At least their time at High Desert Con taught them the necessity of toilets. Otherwise, I think they’d just go squat behind a bush outside.

It’s getting kind of cold and damp for that to be comfortable. I’ve sworn off cold ever since Mum kicked me out of the freeze-dried garbage dump of the Universe.

I left the Chinese food for Tess when she gets home. MSG works wonders to counter my lactose intolerance, but when I’ve had a fight and tasted blood, I need mold, mold, mold, and more mold. A little beer and OJ doesn’t hurt either.

So, now that I’ve restored myself with the mold in the air-conditioning unit on the roof of the café down the street, (there is never a lack of mold in the Pacific Northwet) I grab my black and silver boa—evening wear don’t ya know—and insert myself on the dash of Gollum’s new car. I suppose his rattletrap van had to die sometime, or he needed something classier and more reliable now that he has the infamous Julia to drive around, but it was a glorious source of mold and mildew.

For the first time in like evah, dahling, Gollum drives slowly. He’s lost in thought, looking deep inside himself.

What is this? He observes stop signs even when there isn’t another car in sight. He stays below the speed limit and uses his turn signals. Not once does he drift out of his lane.

I hope he’s not sick.

Just after he crosses the Sellwood Bridge, he pulls off into the parking lot of a convenience store and calls home on his cell phone.

“Sorry I’m late, hon. Hope everything is okay and you’re just asleep. You probably took a pill, right? Call me if you get this message before I get home. See you in about fifteen minutes.”

Isn’t voice mail wonderful?

Now he’s worried. He speeds up a bit, but he still drives carefully.

How boring. Maybe my babe is right in moving on. I never thought I’d say that suddenly Sean looks like a better partner for her. At least he can patch her up after she tumbles.

But can he heal her heart?

I let him carry the conversation while keeping an eye on my girls.

My daughters. I still couldn’t believe I’d pulled off adopting them and getting them out of their father’s violent environment. My heart swelled with dozens of emotions every time I contemplated them.

The girls succumbed first to full tummies and the listlessness of adrenaline depletion.

At around midnight, I guided them through showers and teeth brushing and the necessity of wearing pajamas or nightgowns. They got the queen-sized bed in the bedroom.

Then I pulled out the single malt.

We sat on the sofa, Allie and Sean on the ends, me in the middle pressed up close to Sean with his arm around my shoulders.

I watched Sean as he gently sniffed the heady brew. With eyes closed he took a small sip, rolling it around his mouth. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed and let out a contented sigh. “Uisge beatha, whiskey, the water of life. The only English word acknowledged to have come from the Gaelic.”

“I could learn to love a man who knows how to appreciate the good stuff,” I said and repeated the ritual. Sweet flowers and bitter heat burst upon my tongue and warmed me all the way down to my stomach. Well-being spread outward. Muscles I didn’t know had tensed unknotted and relaxed. The fist of God wrapped in velvet. “And I know about the origin of uisge beatha and whiskey and English. But I’m holding out for quaff as a derivative of the Gaelic as well.”

Allie stared at her glass of amber whiskey. “Never learned to appreciate the hard stuff. And I don’t want to argue word origins with you two. You two can share this, I’ll settle for wine. Did you leave any of the Riesling?” She set her tumbler on the coffee table and ambled back toward the kitchen.

“I’ve been thinking it might be a good idea to look for ways to totally separate the girls from their origins,” Sean said, keeping his eyes on the magic elixir in his glass.

“I’d just as soon they forget their upbringing,” I agreed.

“We could start with changing their names,” Allie said plunking down beside me. She gulped half a glass of white wine and laid her head on the sofa back. “I see it in kids adopted out of abusive situations all the time. First thing they ask for is a new name.”

“Blackberry and Salal do sound rather like they’ve been living in a hippie commune,” Sean said on a half laugh as he took a bigger sip of scotch.

“My Aunt MoonFeather would give them names like that until they grew into their personalities and they selected something that fit them better.” I couldn’t remember the rather mundane name my father’s sister had rejected when she joined Wicca and took a craft name. I’d seen her dance nude, as light as a feather graced by moonlight on the night of the summer solstice. She had selected her new name appropriately.

Allie giggled as she downed the rest of her drink. “When I think Blackberry, all I can see is a fancy cell phone.”

We all laughed at that.

“Blackberry. Cell phone ...” I played with the sounds of the words. “Phonetia!”

“Good one.” Allie and I high-fived.

I took another swallow of scotch. The top of my head felt a little separate from the rest of me. A gale of giggles erupted from my toes, running upward in waves of good feelings. “Kids today seem to have their phones surgically implanted. Texting their friends is like breathing.”

“Remove a teen from her phone and she feels like her arm’s been cut off. But they rarely phone home,” Allie added.

Sean nearly doubled over with laughter. “Phone home. Phone home!”

“Huh?”

“Didn’t you see the movie E.T.?” he asked incredulously.

“E.T. phone home,” I replied, my mouth threatening to gape. “Of course, Phonetia and E.T.! That’s what we call my girls.”

“What does E.T. stand for?” Allie asked, a little more sober than either Sean or I.

“Anything she wants.”

Allie took the sofa, and I stretched out on the cot in the office.

I promised myself this overcrowding would only last a short time. Allie was due to fly back to Cape Cod next week to wind up her duties with the police force and finalize plans for her wedding. Maybe I should just set up a real bed in the office and consolidate the computer desk and bookcases to make room for a dresser. The file cabinet in the closet could go into the dining area.

Or I should make the living and dining area one big office and schoolroom and give the office over to the girls so I could take back my bedroom.

“This could work, Scrap.”

“My, aren’t you erudite and succinct. What’s the matter?” I looked up from massaging moisturizer into my feet.

