Willow put the two pieces of paper on the coffee table. "See," she said, "this one is a street map of Sunnydale." She looked apologetically at Matti. "I printed it without asking." She pointed at the other piece of paper. "This one is a map of ley lines in this area. If you take it and put over the street map like so…" She tapped the two pages together, lining up the corners. "This line runs through town like this. These two circles are Cordelia's house and Xander's house. See how they're both close to the line?" She looked at the other three faces.

"Interesting," Giles murmured as he leaned forward. His finger traced the ley line. "So, you believe that the ley line is functioning as a… what? Antenna?"

Willow's eyes widened. "Exactly. It's an antenna for the Hellmouth energy."

Giles frowned in concentration. "And how does this explain what has happened to Cordelia?"

"Oz says Xander is still all wickety-wackety. What if he and Cordelia are caught in a sort of, I don't know, evil magnetic field?" Willow's hands waved in the air as she warmed to her theory. "The effect is stronger on Cordelia because she…" Willow went pale. "I'm sorry," she said, looking around. "I sound like a ghoul."

Buffy sat down beside her best friend and put an arm around Willow. "Not really. Ghouls just kind of howl and grunt."

Willow shook her head. "I was about to say 'because she found her dead parents'. Insensitive much?"

"Willow Rosenberg." Matti bent over to look the teenaged witch in the face. "A detective is excited when they catch a murderer. Doesn't mean they don't care about the victim." She glanced at Giles. "If I'm not getting out of my lane."

"Yeah," Buffy said. "Some of my best quips have come in the middle of a good disemboweling."

"Yes," Giles said. "Go on."

Willow swallowed and wiped her eyes. "Because of… what happened, Cordelia has been more affected." She looked at the street map. "Where did you see the whatevers?"

"Right there." Buffy pointed. "The street that goes between Oak Park and Maple Drive. The one that runs between the hospital and Radcliff Park."

Willow looked at the street map, then at her ley line map. She frowned. "Anybody have a pencil?"

"I'll get one." Matti straightened up and went into the kitchen/dining area. She returned shortly and handed a Ticonderoga #2 to Willow. The student consulted her maps again, then drew another circle on the ley line map.

She leaned back. "See? Look where that is… it's close to the line."

Giles grimaced; "So, this ley line is being supercharged by the Hellmouth, and Cordelia and Xander are its victims?"

"They're not the only ones." Willow looked back and forth between Giles and Matti. "Think about it… fights at school, assaults in town, weird deaths… This is it." She gestured over the papers. "It's the.. the... "

"Penumbra," Giles suggested.

"Yes!" Willow pointed at him excitedly. "It's like the heat from a fire. You can be farther away from it, but you still feel it."

"It's an intriguing idea," Giles said.

"Nice work, Willow," Matti said.

Willow smiled. "Thank you. I know it's probably wrong to be proud right now, but I kinda am."

Buffy leaned over the maps, looking from one to the other. "I don't want to be the pooper at this party, but there's a flaw in your Jessica Fletcher."

"What?" Willow leaned over, her head close to the Slayer's.

"Here." Buffy placed a forefinger on the street map. "What's here?"

Willow looked and frowned. "My house. Why?"

Buffy picked up the pencil and drew another circled on the ley line map. "Your house is on the line, Will. At least as close to it as Xander and Cordy's."

Willow tilted her head to the side. "So?"

"So, why aren't you acting like a character from The Dead Zone?"

Willow stared at the Slayer for a moment. "I… I… It… maybe." Tears welled in her eyes, and she flopped back on the sofa. "You're right. How could I be so stupid?"

Matti Hollis stepped around the table and sat down beside Willow, who began to weep silently. Buffy hugged her friend tightly.

"I'm sorry, Will," she whispered. "I didn't mean to… I'm so sorry."

"I just, I thought I had it figured out, but I overlooked something so simple." Willow buried her face in her friend's shoulder.

Giles looked at the papers, stacking them, then placing them side by side. "This is very good work," he said. He looked at Willow, who had turned her face to him. "We have discovered a flaw, but I think that your basic premise is very sound. It's the details we're missing." He straightened up, maps in his hand. "We are all under a great deal of stress, and, speaking for myself, very, very tired. No one does their best work when they are fatigued." He held up the papers. "I believe we should revisit this tomorrow, after we get some rest. Our vision will be clearer."

"But what if it's too late?" Willow whispered.

