I got my little knife out of my purse in my office, went outside the bookstore, and slashed the tires of his blue bike—blue for his loving mom—as subtly as I could. I am skilled at slash and dash. It was one strike against the front tire on the way to the mailbox, one slash against the back on the way in with the mail.

The young man was going to be hit by a truck and land in a ditch, which would snap his neck, but with my interference he would need to get new tires. That would allow plenty of time for the truck to be on its way and change the premonition.

I went right back into the bookstore and rang them up. They each bought another book in addition to the one on bike rides and trails on the island.

I didn’t like seeing the look of despair and anger on his face when he saw his mangled tires, but it was better than having a mangled neck, and I was able to send him to Harry Charles, who I knew would give him a good deal.

I gave them all chocolate chip cookies and a cup of Kenyan coffee before they left. It was the least I could do for saving his life.

* * *

Jules and I both received emails from the DNA company on Saturday afternoon.

“Don’t open it!” she yelled at me over the phone when I called to tell her. She was on the last ferry tonight from Anacortes and headed to Rose Bloom Cottage. “We’ll do it together.”

“This will be fun,” I said. “How do you think they’ll categorize ‘Witch Ancestry’?”

At ten that night, Jules at my house, both of us in matching heart pajamas, we set our computers side by side.

“Here we go. This is where we find out that you’re part Italian,” she said to me. “It’ll explain that black hair.”

“And this is where we find out that you’re actually Chinese, Jules. That’ll account for your blonde hair.”

We eagerly opened our e-mails, read the information, then looked at the pie graphs and studied the percentages.

“Wow,” I said, stunned as I examined my graph. “I can’t believe this. This isn’t what we were told by Mom and Dad and Grandpa. I’m 22 percent Iberian Peninsula. Twenty percent Russian. Thirty-eight percent Irish and 12 percent Welsh. And unknown. Eight percent. They can’t trace it yet? It’s a mixture? What does yours say?” I turned to Jules.

“There’s got to be something wrong,” Jules said.

“Why?”

“Look at my graph.”

I scooted over. “What? This can’t be right. There’s a mistake.”

Jules’s chart showed English, Scottish, German, and Norwegian, for a total of 83 percent, and 10 percent total of Bantu, Mali, and Senegal, plus 7 percent unknown.