Freaky February

by EGB Fan

Roland is working up the nerve to propose, Kylie is finally ditching the goth look and Garrett is hoping for a challenge on Friday the thirteenth...

Disclaimer: Ghostbusters and Extreme Ghostbusters © Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis and Fil Barlow. John and Eden Spengler © Fritz Baugh. All other original characters © the author.

Extreme Ghostbusters: Freaky February

Wednesday, February 11th 2009

Kylie Griffin and Grace Temple were both thinking about their lives. For each of them, an important day was fast approaching, and they were both beginning to feel just a little bit anxious. Then, whether by some unknown force or by complete coincidence, they happened to collide with each other in the supermarket, both of them thinking too hard to concentrate on where they were going. They both apologised profusely, then recognised each other, and indulged in friendly exclamations of, "Hi! How are you?"

Then Grace decided that she wanted to talk about it, so she said, "When we're done, do you want to grab a coffee or something?"

Kylie, thinking that maybe she should share her thoughts - and perhaps (hopefully) realise that her Big Thing wasn't as big as all that - said, "Sure."

So they went to the nearest place that sold coffee and had indoor seating accommodation.

Grace got the ball rolling. "I think Roland might be going to propose."

"What makes you think that?" asked Kylie, knowing perfectly well that she herself had lent Roland Jackson her seven-year-old daughter, Conchita - who knew a few things - just days before, and they had gone out together to buy an engagement ring. Conchita had come back tired but happy, and Roland had come back with considerably less money.

"Well," said Grace, "you know what he's like - he's not very good at keeping secrets or planning surprises, is he?"

"No, I guess not. So… should I warn him not to?" Kylie liked Roland very much indeed, and did not want to see him heartbroken.

Grace shook her head. "No, no, don't do that. I'd really love to be married to Roland."

"Then why do you look so down about it?"

"I just… I have to decide, like, soon whether I want to have any more children."

"Why?"

"Because I can't say yes to him unless I know I want to have his babies."

"Why can't you?"

"Because," said Grace, "clearly Roland wants kids more than anything else in the whole world. If I'm not prepared to give him that, it's not fair for me to marry him."

"So what would you do?" asked Kylie. "Dump him?"

"Well… yeah, I guess so."

"Y'know, Grace," said Kylie, "I don't think that's really the choice you have to make. I mean… Roland loves you, and I really think he'd rather stay with you and Natalie than go looking for a woman who wants babies that he might never even find."

"But he will find someone, though, won't he?" said Grace. "He already has. There's that other woman."

"What other woman?"

"That one you guys dealt with a while ago - the bisexual slut."

Kylie raised her eyebrows. "Celine? You mean he… told you about Celine?"

Grace rolled her eyes. "Crazy, huh?"

"Yeah. Look, Grace… you don't have to worry about Celine, okay? She's nuts. She and her girlfriend once reanimated the corpse of an aborted foetus, and… well, never mind. Anyway, Roland… it'd be all right having a baby with him, wouldn't it?"

"On paper, yes. But the last time I had a baby… I mean, I love Natalie more than anything - you know I do. But when I had her, I had no idea what I was doing. I know a lot of women say that - I know you say that - but I really had no IDEA what I was doing! And then my marriage broke up, and I was stuck-… that's the wrong word. I had this baby… who I loved… and it was just the most incredibly scary thing. I mean, I muddled through, but it was crazy - and the whole time I just assumed I'd never do it again."

"Yeah," said Kylie, "but you were nineteen."

"Yeah, I know. I still can't believe how stupid that was."

For the first time since she had known her - getting on for two years now - Kylie really saw Grace's dilemma. She loved her daughter as much as any good mother, and she wasn't really allowed to say she would have done things differently if she had known better. But marrying on impulse at eighteen certainly hadn't been a good idea, and if one was going to be cold and practical, Natalie should probably never have happened.

"But," said Kylie, "you're older and smarter now - and you are thinking of getting married again, even though the first time was a mistake."

Grace curled her lip slightly. "So I might as well have a baby too, huh?"

"Well… yes, that's basically it. You know more or less what you're doing now, and Roland would probably want to do most of it for you anyway, if you let him. He loves kids, and he's incredibly responsible. I mean, Spence isn't exactly responsible, is he?"

"Well," said Grace, "you could say that. If you wanna say Einstein wasn't exactly stupid, or Mother Teresa wasn't exactly a Satanist."

"Well then," said Kylie. "I'm not saying you have to have a baby if you don't want to, of course - I'm just saying that it won't be like last time."

"Yeah, I guess. Still… I've been a mom since I was kid myself, and I always thought that one day I'd… I don't know, I'll think about it some more. I've got three days, probably."

"Three days? That's very precise."

"Valentine's Day."

"Oh. You guys are into that, huh?"

"Well," said Grace, "Roland likes it, and I never really had a chance to do it after Natalie put my love life on hold for all those years, so… yeah, we're into that. Why - aren't you? Are you and Eduardo a pair of those I-Hate-Valentine's-Day people?"

Kylie shrugged. "We're not that bothered either way. But the thing is it's my birthday on the twelfth, and Rosie's on the thirteenth, so that's about the all excitement we can take."

"Okay, fair enough," said Grace, smiling. "It'll be Friday the thirteenth, won't it?"

"Yeah, it will. It's Rose's first birthday on Friday the thirteenth since she was born."

"She was born on Friday the thirteenth, huh?"

"Yep. I had a great midwife with Rose - I really liked her - but a lot of the staff at the hospital were just so stupid about it being Friday the thirteenth, I really wanted to kill them. And they thought it was so funny that I was goth. There was this stupid girl who kept saying the baby was gonna be a demon - I don't even know what she did."

"I know what you mean," said Grace. "When I was having Nat, the doctor kept saying I should have hung on two more weeks, and then she'd have been a millennium baby. I mean, God, that was the last thing on my mind!"

"I'll bet," said Kylie. Then she decided to tell her, as it was vaguely relevant to what had been said. "Actually, I… I'm going to stop being goth. Tomorrow."

Grace looked more surprised than Kylie would ever have expected. "Really? Why?"

Kylie shrugged. "I'm too old."

"Who says?"

"I'm a mother."

"You've been a mother for nearly eight years."

"Well, I'm not a teenager anymore - not by a long shot. No one knows about this, except for Eduardo and now you. I've just told you, so now I have to do it."

"You don't have to do it," said Grace. "I won't say anything if you don't."

"No, no, I will."

"But Kylie, it kind of sounds like you don't want to."

"Well…" Kylie considered this for a moment. "Let's just say it'll be weird. I've been this way for so long, and it…I, I haven't forgotten why I started, and I still feel the same way about… certain things. But I'm not a scared abandoned teenage girl who's obsessed with death anymore - I've moved on from that." Then she looked at Grace, and realised she had been talking mostly to herself. "Sorry - I guess I'm not making much sense."

"Well," said Grace, "I can't say I know exactly what you mean. But Kylie… being goth obviously means something to you. You shouldn't change unless you want to."

"I do want to," said Kylie, definitely not feeling that it wasn't such a Big Thing after all.

"Are you sure?" said Grace.

Kylie nodded. "Absolutely."

.-.-.-.

Thursday, February 12th

On the morning of her thirtieth birthday, Kylie fought the urge to put on her makeup - it just came naturally to her after so many years. But she mastered the impulse, instead putting on a pair of blue jeans and a black sweater. Just because she wasn't goth anymore, that didn't mean she had to dress like Barbie. Then she pulled her hair into a ponytail. She was thirty - it was about time she started being hygienic and practical at work. Then she was done. She didn't look at herself in the mirror - she knew what she looked like without makeup. It was the rest of the world that was going to be surprised.

"You look real pretty, Mom," said Conchita. She and her younger sister Rose had been warned of the change the night before, mostly for Rose's sake. She liked security, which meant people looking like they were supposed to, and she was not fond of surprises.

"Thank you, honey," said Kylie, kissing Conchita on the cheek. Then she went to kiss Rose as well. They were at the kitchen table, waiting to be fed. Their father, Eduardo Rivera, had given Kylie a private early-morning birthday present, and then let her get up at her leisure while he woke their daughters and started making breakfast.

"What's that?" Rose asked interestedly, looking at the item in her mother's hand, and knowing perfectly well what it was.

"That, Rose, is what is left of my makeup," said Kylie, dumping the small bag in the middle of the table. "Well, there's quite a lot. I thought maybe you girls could use it."

Rose was already rummaging through the bag. "What would you do with it otherwise?"

"Throw it out, I guess."

"Well, I guess I could play with it," said Conchita, pulling a black lipstick out of the bag and trying not to look too distasteful. "Unless you want it, Rosie…?"

"I do," Rose said at once.

"All right," said Conchita, this time trying not to sound too relieved. Kylie smiled indulgently at her dear, tactful daughter. If Rose had not wanted the makeup, Conchita would certainly have taken it and made sure her mother saw her playing with it.

"Breakfast," Eduardo announced, so Rose cleared the table by moving the makeup bag to her lap, where she nursed it protectively all through the meal.

After breakfast the girls wanted to give Kylie her presents, and looked disappointed when she started to say there wasn't time before school. So she said they could give her their cards, if they had any for her (which she knew they would), and if it was quick.

"The card's the best bit," Rose told her, when she had fetched her creation from its hiding place. Cards from Conchita and Rose were homemade every single time. Rose would simply fold a piece of card in half and then decorate it with surprising and imaginative two-dimensional art, while Conchita liked to do messy and ambitious things with items such as glitter, sequins and tissue paper.

"You know, you are both extraordinarily good at art," said Kylie, always amazed by what two children not yet eight and five could do. Then, when she felt she had admired the cards long enough, she said, "Okay, girls, time to get you to school. I'll come and pick you up if I can, but it'll be Daddy if I'm not back in time."

"We know," Rose said impatiently. She had been told - in her opinion, far too many times - that Kylie may or may not be at the school gates later, depending on how long she was out to lunch with her father.

.-.-.-.

It so happened that Kylie was still out with Steve Griffin when the time came to do the school run. That time of day was sometimes a little tense at Ghostbusters HQ, when everyone not fetching children from school hoped they would not be called out on a difficult job. The secretary, Janine Spengler, almost always went. Sometimes Eduardo or Kylie went, and occasionally their colleague Garrett Miller would go.

