Jason glanced down the hall before pulling the door to the downstairs bathroom closed with a solid thump while he remained outside. He retreated the way he had come, cocking his ear for any change in the drone of post-dinner conversation in the living room.

The door to the sewing room lay open a crack. Jason pushed it open just enough for him to slip inside and put it back where he had found it. A wave of nausea washed over him as if a foul odor had suddenly wafted towards his nose, his dinner giving a dangerous lurch before settling.

He had not set foot in this room since that day he had been forced to mind control his own mother. He still had not shed the guilt despite knowing it had helped him remain free to help his fellow Harbingers bring down Melissa. He could not pass by the room without wondering if things could have been different had he been more careful.

Jason frowned and shook his head. He did not have time for recriminations. He had to do what he had come here to do and leave.

The room had changed. His mother's sewing table and equipment had been shoved further into the corner to accommodate a small desk and a PC for his father, likely much to his mother's consternation. The monitor was dark, but to Jason's relief, he heard the whir of the PC fan.

He crossed the room and slid into the office chair. He hit the power button of the monitor with one hand while moving the mouse back and forth with the other. He was presented with a Windows "this computer is locked" screen which prompted him for his password.

Jason typed the password without hesitation and his father's desktop appeared. He had already filched the password via a keylogger he had tricked his father into installing soon after Halloween.

He had intended to keep tabs on anything his father might be up to, but that day all he wanted was a web browser. He started Internet Explorer and typed in the URL for the Haven Online Community Board, his heart thumping by the time he hit RETURN. When the site came up, he saw exactly what he had expected: nothing but a few volunteer jobs.

Jason was not sure what he expected to see. He knew one of Melinda's fears had been that her mother would force her and Heather to work at the Li'l Missy Inn. He closed the browser and leaned back. Was he jumping at shadows? Was there something less sinister at work? Was this all an elaborate distraction from something else, something bigger, something--?

The door to the room suddenly closed with a thump and a click.

Jason bolted out of the seat and whirled around, his eyes wide. His father cast an even gaze back, pausing to raise a half-empty glass of watery scotch to his lips. "You're getting more sneaky, I'll give you that," Henry said in a low voice, all trace of amusement gone. "Closed the bathroom door and everything. All for nothing, since you're barking up the wrong tree. Again."

Jason hesitated, not having expected that sort of response. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"You won't find anything incriminating on my PC. I don't keep anything about my work at the hospital on that thing."

"I'm not interested in what you're doing at the hospital," Jason declared, his voice rising with his pent-up frustrations.

Henry shook his head. "You're not a good liar, son."

Jason sighed. He had wanted to build up a nice head of steam again his father, but he was too mentally exhausted. "All right," he said in a more contrite voice. "But I am telling the truth when I say I'm not interested in it right now."

Henry cradled his drink in his hands. He glanced past Jason and saw the icon for IE was still highlighted. "You're still barking up the wrong tree." He gestured with his drink towards the PC. "I already looked. I didn't find any jobs listed, either."

Jason gave his father a nonplussed look.

"So surprised that I actually give a shit about what's up with Audrey?" Henry said. "Why is it so damn hard for you to understand that just maybe we're on the same side this time?"

Jason stared at the edges of the man's Aura. He wondered if his father really knew he could see it. Perhaps he did but did not care; Jason would prefer ignorance over indifference.

"And, see, I even conceded when I said 'this time,'" said Henry. "I'm willing to accept you thinking your father is some sort of sociopathic bastard rather than--"

"All right, Dad, I get the picture, okay?" Jason cried.

Henry sighed. "I'm not sure you do."

"So what do you think is up with her?"

"I haven't a clue. I have a feeling you do, though."

Jason remained silent, though the truth wanted to leave his mouth.

Henry raised the glass. "So we keep playing this game. Wonderful."

"Suppose I did tell you," Jason said in a challenging voice.

Henry paused and slowly lowered it. "I'm listening."

"What in hell would you do about it? Could you do anything about it?"

Henry's lips twitched, as if wanting to form a frown but refraining at the last moment. Jason reveled in the man's indecision. The first question had implied that his father was the one playing the game, that he knew a lot more of what was happening in Haven than he would let on. The second question had forced him into the dilemma of revealing that he indeed possessed and could wield Dark power.

Henry stared into his drink. "Fine. It's obvious your mother is under some sort of influence. What I don't know is how bad or to what purpose."

Jason wished he could trust his father, but every time he thought about revealing anything, he panicked that even the least bit of information he let slip would either make it back to the Darkness or further his father's hidden agenda.

"I don't know to what purpose, either," Jason said in a flat voice. "Now answer the original question I put to you, Dad. Could you do anything about it?"

Henry cast a long, sad look at his son, and Jason dared to believe some actual sentiment existed. "I'm not sure."

Jason stared. Any other answer -- an outright denial of his power or an all-out confession -- would have been preferable to that. "You're not sure?"

