Lyall rose from the kitchen table, and walked around to my side of the table. He knelt on the floor before my chair, looking up at me. His irises were ochre from the sunlight striping his face.

"Would you believe me if I showed you some magic?" he said.

"Right now?" I asked. "You'll do a trick for me?"

His voice was gentle, yet firm. "Not a trick. Real magic."

"But if you have some trick hat, or a rigged deck of cards—"

"Then you choose," said Lyall. "Within reason. What do you want me to do? What would make you believe me?"

I shook my head, in absolute disbelief. "Are you really being serious right now?"

"I am."

"Well—then—oh, I don't know. Conjure something out of midair, then. Conjure a frog."

"Oh, Hope," he chuckled. "I'm not allowed animal transfiguration in this flat. It's in the terms of my lease—"

I burst out laughing at the absurdity of such a clause. "So you won't show me," I scoffed. "It's all nonsense—"

"It's just one exception," pleaded Lyall, his brow knit into deep creases. "I don't want to be evicted. I'll conjure something else!"

"Fine, then. Conjure a chair."

"You can be more specific," he said. "Tell me what kind of chair, so I can't possibly cheat."

I rolled my eyes. "An orange velvet chair, with a leopard-print pillow. The ugliest chair on earth."

"If I must," he replied, grinning. He retrieved his "wand" from the table and stepped away from me. Aiming it at the floor, Lyall spun and flicked it rapidly, and whispered, "Solatio!"

It happened so quickly that I felt as though I had fallen off the edge of a cliff.

A lumpy orange puddle appeared on the floor, then grew upward. The lumps became fuzzy, and spread into two curved shapes, while a band joined them together. The band morphed into the back of an armchair, while the curved shapes had wobbled, then puffed up into velvety armrests. With a tiny pop!, a leopard-print pillow somehow sprung up from the seat. And it all happened over the course of about five seconds.

Lyall approached the chair and leaned on the armrest, an unmistakable smirk on his face. But I couldn't respond—my mind had become a blank slate. There was absolutely nothing in my head. I didn't know where I was.

I sat and he stood in complete silence for at least a minute. Finally, the shock of witnessing an absolutely impossible act—the appearance of an object that simply did not exist mere seconds ago—cleared enough for me to remember who Lyall was, and what in the world was going on.

"It really is hideous, isn't it," remarked Lyall. "You have quite the imagination."

"Can I touch it?" I whispered.

"Go ahead."

I don't know what I was expecting—a projection? A mirage? When I probed the plush velvet backrest, all I felt was fabric, stuffing, and beneath it, solid wood. The basic texture and consistency of an armchair, exactly as one would expect, unless said arm chair had miraculously appeared out of thin air a minute ago.

"Well?" said Lyall. "What do you think?"

"Show me something else!" I blurted out, not so much seeking additional proof as I was mesmerized by the novelty.

"Should I get rid of the chair?" he said. "I don't want to keep this thing around." He pointed his wand at the poufy orange armchair, and commanded "Evanesco!" It disappeared at once, gone completely, as though it had never really existed. I gasped.

Lyall laughed, and pushed his glasses up his nose. "Shall we wash the dishes?" he asked rhetorically. Before I could respond, water poured from the kitchen faucet, and a scrubbing brush danced through the air, cleaning our dirty plates. Rivulets of water spread like veins across the plates, streaming from nowhere. I ran to the sink, and touched the moving sponge. There were no strings, no magnets—nothing at all to support or guide its movement. Nothing but Lyall's poorly suppressed smile.

I felt faint, and grabbed the countertop to support myself. Lyall rushed over, and caught me by my upper arms. The naughty smile was gone.

"I don't know what to say," I murmured. A tear began to drip down my cheek. "I don't know what's going on."

"Hope, I didn't mean to scare you," Lyall assured me. "I just thought—I had to show you something." He guided me through the kitchen, past the little table, to a loveseat facing the window. We sat down next to one another, and I bent over, clutching my face in my hands.

"Please tell me you aren't angry," he continued. "I didn't want to lie to you, I didn't want to be dishonest, but I had to—"

"I don't understand," I whispered. "How could it be true...if it can't be so..."

Lyall inhaled, then sighed deeply. He ran his fingers through his hair, un-sticking some of the gelled locks.

"I can explain," he said. "Or at least I can try."

