Losing Hope . . .

I'm starting to wonder - in that way that's bad, in that way that just brings about the worst possible scenarios in the worst possible times but has the uncanny habit of growing like mold until it's infected all the foundation and there's little else you can do but move and condemn the damn thing - on whether I am ever going to make this happen.

I've bought the books and the first page is always congratulatory - "Good job! If you're reading this then you finished your hopelessly long work of fiction. Aces! You've done more than the tons of people who always say they want to write a novel; you've actually written it. The ability to put ass to chair and pen to paper earns you a gold star. Yeah you!"

I hate those paragraphs. For some reason they always lull me into a false sense of security. Yes, I did something - go me. But the hardest part of trying to get my book in a bookstore is not the writing of the book. Who knew it was the easy part?!

I thought before I did this that I knew myself, that I was realistic in the fact that not everyone was going to like it, that I would get rejected, that this would be hard. But I've said that so many times - to myself, to my friends, to even this blog - that the idea lost meaning completely. I said it, I thought I thought it, but turns out I'm not sure I ever really believed it.

Because there's this email that I've been afraid to open for more than a month now. And even though I knew from the beginning this person wouldn't like my stuff, even though I don't feel the advice she's given me is practical, even though I know a synopsis of facts is not my forte, I can't bring myself to see what the email says. I just can't take the criticism.

In my mind I guess I just believed that the criticism would come with a little bit of praise. I like my story, I like it a whole lot, I can't help but think that everyone else should find something redeeming too. I feel almost like that "The Best Show You're Not Watching." Not that I think I'm the best or anything but in my heart of hearts I truly believe that if I can get you to read the first three chapters of my book, you won't want to put it down.

There I go again, thinking people are going to give me a chance to convince them more than my 300 word query letter or 600 word synopsis. I'm not good at those things - concise and condensed and collapsible. I'm wordy. No more, no less, just is - wordy.

So this email, I had my roommate read the one before it (because I needed to know what it said and I was having a truly awful day) and it said that I should change the premise of my book because it's hard for first time writer's to sell. And it hits me again - how can this person be making value judgements on my book when she hasn't even read it?! Talking about judging a book my its cover - this is judging a book by its spine.

And there are two voices inside my head - one saying screw it, you can make it happen and the other saying she's right, no one is ever going to read it, its staying locked up in your bedroom forever. I want to believe in myself but its so hard when no one else does. That's not to say that no one does but most of the time I walk around bemused when people tell me that they're sure I'll make it. I always want to ask them the stupidest question: Why?

Why do they think I'll make it? They've never read anything I've written. Am I giving off some crazy writing vibe that means they have to agree with me as they back away slowly? Is being a successful writer written in my DNA and as easy to discern as someone who is good at math or public speaking? Or is it - as I fear - just a nice little thing people say and they don't believe it at all, just want to be encouraging. Them I want to scream at, they're getting my hopes up for no reason at all.

It's cliched and trite and probably a bit melodramatic and egotistical to say but I will anyway - I feel like I am supposed to be doing greater things than going to the office everyday and pushing paper around my desk and answering phones and crunching numbers. But who am I to say that? Who am I to think I deserve better than everyone else there?

And it kills me to think that what I have written, I have written for just me. And it kills me to think that if I do find someone to love it and help me they'll want to change it until its unrecognizable from the way it started out. And it kills me to think that I will spend my life replaying these same arguments, these same ideas, with myself - waffling back and forth between two options that I'll never choose.

I escape into characters and stories that do things I can't do for myself. How successful is that if they do nothing but sit in my bedroom as well?

Do I Overwrite??

So, I finally had the resolve to open up the synopsis response email and it wasn't nearly as tragic as I feared (which is good since I was fearing a massacre of Jurrasic proportions). She told me that my premise was saleable - once again not the genre I specified though - and suggested some changes that I can easily fix.

So, why am I not over the moon then? Well, she also told me that it seems like I overwrite and she thinks there's a good book in there but it took a scythe to get it. Now I did throw a few sentences in there that didn't tell what was happening with the plot to try and convey a sense of my style and if synopsis is all about word conservation then i get that.

But what if that's not just it? What if she's telling me that I overwrite all the time, that my book is a great big mess of a jungle that no one is ever going to hike through because it's just too much trouble? Now I understand that if I ever get this damn thing on a bookshelf it won't be what it is now but i think I'd rather never get it there if it means going for word economy and cutting out everything that's special about it. Maybe I just need to find the right agent, the right publisher to go take the chance but this doesn't seem like the path of great risktakers if everyone is only worried in what will sell right now.

So the question is - am I delusional? Do I overwrite? I know that I think the beautiful nature of the words is the most important thing but I don't think they're purple, not just there to take up space and ramble and complicate things. If that's how I want to evoke an image or a feeling, why can't I?

Man, if this is how much stress and second guessing I have now, imagine if this actually ever happens. I will become the biggest basketcase that ever lived or learn the get over what other people think. There's a lesson in there somewhere I think -it just might take a scythe to fine it.

-- Post From My iPhone

Some Things You Can't Take Back

I get it – I hear the words coming out of my mouth and I know they’re going to get me in trouble. I know they’re not right, that they’re not what anyone wants to hear. And yet, when it’s important, when it’s THIS important, how can I NOT say them?

I could have been more delicate. I could have been more calm and collected and poised. And I know that what I say isn’t going to make a lick of difference – that people are going to do what they’re going to do and they’re not going to listen to anything I have to say. And for someone whose goal in life is to make people stop and listen, that’s something it’s not easy for me to take but I do.

Maybe I’m a bitch, setting myself up to be the person who gets to say ‘I told you so’ down the line. Maybe I’ve just burnt a bridge and there’s nothing I can do to fix it, risked everything with one spark for a damn cigarette I didn’t really need. Maybe I’m just narcissistic and needy and need everything to be about me. Maybe I actually truly do care. None of these things matter, not my intentions or my goal or even the damn conversation. None of it.

But I’m not sorry for what I said – it was the truth. People always say the truth is good but only if you’re willing to hear it, sometimes not even if you’re ready to hear it. It was probably overkill, it was probably too much. I want to believe, I want to see it like she sees it, understand what she understands, but I don’t get to come in. I have to comment on the pretty drapes and the lovely tea cozies and just blow right over the point, tiptoeing around the elephant in the room that I’m dying to talk about. I’m not someone that easily avoids the point – I’m the one digging like crazy to get to it. I’m the person that comes up with funny names for the damn elephant.

Does she know that I want so badly to accept it and be done with it? Does she think I like being like this – always questioning, always worrying, always wondering? I want to be reassured – to ask all the questions and get all the answers and then believe that everything is going to be alright, even if it’s not, even if it’s never going to be. I wouldn’t even care if she lied and long as she doesn’t do it badly. Well that’s not true – and I guess that’s my problem. I want her to want to tell me. I want her to want to know what I think. I want her to want to include me in her life. I guess just like everything else, I want it so badly I just end up pushing it away. The time for wanting any of those things vanished with a slammed door.

Who cares if I happened to be right? Look at what the hell being right just cost me.

Anti-Climactic Because I Am An Idiot

Well, I did it. I finally got a query letter off my desk. And yeah, it's not really as great as I thought it was going to be because:

a) I worried so much about the query letter that I forgot about my unpolished synopsis sitting in the corner that's not ready to go out and, lo and behold, a lot of people are asking for both,

b) most agents I was looking at don't accept snail mail so my beautiful letterhead and paper was benched for this game and there really isn't anything quite like sealing an envelope and dropping it in a mailbox to feel monumentous,

c) the first two of three email queries I sent I did without any type of letterhead so if they like me I hope they don't want to call or mail me anything because I forgot my contact info (though, thank goodness my email they do have), and

d) my email editor means its impossible to double space anything so I have a sneaking suspicion that my three queries will arrive looking like a crazy, spaced out mess and no one will take me seriously.

So, in short, I am an idiot. I accept it but wow, how I wanted to NOT be an idiot this one time. And as I sit here, worrying over my synopsis and my new idea nagging in the back of my mind, wearing my "inspiration antennae" hoping to sap every bit of creativity and productivity out of me, I just can't get it out of my head. Idiot . . . .

The House

Damn Daddy! He did it, he pulled me back in.

He was trying to be nice when I walked into the house today for dinner and handing me the listing of a cute little house that he thinks I should buy. Let's forget that there's no way I could qualify for a loan even if the payments would be about 2/3rds of what the rent is on my renter now or that it's kind of in an area I know my roommate doesn't want to live in or that I'm not even sure I want to make such a big purchase.

It makes me feel sad all the same. Because I hate that there are so many can'ts standing in front of me. I hate that I'm watching all of these people around me settle down and get married and buy houses and have kids and I'm . . . not, . . . just stuck in where I am. Not that where I am is bad or anything but . . . it just scores the fact that I'm still aimlessly alone.

My friends like to say that they're still single because they were focusing on their careers, they had other things that they wanted to do. That was never me. Maybe I suffered from a lack of a plan. Betsy wanted to be married before she was 27 and she's going to be. The only vague ideas I ever had never came true so I stopped having vague ideas and rejected having concrete ones.

Sometimes it just seems like I'm the only one not growing up. I'm aging, I'm getting older, but I'm not growing up - I'm still transient, I'm still untied, I'm still around. There is nothing to keep me in this place, in this moment, except for my undying hatred for change. I guess I just want a reason to stay, to be here, to belong.

Off To A Good Start

So, I did it. I made a decision, I made a plan, I made sure too many people knew about it to back down now. My deadline is July 31st. By August I will no longer be agonizing over my query letter - it will be in the mail and I'll just be awaiting rejections as I move on to the next project percolating on my desk.

And it feels good. It's only the second day of my new Plan Of Action (I picture an announcer saying that it in booming, echo-y voice that asserts how important that is - yes, yes, I DO come with sound effects) but so far I've accomplished all the things that I scheduled to do.

