“Jane?”

I scream, jumping in the air just enough to lose my grip on the phone. It falls onto the kitchen floor.

Silas is in the doorway in a flash, folder clenched in one hand. “What’s wrong?”

“You scared me.”

“I did? Why?” Bending down, he retrieves my phone and looks at the screen. His face takes on an astonished expression.

Oh, no.

“Your screen. It spidered. But it still works.” Tracing the thin cracks, he reads the message. “Joining sweepstakes?”

“You know. Stupid thing. I got free chocolate a long time ago and they keep sending me these stupid messages,” I babble.

“Yeah. I know. We’ve seen them in the reports on you. You enter a lot of contests. Ever win any?”

I scramble to find the right lie.

Silas’s phone saves me. It rings.

“That’s my personal phone. It must be Mom.” He places my broken phone on the counter, screen down, and rushes to the couch.

As I hear him talking to her about Kelly and some legal paperwork, I let myself reel. All witch hunts have a warlock. What does that mean? Cryptic, sure. But all the past messages I received this way were more elaborate. Designed to evade being discovered, yes.

Impossible to decipher? No.

“Hey,” Silas says suddenly, back in the tiny kitchen and smiling. “I’m starving. That piece of chicken on the plane was a close cousin to rubber. Your cupboards are bare. My fridge has nothing but beer, maple syrup, and old lettuce. Let’s go out to lunch.”

“In public?”

“Duff scouted out a solid restaurant. Besides, it’s on the way to The Grove.”

“The Grove?”

“You know you have to face your father, Jane.”

“I know, but–so soon?”

“After lunch. Dealing with his campaign’s reaction to Alice’s death will be much easier on a full stomach.”

“You sure about that?”

“No. But it sounds like the right thing to say.” His stomach makes a gurgling sound.

“You’re just hungry and want to make me go out to lunch with you.”

“Busted.”

My phone rings again. It’s Hedding Stuva. I ignore it.

“You’re popular.”

“It’s Harry,” I lie. I don’t know why I lie. As he looks at me with an air of expectation, I feel so ashamed. I shouldn’t lie to him. The man has literally been inside my body. Once you invite someone that far, don’t you owe them the courtesy of never lying to them, ever? Seems like a small privilege to extend, given the intimacy.

But I don’t. I don’t give Silas the truth. And I’m not quite sure why.

“How is your mother? And Kelly?” I ask, hoping he doesn’t notice I’m changing the subject. Given what Silas does for a living, it’s likely obvious. If he notices, he doesn’t let on.

“Mom says she’s doing as well as can be expected. Right now, we’re dealing with lawyers and custody. Tricia hasn’t even had a funeral.” He lets out a shaky sigh. “Mom had her cremated. We’ll do a memorial service someday. Not yet. Mom needs to be named primary guardian so she can move with Kelly back to Minnesota.” Silas pivots past me and pulls the coffee carafe out of the machine, rinsing it in the sink and starting to fill it up to make a pot.

“Minnesota?”

“Where I’m from. Where Mom lives.” His voice is so even. I watch him as he makes coffee. The simplicity of his movement is enchanting. Arousing. How can I find such domestic tasks so appealing?

“I know. It just seems so far away.”

“It is. Someday I’ll take you there and you can see for yourself.” He smiles at me and shuts the coffee machine lid, turning the little red light on to brew.

“Someday,” I whisper, my mind running free like a child in a wildflower field filled with butterflies.

“I can’t now, but–”

“No, no. No rush. It’s just–it feels good to think about ‘someday.’ I haven’t been allowed to have a future.” I lean back against the countertop and look at him. Waiting, I wonder why I feel like my very existence has changed forever, as if I’ve discovered a completely new layer to life that’s been there all along.

“Let’s talk about it on the way to lunch.”

“Why’d you make coffee if we’re about to leave?”

“It’s 10:11 a.m., Jane. We have plenty of time.” Did we really leave Texas just five hours ago? It feels like a lifetime. I stifle a yawn.

“Oh.” I watch him. He watches me. I crack first, starting to giggle.

He doesn’t join me.

“You have a right to one, you know.”

“A right to what?”

“A future.”

With you? I want to ask, but it’s too much. “Oh. Right.”

“That’s it?” He gives me a faltering smile. “Where’s feisty Jane, yelling about her rights?”

“I am not feisty!”

“Then what are you?”

“I’m... authoritative!”

“And feisty.”

“Little yappy dogs are feisty. Women aren’t feisty. That’s demeaning, Silas.”

“Doesn’t make it not true.” The coffee’s ready and he reaches up into a cupboard to get two mugs. I admire the view from behind.

“Feisty, huh? That means I’m a fighter.”

“Of course you are.” Nudging my coffee mug toward me, he motions with his chin to the fridge. Without needing clarification, I go and get the milk out. We’re a well-oiled machine when it comes to coffee.

Can we learn to be like this in life?

“It’s tiring, though,” I confess as I pour enough milk into my coffee to get it to my perfect, drinkable shade. Silas doctors his and looks at me over the edge of his mug as he sips.

“Fighting is never restorative,” he finally says. “By nature, it takes a piece out of you.”

