The two-natured who’d flooded into Wright now surged through the house and into the backyard to have a drink and a sandwich or two before they had to take the road home. With a pleasing sense of normality, I realized I had work to do. Sam and I changed from our wedding finery into shorts and T-shirts, and with the ease of people who work together all the time, we set up folding tables and chairs, found cups for the beer, sent the rapidly healing Trish to the store with Togo, and arranged the napkins and forks and plates by the food. I spotted a big garbage can under the carport, found the big garbage bags to line it, and rolled it to the backyard. Sam got the gas grill going. Though Mindy and Doke offered to help, both Sam and I were glad when they went home with the kids. After such a day, they didn’t need to hang around. Those kids needed to go back to Mooney.

Few humans remained to party with the twoeys. Most of the regular people had seemed to get a whiff of the otherness of the guests, and they’d drifted away pretty quickly.

Though we were short on folding chairs, everyone made do. They sat on the grass or stood and circulated. When Togo and Trish returned with soft drinks and hamburger patties and buns, the grill was ready to go and Sam took charge. I began putting out the bags of chips. Everything was going very well for an impromptu celebration. I went to pump beers.

“Sookie,” said a deep voice, and I looked up from the keg to see Quinn. He had a plate with a sandwich and some chips and some pickles on it, and I handed him a cup of beer.

“There you go,” I said, smiling brightly.

“This is Tijgerin,” Quinn said. He pronounced it very carefully. It sounded like “Tie” plus a choking noise, and then “ine” as in “tangerine.” I practiced it in my head a couple of times (and I looked up the spelling later). “That’s ‘Tigress’ in Dutch. She’s of Sumatran and Dutch descent. She calls herself Tij.” Pronounced “Tie.”

Her eyes were as dark a purple as Quinn’s, though perhaps a browner tone, and her face was a lovely high-cheekboned circle. Her hair was a shiny milk-chocolate brown, darker than the deep tan tone of her skin. She smiled at me, all gleaming white teeth and health. I figured she was younger than me, maybe twenty-three.

“Hallo,” she said. “I am pleased to meet with you.”

“Pleased to meet you, too,” I said. “Have you been in America long?”

“No, no,” she said, shaking her head. “I am here just now. I am European employee of Special Events, the same company Quinn works for. They send me here to get the American experience.”