giggled. "Thanks."