“Remember Gran?” she threw over her shoulder as she headed for the door. “Multiply her by twelve.”
“Breathe,” Michael suggested. “The plane’s on the ground. It’s too late to change your mind.”
He had a point. Passing out from lack of oxygen wouldn’t help.
Allie took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and tried unsuccessfully to ignore the omens that said reality was about to shift in a big way. A man in a cheap suit with a sample case at his feet moved away from the crowds before starting to talk into his cell phone, keeping his voice low and unobtrusive. Three small children sat cross-legged on the floor at their mother’s feet and colored quietly. Two young men were having a quiet conversation with the young woman in the Information Booth who seemed to be actually giving them information. Outside, although construction had put a not inconsiderable ripple in the traffic flow, things seemed to be moving smoothly without horns or profanity.
It was creepy.
“Allie…”
“I hear them.”
Twelve women all talking at once made a lot of noise. Especially since at least two of them were going deaf and refusing to admit it. Allie braced herself and then, as the aunties appeared from the baggage pickup, closed her hand around Michael’s arm.
“Ow.”
“Sorry.”
“They know it’s a real organization, right?”
“Oh, yeah. They run the local group. Actually, they pretty much are the local group.”
“So why…?”
Allie sighed. “I’m pretty sure they consider it to be gang colors.”
Each of the aunties wore purple. And a red hat. Many different shades of purple. Many different kinds of hats. Four of them were wearing straw cowboy hats bought at the Darsden East dollar store, spray painted red and individually decorated. The aunties quite enjoyed being crafty.
Auntie Gwen, at fifty-eight, the youngest by about six years, looked vaguely annoyed by the attention they were getting. The other eleven were reveling in it.
“It’s a good thing you didn’t ask them to be stealthy,” Michael murmured, raising his other arm and waving it.
“This is stealthy,” Allie snorted. “Nothing’s blowing up.”
“Alysha Catherine!” The volume of the surrounding chatter lowered considerably as Auntie Jane stopped an arm’s length away. Heaven forbid the entire airport not get a chance to hear what she had to say. “Still teetering on the edge, are you?” Dark eyes narrowed. “Were you one of your cousins, I’d assume you were waiting for our approval. As you aren’t and as you are, in point of fact, becoming remarkably like your grandmother, I can only assume there’s something wrong with your young man.”
“There’s nothing wrong with him, Auntie Jane. We had a misunderstanding, we’re in the middle of a situation, and we’re taking it slow.”
“Gale girls don’t misunderstand, the situation can only be improved by you tying up loose ends, and you’re taking it slowly.” Auntie Jane had been the terror of the Lennox and Addington County school board, teaching grade seven and eight English at every school in the district until she retired some years after the mandatory retirement age. The aunties considered government regulations to be more a set of guidelines. With Allie put in her place, she turned to Michael and sniffed, “Talked to your young man yet?”
Allie felt the muscles in his forearm tense under her hand. “No, Auntie Jane.”
“And why not?”
“It’s not… We aren’t…”
Nudging him into silence, Allie took half a step forward. The old woman had no right to dig at Michael. “I don’t think that’s any of your business, Auntie Jane.”
The silence in the terminal was so complete Allie felt like she’d just tried to smuggle a lip gloss through security without placing it first into a clear, one-liter plastic bag. The sound of a red Styrofoam bird falling from the brim of Auntie Christie’s hat was impossibly loud.
“You don’t think that’s any of my business?” Auntie Jane repeated slowly.
“No, I don’t,” Allie told her. “For what it’s worth, I don’t think it’s any of my business either. It’s between Michael and Brian.”
Auntie Jane stared at her for a long moment—didn’t quite tip her head to the side so she could bring each eye to bear independently, but it was close. Then she glanced over at Michael. Then she smiled. “Well, all right, then. And you’re both too old now to give me a hug?”
Michael moved first; Allie could feel the relief rolling off him like smoke. She held back just a little, just enough to come to his rescue if affection turned out to be a trap. It didn’t seem to, and once Auntie Jane had gotten her hugs, the other aunties moved in, and, from the shoulders down, Michael disappeared behind a swarming mass topped off in an embarrassment of scarlet feathers.
Allie backed up to find Katie standing draped in canvas tote bags stuffed full of neck pillows filled with buckwheat and flaxseed.
“I hate you so much right now,” she sighed.
“You know I wouldn’t have called in a full circle if it hadn’t been the end of the world.”
Katie snorted. “I’d have bet serious money on you preferring the end of the world.”
“So how did you get roped into this?” Allie asked, taking a couple of the bags as the aunties, singly and collectively, offered advice to every single person who’d been with them on the plane as they ran the gauntlet of red and purple in an attempt to leave the airport.
“Officially, because I’m self-employed and can take off at a moment’s notice. Unofficially,” she continued when Allie snorted because a first circle could have swept up as much of the family as they felt they required, “I suspect I’m competition for the young man you’ve found.”
“Competition?”
“You’re the only Gale girl he’s met…”
“Charlie…”
“Please.” Katie flashed a smile at the first of the baggage handlers. He blushed and ran the loaded cart into a pillar. “The aunties want to be sure he’s serious, they want to make sure the attraction isn’t part of the sorcerer’s plot, and they figure I’m enough like you to confuse him.”
“It isn’t like that.”
“Good.”
“It’s…” She wanted to say terrifying but was afraid Katie would misunderstand. “… real.”
“Well, duh.” Katie stopped, holding Allie back, keeping them from running up on the who gets to sit next to Michael in the bus argument. “It’s second-circle real, even I can feel that. You’re all connected to things.” She said connected like it was a dirty word. “I don’t get why you’d choose that, frankly.”
Allie could feel herself blush and hoped none of the aunties would turn and see her. “You’ll understand when you meet him.”
“He knew we were coming.” Auntie Jane patted at the arm of her purple jacket where the fabric was still smoldering. “You didn’t tell him you’d called us, did you, Alysha?”
Something squished under Allie’s shoe. She didn’t look down. “No, of course not!”
“No of course not about it,” Auntie Bea growled, picking the crimson brim of her hat up off the ruins of the desk. They hadn’t been able to keep the blast entirely contained within the workroom. She stepped away from the wreckage, closer to Allie. “You did keep him hidden from us. Don’t even try to deny it.”
“I didn’t tell you where he was,” Allie admitted, standing her ground. “But I had my reasons.”
“Your reasons…”
“Leave it, Bea,” Auntie Jane cut her off. “No one thinks clearly while they’re changing.”
“That wasn’t…” Auntie Jane’s expression clamped Allie’s teeth shut on the protest. Let the aunties believe what they wanted. They would anyway, and it wasn’t like she’d done David any good.
“He’s definitely made a run for it.” Auntie Christie backed out of the destroyed closet, dusting ash off her hands. “But when the workshop imploded, it covered his tracks pretty thoroughly.”
“It could be years before we find him again,” Auntie Kay muttered. “Years.”