"I can only do so much!" Henry sighed and wiped his face with his free hand. "You don't know even a fraction of what I am dealing with. Things are not black and white despite your attempts to pigeonhole them as such."

Jason opened his mouth to protest that assessment, but the cruel clarity of his own memories stopped him. He looked towards the sewing area, and he could almost see his mother standing there again, her face slack and her eyes glazed, as Jason de-programmed several hours of memories.

"I've said far more than I should have," Henry muttered.

"Then why tell me anything at all?" Jason demanded. "Why give me the idea that you might give a shit and actually want to help if you're just going to turn around and tell me you can't do anything anyway? I don't get you, Dad. You're not making any sense!"

"Things work slowly, Jason. I have to start small. I have to know what is going on first before I can--"

Both father and son flinched at the banging on the door. "Henry, what's going on in there?" Audrey demanded.

Henry frowned. He turned to Jason, put a finger on his lips, and pointed towards a spot on the wall near the hinge side of the door. Jason nodded and zipped across the room. Henry opened the door, hiding his son from view.

Audrey stepped across the threshold. "Henry, I won't tolerate you taking any calls from the hospital today, and furthermore--"

"I'm done," Henry said. "I was just about to come out."

Audrey stared at him for a moment, then sighed and put her hands on her hips. "Really, I wish you could focus on your family for just one day."

"Not now, Audrey, not with a guest in the house. You can yell at me later. Now, shall we repair to the living room before your sister gets bored from the lack of an audience?"

Audrey frowned. When Henry raised the glass to his lips, she snatched it away. "You've had enough," she hissed.

"Fine. Shall we, then?" He ushered Audrey out of the room and started to close the door behind him.

"Wait!" Audrey cried, and they stopped with the door halfway closed. Jason took a step away from the wall so his mother would not spot him in the gap between the door and the frame. "I want to check on Jason, he's been in the bathroom an awfully long time. Fine thing if he got sick on Thanksgiving."

"I'm sure he's fine, Audrey. I'll check on him myself before I return to the living room, okay?"

Audrey glanced down the hall towards the closed bathroom door. "All right. But please, no more. Maybe I should have taken the power cord from your computer as well."

"We all can claim twenty-twenty hindsight. Now, please, I'll be along shortly."

Audrey nodded but left in a huff. Henry paused, then gestured. Jason came around the edge of the door.

"Go into the bathroom and flush the toilet," Henry said.

Jason nodded. Henry stepped out first, standing in the middle of the hall as a shield. Jason dashed to the bathroom as quietly as he could and eased himself into the room. He pushed the handle on the toilet and opened the door in a rush, hoping it would make more noise that way.

"Everything okay, son?" Henry asked loud enough to carry into the living room.

"Yes, I'm fine," Jason declared, hoping the nervous quaver in his voice was only his own perception. "Just got interested reading something while I was in there."

"Heh, always the bookworm. Can't fault you for that. Well, let's get back to the others."

Jason nodded. Several emotions flitted through his head but none would stick. He no longer had any idea how he should feel towards his father anymore.

If Ned had anything good to say about a Thanksgiving Day meal with the Kendalls, it was that he would not lack for variety of food. Even the main course presented a choice. If he had not been content with turkey, he could have had duck or pheasant. More side dishes were available than he could possibly eat. The cranberries alone had been fixed six different ways.

Ned learned that the term "help yourself" was unheard of at the Kendalls. Any time Ned reached for something, a servant surged forward with a soft "allow me, sir" followed by everything being done for him. The first and second time, it had been a novelty; by the sixth time it had become annoying; after the tenth time, he hoped to be content with what remained on his plate.

Dorothy and Robert communicated with the servants through gestures or simple looks. Cassie did so as well, but far more reluctantly, and appeared somewhat embarrassed whenever Ned looked at her. Ned mused if this is how Cassie managed to stay so slim.

The meal had gone on for some time in the same tense silence which had followed his first abortive attempt to engage the Kendalls in conversation. The quiet gave him too much time to dwell upon some of what Cassie had told him, and it led him to questions he was sure the Kendalls would either not answer or become offended that he had asked.

The most burning question was the one Cassie had posed in passing: just what was a family like the Kendalls doing in a place like Haven? The question would not let go no matter how hard he pushed it away. He was sure Cassie had asked the same thing, and he would likely get no better answer, so he tried to turn it around.

Ned cleared his throat and lifted his head. Dorothy cast an imperious gaze at him and narrowed her eyes slightly. "Um ... sorry if I'm, uh, speakin' outta turn, Mr. Kendall. Not sure what yer traditions are fer the Thanksgivin' meal."

Robert looked up, and Ned thought he appeared relieved to hear another voice. He waved a fork in the air (to Dorothy's disapproving glance). "Not at all. Please, speak what's on your mind."

Cassie glanced at her father as if in approval and looked to Ned with interest. Dorothy raised her wine glass.

