From somewhere deep within the house, many voices begin to fill the halls. They arrive behind us and steadily walk through the kitchen toward the dinner table. Arek is at the helm, followed by the boy from the trolley, their cheeks and noses pink from cold. Behind both are the blonde woman and her boyfriend from BART and Elizabeth. My nerves take root a bit more.
In the corner of the kitchen, Arek speaks quietly with Kilon for just a moment. The room is close to silent. After several minutes, everyone takes their seats around the large table. I try to keep my eyes down since everyone stares. In a strange situation, only Ian touches the waiting food.
“Everyone had better eat this dinner. I’ve worked hard,” Sassi warns.
“Sorry, Sassi. It just seems strange,” the boy from the trolley says.
He has intense green eyes like Arek. In fact, after a few minutes of watching him, it is apparent that they look alike. The kid won’t look me in the eye but sits silent with a furrowed brow. Arek reaches over and places a hand on the top of his head with obvious affection.
“I thought she was back,” the boy whispers. Immediately people fidget in their seats.
“What do you mean?” I ask, yet no one answers. “Clearly he’s talking about me. You’ve been at the store for the last month.”
The kid nods.
“This is Peter.” Arek sits back in his chair and hits the kid with his elbow. “My dad’s youngest . . . my half brother.”
With a full mouth Ian interrupts, “Who’s gonna take the time to tell us what we want to know?”
“Ian, don’t,” I say.
“No, come on Willow. We deserve to know something.”
“Ian, stop.”
“I don’t understand and it’s about time that someone tries to help us. Otherwise we’re leaving.”
Sassi has a sip of her wine, then takes the bait. “When you were only three, you got lost in Union Square in the middle of San Francisco. After that, your mother would dress you nearly every day in the same clothes and say, ‘I want to always—”
I interrupt, “—know where you are.” I look at her carefully. “How do you know that?”
Arek continues, “When you were thirteen, you decided to ride your bike with your friends farther than your mother wanted you to go. So, as you headed through the Embarcadero you fell from your bike and hurt your hand. There was a woman who was nice enough to drive you home. Her name was Ellen—”
I finished the name with him, “Ellen Bonham.”
Ian chuckles, “How do we know that they haven’t found these things out from someone else? Google anyone?” he accuses.
Arek pays no attention—he is laser focused on me. “After your mother’s funeral last year, you realized that you couldn’t find her letter that you had taken with you to the cemetery.” My cheeks flush as he continues his story, “You searched everywhere because it was the last one from her. When you couldn’t find it, you fell asleep with your phone in your hand after calling everyone you knew to see if they had it.”
“The letter was on my pillow the next morning when I woke up.” I stare at Arek as though he’s the only one in the room and he doesn’t look away. “I thought I lost it,” I whisper.
He grins. “No. It fell under your chair at the funeral.”
“You put it on my pillow without me knowing? How?”
The people at the table chuckle and Peter chimes in, “Arek’s been trained to live in the Shadows. He used to be a Shadow Ghost.”
Ian jumps up, sending his chair to the floor and making the plates clatter. True to his nature he waits a millisecond before grabbing my shoulder rather forcefully, to which I see tension grow across the table. “Let’s go.”
“Ian—” Arek doesn’t continue as Ian’s body begins to sway. There is great danger of his gladiator-size body falling forward onto the table and sending food flying, but Ian is smart enough to sit back down, his eyes half-mast.
“No . . . you . . . dooon’t,” Ian says as he points at Kilon, but he can’t finish before his head hits the plate of food.
Sassi shakes her head. “Must you keep doing that?”
Kilon laughs and it lightens the mood for everyone else. “Come on, you’re telling me you want to listen to this guy?” Kilon asks.
“You can’t just put him to sleep every time you want him to shut up.” Sassi gets to her feet and walks to Ian. “Besides, look at him. It’s going to take all our strength to move him back to his room—not to mention the headache he’ll have when he wakes up.”
This is surreal. My eyes are wide and my mouth open as I study the crowd at the table. “How do you do that?”
“I get into their head.” Kilon grins as he takes a bite of biscuit. “You were a teacher,” he states—probably knowing more about me than I want him to.
“Yeah.”
“In order for you to be a teacher, you have to go to school and study. But all the studying in the world doesn’t make you a good teacher. You have to have the knack for it—like a natural talent.” He shrugs his shoulders with confidence. “Well, that’s my talent. Everyone here, in one way or another, knows how to hypnotize someone to sleep. Hypnotism just happens to be what I excel at. That’s the luxury of being a Velieri—all the time in the world to be the best—” He winks at me. “Do you think Bruce Lee became a master from just one lifetime?”
My eyes widen, as I let that thought sink in. “Bruce Lee was Velieri?”
“He IS Velieri.” Kilon nods, with a telling grin. “There are many you already know.” He scoops several pounds of potatoes on his plate.
“Kilon, let’s introduce ourselves,” Sassi says after she decides to let Ian sleep soundly on his plate and sits back down next to Kilon.
“Why don’t you go first?” Sassi suggests to the blonde woman from BART.
“I’m Beckah Rykor.” Her tomboyish voice is quirky along with her mannerisms. “Arek’s my cousin and he introduced you and me. Ever since then, you and I were inseparable . . . well, except for the past thirty-three years, of course.” She winks at me.
“So, in this world, how do you know how old anyone is?” I hesitantly ask.
