Awakenings

            Thom and Phelan came late to dinner, but neither of them seemed overly grim when they joined us at the fire.  I hoped that would still be the case by the time Kellin and I were done talking, hopefully with some help from Drew, Rory, Greg, and maybe J.T. and Carolyn, who were slowly settling into their newfound abilities.  The sun was just starting to slip down beyond the horizon, crimson in the sky.  Sunsets had been beautiful since the end, at least the ones when it hadn’t been pouring rain or overcast.
            I smiled at Thom as he settled next to me.  He smiled back, then his brows knit.
            “What’s wrong?” he whispered to me as Tala handed him a bowl of stew to match the one already filling my hands.
            “You’ll see,” I murmured, then kissed his cheek.  You’ll see.  Maybe not be happy about it.  I looked past him to Phelan, who was smiling and thanking Tala.
            I closed my eyes for a moment.  This was either going to go very well, or very poorly.  Kellin and Jacqueline decided that I should do most of the talking.  I wasn’t sure that was a good idea, either.
            Thom squeezed my arm.  Dinner went quietly—seemed like everyone was too tired to talk much, but at least the hopelessness had vanished from most of our gazes.  It was starting to look more and more like we’d survive.
            Maybe we would.
            I picked at my meal, waiting until the rest were at least three quarters of the way through before I cleared my throat and stood up.  All eyes were on me within a few seconds.  I stared into the fire for a moment, coughed, then started to talk, uncertain of what I was going to say or where the words were actually coming from.
            “Three weeks,” I said.  “Feels like longer, right?  Since everything change, and changed forever.  But we’re still here, still together, and if we stick together we’ll be able to take on anything that comes our way.  But that’s what’s starting to get hard, right?  The sticking together part.  There’s things that are getting weird—things that not all of us understand.  Hell.  I think most of us don’t completely understand them, but we try to muddle through anyway.
            “It’s time for me to come clean about some things, though, and hopefully no one’s going to run screaming into the night after I’ve told you about them.  We’ve lost too many already thanks to their fears—fears of never seeing people again, fears of what might happen to them if they stay, fears of what’s happening here, all of that.  I don’t know that we can quite afford to lose anyone else and still function as a community.  Because that’s what we are.  A community.  For what it’s worth, anyway.  We’re all each other’s got right about now, and I’m not keen on letting anyone else go if I don’t have to.
            “But that’s why I’ve got to say what I’ve got to say.  There’s been a lot of scary, weird stuff going on lately.  I won’t lie and say I know what it’s all about.  I don’t.  But this is what I do know.  There’s more out there in the world than what we were always able to see and sense before this all happened.  A lot of the stuff was always there, we just didn’t know it.  Things like the Grays and the monsters that have been attacking have always been out there.  They just never had the chance to step up against anyone or anything before.  They’d have lost against modern technology.
            “But I think we all know that’s failing us.  The generators are dead.  We’re back in an era before electricity, back in an age where we have to rely on our own blood, sweat, and ingenuity to survive.  We can do that—I know we can.  But we’ve got to stick together.”  I glanced at Kellin, biting my lip.  She gave me a little nod and I exhaled, lifting my chin a little as I continued.
            “We have gifts, gifts that would’ve been called delusions in the twentieth century or witchcraft any time before that.  Some of us became painfully, acutely aware of those gifts in the past few weeks.  I know that a lot of you saw me fall over a couple weeks ago, when that storm started, before that big quake.  I saw something then.  That’s part of my gift—to catch glimmers of what could be.”  I glanced over toward Rory, who winced slightly.
            “I can hurt things,” he murmured.  “Things that can’t usually be touched, I can touch them, hurt them.”  He elbowed Drew, who rolled his eyes.
            “I sense emotions, moods,” Drew said.  “So cut the bewilderment, it’s making me tired.”
            “And I can sense life,” Greg Doyle said softly.  “So before you start thinking your former classmates are batshit crazy, remember they’re not the only ones who are realizing their talents.”
            I smiled at Greg and he smiled back, giving me an encouraging little nod.  I took a deep breath, glancing down toward Thom.  He was staring at his hands, head bowed. I couldn’t see his face.
            A hand wrapped around my heart and squeezed.
            “So, wait a second,” Jack said, brows knitting.  “Those little cairns out there that you built, with the plants and shit.  They actually do something?”
            “Yes,” Kellin said, voice firm.  “And I’d be willing to help you learn how to feel what they do, if you’re willing to learn.”
            Jack rocked back slightly, blinking, then smiled a little.  “Why the hell not?” he said quietly.
            I breathed a silent sigh of relief. He’d been one of the ones I was worried about.  I glanced over at Davon, who was chewing the inside of his lip and looking like he was trying to decide whether or not we were crazy.  He finally seemed to make a decision and ladled more stew into his bowl.  I almost laughed in relief.
            “Is that why you guys were all a mess the other day?”  Leah asked.  “Why the radio exploded, why it looked like a bomb went off up here three days ago?”
            “Yes,” I said before I actually realized what she’d said.  The radio?  Does this…  My stomach sank.  What does the radio have to do with—
            Then Thom took my hand and squeezed, and I stopped thinking about the radio altogether.
            “Are we all in this together?” he asked quietly, not of me but of everyone else.