Okay, here goes, he thought. "I was jus' wonderin' what ya thought of life here in this tiny burg o' Haven."

Dorothy's glass landed on the table with a thump. Cassie's eyes widened slightly.

"I jus' thought, well, it's not the kinda place I'd expect folks like ya to be."

A tiny smile ghosted Robert's lips. "Oh? And what sort of place would you expect to find us, young man?"

"Mebbe a big city. Since yer inta bizness an' finance I thought a place like that suits ya more, an' this place ... well, ya know what I mean." Ned wanted to bang his head against the table a few times; he had come close to saying "and this place would be more like a summer home."

Robert glanced at his wife before he straightened in his seat and dabbed his mouth with a napkin. The mask slipped over his face once more, and he spoke as if giving a pitch of a new product at a business conference. "I would have to say that living here gives one a sense of perspective."

Dorothy lowered her eyes to her plate and ate in silence.

"Ah, okay," Ned said and wondered if he should leave it at that. Curiosity pushed caution aside. "Perspective about what, 'xactly?"

"About what is important in life. Haven gives me a sense of balance."

"Balance?"

Dorothy paused in mid-bite. Her eyes flicked up.

"Yes, balance, young man. Balance is important no matter what the endeavor. I strive to maintain it in everything I do, even to correct its lack where I find it."

Dorothy's eyes burned for a moment, flicked over to Ned, and then returned to her plate.

Ned thought he had detected a small sigh from Cassie, and the look in her eyes suggested this was nothing she had not heard before. Cassie had stated he had political friends, but Ned thought he could be a politician himself from the way he had both answered and not answered the question.

He felt he was picking up as many subtle clues as Cassie could, and they were all coming from her mother. He had kept a careful eye on every gesture and movement. Yeah, fer everything this here magnate is tellin' me, there's a freakin' encyclopedia that he ain't, Ned thought. An' Ms. Snootynose here is his censor.

Ned decided it was not worth pushing it. "Yeah, balance is always good. Kinda like how yer mansion sorta looks like it balances on the edge of the cliff out there. Kinda neat effect."

"I am pleased you noticed," Robert said with a smile. "I chose the location myself, though thank my wife for the interior design."

"Oh? Why this partic'lar spot?"

"Aesthetics," Dorothy's voice rang out. "Surely even someone of your background can understand that."

"Mother," Cassie murmured.

"Nah, it's okay," Ned said with a small grin. "Didja pick all the furnishin's and whatnot fer the inside, Mrs. Kendall?"

Dorothy looked taken aback at being addressed directly, but she recovered quickly and held her head high. "I did indeed supervise designing the decor of the interior, yes." She gave him a steel-eyed look. "Why do you ask?"

Ned shrugged and took another bite of his dinner. Somehow this was easing his tension, despite how clearly it was raising hers (or perhaps because of it). "Jus' was wonderin'. Sure is a swell-lookin' place."

"I am reassured that you believe so."

"Perhaps I can take you on a tour after dinner, young man," said Robert.

"Oh, Cassandra already gave me the ten-cent tour." Ned smirked. "Or mebbe here I should call it the ten-gran' tour."

Cassie's lips twitched into a brief, tiny smile.

Robert picked up his glass of wine. "In that case, was there anything in particular which impressed you?"

"Oh, I'll say," Ned said. "That li'l doll house in the playroom is just the coolest--"

Dorothy's fork clattered to her plate. "She showed you WHAT?!"

Ned froze, his own fork halfway to his mouth, Dorothy's bellow still ringing from the furthest corners of the room. Cassie bolted up in her chair and stared, wide-eyed in shock. Robert's eyes darted between his wife and Ned.

"Uh ..." Ned said. "Was ... was that bad?"

Dorothy opened her mouth and closed it again, her face livid. She glared at Cassie.

"I didn't even remember it was there!" Cassie blurted just as her mother looked about to explode.

Robert's eyebrows rose. "Didn't remember? Why, I thought that was one of your most beloved toys."

"Robert!" Dorothy hissed.

Robert turned to her and frowned. "Dorothy, calm yourself. Please."

Dorothy's gaze flitted between Ned and Cassie before focusing once more on her husband. "You know how I feel about that doll house, Robert," she said in a low, strained voice.

Cassie gave Ned a look of surprise and then stared at her mother.

Oh-ho, she's pickin' up something on the ol' empath radar, Ned thought. I know that look anywhere.

Robert nodded once. "Yes, I do. You want it to become a sort of family heirloom is how I understand it."

"Hey, if it helps any, I didn't lay a single grubby paw on it," Ned lied. "Not a one. Figgered it might be some kinda deal like that. I jus' looked at it from across the room."

Dorothy glared at him, but her gaze slowly softened. She nodded once. "Very well. My apologies for my behavior, it was quite unbecoming a Kendall."

Ned nodded and grinned. "Yeah, no prob, Mrs. Kendall. Water under the ol' proverbial bridge."