The next one's a big one. By Saturday my query letter is going to be done DONE. No more changing or rewriting or brooding - just a best effort, the best I can do.

But this is good for me. In ways I'm very much a planner. I have lists upon lists scrawled on pads of paper, post it notes, - even a book of only to-do lists! - across my desk at work. And they help me remember everything that I need to get done. I've never missed a deadline at work yet and the ones I've had to push back I've pushed weeks ahead of time because if I'm paying attention, I do budget my time well.

So, the key is to remember that just because this isn't the ivory tower with the crazy staircase and the cartoon bosses breathing down my neck and comical emails besieging me every ten minutes, it's still important and a deadline that can't be moved, that needs to be stuck to. If I commit to it, I should be fine.

But then, wrench thrown into the mix, while trying to get my dreams off the ground I'm also throwing a baby shower by my sister-in-law. Wouldn't be such a big deal if I wasn't also trying to finish making her surprise baby quilt that is SO not done and needs to be cause if its not, she ain't getting no present and that won't fly.

Plan, budget time, you'll be fine - that's my new mantra going through my head at all times. Plan, budget time, you'll be fine. Plan, budget time, you'll be fine. Plan . . .

Stuck Between Floors

I hate how I get to the point where I think I've got it all figured out, I know what I need to do next (just take the leap, jump off that cliff and go for it) and then . . . nothing. Anti-climactic much? (Oh, so that's NOT the edge of a cliff just a ledge you can't quite see from this vantage point. Interesting.)

I feel like I'm always on the verge of making a BIG decision and I get that I'm being too preoccupied and weird and just stalling because I'm either afraid that I won't make it or afraid that I will (must be afraid of one but I think I might be afraid of both which is just so useless it makes my ears bleed and then all I can think is how can I put this frustrating contradiction into some character passing by and get it to work - is it bad that I use fictional people as ad hoc therapy?) but then I realize that I'm avoiding making any decisions.

And its not what I want to do. It's not what I NEED to do. And yet, there I am, doing it anyway. Even though I kept saying I was going to start taking the stairs at work everyday it took getting trapped in the elevator (which was pretty much 100% my stupid fault anyway) to get me to actually start with that next step.

So maybe I have to hit the STOP button and get myself stuck in my metaphorical literary elevator. But what does that mean? And do I have the guts to do it - to commit and not turn back and damn all the consequences? If I can get myself to believe it, I know I can persevere and power through and do awesome things. (I've completed NaNoWriMo both times I've tried, I completed most of my senior thesis in 4 hour blocks over 3 weeks and still managed to pump out absuridsm at its best, I wrote a really good novel inspired by a box of fishsticks in the freezer.)

But it's getting myself to believe it that's the hard part. Am I ready to pick up the phone and call for help, no false alarm just a true literary emergency?

What a Differene A Week Makes

Wow - it's true. Time is good for a lot of things. It gives perspective and lets levelheads start to come through. Wow, what a week.

Besides the action packed stuff (Val was in an electrical storm, Val was trapped in an elevator, Val was almost in a drunken brawl at the airport), the thing that's changed everything the most is that I got that teeny, tiny bit of validation I was looking for.

I know, I know, we shouldn't pull our worth from other people and all that matters is your own opinion but, come on, I'm a writer, that can't ever be 100% true. And when I was feeling down I gave my book to someone to read and they loved it. As in couldn't put it down, stayed up all night reading it, sent me an email at 2am to tell me how much they enjoyed it loved it. As in sent me a really long explanation on thier opinion and quoted parts of my book back to me loved it. As in is making their husband read it loved it. Gotta say, that is just the best kind of loved it that you can get.

And that inspired me to reread my book a little bit and rediscover what I loved about (dude, I totally forgot I was kind of funny) and reaccess what my genre is (though I still have trouble calling it romance because it does not end that way but romanitc comedy I'll take). And, well, yeah - I have reread that email more times than I care to admit out loud. *guilty look*

Ahh, but what a difference a week makes . . .

Sleepless Nights

Wow, I must really be out of it - it took me 3 days to figure out what my insomnia meant. 3 DAYS!

I get intermittent bouts of insomnia when my life is off. Hasn't happened for awhile (which I guess is a good thing) so it totally didn't dawn on me that the fact that I can't sleep is all my fault.

Now I just have to figure out what it means - but that ain't too hard to do either. It's about my book. About how I'm not writing and too worried to get on with it. But realizing this is a good thing because this morning I took a shower, got back into bed, and tried a different approach to my query letter. Didn't finish and don't really know if its any better (I swear, this query letter thing is going to kill me if I let it) but it made me feel better.

So I've made two decisions - one, that I have to keep writing, something, anything everyday and not don't because I'm afraid it's bad because, well, first drafts are always bad, and two, that I am not going to make my arbitrary June 15th deadline. I wrote my story and I reread my story and I fixed things here and there but I didn't really edit my story like it should truly be. I have to spend more time with it, make some hard decisions, and then it'll be ready to go out. My new goal is before summer ends so once summer hours are over I should have everything good to go. And that's a deadline I'm going to make.

Critics and the Like

I think I'm in the middle of learning a lesson. I guess the question will be if I'm actually going to learn it.

I've been struggling for some time now (understatement of the century, right there!) with this whole beast of getting published. I wrote a novel - yes. I love that novel - God yes. And I am fully aware that everyone in the world is not going to, that literature is art and art is always subjective. I know that I'm going to get more nos than yeses but all I really need is one yes and I'm good to go.

But it suddenly dawned on me that I may not be ready for this, that I might be completely out of my league here. I'm not a research girl, I don't love to hunt for information, and I already wrote my novel so why do I need to look into what sells? But that's all stuff that you got to do if you're serious. I'm supposed to be serious, right?

I signed up for this "class" through the FWC which pretty much is me sending my query letter to an agent to read and critique - a little polishing if you will. But I'm finding that there seems to be a hell of a lot of coal left and I'm not even sure if there's a diamond inside that's worthy of this. I'm starting to think that this whole exercise is more like finding a husband than an agent and, well, this perpetually single 27 year old certainly has mastered that skill, hasn't she?

It's not like you just need to find someone that takes interest, you have to find someone that takes enough interest and sees enough potential to hunker down for the long haul. Trying to write a letter to communicate why you're awesome and worthy is like writing a dating profile (I tried that and failed miserably - there's a reason why I write novels and not vignettes or poems, okay) with everything worth knowing there. But there's a lot more worth knowing about my novel than the first summary line can tell you.

So anyway, I sent my query out and got it back with revisions. I tried my best making them but I was super confused - I followed the instructions in her book and checked all the samples and then she gives me advice that never popped up before. I agonize, I attempt, I send it back. When I get her response I find out that she hates my hook and doesn't think that it can sustain a whole book and that I can't claim the genre as "literary fiction" because that is an agent's decision and I wrote a romantic comedy.

What else did she say? Don't know - can't bring myself to read the rest. I stared at the unopened email for two days and then when I opened it I read two lines and closed it again. I went through the requisite feelings: denial (Screw you, I'm brill ant!), anger (How the hell can you tell me it's not literary fiction from four sentences in a letter about my book, not even my book itself, huh?), bargaining (Maybe it is a romantic comedy? I could change that for an agent.), depression (It's horrible! I can't write worth a damn! Why did I even try this again?), acceptance ( . . . . yeah, I'm still in depression, haven't really gotten here yet).

If this was like finding a husband, what would happen next? Well first I'd have to bump into some available agent at work and then, if Betsy has her way, obsessively myspace/ facebook stalk them until we can figure out if they really are an agent. Then I'd screw up the courage to write the query and I'd get back a response that says either um, they don't have time for any new books or should interested until they saw the length of my book and then blow me off. Hmm, this isn't sounding very good here either.

Because here's the deal - I can't not be a writer. It is, was, will always be, everything that I am. I can wear disguises for awhile (like the ones I'm sporting now of unaffected observer, obedient office drone, and content procrastinator) but it's never true. I have too many ideas floating around my head, too many words just dying to be written down that I can't NOT do it. But maybe I'm stuck to always be a writer, never an author, never with the title published.

I'm starting to worry that this is flute lessons all over again. I never thought I was great at the flute but I thought I was adequate and no one ever told me otherwise - years and YEARS down the road it came upon me one day that I truly sucked at playing the flute. I worked really hard at it and determination helped me power through but yeah, I was bad. Is that the same as this, just a few years away from looking back and realizing I'm living a kind of cruel delusion.

Lots of people showed interest in the beginning of my book and I think they liked it but I've handed it out to people like those guys in Vegas with the stripper fliers and only two people have finished it (one of them because she was reading it as I wrote it). Maybe it's too much to take in one sitting. Maybe it's not good.

Maybe my hook can't sustain a whole novel . . . but dear God, where the heck do I go from here?

I Won!

I did it! It was a hard, uphill battle but I have persevered. At times I didn't think that I had any words left in me and I had to pull them out, kicking and screaming until I wanted to tear my hair out. Sometimes I was on a roll, words spinning out of me uncontrollably and creating a massive confusion pile-up that I had to clean up one sentence at a time. It wasn't always easy. It wasn't always fun. But, it was always worth it.

I am now a NaNoWriMo 2008 WINNER!! I stand at 50,139 words and still counting (my story needs another 5 to 10K before it's done and I'm going to strive to get that done before the night's over as well. Last time I NaNo'd I finished with 56 K and I'm striving to break that this year.)!!

But that swell of accomplishment is in the air. Whoever thought writing a short novel in a month (that might possibly be loads of crap) could feel so good. I love words!

:))

Let's Get Intuit, Chapter 11

Chapter 11
Delilah sat on her couch fresh from the shower, water slowly dripping down her shoulders from her wet hair, slippered feet tucked up under her for warmth, methodically turning the pages of the worn Intuit manual her mother had left her.

