A/N: Sorry I haven't updated in a while. I've been meaning to get back to this stuff, but I just keep forgetting. But, whatever, here you go. ;)

Later that day, the freaks discovered magic. Magic in a prehistoric black box I had gotten on sale at Wal-Mart fifteen years ago. They have discovered the TV.

Kate, really, was the one who "found" it; Linda is just basking at its Direct TV-powered, colorful glory. She's been sitting on the couch, bugging out her awed cow eyes watching Spongebob Squarepants (I don't know how people stand it; if I hear that theme song one more time I'll need to kill someone), and sitting stiller than I've ever seen her. Kate has been gone that entire time, four and a half hours, snooping around in the heat of the afternoon.

Hold it. Four and a half hours?

"OOOOOOOOOOOOOO… WHO LIVES IN A PINEAPPLE UNDER DA SEA? SPONGEBOB SQAREPANTS! ABSORBANT AND YELLOW AND…" This is the television in the living room, screaming as louder than human ears can possibly bear.

"Hey, Granny!" I say. I am staring through the shutters in the breakfast nook to the back of Linda's red head.

After bursting out in laughter at some incredibly stupid thing Mr. Krabs did, Linda cranes around to where I can see her pale, freckly face. Her eyes sparkle with never-ending enthusiasm, and her head is cocked to the side, eager to please. "Granny!" she says, clapping her tiny, twitching hands. She smiles, a finger pressing down on the low-volume button on the remote. "I can see your recognizing me as your GRANDMA now!"

I think one pupil is dilated, and the other eye is having a twitching fit. Now I'm afraid.

Linda Walker doesn't really seem to fit as my grandmother. She has some freaky twitchy, jittery disorder that may be, to this day, unnamed, and she's absolutely the loudest, most energetic person I've ever met. She seems to be enthusiastic about things she's mad about. Let's put it this way… She's…

Weird…

"Have you seen Rosie?" I say. "Kate's been gone, and I don't think she took the lizard with her."

"Huh-uh," Linda replies. "I saw Kate sneak out, about…" She twists her head around in thought. "…A long time ago. Rosie wasn't with her. I asked her, 'What are you doing?' and she just smirked and left without saying a thing."

"Oh." As Linda turns back to the TV, and I turn back into the kitchen, I see Rosie. She's crawling an inch away from my nose on the frame of the doorway, swishing her scaly emerald tail back and forth, barely pricking my eyelash. She's headed somewhere.

"Hey!" I say. I make a grab for her and she scoots away, but I'm not sure I could touch a reptile, anyhow. "Rosie!"

My ears concentrate on the clicking of her little toenails on the hardwood as I chase her through rooms. I duck into the little den, which is musty and practically unused. As I breathe in the scent of old-ness, I see Rosie stop and crawl up the leg of a wooden stool.

I remember my grandpa dwelling here in the last year of his life. He had already departed from the world, practically, though he still stood and breathed… That emotionless look in his dark eyes told you he was alone now, and his end was near. He was ready to leave his eighteen-year-old granddaughter the parentless owner of the vacant Greenlake, Texas.

I sigh and crouch down on the woven indigo rug. A current of dust lifted up into the air, swirling into invisibility as I open a drawer in the aged cherrywood cabinet. I gasped as little slips of white spill around me. It had been heavy with old, sepia photos. I pick one up and examine it. I recognize the face.

Kate Barlow.

Curls of blond spill around her blank face, bright red lips curled into a mischievous smirk. White lace lines around her neck, and a leather jacket goes around that. Her big, dark blue eyes shine into the camera.

Why did my grandfather have dozens and dozens of photos of his legendary enemy?

A little pinned-together stack stands out from the others. It's pictures from my grandparent's wedding on the shore of the lake. Linda is wearing a beautiful lightly colored dress that twists around them in a long train. I can tell she is trying her best not to fall into an energetic, jittery fit. Grandpa Charles is not the thousand-year-old ugly old man with scraggly white hair poking up in all directions and crooked teeth I'd always known. His shiny brown hair is neatly combed and he's wearing a black satin suit, with a stargazer lily tucked in the front pocket.

Then I think he was sort of cute in his golden ages. Then I slap myself.

I was just smoothing out the petals a dried flower tucked in with a picture of Kate looking like a paid assassin when I heard a little, wispy noise coming from the other side of the wall.

Rosie has heard it, too. She's scratching at something behind the little stool. As I move it aside, I see it's a miniature door with a glossy, dark green porcelain knob sticking out. With its cobwebs and tiny flower designs, the knob dares me to turn it. I do.

There is Kate, huddled in a ball in the corner. Particles of dusts sift around her, and she's crying in quiet, repressed sobs. As two old floorboards creak under my knee, and her head shoots up.

"Wha-" she says. Her facial expressions are angry, and I'm thinking about turning back around and leaving. But if there's one thing I've learned in my sad, pitiful lifetime, is that turning around does not settle things. I still sit there, with Rosie trying desperately to squeeze through the tiny crack between the ajar doorway and my butt. Kate is giving me the same paid assassin look as in that last picture. I tuck a wisp of hair behind my ear and look up at her from under my lashes, pleading simple forgiveness. She sighs and turns back to her soft murmurs of crying, barely noticing my presence. I notice she's clutching something between two fingers.

"What's that, Kate?" I say gently.

"Oh," she whispers. She swirls around the item. I notice it's the little kite feather she keeps in her hat sometimes. She runs her index finger along it's smooth, silver surface. "Sam gave this to me. Do you know who Sam is?"

"Yes." I'd read about his death in a newspaper. I knew my grandfather had killed him; and this was why Kate lurked for revenge and hid away from the world.

She smiled, but it was a sad smile. Her eyelashes were glossy, and her lips were lined with tears. "He told me, that if I wished hard enough for something on this feather, wished with my heart, I would get it." She frowned. "I wished for him to come back to me. It never happened. It doesn't work."

I raked my brain for something to comfort my friend. "Maybe it's not him coming to you, but you coming to him," I said. Nice line, Dr. Phil...

Then Rosie's pushing became harder. I scooted out of the way, and Linda tumbled out of the doorway.

"I heard it all!" she said. "You still have that feather?"

We were both staring at Kate, who wasn't making any contact whatsoever.

"What's wrong, serial killer buddy?" said Linda.

Kate was mumbling to herself. Wishing, I guessed. She opened her eyes, and a smile spread across her face. It was a sneaky smile, like the one I'd get when I was little and I hid Grandpa's favorite watch. She held the feather in her fingers.

I turned to Linda, and for only five seconds we exchanged glances. And in those five seconds, Kate disapeared.

"WHERE DID SHE GO?" I screamed. I scrambled to my feet, and made my way to the window with Linda at my side. Then I stoped. Linda stopped. (How is this possible?)

Outside wasn't the same.