Dorothy nodded once more, and the meal again lapsed into uneasy silence.

Ned glanced at Cassie and saw an urgency burning in her eyes. Ned felt it as well, but realized that any talk about this was going to have to wait.

Hoo-boy, Ned thought. I can practic'ly hear the skeletons in the closet rattlin' from here.

Richie tucked into Thanksgiving Dinner as if it were the best meal of his life.

The turkey was a little dry; the potatoes were overdone and didn't have enough salt; the cranberry sauce was a cylindrical blob which still bore the indentations of the seams of the aluminum can from which it came; the rolls were doughy. Richie didn't care. He felt like he had a semblance of a family again.

The Darkness had backed off, and Richie had no idea why. For once he didn't care. His mother's Aura lay quiescent, its tendrils moving in placid swirls to little purpose. Even Cathy's lay dormant as well, though it had left her in a heightened state of arousal. She shifted in her seat, and her feet slid back and forth under the table.

"I still say you need to get your ass in gear in school," Sandra said, poking the air with her fork, a few bits of dressing falling to the tablecloth.

"Aw, the semester's practically over, Mom."

"Don't give me that. You got finals coming up and I don't want to see any D's this year, you got me?"

Richie rolled his eyes, just to see his mother give him that look. It had been ages since he had seen that look. "You should be happy I don't flunk out."

Sandra shook her head. "What is it with you? You weren't this bad about school when you were younger."

Richie ignored the obvious implications and discarded the usual responses. He wanted to think of nothing about Haven or what his mother had become. He would keep up the illusion as long as the Darkness was busy with something else. "Well, maybe back then I wasn't as serious as I am now about baseball."

"You got that way too much on the brain."

"Well, see, I gotta, if I'm gonna get good enough for the real deal."

Sandra raised an eyebrow and put down her fork. "What the fuck is that supposed to mean?"

Richie took a big bite of turkey and paused to chew before responding. He felt a sense of growing excitement and wanted to make sure it was coming from him and nowhere else. "What do you think it means, huh? I'm gonna go for the big leagues."

Sandra stared. "You want to be a professional baseball player?"

"Damn fucking straight I do."

"When the hell did you decide that?"

If Richie wanted to be absolutely honest, he would answer "just now," yet it was something he had toyed with for the past two years. Every time he saw his hitting game get better, every time he saw himself making more outs, he dared to think he could do it. "What's the big deal? They keep getting on our fucking case at school about choosing a career. Well, I just did. Now they can shut the fuck up about it."

Richie was loving this. Come on, keep arguing with me, Mom! he thought when she paused with a nonplussed look on her face. I know you think I made a stupid decision. Say it!

Sandra sighed through the next bite of her roll. "You're not thinking this through. As usual."

"I think Richie would make a great baseball player," Cathy spoke up, squirming in her seat. "Even when he was little he was good at it."

"Hey, see?" Richie said. "And she hated my guts back then."

Cathy giggled and played with the potatoes on her plate. "I'm not sure why I did, to be honest. You're such a nice guy. And I'm sure you'd look all sexy in those uniforms that--"

"Cathy, shut up," Sandra snapped before turning her attention back to Richie. "Don't you dare think this is gonna get you out of going to college."

Richie smirked. "Course I'm gonna go to college. Where the hell do you think all the minor league recruiters look for new players?"

Sandra rolled her eyes and covered them with her hand for a moment. "You are so fucking hopeless sometimes."

"Hey, I'll keep up with the schoolwork, no prob. Just don't expect me to take anything deeper than shop."

"And what if your career doesn't pan out? What if you have to quit?"

"Mom? News flash! You don't have a nerd for a son. I'm not good at that kind of stuff. I'm good at this. End of story."

"And what are you going to do when you're waiting to be noticed by the big leagues?" Sandra boomed. "What then?"

Richie shrugged. "I'll just do some odd jobs here and there. You know, steal cars, fence stolen goods, sell drugs, that sort of thing."

Sandra's fork clattered to her plate.

Richie burst out laughing. "You shoulda seen the look on your face! Oh man, it was priceless!"

Cathy glanced between them and muffled a giggle with her hand. Her Aura swirled about her faster, and she squirmed in response.

"This is not funny, Richie," Sandra said, though her voice lacked the conviction it had moments ago.

"Aw, c'mon, Mom, you think I'd actually do any of that shit?"

"Then answer my question seriously!"

"Seriously? I guess then my next answer is out. I was gonna say I'd get by on my good looks."

"I think you could," Cathy said in a sultry voice.

Richie smirked, but it faded when he looked at her. Her Aura was surging now, writhing about in a perverted sensual dance. He saw her breasts swell against her sweater with each intake of quickened breath.

"I know I'd be willing to do anything for you," Cathy cooed. "Anything at all if you would just--"

"Yeah, that's great, Cathy, thanks for the support," Richie said. He turned to his mother and gestured towards his cousin with his thumb. "Hey, when do you need to get her back to Randall?"