This was one of those days when it was so quiet, everyone just knew the phone would ring while Janine and - this time - Eduardo were gone. But funnily enough, it didn't. Roland, Garrett and their boss, Egon Spengler, were all either doing paperwork or procrastinating when Janine came back with her and Egon's twins, mere moments before Eduardo came back with his daughters.

"How was school?" Egon asked his offspring, when they came up to the rec room.

"We had to write acrostic poems for somebody we love," Eden said distastefully. "It was a complete waste of valuable learning time."

"Yeah, well, we're making cards tomorrow," said her brother, John, equally distastefully.

"Who did you write yours for?" asked Egon.

"You," said Eden, and she promptly produced the offering from her book bag, much to her father's surprise and delight.

Conchita and Rose, meanwhile, were having a hushed conversation that sounded rather suspicious. Eduardo looked at them, and said, "Everything okay?"

"Of course," Conchita said at once, and she smiled sweetly at him. "Please can we get something to eat, Daddy?"

"Of course you can," said Eduardo. He watched as his daughters disappeared into the kitchen, still whispering, and he felt sure that something was amiss.

Then Roland's voice cut into his thoughts. "Er… Eduardo…"

Eduardo turned his head, and saw that Roland was looking at Conchita's book bag. In fact, everyone was looking at Conchita's book bag. So Eduardo looked at Conchita's book bag too, and he saw at once why everyone was staring. His jaw dropped. For a moment, he was speechless. Then he finally managed to say, "Oh boy."

"This oughtta be good," said Garrett, sitting up straighter in his wheelchair.

Eduardo scowled at him, but Garrett was not the only one getting ready to enjoy the show. Egon, Roland, John and Eden were all looking at him too. Eduardo had no idea how he was going to tackle this, so he decided just to play it by ear. The first thing, of course, was to get his daughters back into the room. So he called, "Girls, can you come in here for a minute, please?"

Conchita and Rose trotted obediently back in, Conchita smiling invitingly, and Rose blinking enquiringly with big brown eyes somehow twice their normal size.

"Chita," said Eduardo. "What's that in your book bag?"

"What's what in my book bag?" Conchita asked innocently.

Eduardo just looked at her.

"Oh, that!" she said, realisation dawning on her face. She walked over to the bag, took the offending item into her arms and said, "It's a kitten, Daddy. Isn't he cute?"

As she said this, she approached her father - still wearing her best butter-wouldn't-melt face - and bundled the kitten into his arms. It was tiny - he could have held it one hand - with tabby fur and a pathetic little mew. Eduardo tickled its chin, and it started trying to eat his fingers.

"Yeah, he's cute all right," Eduardo conceded. "What's he doing here?"

"Mr. Yates was going to drown him," said Rose.

Eduardo looked at her, quite unable to understand this. He knew very well who Mr. Yates was; he was allegedly the school janitor, though he spent most of his time organising soccer matches with rival schools and hitting on the mothers at dropping off and picking up time. All of the dads hated him, Eduardo included, but he could not believe that Mr. Yates would wilfully drown a kitten. So he said simply, "What?"

"A cat came and had kittens in the school basement," said Conchita. "Mr. Yates found homes for all of them except this one. He said he was going to drown him if he didn't find someone who'd take him, but I don't know if he meant it."

"He did mean it!" said Rose.

"Well," said Conchita, moving to stand next to her sister, "either way, he didn't have anywhere to go. We did wait for someone else to take him, and then Mr. Yates said - "

Rose, never one to beat about the bush, interrupted. "Can we keep him?"

"Oh…" Eduardo looked down at their pleading faces, their huge eyes, their pouting lips. If he said no, he knew there would be tears. So he said, "Sure."

As one, his audience drew in their breath, while both girls - even Rose - broke into wreaths of smiles. They rushed at their father, hugged him, proclaimed "Thank you, Daddy!", then whisked the kitten out of his arms and started to play with it on the floor.

Finally, Roland said what everyone else was thinking. "Was that wise?"

"Well," said Eduardo, already feeling nervous of Kylie's return. "We had a cat before. I mean, if it had been any other kind of animal…"

"You would have caved in eventually," Garrett finished.

Eduardo sighed. It was true, and he knew it. "Well, maybe."

For nearly an hour, there was peace and contentment. John and Eden began to show an interest in the kitten so Rose, feeling crowded, pulled Kylie's old makeup out of her book bag and retreated to a lonely corner with it. She then wandered off, and shortly returned with a large cardboard box. Somewhere she found an enormous pair of scissors, which Eduardo screeched at her not to use, so she gave them to him and told him to cut through the corners of the box and flatten it out for her. He did so, and she found that she had a large piece of cardboard shaped like a cross. Happy with this, Rose settled down on the floor in her corner, and began to create a work of art with her mother's unwanted makeup.

After a while, Conchita approached Rose with the kitten in her arms.

"Don't let him get on my art," said Rose.

"I won't," said Conchita. "We need to give him a name."

That sparked an unheated but lengthy argument. Conchita suggested Aslan, but Rose knew that C.S. Lewis's Aslan was actually supposed to be God, and seemed not to think it an appropriate name for their new pet. Conchita then refused to go to the other extreme when Rose thought of the Wicked Stepmother's cat in Disney's Cinderella, and suggested the name Lucifer. Then their minds were stuck on Disney. Conchita, thinking it best to stick to cats, suggested Simba. Rose suggested Scar. Conchita wasn't keen on Mufasa, but she said it anyway, knowing Rose would reject it. Sure enough, she did.

"Bagheera," said Conchita, wondering how many more Disney cats they would think of.

"Shere Kahn," said Rose.

"He isn't evil," said Conchita.

"He might be," said Rose.

Then Kylie came back, bringing Steve with her. Conchita and Rose both fell upon their grandfather when they saw him, leaving their nameless kitten in the middle of the room. He started sniffing around Rose's art, so Eduardo moved him, waiting nervously for Kylie to speak. The room seemed suddenly fuller than before. People had dispersed over the past few minutes, but they were all back now, and Janine was with them. Even Slimer, the resident ghost, had left the kitchen to see what would happen next.

For what seemed a very long time, Kylie just stared at the kitten in bewilderment. Then finally she said, "Girls, what's with the cat?"

Rose said at once, "Daddy said we could keep him."

"Thanks, Rose," muttered Eduardo.

"Oh he did, did he?" Kylie cut a glance at Eduardo, then stooped to pick up the kitten. "Did Daddy also buy some cat food and kitty litter, and register him with the vet?"

"No," said Conchita, "but I'm sure he will."

"Why does he need the vet?" Rose asked sharply. She was mistrustful of vets ever since their last cat, Pagan, had had to be put down four months earlier.

"It's nothing to worry about, honey," said Kylie. "He'll need some shots, that's all, and at some point we're going to have to get him neutered."

"Who," said Conchita, "Daddy or the cat?"

Roland, Garrett and all of the Spenglers were faintly horrified to hear Conchita say this (Slimer did not react to it at all). But her immediate family - with the exception of Rose - all laughed. If there had been any ice, that broke it.

"Look," said Kylie, "I'm fine with it…"

Conchita and Rose squealed with delight, while Eduardo breathed a sigh of relief.

"Just don't make a habit of it!" Kylie yelled over her daughters' very vocal celebrations.

"What's his name?" asked Steve, as Kylie handed the kitten back to Conchita.

"They've been arguing about that for twenty minutes," said Eduardo.

Conchita resumed playing with the kitten; Steve joined her, and Rose rushed to rescue her art from Slimer, who was dangerously close to dripping on it. Kylie sat down on the sofa next to Eduardo, and said, "You are such a pushover."

"I know," said Eduardo.

"Any calls while I was gone?"

"No."

"Oh," said Kylie. "I hope we're not having a slump - we'll need money for that cat."

"Don't worry, Ky, it's Friday the thirteenth tomorrow," Garrett said brightly.

Kylie was not cheered by this at all. In fact she scowled, and said pointedly, "When do we ever get extra business on Friday the thirteenth? It's Friday the thirteenth a lot of the time - we only really notice it now because of Rose's birthday. There's no actual history behind the Friday the thirteenth superstition, so there's no reason to believe it's unlucky."

At that, Rose looked up and asked, "Really? Nothing?"

"No," said Kylie, with some finality. But then she went on, "Thirteen is considered an unlucky number in some cultures, but no one really seems to know why. Well… there are thirteen witches in a coven, but it's not really a magical number. Not like three and seven. There's no real history behind the number thirteen - it's just a dumb superstition."

"What about Friday?" asked Rose. She was concentrating on her artwork again, but evidently she was still listening to whatever her mother had to say.

"The same," said Kylie. "There's not really anything behind it - it's just some cultures say it's an unlucky day." She paused, then went on, "The days of the week are named after gods and goddesses. Friday is named after Frigga, who was the Norse goddess of love and fertility. There's a legend that says when Norse tribes converted to Christianity, Frigga was labelled as a witch and banished to a mountaintop."

"Then what happened?" asked Rose. She had covered her hands in white foundation, and was smearing it on her picture.

"Well," said Kylie, "for one day each week she met with eleven other witches, and the Devil - thirteen in total - and they plotted Frigga's revenge on the villagers, which she would carry out during the week. After that, Friday became the witches' Sabbath."

"That's something, then," said Rose, not looking up. "Friday, and thirteen."

"True," said Kylie. "But I really don't believe Friday the thirteenth is unlucky."

By this time, people had dispersed again - even Garrett, who had brought up the subject of Friday the thirteenth in the first place. Roland was visible at the kitchen table, through the doorway, but apart from that Kylie was left alone with her immediate family. Steve was hanging around because he wanted to spend time with his granddaughters, and also because he had offered to give them all a lift home later.

Suddenly, Conchita had a bright idea. She said, "Let's call him Iago."

