“You could have used newspaper,” Phillip told her and, chuckling, nudged her into a chair.

“It’s a box,” Seth said, puzzled, and Sybill’s heart sank at his disinterested tone.

“Yes, well . . . I kept the receipt. So you can take it back and get whatever you’d like.”

“Yeah, okay.” But he caught the hard beam in Phillip’s eye and made an effort. “It’s a nice box.” But he wanted to roll his eyes. Then he idly flicked the brass hook, flipped the top. “Holy shit!”

“Christ, Seth.” Cam muttered it, glancing over his shoulder as Anna walked in from the kitchen.

“Man, look at all this stuff! It’s got, like, everything. Charcoals and pastels and pencils.” Now he looked at Sybill with that staggered shock. “I get to have it all?”

“It goes together.” Nervous, she twisted her silver beads around her finger. “You draw so well, I thought . . . You may want to experiment with other mediums. The other box has more supplies.”

“More?”

“Watercolors and brushes, some paper. Ah . . .” She eased onto the floor as Seth gleefully ripped into the second box. “You may decide you like acrylics, or pen and ink, but I lean toward watercolors myself, so I thought you might like to try your hand at it.”

“I don’t know how to do it.”

“Oh, well, it’s a simple process, really.” She leaned over to take one of the brushes and began to explain the basic technique. As she spoke, she forgot her nerves, smiled at him.

The light from the lamp slanted over her face, caught something, something in her eyes that jiggled at the corners of his memory.

“Did you have a picture on the wall? Flowers, white flowers in a blue vase?”

Her fingers tightened on the brush. “Yes, in my bedroom in New York. One of my watercolors. Not a very good one.”

“And you had colored bottles on a table. Lots of them, different sizes and stuff.”

“Perfume bottles.” Her throat was closing again, so she was forced to clear it. “I used to collect them.”

“You let me sleep in your bed with you.” His eyes narrowed as he concentrated on the vague blips of memory. Soft smells, soft voice, colors and shapes. “You told me some story, about a frog.”

The Frog Prince. Into her mind flashed the image of how a little boy had curled against her, the bedside lamp holding back the dark for both of them, his bright-blue eyes intense on her face as she’d calmed his fears with a tale of magic and happily ever after.

“You had—when you came to visit, you had bad dreams. You were just a little boy.”

“I had a puppy. You bought me a puppy.”

“Not a real one, just a stuffed toy.” Her vision was blurring, her throat closing, her heart breaking. “You . . . you didn’t have any toys with you. When I brought it home you asked me whose it was, and I told you it was yours. That’s what you called it. Yours. She didn’t take it when she—I have to go.”