My eyes burned, and my face was sticky with tears. Lyall grabbed his wrinkled handkerchief from the table and dabbed my cheeks with it. I sniffled.

"I'm sorry," he murmured. "I didn't want to shock you...but I thought you wouldn't believe me unless I showed you something...big."

"How do you it?" I whispered.

Lyall sighed slowly. He stared down at my hands in my lap. Flares of lights flashed from the tiny diamond facets of my new ring. "It's complicated, Hope. It's not—it depends on so many things."

"What things?" I asked. I didn't realize my nose was dripping until Lyall handed me his handkerchief.

"The spell...the difficulty...the kind of magic, the way you're feeling, the amount of energy you need to summon...it's more of an art than a science, really. Though people like me are trying to make it more of a science."

I didn't know what on earth he meant by people like me, but there was so much going on in my head at once that the only thing I could focus on was my runny nose.

"I don't want to get your handkerchief dirty," I sniffled. "Do you have a tissue?"

"It's no bother," said Lyall gently. "I can clean it instantly."

"With—with magic?"

"Of course," he said, handing me his handkerchief.

I wiped my nose, but hesitated when Lyall held out his hand, expecting me to return it to him.

"Go on," he said.

I let him take the crumpled, dirty handkerchief from me, and he gently tapped it with his wand. It unfurled like a flower, flattening into a clean square of silk. He offered it back to me.

"Take it," said Lyall, gently. "In case you need it again. I have plenty."

I took the handkerchief, my fingers brushing his briefly. His skin was so warm. I placed the square of silk in my lap, like a napkin before a big meal.

"I expect you have many questions," said Lyall.

"I—I have—I don't know," I said, my voice still choked up. "I don't know where to start."

"It's alright," he assured me. "I—I wish there was a better way to do this. I've never had to explain it to anyone before."

"Are you saying I'm the only one that knows?"

He shook his head assertively. "No, no, it's not like that. It's that I've never had to tell anyone who didn't already know."

Idly, I stretched the corners of his handkerchiefs, pulling the fabric on the bias. "I suppose your family knows you're a—you're special," I said.

"Hope," whispered Lyall. Tentatively, he placed a hand on mine. I looked up from the handkerchief, into his eyes. "I'm not the only one," he said. "It's not—it's not about me. I'm not even that special, not even that powerful. There's many of us—of witches and wizards," he clarified, seeing the question in my eyes.

"How many?" I asked.

"About eight thousand in Britain, and more across the world. I'm not quite sure," said Lyall, furrowing his brow. "I don't believe there's an even distribution—"

"Eight thousand?" I interrupted. "You're telling me there are eight thousand people in Britain who can...do those things?"

"Yes," he replied simply. "But it's still a small percentage of the total—"

"But why haven't I ever met any of them? Wouldn't there be books about it—wouldn't it be in the papers, all over the radio?"

"Oh, dear," he said, fixing with a worried smile. "You must have a million questions."

"I just don't understand," I said. "How could...how could all of this be real, and nobody knew?"

"Because you were deceived," said Lyall. His tone was not unkind, but I wasn't very reassured by this prospect. "We—the magical community—we've hidden things." He looked down and chewed his lip, seeming to search for the right words.

Magical community?

"There's something called the Statute of Secrecy," he continued, his voice quiet. "It's been the law since the 18th century. We're not allowed to reveal ourselves, except under certain prescribed circumstances. It was decided that, er...it would better for both wizards and Muggles—those are non-magical people—to simply...part ways. Permanently."

"What? Why?"

"At least that I can answer easily," he replied. "Self-preservation. We're small in number—we're a minority—and there was too much at stake for Muggles to simply let us be. No pun intended," he added, with a smirk.

"I don't get the pun," I murmured.

"The stake," said Lyall. "They used to burn us...or try to."

"But witch burnings were fake!" I spluttered. "It was all a lie! They were accusing innocent people—they were show trials—"

"Hope," said Lyall, gently squeezing my hand in his. "We're innocent too."

Our eyes met—his golden brown, and mine blue. Tears welled up and spilled down my cheeks. He brushed the tears away with his free hand.

"It's true that many people were falsely accused of witchcraft, yes," he said. "And the real witches—they didn't deserve that fate either. Luckily, the ones who were caught were usually able to perform a flame-freezing charm, or escape in some manner. But it wasn't just the burnings—that was only one part of it. The persecution was relentless. And I'm sorry to say that we weren't entirely undeserving, as a community."