Giles made eye contact with Matti. "We will check on Cordelia. Unless her condition is much worse, we will adjourn until tomorrow." He jerked his head toward the bedroom and Matti, catching the signal, went with him.

Matti took Cordelia's limp arm and placed two fingers on the wrist. "Forty-six beats per minute," she said.

"That's low, right?"

Matti looked over her shoulder at Giles. "It is, but she's a teenager in good shape, so her normal heart rate is probably on the low side of normal. After about twelve hours I started taking her pulse, and it's dropped from fifty-six. It's definitely going down, but pretty slowly."

"What about her breathing?"

Matti shrugged. "When I started checking, it was fourteen. Now, it's ten."

Giles nodded. "So it should be safe to wait until tomorrow. You will, of course, call us if her condition worsens."

Matti nodded. "I will, but what can you do?"

Giles ran his hands over his hair. "I have no idea, but in these moments one falls back on form and ritual." He took a deep breath. "I'll get Buffy and Willow."

"Cordelia appears to be stable," Giles said as he entered the living room. "Our plan is to get a good night's rest, then revisit Willow's hypothesis. We will meet in the library tomorrow-"

"Library? I can't leave Cordelia here and go to the library." Matti crossed her arms and drew herself up to her full six-feet-plus. "She came to my house. I'm in this. You'll come back here, and you'll bring doughnuts." She nodded one time.

"V-Very well." Giles looked at the two students. "Buffy, Willow, I think we should leave and let Ms. Hollis get some rest."

The girls got wearily to their feet. Willow's eyes squinted shut. "I should call Oz and tell him we're going home. He's been at Xander's all night."

Giles carefully steered the Citroen through the flooded streets. The car's anemic wipers did not really keep the windshield clear, but there was no other traffic on the street, so as long as he kept between the curbs everything was good. Buffy and Willow were in the back seat, leaning against each other, fast asleep. The battle axe's handle rested between Buffy's knees, the head on the floor between her feet. Giles looked at them in the rearview mirror. The car wobbled as the water tried to push it sideways. The librarian corrected his course and turned his attention to the road. He cast one more quick glance in the mirror and shook his head.

"Buffy." Giles tried to keep his voice soft, but the rain hammered on the roof and he spoke more loudly than he intended.

Buffy jerked awake, her eyes wide and staring. She looked around for a moment, uncomprehending, then reoriented herself. "Oh, wow," she said, taking a deep breath. "Sorry. I was really comatose there for a minute." She grimaced. "Sorry."

"Wh- no, not bunnies!" Willow shouted and sat up straight. She blinked rapidly, her breathing fast and shallow." She looked at the Slayer and then at Giles. "Oh," she said, "I had a dream."

"Obviously," Buffy said, rubbing at the corner of her eye with one finger. "Were the bunnies in danger or were you in danger from the bunnies?"

"I'd rather not say." Willow slumped back in the seat. "Do you think Cordelia's dreaming?"

"I would avoid that sort of speculation," Giles said firmly. "There is no reason to make the situation more dreadful."

"Well, I'm gonna go." Buffy grasped the axe handle and looked around.

"Just leave it there. I'll put it away later," Giles said as he leaned over to open the passenger-side door.

Willow rested her hand on Buffy's arm. "We'll pick you up in the morning. Oz and me. I. Oz and I. Which one's right?"

"Oz and I will pick you up in the morning. That's the best construction." Giles looked in the rearview.

"Okay, if we're diagramming sentences, it really is time to hit the hay." Buffy leaned into the door as Giles worked the handle. "Ewww," she said as she stood up. "Forgot I only had one shoe. Later." Willow and Giles watched her awkwardly half-hop through the rain to the porch. When the door opened and the Slayer went in, Willow leaned back in the seat.

"Giles?" she said, her voice already slurring.

"Yes?" The librarian began to back carefully out of the driveway.

"I may go to sleep."

He smiled as her eyelids fluttered closed. "Quite all right. Quite all right."

"Where is your shoe?"

Buffy jumped. "Mom! You almost gave me a heart attack! Why are you still awake? Why are you sitting here in the dark?"

Joy stood up from her chair. "First, there's a lamp, so I'm not in the dark. Second, I'm your mother. Every mother waits up for her daughter, and that goes double when said daughter is probably in danger, which brings me to my original question. Where's your shoe?"

Buffy pulled off her raincoat, wincing at the soreness in her back and arms. That axe wasn't light. "I lost it in the mud."

