"I understand," I said, not really, but it seemed like the correct answer. Even though there had not been any music played in this room for generations, I had to resist the urge to ask her to dance.

"Um… Through here is the formal living room. Now this one, we used a little, for guests and that kind of thing." I followed her through another set of double doors into a much less lavish room. This one was under drastic construction. Tarps had been thrown over the furniture, and sawdust covered almost everything. Only one wall was not in the process of being stripped and repainted. It was covered in painted portraits of Julie's ancestors.

"Five generations of Monster Hunters," she proclaimed, "and a few who decided to stay out of the family business, but we still love them too. Even if they are strange." There were dozens of paintings. Most done in a classically formal style, kind of stuffy, and not really befitting the homespun, slightly insane, good nature of the family as I knew them. The first painting was of Raymond "Bubba" Shackleford, followed by a picture of his wife and children, and then each of the succeeding generations after that. There was a single blank spot on the wall where Raymond II was missing, but other than that there were a lot of pictures up there. In totality it created a beast of a family tree. The last of the pictures were of people I recognized. The Ray Shackleford IV that I knew as a wild-eyed lunatic was captured on canvas as a handsome, square-jawed man. His wife, Susan, had looked almost exactly like Julie did today. My tour guide's portrait must have been taken when she was younger. I did not feel that the painting had done her justice. She looked slightly artificial. I felt for the painter, capturing something like Julie's beauty had to be difficult. You could get the technical details correct, but how did you convey the spirit?

"Lot of Raymonds. Must be kind of hard to keep track of them."

"It's a bit of a tradition. Oldest son got the name. I'm the oldest in my family, so it went to my younger brother." She pointed at one of the last of the portraits. He resembled his father.

"Where's he now?"

"Dead," she said sadly. "It's been a few years."

"I'm sorry."

"No. He died well. You can't be sorry for somebody that brave. You can be sad, but not sorry. He earned his plaque at the compound. Even the best of us get it eventually."

"What happened?" I don't know why I asked her, but I did. She hesitated only briefly before speaking.

"1995. At the Christmas party, Monster Hunter International's one-hundredth anniversary. He was one of the ninety-seven Hunters killed that night. He was just a Newbie, but he fought like a champion. You should have seen him. He sure was something."

"I've never heard the whole story."