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“Oh. Oliver Marchand,” Mrs. McGlothen said grimly.

Both Olivers, the young one and the older one, looked up at her. My Oliver—the young one—seemed confused, but Gramps scowled right back. “Penelope,” he said to her. But he didn’t say “Pen-el-o-pe.” He pronounced her name “Pene-lope,” like antelope. “You’re the only one who never called me Ollie,” he continued. “Go ahead and give it a try.”

“I’ll call you that when you decide to say mine correctly, you—”

“Penelope!” Vera interjected. She said it the normal way. “Watch your mouth.”

The rest of us stared at the three of them. “What’s the problem here?” Oliver asked.

“Nothing,” Gramps said. “We’ve had a long-standing dispute over names. We’re fine.”

“Fine,” Mrs. McGlothen snapped back. “Where are the drinks?”

So, that wasn’t the best way to start a party, and I couldn’t really understand what was happening. But Oliver’s neighbor had already finished her wine and was asking if I had anything stronger, and the timer I had next to the old oven was also sounding off with its pleasant little chime.

“I’ll help you,” Oliver told me and we went into the kitchen, leaving the unhappy guests behind us.

“What’s going on with them?” I whispered to him. “I didn’t know they hated each other!”

“I didn’t know that, either,” he answered quietly. “I’ve never seen them together, not once. But now that I think about it, he always used to hurry through the lobby as fast as he could go. Maybe it was to avoid seeing her. Pene-lope.” He laughed under his breath.

“That’s not funny. She’s my guest,” I reminded him.

“Right, sorry.”

I watched him mouth it again, though, and then smile to himself. “When I first asked her about you, she had a lot to say,” I remembered. “But she didn’t mention anything about who your gramps was and how she hated him, which she obviously does.” I opened the oven door.

“Why were you asking her about me?”

I remembered how she’d referred to him as a cutie-patootie and my hands jerked a little. My knuckles skimmed against the top burner. “Ouch!” I exclaimed. I took out the pan and rested it on the stovetop, and then I quickly turned on the cold water in the sink to soothe the hot sting.

“Oh,” Oliver said. He stepped closer and bent down, putting his face near the tap. “It’s—”

“Will you please get me some ice for my knuckle? I have to go back out there and check on Gramps and Pene-lope. I mean, Mrs. McGlothen,” I quickly corrected myself.

He wrapped a cube in a paper towel for me and then went out to the living room himself, promising that he would physically intervene if they were fighting. I took a moment to pour another glass of wine, because I didn’t have anything stronger for his neighbor, and also went out, with the ice held to my finger.

It was quiet in the living room, but it didn’t feel peaceful. Instead, I had a sense of foreboding when I waked in. Two guests were glaring at each other, Oliver looked uncomfortable, and his neighbor Ann was playing on her phone. Vera just looked sad.

This was really, really not a good party, and then it got even stranger.

“Hello?” someone called loudly from the hallway outside. “Hekate?”

“What’s that?” Gramps asked.

“It’s actually Katherine,” I informed him, and ran to open the door. Only one person used that name anymore.

“Hek—”

“It’s Katherine!” I interrupted my mom. She stood on the navy runner with her arms open and a pile of bags behind her. To the side was a guy about my age, puffing on a vape. “You can’t do that in this building!” I told him.

“What’s going on?” Oliver asked. He stood at my shoulder and when I glanced back, I saw the rest of the dinner guests crowded in my hallway behind him.

“Who is this?” Mom asked me and smiled at him. “Are you with Hekate?”

“Who?” he wondered.

“Your name is Hekate?” Mrs. McGlothen asked. She stared at me and said it with much more of an accent than even my mom, kind of a funny pronunciation. But any way you said it, it was wrong.