There was a continuous twenty-four-hour search going on for the artifact on the bottom of the straits. The locals thought they were stupid since the current had put it in Lake Huron shortly after the truck hit the water, and I thought they were stupid because the real artifact was hidden in Jenks’s living room. With their official stand being what it was, the I.S. couldn’t lock me up, but with the added points after the accident with Peter, they could suspend my license. My choices were riding the bus for six months or gritting my teeth and taking driver’s ed. God no. I’d be the oldest one in the class.

My mood tarnishing, I took the church’s stairs two at a time, and felt my leg protest. I pulled the heavy wooden door open, slipped inside and breathed deeply, relishing the scent of tomato paste and bacon. The pizza dough was probably ready, and Kisten’s sauce had been simmering for the better part of the day. He had kept me company in the kitchen all afternoon while I finished restocking my charm cupboard. Even helped me clean my mess.

I shut the door with hardly a thump. All the windows in the church were open to let in the moist night. I couldn’t wait to get into the garden tomorrow, and even had a few seeds I wanted to try out. Ivy was laughing at me and the stack of seed catalogs that somehow found me despite my address change, but I’d caught her looking at one.

Tucking a stray curl behind my ear, I wondered if I might splurge for the ten-dollar-a-seed packet of black orchids she’d been eyeing. They were wickedly hard to get and even more difficult to grow, but with Jenks’s help, who knew?

Slipping off my wet boots and coat, I left them by the door and padded in my socks through the peaceful sanctuary. The hush of a passing car came in through the high transom windows above the stained-glass windows. The pixies had worked for hours chiseling the old paint off and oiling the hinges so I could open them with the long pole I’d found in the belfry stairway. There were no screens, which was why the lights were off. There were no pixies either. My desk was again my desk. Thank all that was holy.

My wandering attention touched on the potted plants Jenks had left behind on my desk, and I jerked to a halt, seeing a pair of green eyes under the chair, catching the light. Slowly my breath slipped from me. “Darn cat,” I whispered, thinking Rex was going to scare the life out of me if she didn’t break my heart first. I crouched to try to coax her to me, but Rex didn’t move, didn’t blink, didn’t even twitch her beautiful tail.

Rex didn’t like me much. She liked Ivy just fine. She loved the garden, the graveyard, and the pixies that lived in it, but not me. The little ball of orange fluff would sleep on Ivy’s bed, purr under her chair during breakfast for tidbits, and sit on her lap, but she only stared at me with large, unblinking eyes. I couldn’t help but feel hurt. I think she was still waiting for me to turn back into a wolf. The sound of Kisten and Ivy’s voices intruded over the slow jazz. Hiking the canvas bag higher, I awkwardly inched closer to Rex, hand held out.