Sandra appeared a bit thrown off by the question. "Oh, um, whenever. I don't think we ever settled on a time."

Richie saw his mother's Aura writhing once more and uttered a small sigh as he leaned back in his chair. "Party's over."

Sandra frowned. "What was that?"

"Nothing. Hey, maybe this is a good time to take her back. I can load the dishwasher and shit while you're gone."

"Do I have to go back now?" Cathy said in a forlorn voice.

"Well, you can't freaking stay here forever," Richie snapped.

"I'd be willing to stay. I'd ... I'd share your room."

Richie ignored the twitch in his crotch and snorted. "What, that dinky little room?"

Cathy's Aura swirled faster. She spread her thighs and slid her hips forward until her panties drew into her damp slit. She shivered, and her next words emerged in a husky sigh. "I'll sleep on the floor if you want me to."

"Stop it," Richie declared. "Fun time is over, okay?"

"It doesn't have to be."

Richie shifted in his seat, his cock swelling despite the still lingering post-coital ache. He sensed the Darkness again, hovering closer, its tendrils binding both Sandra and Cathy to its will once more.

"I can stay with you," Cathy said in a husky voice.

Richie glanced at his mother. Sandra was still, like a puppet which had been set aside but remained attached to the strings. He narrowed his eyes, as if daring her to make a move on him as well.

"I can do whatever you want me to do," said Cathy.

Richie forced himself to take a slow, deep breath, but it did nothing. His cock remained rock-hard, his sensibilities turning themselves inside-out. And still, his mother was doing nothing. Just sitting there, staring, listening ...

Richie heard a tiny rattle and caught sight of Sandra withdrawing her hand from the cutlery on her plate. Wait, was she trembling?

"I can be your slave."

Richie's gaze snapped towards Cathy.

Cathy stared at him with wide, glistening eyes, and she paused as if fighting for the words. Or fighting against them, Richie could not tell. "That's what you want, isn't it? You want me to be your sex slave. You want ... you want my pussy always wet and ready for you."

Richie clenched his teeth. His mother's Aura whipped about in agitation, while Cathy's spun in a hypnotic vortex, its Dark energy caressing her like a lover. He replayed his father's words in his head, imagining them amplified to sonic shock wave proportions. He forced his hands to the edge of the table, hesitated, then pushed himself away, chair scraping across the scuffed hardwood.

"Yeah, that's what I want," Richie muttered as he stared at Cathy, imagining her naked and on her knees, a collar wrapped around her neck, and hanging from it a tag inscribed with the words "Property of Richie Gardner." Cathy shuddered and uttered a soft moan as if hearing his thoughts.

Richie stood. "But it's not what I should have." He shoved the chair forward until it banged against the table, sending gravy slopping out of its boat in a spreading brown stain across the tablecloth. He gripped the back of the chair until his knuckles turned white. "And it's not what I'm gonna have."

He stepped back from the table. Cathy gave him a forlorn look and whimpered, crossing her legs. Sandra let out a ragged sigh as if she had been holding her breath, her Aura whirling with renewed vigor.

"I need some fucking air," Richie said. "See ya later."

He fled the kitchen and barreled through the rest of the house as if the devil were at his back. He grabbed his jacket and burst into the mid-afternoon sun. The cold air never felt better, and he delayed donning his jacket until he had run up the street.

He glanced behind him and saw no one following. Just the same, he had gone in the opposite direction from where he usually went when took these little excursions. He followed Green Avenue to where it curved northwest, running along the edge of town abutting the greenbelt and the river beyond. He slowed his pace only when he could no longer see his neighborhood past the aspens which lined the southwest side of the street.

Richie sighed and leaned against a lamp post, looking back the way he had come. He held the image in his head of his mother trembling and still could not convince himself it had happened. He had spent so much of the past month telling himself that his mother was a lost cause; living day to day was easier without the false hope.

Now she had to do this and completely screw him up again.

He frowned. The Darkness had retreated from him again. He did not believe for a moment it was out of any sense of altruism. He still considered all its promises to be just so much bullshit, only piled higher and deeper than usual. So why did it go away? What was it doing?

Richie scrunched up his face and tried to think like Jason. He failed and whirled around to slap the side of the pole before jogging further up the street.

"Yeah, Happy Thanksgiving to me," Richie muttered, thrusting his hands into his pockets.

Diane had wanted to fade into the background during Thanksgiving dinner, but this proved impossible with Grandmother Kyoto. Not having seen Diane for some years, she wanted to know every detail of Diane's personal life. Her grandmother understood very little English and spoke none at all, thus everything had to be translated to and from Japanese by her father. From the way her grandmother and her father debated occasionally before the next question came forth, even he thought some of the questions a little too personal.