"What do you mean?"

Wiping my cheeks with his handkerchief, Lyall sighed and said, "There is a perception that Muggles are—well—easy to exploit. There are those among us who would take advantage financially, or worse."

Financially...why did that word feel discomfiting? There was something irking me—a question on the tip of my tongue, something I struggled to articulate.

Seeing my bothered expression, Lyall elaborated. "We're not all like that, though. I wouldn't want you to get the wrong idea. Plenty of wizards and witches are of the belief that taking advantage of Muggles is the lowest form of trickery—sort of like hitting a woman, or stealing from children. It's pathetic."

"But I'm a Muggle," I said, feeling the strange new word grow in my mouth like a mushroom after the rain. "And I had no idea about any of this until today."

"Yes, I know," said Lyall, sounding amused.

"Does that mean I'm...a complete moron? Am I pathetic?"

"No! No, not at all," he assured me, leaning in closer. "I would never think that about you. Don't you know me by now?"

"I thought I did," I said flatly.

Lyall didn't respond. He let go of my hand, and I wrapped my arms around myself out of instinct. I stared down at my shoes. When I tied my laces that morning, I was overjoyed, excited at the prospect of getting to see my fiancé. Now, I wondered if the floor had fallen out from beneath my shoes. In the quiet room, the rhythmic breathing of an air vent filled the silence with its sighing respiration.

When Lyall finally spoke, it was in a whisper. "Are you really cross with me?"

"I don't know," I mumbled. "I don't know how to feel."

"I didn't want to lie," he said, more insistently. "I had to. I really had to, Hope."

"If you had to lie, why are you suddenly allowed to tell the truth now?" I complained. "Who made you lie?"

"It's the law, Hope. I could face prison time for knowingly and intentionally exposing an unrelated Muggle to information pertaining to magic."

"But now you're telling me—"

"Yes," he interrupted. "I said an unrelated Muggle. There are exceptions for immediate family members of wizards or witches—they're allowed to know. But I couldn't tell you until I knew you would be my wife."

I sniffled—possibly because what he was saying made sense, and I felt rather guilty, and possibly because of the phrase "my wife."

"Lyall—can we still get...get married?" I blubbered, yet more tears dripping down my cheeks. My nose was running again too.

"If you still want to," he said, failing to conceal a bitter note in his voice. "If your feelings have...not changed."

"But...but I...I want to have a family," I sobbed. "I want to have children." It was one of my deepest desires—something I had known since I was a child myself. I had never even considered marrying someone who would not want children.

"Of course you do," said Lyall, in a soothing tone. "And so do I."

"But we can't have them now, can we?" I said, wiping my nose again with his handkerchief.

"Why not?" said Lyall.

"Because we're not the same," I said sadly. "You're not—you aren't—" I motioned to him vaguely, not knowing quite what I was saying.

"Human?" he asked, wryly. A smiled played on his near-motionless lips.

"Well..." I wiped my nose again. The silky handkerchief was becoming soggy. "It sounds silly when you put it that way."

"Oh, Hope," he sighed and took the handkerchief away from me, cleaning it with a tap of his wand. Lyall placed it in my left hand, and folded both of his hands over mine. The pebbly surface of his tweed jacket tickled my wrist. He leaned over our clasped hands, bending down as if to kiss them, and then he stopped and looked up at me.

"I am very much human," said Lyall. "As are you. And we can still have children—I mean, if you still want them."

"But how?" I whispered.

His mouth flickered like a power line shifting under the weight of a sparrow. My hand felt moist within the shell of his two warm palms.

"Er, Hope..." muttered Lyall. "Do you—do you not know...how—?"

"I don't know anything about wizards," I said. "Except what you've told me."

He chuckled nervously. "I meant, er, about babies. About how..."

Fire spread up my spine and into my cheeks. "Well, of course I know about that," I insisted bashfully, "but that's all for Muggles. I don't know if it's all—"

"It's no different," said Lyall abruptly. "We're just people, Hope. We're not any different in, er...in that respect."

"Ah."

Was it my hand burning, or his? I noticed the tiny seeds of sweat on the plain of his forehead. That conversation was probably even more uncomfortable for him than it was for me, and I was certainly uncomfortable enough. How on earth, I thought, are we ever going to be married people? Perhaps something would change when we made it official. Maybe after your wedding, things would feel different—doors would open, curtains would be swept aside. Maybe Lyall would take his tie off in front of me before our tenth anniversary.

