She was packing her white silk pajamas—in a reluctant acknowledgment of the information age, Keepers were instructed to wear something that could appear on the six o’clock news in front of those unavoidable live camera shots of rubble—when the phone rang.
“Hello?” Expecting it to be Dean, she was more than a little surprised to hear her younger sister’s voice.
“Whatever it is you’re about to do, don’t do it.”
Claire sighed. “Good morning, Diana. Why aren’t you in school? Stop calling me at work. And stop thinking you know how to run my life better than I do.”
“I’m at school.” A sudden rise in background noise suggested the phone had been held out for aural emphasis. “You’re probably just packing. And I don’t think I know how to run your life better than you do, I’m sure of it.” She moved the phone not quite far enough from her mouth and yelled, “Gimme a minute!” before continuing. “Look, I had a major precognitive thing going on last night and you’re about to make a huge mistake.”
Claire sighed again. In the best metaphysical tradition, Diana, as the younger sibling, was the more powerful Keeper—unfortunately, Diana was well aware of that. Fortunately, she hadn’t discovered that, as all the other Keepers had been only children, she was the only younger sibling any Keeper had. It gave her the wiggins. The very last thing Diana needed to know was that she, at an obnoxious seventeen, was the most powerful Keeper on Earth. “What kind of a huge mistake?”
“Beats me.”
“Can you give me some idea of scale?”
“Nope. Only that it’s huge.”
“That’s not very helpful.”
“I do what I can. Gotta blow, calculus beckons.”
“Diana…”
“Kisses for kitty. And you might want to help Dean with those packages.”
Deleting a few expletives, Claire hung up and hurried across the room as Dean returned with breakfast, his entrance turning into an extended production bordering on farce as he attempted to deal with two bags of takeout, the room key, and a cold wind from across the parking lot that kept dragging the door from his grip.
“It’d be easier if you’d come farther into the room,” Claire pointed out, taking the bags.
Flashing her a grateful smile, he gained control of the door. “I’m trying not to track slush on the carpet.”
Claire glanced down. All things considered, she doubted that a little slush would hurt, but then she wasn’t the person who’d borrowed cleaning supplies from the housekeeping staff at every cheap motel they’d stayed in. The strange thing was, given how paranoid many of them were about releasing an extra sliver of soap, he almost always succeeded.
By the time she returned her attention to Dean, he had his coat off and was bending over his boot laces. And that was always worth watching. Perhaps his success with various housekeeping staffs wasn’t so strange after all.
“Are you okay?” she asked, wondering if he’d recently found a way to iron his jeans or if they’d been ironed so often the creases had become a structural component of the denim. “You’re moving a bit tentatively.”
“My glasses fogged,” he explained straightening. With one hand he pushed dark hair back from blue eyes and with the other he removed his glasses for cleaning.
Austin muttered something under his breath that sounded very much like, “Superman!”
Claire ignored him and began unpacking the food, fully conscious of Dean walking past her into the bathroom. He smelled like fresh air and fabric softener. She’d never considered fabric softener erotic before.
“Sausages?” Whiskers twitched. “I wanted bacon.”
“You’re having geriatric cat food.”
“We’re out.”
“Nice try. There’s four cans left.”
He looked disgusted. “I’m not eating that. Those cans came out of the garbage.”
“Interesting you should know that since you were in the bathroom when I found them.”
Drawing himself up to his full height, he shot her an indignant green-gold glare with his one remaining eye. “Are you accusing me of something?”
Claire looked at him for a moment, then turned to Dean as he returned to the main room. “Dean, did you put Austin’s cat food in the garbage?”
He had the grace to look sheepish as he took both plates of food from her and put them on the table. “Not this time.”
“Then, yes, I’m accusing you of something.” She popped the top of one of the cans, scooped out some brown puree onto a saucer with a plastic spoon and pushed it along the dresser toward the cat. “You’re seventeen and a half years old; you know what the vet said.”
“Turn your head and cough?”
“Austin…”
“All right. All right. I’ll eat it.” He sniffed the saucer and sighed. “I hope you realize that I plan on living long enough to see them feeding you stewed prunes at the nursing home.”
Claire bent down and kissed the top of his head. “It wouldn’t be the same without you.”
They ate in silence for a few moments. It wasn’t exactly a comfortable silence. Finally, Claire stopped eating and watched Dean clean his plate with the efficiency of a young man who hadn’t eaten for over six hours. She usually liked watching him eat.
He paused, the last bite of toast halfway to his mouth. “Something wrong?”
Aren’t we supposed to be talking about last night? “Diana called.”
“Here?” The last of his toast disappeared.
“Well, duh.” Why aren’t we talking about last night?
“Is she in trouble?”
“No, she just passed on a warning.” I have an explanation; don’t you want to hear it?
“About what?”
“She didn’t know.” Why are we talking about my sister?
“Helpful.” Plate cleaned, Dean picked up his coffee and leaned back in his chair, carefully peeling back the plastic lid.
Things seemed to be going nowhere. Claire picked up her own cup and took a long swallow. She could read nothing from his expression, couldn’t tell if he was just being polite—and Dean was always polite—or if he honestly wasn’t bothered—and Dean was so absolutely certain of his place in the world that not a whole lot bothered him. This was one of the things Claire
