She blinked. That was it: she simply blinked at his temporary transformation, and then dismissed it. ‘I live with a shapeshifter, remember?’ she said. ‘I’m not impressed.’

‘That’s because you’re naive. I didn’t change shape. I simply changed your perceptions.’

‘Now that I don’t believe. You can’t alter the way I think,’ she said fiercely. She looked at him a little closer, and there was sudden doubt in her eyes. ‘Can you?’

‘Maybe there’s hope for you yet,’ he said. ‘No, neither I nor anyone else can make you think things that aren’t already inside you, not unless you’re particularly empty-headed. But I can alter the way people perceive me. People see what I want them to see. Or not see me at all if I so choose.’

‘You can become invisible?’

‘You aren’t listening. I don’t become invisible – people just don’t see me.’

‘Can I do that?’ she asked, fascinated.

‘God, I hope not,’ he said. ‘You’re trouble enough as it is.’

She looked oddly pleased at the notion. ‘So what do you want from me? From us? How do I make you disappear?’

‘You need to stop these dangerous experiments and return to your family.’

‘Not on your life.’

It was nothing more than he expected. ‘Then-’ The sound of the doorbell cut through his words. ‘Get rid of him,’ he said.

‘How do you know it’s a him? Do you have X-ray vision?’

‘It’s a him. If you were still enough you’d be able to sense the same thing. And I don’t like him. Get rid of him.’

It’s probably just a poor UPS man,’ Lizzie said, rising. ‘I ordered some supplies for my workshop a few days ago.’

‘I hate to think what kinds of things he’s bringing,’ Elric said with a shudder. ‘We’ll just ignore him and maybe he’ll go away.’

The doorbell had given way to a peremptory pounding on the door, and Elric knew he was no deliveryman in brown shorts. And he didn’t like that at all.

‘I’m answering the door,’ Lizzie said. ‘You can turn me into a pillar of salt if you want, but I’m going.’

It wasn’t worth arguing about. He followed her, of course, though she wasn’t aware of him, and he waited behind her left shoulder, out of sight, as she unlocked the front door and opened it. He’d considered keeping it locked, but the man on the other side wasn’t going to give up, and the noise he was making annoyed Elric. The sooner Lizzie faced him, the sooner he’d go away and Elric could get on with his mission.

He moved out of the way as she opened the door, shielding himself from the intruder. The man standing in the doorway was negligible; Elric was sorely tempted to flick his hand in his direction and make him disappear, but he suspected Lizzie wouldn’t like that.

‘What took you so long, Lizzie?’ the man demanded. ‘Sometimes I think you’d lose your head if it wasn’t attached. I tried calling you but your telephones aren’t working.’

‘They’re not?’ she said, glancing over her shoulder toward the kitchen, looking straight through him, not realizing he was directly behind her.

‘I need an answer about the date. You said you were going to tell your sisters about us. July twelfth works best for me – it’s a slow time at work and I can afford to take a couple of days off for a honeymoon without it affecting my career. If your sisters put up a battle, then the next best time is mid-August, but I don’t see what it has to do with them. They don’t like me anyway.’

And who could blame them? Elric thought. He hadn’t paid any attention to the diamond on Lizzie’s left hand. No wonder; it was so small it would take a magnifying glass to see it.

He took another long look at the man who’d interrupted them. Why in the world would Lizzie choose someone like this as a mate? He was handsome enough, Elric supposed, in a toothy, all-American way, but he was quite possibly the most ordinary man Elric had ever seen. He’d always believed everyone had some touch of magic, some hidden gift, no matter how small. For the first time he was beginning to doubt that.

Marriage to a man like this would strip Lizzie’s powers from her and leave her as ordinary as he was. He really ought to encourage her to marry this idiot and abandon her abilities. Safer for everyone.

‘Charles, I really can’t talk about this now,’ she said. ‘I’m working on something-

‘Those silly experiments? Honestly, Lizzie, you need to grow out of that – it’s time for you to settle down,’ he said with exasperated, condescending affection. ‘The sooner we get married the sooner you can put all that silly stuff behind you.’

No, Elric really didn’t like Charles, and the fact that he was temporarily engaged to the woman in front of him surely had nothing to do with it.