I don’t like the tattoos on the gang bangers. We don’t know who authorized the protection. Takes some big bucks, some sneaky runarounds, or clout with the Powers That Be to put those tats on mundanes. He sat on the desk fading in and out of the monitor.

I shuddered. “Don’t remind me of the Powers That Be. I can’t imagine anyone voluntarily asking them for favors.”

“Out of desperation.” Unconsciously I rubbed my scar. “I needed protection for Dad and Bill. No one else could guarantee it.” The scar burned and pulsed, almost as if there was a demon in the room.

There wasn’t. It was just nerve memory of the deal I’d made and signed in my own blood. The onyx pen stained with my blood lay buried in the back of the side drawer on the desk.

“Could Donovan have done it?” I asked.

“I don’t know. But then I don’t truly know why he wants to create a home world for Kajiri demons. I don’t understand his obsession with me. I don’t understand ...”

A tentative knock on the closed door almost slid beneath my awareness.

“Come in,” I said, almost as hesitant as the knock.

The door crept open a few inches. I saw a single green-brown eye peek in.

“Come in, Blackberry.”

“How’d you know it was me?” She pushed open the door another few inches and slid in, closing it behind her.

“You’re taller than your sister and Allie’s eyes are brown. “What do you need? You should be asleep.”

“I ... Are we really supposed to call you ‘Mom’ now?”

I gulped. Mom. I’d begun to think I’d never have the privilege of hearing another person call me that.

“I’d like that if you are comfortable with it.”

“Gollum ... I mean Dad said we should. It shows respect. What’s respect?”

Oh, boy, was I in trouble. I had to start at square one with a teenager. The dictionary definition would probably go over her head.

Tomorrow. Or rather later today. I’d deal with their education in the morning.

“Respect is an attitude of careful listening and going along with their suggestions because you’ve learned they are usually right. It’s treating that person as if you value them.”

“Oh.” She looked puzzled. Then her eyes brightened. “Oh!”

I patted the place beside me on the cot, urging her to sit, get comfortable; put her in a sharing mood.

She sat slowly, careful not to touch me directly.

“And because I respect you, I’m going to ask your approval for changing your name.” Part of me wanted to drape my arm around her shoulders. I needed to respect her need to avoid physical contact. “I’d like to call you Phonetia.” I explained about the mobile phone that carried her real name.

“That sounds good. I like that. Can I have one of those phones?” She flashed me a huge smile that nearly melted my heart.

“We’ll talk about that when you’ve earned the responsibility of an expensive phone.”

“Oh. What about Salal?”

“We thought E.T. would be a good name. But that’s more a joke than a name.” I explained the line in the movie.

“I like that. I think she will too. We can think up new words to fit the initials for each occasion.”

That sounded like mischief in the making. At least these two troubled girls could find something to laugh about.

“So what can I do for you this late at night?”

“I ... uh ... Salal—We should have said something earlier. We know the guys with the tattoos.” She hung her head.

“You do?” Did I ever say that I don’t believe in coincidences?

“We don’t really know them. I mean we’ve never talked to them. And I don’t know if they recognized us, they only ever saw me in the dark when Father sent them to my bed. But they do business with Father ... with that man ... with ...”

Cold invaded my bones.

Phonetia shuddered too. I put my arm around her shoulder and drew her close. A morsel of warm steadiness grew between us.

“I know who you mean. And he is your father, biologically. Let’s just call him the dark elf for now. What kind of business?”

“They grow something strange. Fa—the dark elf lets them use certain clearings in our forest, and he blurs the paths so the ... the law won’t find the plants and destroy them.”

“Marijuana?”

“I think that’s what they call it. It’s not native to us. It doesn’t belong in our forest. Our duty is to keep the forests healthy. Nonnative invasive plants need to be cut out and burned, not carefully cultivated and protected.”

“You are right. Marijuana is a dangerous plant. So is the dark elf. He hails from a different land, a different environment. He’s as invasive as the marijuana. But you and E.T. and your brothers are all native. You belong here.”

She mulled over the new and frightening idea. But one that might save her sanity.

Last month three hikers on Mt. Jefferson had been shot at and chased mercilessly for days until they found their car and raced away; all for stumbling off the trail into a ten-acre marijuana patch. A SWAT team went in and cleared out the patch. They lost two members to the growers’ booby traps. Hidden pits filled with poisoned stakes. Tactics straight out of Vietnam.

Big money came from those marijuana farms.

“What does the dark elf get from the growers in return for land and protection?” I asked.

“I ... I don’t know for sure what Fa ... the dark elf gains.” She looked at her hands.

“Did your father demonize the tattoos?

“Is that what you call it?”

“I guess. I’ve never run into it before. Scrap gave me hints. I watched them glow. Not just anyone can do it. He’d have to have help, or permission, or something.”

“He never talked to Salal—E.T. and me about his business. He talked to the boys. We only know what we overheard.”

“Your brothers got the names of majestic trees. He named you two for lowly vines that need to be curbed and heavily pruned to control them.”

“He doesn’t respect us.”

“No, he doesn’t. I think you both have a lot of reasons to respect yourselves though. It’s my job to help you do that.”

“I don’t know that anyone can do that.” She stood up and made as if to go—reluctantly.

“I have to try.”

“I respect you for the trying.”

I knew she wasn’t telling me everything. She might respect me, but she didn’t trust me yet.

I reached for the phone on the desk. I knew someone who might fill in some of the blank spots. It wasn’t too late to call Las Vegas. Lady Lucia kept vampire hours. I owed her a bunch of favors.

She owed me some explanations.

A clap of thunder made us both jump. Lightning right on top of it lit the entire room as bright as noon.

“It’s Father!” Phonetia screamed as she dived under the cot. “He’s really pissed.”