She wasn’t sure what she was trying to find there, just skimming the pages of wisdom of the ages and Intuit history and practical tips about keeping the sinuses clear (eat a raw pepper once a week) and the long hair tangle free (comb lemon juice through the stands every other day and braid immediately afterwards). But that kind of information wasn’t what Delilah was looking for.

At that moment she wished for nothing more or less than insight but not into the future, into the past. She wished with all her heart that she could look into a crystal ball and get clarity on that which has already past instead of that which has yet to come. She knew exactly what she would ask it – what happened to my mother?

Telling Jensen hadn’t been hard and she didn’t regret it but speaking it out loud had brought that tug for an explanation back to the forefront of her mind. She had started wondering if maybe it was their gift that had gotten their mother killed but was, once again, stymied by indecision over whether she actually wanted to know or not. If Intuit’s, or at least Intuit’s in her family, were destined to lead short lives she’d rather not hear her death sentence at the moment. Maybe the letter would explain though . . .

It all kept coming back to the letter, she thought, reaching the end of the book and running her fingers down the fold where it had been hiding for so long She pressed her palm against the page, thinking that her mother might have done the same thing many years ago and wishing she could feel her across time itself. It had been getting harder and harder to remember what her mother had looked like, what kind of person she had been. Madge helped, telling her amusing little anecdotes about things they had done in their youth, but it was such a far cry from the person that she remembered raising her that she craved for an answer even more. She had never seen her mother do any type of magic, still had a hard time believing it even after everything she had seen and learned.

Why hadn’t her mother told her about her future? Her hand reached up and caressed her necklace and it calmed her though it did not give her any answers, simply another question. If the necklace was so important, why wasn’t her mother wearing it when she died? Come to think of it, she didn’t remember ever seeing her mother with the necklace on her whole life.

She grabbed the phone and dialed without thinking. It rang three times before a groggy but cheerful voice picked up on the other side. “Hello?” it asked, clearly still asleep.

“Oh Madge I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize how early it was. Did I wake you?”

“No,” she answered and Delilah immediately knew it was a lie but instead of being angry she was excited. She was becoming better at doing the things other Intuits took for granted. It buoyed her confidence a bit and her question suddenly seemed less preposterous.

“Sure,” she said with a roll of her eyes. Just then the floor started shaking, her cabinet doors clapping and dishes rattling crazily. Things started leaping up off of her floor like kernels in a popcorn machine, jumping here and there. It lasted only for a moment but when it was done it looked like a tornado had ripped through her apartment, glasses shattered on the floor, clothes flung over the back of her kitchen chairs, books tumbled from the shelves. “What’s that? Did you feel that? Was that an earthquake?”

“What?” she asked groggily.

“Nothing,” Delilah murmured with a few sidelong glances around her apartment. “Sorry, nothing. I guess I’m just a little jumpy and tired.”

“Sweetie was there something you wanted to ask me?” Madge asked in tired amusement.

“Oh, yeah, there was. Remember when you told me that my necklace was very powerful and sacred and I shouldn’t take it off.”

“Mmmhmmm,” she replied drowsily before the question woke her with a start. “Oh Delilah, please don’t tell me you took it off and lost it. Please, please, Please.”

“No, no, nothing like that. I still have it, no worries.” She reached a hand up into the hollow of her neck to check, just to be safe.

"Oh good," Madge said, breathing a huge sigh of relief. Delilah could picture her with a dramatic hand over her heart and smiled. "Because you can't ever honey. That is irreplaceable. It's protected by being close to you so it can't be broken but you have to be very careful with it."

"How did I get it?" she asked, picking it up and peering down into it, still getting the odd sense at times that if she looked at it just the right way it would give her all the answers she was looking for.

"What do you mean sweetie?"

"Well, where do you get them? Where are you going to get the one you give to Jam one day."

"Oh I thought you were asking where the gifts come from that is an entirely different and unanswerable question that we really shouldn’t be getting into around seven am on a Saturday. You get them at Gilded Hill of course but once you try it on, that's it. It bonds with you and becomes an irrevocable part of what makes each of us so special."

"What happens if you lose it?" she asked, thinking again about her mother. "Or if you take it off?"

"Your magic is always stronger when you wear it so I suppose your powers would become weaker."

"You mean," she gulped, her heart starting to race at the possibilities, "that if I get tired of this whole smelling emotions, seeing the future thing then I can just take it off?"

Madge’s voice came out angry, a thread of power running beneath her words. "No that is not what I said! These are your gifts, they are yours whether you wear the stone or not but you should not take the necklace off. It protects you."

"How? Like from danger?"

"Well it doesn't make you indestructible or anything of the sort. You get hit by a bus it's still going to hurt though it might not kill you. And at times it has been known to send out distress signals so if you were in trouble, real trouble, my necklace should burn and let me know that I need to get to you."

"How come it didn't work then?"

"What do you mean?" Madge asked in confusion though no longer from drowsiness but from the sudden edge of emotion and hysteria in Delilah’s voice.

"How come it didn't work for my mother? How come no one came to rescue her when she died? And why wasn't she wearing her necklace if it’s so sacred and important?"

Madge was shocked by Delilah's questions for a moment, sitting in bed simply grasping for any kind of answer that she could give to not only help her find peace of mind but peace of soul as well. As Delilah waited she heard the sounds of the children in the background, probably running around in morning cheer, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and without a care in the world. She hadn't been like that for a long time now, couldn't remember if she had ever been like that actually, so unaware and unworried over the things that life would bring.

"Forget it, forget it," Delilah said. She heard Madge's voice protesting as she pulled the phone away from her ear and severed the line, keeping the phone off the hook so she couldn't call back. She drew her knees up under her chin and stared without seeing at the book on the coffee table which might as well have been written in Swahili for all of the answers it was providing her with.

She sat there for what felt like minutes but must have been longer, had to have been. The knock on her door scared her and she jumped up in fright as it sluggishly pulled her away from her dark thoughts and persistent fears. And Madge wondered why she hated change? Every change, every new piece of information she found, only dug a bigger hole into her heart.

The knock sounded again, insistent, persistent. "Coming," she grumbled, quickening her pace to the door so they wouldn't knock a third time and annoy all of her neighbors so early in the morning.

Madge was standing on the other side, hand raised in mid-air to pound again, when she finally pulled the door open. She had a long jacket pulled over a pair of pajamas, looking like she had hopped straight from her bed to Delilah's entryway. Delilah didn't even get a chance to say anything before Madge made a maternal clucking and rushed her, enfolding her into her arms.

Delilah didn't know how long she stood there wrapped in Madge’s embrace, tears falling freely from her eyes but it was long enough to drain away the whole pool of sadness and tears inside of her. After she had cried herself out she sniffed inelegantly and backed away, rubbing a wayward hand across her eyes. She turned from Madge so she couldn't read the feelings in her face (though considering who Madge was she needn't have bothered) and caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. She gasped out loud at what she saw there. Her eyes were white, only the inky iris peering out from behind her eyelids. She started to panic but Madge was behind her, laying a comforting hand on her shoulder and guiding one of Delilah's stray fingers to her necklace, calming her on contact.

"I hate it," she spat, wishing to wrench the thing from her neck and hurl it across the room. "I hate that it has so much control over me, can calm me with a single touch. If it's so special than why didn't it protect my mom? Why didn't it save my mom?" Her eyes were pleading with Madge who sighed and led Delilah to the couch.

"You don't mean that. It's hard to get used to and understand, especially at such an old age, but it's a good thing. It's good that it can clear your head when need be. We're taught, trained, to see and feel emotions everywhere. It's a good thing that it can clear our heads. That it keeps us sane and from going crazy at the overload from the emotional fight the neighbors are having or the depression of the guy walking down the street or the anger at the commuter in the car beside you. It is necessary for our survival to have that bond, this gift. It is essential."

"I know," she pleaded, her voice full of tears even though none fell from her face. "I know it's true but then why didn't any of that help my mom?"

Madge looked at her for a long time before she answered, choosing her words carefully. "Truth?"

"Truth."

“I don't know. When your mom found out she was pregnant with you, she changed. We didn't see her as much as before and then finally she turned her back on the community, just up and left. I still saw her but not nearly as often. I don't think anyone but me had seen her for at least a year when she was killed."

"Then why were you waiting for me? Why did you think I would come if my mom didn't even want this anymore?"

A sad smile appeared on Madge’s face. "Your mother came to see me at least once a year, usually around your birthday and she came to see me that year, two days before she died. And after we talked and caught up, just as she was leaving, she repeated what she always said to me in parting, every time. She'd say ‘Take care of my daughter Madge if anything happens to me. Teach her the things that I no longer can’ and then she’d smile sadly and walk out.”

“Did she know something bad was going to happen to her?” Delilah asked.

Madge shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know. The older you got the more and more anxious she became until she barely ever came to visit and that youthful spark she used to have was completely gone. I always thought it was from the strain of being a single mother – she was so stubborn and would never let any of us help her, which we would have done in a heartbeat – but maybe there was more. Maybe I should have tried harder to find out.” She looked away from Delilah, staring off to the side with blank eyes, seeing something else besides the bookcases and furniture before her.

“It’s not your fault Madge,” Delilah whispered, leaning her head on her shoulder.

“She was my best friend and even though she pushed me away, I should have found some way to help her. None of us knew where you lived and I still pray every night now in thanks that the Conrads took you in and kept you safe when I couldn’t. Your continued happiness and safety was my last promise to Genevieve and I fully intend to keep it.”

She turned big, compelling, deep purple eyes to Delilah. “That’s why you can’t ever take the necklace off honey. I need you to be safe. I need to know that you are safe,” she implored with feeling, tears shining brightly in the depths of her eyes. There wasn’t much Delilah could do – she simply shook her head in agreement, hoping that it was a promise she’d be able to keep but doubting it all the same.

Let's Get Intuit, Chapter 10

Chapter 10
Jensen stopped flipping haphazardly thorough the book in his hand. It started to slip from his fingers and he made a wild grab for it, narrowly missing the floor. “I, um, didn’t know that.”