That had to work. Rose was a big fan of Iago, the evil parrot from Disney's Aladdin. In the first sequel, he had become a great annoyance to her when her then three-year-old eyes had immediately spotted a continuity error (he was supposed to be in the lamp with Jafar, now an evil genie, but he wasn't). Then suddenly he had a complete character makeover. The evil, scheming little bird who'd had the idea of killing the princess and her father was suddenly on the side of the good guys. After this there was a TV series, and more movies, and Rose hated all of them. As a result, she disregarded anything but the original movie. As far as she was concerned, Iago was bad through and through.

Conchita, on the other hand, had an undying faith in human nature that spread beyond humans. It even extended to fictional parrots, and she believed that Iago - however one felt about subsequent productions after the original Aladdin - was not beyond redemption. Surely Rose would agree to give the kitten a name such as this. Each sister had an opposing view of his namesake, and therefore they made no promises or predictions about his character. A cat called Iago could be whoever he wanted to be.

Thankfully, Rose said, "All right."

"Good, a name at last," said Eduardo. "Sounds like my cue to call Dr. Holliday."

"Hold on," said Kylie. "I think you should go and get him something to eat first - he's probably hungry. And get some litter. You can take Dad's car - can't he, Dad?"

"Sure," Steve said meekly, and he gave Eduardo his car keys. Then, just as meekly, Eduardo went off in search of cat food and litter.

"You know, girls," said Kylie, "there's an Iago in Shakespeare."

"Which one?" Rose asked. Conchita didn't care - she was distracted with the Iago in the room - but Rose sounded genuinely interested.

"Othello," said Kylie.

"What does he do?"

"Well, he makes Othello believe that his wife Desdemona is cheating on him and sends him crazy, driving him to kill first Desdemona and then himself."

Rose looked up in surprise. "Why?"

"Oh, honey," said Kylie. "When I was at college, we spent hour-long sessions debating why Iago did what he did."

"And what did you decide?"

"We decided there was no way of knowing for sure."

Rose looked at her mother as though to say that taking a whole hour to reach such a flimsy conclusion was a silly waste of time - which, Kylie had to concede, it was. Then Rose went back to her picture, and asked, "What did they look like?"

"Othello was black," Kylie said at once. "Desdemona was as white as it's possible to be, and very beautiful. A lot of people thought they shouldn't get married. One theory is that Iago was just plain racist."

"That would explain it," Rose said sagely. "Was he white?"

"Yes."

"Did he have a beard?"

"If you like."

"How did Othello kill Desdemona?"

"He smothered her with a pillow," said Kylie. "Then he stabbed himself."

"If I had to pick," said Rose, "I'd rather be smothered with a pillow than stabbed."

Soon after that, Eduardo returned with several tins of cat food and a big bag of cat litter. Pagan's old litter tray was in storage at home, but easy to get to, because Eduardo had expected that one day the women in his life would feel ready for another cat. He took Iago into the kitchen to feed him, and Kylie went with them.

"It'll be nice having a cat around again," she said, leaning against Eduardo's shoulder as they - along with Roland, who still happened to be there - watched Iago eat and thought about how cute he was. "If we don't think of him as replacing Pagan."

"I don't think of him like that," said Eduardo.

"Hey… where the hell did he come from, anyway?"

So Eduardo explained as best he could. At the end of it, Kylie remarked on how amazing it was that Iago had travelled all the way from school to the firehouse in Conchita's book bag, and Eduardo had never suspected he was there.

"They were distracting me," he said.

"If Natalie was going to bring home an animal," said Roland, "it wouldn't be a cat. It would be something really silly, like a snake or a badger or something."

"You still got that ring safe?" asked Kylie, wondering whether Grace had made a decision yet about having Roland's babies. Hearing him talk about Natalie, it was obvious that he had grown to love her, baffled though he was by some of her ways. It would be a great shame, Kylie thought, if it all fell apart for whatever reason.

"Of course," said Roland.

"Are you going to admit Conchita helped you choose it?"

"I don't know. That's a bit premature - she hasn't even accepted it yet."

"Dude, don't worry," said Eduardo. "If I was a single mom, I'd marry you whether I was in love with you or not."

Kylie wondered whether she should say something. Of course she wasn't going to say that Grace was thinking about saying no, or that she was deliberating over whether or not she wanted to have more children. But perhaps there was something she could say… if only she could think of it!

But then Steve came into the room, and said, "Guys, Rose is crying."

"What?" said Kylie. "I can't hear her!" She rushed into the next room.

"She's doing it very quietly," Steve said to Eduardo. "I only noticed because she moved away from her art. I guess she's seen what tears do to makeup."

"Why is she crying very quietly without telling anyone?" asked Eduardo.

"I don't know, she won't say."

Alarmed, Eduardo followed Kylie through to the rec room. She was kneeling next to Rose and cuddling her, getting covered in makeup-turned-art materials, and Rose was crying quietly onto her shoulder. Eduardo went and knelt with them, and for a while he and Kylie just looked helplessly at each other. Then after a while Rose looked up and tried to say something, but she could only gasp, so she buried her face again and cried some more. Clearly, there was nothing to do but wait.

Eventually, the tears stopped. Rose pulled her face away from the crook of Kylie's neck, and said, "I was just thinking about Pagan."

"Oh, sweetheart," said Kylie, rubbing her back. "We all still miss Pagan."

"Well," said Rose, "now Iago's here."

She could not quite articulate how she was feeling, but Kylie knew exactly what she meant. Pagan had only been gone for four months, and it felt disloyal to take another cat into their affections so soon.

"Well honey, that's okay," Kylie said soothingly. "Iago isn't instead of Pagan."

"Then what is he?"

"He's, um… he's as well."

"We wouldn't keep him if Pagan was still here."

"Well," said Kylie, "no." Then she didn't know what to say, so she looked at Eduardo.

"He'd still be here now, though, wouldn't he?" said Eduardo, making it up as he went along, and feeling as though he were on a tightrope. "He needed someone to take him - you still would have done it. We would have just had to… find him another home."

"Right," said Kylie. "But now we don't have to."

"Because Pagan's dead," said Rose.

"Ye-es," Kylie said slowly. "Sweetie, that's just the way things have turned out. I don't think you need to get to upset over it. I'm sure Pagan won't mind us having another cat."

"He would if he was here."

"But he's not here."

Kylie waited, holding her breath, knowing that this could turn into a very long, very circular conversation if Rose wanted it to. But thankfully, she seemed satisfied. She dried her eyes on her sleeve, and then said, "Do you want to see my art?"

Kylie smiled at her. "Of course we do."

Rose crawled over to her artwork, and Eduardo and Kylie followed her. She had used up every scrap of makeup to create a picture in extreme black and white, as those were the only colours (or, if one wanted to be picky, non-colours) available to her. Each section of the cross had a different motif. Rose pointed to the bottom section, and began to explain.

"That's Pagan," she said. "He's in the ground because he's dead. But his spirit is over here." She pointed to the section on the left, which showed a somewhat gruesome scene, though she had used blood and gore to minimal effect. "He's with some other dead cats, and they're eating Dr. Holliday and Mr. Yates. Alive," she added, with relish.

"Why?" asked Eduardo.

"Because they kill cats."

"Oh."

"This is Frigga, the goddess Mommy was telling me about," said Rose. She pointed to the topmost section, which showed a figure drawn in black lipstick and mascara, standing with several other figures on a vast white mountaintop. This, then, was why she'd had to smother her hands with foundation. "She's with the Devil and eleven other witches, and those are the villagers she's having her revenge on." She pointed to the middle section of the cross, where several people were dying painfully in vivid white fire.

"This is all the Iagos," Rose went on, pointing to the section on the right. "That's Iago our cat, having his dinner, and that's Iago the parrot - he's eating Shakespeare's Iago's eyes, see?" She had evidently decided that Shakespeare's Iago did have a beard - a very deep black, like his blood. "And there's Othello, killing his wife with the pillow."

"Oh sweetie, culture, how fantastic," said Kylie, as Rose pointed to Othello. He was coloured with black eyeliner, and he wielded a pillow over a ghostly white woman.

"Will it last?" asked Rose.

"Mmm… I'm not sure," said Kylie, who had no idea as to the eventual fate of artwork constructed from makeup. "Maybe if we put it in something airtight…"

"Nothing can ever, ever touch it," said Rose.

"No, honey, I see that."

"How will we get it home?"

That was a difficult question. Steve would not have room for it in his car, with everyone else there - and besides, he had already agreed to drive with a loose animal, which he knew should never be done under any circumstances. He thought to ask Rose where she had got the cardboard box from, but unfortunately it had been the only one.

In the end, Roland once again demonstrated his capacity for kindness by driving the picture to the Riveras' apartment in the back of his car. Two of the flaps, and the middle, sat nicely on the backseat. Pagan and his dead cat friends, attacking poor and Dr. Holliday the vet, dangled safely down without danger of hitting the front seats. The three Iagos, Othello and Desdemona were more difficult. Rose had intended to travel with her picture anyway, as she could not have stood not knowing how it was, and she had to hold the right flap against the back of the seat as they drove. It was not an easy journey for Roland. Whenever the driving was not smooth, and the safety of the picture was in any way compromised, Rose would yell angrily, "I said be CAREFUL!"

.-.-.-.

Friday, February 13th

Conchita was woken at half-past midnight by Rose crawling over her legs and shaking her. They slept in bunk beds, with Conchita on top. Rose did not very often climb all the way up and onto her sister's legs, unless she was particularly distressed about something.

"Did you have a nightmare?" Conchita murmured sleepily. She reached out a hand with the vague intention of patting her sister consolingly, and caught her a glancing blow on the eyebrow. "Poor Rosie. Of course you can sleep in my bed."

"I didn't have a nightmare," Rose said irritably. "A cat jumped on my feet."

"That was Pagan," said Conchita, already beginning to go back to sleep.

"Yes!"

"No, no, no." Conchita shook her head, then turned over and tried to pull the covers over herself, but Rose was weighing them down. "Iago."

"Where is he, then?" said Rose triumphantly. "Iago isn't here. And anyway it was too big. It was a grown-up cat!"

"'Magination," murmured Conchita.

"No!" Exasperated beyond endurance, Rose slapped her sister sharply on the arm.

"OW!" said Conchita, her eyes snapping open.

"I want to go and look," said Rose.

Conchita closed her eyes again. "Okay."

"You have to come with me."

