don’t think it’s her fault. No one’s ever really been able to get her to discuss it.
“He understands sexual reproduction just fine, Grandma,” I said, steadfastly not looking at Sam. “He also understands protection, which is why we’re not going to be reproducing any time soon. If we ever do at all. ‘Boyfriend’ doesn’t automatically mean ‘serious enough that we’ve been talking about kids.’”
“You have more fun these days than we did when I was your age,” said Grandma, and laughed, while Sam uncomfortably pulled out and dusted off another chair, pausing occasionally to pick cobwebs out of his fur. He looked so monumentally miserable that I joined him, scorching the cobwebs off my own chair before sitting down.
“It’s nice to finally meet more of your family,” he said, sounding deeply, deeply uncomfortable. He settled next to me, tail once again winding firmly around my ankle. “She seems nice.”
“No, she doesn’t,” I said. “She seems like an unstable old lady who somehow keeps aging backward, and who carries grenades that are older than I am way too frequently for comfort’s sake.”
Grandma leaned on her elbows and smirked at me across the grimy table. “Please, keep talking about me like I’m not here. It’s a wonderful idea.”
“Um,” said Sam.
“Grandma, could you please stop trying to terrify my boyfriend? It took me a long time to find a guy I was interested in dating, and if you scare him away, I’m probably going to be single until I’m dead.”
She raised an eyebrow and took a swig from her beer. “That sounds pretty serious, you know. Have you told your parents?”
I deflated. “Not yet. I haven’t talked to them yet.”
“Why the hell not? They’ve been as worried about you as I have. More worried, even. You’re going to give your poor mother a heart attack if you don’t phone home soon.”
“Um.” I looked down at the dusty tabletop, suddenly deeply interested in the wood. “I wanted to get closer to Oregon before I called.”
“Worried she’ll be on the first plane to wherever you say you are?”
I took a deep breath. “Worried she won’t be.”
“Oh, sweetheart.” Grandma leaned across the table, putting a hand on my arm. “You know your mother loves you. You know she wants you to be safe and make good choices about your life. Don’t ever doubt that she cares.”
“It’s hard to believe that when she’s always been so willing to send me into danger in order to keep Verity out of it.” Most younger sisters worry that they’ll never live up to the standards set by their siblings. In my case, I have a little more reason to be worried than most. When Verity screwed up by declaring war on the Covenant of St. George live and on television, my family’s response had been to ask me if I’d be willing to go undercover, cut off all contact with the people who were supposed to be my backup, leave the continent, and place myself in the virtual belly of the beast. Sure, I’d agreed to go, but only because I hadn’t been able to imagine saying no and staying with the people who’d considered that to be a reasonable request.
And if I hadn’t gone, I would never have met Sam, the crossroads would still have been beguiling people into deals designed to destroy them, and James would probably still have been trapped in New Gravesend, unaware of the deal that bound him there. Me going undercover with the Covenant had turned out to be the best thing that could possibly have happened. But there had been no way of predicting that when I’d agreed to go. My own family had looked at me and decided that I was the expendable one, that out of everyone in my generation, I was the one they could somehow manage to live without.
“I know that look,” said Grandma. “You’re thinking that your family threw you away. But Annie, everyone’s been sick with fright, waiting to hear whether you’re okay—and waiting for Rose or Mary to bring you home the only way they know how.”
“You know they would have told you if I were dead. The crossroads would have allowed Mary to do that much,” I said. “Rose was only keeping her mouth shut because I asked her to. If something had happened to me, she would have broken her word in a heartbeat.”
“Maybe so, but that doesn’t change a parent’s fear. Your father was starting to talk about contacting the bogeyman community. Their