Delilah smiled but wasn’t looking at him to see the shock register on his face even though the sudden appearance of the scent of sea spray, as if they’d been transported to a sandy beach during high tide, should have tipped her off that something was different. “Didn’t Stephen tell you how we know each other?” she questioned in distraction, her eyes still preoccupied with all of the books laid out before her.

“Nope, uh, I don’t think he ever did mention it.” He dropped the book in his hand, cleared his throat and pulled against his collar, looking like he was suddenly in need of more air.

“It’s not that great of a story to tell you the truth,” Delilah said, looking up to meet his eyes for the first time. He saw a little hesitation in them and it scared him for a moment.

"I'd like to hear it anyway."

She took a deep breath and grabbed a book idly from the shelf, just so she could have a prop in her hand to distract her. "Well when I was sixteen my mom died. They found her randomly in the middle of a field, no sign of how of why she died, perfectly healthy except for the fact that she was dead. It was like something out of a book, you know?

"I didn't have any place to go and Amelia was my best friend so the Conrads took me in and let me stay with them until I graduated from high school." She shot him a teasing smile that was unable to completely masquerade the sadness behind it. "See, all totally harmless."

"So you weren't shacking up with him then?" Jensen asked. His face was sympathetic and his heart panged for her but he could tell, by the way she was leaning against the bookcase, by the way she wouldn't meet his eyes, by the way the lines of her body had stopped moving as if waiting for something to happen, that she did not want to talk about what she'd just revealed. She wasn't ready for that yet but he'd be there when she was so he obeyed her unsaid wishes and passed it by.

"Ugh, God no," she said, a look of disgust passing across her face as she shivered at the terrible thought.

Jensen laughed and came around the room towards her. "Good because I was afraid I was going to have a heart attack. I think we just found our angst."

"Jealous already? You know that's not a very attractive quality." She addressed her comments to the slight dimple in his chin, her lips almost brushing it as she spoke. Jensen didn’t see the need to keep much space between them and Delilah was hard pressed to find any disagreement inside of her.

"I think I have a few others to make up for it."

"Really?" she asked with that laugh in her voice that hadn't been absent since she'd started talking with him that evening, the levity she was sorely missing in the other parts of her life bursting full blown into the air when she was with him.

"Really,” he asserted confidently, wrapping his arms around her again and pulling her even closer to kiss her again.

"So, what's next on this list of yours?" he murmured in her ear, his lips softly brushing her hair.

"Well . . ." She opened her mouth to speak but was taken aback by what caught her eye in the mirror on the wall across from them. She had raised her hands to brush at the nape of his neck and spotted something bright underneath the few tendrils of his hair brushing down that far. "What is that?"

"What?" he asked, following her eyes to the mirror.

"That," she murmured, pushing his hair up off of the back of his neck. She circled him and climbed up onto a chair to get a better look.

"Oh, that," he laughed with a sheepish and charming grin. "I was hanging out with my niece this afternoon and I foolishly allowed her to give me a tattoo with markers I didn't realize were permanent." He shook his head a bit ruefully and tried to catch a glimpse of it in the mirror.
"I can't actually see what it is. She told me she wanted it to be a surprise. Care to enlighten me?"

"It's a buzzing bee and a smiling sun." Delilah could barely breathe. What was the universe trying to tell her? That tonight the future held for her Jensen. Was she ready for that? Was she ready to be manipulated like that? Was it even manipulation? A headache was starting to form right between her eyes and she raised a hand to try and rub it away.

Jensen laughed. "Okay, that is definitely some creative license she took there. I told her I wanted something manly."

"Would you have preferred a bee riding a motorcycle into the angry sunset."

"Much more masculine," he answered. She stopped playing with his hair and leaned against him, letting her arms drape down around his neck and resting her chin on the top of his head. His slightly callused hands felt so good running up and down her arms that she was having trouble coming up with a reason why she had to move.

But she was suddenly inspired. What was it that she had been seeing in her dreams about knitting needles? She grabbed her right hand back and slid it across the breath of his wide shoulders, down his massive back, and down over his backside. She bit her lip in concentration as she slipped her hand into his back pocket.

"I can't believe it," she murmured to herself when she came out with a pair of knitting needles.

"You know if you want to feel me up I don't have a problem with that." Jensen turned to look at her, the husky timber of his voice causing shivers of awareness to grate along her skin.

“What are you doing with these, cowboy?” she asked in a breathy voice, unsure on if she wanted an answer or not since it probably wouldn’t make one bit of difference. Why he had them wasn’t as important as the fact that he did and it looked like her prophetic visions of the future, no matter how scattered or random, were actually coming true.

He looked a little ashamed and cleared his throat, reaching up to take them from her outstretched hand. “What am I doing with these?” he repeated.

“Yes, what are you doing with knitting needles in your back pocket?”

“Would you believe I use them to play the drums?” he asked hopefully, twirling the needles idly in his hand like he had down it numerous times before.

“No.”

“Knitting keeps dexterity in the fingers. I got into the habit of knitting when I was doing my medical residency and a few of the girls in my year convinced me it would get me all the ladies. Plus . . .”

“Plus . . .” she prompted, reaching to grab his face and tip it up to look at her, still standing on the chair. She liked utilizing the height to her advantage and slipped her hand back into his hair, running it slowly through her splayed fingers.

“Plus,” he began once more, having to clear his throat to push the words out, “I heard that you liked to knit from Stephen and I thought it might be a quirky gift to get your attention.”

“You were carrying the needles around for me?” she asked in surprise, taking a step back but upsetting her balance in the process. Jensen had to reach out to steady her, his hands sparking her to life again where they settled on her waist. He pulled her down off of the chair and held her close.

“Sure was.” Excitement and elation bubbled over inside of Delilah. Not only had she sparked his interest she had also captured his attention. The party was cluttered with girls shooting covetous glances at him but he couldn’t see any of it, his eyes focused only on her.

She cleared her throat and smiled blindingly, causing Jensen to blink at its brilliance. “The next thing that Amelia told me to find was A Star Is Born. Do you know that movie?”

“I like old movies,” he said, sliding a strand of her hair behind her ear, “My decorator centered that one over my bed.” He punctuated that statement with a kiss.

“Is that so?” she asked breathlessly when they parted.

“It’s a fact ma’am. What you don’t believe me?”

“Nope,” she said, the smile she was trying to hide teasing itself around the corners of her mouth. “It’s just too much of a coincidence.”

“Maybe I’ll just have to show it to you.”

“Maybe you will.”

They stood there for a second together, each trying to figure out if they were serious or not. “I can get Stephen’s kayak tomorrow,” Jensen murmured, running his hands up her bare arms and unhooking them from around his neck. But he didn’t let them go immediately, holding them gently between them like a set of prepubescent lovers unsure of what to do next. “Okay then,” he said at the look on her face, clearing his throat and dropping her hands.

“I’ll meet you out front,” she said, “I just have to get my coat.” They parted at the doorway as he slipped out the front door and Delilah wound her way around the ever growing crowd of people. She spotted Amelia leaving the bathroom and followed her through the pulsing crowd, catching up with her near the living room sofa.

She had to reach out and grab her arm to get her attention, the bass on the stereo making it hard to talk as it punctuated every word. “Hey, there you are.”

“Hi,” Amelia responded, her annoyance at her best friend not yet drained away.

“Look Am, I’m sorry I was being a colossal grouch. I swear, sometimes I don’t know what is wrong with me but I’m really glad that you dragged me here. Really.”

“Really?” she asked, her eyes lighting up with the hope of juicy gossip to follow, “why? What’s going on?”

“I – ” she began but didn’t get very far before Jensen popped up beside her.

‘’Ready?” he asked before noticing that Delilah was in the middle of a conversation. “Oh, I don’t want to interrupt.”

“That’s fine,” Delilah said, grabbing his arm as he backed up and pulling him closer before he could disappear into the crowd. “Jensen this is Amelia. Amelia, Jensen.”

“Stephen’s sister, right?” he asked, extending a hand for her to shake.

“Mmmhmmm,” was all she said, her tone speaking volumes. She shot a look at Delilah out of the corner of her eye and she just barely managed not to laugh.

“I’ll talk to you tomorrow?” Delilah asked as she started to leave, pulling Jensen along beside her.

“You better!”

Jensen took her hand in his, reluctant that she would slip away from him again, her elusivity before tonight making him wonder on more than one occasion if he had only just dreamt the stunning redhead with charm to spare, and led her through the house. As they left the house she was so preoccupied at the way that their hands fit perfectly together that she was barely noticed when they stepped out into the brisk evening. "Where's your car?" she asked, barely glancing away from his captivating smile to see where she was going, let alone notice it parked in front of them.

"You're looking at it," he answered with a laugh and pointing at a gleaming, beautiful piece of machinery. It was parked haphazardly in the driveway, the back half sticking out into the street at a rakish angle.

"This is your car?"

"I am a doctor after all you know," he replied, taking great delight at the appreciation in her suddenly light gray eyes.

She let out a low whistle as she released his hand to walk around it in admiration. "I've never ridden in a Ferrari with the top down before."

"Well get in." He didn't need to ask her twice; he didn't even have time to open the door for her before she slipped into the leather interior. "Wow" was all she could say.

He laughed. "The color makes it so much better, right?"

"Oh, so much."

"Shall we?" he asked with a quick look at her in his passenger seat. "I like you sitting next to me," he murmured, reaching a hand out to push another one of those flyaway strands of hair behind her ear. Every time he did it a rush of emotion started skittering down along her limbs and making her wonder if the spark Madge had talked about was real, was about to jump from her like an electric conduit and catch the house on fire.

He took to the roads like a teenager in his first solo drive, taking the turns quick and revving the engine to speed the car along to dizzying heights, so fast that the wind was the only thing keeping them down, holding them against the seats with its strength. After fifteen minutes as they were coming off of a tight curve on an old, country road, he slowed the car.