‘I don’t want to argue, Charles. I haven’t had a chance to talk to my sisters – something came up this morning – but I promise as soon as they come home I’ll tell them about our engagement and see if the date works for them. And it’s not that they don’t like you – they don’t know you. I’m just worried they’ll think it too soon – we’ve only been seeing each other for a few weeks.’

‘I’m a man who makes up his mind,’ he said, smug. ‘I took one look at you and knew you’d make the perfect wife.’

‘Fine. In the meantime I need to-’

‘Is someone here?’ Charles demanded, suddenly suspicious.

‘No,’ she said quickly. ‘I’m just trying to get some work done.’

But Charles had already shoved past her, and Elric moved out of the way so Charles wouldn’t run into him. Someone like Charles would never see him, but even Elric couldn’t make his corporeal form disappear.

Lizzie went racing after Charles into the kitchen, then came to a halt, doubt and confusion on her face. She glanced behind her, looking directly at Elric without seeing him, but for a moment her gaze narrowed, and he wondered if it was possible for her to look past the veil he’d put up. No, she was too young, too untried, and he was too good. But that moment of uncertainty in her blue eyes had been unnerving.

She turned back, and he could see her shoulders relax. ‘No one’s here, Charles. Don’t you need to be at work?’

‘If we’re alone in the house maybe we could go into your bedroom…’

Lizzie’s aversion was so strong it cut through his own illogical fury. ‘I don’t think so,’ she said, taking his arm and pulling him toward the door.

‘And you certainly don’t want me watching,’ he whispered in her ear. She jumped, banging her elbow against the doorframe.

Charles was already at the door, dutifully enough. ‘What did you say?’

‘Nothing,’ she said, rubbing her elbow. ‘I just said you ought to get to work.’

‘I thought you whispered something.’

‘Why would I do that?’

Charles, totally without imagination, shrugged. ‘You sure you’re alone?’

‘Do you want to check my bedroom?’

‘Not a good idea,’ Elric whispered.

‘There it is again!’ Charles said. ‘That whispering sound.’

‘It’s the wind,’ she said. ‘There’s a storm coming. You need to get back to work.’

‘I need to get back to work,’ Charles said. He leaned forward and kissed her, a closed-mouth, possessive kiss on Lizzie’s soft mouth, and Elric decided he hated him. Intensely.

‘You’ll call me tomorrow,’ Lizzie said in the same dulcet tone.

‘I’ll call you tomorrow,’ Charles said, again as if he’d just thought of it himself. Miss Lizzie had more skills than Elric had realized. What else was she hiding?

He waited until the door was closed behind Charles, waited until he heard the sound of his car drive away, and then he dropped the veil, and Lizzie jumped.

‘You do that again,’ she said, ‘and I’ll… make you wish you’d never come here.’

It was too late for that. He looked at Lizzie’s badly kissed mouth, and wondered just how much trouble he was in.


Mare pounded the streets of Salem’s Fork in her blue running shorts, trying to obliterate the morning from her memory. Her argument with Dee was easy to evict, she’d been ignoring Dee’s arguments for years, but that coppery, dusty, sunny dream stayed with her, which was ridiculous. She did not miss Christopher Duncan in the slightest. Crash. What kind of a man had a nickname like that? Especially a guy who rode a motorcycle; there was a vote of confidence for you.

She turned up the path to the top of the mountain and the circle of stones the locals called ‘the Big Rocks’ with ‘the Great Big Rock’ in the center. That was a mistake; she and Crash had made love up there at least a thousand times, maybe more, although they’d only been together for two years, so maybe not, but it had been wonderful. The thought of him made her dizzy now, so when she ran back down the mountain she was in a lousy mood. Stopping at the Greasy Fork diner for a doughnut and orange juice, and having Pauline the waitress point out that eating a doughnut wasn’t good for her, did not improve her morning. Running past Mother’s Tattoos and seeing Mother wave at her gave her the warm wash of peace Mother always did, so that was something, but getting home and hearing Lizzie talking to herself in her workroom and not getting a chance to apologize to her for being snippy at breakfast was awful.

What is it with the universe this morning? Mare thought. First with the dust and the daydream and now with the general thwarting. She shook her head and went to shower and then changed into the white overalls she’d painted with the Anti-Pesto logo from The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, put on her black-rimmed, pink-lensed, heart-shaped sunglasses, and then walked the quarter mile to the red plastic wonders of Value Video!!, where things were going to go her way. Or else.