Joyce put her hands on her hips. "What about your jeans?"

Buffy looked down at the tattered denim below her knee. "Shoddy workmanship?" Joyce tilted her head toward her daughter. She did not look convinced. "Okay," the Slayer said, "some… thing gummed on my leg and my shoe and my pants fell apart. But I'm all right, honest." She sighed. "I'm just really, really beat. Can I go to bed?"

Joyce stepped closer. Her hand came up and tucked Buffy's hair behind an ear. "Of course. I'm trying to accept this whole… lifestyle that you have to keep, but it still scares me. So, I'll be waiting up, and you'll just have to accept that, missy." She frowned as she plucked something from the Slayer's head. "What is that?"

Buffy squinted. "Gross. I thought I got all of that." She looked into her mother's eyes. "I may take a shower before I go to bed."

Joyce grimaced at the squishy glob between her thumb and index finger. "That's probably a good idea."

The zebra-striped van was quiet as it crept through the gray streets. The three occupants were all a little worse for wear.

"Is anyone else starting to have trouble telling night from day?" Oz asked.

"Yeah," Buffy sighed. "It's just one long twilight that just gets darker."

"Is this what winter's like in Alaska?" Willow asked, staring out the window at the downpour.

"For about a month. And it's not raining." Oz clarified.

Willow turned from the window. "I'm starting to have trouble just thinking. I mean, the sound of the rain all the time, everywhere. How can you stand it?"

Oz shrugged as he worked the wheel "I learned to listen through it."

Buffy leaned forward between the front seats. "How's that?"

"I read this article in Guitar Player about Jeff Beck." He noticed their uncomprehending looks. "Great guitar player. Has tinnitus. Ears ring all the time. Apparently, the therapy is to listen past it, I guess, just accept that it's there and listen beyond it." He glanced in the rearview mirror. "It makes a lot more sense in practice."

"I'll take your word for it." The Slayer leaned back. "Are you guys having trouble sleeping?"

"Kinda," Willow said. "I mean, I'm not having trouble going to sleep, but when I wake up, it's like I feel tireder than I did when I went to bed. It's like half an hour before I'm really awake."

"Same here." Buffy looked listlessly out of the window. "God, this is depressing."

Oz pulled the van into Matti Hollis's driveway. The gray Citroen was already parked, melting into the surrounding mist and rain. The three students trudged along the overflowing walkway to the porch. Before they could ring the bell, Matti opened the door. They entered and repeated the now-familiar ritual of removing raincoats, shoes, and boots.

"Don't you have any shoes for the rain?" Matti asked Oz.

"No," he said. "Cool thing about Chucks, the canvas gets wet, you let it dry out, aha, almost like new shoes." He tipped his head to the side. "Stylish and functional."

Buffy looked around. "You said something about doughnuts."

"Ah," Giles said, entering from the kitchen, "I brought scones."

"Great," Buffy said, "'cause nothing promotes thinking like dry, crumbly British baked goods."

"You have been spoiled by the abominations served by establishments such as Starbucks," Giles sniffed. "These are proper scones. I think you will be quite pleased."

"I'm very easy to please when someone else buys," Oz said. "I'll take the first one."

"Okay," Buffy mumbled, "I'll admit, these are pretty good."

"You better, after three." Willow elbowed the Slayer.

Willow's maps of the streets of Sunnydale and the ley lines rested in the middle of the dining room table. Matti handed bottles of water to the students, then sat down, a cup of coffee in hand.

Giles wiped his mouth with a napkin. "I suppose we should begin. I thought it might be a good start to review what we… What are you doing?"

Oz looked up at the Watcher. "Looking at them upside down. Steve Cropper wrote the intro to The Midnight Hour by playing a major chord at each of the dots on his guitar neck. When he was writing Knock on Wood, he just reversed it. Sounded like a principle, so now, whenever I'm in a situation, I try to look at it in reverse." He pulled a pen from his pants pocket. "There's also new information. See, here's Cordy's house, and here's Xander's, and here's where you guys found the whatevers last night." He made two more circles on the ley line map. "And here's where more of them were spotted last night, according to the police scanner."

Willow looked at Buffy. "It's getting worse."

"Are you sure?" Matti asked.

Oz shrugged. "'Giant white slugs' seems pretty specific." He spun the maps around on the tabletop. "And, I checked out a bunch of the police calls from the last couple of days." He looked around at the four faces staring at him.

"And how did you do that?" Giles asked.