"Are you cold?" he asked, twiddling confidently with the knobs and buttons on the dash until heat came blasting out of the vents and warming her from head to toe. The top started rising and she couldn't hold in the sigh of sadness that escaped her even as the car gratefully warmed ten degrees.

"You liked that then I take it?"

"Definitely," she smiled. He returned it but it took her breath away and she could only hold his gaze for a moment before she had to look away and at the countryside whizzing by the window much slower now. The car slowed to almost a snails' pace, so slow after the intense speed up the mountain that she wasn't even sure if they were still moving. "Why are we stopped? Did we run out of gas or something?"

He shined that half-cocked grin at her again and the air seemed to leave the car. "This is where I live."

"All the way out here? In the middle of nowhere? Is there a house to go along with it?"

"Yes, there’s a house – right up there, see. And no, not the middle of nowhere. I have neighbors. See there, and there, and oh, there's one over there to." He reached a hand out to run through the ever-lengthening strands of her hair. "Why, are you afraid to be alone with me now?"

"I guess that depends on what you plan on doing with me," she whispered softly. He moved his hand to cup the back of her head and pulled her towards him to capture her lips in a slow, sensual kiss. He rested his forehead against hers when they broke apart as they both tried to catch their breath.

"This is beautiful," he murmured, moving his hand down to the hollow of her neck.

"Thanks. It was my mother's," she replied, her eyes following his finger as he ran his hand over the ever present orange stone.

The minute he touched it, she knew what Madge meant about a spark. That calm that she felt when she touched it suddenly exploded inside of her, into a thousand sharp fragments cutting holes into her, burning white hot and intense. She felt it, all of the possibilities of Jensen and Delilah, against her skin, inside her mind, through her heart. Everything that had been, everything that could be, every single moment of togetherness and apart was sitting there for her to take.

He only touched it for a moment but when his fingertip had skirted across and landed on the other side, touching her skin again, she was gasping for breath, as if she had been drowning and was just able to come up for air.

"Are you okay?" he asked with concern, dropping nicely into competent caregiver and grabbing her wrist to take her pulse.

"I'm fine," she panted, closing her eyes and pressing a hand to forehead to try and quiet the noise that had exploded there at his touch.

"Your pulse is racing."

"I'm with you - what would you expect it to do?"

"Delilah," he said, worry and hesitation evident in just that one word.

"Take me inside Jensen" was her reply. Reluctance was clearly evident in the planes of his face. She leaned over and did her best to remove it with her lips, pressing softly against the hollow of his neck. "Take me inside," she whispered in his ear, her breathing all but back to normal.
"I'm not sure that's a good idea."

"Then sign me out against medical advice and you don't have to do anymore thinking." He met and held her gaze for a moment, running that stray hand down the side of her face again before giving in and exiting the car. She waited for him to come around to her side and open the door with a satisfied smile. Surrender, she thought, could be so nice.

Let's Get Intuit, Chapter 9

Chapter 9
“Hi,” Jensen said in surprise as he spotted her there in Stephen’s kitchen, halting on the spot and blocking the flow of traffic. The man behind him protested and he took a step towards her to move out of the way, pushing aside almost all of the space between them. The crowd seemed to demand more of it and he was forced to lean over her, bracing himself against the counter behind her and leaving them with barely enough space to take a breath without touching.

“Hi,” she replied, looking up and connecting with the cleft in his chin, so close she couldn’t see his eyes.

“Cramped in here,” he murmured, swallowing hard if the way his Adam’s apple fluttered was any indication. She just laughed a little bit. He looked down at her and their eyes met, but only for a moment before they slide to the right and saw the wine glass in her hand. “Any good?” he asked.

“I haven’t tried it yet,” she answered.

With one more quick look at her eyes, he touched her; starting at her elbow and running his hand slowly down her arm to remove the glass from her hand. He raised it to his lips, meeting her eyes again, and drank. “Good,” he informed her as he set the glass back into her grasp, fingers brushing and causing that now familiar tremor of energy to spread over her.

He leaned over her, the scent of dark chocolate flaring wildly as he did so. She thought he was going to, or wanted him to, kiss her, embrace her, whisper something seductively in her ear but he did nothing of the sort. He slid the wine bottle across the counter with a strangely soothing grate of glass across the counter. “Hmm, I never would have thought such a sophisticated taste would come from a wine label named Kite.”

“What?” she asked, turning so quickly her hair must have whipped across his face. She placed her hands over his and turned the label towards her so she could read it. And there it was. Kite. And a label that looked a lot like the pictures she was getting when she fought sleep at night, a cute little pigtailed girl looking a lot like Jam running across a meadow with a red winsome kite trailing in the sky.

“I’ve been looking for this,” she murmured to herself, and though it seemed like a herculean feat, managing to forget that Jensen was next to her listening.

“You’re an interesting one miss,” he whispered in her ear. She held her breath as he lifted a hand, gathered the strands of her ever growing hair and pushed them away from her shoulder, exposing the smooth column of her neck.

She waited a moment but nothing happened. He grabbed the glass from her hand and took another sip. “I aim to please,” she murmured a bit ironically as she peered over her shoulder at him downing the contents of her glass. He handed her the half empty glass and she threw back her head and emptied the contents in one quick gulp.

With the wine sitting boldly in the pit of her stomach she turned around again to face him and pulled out her cell phone. He looked at her quizzically as she dialed and took an involuntary step backwards. She made a covert grab for the hem of his jacket, not wanting him to wander too far, before his phone started ringing.

He took a step to the side and turned to lean next to her against the counter. “Jensen Michaels,” he answered as his eyes caught sight of her tugging lightly on his clothes.

“Hi, it’s Delilah,” she said with a smile as his eyes swept over to meet hers. That infectious smile broke out across his face as he realized she was on the other line.

“Sorry, who?”

“Delilah. You remember, that smoking hot patient you doc blocked from Stephen Conrad the other day.”

His grin got wider and there was a laugh in his voice when he responded. “Ah yeah, I remember now. Are you thinking about changing your health care provider?”

Delilah laughed a little and stuck her tongue out at him. He outright laughed then. “Not today,” she answered, “but I am going to this party at Stephen’s tonight and I was just wondering if I might see you there.”

“Do you want to see me there?” he responded coyly.

“I don’t know,” she said in her best hard to get voice, “it wouldn’t be the worst thing I suppose.”

“Oh well, in the face of so much flattery how can I resist?”

“You can’t.”

“Guess not.”

“Okay, then it’s a date.”

“Wait, how will I know it’s you? I’m not sure I remember what you look like,” he said. Delilah let go of his jacket and punched him playfully in the arm. He looked at her with fake puppy dog eyes and rubbed his bicep, doing his best to appear wounded. They stared at each other, letting the moment quiet down and the scent of dark chocolate intensified.

His eyes moved down to look at her lips again and it was all she could do to resist the urge to lick them, couldn’t turn away from his stare no matter how much she wanted to and didn’t want to all at the same time. He inched closer to her as both of their cell phones disappeared again.

“Oh look, here you are,” he murmured, not taking his eyes off of her for a second to muster up any kind of believable fake surprise.

“Here I am,” she answered in a voice that sounded distinctively unlike hers, much too low and seductive to belong to her.

“So now that I’ve found you, what should I do with you?”

“You don’t have any ideas?” she prompted as they inched closer to each other, the lines of his jacket brushing ever so softly against the length of her arm.

“Oh I have ideas I’m just not sure if you’ll like them,” he answered, leaning into her just like he had when they had met on the sidewalk.

“Try me. You might be surprised.”

He leaned even closer though Delilah wasn’t sure it was possible. He lifted his hands to her throat. But what she thought was going to be romantic was quickly just another joke as his fingers probed her jaw line with that clinical detachment he’d shown her in his office. “Yep, you seem to be recovering nicely.”

She reached up and pushed him and his laughing face away, causing him to step back into a tall, scrawny blond dude and topple the plate of cheese and crackers from the plate in his outstretched hand.

“Sorry,” Jensen said as he bent down to pick up the food he’d spilled across the floor. “Sorry,” he repeated with a crooked smile as he dropped the slightly disheveled food back on his plate, Delilah laughing so hard she had to bring her hand up to her mouth to keep it in.

Jensen turned to her with crazy eyes and they both started laughing heartily. “Let’s get out of the line of fire,” he said with a twinkle when they’d died down. He grabbed her hand, causing tremors to speed up and down her arm and across her body, and threaded her neatly through the crowd. He squeezed around a bulky Chinese medicine cabinet, pushed aside a deep blue curtain, and pulled her through the window onto a hidden little balcony overlooking the street.

“I didn’t know this was here,” Delilah marveled, stepping to the railing and looking down at the ebb and flow of the party with people coming and going as they pleased.

“Stephen’s afraid of someone doing something stupid out here when drunk so he always slides the cabinet in front of it.” Delilah looked at him in wonder. “I know this because I’m the one that always has to help him slide it in front of the window when he has a party.”

“You didn’t do a very good job this time,” she said, perching on the corner of the railing and leaning against the wall, trying to find a place where the wind didn’t slice through her so completely.

“Well I was still holding out hope that I might see you tonight.”

“Oh,” she said with a smile as he stepped closer to her, raising their hands and threading their fingers together, “and you were hoping what?”

“That I’d have a chance to get you alone.”

“Well now that you have me what do you plan on doing with me?” Delilah smiled slightly and tilted her head to the side to look at Jensen from the corners of her eyes. The wind changed for a moment and his scent, sandalwood and dark chocolate, overwhelmed her, so strong she could almost see it. She couldn’t stop it, she purred at the feel of it against her skin, closing her eyes at the taste of it.

The wind stopped as Jensen stepped in front of her, blocking it from her skin. He laughed softly as he cupped her face in his hands, bringing her face up to meet his. He quickly put an end to the exquisite anticipation she was feeling waiting for his lips to find hers.