(He would.)

"Let me show you something," Lyall said softly, letting go of my hands. "Something you'll like. I won't scare you, I promise," he said.

"What are you going to do?" I asked.

"Do you see that coaster behind you? The cork one?" he said. I turned around, to find a coaster, as described, sitting on his mahogany end table. On it was an empty glass cut with notched prisms, a dark line amber encircling the bottom of its interior. I imagined Lyall sitting alone in the yellow lamplight, underlining passages in his manuscript, a glass of whiskey or whatever it is men drank in his hand. The liquor warm in his belly. And what did he think about when he drank alone?

"Give me the coaster," said Lyall.

"But there's a glass—"

"Forget that," said Lyall. "Just hand me the coaster. I'll do something you like."

I moved the glass aside and handed Lyall the coaster.

"What kind of flowers do you like?" he asked.

"I like all kinds," I said, giggling. "What's this about?"

"Daisies, then," he said, and pulled the wand out of his suit pocket.

His lips moved, but no sound came out as he pointed the tip of his wand at the coaster. He was murmuring something—secret words, a mysterious language, perhaps something in Latin or Greek. The coaster was shifting, its pockmarked surface rising and bubbling like a stew, and tendrils of almond- and cocoa- and topaz-coloured cork rose from the surface and twisted together; the cork strands wrapped around each other, tender as lovers, and then the strands were a single cord, thickening and lightening into tea green. I glanced at Lyall's face, and he was totally calm, near motionless but for a twitch in his brow. His spectacles reflected the stop-motion flickering of a plant growing at an impossible rate—sprouts into buds, and buds unfurling, diamond-shaped petals opening like an infant's hungry mouth. There were five of them—five flowers on three stalks, and several leaves and entrails of cream thread at the stalk's ends, as though they cut been plucked from the earth and trimmed by dull shears.

"Adnecto," Lyall commanded quietly, and a shiny ribbon drew its own line in the air and wrapped around the stalks. "Here. Do you like them?" He tucked his wand back into his suit jacket and handed the daisies to me, and it was only then that I realized my hand was covering my open mouth.

Lyall grinned, showing me a rare glimpse of his teeth. "Your expression..."

"What is it?" I said, feeling the heat rise in my cheeks yet again.

"Nothing," he said, and laid the little bouquet down on my lap. "It's just—your eyes are like saucers."

The embarassment must have shown on my face, for he said, "No, don't be shy. It's very...well, I find it, er, endearing." He looked down at his lap and added, "I mean, not just endearing. I mean charming—well, I mean, not just your expression, but—all of it. You. Obviously, I find you—well..."

"Lyall," I murmured, bringing the daisies to my face. They smelled like honey. Sweet-scented pollen powdered my nose. "You can just say it."

Lyall exhaled shakily. "But I can't," he whispered, "because I don't know...if you still want to hear it."

"I do."

He took a deep breath, and I was ready to tell him that even after his massive disclosure, I loved him too.

But then he said, "You're just...so beautiful." And he removed his glasses, leaving a thumbprint on one lens. "Can't I kiss you, just for a little bit?"


The diamond pattern of sunlight lining the floor beside Lyall's living room bay window had shortened into orderly checkers. It was almost noon. He tucked a stray lock of hair behind my ear and kissed my forehead. When I moved to brush my hair with my fingers, my thumb left a flushed mark on his cheek.

"You still haven't told me what you really do for a living," I said lightly.

"You're right," he murmured. "But one more, first." When he leaned into me, I felt the rigid line of his wand beneath his coat, and I pressed one palm against his right lapel, feeling its outline. Lyall ignored my prying; he was clearly more interested in getting the best possible value out of his bonus kiss. His mouth tasted like fresh bread, hot from the oven.

When I broke the kiss, he slowly drew his mouth across mine and brushed it against my nose before twisting to the side and sneezing violently.

I laughed, and handed him his handkerchief, which had been sadly abandoned on a sofa cushion and then sat on.

"Very sorry about that," he muttered, blowing his nose.

"It's the pollen," I said.

"What?"

"From your daisies," I said, peeking over the crest of my knees to see the little bouquet lying on the floor beneath us. It was a very pretty bouquet, but I had dropped it unceremoniously when Lyall presented me with a better offer. I was about to reach for the flowers when Lyall pulled me closer to him. His left arm was still wrapped around my waist, fingers resting on the ruched waistband of my dress.