"Oh, Rose." She gave up, pushed her sister off her legs and sat up. "Why?"

"In case anything happens."

"I don't have a proton pack, Rose. Anyway, if you think it's Pagan then there's nothing to be scared of."

"You're awake now anyway."

With an almighty sigh, Conchita threw the covers off her legs. She shepherded Rose down the ladder, and then joined her on the floor. It was cold out of bed. She groped around in the dark, and found a sweater. Rose seemed not to notice the cold.

"I don't think he's in here," she whispered. "Come on."

Rose led the way through to the living room, where she began to conduct a thorough search. Conchita helped her look behind things, inside things and under things, only wanting Rose to be satisfied so that they could get back to sleep.

"There's nothing in here," Conchita said at last. "Let's go back to bed."

"We haven't looked in the kitchen," said Rose, and she made her way there.

Iago was in there, finishing off the dried cat food that had been left in his bowl - once the property of Pagan, of course. When he realised that he had company, he looked up and mewed cutely. Rose walked over to him, and gathered the kitten into her arms.

"It's because of him!" she said, holding Iago protectively against her chest. "Pagan's mad that we got a new cat!"

"No he's not," said Conchita. "Pagan wasn't like that."

Rose scowled deeply. "Don't you ever listen to what Mommy says? Ghosts don't always work like that! Sometimes they're nothing like who they were in real life!"

"Well," said Conchita, "we can ask Mom in the morning. Now let's go back to bed."

For a moment Rose didn't move, but then she relented and made for the doorway, still clutching Iago in her arms. They were almost back in their bedroom when Rose suddenly stopped, and Conchita saw that she was staring at the bathroom. Unusually, the door was closed. This was because Rose's picture was being stored in there, and if the door was left open, there was every chance Iago might decide to destroy the precious artwork. Steve had promised to find something - anything - that would protect the picture from damage, but in the meantime, it had to be spread out on the bathroom floor and surrounded by pillows, to stop sleepy bathroom-goers from stepping on it in the night.

"Pagan never went in the bathroom," said Conchita. "It was too cold and wet."

"He went in once or twice," said Rose. Then she went into their room and deposited Iago on her bunk, before coming straight back out again. She closed the bedroom door, and went over to the bathroom.

Instinct compelled Conchita to follow her, in spite of her wanting to go back to bed. For whatever reason, her little sister had clearly got herself worked up about something. Maybe she was just excited about her birthday, or maybe she really had convinced herself that Pagan's ghost had come to murder them all in their beds for their disloyalty.

When Conchita reached the bathroom, Rose was staring at the picture, illuminated in the artificial light from the street outside. The parts made from white foundation - the fire, the mountaintop, Desdemona's porcelain skin - showed up vividly.

"Chita," hissed Rose, as her sister drew up beside her. "It moved!"

"Rosie, come back to bed," said Conchita. "You've gotten yourself all worked up and you're imagining things. You'll feel better in the morning."

"Maybe," said Rose, "we can't find Pagan because he's gone to eat Mr. Yates and Dr. Holliday! Alive!"

"Oh no," said Conchita, "I don't think so."

"Maybe my picture is coming true! Iago was eating, just like he is there!" She pointed.

"He was just hungry - that's what cats do when they're hungry. I mean, look. No one's getting burnt to death, are they? No one's killing his wife with a pillow."

Rose gasped, whipped her head round and stared wide-eyed at her parents' bedroom door. Conchita wished she hadn't said anything.

"Why would your picture come true?" she asked. "You've done hundreds of pictures, and they've never come true before."

"Well… it's made of Mommy's makeup," said Rose.

"So?"

"So it's different! And… and it's Friday the thirteenth! And I made really horrible things happen in it! But I didn't want them to come true - I don't even really want Mr. Yates and Dr. Holliday to die! It's only supposed to be art!"

A door opened, and Rose - having got herself very worked up - let out a shriek. When she turned round, Kylie was emerging from her bedroom, looking very sleepy.

"What are you two doing out of bed?" she asked.

"You can't be mad at me," said Rose. "It's my birthday."

"I'm not mad at you, sweetie, I just want to know why you're standing in the bathroom yelling at this hour. What's the matter?"

Rose looked at her picture, then back at her mother, and mumbled, "Nothing."

"I think she had a bad dream or something," said Conchita, putting her arm around her sister's shoulders. "And she's probably all excited about her birthday, and she's worried about how Pagan would feel if he knew we had a new cat, and… well, that's all, really. Except… well, maybe you shouldn't have told her about witches planning revenge with the Devil, and guys who kill their wives with pillows. She's only little, Mom."

"Oh," said Kylie. Then she held out her hand to Rose, and said, "Come on, honey, let me put you back to bed."

Rose took her mother's hand, and let herself be led back to her bedroom. Kylie tucked her in all over again, while Conchita climbed up to the top bunk and found that Iago had made himself very comfortable there. She tried to move him, but he swiped at her with his claws and then spread himself out even further, so Conchita was forced to sleep at the foot of the bed for the rest of the night.

.-.-.-.

Spencer Daniels - Grace Temple's ex-husband, and Natalie Daniels' father - was taking a day off work. He took his ten-month-old son Shane out straight after breakfast, as the idea was at least partly to give Shane's mother, Stephanie McBride, some time off.

Once they had left, Stephanie called Spence's cell phone every ten minutes or so. When Spence pointed this out to her, and said that it wasn't necessary, she said. "I'm sorry, I just… I know what happens to Natalie when you're supposed to be looking after her."

Spence was slightly affronted when he heard this, and yet he knew he had no grounds to argue. So he said, "We're going to see Grace now, actually."

After that, Stephanie didn't call again. Spence had not been invited to visit Grace, but he went anyway, because he did not want to have lied to Stephanie. On most days Grace worked from home, which was very boring and lonely, and she welcomed distractions, so Spence was not worried. When he knocked on her door, she seemed pleased to see him.

Shane was happy to entertain himself. He couldn't say a single word yet, but he could already toddle a few steps, and when he was on all-fours he moved like lightning. Grace shut them all in the kitchen, removed anything that might cause injury or death to Shane and let him get on with it. She then made coffee for herself and Spence.

"Are you sure you don't mind having Nat tomorrow night?" asked Grace.

"Of course I don't mind," said Spence.

"Right," said Grace, nodding. "Good. Fantastic."

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah, of course."

There was a moment's silence. They both turned their eyes to Shane, who was taking things out of the fridge and arranging them on the floor.

"Do you mind him doing that?" asked Spence.

"No," said Grace. "He's cute, isn't he? You remember when Natalie was that age?"

"Of course."

"You remember when I got her head jammed in that shopping cart?"

"Um… yes," said Spence.

"Is it easier?" asked Grace. "The second time around?"

"Oh yes," said Spence, nodding. "Definitely."

"Really?"

"Yes. I mean, it's never easy, but - "

She looked disappointed. "Isn't it?"

"Grace," said Spence, "are you sure you're -?"

He was cut off when, at that moment, the door leading out to the small backyard crashed open and a herd of swine came shuffling into the room. They were startlingly pink, about waist-high and enormously fat. They had their snouts to the ground, sniffing and snorting; they filled the room with a monstrous sound, and an unpleasant aroma. There happened to be seven in total, but neither Grace nor Spence counted them.

Grace screamed shrilly, stood up, backed towards the closed door that led to the hallway and then just stood there, paralysed with fear. Spence dived for Shane, and pulled him away from the chomping jaws of a particularly large sow just in time. He wrestled with the pig for a few seconds, then groped blindly around him and eventually - still holding Shane in one arm - managed to beat it off with an egg whisk.

"Grace," said Spence, backing away from the pig, "open the door."

Grace fumbled for the door handle, but she refused to turn round, and in her panic she couldn't grab it blindly even after ten years of living there. So Spence pressed himself against her, found the door handle himself and bundled them all through - just in time to slam the door in the faces of two pigs. The snorts became louder, and then there came the unmistakable sound of seven unnaturally large pigs trying to break down the door.

"Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God," whimpered Grace.

"It's okay." Spence held her elbow and, firmly but gently, pulled her towards the stairs. "We'll go up to your room and barricade ourselves in, and then I'll call the Ghostbusters on my cell phone, okay?"

"But they're not ghosts, they're… they're pigs!"

"I know, but… they've got to be supernatural pigs, haven't they? Come on, let's go."

.-.-.-.

"It's Grace," Janine told Roland, Kylie, Garrett and Eduardo, as they prepared to respond to the call. "She and Spence and Spence's baby are being attacked by man-eating pigs."

"What?" said Roland.

"Don't worry, they've barricaded themselves in the bedroom," said Janine. "They'll be fine, as long as you get there soon."

Roland, as usual, drove. This may not have been such a good idea, as he was clearly very distressed by Grace's plight. Seeing this, Garrett called Spence's cell phone (Spence and Garrett just happened to be childhood friends) to try and find out more.

"Hey, Spence," said Garrett. "What's all this about man-eating pigs?"

"Are you guys on your way?" asked Spence. He sounded out of breath.

"Yeah."

"Oh, good. We'll be okay for a while. We're in the bedroom, and I've just put the wardrobe and a dresser in front of the door, but Grace is really freaking out because of - "

He stopped talking then, and Garrett heard Grace sounding hysterical in the background.

"What, they don't know?" said Spence, and Grace shrieked something else at him. "All right, all right, but I don't think they'd-… Yes, okay. Um… sorry, Garrett. So… well, one of them bit me, but that doesn't matter - I'm fine."

"If one of them bit you," said Garrett, "you'll have to come with us to get it checked out. It might be fine, but you might be going to turn into a pig or something."

"Why would I turn into a -?"

Once again, Grace started shrieking, and Spence had to try and pacify her. "No, no, of course I'm not going to… God, why did I say that? Grace… Grace, I promise you I am not going to turn into a pig. I absolutely promise. You can tell when you're about to turn into a pig, can't you? Hey… Garrett, I've gotta go. Try and get here fast, will you?"

Spence hung up, and Garrett stared in bewilderment at the phone in his hand.

"Well?" said Roland.

"It sounds to me," said Garrett, "as though Grace has an irrational fear of pigs."

.-.-.-.

