“If we start cleaning up the crap people get into, where does it stop?” the aunties snapped when the young inevitably asked why the family didn’t help if it could. “Best we keep our own house clean, treat them like adults, and let them make their own choices. Why would we want to fill the world with dependent children when we already have a surfeit of purple-haired smart-asses who play their music too loud, and if you want to know what tragically hip really means, you take a look at your Auntie Rose from behind. There are articles of clothing that should not come in a Two X, but does she listen to me? No.” Specifically, that had been the answer Charlie’d gotten when she’d asked.

Influenced by too much television, her younger sisters occasionally hunted in the world’s darker and nastier places. Hunted, Charlie corrected silently, having been corrected significantly less silently by the twins. The word required a capital H. Her sisters were pretentious maniacs with a slightly scary Joss Whedon obsession, but, as Allie pointed out, better they got that out of their system when they were away from home.

Charlie’d played in some of the world’s darker and nastier bars, but that wasn’t quite the same. She considered calling the twins in, but aside from the bears, Carter seemed like too nice a place to deserve them.

Her arrival had been delayed by the need to make a phone call. That usually meant something. It was possible, it meant she’d spend less time waiting for Gary to finish playing before they could talk. Possible. But it wasn’t looking very likely.

“There’s no one home right now, is there?” she asked the bears, and wasn’t even a little upset when they didn’t answer. The person or persons responsible were probably spending a lovely fall afternoon with their neighbors enjoying Art in the Street. With a locally sourced candy apple in one hand, they’d probably gotten caught up discussing the merits of scrollwork over lathe work and wouldn’t be back for hours.

“It looks like they’re silently screaming ‘help me,’ doesn’t it?”

She glanced over at the man who’d paused beside her, and sighed. “Yeah. It does.”

He shoved his hands into his jacket pockets and grinned sheepishly, his teeth a pale curve within his beard. “Of course they aren’t really.”

“Of course they aren’t,” Charlie muttered as he crossed the street to greet a woman selling fabric art. As the band finished up with “The Factory Girl,” the crowd applauded with polite enthusiasm. “Fine,” she told the bears, wondering what part of Wild Power meant being at the beck and call of stuffed toys. “It’s not like I can drag him off the stage before the show ends. I might as well spend the time dealing with you.”