He tasted like the wine – bold, full, and tangy. She couldn’t resist sinking her teeth into his bee-kissed bottom lip, as soft and inviting as she thought it was going to be. He made a guttural sound, deep in his throat, and she swallowed it as he tilted her head slightly to capture her mouth more completely. His tongue challenged her to take things deeper and she gladly accepted, matched him thrust for thrust.

When they finally broke apart she wrapped her arms around his torso to keep him close and the biting chill away. They didn’t speak but his hands wound around her and ran softly up and down her back. She leaned her head back to look at him as his hand came up to caress her cheek, the back of his hand cold against her heated skin. “What’s this?” she asked in a voice that didn’t sound like her own.

“This?” he repeated as her fingers toyed with the inside of his wrist. “It’s here to remind me not to leave without Stephen’s kayak.” But Delilah wasn’t really listening as she pulled his arm closer to investigate the yellow string that was tied haphazardly around his wrist. She bit her lip in concentration, staring past Jensen to the window then back into the house. A kite, a yellow string . . .

“What’s wrong?” he asked with a hint of laughter in his voice, “You don’t like kayaks?”

“No,” she laughed, putting a hand to her forehead and trying her hardest to be two people at once – the Intuit that was trying to figure out what the future was telling her and the woman that didn’t want to do anything but make-out with the hot young doctor all night long. “I just . . .”

She pushed away from the wall and had her hand on the curtain before she stopped and turned to look at him. She studied him for a moment before considering what to do next. “You wanna help me with something?” she asked, mischievous hanging off of her every word.

“Sure,” he replied, reaching a hand out to push a few strands of hair behind her ear.

“Okay so Stephen’s sister Amelia told me that I need to have more fun in my life so she is making me do this silly scavenger hunt thing and wants me to find a few things in Stephen’s house.”

“What kinds of things?”

“Oh just really random stuff she told me was going to be a ‘blueprint for unforgettable’ by I figure if you help me out maybe it might live up to its promise.” Delilah shot him a flirtatious look from under her eyelashes and her heart skipped a beat when he returned it. “The, um . . .the yellow string reminded me because that was on the list. The next thing is the letter X.” When he looked at her like that it made it hard to breathe, let alone think.

“X huh,” he murmured, coming to stand right in front of her. “Does this count?” She couldn’t move, the look on his face pinning her to the spot. His hands came down and rounded her hips as he pulled her slowly towards him, pressing the length of her body against his own. His hands slid slowly up her back, insinuating their bodies together even more. She buried her face in the side of his neck as he wrapped himself languorously around her. His embrace was warm, and she could taste his heart beating again as well as feel it beating against the palm of her hand.

She felt the reluctance in him as he let her go, his eyes cloudy with desire, the scent of dark chocolate flaring dangerously between them. “What’s the verdict?” he asked in a low voice.

“Verdict?” She could still taste his desire on the tip of her tongue, all around her, and his words were having a hard time wading through it to get to her.

“On whether a hug counts as the X you are looking for.”

“Oh,” she said with a throaty laugh since the choices seemed to be either laugh or go positively weak at the knees at the smile he was shooting her way. “Well if the point is to be unforgettable than I say count it.”

“What’s next?”

She had to close her eyes to remember, the sight of Jensen too terribly distracting to her concentration. “Angst.”

“Hmmm,” he paused, pulling back the curtain so Delilah could reenter the house before him, “well this is one of Stephen’s parties so I’m sure there’s someone feeling it somewhere.” They ducked into the room right across from the hidden balcony. “Stephen uses this room as his office slash library, not that he ever actually reads anything.”

“Just thinks it makes him look important,” Delilah finished, running her fingers over low shelves filled with books. “I know, I used to live with him you know.”

Let's Get Intuit, Chpater 8

Chapter 8
When Delilah closed her eyes at night, she was getting inundated with information. Thoughts, fears, emotions, images – stuff was just cluttering her brain waves, everything getting past her normally stringent filter now that her senses were being overloaded; evidently security had become lax now that she couldn’t tell for herself what was important and what wasn’t.

Everyone that she had met in the last two weeks were running though her mind, literally. They kept looping past like a CD in her car, over and over and over again. She needed something to change it with but she didn’t have anything else to fall back on. The worst part was that they weren’t alone – those things she saw (if you could even call it that) in the future were always there in the background. Jam with a kite running in a field. Jensen on a stroll with two knitting needles hanging out of his back pocket. Amelia sitting on top of a treasure map with angst-ridden cupcakes and a childish smiling sun above her. If Madge hadn’t described this to her in perfect detail (she had to use a book since she had none of these problems – as part gypsy she could tell the future with much more clarity and accuracy) she would have brought back her hallucination assumption.

Because all she seemed to think of anymore was yellow string and buzzing bees, she was having a hard time sleeping. In fact she was trying to see how long she could lay in bed each night before sleep came out of hiding to capture her. She was starting to look drained again, like her sickness had just gone into hiding and it was trying to stage a siege of her body once again, and Amelia was jumping on her to take better care of herself at every turn.

“Have you called Dr. Gorgeous yet?” she demanded with that glint in her eye one day as she stared at Delilah’s back from her overstuffed sofa.

“I’m working here Am,” she replied, her fingers skating quickly over the keyboard, glasses perched on the end of her nose.

“Does that mean you’ve lost the ability to talk?”

“And if I answer yes?’

“Then I might be forced to unplug your computer from the wall,” she replied sweetly.

“Fine,” she conceded, swiveling around in her chair to face the living room, “you have ten minutes. Chat away.”

“I asked,” she stressed loudly, moving positions so that she was hanging over the arm of the sofa, “if you had talked to Dr. Too Gorgeous For His Own Good.”

“No, I have not.”

“Good,” Amelia said.

“Good?” Delilah asked in surprise. “Where’s the lecture and the pressure and the thousand and one questions why I haven’t called him? Good is all you got?”

“Good because then what I did doesn’t make you look stupid.”

“Why?” she asked, suddenly filled with trepidation. “Am, what did you do?”

A devilish look descended over her face, that mischievous sparkle twinkling in the corner of her eyes and her lip curled just enough to be more that mocking. Amelia didn’t answer but got up off of the couch and grabbed her purse from the coffee table, her smile growing as she saw Delilah’s unchanged face.

“Am!” she yelled, hopping from her desk chair and racing across the room to catch her before she could make her way into the hallway. “Am, what did you do?”

“I was just trying to be your guardian angel, baby. You know you need some looking after,” she murmured in a mothering tone though her eyes still betrayed the attempt at sincerity. Amelia looked her up and down and clucked her tongue as she set her sunglasses on her face. “I’d get dressed if I were you. You know, just in case.”

Delilah tried to go back to work after Amelia left. She had been trying to come up with a great story to write to prove to Bianca that she could be ready to slide right in as a reporter when the time called for it. But nothing exciting was going on that she could find. Samson’s Department Store had revitalized downtown but that was old news, that business was booming in the district that few and far between had been visiting in the last few decades.

She wasn’t skilled at eking out corruption, she was skilled at eking out problems with web servers and security protocols, so she wasn’t sure in which way to turn. Trying to seek out danger had only led her to fiery Mexican food so she wasn’t sure where to go next. She supposedly had great instincts, should have been able to follow any little hunch into a full-fledged expose, but she wasn’t ready to trust herself. And that was her main problem with everything in her different lives at the moment; whether magical, personal, or professional, all of them seemed to be suffering from a lack of courage.

Delilah liked to say that if there was just a manual for this she would be much better off but that wasn’t entirely true; she’d probably spend the first few months second-guessing everything that the manual said and critiquing herself as inadequate at every turn. Delilah wanted, craved, needed to be flawless. She measured herself against the unattainable ideal and berated herself when she was human like everyone else and couldn’t reach it. The instinct had been tamped down on the past few years but at the emotional upheaval in her life at the moment it sprung back to life. Because she wasn’t all human, she wasn’t normal, and the impossible wasn’t out of reach. She could see the future, she could smell danger – surely she should be able to do the mundane?

Amelia’s actions, whatever the hell they were, just preoccupied her further. She couldn’t concentrate on coming up with a brilliant idea because wild speculation about her best friend and the hunky doctor kept finding their way into her mind. Every time the phone rang she jumped in anticipation and trepidation. She checked her email every few hours. When the two cute little blond girls from across the hall stopped by to ask if she wanted to buy any cookies, she almost hit the roof. Amelia had made her obsessive and what was worse, her friend knew it.

The day swept by at a snail’s pace. Delilah watched the clock tick by until it hit a respectable hour (respectably early but respectable all the same) for bed. It had been so long since she’d actually welcomed the feel of her pillows and the comforter but it was a nice change from clockwatching. Just as she popped up off of the couch and was getting ready to bound into her bedroom, the doorbell rang. She checked the peep hole with trepidation before throwing the door wide open, a scowl firmly on her face.

“You are an evil woman,” she said as Amelia breezed back inside.

“You – go change,” she ordered with a wave of her hand. Delilah looked her up and down with a bad feeling. “Go on, go.”

“The only place I’m going is to bed,” she answered, leaning against the door jamb of her front door and refusing to budge.

“It’s only eight-thirty on a Friday night,” Amelia protested with a laugh, tapping her brightly manicured nails against her hip. She was wearing a bright red sheath dress that went with her caramel skin flawlessly. From the flashiness Delilah could predict her plans did not include letting her best friend get any sleep tonight.

“Well in Delilah time it’s more like two am since you had me on pins and needles all day.”
Amelia just giggled. “That was kind of cruel of me, wasn’t it?” Delilah just looked at her with her dove gray eyes and Amelia laughed again.

“What did you do?” she asked. After a moment, recognition dawned. “You didn’t do anything, did you? You just wanted to freak me out all day, didn’t you?”

“I just wanted to prove that you were interested in the good doctor and as far as I’m concerned, point made. Now we celebrate my victory. Go get dressed.”