"You want to know what I do," he said. "Well, I haven't told you the whole truth—but I haven't totally lied either."

"I suspected that."

"I am a researcher," he said. "And I do write books. My second book was published a year ago, just after we met. And now I'm working on some articles, but I'm planning to write another book, hopefully done by the end of next year.

(Lyall would finish it earlier than expected, his first and last manuscript ever to be handed in before his deadline. We would celebrate his book launch with champagne, which I regretted when my little occupant kept me awake all night, protesting with drunken kicks and somersaults that even Lyall could feel.)

"But I suppose you want to know what it is I study," said Lyall, sounding more reserved.

"That would be nice, yes."

"It's...er...they're something called non-human spiritous apparitions. I suppose you've never heard of those, are have you...?"

I laughed. "What do you think?"

"I suppose not, then," he said. "Right. But you have met at least one, that I know."

"I've met a spiritous apparition?" I said skeptically. "Well, I suppose there might be a few skeletons in my closet."

Lyall shook his head and replaced his glasses on his nose. "It's not anything like that," he said. "Not at all."

I couldn't help but reach forward and polish his lens with the sleeve of my cardigan, which made Lyall smile. He looked so lovely right then, with his tortoiseshell glasses crooked on the bridge of his nose, and his smile lines like parentheses bracketing a special secret, just for me. How could I not forgive him for being a little roundabout in the honesty department? Did it really matter whether he studied animal migration or whatever a 'non-human spiritous apparition' was?

Lyall clasped my hand, and thumbed my engagement ring as he said, "Tell me something, Hope. Do you remember how we met?"

"Of course I do, Lyall. You saved my life."

"Well, the thing is—I didn't."

"But—"

"Because your life was never in danger," he said. "So I couldn't have saved it."

"Well, even if that man meant no harm, there was no way to know if he—"

"Hope, listen," said Lyall. "It wasn't a man."

"Well, he wasn't a woman."

"No," said Lyall. "He wasn't a human being. At least—not in any more than appearance. That was a Boggart. And I study them—among other spiritous apparitions."

I wanted to interrupt, to deny, to argue—but a cold shiver was running down my spine, because when I remembered the second sentence he ever said to me, that beautiful September day when the hazel trees arched over us like hunchbacks.

"Well, it was only a boggart."

Lyall must have felt me tremble a little, because he clasped my shoulders to steady me.

"Don't be scared," he assured me. "He was harmless—they all are."

"But why was he chasing me?" I asked.

"Because Boggarts are a manifestation of your greatest fear," said Lyall, his voice growing in confidence. He seemed almost excited to explain himself. "They feed off your energy—your emotions—and they present as whatever it is you fear most. But they can't actually harm you, not physically."

"That sounds horrifying," I said. "Why on earth would you want to study them?"

"Because they're fascinating," said Lyall, "and there's plenty we still don't understand about them. And because non-human spiritous apparitions, of which Boggarts are only one kind, can teach us so much about the soul."

I played with the topmost button of his suit jacket. "Do you believe in souls, Lyall?"

"I don't have to believe," he said. "I know."

"Really? You really think you know for sure?" I said, cocking my head at him.

"I do," said Lyall. "As would anyone that has met a ghost, which is nothing but soul."

Oh, bloody hell. "Are you serious?" I asked him. "Are you telling me that ghosts are really, truly, honestly real?"

"They are," he replied, matter-of-factly. "But you can't see them—I mean, no Muggle can."

"Well, what about monsters? Are monsters real?"

"That's not a very specific term," said Lyall. "Define 'monster.'"

"Oh, I don't know..." I cast about for an example, feeling absurd. "What about the Loch Ness Monster?"

"It's a kelpie, actually," replied Lyall dryly, "but yes,"

What is a kelpie?

"And unicorns?"

"Yes."

"And dragons?"

"Certainly real, though I would rather not come across one. I think you Muggles have them too though, the—what are they called again? Komodo dragons? In Asia?"

"But those are really just murderous lizards," I pointed out automatically, before realizing I was starting to sound as pedantic as Lyall. "Oh, god, Lyall. I know I sound ridiculous. What I mean to ask you—what I really need to ask you is—but I don't even know what I should ask. All I know is that apparently, I don't know anything." I shook my head and he squeezed my shoulders.