Oz tapped his pen on the table. "My mom keeps track in a notebook. It's kind of a hobby, although it's pretty handy right now."

Matti glanced at Giles, then looked back at Oz. "Okay, that's lucky. Does it matter?"

Oz tapped the pen against his forehead. "The closer you get to the line, well-" He pulled out the street map and tapped it with the pen. "-here on the east side of town, the calls are all petty stuff, domestic disturbances, but as you head toward the line-" he dragged the pen across the paper "-it turns serious. Even a few homicides."

"This is not making me feel better," Willow moaned.

"Well, the line definitely has some effect, but Buffy asked why Willow wasn't under any mojo." Oz looked at the Slayer. "She told me this morning on the way to pick you up. That got me thinking." He tapped the maps together and looked at them. "We assumed that the line's magnetic field of death is why Cordy is comatose, why Xander is in a funk, but what if…" he spun the maps one-hundred-eighty degrees "...we got it upside down. What if they're powering the field?" Everyone stared at him.

Finally, Matti said, "I am lost as grandma's goose."

"You lost me." Buffy slumped back in her chair.

"Explain," Willow said.

Oz tented his hands in front of his face. "Our theory was that the line got powered up and overcame Cordelia and is doing the same to Xander, only slower. Instead, what if they powered it up?"

"How could they do that?" Giles asked. "Neither of them knows magic."

"Unless Cordelia's a witch," Buffy muttered.

"I'm still lost." Matti took another gulp of coffee.

Willow looked down at the tabletop. "Their emotions." Her gaze was unfocused as she thought, hard. "Xander is sad, because he's hurt and what he did to Cordelia and he thinks we blame him." She looked up at the others. "And Cordelia is hurt because Xander cheated on her and made her look like a fool and then her parents… and they're on the ley line and the two of them reach some sort of… of…"

"Critical mass," Oz offered.

"Yes!" Willow cried out and turned to Giles. "They reach an emotional critical mass and it, it flips some sort of switch. The Hellmouth energy pours in, completes the circuit, and…" She looked at the others. "It's draining them."

There was a long moment of silence as the ramifications of what Willow and Oz had said sunk in. Finally, Buffy broke the silence.

"How did you work all this out?"

Oz shrugged. "When you said it didn't touch Willow. Why not? Her house is basically on the line. I worked backward from there. What do Xander and Cor have in common that Willow doesn't." He looked at her. "They're isolated." He spread his hands. "It kinda holds together. Look at what's been going on around town. Woman murders her husband, guy runs a woman down in a parking lot, fights at school… It's all anger and rage stuff. People who are hurting."

"Everybody hurts," Buffy observed.

"Maybe the pain has to rise to a certain level." Matti nodded at Oz. "Like you said, critical mass, or a tipping point."

"It does possess a certain logic," Giles mused.

"What Buffy said at the hospital," Willow said. "We have each other, except Xander thinks he doesn't now, have us, I mean, and Cordelia…" She shuddered. Matti sipped her coffee and said nothing.

"The whatevers," Buffy said. "Where do they fit?"

There was quiet again, then Willow's eyes widened. "I can't believe I didn't think of it!" She looked around the table. "What if the whatevers aren't normal monsters?"

"Is it scary that we use the phrase 'normal monsters'?" Buffy observed.

Matti Hollis nodded. "I think so."

Willow waved her hands in front of her face. "What if they're not? What if they aren't under someone's command, or broken loose from some underground cave or crossed over through some demon portal? What if they're different, what if they're, they're-"

"Manifestations?" Giles suggested.

"Yes!" Willow slapped the table. Everyone jumped, but she did not notice. "What if this brought them into existence?"

Matti looked at Giles. "Personifications?"

Giles looked puzzled. "Ancient gods were sometimes personifications of natural or human traits, but…"

"Avatars." Oz spoke quietly, but all heads turned to him. "In computer games, you can put yourself in the online world."

Matti pursed her lips. "In Snow Crash characters have virtual bodies in the metaverse. What? I read books."

"So, we are positing that these… whatevers are physical manifestations of, what, despair? Produced by the interaction of Xander and Cordelia's isolation with a Hellmouth-charged ley line."

"Like two poles of magnet." Oz spun the maps again.

Giles looked up at the ceiling. "I should say this is preposterous-"

"A word which has ceased to have any meaning in Sunnydale," Buffy observed.

"-but it seems to hold together."

"All right," Buffy said. "So, what do we do?"