I finger my bangs. “So far, flesh is all accounted for, but my enemy got some hair.”

“You’re damn lucky that’s all they got.”

“Not lucky. Well protected.”

I’m in his arms, his mouth sweet and caring as he kisses me, our bodies moving closer as the contact spurs more. He pulls back slightly and tightens his grip as he readies himself to speak.

But before he can reply, his phone buzzes, followed by an immediate knock on the front door. Questioning eyes meet mine as he asks without a word who that might be. Across the room in a flash, he checks the door’s peephole, frowns, then opens the door.

Kelly stands there, holding the hand of an older, greying woman with bright blue eyes.

“She insisted, Silas,” the woman says, her tone apologetic. “Said you had the best-smelling bubble bath and she–”

“JANE!” Kelly screams as she spots me. In an instant, my shins are covered by a clinging little girl who is squealing my name.

“She really hates coming here,” the woman deadpans. She looks at me politely. “Hi,” she adds with a wave. “I’m Linda Gentian.”

“Jane Borokov,” I say through laughter.

Kelly settles herself on one of my feet and mutters, “Play giant, Jane!”

“I know who you are,” Linda says to me softly, eyes troubled, smile neutral.

My stomach sinks.

I take three or four steps with Kelly rooted on my foot, until we collapse at the couch into a pile of giggles. I can pretend Silas’s mother didn’t just set me off into a spiral of shame if I just focus on little Kelly, who hugs me with sweet little girl arms and whispers, “Uncle Silas told me your mommy is dead, too. Can we start a club?”

My already-aching stomach now feels like someone kicked it with steel-toed boots.

“What kind of club, sweetie?” I ask, looking her in the eye. I am holding it together on the inside only because the alternative isn’t fair to this darling little girl who obviously needs a mommy.

Just like me.

“A club for people who are sad,” Kelly whispers. “You’re sad your mommy died.” She nods slowly, her soulful little face tearing me apart. “Grandma says it’s normal to feel sad. I don’t want you to feel sad, too, Jane. Maybe if we’re sad together we won’t feel so alone. That’s what my teacher says. When you make a friend, you don’t feel so lonely.”

Silas turns away, his hands going flat on the counter, shoulders hunching. Linda’s hand flies up to her throat, fingering her necklace, eyes gleaming like the clear blue ocean on a hot day.

“Yes,” I say, working hard to keep my voice even. “I’d love to be in your club with you. I don’t want you to feel sad, either.”

“Do you miss your mama, too?” she asks seriously.

A vision of my mother in jail makes me blink hard, over and over, as if I’m trying to erase it from behind my eyeballs. “I do. I miss her a lot.”

Silas turns and gives his own mother a look of such appreciation, it sears me.

Kelly’s eyes spill over with tears. She throws her arms around my neck and cries softly against my shoulder. “I didn’t want Mama to go. You didn’t want your mama to go. Why did they go away? I want Mama. I want Mama. I want Mama!”

I want my mama too, kid, I think as I dissolve into tears right along with her. Kelly’s weight sends me down to the ground, and I pull her into my lap and cradle her in my arms. She’s pure emotion, wailing and shaking, sniffling and keening. I join her in my own quiet way that adults are allowed.

We don’t have permission to just feel, like Kelly. We aren’t sanctioned to open up our hearts and show the contents to the world. We’re prohibited from crying out like animals in mourning for the dead.

We’re told to bottle it up. Keep it polite. Control our emotions within the etched boundaries society draws for us.

Pretty soon I’m not sure who is holding whom as I dissolve into tears in her arms. We weep for so long, the sound of Silas and Linda in the background one of presence, not judgment.

Finally, Kelly stops sobbing, the front of my shirt soaked with our mingled tears. Big, round, red eyes meet mine. “You’re warm and soft like Mama, but you don’t smell like her.”

“What does she smell like?”

“Cinnamon. Like donuts. Mama wore perfume like cinnamon. I like cinnamon.”

“You do?” I ask, Silas catching my eye, mouthing the words thank you.

Linda takes a few tentative steps into the kitchen, handing me a box of tissues. I smile at her and pull a few out, patting Kelly’s face with one.

“I like cinnamon. That’s the kind of donuts Mama got sometimes on Sunday mornings.” She turns to Linda and asks, “Grandma, can we get cinnamon donuts?”

And with that, Linda joins the crying fest. Silas grabs a tissue and hands it to his mother, putting his arm around her for comfort.

Kelly looks up at her grandmother and uncle and asks, “Why is Grandma so sad? Grandma, are you in the club, too? Did your mommy die, too?”

I swear Silas looks like he’s about to cry. He can’t cry. He’s the only person in the room holding the world together.

Silas clears his throat as Linda gives Kelly a deep look of love. Before she can reply, Silas says, “I’ll go get some cinnamon donuts.” And with that, he walks out to the front door. Hushed male voices make it clear Silas is getting one of the security guys to go buy donuts for us.

As Kelly stands, Linda bends down and places her hands on her granddaughter’s shoulders. “Yes, honey. My mommy did die. Remember how we talk about Mawmaw?”

