louder than you’d think they could be, sometimes,” I said. “And they take a very close interest in the romantic lives of the family. So you’d better get used to it.”
“Is a New Relative discovered?” asked the fawn mouse, whiskers quivering with barely contained excitement.
“James here is my brother now,” I said. “His old family didn’t take proper care of him or appreciate him enough, so I stole him.”
“HAIL TO THE COMING OF THE STOLEN GOD!” shouted the mice in unison. Grandma laughed.
“Oh, you’re in it now, boy,” she said. “Once the mice take to you, you never hear the end of it. Do you like cookies?”
“Yes,” he said uncertainly. “Why—”
“I’ll bake you a batch when I get home, to say welcome to the family.” She rose, spreading her hands to indicate the cluttered living room. “The house is yours, as long as you need it. There’s a key under the mat. Lock up when you leave, then give it to the tailypo. They’ll take care of things.”
“Right,” muttered James. “Of course, the tailypo will take care of things. Why would I expect anything different?”
“Why do I need to take your mice, Grandma?” I asked.
“I don’t currently have a charm that’s strong enough to get four people across a dimensional border,” she said. “And I told you, I’m not coming home without Thomas. Not this time.”
The numbers didn’t add up. “If you don’t have a charm that’s good for four, how have you been traveling with two mice for this long?”
Her expression sobered. “I’ve been losing faith, my lovely. Even I can’t keep going without answers forever, and I suppose I was . . . I was starting to believe I’d lost him. Thank you for giving my faith back to me.”
“Are you leaving right now?”
She looked at Sam, smiled knowingly, and looked back to me. “Wouldn’t you?” she asked.
She grabbed her backpack, which rattled in an ominous way that probably meant it contained more ammunition than any one person needed unless they were planning to challenge an army, and then she was heading for the front door.
She didn’t look back.
“Well,” said Cylia, once she was gone, leaving the five of us alone. “She seems nice.”
“She seems terrifying,” said Fern.
“She’s both those things,” I said, looking down at the mice in my palm. “She’s my grandma. I’ll go check the kitchen, see if she left us anything to eat.”
I transferred the mice to my shoulder as I walked out of the room. They promptly hid themselves in my hair, their claws scratching against my scalp in the soft, reassuring way they had since I was old enough to be considered responsible and capable of caring for my own clergy. No one followed me.
The fridge contained eggs, milk, and half a roast chicken. The cupboard had sugar, coffee, and a loaf of bread. My grandma may be half-feral these days, but part of her still trends more toward Donna Reed than Norma Bates. Lucky for us, although we were going to be pretty sick of chicken by the time we got back on the road.
The tailypo was sitting on the counter, tail wrapped several times around its haunches. It looked at me and chirped. I handed it a raw egg and left the room as it was working to chew through the shell.
“There’s breakfast,” I said. “Hopefully we’ll be on the road pretty soon after we eat. I don’t like to stay here longer than I absolutely have to.”
James sat up straighter. “Is your grandmother really heading for another dimension?”
I shrugged. “Probably. She doesn’t tend to lie about things like that. I think she doesn’t see the benefit of lying to her family.” She might have had a better relationship with her kids if she’d been a little more dishonest. But then again, they could have gotten the real story any time they wanted it by talking to the mice, and then she would still have deserted them, she would have just lied while she was doing it. Family is difficult sometimes. “We’re all used to the fact that none of us matter as much as a man that most of us have never met. Dad was really little when Grandpa Thomas disappeared. Aunt Jane wasn’t even born yet. Mary remembers him—they were friends—but she hasn’t been able to talk about him for as long as I’ve been alive.”
“The crossroads wouldn’t let her?” asked Sam.
I nodded. “They really wanted us to just let him go. I don’t think Grandma knows how