Diane did her best to dance around what was really going on in her life and in Haven. She thought it best not to mention she was lesbian, and she caught her mother giving her the occasional sympathetic look. Janet eventually granted some mercy and managed to change the topic, to which Diane was immensely grateful.

If anything good could be said, it was that everything seemed normal. Her mother was in good spirits, far more so than she had been since her run-in with Principal Bendon. As much as Diane was grateful she could see the Auras, it was nice to be at a gathering in which none were touched by the Darkness.

As dinner wound down, the gathering moved to the living room while her parents took turns cleaning up, and isolated conversations broke out among her relatives (much of it in Japanese). She was left to her own thoughts, and they had turned towards guilt.

She doubted Heather was having anything close to a normal Thanksgiving. Her mind returned to the line she had plotted on her laptop. All through dinner she had been nagged by the sense she was overlooking something.

She glanced around the room. A group of relatives from her father's side of the family, a mixture of Japanese and American heritage, were looking at something on the mantel above the fireplace. Diane followed their gaze, and from the few words she picked up, they were fascinated with the ornate brass clock which stood as the centerpiece.

Diane stared at it until the swing of the pendulum and its prominent ticking reminded her too much of Victor's office. She shivered and wrapped her arms around herself, averting her gaze.

"Are you all right, honey?"

Diane flinched, not having heard her mother walk up to her. "I'm fine, Mother, just feeling a little overwhelmed."

Janet smiled and sat next to her. "Maybe you should consider having your father teach you some Japanese."

Diane managed a tiny smile. "It's not quite that, but, yeah, I guess that would help."

Janet leaned closer and said in a softer voice, "Sorry about your grandmother. I wasn't sure how much you wanted to tell anyone about your preferences."

"Your preferences" had become the accepted euphemism in the Woodrow household any time they needed to speak about her lesbianism in mixed company. She did not consider it a "preference" per se, but had accepted it gracefully.

"I would have supported you if you had," Janet said, brushing a strand of hair from her daughter's eyes. "I just wanted you to know that."

Diane gave her a wan smile. "I didn't want to rock the boat. I wanted to have a quiet holiday."

Janet looked about to say something when her name was called from across the room. "Yes?"

Diane peered past her. A Japanese man was gesturing towards the fireplace and speaking in rapid-fire speech to his wife. She turned to Janet and said in heavily accented English, "He likes clock on mantel. Very nice."

"Oh, thank you," Janet said, turning towards her. "It's something of an heirloom."

"It run fast? We know someone who can fix."

"Yes, it does, a little. Is it off again?" Janet leaned forward and peered. "Ralph usually takes care of it, but he's been busy lately."

"I'll adjust it, Mother," Diane said, bolting out of her seat. She wanted to get out of this awkward conversation with her mother anyway, and she needed to get over a stupid aversion to the clock before it became yet another irrational fear.

She stepped up to the clock and checked it against her watch. It was nearly twelve minutes off, the minute hand hovering just past the "2" when it should be just before the hour. She ran her fingertips along the edge of the clear glass face until she found the catch and carefully tugged it open on tiny, delicate hinges.

The minute hand extended a bit past the spindle, reminding her of the line she had drawn on the map. She placed her finger beside the longer point and started to nudge it backwards.

As it approached the "1," she stopped and stared, and her heart pounded.

But that's ... that can't be what ... how could ...?

Diane swallowed and pushed the minute hand back, her finger trembling. She overshot the intended mark but drew back her hand and closed the cover anyway. She dashed back to her mother, who was having a translated conversation where she tried to politely beg off having anyone look at the clock who was not accredited to deal with antiques. "Mother, can I ask you a favor, please?"

Janet gave her a small nod, then smiled at the woman with whom she had been conversing as she stood up. "If you'll excuse me? My daughter needs me." A general bobbing of heads, and Janet took Diane's arm and ushered her to the side. "Thank you. As much as I appreciated their offer, I don't want to risk damaging that clock. Now, what is it, honey?"

"I know you want me to stay down here with everyone, but I-I really need some time to myself. Grandmother Kyoto sort of left me a little drained."

Janet gave her a sympathetic look, but her eyes answered even before she spoke. "Diane, it's not going to be that much longer, and your father's relatives will have to be heading back in a little while anyway."

"Just ten minutes. Please, that's all. Then I'll come back and stay the rest of the day."

"I have a feeling I know how you're going to answer this, but I will ask it anyway: are you sure this has nothing to do with Heather?"

Diane was too excited and tired at the same time to come up with a lie. "Okay, yes, it has something to do with her. I mean, not directly, but--"

"All right. That's all I wanted to know. I guess I need to better accept how important she is in your life." Janet squeezed her daughter's arm and said in a softer voice. "Take fifteen minutes."

Diane smiled and hugged her mother before dashing up the stairs. She burst into her room, fell into her chair, and flipped up the laptop screen, muttering a curse when it seemed to take forever to come out of hibernation.