“Mawmaw was your mommy?” Kelly looks confused. “But I thought she was Mama’s grandma?”

Linda lets out a slight laugh. “She was.”

“Grandma! That’s silly. How can Mama’s grandma be your mommy, too?”

And just like that, the moment shifts. Linda straightens up as Kelly walks to the fridge and opens it, pulling out the milk and standing on tiptoes to put it on the counter. Reaching for a mug, Linda drains the last of the pot of coffee while Kelly looks at her.

“I want milk, Grandma.”

I stand and search for a glass, setting it next to the milk carton.

“Not that one,” Kelly says, scrunching up her nose. “I want a purple cup.”

“Those are next door, honey,” Linda says patiently as she raises her eyebrows and gives me a look of camaraderie. “At Silas’s apartment.”

“Can we go get it?”

Silas comes back into the room, tense and emotional. “The donuts will be delivered next door, Mom,” he says.

Linda’s eyes bounce between me and Silas, trying to read whatever’s going on between us. Silas stretches, the long, methodical movement of an elite athlete trying to endure. I’m not sure what he’s enduring, though. Maybe everything.

Including me?

“Kelly, how about we get that bubble bath from Jane and go next door. Silas has milk there,” she says more to him, arching an eyebrow of maternal judgment, “now that we bought some, your purple cup, and by the time your bath is over, the cinnamon donuts will be delivered.”

“Yay! And our club can make a fort in the living room and eat donuts in it! Joey might come in there with us if we feed him pieces of donuts. I’ll bet Joey’s mommy is dead. Do cats have mommies?” She beams at me, then Linda. “Now we have more people in our club. And maybe a cat.” Kelly frowns at Silas. “Sorry, Uncle Silas. You can’t be in the club. You have to have a dead mommy.”

Linda recoils slightly at that.

“It’s going to be a long, long, long time before I can join your club,” Silas says, giving Linda a pointed look. “And also, sweetie, Jane can’t come over for donuts. We have a meeting.”

“A meeting?” Kelly gives me a confused look. “You work with Uncle Silas?”

“Sort of,” I say. It’s close to the truth.

“Then where’s your gun?”

“Gun?”

“Uncle Silas always wears a gun so he can kill the bad people if they get too bad.”

Linda’s face goes tight. She takes Kelly’s hand in hers and steers her toward the front door. “Let’s get the bath going so you are all done in time for donuts,” she announces in an overly cheerful voice.

“But Jane! Don’t you want a cinnamon donut? They’re so gooooooood!” Kelly moans.

“If I’m not there, that means more for you and your grandma,” I say, forcing a smile. All I really want to do is take her up on her invitation and spend the day eating donuts and drinking milk out of purple cups while hiding in a fort made of sheets, blankets, and furniture.

Instead, I have to go to The Grove and face my father.

And my grief over Alice’s death.

I want to be five again.

“It was nice meeting you, Jane,” Linda says politely, her voice filled with emotion. “Silas said you were very sweet with Kelly. I can see what he means.” Her words carry more to them, a thin thread of approval that warms my heart. I passed some kind of test, I see.

“Nice meeting you, too,” I reply, smiling. With that, Kelly gives me one more hug and then they leave, Silas walking them next door, their quiet voices engaged in conversation.

I make another pot of coffee. We’re going to need a lot to get through the next few hours.

Yet again, my phone buzzes. I don’t need to deal with more texts from my informant, and certainly not ones about witches and warlocks. Between Alice’s death, my father, whatever this new relationship is with Silas, and Tara’s bloody death, I’m done.

My hands start to shake so badly, I can’t control the carafe. It rattles against the faucet head until I force myself to set it down in the empty sink before I shatter it.

The front door closes and the light behind me changes, Silas coming up to my back, his hands wrapping around me, arms squeezing. I lean into him, head abuzz.

“That was hard,” he says.

“You have a knack for understatements.”

“And you have a knack for being absolutely wonderful with Kelly.”

“I’m not doing anything special,” I protest.

“Oh, yes. Yes, you are. You turned my mother from a skeptic into a believer. I had to listen to her rave about you while trying to explain to Kelly how my mom’s mom could be Tricia’s grandmother.”

I let my shoulders drop with relief. “That’s promising.”

He kisses the side of my neck. “I mean it. You’re really good with little kids.”

“Kelly makes it easy.”

“Nothing about Kelly is easy right now.” His voice goes rough, his neck moving against my ear as he swallows. We breathe together for a few moments, then he turns me around in his arms.

“I’m so sorry about Alice.”

“Me, too. She’s the closest thing I had left to a mother.”

“I’m grateful I still have mine.”

My tears were already shed when I held Kelly. The part of me that grieves for my mom is penned up tight right now. All I can do is step into the kiss he offers me. It has to be enough.

It is.

I’m comforted by his touch. I’m relieved to be in his arms. I’m terrified by my texts. I’m horrified by Alice’s death. I’m plagued by uncertainty and fear, but as Silas gives me his tongue, his lips, his protection, his attention–I’m certain of one rock-solid fact.

I’m his.

And nothing will change that now.