"Don't be hard on yourself," he told me. "You don't have to understand everything today. I went to school for seven years to learn magic, and that was after growing up with it my entire life."

I felt dizzy, and leaned back against the sofa back, forcing Lyall to remove his arm from around my waist. He patted my knee gently.

"Shall I get you a glass of water?" he asked.

"Yes, I think so." I steeled myself for him to conjure a cup of water out of thin air, but mercifully, he retrieved a cup from the kitchen cabinet and filled it with the faucet. As he returned from the kitchen, Lyall paused on the edge of the Turkish carpet beneath the coffee table.

"I forgot," he muttered. He took his wand out and tapped it on the edge of a bookcase. The spines of the books on all the bookcases seemed to peel off and then disappear, revealing completely different spines underneath. I squinted to see what the new spines read, but I couldn't read from that far away.

"Go ahead, have a look," said Lyall, as he handed me the water. I took a drink before approaching the bookshelves, hoping the cold water might ground me in some semblance of recognizable reality.

Eastern European Potioneering, 1611-1672. Swords Crossed: Goblin-Wizard Conflict Through the Ages. The Ghost In the Garden: A History of Spiritous Activity in Gethsemane. Transfiguring the Postwar Economy. The Only Book Of Household Charms You'll Ever Need, Volume Three.

"It's an oxymoron, isn't it?" said Lyall.

"What?"

"The only book you'll ever need, yet it's the third volume," said Lyall. "I always found that ironic."

I trailed a finger across the spines, feeling the gold and silver letters embossed into the book covers. They all felt real, looked real, and yet—what about today could possibly be real? Surely it was a marvelous dream. And what was it about that word, economy? A shiver ran down my spine; I was so close to realizing it...

"Hope," said Lyall quietly. "I truly regret not telling you sooner. It was—a very difficult choice. But I always wanted—"

"Why do you need to work?!" I spluttered suddenly. "Shouldn't you have unlimited money?" As soon as the words left my mouth, I immediately turned beet red, realizing how horridly rude and invasive the questions were.

Lyall burst into laughter. His belly shook, and he bent over, unable to control it—the laughter bubbling out of him, raucous and infectious. His smile was wider than I had ever seen it, and his face was turning pink from the exertion.

"I'm sorry! I was...horribly rude, and I should never have asked!" I stammered, feeling off-kilter.

Lyall couldn't reply for laughing; I waited half a minute until he could get himself together, before he replied, "Oh, Hope. Oh, you make me laugh."

I frowned, feeling stupid. "I know I should have said it differently," I said, in a small voice.

Lyall approached me, and leaned against the bookshelf before me, standing quite a bit closer to me than he might have only a few days before. "Not at all," he said. "It makes sense that you'd wonder, now that I think of it. And I, I will I explain, I promise. It's just...well..."

He was grinning again, his eyes crinkling behind the round glasses. I gave him a little smile in response, though I still didn't understand.

"What?" I murmured.

"I like the way you, er—the way you react to things," he said more quietly. "I like the way you ask me things, and, well..." He looked down at our feet—his, still in polished leather shoes, and mine, shoeless and stocking-ed. "I just like you." He exhaled nervously. "Rather a lot," he added.

I giggled, and said, "I guess that makes sense given that...you know..." I waved my right hand so the diamond ring caught attention.

"Yeah." He caught my hand in his, and touched the diamond again.

"It's lovely," I said. "Really. I couldn't stop staring at it last night. It's the perfect ring."

"I thought it would suit you," he said hoarsely. Lyall's eyes met mine. So rarely had I given myself permission to gaze at him for as long as I wanted that it felt indecent to watch him this way. Lyall held my gaze steadily. I wondered what he was really thinking, underneath everything he said.

"So, er..." he began. "Are we—are we still, y'know..." His mouth flickered, micro-expressions shifting across his face too quickly too read.

"Engaged," I said, finishing the sentence for him.

"Yes. That. Are we still engaged?" said Lyall abruptly, as though he wanted the topic closed as soon as possible.

I fingered his tweed lapel, its bristly surface like a cat's tongue. It occurred to me that the next time I saw my family's cat and stroked Pilot's glossy piebald fur, I would have to tell my parents that I was going to marry Lyall Lupin.

"We are," I said, smiling, and added, "But I've got about a billion questions..."