It took a long time for Spence to calm Grace down, but he managed it eventually by promising that the second he thought he might turn into a pig, he would risk serious injury by jumping out of the window. Grace did not seem entirely satisfied with this, but she did not want to throw him out of the room to the mercy of the actual pigs, so she forced herself to calm down and think of Roland rushing to rescue her.

Then, when she had regained almost all of her sanity, she said, "One bit you?"

"It's nothing," said Spence.

"Show me."

"It's just my hand… there." He showed her his left hand, and in it were two raw pink wounds, one by the knuckle of his thumb and one near his wrist.

"Wow," said Grace, wincing. "They have really blunt teeth, don't they?"

"It wasn't that bad," said Spence.

"Is Shane okay?"

"Yeah, he's fine."

After that, neither of them could think of any more to say. Spence, still holding Shane, sat down on the bed. Then he said suddenly, "Is this a new bed?"

"Yeah, I got it last year," said Grace.

"Why? What was wrong the old one?"

"Well, it was… it was old."

"But it was a quality piece of furniture, Grace. If you wanted to get a new mattress, okay I get that, but a whole new bed…"

"All right, fine, I know what you're asking me," snapped Grace. "And yes, I did - I got it when I started sleeping with Roland, all right?"

"You're sleeping with Roland?" said Spence.

"Yes I'm sleeping with Roland! Jeez, what business is it of yours?"

"I thought you didn't believe in sex before marriage."

"Yeah, well, I didn't. I do now."

"Why?"

"Because look what happened the last time! Oh Jesus, Spence, don't look so indignant! It was a long time ago, and we were kids, and it was all a huge, huge mistake! All of it! Except Natalie, obviously. And I wish I'd never told you about the… the pig thing!"

"Hey, look, it's not a big deal," said Spence. "Everyone has weird things."

"If you tell Roland, I'll kill you."

"Why?"

"Because I don't want him to think I'm crazy! Oh my God!" She leapt away from the door and stumbled into Spence's lap. Spence dumped Shane onto the bed just in time to avoid his being sat on. "They're coming up the stairs!"

"It's okay," said Spence. He put his arms around her, and rubbed her elbow soothingly. "The Ghostbusters are on their way, and I've put that wardrobe and dresser there."

Shane crawled off the bed and landed on his head. Spence threw Grace off his lap and went to retrieve his son from the ground.

"Is he all right?" Grace asked, somewhat half-heartedly, still staring at the door.

"Well, he looks all right to me," said Spence.

"God, how do I ever trust you with Natalie?"

"Well, you don't really trust me, do you? Anyway, look at him - he's not even crying."

"He might have a brain haemorrhage or something."

Spence said nothing. He held Shane up in front of him and looked deep into his eyes for any sign of a brain haemorrhage.

"After this," said Grace, "you both need to go to a hospital. Are you sure you're not going to turn into a pig?"

"Yes, I'm positive."

"Good," said Grace, her voice breaking as the pigs began their assault on the bedroom door. "Because Shane and I need you to protect us from those pigs."

.-.-.-.

The Ghostbusters went in through the front door, and immediately their PKE meters started buzzing excitedly. Roland headed straight for the stairs, but Kylie was attracted by the readings coming from the kitchen, not to mention the battered-down door.

"Oh my God," she said, when she saw the two spilt cups of coffee, the upturned chairs, the open fridge and the chilled food spread all over the floor.

"Some of that might have been Shane," said Garrett, who knew his friend's son's habits. "Come on, Ky, the pigs are upstairs now."

Kylie helped Garrett to get up the stairs, as Eduardo and Roland were already up there.

"Go get another trap," Roland said at once, taking from Kylie the one she already had. "Or two. I mean, look - there's seven of them!"

He and Eduardo were successfully holding off the pigs with proton guns. Two of them kept resuming their assault on Grace's bedroom door, and were suffering some nasty hits for their troubles, but four of them seemed more interested in attacking Eduardo. The seventh one had been eyeing Roland hungrily, but was now lumbering towards Garrett. He hit it with a blast of proton fire; it squealed, and shuffled back a few steps.

"They make a horrible noise, don't they?" said Roland, his lip curling. (Inside the bedroom, Grace was reeling at the sound of that hideous squeal.)

"Roland, throw that trap down!" said Garrett. He had two pigs in a powerful proton stream, and they were squealing and writhing in the air.

Eduardo also had one of the pigs in a proton stream. When Roland opened the trap, they were able to dispose of all three at once. Then just as the trap closed, Eduardo felt something pulling on the hem of his jeans. He kicked back and caught the pig's snout, causing it a nasty bleed and a distorted squeal of pain.

"Oh my God, what are you guys doing out there?" Grace called from inside the bedroom.

"Sorry, Grace!" Eduardo called back.

"Ky, fantastic," said Garrett, grabbing a trap from Kylie as she came running up the stairs. "Y'know, this really seems like a waste. Imagine all the meat we could get from them!"

Eduardo looked at Kylie, and asked, "Do you think Chita would eat it?" Conchita had decided to become a vegetarian sometime between Thanksgiving and Christmas - but would she make an exception for evil, homicidal pigs that had to be killed anyway?

"No," said Kylie, "because I wouldn't let her - their meat can't be good for you."

"All right," said Roland, feeling that this discussion was not helping, "let's concentrate on two at a time. Kylie, you go for that one by the bookcase; Eduardo and I will aim for that one who won't give up on the door. Garrett, be ready with that trap. On three."

"THREE!"

Moments later, two more of the pigs were trapped. This left one more trap, and two more pigs. Roland then instructed Kylie to be ready with the next trap, Eduardo to shoot one pig and Garrett to aim at the other with him. Once again, it went off without a hitch. All seven pigs were trapped.

Garrett wheeled his way over to the bedroom door, knocked and said, "Guys, you can come out now - the pigs are all trapped."

"Could you get the traps out of here first?" Grace called back through the door. "And… and maybe check there aren't any more?"

Eduardo took the three traps and made his way downstairs with them, while from the other side of the door came the sound of heavy furniture being moved. Moments later Spence emerged, clutching Shane, and then Grace staggered out of the room looking like she had just woken from a terrible nightmare.

"Are you okay?" said Roland, rushing to embrace her. "God, you're shaking like a leaf!"

"No, no, I'm fine," said Grace, most unconvincingly, for her voice was trembling. "No one wants to be eaten alive by pigs, do they? But I'm fine now."

"Grace, come on, tell him," said Spence. "I think it's pretty obvious now, anyway."

"Are you scared of pigs, Grace?" Garrett asked bluntly.

"Well… no, not exactly," said Grace. "I don't mind pigs if they're just… you know… being pigs. But I… I've got this thing about being eaten alive by them - it's, like, my worst nightmare that doesn't involve something happening to Natalie."

"So," said Garrett, "is your very worst nightmare Natalie being eaten alive by pigs?"

"Oh God, don't say that!" shrieked Grace, clinging tighter to Roland.

"Garrett, shut up!" said Kylie.

Garrett didn't shut up. He said, "So… why pigs?"

"Because they're horrible," said Grace, shuddering. "They snuffle around, and they snort, and they've got these blunt teeth that would be agony if they ripped you up, and this really hideous way of eating, and I just… I'd rather be eaten alive by anything than pigs!"

"Y'know," said Garrett, "I have never thought about that."

"Well don't start thinking about it now," snapped Kylie.

"Grace," said Roland, "why wouldn't you want to tell me that?"

"Because it's weird," said Grace.

"Well, I've heard weirder things. Everybody has weird things."

"I said that," said Spence.

"So… Spence knew about your pig thing?" asked Roland.

"Yes," said Grace.

"For about ten or eleven years, I suppose."

"Roland, please, it's not a big deal," said Grace.

"Guys," said Kylie, just as Eduardo reappeared, now without the pig-filled traps. "We need to get Spence back to the firehouse so Egon can look at his bite."

"I want to take Shane to the hospital first," said Spence. "He fell on his head."

"But that could take hours!" said Kylie. "What if that bite's serious? You could turn into a pig and eat him while you're waiting for a doctor!"

Spence blinked. "Wow. Stephanie would kill me if I did that."

"If he was going to turn into a pig," said Roland, still holding onto Grace, "wouldn't he have done it by now?"

"Maybe not," said Eduardo. "Look how long it took me to turn into an evil soul-sucking clown that time."

"Okay, look," said Kylie. "Spence, you take Shane to the hospital - even though he's obviously fine - but promise us you'll come straight to the firehouse afterward. Okay?"

"Okay," said Spence, "I promise."

"And we'll get back there now," said Kylie, "and try to figure out where the pigs came from and what they were and why they wanted to eat you."

"And we'll get Janine to invoice you," added Garrett.

"I'll pay half," said Spence.

"I wonder how much it'll cost to get those doors fixed," muttered Grace, wondering whether Spence could reasonably be expected to pay half of that bill. The house had been all hers since the divorce, but Spence's daughter was living there too.

"What about Grace?" said Roland. "I can't leave her like this."

"No, honestly, you can," said Grace. "I'm fine now. There are no more pigs." Then she looked sharply at Eduardo, and said, "Are there?"

"No," said Eduardo, "there are definitely no more pigs."

"Right then, I'll be fine," said Grace, disentangling herself from Roland and making an effort to look calm and unruffled. "You go."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure. Go on, get out of here."

Spence went over to Grace, kissed her on the cheek and said, "Bye then, Grace. I guess I'll see you tomorrow."

"Bye, Spence," said Grace. She took Shane, gave him a cuddle and then handed him back to his father. "Thanks for coming - I'm so glad you were here."

"Lucky, wasn't it?" said Spence, grinning. "Bye, guys!"

He went downstairs, and Shane waved at everybody over his father's shoulder. Grace waved back, smiling at how cute he was, and then looked at Roland. He was looking at her with deep concern.

"Go on!" she said. "I'm fine now, I promise."

Kylie, Garrett and Eduardo were already heading downstairs, Garrett saying, "Eddie, what kind of animal would you least want to be eaten alive by?"

"I don't want to be eaten alive by anything," said Eduardo.

"Sure, sure," said Garrett, "but Grace was saying…"

His voice faded out of earshot, and still Roland did not follow them. He put his hands on Grace's arms, wanting to be sure that she wasn't shaking anymore, and she wasn't.

