Page 87 of Demon and the Raven

“No idea.”

“Would he have sent them?”

He meant Arawn. “You’ve seen him. If he were going to save us, he would have come himself or sent his dogs.”

“He wouldn’t let you die, would he?”

“No, but he also doesn’t interfere unless things are truly dire.”

“That felt dire,” he said, widening his eyes.

“Yes, it did. But maybe that was the point.”

“What’re you—oh. To test us. To see what we would do.”

“Or could do.”

“I hate this.”

It went without saying that I agreed with him. “There are ghosts in that graveyard, especially where they were. Shelby is a clairvoyant and obviously has no clue how susceptible she is to spirits.”

“You’re saying everything that was happening when we got there was what, normal?”

“Normalish,” I offered. “Yeah.”

His eyebrows lifted, and there was a trace of a smile. We were calming down just talking together, and it was such a comfort. It reinforced what I had come to count on. That things could slip into absolute craziness, but the balance always returned with our shared communion. I was so lucky to have him in my life.

“Before I moved here, if I’d been called to a scene and found Shelby floating and everyone else freaking out, I would have run.”

I scoffed. “No way. Not you, Lorne MacBain. You’re made of much stronger stuff.”

“Fine. But I also wouldn’t have believed what I was seeing.”

“Which again goes to your earlier point—if we trust our eyes and believe what we’re seeing, do we also, later, make rationalizations to reassure ourselves we’re not going nuts?”

“Like the trucker with the whole I thought I saw a deer.”

“Exactly. Because you and I know that yes, there was a beautiful, otherworldly white stag there, and if we were looking at it, then so was he.”

“But afterward, his mind was telling him that couldn’t be because otherwise, where the hell did it go?”

“Well said.” I smiled at him as he covered our joined hands with his other, wanting even more contact.

“Okay. So going back to the kids and Shelby specifically, that floating thing, being basically taken over by a spirit or spirits, that’s normal for her?”

“I think so, yes.”

“She needs help.”

“Oh, I agree. I think I have a charm to help shore up her psychic defenses, and a recipe for casting herbs.”

“Sounds like you want to bring her home with us.”

“I think we need to bring them all home, but we’ll have to see where they are when they wake up.”

“Like, they could all start screaming.”

“Wouldn’t you?”