Half an hour later they were in a cab making their way across town. Delilah had to change twice before Amelia was satisfied with her outfit, finally settling on a short, peasant bubble gown in bright teal that she had once seen one of the stylishly hip style reporters wearing at a party – she’d gone out and bought the dress the next day but never wore it, completely convinced that she’d never be able to pull it off. Amelia entertained no such notion.

“Where is this party anyway?” Delilah asked, adjusting the sleeves of her dress for the third time in the last five minutes, barely remembering to look out the windows she was self-conscious about the way she looked.

“Oh, did I forget to mention that?” The tone of her voice sent warning bells off in her head. She didn’t have to be an Intuit to know that she had been had.

But those ‘intuitive jumps’ that Madge had been telling her about suddenly reared their ugly head; she just knew, without any more words or smells or feelings necessary. She just knew. “Man Amelia, I can’t believe that you’re taking me to a party at Stephen’s so I’ll run into Jensen. This is so over the line you don’t even know. I can’t believe that you did this to me.”

Amelia just looked at her skeptically as the cab pulled up at the curb and they stepped out onto the sidewalk. Stephen had a townhouse and music was floating down the front steps to meet them. “Oh get over it Delilah. Live a little why don’t you?” she answered, leaving Delilah there on the sidewalk by herself.

Delilah languished there on the sidewalk for a moment, biting her lip indecisively. She was being self-obsessed. She was being difficult. She was being all the things she knew Amelia was thinking about her but wasn’t saying aloud. Oh no, Amelia had gotten her out of the house on a Friday night, possibly to see the gorgeous guy that wanted to date her – her life was over!

Delilah snorted a bit as she focused on shifting her perspective, taking a deep breath and forcing her mind to reach out for something other than herself. She was almost done when her eyes widened and she stopped, gasping a bit in surprise. This was probably an intuit thing, wasn’t it? Delilah was always finding herself getting caught up in the small things, tripped up over the details, and she had taught herself at an early age to get past it by trying to get into the head of someone else. Most people thought that she just turned on the theatrics, played a part, pretending to be someone else but that wasn’t quite true. What she did was reach out towards someone else in the vicinity and force herself to see everything through their eyes to see clearly.
Now, she realized, it must be an intuitive extension of her other gifts. Madge had been telling her that she would find something that she was easily good at, something that just came naturally to her without effort or difficulty. And finally she had found it. A smile broke out across her face and she abandoned the exercise there on the doorstep – the realization did more for her confidence than getting into someone else’s head would have done.

She slipped through the door and was surprised at the amount of people spread out across Stephen’s place. Usually Amelia owned a room and she had expected to see her the minute she entered but she must have slipped farther into the house, some corner where Delilah couldn’t find her if she was indeed as annoyed as she had seemed.

Buoyed by her newfound skills, she decided to try something else that Madge had told her about. She made her way into the kitchen and as she poured herself a glass of wine she closed her eyes and gave herself over to the moment. She focused on the air moving through her mouth, the energy in the apartment buzzing around her, trying to allow the other parts of her to tune into Amelia and ferret out her location.

But it was someone else that she locked on to. Sandalwood and dark chocolate swept over her. Her skin started tingling, as the scent slipped over her forearms, the back of her neck, her uncovered legs. She opened her eyes and spun around to watch him pass three people to slip into the kitchen.

I wonder . . .

I'm taking a break from the NaNoWriMo excerpts (I hope everyone is liking them by the way - feel free to leave me a message and tell me if whether they're tickling your fancy) to go all philosophical. Sorry about that. ;) NaNo will continue again tomorrow - sorry for the interruption from the regularly scheduled program.

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I wonder sometimes if I'm not made to be part of things. I'm a pretty personable person - I get along and play well with others, I smile and joke often. Sometimes I just feel like there's something missing, some puzzle piece of personality that everyone else has.

An example - I'm at this conference and I haven't really talked to anyone. I mean, I've traded a few words with some people sitting next to me and I've talked with my co-worker Matt when we've been at the general sessions and when a presenter asks you to discuss things in groups I turn and smile and contribute. But I'm not striking up conversations every second and no one is dying to chat me up in the hall. And I'm okay with that, but is that okay?

So I'm just a generally self-sustained person. I have enough people telling stories in my head that I could stare at a wall for hours and be thoroughly entertained. I don't need to walk around the city alone, hopelessly worried about getting lost, to have a fun time. All I really need is me. The characters that have sprung forth from my head can provide endless hours of entertainment and do, all the time.

And even though people generally like me I think, probably see me as pretty mild and benign, I guess I have trouble connecting. I'm no good at networking (though pretty good at building working relationships - if we work together often, we're good; if I'm holding on to your name for the possibility of needing you in the future, I'm pretty sure you won't remember me at all). I'm just not memorable.

I swear I haven't been flirted with in my life. People just don't look at me in that way though I'm not sure in what way they do look at me. Maybe not at all. Maybe they can't see me because everyone around me shines brighter and I pulse, softly, dully.

I'm not supposed to be worried about this. The fact that I haven't for such a long time now means that I thought it was effectively tamped down but it rears its ugly head again. But I guess maybe it's different this time. I'm not worried about finding my soul mate or the love of my life. I just want someone to see me, help me prove that I'm alive, that I'm more real and interesting than all the characters in my head.

People don't smile at me when we pass in crowds. I've never caught anyone's eye. I've never been asked for my number or email or anything else that gets passed around for such reasons. I just worry that as the year pass I'll fade, pulse even slower, until the possibility of anyone notices dies. And I'll still be here - completely entertaining myself but completely apart, never a part of things.

Is this the way it sometimes happens in the end?

Let's Get Intuit, Chapter 7

Chapter 7
Like the days before, she set out to follow the wind. Delilah needed all the help she could get with this so anything that helped her along was just fine. The wind was blowing crisply away from the shopping district so she followed it, enjoying the feel of its strength on her back as she let it push her along, an unseen hand.

She had been walking for almost fifteen minutes, smelling only the normal street smells, and feeling nothing extraordinary, when the hair on the back of her neck stood up. She reached up and brushed a hand across the nape of her neck quickly, hoping to shake whatever was giving her a wary feeling. But it didn't work - the hair continued to prickle beneath the hem of her woolen cap.

She turned in a circle, wondering what, if any, intuit significance this had. Maybe it was just something normal, she mused, like someone staring at the back of her head or a chill finding its way underneath her clothes and against her skin. But the minute she moved her hand it stood up again, a veritable forest of sensations demanding her attention.

She stopped and turned, completely unprepared for what she might find there. Madge had somehow missed this, amongst the many other things she said she’d fill her in on later; she had gotten no briefing on what this was supposed to mean. She needed an anatomy book to understand what was happening to her body, felt like a prepubescent girl standing in front of a mirror and wondering what all the changes were supposed to mean. She had already been there done that. It had been a hard enough time in her life to live before; she dreaded going through it again now, alone.

So she turned, still unsure if it was danger or delirium that she would find there, and was caught completely off guard at what turned out to be standing there.

"Don’t I know you?" Jensen asked with a quarter smile, really just a twist of his mouth, that reminded her of how truly good looking he was, not that she needed much of a reminder. Had her nose led her here, really?

"Hi," she answered. She had to turn into the wind to face him and was doing her best to keep her hair from reaching out to him in the wind. At the rate it was growing it would probably succeed if they stayed talking longer than just a few minutes.

It took just a moment before that flirtatiously distracting version of herself was able to take a breath and move forward. "You forgot me already. Haven’t you been waiting by the phone for me to call you?" she asked with an amusing light in her eyes.

"No. Gentleman that I was, I was waiting patiently for you to be cured."

"You didn't want to be forced to make-out with a petri dish of germs?"

"Is that what I get to look forward to?" he asked, his own eyes lighting up and giving her lips a look just a second longer than needed so that she felt the urge to cover them up, her cheeks starting to redden at his scrutiny. "I thought the point of foisting you off on Stephen was because you wanted me looking at you," he said, leaning in close, almost seductively so, to whisper in her ear, against the wind.

"Was it?" she asked, meeting his eyes, already so close to her own that she couldn't manage to look away even if she had wanted to. Leaning so close, she could smell sandalwood and dark chocolate. The back of her mind was trying to decipher it, reconcile those two things but they wouldn't fit. Which one was real and which one was just in her mind? Frankly she didn’t care – rolling together they smelled delicious.

"So," he said, interrupting the electrically charged moment with a shake of his head, bringing them both back down to reality, "what are you doing over here, out in this horrible wind with that cold of yours?"

"Um, I'm all cured," she said, appearing anything but as she hugged herself tightly, trying desperately to stop her hands from getting away from her. They seemed to want nothing more than to reach out to him and pull him back, close enough for her to embrace and breathe in his scent again. Maybe she couldn't understand what it was supposed to mean but she understood that it was intoxicating, making her woozy standing so close to him.

"Are you?" he asked. "Well then I changed my mind. No more gentlemen from me. I think I might want my number back if you’re not going to use it."

She looked at him sheepishly. "Maybe I lost it," she said, all evasiveness, trying to appear both coy and ashamed at the same time in an attempt to steer him away from the truth.

"Maybe you should learn to keep better track of your things."

"Well maybe if you give it to me again I'll remember where I put it." Her hand made a break for it and reached out to rest softly against the rough suede of his jacket.

"Maybe you'll learn that sometimes you have to work for things you want."

She huffed and snatched her hand back. "Who says I want it?"

He just laughed, stepping a little away from her and under the eaves of the building. The wind howled towards them at that moment, a huge gusty sweeping of leaves that threatened to overturn them both. He was quick, like a panther, and grabbed her arm, pulling her under the eaves as well and out of the way of the debris rollicking along the street.

His hand was warm, strong, and his smell, of sandalwood and dark chocolate assaulted her again. She stared into his eyes and was reminded of the way his voiced had tripped across every one of her nerves last week, the way his fingertips had lightly caressed her back and the things she'd wanted to do to him because of it. She licked her lips and it was almost as if she could taste his heartbeat speeding up on the air. She was suddenly finding it hard to breathe again.

