He hugged the shirt to his chest. “At Hogwarts there are four houses: Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Slytherin, and us! Ravenclaw! Our element is air and we’re smart!”
“Oh! Harry Potter!” Her brother Geoffrey had gone through a phase when he was about ten. It was what inspired him to learn magic, which led to his carpentry since ironwood could only be crafted with spells and magically sharp tools. He was the only human in the city that could work with the wood. He shipped his furniture as far away as New York and Los Angeles. The shirt most likely had been his.
Joey nodded enthusiastically. “Riki read to me every night before bed. When we would finish a book, we’d watch the movie.” The smile faded. “We’d just finished Prisoner of Azkaban, but we didn’t get to see the movie.” He held up the shirt. “Can I have it?”
The shirt was in the wrong bin; it was at least three sizes too big. Jane couldn’t say no. It really didn’t matter that the shirt didn’t fit; after what Joey had been through, he deserved any little thing that could make him happy.
“Sure.” She helped him pull the shirt over his head. It came to his knees and his hands were lost in the sleeves.
“There, you look like a true Ravenclaw now.” She rolled up the sleeves until his hands appeared.
“I’m just like Harry,” Joey tented out the shirt so he could study the decal. “The oni killed my parents when I was just a baby. I live with my Aunt Katsumi and Uncle Hiro, but they’re not mean at all. I have three cousins instead of one; Riki, Mickey and Keiko. None of them are like Dudley. Aunty Nori is Mickey’s aunt, not mine, just like Marge Dursley, but she’s not mean either. She always brings presents for all of us and plays Sturdy Birdy with me. We live hidden in among muggles, who don’t know anything about magic or monsters.”
Jane gazed at him, so tiny and helpless. It was starting to hit home that she’d taken a child. Being that he had been chained to the floor inside a cage, it seemed a perfectly justified action. But keeping him was filled with moral ambiguity. Boo said that she was now genetically his sister, and certainly their matching crow feet seemed to support that claim.
You can’t pick your family, Boo reminded Jane, but you still have to do right by them.
For Jane, “do right” was to return Joey to the family that obviously loved him if they were reading nightly to him. The only problem was that it didn’t sound like Joey’s family lived in Pittsburgh. If they did, the people around him would know about magic and monsters. “Do you know where your aunt and uncle live? What is their address?”
“Three eight three five Startouch Drive, Pasadena, California, nine one one oh seven.”
“California?” Jane echoed with dismay.
Joey nodded.
Returning him to his family wasn’t going to happen any time soon. She had no idea how she was going to get him back to Earth. With the EIA infiltrated by oni, she couldn’t use official channels. She knew that there were people that smuggled in illegal immigrants, but for the time being, she could trust no one but family. Jane couldn’t even call Joey’s aunt and uncle. She would have to wait until Shutdown when Pittsburgh returned to Earth to contact them. The poor people. She knew firsthand the grief that they must be going through.
That her family was still going through. Jane sighed, deciding to at least call her mother. She would still be at her café downtown. Jane would have to wait until her mother closed up; otherwise there might be strangers there to overhear the conversation. Actually, Jane realized it would be best to just ask her to come to Hyeholde and not to go into details on the phone.
Said conversation did not go as planned. Her mother was tired and already upset. Jane’s youngest brother, Guy, had been in yet another fight at summer school.
“Mom! Mom! I’ll knock some sense into Guy! Just…please…I need you here. It’s really important.”
“Can’t you come to the house?”
Her mom still lived on their old street. The world’s biggest gossips, Mike and Mitsuko Barker lived in the house next door. The Barkers were the type of people that you could trust with your kids but not your secrets. The standing joke was “Telephone, telegraph, tell a Barker.”
“Mom, my boss saddled me with two new people…”
“Yes, Mitsy Barker was telling me about them. She saw you on the television with Chloe Polanski. Nigel Reid! What’s he like?”
What her mom was really asking was “do you find him sexually attractive?” and “can I start asking about grandchildren?” One would think raising seven children was enough for anyone, but apparently it was the people who had lots of kids that looked forward to a houseful of even more.
For some reason all Jane could think of was Taggart wearing only his pajama bottoms and the arrow of dark hair pointing down to his beltline. And the fact he smelled heavenly at all times.
“Jane?” Which really meant, “You didn’t say ‘no’ like usual.”
“There’s someone I really want you to meet,” Jane said truthfully. “Not Nigel. Someone else. But I’m really tied up here and can’t bring them to the house.”
“Okay.” Her mother’s voice was fully of surprise and curiosity. “I’ll be there as soon as I can. I’ll stop and pick up something to cook.”
Translation: I’ll properly welcome this mystery man into the family.
“That would be good.” Jane hung up. She leaned her head against the kitchen wall and considered banging it a few times. Why was it easier to deal with the heavily armed oni than her family?
Taggart chose that moment to walk into the kitchen. “Are you okay?”
“Yes.” My mother is coming to pin someone down and force them to propose. And she’s not picky as to who. “No.” Considering the last forty-eight hours, maybe that was the wrong thing to say. “I’m not sure.” Jane didn’t want to explain her mother’s pending siege, so she tackled the other thing that had her unbalanced. “I never thought it would turn out this way. I mean, this is the way I wanted it to. Prayed it would. But I always thought that if we were lucky, the most we’d ever recover was a few gnawed bones that we’d never be totally sure were hers. This? This is too good to be true. I keep thinking I’ll wake up and find out it was a dream.”
Taggart smiled gently at her and leaned in close. “It’s not a dream. You’re awake and she’s in the other room, safe and sound, watching a movie. Harry Potter, I think.”
Chesty stood up, alert but not growling.
“We’re getting visitors.” Jane went to her gun rack and got down her rifle.
Taggart glanced to Chesty. “Trouble?”
“Probably not, but I wasn’t expecting anyone. Stay put.”
Outside she could hear the deep rumble of a big truck coming. As it neared, the timbre grew familiar. It was her brother Alton’s Ford pickup. She swung her rifle onto her back, but stayed hidden from sight while he slowed and turned into her long drive.
When she was sure it was only Alton, she drifted out to meet him. He took note of the rifle on her shoulder. He lifted his rifle out of his gun rack before swinging down out of the cab.
“What’s wrong?” He scanned the woods around Hyeholde. Alton had been as fair as Boo as a child. Since their baby sister had disappeared, he’d grown increasingly dark and scruffy. His honey-blond hair was down to his shoulders, and recently he’d stared to grow a beard.
“Nothing’s wrong,” Jane said. “Just being careful.”
“Ah.” He sounded unconvinced. “So Brandy called me for no reason at all to tell me to hunt you down and sit on you.”
“Like that would work.”
He shrugged. All her brothers were tall and strong but they’d had a lifetime of being whooped by Jane. They were naturally reluctant to get her riled up but pride made them equally reluctant to admit that they were scared of her.