Page 107 of Demon and the Raven

“Like Mrs. Bauer?”

“Exactly,” she said, smiling. “The man who works at her store with her. Was it him?”

“No,” JJ told her, shaking their head. “It’s where you took us to see the bamboo.”

Amanda looked at me. “Bamboo?”

“Yeah,” I told her. “At Sanctuary. Malachi Gant has that whole area in the back. Is he the plant guy?”

JJ nodded. “He had Sylvia put the besom on a paper towel.”

“Okay.”

“He told her he was allergic too, and then he took it away.”

I squinted at JJ. It never occurred to me to question their memory because JJ remembered everything. Sometimes too much.

“I’ll have to ask Mr. Gant about the besom, JJ,” Amanda said.

They nodded. “And if he still has it, he could bring it back.”

“Yes,” she granted, her gaze meeting mine.

“But we should make a new one now,” Toby insisted. “So the office stays protected.”

“I agree,” Amanda told him.

“I’ll go get the other stuff, okay?” he asked me.

“Yeah. Go get whatever you think is right.”

“I’ll help,” JJ said, scrambling after their brother.

Alone at the table, Amanda and I both took several sips of tea before she said, “Sylvia was not allergic to that besom.”

“I’m guessing you would have mentioned that to me so we could have made one that didn’t give her hay fever.”

She nodded.

“That’s weird, right?”

“Very.”

My eyes filled quickly.

“Xan?” Amanda asked, sounding worried. “What is it?”

“I like Mal. He’s a nice, kind man, and I consider him a friend.”

“I know. I feel the same.”

“But he took a protective piece out of your office, and that’s bad, but then he didn’t tell you, which makes it worse.”

“Yes, it does.”

We both sat there quietly, thinking, and then I made a besom and Amanda showed JJ how to weave a sweetgrass braid into a daisy crown. She had learned all these things living with me all those years ago.

When Lorne returned three hours later, we were all outside. JJ, wearing their crown, was foraging for pieces of antler on the other side of the stream. Toby was across the yard, sketching Argos, who was lying in the sun beside him. And Amanda and I shared a big blanket in the shade, sipping lemon and lavender iced tea while discussing Malachi Gant and Lorne’s theory.