We watch her approach, as do the flowers in the vases. They bloom brighter in her presence just as we sit straighter and quieter. She comes alone, needing no entourage to buoy her presence. When she has settled in the settee across from the one we are sitting on, she looks at us. Well, more like she glances at us before her attention falls on Taraana with all the grace of a hammer falling on a glass window. Her face freezes and surprise, like a typhoon, sweeps through her features. She observes Taraana carefully, cataloging the bruises on his face, the look in his eyes, the grip of his hands on Paheli’s.

“Child, is this the Keeper of the Between?” Mama Magdaline asks Eulalie, who is standing beside the breakfast cart.

“Yes, Mama,” Eulalie replies. Her voice is soft and her tone reverent.

“Explain to me what the Keeper of the Between—no, what these children—are doing in your parlor?” the Keeper of the Green demands without moving her eyes from Taraana. It’s almost as if she’s afraid he will disappear if she stops looking at him.

We watch with great interest as Eulalie squirms. She has always treated us as the children Mama Magdaline calls us, but this is the first time we have seen her being treated as a juvenile. All of us, except for Paheli, hide our smirks. She has no such compunction.

“I’ve told you about the child I picked up in the Between, Mama,” Eulalie says, erasing Paheli’s smirk easily. “That’s Paheli. The rest of them are her sisters.”

Mama Magdaline’s eyes leave Taraana for a short second to look at Paheli, who bristles at the attention.

“You may call me ‘Grandmother,’ child,” the Keeper of the Green tells us, and Paheli offers her a weak smile in response. “Now, I very much doubt you’ve invited me over simply for tea. Not that I mind tea.” Eulalie takes the keeper’s words as a signal to serve food and puts us to work.

“Would you tell us what you know about the Keeper of the Between?” Paheli asks her, an unfamiliar shade of respect coloring her words.

Mama Magdaline looks at Taraana, and once again, her eyes show her surprise. “Before I tell you what I know about the Keeper of the Between, tell me what you know about magic.”

Magic, huh. We have never cared to deconstruct the magic around us. It is important to us, but we don’t question it. We know what is commonly known about magic, but we know nothing about where it comes from nor how it is created.

Mama Magdaline doesn’t seem perturbed by our silence. In fact, she seems to take our lack of knowledge for granted.