When she could access her session of MS Paint, she stared at the line she had drawn. She uttered a gasp, her eyes wide. Her trembling hands forced several attempts, but she managed to redraw the line, now rotated a few degrees counterclockwise, using the Inn as the pivot.

In the northeast corner of Haven, the line now almost perfectly aligned under the Sovert and Conner households and was very close to Richie's house. On the southwest side, it had rotated closer to Debby's house, almost right under it.

And it had moved away from Diane's house.

"Oh my God," Diane murmured. "That's it. That's got to be it. That's ..."

She bolted out of her chair, barely catching it before it could topple to the floor. She closed the door to her room as gently as her excitement would allow and ransacked the drawer of her night table before she found the post-it note with the phone number she needed. She snatched the receiver off the hook and punched in the number.

"Please pick up, please pick up ..." Diane murmured as she rocked back and forth on the edge of her bed.

"Hello?" a man's voice answered.

"Yes, hi, can I speak with Mrs. Radson? This is Diane Woodrow."

She thought she heard a tiny sigh over the background din of conversation.

"Please, this really urgent, I--"

"Yes, one moment." The words were followed by a thunk as the phone was put down.

"Thank you," Diane said in a small voice.

"Diane?" came Debby's concerned voice. "Are you all right? Is something wrong?"

Diane jumped back to her feet and looked towards her laptop. "No, everything is fine ... well, no, it's not fine, but it's fine here, and that's the point, since now it's further away, and it wasn't until I saw the clock hand that I thought of it, and--"

"Diane, slow down," Debby said. "I can't understand what you're saying. Take a few deep breaths for me."

She closed her eyes and did so, though with impatient reluctance. "I-I'm sorry, I'm just ... look, I just figured it all out, why I can't reach Heather, why that thing happened with me, why your stuff is stronger, why my--"

"Breathe, Diane," Debby said.

Diane took another deep breath. "The line has moved, Mrs. Radson. Somebody moved the line!"

Debby was too stunned to speak, and it was only her husband calling her name that broke her out of it. She glanced past him and saw his mother peering with a suspicious eye (her remaining good one) from the living room.

"Just a minute, Diane," Debby said before she laid the receiver against her breast. She spoke to Bill in an urgent whisper. "I have to take this, I'm sorry."

Bill sighed but nodded. "All right. Better take it in the kitchen. I'll think of something to tell my mother."

Debby gave him a weak smile and dashed past him, raising the phone to her ear only when she was past the dining room. "I'm sorry, Diane, it's a bit awkward here right now."

"It's okay, Mrs. Radson, I didn't exactly tell my mother I was going to make this phone call."

Debby stepped into the kitchen. "Oh, Goddess, nothing has happened, has it?"

"No, just the opposite. It's what I told you. Someone moved the line!"

"But that is near impossible without the right sort of magic."

"But Jason said the Book had those sorts of spells in it. He even said there was one specifically for moving the lines."

"The Book was destroyed," Debby said in a firm voice, but more to convince herself than anyone else. "That's what Victor was supposed to have done with it. That's what Heather saw in her vision."

"I-I know, but even she said her visions were not always perfect."

"We know the Book was destroyed," Debby said, though her conviction was weaker. "Everything that's happened over the last few weeks suggests it's become more intelligent. It used the energy from the Book to do that."

She heard a despondent sigh on the other end which jumped in cadence for a second, as if Diane had just sat down hard. "Okay, I guess I really don't know what I'm doing after all. You're right, it's a stupid idea."

Debby could have kicked herself. Here was a girl suffering from a textbook case of low self esteem and she just made it worse. And all for what? she demanded of herself. For my comfort? For not wanting to face the truth?

"You know better than I do with a lot of this stuff, Mrs. Radson. I mean, a lot of people know better than--"

"Diane, tell me exactly why you think the line has moved."

Diane paused. "You don't really want to hear it, do you?"

"That is not a pleasant question to answer, and it has nothing to do with you. Please, tell me what you're thinking."

Hesitant at first, then bolder when Debby said nothing in protest, Diane explained what she had done with the map and the clock. "It made sense to me at the time. I mean, I'm making a lot of assumptions, like it has to remain straight, and that it has to keep going through the Inn. So if it moved closer to Heather and the others, it has to get closer to you and further away from me. And I'm further out at the edge of town, so it swung away a lot more. That's why everything is so normal at my house now."

"And why your ability to tap the line energies never manifested there," Debby said in a hollow voice, her eyes wide.

"Doesn't it fit?" Diane demanded with a hint of desperation in her voice. "I mean, go ahead and tell me I'm wrong, but I'm not really that far out in left field, am I?"

"No, Diane, you're not. I don't have access to my copy of the map right now, but--"

"I double and triple-checked everything on Google Maps. I used the satellite view to really make sure I was putting things in the right place. The House was tricky because it only ever shows as an empty lot, but I'm sure I put it at the end of the right road."