He must have been feeling something too since he didn't let her go immediately, his breath unsteady as their eyes met, as the wind howled around them, as she felt him move just ever so slightly closer to her, bending against the wind and into her.

A horn honked, kids in a passing car whistling and laughing, and it cracked the moment open wide. They stepped away quickly and his half-cocked smile was back in place. "You know Stephen warned me to be careful of you," he commented as they both watched the car speed away.

She turned back to him, part surprised, part intrigued. "Really? And what did he say?"

"That you break hearts faster than I could mend them," he said, looking at her a bit pensively as if trying to decide if it should be believed.

"That's a gross over exaggeration," she murmured. "I always give plenty of time for mending."
He shook his head and laughed a bit self-deprecatingly, shaking his finger at her. "I'm not sure what to make of you, miss,” he replied after a pregnant pause.

"If you're lucky maybe you'll find out," she said, backing away from him and the smell that was serving to slowly drive her insane.

He raised his hand in farewell as they both kept on backing away, two warriors calling a truce, neither one wanting to turn their back on the other. By the time she rounded the corner, Delilah was no longer letting her nose do the leading. She knew exactly where she wanted to go but needed to create a wide arc around the downtown district so as not to run back into the Pouty Practitioner that she just couldn't seem to keep her hands off of. If she'd indulged in letting her body do everything it wanted to do the kids in that car definitely would have had something to honk at.

It took her a half an hour before she reached Madge and her orange shop, her cheeks full of color from all of the activity. Anyone looking at her now never would have recognized her as that same sickly girl from a week ago, worn out from the buzzing and sneezing and symptoms she just couldn't shake. Magical Wasabi, it turned out, was not only cleansing but one of the best energy supplements not on the market. It gave her a jolt of oomph that it was hard to come down off of. She didn't know whether she could, but she desperately hoped that she wasn’t about to become addicted to a Chinese root – it sounded positively flower power flighty – but her body was starting to crave it just as much as Jensen's touch it seemed.

Delilah pushed the door open, feeling the clang of the bell in every cell in her body. It caught her off guard and she froze for a moment in mid-stride through it, closing her eyes to try to catch her breath and steady her soul.

"Hey there! Do what do I owe this pleasure?" Madge called across the shop. Delilah opened her eyes to find the place almost empty, just Madge and a broad shouldered man standing at the counter, looking every inch a straight-laced marine and seeming drastically out of place in such an unzipped store as Colin All Alternatives was.

"I . . ." she began, her eyes shifting restlessly to the brooding man with the buzz cut, leaning against the counter but still seeming to have perfect posture until she wondered if he required a ruler to get that way.

"Oh, Delilah! You haven't met yet, silly me. This is my cousin Brody. He works over at the Lift It! gym over on Cypress."

"Personal trainer by necessity, bounty hunter by desire. Nice to meet you," he said, coming across the store to shake her hand (and present himself for inspection it almost seemed). Even through his clothes she could tell that he was ripped, a very fine male specimen, from his broad shoulders all the way down his tapered waist and muscular legs. His eyes, while not the vibrant shade of an Intuit, held something different in their dusky brown depths, some small sparkle of the gypsy that bound him and Madge together. His lips stayed pursed together in a straight line, not much of a talker it seemed.

"Oh, well, nice to meet you," she said, finally able to move. She caught another whiff of dark chocolate as he escorted her over to the counter. So the sandalwood had been all Jensen, she thought with a tiny smile.

"What’s up?" Madge inquired again as she wiped down the display case in front of her. Delilah cast her eyes at Brody and looked away quickly. Madge spoke up before she had even finished the sweep.

"Brody, why don't you go and remind the kids of that reward of the pet shop now. I think that they've spent enough time pretending to clean their rooms."

"Sure cuz," he said. "Pleasure to meet you." He turned and gave a stiff little bow to Delilah, clicking his heels together as he did so, before bounding up the stairs three at a time, a commanding voice preceding his long stride.

"So, what's so bad you can't say it in front of Brody?" Madge started, setting down the window cleaner and cutting right to the chase.

"How did you know that I didn't want to talk in front of him?"

"Your eyes. Plus you're just exuding discomfort so quickly it had to have been seeping out of your pores. And hello, it’s my business to know what the people around me want so give me a little credit, huh. What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong," she said, running her finger along a groove in the counter and avoiding her eyes, "it's just . . . okay, there's this guy -"

"I knew it!" Madge whooped, clapping her hands in mid-air. "Hooo, I knew it."

“It's nothing to be so broken up about," Delilah mocked, giving her an amused eye-roll. “I’m just getting these weird feelings when I’m around him.”

“What kind of weird feelings? You’re getting a lot of those now you know.”

“I know,” she murmured, crossing behind the counter and dropping down into an easy chair hidden in the corner and out of sight of customers. “But, I . . . okay, maybe it’s nothing but the first time I saw him was right after I saw you the first time and when I was with him I just . . .”

“Just what?” Madge laughed at her inability to articulate.

"It's just that I feel Everything."

“Everything?"

"Everything. Intimately. Everywhere. I feel his smell, I feel his eyes, I think I might even be able to feel his heartbeat and it's freaking me out. Oh and what emotion smells like dark chocolate?"

Madge just smiled, chuckling a bit to herself. "What?" Delilah asked in exasperation, just resisting the urge to slam something to show how serious she was being.

"Honey, you're just horny," Madge said simply.

"I . . . that . . . come on," she replied in disbelief.

"Your senses are heightened now, you know that. Dark chocolate is attraction, lust. You must just spark when you're together."

“Spark?" she asked quizzically, "Is that a good thing?"

Madge laughed out loud and patted her knee in comfort. "That’s a Very good thing."

"Oh stop it," Delilah said, waving her hand in the air to try and wave her attitude away as she stood. "I'm serious. I don't know what to do. I can't control myself when I'm around him. I can't control myself ever anymore it seems. I don't want this any longer. I don’t like being an Intuit and I just want it to go away."

"Tsk, tsk, you don't mean that," Madge said with a slight narrowing of her eyes. "And you should be careful what you wish for. You know that was almost the truth, right?"

"What do you mean?" she asked, sinking back down into the chair at the serious look on Madge's face.

"Remember when you came in here that first night and I told you that you were close to the deadline. I meant it, literally. If an intuit doesn't put on the necklace before their 25th year is over, it's gone. I thought, well we all thought that you had decided that you didn't want any part of this stuff which is why we'd never heard from you. If you had unpacked those boxes one day later you wouldn't be able to do any of it. You're very lucky."

"I don't feel lucky," she murmured, dropping her forehead into her hands.

"Yes, well, it's because you don't like to be unsure. You're new at this and it kills you to not be perfect at something."

"How do you know that?" Delilah asked, wondering if people's pores really did leak their secrets out all day long.

“Because you're so much like your mother," she mused with a forlorn little smile.

“Tell me about her," Delilah asked, drawing her legs up off of the floor and under her chin. It was the question that had been on the tip of her tongue for the last week.

"Oh,” Madge began, "your mother was a firecracker. She had a personality that would just light up any room. She was always getting us into wild schemes and pushing us to do crazy things. We went cliff-diving once near Gilded Hill, that almost killed us. And she used to have this hugely infectious laughter that just, well, you couldn't not smile when Genevieve was around.

"She got it into her head one summer that we could find the Sacred Dais, supposedly the birthplace of the Intuit and the keeper of all our secrets, and had us searching from hell and back looking for it. That was an interesting time I'll tell you that." Madge shook her head. "And when it was over, that's when she came back with you."

"What was my father like?" Delilah asked before she even realized that she had wanted to know. Her mother had never talked about him. Whenever Delilah asked about him her mother would just tell her the story of a girl being left in a cabbage patch, even when she was well into puberty and had been schooled in the ways of the birds and the bees.

Madge looked sad. "I don't know honey. I asked of course, we all did, but she always said that it was her business and everyone else didn't need anyone to know. She said it didn't matter anyway because she'd gotten what she wanted and she wanted nothing else but you."

Delilah sighed. She had no father. She had known nothing real about her mother. It felt like her life really had been a lie, a house of cards that was going to come tumbling down around her, just a bunch of trick mirrors throwing her off balance. What was the truth? Would she ever know?

"Your mother's letter didn't clear any of this stuff up?" Madge asked from the main floor of the store as she rearranged items and restacked books in the proper order.

"I didn't open it yet," she confessed with a sigh, wiggling her toes in her shoes and trying to be preoccupied with them.

"Why ever not?" Madge asked, looking startled but only for a moment. "Ahh," she said with a knowing look, "still scared of change and full of indecision."

"Is there any way I can block my emotions from you?" Delilah asked a bit crossly, wishing there was some part of her that wasn't an open book that everyone around her could delight in reading, something that was only hers to know.

'Well you can't tell what I'm feeling can you?" was her evasive response.

"That's not an answer," she said, "because I couldn't tell the difference anyway. But is -”

Whatever else Delilah was going to ask was cut off by a stampede of people barreling in from the back room.

“Soldiers,” Brody yelled in an authoritative voice, “ten hut!” The children snapped into a straight line in front of their mother, grins on their faces.

“Ahh, so we’re being presented for inspection are we?” Madge asked with a grin. “Well, let’s see. Have our rooms been cleaned.”

“Yes Mommy!”

“Even under your beds and the toy box in your closet?”

“Yes Mommy!”

“And you didn’t leave anymore surprises for Daddy in his office did you?”

The children giggled at the memory but replied again. “Yes Mommy!"

“Okay,” she said, turning the sign on the door from opened to closed in a flourish, “then let’s go get that ferret.”

“Ferret?” Delilah asked out of the corner of her mouth as the kids were corralled towards the door.

“Yes, well, ferrets are pretty susceptible to Intuit eye tricks so I figure if the kids won’t listen to me at least I can have one thing in the house that will.”