“And he came to live with me. So we get up in the morning, and we have some breakfast. We do some reading, and some math and such. It’s important a boy still learns. I’m teaching him to fight, in case he needs to. We play games because play’s as important as learning. We get up and do what we have to do, and that’s how we get through it. When he’s ready—it’s only been a couple weeks—I’m going to get him out of the city. Get him out and find someplace clean. And we’ll get up in the morning there, and do what needs to be done. We’ll build a life, because death can’t be all there is.”

He looked at Arlys now, right into her. “This won’t be the end of it,” he said, repeating her words. “We won’t let it be the end of it.”

“Thank you, Ben. I hope your story reaches people who need to hear it. I needed to hear it. This is Arlys Reid, grateful for everyone who’s doing what needs to be done.”

She switched off the recorder. “Don’t wait until he’s ready. Get John out as soon as you can.”

“His name is Noah.” T.J.’s eyes flicked between the two women before fixing on her. “You know something you’re not telling.”

“I know it’s going to get worse here. I know if I had a child depending on me, I’d get him out. Fred said there are people who can help you with that. Pack and ask them to help you. You should go with them,” she said to Fred.

“I’ll stick with you. You know who to contact, T.J. Honest, if Arlys says you should go, you should go. For Noah.”

“I’ll go talk to him. He knows it’s coming. I’m going to miss you, Fred.”

He moved over, wrapped arms around her, towering over her.

“Miss you back, and Noah. But, you know, if it’s meant, we’ll find each other again.”

“I want it to be meant.” He held out a hand to Arlys. “I thought it would make me angry to tell my story. It didn’t. Watch out for yourself.”

“I intend to. Good luck, T.J.”

He picked up the bag he’d brought in to gather supplies, took one last look, and slipped out through the boards.

“It’s going to be a good segment. A powerful one. I think he was here because he needed to tell his story, and he needed you to tell him to get Noah and go.”

“Lucky all around.”

“Not lucky. Meant. I have something to tell you—off the record.”

“Okay, let’s grab that soup, and you can tell me on the way back to the station. I want to put this together.”

“I really better show you, and here, where it’s safe. Don’t freak, okay?”

“Why would I…”

Arlys trailed off, her jaw dropping, when Fred wiggled her fingers and sparkling lights danced around her.

“How did you—”

“I wanted you to be able to see better.” Now she held her hands out to the sides.

Before Arlys’s dazzled eyes, iridescent wings flowed out of Fred’s back, shimmering right through the jacket she wore. And she rose a foot from the floor, circling in the air with the wings waving.

“What is this? What is this?”

“I got a little freaked at first—it just sort of happened one day. Then it was like, this is so beyond all coolness. It turns out I’m a faerie!”

“A what—a faerie? That’s crazy. Would you stop doing that!”

Fluid as water, Fred lowered to the ground, but the wings remained. “It’s so much fun, but okay. You can’t report on this, Arlys—I mean not about me. They call us the Uncanny—I can’t figure out if I like that or not, but it’s growing on me. I can tell by the way you do the stories, you’re like: Oh, yeah, right. But hey.” Fred lifted up again. “Oh, yeah, right!”

“It’s not possible.”

“It shouldn’t be possible that more than a billion people are dead in a month. But it is possible. And this? Me? Others like me? It’s not only possible, it’s as real as anything else. Maybe it’s some sort of balance. I don’t know. I can’t figure it out, either, so I accept.”

“Others. Like you?”

“Faeries, elves, witches, sirens, sorcerers—and that’s just people I’ve met since.”

As if the idea delighted her, Fred fluttered up another foot in the air.

“We have to be careful. Magickal people have the good and the bad, too. So we’ve got the bad who’d do us harm—and the regular people, who don’t get it, who would, too.”

She lowered again, touched a hand to Arlys’s arm. “I showed you and I’m telling you because something inside me said I should. I’ve always trusted the something inside me, even when I didn’t know it was there.”

“Maybe I fell asleep at my desk, and this is all a dream.”

On a laugh, Fred gave her a light punch on the arm. “You know you didn’t, and it’s not.”

“I … we really need to talk about this.”

“Yeah, sure. We have to get back, get that segment up. Maybe after the evening broadcast, when we shut down for the day. We can have some wine and talk about it. I’ve got some wine squirreled away.”

“I think it’s going to take a lot of wine.”

“Okay, but let’s get that soup. You should punch up your makeup, redo your hair before you go on the air.”

“Right.”

“You freaked?”

“I’m pretty freaked.”

Fred smiled. “But you’ll do what you need to do. You won’t betray me, just like you won’t betray your source, or T.J. and Noah. You’ve got integrity.”

* * *

Back at the station, Jim called it something else. He called it recklessness and gave Arlys and Fred a heated lecture. A lecture that would have annoyed Arlys down to the core if she hadn’t seen the worry on his face, heard it under the anger.

But he couldn’t fault the interview. He listened to it twice, then sat back. “It’s exceptional. You let him narrate it, let him speak from the heart. A lot of reporters would have inserted a lot of questions, tried to steer him. You didn’t.”

“It was his story, not mine.”

He turned in his chair, stared out the window in the office he rarely used. He’d called them in there—on the carpet—because he’d been pissed and scared.

“It’s never supposed to be about you. Before everything went to hell, a lot of journalists had forgotten that. I got caught up in it myself, might have overlooked that quality in you.”

He swiveled around again. “Let’s get this on the air. You need an intro.”

“Already in my head. I’d like it to run every hour until the evening report.”

“That’s what we’ll do. And don’t do anything like this again without checking with me first. And don’t take this pip-squeak out there. Sorry, Little Fred, but you’re not exactly Wonder Woman.”

“More like Tinker Bell,” Arlys mumbled, making Fred laugh.

“Exactly. Now, let’s go do our jobs.”

Arlys dictated the intro to Fred while punching up her makeup, smoothing her hair. At the anchor station she waited for the green, for the cue.

“This is Arlys Reid, bringing you what I hope will be a recurring segment. Every day, in the midst of tragedy and despair, people go on. Every one of those who go on lives with loss, lives with uncertainty. Every one has a story to tell, of a life that was, a life that is. This is Ben’s story.”

They cut the camera, ran the audio.

She listened to the words again, found they struck her just as deeply. She thought of the big man and the young boy, and hoped they found their way to somewhere clean.

“We’ll replay Ben’s story in one hour,” she concluded, “to remind us all of hope and humanity. This is Arlys Reid, signing off for the hour.”

Fred applauded. With a sigh of satisfaction, Arlys rose, signaled Fred as she headed to the newsroom. “I’m going to talk Jim into letting us go out with a handheld camera tomorrow.”

“Awesome!”