“That’s sweet.”

“It is. They are. They look out for her. Sometimes I’ll have them in the playpen together, and I’ll go out for a minute. I’ll come back and there’ll be a toy in there I didn’t put in. And just last night, when I was nursing Duncan, I started thinking about Tony. How much he’d have loved the babies, how much I missed him. And Duncan put his hand on my cheek. He stroked my cheek. When I looked down, he was looking at me…”

Tears filled her eyes, and Arlys saw the baby stroke his mother’s cheek. “He was looking at me just like he is now.”

Bending her head, she kissed him. “I’m all right, baby. Everything’s all right. I’m blessed, Arlys, with these three beautiful babies. They’re blessed. And when I think of people like Rove and the Mercers, I’m afraid. There’s hate in them. You don’t have to be magickal to see it, to know it. There’s hate in them for anyone who’s different.”

“It’s fear, too. They hate what they fear and don’t understand. But there are more of us, Katie, than there are of them. We’ll keep looking out for each other, just like Jonah looked out for Bryar. We’re building something here. I don’t know what the hell it is yet, but it’s ours. And we’re keeping it.

“I’m going to go post this, check in with Rachel. And I think we’re going to have a bonus Bulletin later. An editorial. On assholes.”

Now Katie laughed. “You would, too.”

“Damn right.”

Arlys headed into the school, stepping into light as odd as the fifty-year-old faerie. Magickal light cast a faintly golden glow. She posted the Bulletin on the corkboard, scanned other notices. Offers to barter one skill for another or for a mechanical part. Others looking for interest in a book club, a crocheting circle, a softball game.

People, she thought, reaching for people.

That’s what they were building, she thought, despite the handful of morons who couldn’t see past their own bigotry.

She walked on, made the slight turn to the offices. Through the glass window she saw Rachel and Jonah huddled together at the desk.

Didn’t Rachel see the way he looked at her? Arlys wondered. Couldn’t she feel it? The man was so obviously in love even Arlys, who considered herself inexpert and mostly disinterested in such matters, could spot it at a mile.

She rapped her knuckles on the jamb of the open door.

“Arlys.” Rachel dropped her pencil, rolled her shoulders. “New Bulletin?”

“Just posted. We’re going to have a bonus edition this afternoon. On bigotry versus acceptance. On decency versus assholery. My editor cleared me to use harsh language. I heard about Bryar and the Mercers. She’s lucky you were around, Jonah.”

He shrugged. “I’m pretty sure I’d’ve gotten my ass kicked if Aaron hadn’t come along. They were drunk and belligerent enough to start swinging.”

“My money’s on you,” Rachel said. “Writing it out, harsh language included, might stir up more resentment. But bringing that boil to the surface, lancing it might be better than letting it fester.”

“It might take more than words.” Jonah got up, rolled his chair around the desk for Arlys. “Have a seat,” he said, then leaned on the desk. “I think we need to have a meeting, a serious one. You, Rachel, Katie, Chuck, Fred, Bill. I’d add Lloyd Stenson, Carla Barker.”

“Lloyd was a lawyer, Carla a sheriff’s deputy,” Rachel put in. “Lloyd’s, for lack of a better term, one of the animal whisperers, so that brings in three, with Jonah, from the magickal side of things—and all with good heads.”

“We need to talk about official laws, rules, consequences,” Jonah began. “We need to write up some sort of community constitution, I guess. Once we do, we need to take it to a full community meeting. People are settling in, and that’s a good thing. By and large, we’re working together, but that business with Bryar isn’t the first trouble, and it won’t be the last.”

“Every one of us is armed, one way or the other,” Rachel put in. “What happens if, human nature being what it is, somebody takes a shot at someone instead of a swing? What would have happened if the Mercers had hurt Bryar? We need to figure it out before it happens.”

“I agree.” Hadn’t she just mulled over moving toward a more formal structure? Arlys thought. “Some won’t like it—the rules or the consequences—so we’d need to make it simple and clear. And if we have laws, that means we need someone who will enforce them.”

“I’m hoping Carla will take it on,” Jonah said. “She has experience, she’s steady. And maybe we could ask Bill Anderson to work with her.”

“Bill?”

“Steady again, and people like him, respect him. I’m not sure he’ll want to take that on, but we will need more than just Carla. Anyway, it would be a start. Right now, heading up committees, I’d guess you’d call them, is volunteer, and it can cycle.”

“We need to make that more formal.” Rachel tapped her pencil on the desk. “Since we haven’t had any patients this morning, Jonah and I have been trying to work on an agenda. Up to now we’ve had to focus on food, shelter, security, medicine, supplies. Now we need structure.”

Arlys nodded. “And with structure comes laws, mores, a line of authority, consequences. And information.”

“On the list,” Rachel told her. “We’re going to need to send out scouting parties. Right now it feels like we’re all there is in the world. But people are still trickling in so we know we’re not. We have to know what’s out there. Maybe Chuck can get communications up again, but we don’t know who we’d communicate with, or what we’d risk if we contact the wrong people.”

“Human nature being what it is,” Arlys murmured. “And extra-human, too. Being extra isn’t an immunization against being violent. It just adds a layer. What the hell do we do if we set up laws and one of our Uncannys breaks them?”

“We better figure it out.”

Arlys looked at Jonah, blew out a breath. “All right.”

“My place? We’ve got the room, and Katie can put the babies to bed.” Rachel glanced at Jonah. “Tonight?”

“Sooner the better.”

“I’ll tell Fred.” Arlys pushed to her feet. “And I’ll go up to talk to Bill, talk to Chuck. Katie’s right outside. I’ll tell her on the way. Say nine?”

“It works. Carla’s working the community garden.” Jonah slid his hands into his pockets as he looked at Rachel. “Since we’re clear, do you want to walk down, talk to her? We can round up the others while we’re out.”

“Sure. Let me grab a walkie.” Rachel pulled them from the desk drawer, set one on the desk with the sign saying the doctor is out but available, hooked the other to her belt.

They walked out together to where Katie changed Hannah and the twins lay on a blanket squealing, waving hands, kicking feet.

“They act like I just gave them each a pound of chocolate.” Laughing, she scooped up Hannah for a nuzzle.

Jonah laid a hand on Rachel’s shoulder. “Do you hear that?”

“Hear what— I do now,” she added when the sound of approaching engines reached her. “Someone’s coming.”

“More than one someone.” Jonah walked down to the sidewalk. He saw others looking as well, coming out of their houses, the other buildings. Shielding his eyes with the flat of his hand against the glare of the sun, he stared.

“Holy shit.”

Rachel pulled out her squawking walkie, scooped up a baby as she answered.

“The sentry cleared them,” she called out to Jonah, and walked down to join him.

“I don’t know if he’d have had much choice. That’s got to be fifteen cars, trucks. And a damn school bus.”

Katie, two babies in tow, and Arlys stepped down to the sidewalk. So together they all watched Max lead his group into New Hope.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Both wary and curious, Arlys studied the man who got out of the lead car. Tall and lean in jeans and a black T-shirt, dark hair curling choppily over the collar, boots worn and scarred. He struck her as hard and handsome, with the scruffy look of a man who’d been on the road for days, maybe weeks.