"Please go," she said.

"All right," said Roland, and he kissed her goodbye. Then he said, "Are you sure -?"

"Yes!"

.-.-.-.

Once back at the firehouse, Kylie immediately started researching paranormal pigs. She started by reading up on a legend she already knew: that of the Calydonian Boar, sent by the goddess Artemis to a king who had refused to honour her with sacrifice.

"I thought so," she said, to anyone who would listen, when she had finally found a detailed passage about it. "It trampled the crops, and it killed the livestock, and it killed people. But I don't think it ate them. And it could breathe fire. If those pigs could breathe fire, surely they would have done it. Still, there could be a connection…"

"Why would Artemis send man-eating pigs to Grace?" asked Roland.

"She probably didn't honour her with sacrifice," said Eduardo.

"It seems a bit unfair just to pick on her, though," said Garrett.

"Shut up," said Kylie, already thumbing through another book. "According to this there was also an Erymanthian Boar. That was Hercules' fourth labour… he enticed it out of its cave by insulting it, and then chased it through the mountains until it died from exhaustion… but I think all of those pigs were sows anyway. Or were they? I can't believe we didn't even check!"

"Why does it matter now?" said Garrett. "They're all in the containment unit."

"Phaea," said Kylie, a short time later, reading from another book. "She was an evil sow. But there's some debate as to whether she was an actual sow, or a woman who was called a sow because of her 'wayward life and manners'. So I guess that means she didn't just do what men told her all the time. Grace was saying she… um… well, in the end Theseus killed her, whether she was a pig or not. It doesn't really help, does it?"

"Ky," said Roland, "I think you're looking in the wrong place. Remember that being eaten alive by pigs is Grace's worst nightmare. Not that she saw fit to tell me about it - but anyway, it can't be a coincidence. Don't you think it's more likely we're dealing with, um, one of those things that materialises your fears?"

"Maybe even the same one as before," said Garrett. "We did just leave it where it was in the blind hope that no one would ever open up that basement again."

"No, it can't be that again," said Kylie. "We trapped those pigs, no problem. We couldn't trap our own fears, could we - or each other's - when it was that thing."

"Hey," said Eduardo, "did we even try that?"

"But the thing is," said Roland, "that we haven't had any other calls from people facing their worst fears. What's so special about Grace?"

"You tell us," said Garrett. "You're the one who wants to marry her."

"I meant - "

"We know what you meant, Roland," said Kylie. "God, when is Spence going to get here with that bite? If Egon analysed that, I bet he could tell us exactly what it was."

"Maybe Spence really has turned into a pig and eaten Shane," said Garrett.

"Don't joke about it," said Kylie. "If a paranormal creature bites you, there is every chance you're going to turn into one of them yourself."

"Remember that movie with the sheep?" said Eduardo.

"Oh yeah," said Kylie, laughing when she remembered Black Sheep, a very funny comedy horror that had shown a remote New Zealand farm attacked by mutant sheep. "That was kind of like Grace's pigs, wasn't it, with those people being eaten alive. Too bad it wasn't a real supernatural occurrence - maybe it could help us figure out why the stupid pig attack actually happened. Anyway, I can't sit here reading about pigs all day - I have to get the girls from school," and she got to her feet.

"Don't forget to bring Max," said Garrett.

"Don't be stupid, of course I won't forget. Spence!" said Kylie, when she met Spence in the doorway on her way out of the room. "Where's Shane? I hope you didn't take him home, because you promised me you were going to come straight here after."

"So," said Spence, "you mean you hope I left him on the bus?"

"Was he okay?"

"Yeah, he was fine."

"I told you, didn't I? I don't know why you're being so blasé about the possibility of turning into a man-eating pig. How's the bite?"

"Well," said Spence, "it's kind of sore, and my skin's peeling. They wanted to dress it at the hospital, but I didn't let them because I thought maybe you'd be mad at me."

"Of course I would have been mad at you," said Kylie. "You take that to Egon, okay? I have to go and pick my kids up from school."

"And mine," Garrett reminded her.

Kylie left without any indication that she had heard him. Spence ventured further into the room, and said, "You guys, I honestly don't feel like I'm going to turn into a pig."

"You probably won't," said Roland, "but if you ever get bitten by a paranormal creature and you don't die, always assume there's at least a fifty percent chance you're going to turn into one yourself. So… when exactly did Grace tell you about her pig thing?"

"Oh, I don't know, ages ago," said Spence. "Before we were married, I think. Or maybe after. I don't know, I can't remember."

"Well… what made her tell you?"

"I don't know, we were just talking about stuff. Actually I think it was when I was telling her about that whole… you know… racist gang thing. So, not long after I met her."

"So you told her that," said Garrett, "and she told you she had an irrational fear of being eaten alive by pigs?"

"Hey," said Spence, grinning, "there's nothing irrational about it. So where's Egon, anyway? If he hasn't looked at my bite by the time Kylie gets back, I'll be in trouble."

"Come on," said Garrett, "I'll take you to him."

Garrett led Spence off towards Egon's lab, leaving Roland looking very sorry for himself, and Eduardo tidying up the books Kylie had left lying around. They were going to have a small birthday celebration with Rose, as long as they weren't called out to any more incidents, and it didn't seem right having books all over the place.

"Hey, man, are you okay?" said Eduardo, catching sight of Roland's expression.

"Sure," said Roland. "I was just wondering…"

"Yeah?"

"What else she hasn't told me."

"Nothing, probably," said Eduardo, feeling that Roland was really overreacting to Grace's secret fear of being eaten alive by pigs. "Don't worry about it."

"But I am worried about it! I'm going to ask her to marry me tomorrow, and I didn't even know she was scared of being eaten alive by pigs!"

"Well she probably didn't think it would ever be an issue."

"That's not the point," Roland said irritably. "Couples are supposed to know these things about each other. I can't ask her to marry me if I don't even know her."

"You do know her! It's only pigs!"

"She told Spence."

"Y'know," said Eduardo, "whenever you talk to Grace, at some point she'll probably tell you about how stupid she was when she was with Spence. It sounds like she was a totally different person then. So just stop worrying, okay?"

.-.-.-.

As John Spengler had predicted, he and Eden had to make Valentine's Day cards that afternoon. So did almost every other schoolchild in the country, when one thirty rolled around in their time zone. For Conchita, this was a very positive experience. Her sheet of card was folded perfectly, her handwriting beautiful and her love hearts cut out to perfection. Her teacher, as was often the case, was delighted with her efforts. She had made the quintessential elementary school Valentine that one Miss Grayson so desperately craved from her own class of four and five year olds.

"What on earth is that?" she asked, leaning over Rose as she worked.

"It's a rose and a kylie," said Rose. "I'm going to give it to my mom."

"I don't understand."

"Her name's Kylie. And I found out that a kylie is actually a kind of boomerang."

"Are you sure about that, Rose? Why is the flower eating the boomerang, anyway?"

"It's not eating it!" Rose said angrily. "It's just holding onto it! Because a kylie is a boomerang that doesn't come back. So the rose has to hold onto it, because if my mom went anywhere she'd take me with her."

"Oh, I see," the teacher said. "Well, Rose, it isn't exactly a traditional - "

"It's her birthday," said Max Miller, Garrett's son and the only person in the class Rose didn't hate absolutely all of the time.

"Oh yes, so it is," Miss Grayson said, looking slightly annoyed. "Well, let's see how you're doing, Max. Oh." Her voice went flat, and she looked at Max's card in a way that made his heart sink. "Well, sweetie, that's a very brave effort. I'm sure your mommy will like it."

"His mommy will love it," Rose said pointedly.

After that, thankfully, Miss Grayson went to belittle some other child's efforts. Max and Rose shot each other looks of sympathy and gratitude, before putting the finishing touches to their Valentines.

A few minutes later, the school day came to an end. The children stuffed their creations into their bags while Miss Grayson stood at the window, telling them they could leave when she spotted their parents. When she called Rose's name, Rose told her, "Max is coming with us."

Miss Grayson looked at her with deep suspicion. "Are you sure?"

Rose didn't answer. She glared furiously at the teacher before turning on her heel, marching out to the schoolyard and delivering a long speech to Kylie (who, incidentally, had just been warding off the advances of Mr. Yates). When Rose had finished, Kylie took her back to the classroom, let them both in and said, "Max is coming with us."

"Oh, I see," said Miss Grayson. Then she turned round, and called, "MAX! You know, Mrs. Rivera, you really should keep us informed of your arrangements."

"It's Griffin," said Rose.

Miss Grayson looked at her. "What?"

"Rivera is my Dad's name. Mommy's name is Griffin. I've told you before."

"Well," said Miss Grayson, "it would make our lives much easier if - "

"Look, don't worry," said Kylie, grabbing Max's hand as he approached her. "You're only going to be teaching my daughter for another four months or so anyway. Thank God," she muttered, under her breath, as she took Rose and Max outside. "God, I hate that woman! Funny I never noticed what a bitch she was when she taught your sister. Hello, sweetheart," she said, as Conchita fell into step beside them. "Good day?"

"Yeah, it was fun," said Conchita. "How about you?"

"Well, it was interesting," said Kylie. "Guess who we got a call from."

"Who?"

"Grace. She was being attacked by man-eating pigs."

At that, Rose looked up sharply. "Man-eating pigs?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Well, honey, that's the darnedest thing - I can't figure it out at all. But never mind the man-eating pigs - how was your day?"

"Okay," said Rose, staring straight ahead of her, sounding very much distracted. Kylie looked down at her, suddenly concerned. Rose never had an okay day at school.

"Well," said Kylie, "that's another week over and done with, anyway. Are you ready for cake and presents now?"

"I guess so."

"You guess so?"

"Will you tell me?" said Rose. "If you figure it out about the pigs?"

"Sure," said Kylie, "if you want me to."

.-.-.-.

Spence left - his wound dressed and pronounced harmless, as well as "not very much to go on" - just as the little party arrived back from school. Then the birthday celebrations began. Rose may have been a surly child, but she was not impolite when she didn't deem it necessary. She expressed gratitude for all of the gifts she was given, most of them art materials, which not so long ago had been all she wanted. But when she had opened all of her presents, she didn't immediately start using them, as her parents and sister had expected. Instead she sat in a corner, where she distractedly ate her slice of birthday cake, and then started flicking through an empty sketchpad.