Debby was unsure of what to say. She had felt a great relief when the Book had been believed to be destroyed, but now her heart pounded like it had when she had first learned that the pendant once linked to it had fallen into Melissa's hands.

Had she relied too much on the accuracy of Heather's vision? Should she have been more vigilant? Should she have cast magicks to divine if any energies of the Book still lingered? Dozens of other recriminations echoed through her head, all trying to place the blame on herself for her daughter's woes.

"Okay, so what if the Book really was destroyed," Diane said. "What if there was a second one out there somewhere?"

"No, Diane, there is no other Book, that I am sure of. Such things can be made only once. I don't have time to describe how that works." She let out a heavy sigh. "But it means there's only one explanation. The Book, or some part of it, managed to remain intact."

"Then who could be ...?" Diane trailed off into stunned silence when she answered her own question. "Oh God."

"Diane, don't panic," Debby said. "Nothing is going to be gained by that."

"But this means the Darkness can g-go after them directly now. It can take them whenever it wants."

"I think we would have felt something if that had happened. The energy required to perform this feat is enormous. It must have taken all the past month just to get this far. This must be why the others are blocked from us."

"So the line energy is interfering with us?"

"Not quite," said Debby. "Line energy is benign. It just sits there unless you tap into it. The only reason the lines have any sort of influence is because of the Darkness. It's the one blocking them. The line is just the tool it is using."

"Surely they must have felt something and knew something was going on!" Diane cried. "I mean ... no, wait, that's it, isn't it? It didn't want us to know. This is just so we couldn't figure out what was going on."

Debby placed a trembling hand against her cheek. She had started the conversation wanting to console Diane, but now she felt the need to be consoled herself. She wished she could contact Jason; he had a far more analytical mind than any of them. Unless that was what the Darkness wanted, to isolate them so they could not pool their talents.

"So it's too late now, isn't it?" Diane asked in a tiny, hollow voice.

"Diane, no. Don't say that."

"But it must be almost done with what it wanted to do."

"Moving the line cannot be all it wants. Like I told you, the lines themselves are benign. It has to be a means to an end."

"It wants to use them to attack the Harbingers."

Debby swallowed. It was the first thing which came to her mind as well. "Listen to me, Diane--"

"But it makes sense, doesn't it? All the original members are right there."

"Diane, shh, you'll alert your mother." Debby frowned. She hated situations like this which made her feel as if she were conspiring against fellow parents, luring their children into dangerous larks. With people like Heather or Richie, she had to go so far as to believe their parents could not be trusted with the welfare of their own children to ease her guilt.

"I-I'm sorry," Diane murmured and sniffled once. "I just don't know what to do."

Debby paused to collect her thoughts and quell her own rising fears. She again had to be their protective mother. She closed her eyes and silently begged of the Goddess to give her the strength to do so. "We can't let it separate us. We'll have to get with the others as soon as we can, sometime over this weekend."

"But what if they get taken by then?"

Debby ran her fingers through her hair, her mind working furiously. She had no idea what the power level of the Darkness was now, but could it be that strong? If so, why all the skulduggery? "I don't think so," she finally said, though summoning up the proper confidence in her voice was difficult. "To do that, it would have to expend a lot more energy. Yes, the Book gave it a good boost, but it will eventually run out. It's moving slowly because it has to. This has got to be a setup for something else. And if any of them had been taken already, we would have felt it over the link."

Debby hoped Diane would not see the corollary, as she was trying not to frighten the girl further. Debby had thought about this ever since she had forged the link with the others. The link was very useful for helping each other resist a fall to the Darkness, but if one ever did, the results could be far more devastating than if the link had never existed.

Then she would become just another Penny Sovert or Sandra Gardner when she fell along with the others.

"Okay, I think I understand," Diane said in a shaky but calmer voice. "What do you want me to do?"

"At the moment, nothing. Go back to spending time with your family. You're safest right where you are. I'll contact you over the weekend."

"All right. I just wish I had thought about this a few days ago."

"There is something else, Diane," Debby said in a solemn voice. "If the Darkness is manipulating line energy, then your new ability may be very useful."

Diane uttered a tiny gasp. "I-I refuse t-to be used again like--"

"You would use it of your own free will," Debby said. "I personally will forbid it to be used in any other way."

A long pause, and then a slow, relieved sigh. "Thank you, Mrs. Radson. I better go, I said I was going to be up here for only fifteen minutes. And ... a-and I promise, I'll try to help."

"I know you will. Now, keep safe and try not to worry too much."

"All right. Bye, Mrs. Radson."

"Bye, Diane."

Debby clicked the "off" button on the handset and let it drop to her side.

She felt like she had just taken on an impossible task. While she believed most of her own words to Diane, she had no idea what kind of damage had been done. She hated the idea of placing more importance upon any one over the others, but everything may hinge on Jason and what he can learn from Elizabeth's journal that she had missed.

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