After work, everyone trooped over to my house. Ava brought her homemade pizza dough over and we made calzones. Kitten went from person to person, definitely not begging, but letting everyone know that she also enjoys cheese and vegetables in case they were looking for someone to share with. Simon greeted everyone with a head bonk before settling on the table next to Yanna, his second-favorite person, because not only was she the warmest of all of us, she also gave intense belly rubs, which made him purr like an engine. While we waited for the food to cook, we picked up where we left off before the store opened.

  “OK, so let’s recap,” Cassie said, pulling out a giant drawing pad and a bundle of colored markers. She stuck the drawing pad to the wall with some packing tape that she also pulled out of her tote. If the world was ever in danger, I was pretty sure we’d be able to find a solution in Cassie’s tote bags.

  “Sure you can put tape on my wall,” I said dryly. “I’m sure the paint will be fine.” She threw her eraser at me and proceeded to ignore my comment.

  “Can we start with the fact that I never thought Miranda fit Althea as a name?” Evangeline piped up. She’d made a tray of nachos while we were putting our calzones together and now we were crunching our way through cheesy chips and salsa.

  “It was the easiest way to get her a new identity,” Cassie said. “My cousin died a couple years ago and I still had all of her paperwork. A few modifications and Miranda Alcott became Miranda Alan. I didn’t become a notary just for the cool stamp, you know.”

  “Althea is an old lady name,” Margie said in Gloria’s ghost voice. Margie immediately tsked at herself.

  “Remember Gloria was five when she died,” Margie apologized. “Sometimes she’s less creepy ghost girl and more spoiled brat.” I guess I was the last to know about Margie being haunted.

  “Let’s start listing off weird things,” Cassie said, bringing us back to her. “We have twenty minutes until dinner is ready. Let’s see if we can’t get a picture of this mess.”

  “Bleeding guy on the porch,” Evangeline yelled out around a mouthful of nachos.

  “Him leaving Kitten and then disappearing,” Genna said, slipping Kitten some baby carrots she’d brought with her.

  “Althea is a faun apparently?” Ava threw out.

  “And her mom knew all this time and never told anyone,” Mac said, still obviously irritated with my mother. “She could have at least given me a head’s up.”

  “My mom is a witch,” I added. They all looked at me. “What? I didn’t know. But if she’s powerful enough to trade spells for a baby, and those spells were then at least marginally useful to my birth mother, she has to be pretty powerful. I didn’t even know she was a witch. I just thought she was an old hippie.” They all chuckled at that statement.

  “OK, that was all weird, but what normal things do we know?”

  “Al has a twin sister,” Yanna said, one arm wrapped around Simon, rubbing his ear, the other hand was steadily shoving nachos into her mouth.

  “And that sister is somehow mixed up with her abductor, though that might go under the ‘weird’ heading,” Mac pitched in.

  “Can you shift anything other than your feet?” Evangeline asked.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  “I didn’t really want to try,” I said. “It kind of freaked me out.”

  “Well, obviously,” she said. “I can’t imagine how weird that would be. But how are we going to know if you only have one horn if you don’t try to do a complete shift.” Everyone considered this for a moment and then nodded in agreement.

  “Ooh, what about your therapist?” Ava asked from the kitchen.

  “Dr. de la Mer?” I replied. “What about her?”

  “Didn’t you say you showed her your feet?”

  “Yeah, but she’s my therapist. It’s not like she can legally tell anybody.”

  “But she didn’t freak out,” Ava pointed out. Before I could say anything, there was a knock at my door. We all looked at each other before Mac and I stood up and went to see who it could be.

  “I considered just appearing with you,” my therapist said, pushing her way through the door. Mac made a move to block her way but I shook my head at her the minute I saw who it was, “but that is very rude, and even though I enjoy being a spectacle, it seemed like a really good way to get cursed.” Imanja swept in on a salty breeze, dropping her purse in a chair, twirling her coat off and letting it fall over her purse, before rolling into the dining area and plopping herself down on my chair at the table. She reached for a nacho and crunched down, nodding in approval before leaning back and looking at everyone around here. Their expressions ranged from confusion at her appearance to irritation at her inviting herself in and to shock at the audacity of coming into my home uninvited and unannounced. I just sighed and pulled a folding chair out of the closet.

  “Maybe add ‘has goddess for a therapist’ under the ‘weird things’ column,” I said to Cassie. She snapped her mouth shut and made a note on her paper. Everyone else’s eyes went wide with disbelief. Imanja laughed warmly at them before taking a drink of the soda I’d been enjoying. She grimaced at the sweetness, but helped herself to more nachos while she waited for my friends to collect themselves. I grabbed another soda from the refrigerator and came back to the table.

  “You’re a goddess?” Evangeline asked, everything else seemingly forgotten.

  “And you are a witch,” she replied with a loving smile. “All of you are, and I’m so happy to meet you.”

  “I invited her,” I told them, which removed at least some of the craziness from the situation, “but she never answered so I wasn’t sure if she was going to make it or not.”

  “I promise I have only been eavesdropping on you for a few minutes. As soon as I heard my name, I decided to join you,” she said, still enjoying everyone’s shock.

  “Wait,” Yanna said, her training as a lawyer helping her recover her wits quicker than everyone else. “You’re Imanja, goddess of the sea, right?” Imanja nodded, encouragingly.

  “And you used the last name de la Mar?” Imanja nodded again and Yanna laughed out loud. “It’s a bit on the nose, isn’t it?” Everyone else giggled, too, but no one seemed to want to draw attention to themselves yet.

  “Humans have an amazing ability to ignore the obvious,” Imanja said conspiritorially. “If it doesn’t fit with their view of the world, their brains make excuses for why the proof they have seen with their eyes cannot possibly be real. I could walk across the pond outside my office and people would think it was some kind of stunt. This is one of the reasons we love humans. You are all so bloody brilliant and creative and have such a capacity to love, but you are also willing to ignore the truth that is right in front of you.” She looked lovingly at my friends, then leaned back in her chair.

  “I, uh,” Ava began, “didn’t know you were coming so I didn’t make a calzone for you,” she stumbled. I patted her leg under the table.

  “I made an extra just in case,” I told her. “I put it in the fridge. I’ll go put it in the oven and when everything else is done baking, she can have mine.”

  “How did I miss that?” Ava asked me, surprised.

  “Your wife was feeding the dog too much cheese,” I told her, winking at Yanna, “and you got distracted by that.”

  “A dog?” Imanja asked, clapping her hands. “And so many cats! Oh, I do love animals!” As if hearing her name, Kitten ran under the table and put her head on the goddess’s lap. She pushed her chair back and bent down, touching her forehead to the dog’s while stroking her cheeks and ears. While they communed, I went into the kitchen and put my backup calzone in the oven. The other ones were almost finished baking, but I’d learned long ago not to mess with anything Ava was baking. It was better to stay out of her way in the kitchen.