"What's wrong with Rose?" Conchita asked her parents.

"I don't know," said Kylie. "Go and ask Max if anything happened in school today."

Conchita obeyed. Max told her in impressively few words everything that had happened at school, in the order he remembered it, but none of it seemed to be out of the ordinary. Conchita looked at her sister with increasing concern.

"Shall I ask her what's wrong?" said Max.

Conchita nodded. "That's a good idea."

So Max approached Rose, and then Conchita noticed that Roland was turning Grace's engagement ring over and over in his hands. He was also wearing an expression of deep concern that worried Conchita immensely. So she went to talk to him.

"That is the perfect ring for her," she said. "I told you, didn't I? You can trust me."

Roland smiled at her, and said, "I know, honey."

"Then what's wrong?"

"Do I look as if something's wrong?"

"Yes."

"Oh," said Roland. "Well… did your mom tell you about the pigs?"

"Yes."

"I don't know if she told you Grace is scared of being eaten alive by pigs, but… well, she is. I mean, no one wants to be eaten alive by pigs, but it's a specific thing she has. And I didn't even know about it until today."

"Well," said Conchita, "so what? You know now."

"Yes," said Roland, "but I wouldn't know if she hadn't been attacked today. And it just made me think… maybe I don't know her that well at all."

Conchita furrowed her brow. "You are still going to ask her to marry you, aren't you?"

"Well…"

"You've got to! You bought a ring and everything!"

"I know. I still want to marry her. But… maybe I should wait a while."

"What, until next Valentine's Day?"

"Not necessarily."

"You can't chicken out," Conchita was adamant. "You have to do it tomorrow because I found that ring for you to give to her now."

"But it'll still be - "

"No it won't! These things change! You know what you should do?"

"What?" asked Roland.

"Ask her if there's anything else you don't know. Before you give her the ring and ask her to marry you, just… ask her!"

Max, meanwhile, was getting a similarly stubborn response from Rose. She insisted that nothing was wrong, so then he suggested that she might like to draw something. She replied with great scorn that if she wanted to draw, she would.

Then Max said, "You don't look happy."

"I never look happy," said Rose. "That doesn't mean I'm not."

"You're not now."

"Yes I am."

"Tell me what's wrong."

Rose glared at him, and she looked about to get angry. But then suddenly her expression softened, and something in Max's inviting smile compelled her to say, "I did a picture yesterday. A big picture. And I think some of it came true."

"So?" said Max, completely unfazed by this bizarre statement.

"So," said Rose, "I drew all these really horrible things! I drew somebody having his eyes eaten by a parrot, and I drew people getting burnt to death - I don't even know if those things have happened! And now Grace has been attacked by pigs that wanted to eat her."

"Did you draw Grace getting attacked by pigs that wanted to eat her?" asked Max.

"No. But I drew Dr. Holliday and Mr. Yates being eaten by cats."

"Dr. Holliday and Mr. Yates?"

"Yes."

"Cats?"

"Yes."

"But not Grace."

"No."

"And not pigs."

"No."

"Well then," said Max, evidently feeling that his point was made. But it did not make Rose draw, and on the other side of the room, Roland didn't look any happier either.

Max and Conchita looked at each other despairingly. Eduardo and Kylie were talking earnestly, probably about what they could do with Rose, but talking didn't help at all - Max could see that. So he turned back to Rose and said, "Don't you want to draw?"

"No," said Rose.

"Not ever?"

"No. Not ever."

"All right," said Max. "If you've stopped drawing, I've stopped running."

Rose looked at him in amazement. "What? That doesn't make sense!"

"Yes it does," said Max, and he went and planted himself firmly on the sofa.

When she heard this, Conchita was impressed. Max was sensitive and caring, and he was not exactly stupid - but he wasn't particularly clever either, and he certainly wasn't inventive. It was astonishing that he should think of something like this. Still, Conchita doubted that he would be able to go through with it. Max could not go for a period of more than about half an hour without at least a little bit of physical exercise.

The time passed. Roland kept looking at his ring. Eduardo and Kylie took turns in trying to talk to Rose, but she wouldn't respond. Max started to grow restless. Garrett asked if he wanted to go downstairs and shoot some hoops, but Max said he had given up running and that meant he had to give up basketball.

"You could just stand there and throw the ball," said Rose, beginning to look concerned.

"No I couldn't," said Max.

After a while, it really seemed as if he would go crazy. He could not keep still on the sofa. He lay down, turned over, sat up, lay down, turned over and then sat up again. He started twisting his fingers around each other. He held his breath for a very long time, and then let it out with a great deal of noise. But only when he started to look like he was in physical pain did Rose suddenly yell, "ALL RIGHT, I'LL DRAW SOMETHING!"

Max's face broke into a smile. He jumped off the sofa, kicked a pack of chalk pastels (Roland's present) towards her and ran downstairs. A minute later he was back. He checked that Rose was drawing, and then ran upstairs to the top floor.

"Don't you worry that he'll jump off the roof one day?" asked Roland.

"Well," said Garrett, "I have asked him not to."

When five o'clock came (and Max had long since returned without jumping off the roof), Garrett and Eduardo started wanting to go home, but their children wouldn't hear of it. Conchita did not like to leave Roland in his current state, and Max wanted to see Rose's finished picture.

"There," she said grudgingly, thrusting her sketchpad into his hands.

"That's great!" said Max, looking at the colourful images of pain, confusion and madness that filled the page. "What is it?"

Rose said, "It's you when you don't run."

"Oh yeah," said Max, grinning.

"In that case," said Conchita, drawing up beside him, "it's you when you don't draw."

Rose shrugged. "Maybe."

"Can I borrow that, Rose?"

"Sure."

Conchita took the sketchpad from Max, carried it over to Roland and held it up in front of him. She said, "This is Max when he doesn't run, and Rose when she doesn't draw."

"Yes," said Roland, "I heard."

"Do you know what else it is?"

"Um…" Roland thought for a moment. "Egon when he doesn't have science? Oscar when he doesn't play music? Jessica when she doesn't have something to be mad at?"

"Yes, yes, yes," said Conchita, nodding along as Roland identified the raison d'être of one of his bosses, and another of his bosses' two children. "It's lots of people when they don't do lots of things."

Roland nodded. "Yes, I see that."

"And," said Conchita, "it's you when you give up on someone you love."

"What?" said Roland.

"You heard."

"But I'm not - "

"I'm only saying."

With that Conchita turned, went back to her sister and returned her picture. Then she went over to Eduardo and said, "Daddy, when I get married can I wear pink?"

"Of course you can, honey," said Eduardo.

"And can I have a big party for all my friends after?"

"Yeah, you can have anything you want."

"Really?" said Conchita. "Anything?"

"Sure, if I start saving up now," said Eduardo, stroking her hair affectionately. "Who are you going to marry?"

She shrugged, and said, "I don't know, some guy."

He nodded resignedly. "Great."

"Mommy?" said Rose. "Are you okay?"

"Hmmm?" said Kylie, looking up. For a long time no one had really taken any notice of what she was doing, so she had been quietly reading up on anything that might cause a person or people to be attacked by a herd of swine. "Yeah, I just… I wish I could figure out why those pigs attacked Grace and Spence and Shane!"

"I still think it was my picture," said Rose, almost inaudibly, but not quite.

"What?" said Kylie, in surprise. "What does your picture have to do with anything?"

"I don't know," said Rose, "there's just something weird about it. I think Pagan's ghost was in our apartment last night."

"Well," said Eduardo, "it might have been."

"But it was never there before!" said Rose. "And I drew people getting eaten alive by animals! Mr. Yates was at school today, so he was all right, but Grace nearly got eaten by pigs and you just said there's no other reason!"

"Honey, calm down," said Kylie. "That had nothing to do with your picture."

"Wait a minute, though," said Roland. "Maybe there is some kind of a connection. She made the picture with your goth makeup, Kylie, after you gave it up. That… that could mean something, couldn't it?"

"Like what?" asked Kylie.

"I don't know, you tell me. Being goth… that means something, doesn't it? And making a picture out of goth makeup…"

"A few hours before Friday the thirteenth," added Garrett.

"Well," said Kylie, considering, "it's at least as good an explanation as anything I've found so far. And Grace was feeling… well, a little anxious a couple of days ago…"

"She was?" said Roland, looking up sharply.

"It's no big deal," said Kylie. "She's fine now. But still, that… and my makeup… and the pigs… and maybe even it being Friday the thirteenth…"

Then Max spoke. "Why does there have to be a reason?"

Kylie looked at him. "What?"

"Why does there have to be a reason? Why can't she get attacked by pigs for no reason?"

"Well," said Kylie, "because… um…"

"Because people don't get attacked by pigs for no reason," said Roland. "And anyway, even if they did, it's too much of a coincidence that it's her worst nightmare."

"No it's not," Max said cheerfully. "It's only like when we had a soccer match at school, and after they gave us my favourite kind of soda and my favourite kind of cake."

Roland stared at him for a moment. Then he said, "No… no, Max, that's not the same."

"It is a pretty big coincidence," said Eduardo. "I mean, the soda and the cake…"

"Almost as big as what happened to Grace," said Garrett, smiling indulgently at Max and ruffling his hair. "And anyway, even if there is a reason, it doesn't matter now - just like I've been saying all along. The pigs are all in the containment unit, and if there were any more then surely we'd know by now."

There was silence for a moment, as everyone digested what both Garrett and Max had said. It did seem sensible, especially as the weekend had officially started now, so Kylie closed the book she was reading and put it away.

"What about my picture?" asked Rose.

"Maybe," said Roland, "it'll be okay when it's not Friday the thirteenth anymore."

"Or maybe," said Garrett, "it'll be okay when your mom gets used to not being goth."

Kylie looked at him sharply. "What?"

"Ky, come on, you've been crabby all day."

"I have not!"

"You have a little bit, Kylie," Roland said gently. "Maybe Garrett's right. Maybe you… I don't know… left somethingin the makeup."

