“There’s plenty of physics to study when milking a cow, plowing a field, calculating how hard you have to throw an apple to hit your smartass aunt in the back of the head, while she’s driving away on a tractor.”

Zed peered down at her, so Dani added. “The answer is ‘pretty hard.’”

“What does your family make of your gift?”

Dani sighed. “They don’t know much about it. No one else in my family has gifts. I thought I was either going crazy or seeing ghosts when I was a kid, because I could see and feel all this energy swirling around the house—streaks of green and blue light dancing down the hallway, sheets of yellow warmth hovering over the orchard. And I was afraid to say anything to my grandparents because they were already watching me for all these signs of psychological trauma because of my parents’ general jackassery. I was afraid they would send me to a mental health facility, which would have really hindered my middle school social life. So I did some research, ended up in some rather weird internet forums, read some books and I realized that nothing I was seeing fit the pattern of hauntings or ghosts. I was just reading the energy currents surrounding my grandparents’ house. It was a lot less scary than thinking the ghost of apple pickers’ past were hanging around outside my window.”

“I would imagine,” he said, nodding. “But you still haven’t told your family what you can do?”

“I don’t try to hide it from them, but I don’t flaunt it either. You forget, living in a town where almost everybody is something special, that not everybody believes in this sort of thing. My mom doesn’t believe in anything she can’t quantify through a lens. My dad wouldn’t believe me, but that wouldn’t keep him from trying to turn it into some sort of business opportunity . . . for himself. Grandad and my aunt Tru know that I’m a freelance photographer. That’s all they need to know. I don’t want to see them hurt.”

“I would like to go see the farm someday,” he said, carefully, eying her for some sort of panic response. “Once we get all this rift stuff settled, I’d like to see your grandpa’s farm, meet Trudy, all that.”

“Have you ever left the state of Louisiana?”

“Yes, and I’m sure the town will be okay for a week or so without me around. It would be important to me, to meet your family. You’ve already met most of mine. It’s only fair,” he told her.

He expected her to object. He expected her to remind him that they weren’t in a relationship. But instead, she just smiled and let him pull her close, and said, “I think I would like that.”

12

Dani