"Or maybe not," said Kylie, looking at Rose. "Remember it's still just a theory."

"This isn't you, is it, Mom?" said Conchita, holding up Rose's new picture. "When you're not goth anymore?"

"Honey, no," said Kylie. "I promise you that if I still wanted to be goth, I would. It'll just take some getting used to, that's all."

"So what is it you without?" asked Rose.

"Um." Kylie thought for a moment. "You two."

"Let's go home," said Max suddenly, and everyone agreed that this was a very good idea.

"Roland," said Conchita, as she started getting ready to go. "Are you going to propose?"

Roland said, "I'll tell you on Monday."

.-.-.-.

Saturday, February 14th

First thing in the morning, Eduardo was given an immaculately made Valentine's Day card filled with proclamations of love, while Kylie was treated to a touching metaphor and some interesting trivia about the true meaning of her name. Egon and Janine were each presented with a reasonable attempt at a Valentine, while Garrett and his wife Jo proudly took joint ownership of a clumsily folded piece of card, a wonky and roughly coloured love heart and several different spellings of "love" crossed out.

Grace was given a somewhat half-hearted attempt to make a card, accompanied by the sulkily spoken words, "How old do you have to be before they stop forcing you to make Valentines at school?"

"I don't know, honey," said Grace. "Ten? Eleven? Thank you, Natalie, it's beautiful."

"It is not beautiful," said Natalie. "I suck at that kind of thing."

As the day wore on, Grace became increasingly more nervous. She'd stopped wondering how she felt about marrying Roland, because she knew. Now, her concern was Natalie.

"Honey," she said, when they were sitting down to lunch. "You like Roland, don't you?"

Natalie looked at her mother with deep suspicion. Then she said, "He's going to ask you to marry him later, isn't it?"

"What?" said Grace, very much surprised, and starting to feel uncomfortable. "Sweetie, how can I know what Roland's going to say later?"

"I knew you were going to marry him!" said Natalie. "I told you, didn't I?"

"Honey, no one's decided anything yet."

Natalie looked sceptical. "I've heard that before."

"Well," said Grace, "if Roland and I did decide to get ma-"

"I'm fine with it."

"Really?"

"What if I wasn't?"

"I wouldn't marry him."

Natalie looked deeply cynical. "Really?"

"Not if I couldn't talk you round," said Grace, "but listen - I honestly don't know if he's going to ask me to marry him tonight. Or any time soon. I'm only guessing. So… don't mention it when you see him later, okay?"

At this Natalie rolled her eyes, and said with the deepest disdain, "I'm not stupid, Mom!"

Roland came to Grace's house after lunch, and spent the afternoon with her and Natalie. When he rang the doorbell, it occurred to Grace to wonder why she hadn't asked him to move in with them officially. Then she decided that she would do so later, whether he asked her to marry him or not.

She realised that it must have been because of Natalie that Roland wasn't a permanent fixture in their home already. It was one thing seeing a man that her daughter liked, but it was quite another thing to move him into her home. Everything was for Natalie, and had been ever since Grace was nineteen years old. Pursuing a serious relationship with Roland had been the first thing she'd done for herself in a long time.

At five o'clock, Roland drove Grace and Natalie to Spence's apartment. The first thing Grace said to Spence was, "Hey, I'm sorry I was so crabby with you yesterday."

"Hey, it's cool," said Spence. "You were just scared of the pigs."

"Yeah, I was. Thanks for coping so well - I didn't know you had it in you."

"Mmm, I know - normally you're the one who copes."

Roland played with Shane for a while. Natalie caught Grace watching, and said, "You're not pregnant, are you?"

"Ssh! No!" said Grace, hoping very much that she wasn't pregnant. She didn't think that she was, but these days there was always a chance. Then she started worrying about how Natalie would feel about her having a baby, so she said, "But if I was pregnant…"

Natalie sighed resignedly, and said, "Just don't expect me to change its diapers."

By the time she and Roland left, Grace seemed to have planned out her whole life from that evening onwards. Say yes to Roland's proposal; ask him to move in with her and Natalie; marry him; after a couple of years, get pregnant; have a baby; maybe have another baby two or three years after that; do everything much better this time around. It felt incredibly strange to her to be thinking like that, after so many years just the same.

When they were sitting down to dinner, in a very nice and not too dear restaurant, Roland said, "Can we talk about pigs?"

"If you really want to," said Grace. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you - I just didn't think it was important. No, wait, I didn't think that - I just didn't think about it at all. I mean, when do you say to your boyfriend, 'Oh, by the way, my worst nightmare would be to get eaten alive by pigs'?"

Roland smiled amusedly. "It's fine, I understand. I just thought that if there's anything else, we should tell each other now."

"All right," said Grace. "Anything else like what?"

"Well, like… is there anything behind the pig stuff?"

She shook her head. "Not really. I'm just weird that way. I mean, I've really thought about it - which animal I'd be most scared of eating me alive. It started when I was a kid. I can't remember why, but I do remember talking about it with Luke when I was about five or six." Luke was Grace's only sibling - three years her senior and, from what Roland had gathered, a great influence on her. "So I decided it was pigs, and then it just… it developed into this irrational fear. Well… not so irrational after all, huh?"

"Yeah, I'm sorry, we haven't been able to figure out why it happened," said Roland. "I mean, there were a few theories, but… I'm not convinced. Max even says there doesn't have to be a reason, but I'm pretty sure there does."

"Well," said Grace, "maybe, maybe not. But I don't really care, to be honest with you. If they're not coming back - "

"They're not."

" - then they don't matter anymore. Don't go out of your way to find the answers."

"Really?" said Roland. "If it were me, I'd be desperate to know why."

"I know your worst fear," said Grace, smiling. "You told me about when you met Fear Itself. Your fear is your ghostbusting equipment turning into a little snappy monster."

"Yeah," said Roland, smiling sheepishly. "See? Everyone has weird things like that. So… are there any more?"

"Any more what? Do you want my top ten animals or something?"

He blinked in surprise. "Do you have a top ten?"

"I did when I was little," said Grace. "I can't remember it now, though. I think hippos were on the list. When I was a kid I saw this documentary about hippos, and it showed two of them having a fight, and they were just ripping chunks out of each other and breaking each other's jaws and… ugh, it was horrible."

"So basically," said Roland, "you like to get a very detailed idea about what exactly would happen to you if a particular animal attacked you."

"I don't like it," said Grace. "I can't help it!"

"That's really interesting."

"It's crazy - I wish you'd never found out."

"I'm glad I did," said Roland. "I just… I wish I knew everything about you."

She smiled at him, and said, "I think you know everything now."

"Really? Are you sure?"

"Well, no, I'm not sure. But we've got the rest of our lives to learn about each other. I really don't think you're going to find out anything that'll make you stop loving me."

"No, I don't think so either."

"So what animal would you least want to be eaten alive by?"

Roland laughed, and said, "Jeez, Grace, I don't know."

"Well, have a think about it."

"Do I have to decide right now?"

Grace shook her head. "No, of course not, take as long as you need. Let me know when you decide."

"All right, I will. Is there anything else you'd like to know?"

"Not now this minute."

After that, Roland fell silent. Grace looked up from her food, and saw that he looked incredibly nervous. For a long time, he still didn't say anything.

"Is there anything else you want to ask me?" said Grace.

"Um…"

More silence.

"He's a sensible kid, that Max, isn't he?" said Grace. "I mean, he's right - why should there be a reason for everything? I know Nat likes him. He's just very straightforward and uncomplicated, and he sees everything for what it is. I like that about kids."

"Yeah," said Roland. "Me too."

"And if they want to say something," said Grace, "they just come right out and say it."

"That's true."

She put her head in her hands. "Oh my God!"

"Are you okay?" asked Roland, alarmed.

"Roland, will you marry me?"

"What?"

"I'm sorry," said Grace, looking up. She couldn't believe she had said it out loud - she really didn't mean to. "It's just that I'd really like to. Marry you, I mean."

"Oh, well… yes, of course," said Roland, sounding quite taken aback. "I… I was going to ask you that."

"Were you really?"

"Yes. And I… Oh, Grace, I must tell you!"

"What is it?"

She immediately started to panic. What could it possibly be? Unable to think of anything else he might have done, Grace's thoughts turned back to the mysterious Celine. She was pregnant! No… she'd had the baby already. It had been more than nine months ago - in fact, well over a year ago - that something might have happened between her and Roland.

"Conchita helped me choose the ring."

Grace sat and looked at him, waiting for the rest of it. Then when no more came, she said, "Is that it?"

"Yes."

"Well… that's all right!"

"Is it?" said Roland. "It just… it seems kind of wrong, after all this worrying I didn't know you well enough. But it's not that I don't know you - it's just that I don't know anything about jewellery. And she does. She said it was perfect for you."

"Well… can I see it?"

"Oh… yes, of course. Sorry," and he fished the small box out of his pocket.

"Oh!" said Grace, when she saw the ring. "That… wow, that's fantastic, I love it!"

"You sound surprised," said Roland.

"Well… when you said Conchita helped choose it, I thought maybe it'd be a bit more…"

He raised his eyebrows. "Free with Barbie's beach house?"

"Well… no, not exactly. Why were you worried about not knowing me well enough?" she said, as she tried the ring on. "You know my ring size! Do you know how bad guys are at that? Spence was… you don't want me to talk about Spence."

"Maybe tomorrow," said Roland. "I, um… might have some questions for you then."

Grace looked up, feeling slightly alarmed. "What, about Spence?"

"It's nothing to worry about. It just occurred to me that I don't know anything about what your wedding was like."

"Oh, well, it was - "

"Please," said Roland. "Don't tell me now."

Grace nodded. "Okay."

"Do you, um… want dessert?"

"Only the kind we have at home."

.-.-.-.

Natalie, meanwhile, was trying to get Shane to go to sleep. Spence and Stephanie surely didn't believe she could do it, but as they had both given up, Natalie was stuck with the task. She looked despairingly at the huge baby as he tried to climb over the top of his cot, ignoring his half-sister's attempts to settle him with a soothing bedtime story.

"Well," Natalie said to him, with a great sigh. "At least Mom bothered to ask me."

THE END