            Nods began in the firelight.  Fear reflected in some of their eyes, some of their nervous or grim smiles, but everyone nodded.  My heart lifted.  Kellin and Carolyn both grinned at me.  Matt winked and mouthed an I-told-you-so.  I exhaled in relief.
            Okay.  So maybe it hadn’t been as bad as I thought it would be.
            I glanced at Phelan. His eyes were shining with withheld tears.  For some reason, my breath caught.  Then he smiled and stood up.
            I yielded him the floor as he announced it was time for him to introduce himself and began to tell the story about how it’d taken him three weeks to get here after the world ended and a new one began struggling to be born.

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            Kellin stared for a few long moments at the tarot deck, still sitting by my knee.  Her lips thinned for a moment, then she commanded, “Spread the cards.”
            I tensed up for a moment, then took a deep breath, exhaled slowly, and looked at her square.  “Why?”
            “I have a question I want to ask,” she said, voice barely more than a whisper as she kept staring at the cards.
            “What is it?”
            A visible shudder ran through her.  “I want to know if I was supposed to live or die.”
            I stared at her, mouth dry, too shocked to speak.  She thought maybe she was supposed to die like that?  Why would she think that?  I started to shake my head.  She grasped my hand.
            “I was dying, Marin, and I thought I was ready to go.  It felt like my time, even though I knew that you guys needed me, I had this overwhelming sense that even without me, you’d be okay.  But something wouldn’t let me go, like something holding me down, something that tethered me to my body, and then Jacqueline was there.”  Kellin put her hand to the scar across her throat.  “I don’t know what she did.  I guess I’m grateful for whatever it was, but I don’t know what it was.  Honestly, I’m not sure if she would know if we asked her.”  Kellin’s fingers tightened for a moment, then she let go of me and drew her knees up to her chest.
            “Kel,” I said softly, shaking my head a little.  “It doesn’t matter, whether it was meant to be or not.  You’re still here.  That’s what matters.”
            “Is it?” she whispered.  “What if my survival’s changed everything?”
            “Then we cross that bridge when we get there,” I said firmly.  “Besides,” I continued, lying through my teeth and hoping she wouldn’t notice, “the cards wouldn’t give you a clear read on that.”
            For a moment, I was all but certain she’d caught me in the lie, but the accusation I expected never came.  She just slumped and sighed, shaking her head.
            “It’s just a strange thing to feel,” she murmured.  “I can’t even quite describe it.”
            “Sounds like what I’m feeling, too,” Jacqueline said from behind Kellin.  She eased over toward us and sat down on the edge of the mattress between Kellin and I.  “I’m glad you’re both awake now.  I’m not sure who to talk to, or how.  What did I do?”
            “I don’t know,” I said.  “You healed Kel.  Saved her life.  I didn’t even know that was possible.”  But maybe Phelan…maybe he’d know, maybe he’s aware of something like that being possible.
            They both eyed me.  Kellin spoke first.
            “You’re thinking that someone might, though.”
            “Who?” Jacqueline asked.  “If not you two, then who?  Rory?  Professor Doyle?”
            “Phelan,” I said.
            “Phelan?  Who the heck is Phelan?”
            I smiled weakly at Jacqueline’s question.  “A friend who just might have answers to a lot of questions we’re finally starting to ask.”  Questions we can actually think about asking because we don’t have to face the fact that we don’t have anyone who even has a prayer of giving us an answer.
            “Is he the one I saw sitting with Thom?”  Her nose wrinkled.  “He looks like some kind of vagabond.”
            I laughed.  “I think he kind of is one.”
            She looked between Kellin and I, confusion contorting her expression.  Kellin held up her hands in a vague gesture of surrender or defeat.
            “Don’t look at me.  I’ve never met the man, but I’ll admit to being able to sense the power in him, even from all the way over here.  Hell, even unconscious.”
            Jacqueline shuddered.  “Is that why I’ve got a little bit of the crawlies?  It’s like…like a million bright little electric shocks across my skin—they don’t hurt, just tingle.  And I know that electric shocks aren’t bright, but if you can feel brightness, that’s what I’m feeling.”  She looked sidelong at me.  “What’s going on?”
            “You’re becoming aware—Awake, like some of the rest of us,” Kellin said, almost dully.
            Jacqueline’s head whipped around and she stared at Kellin as if she’d grown a second head.  Her tone was flat, disbelieving.  “What?”
            “You have some kind of gift, Jac,” I said, struggling to find the words to soften this blow for her.  “One that you’re just starting to realize you’ve got.”
            “All I did was pray,” she whispered.  “I prayed to God that he wouldn’t take Kel from us.  We still need her.”  She pressed her lips tightly together, face growing pale.  “Could this…gift…be how he answered that prayer?”
            “Maybe,” I said softly, reaching over and taking her hand.  “Either way, whatever you did saved her life.”  I cast a quick glance at Kellin, who’d wrapped her arms around her knees again, then looked back at Jacqueline.  “I don’t know where our gifts come from, Jac—that’s never been the important part for me—but if you choose to believe that god granted you yours, know that it happened for a reason.”
            And he would never give me a burden I couldn’t handle,” she whispered, almost to herself.  Some of the fear-born rigidity faded from her posture.  After another few moments, she smiled softly.  “Do you really think that’s what it is?  A gift?”
            “Yes,” I whispered.  “I do.”
            Her gaze sharpened slightly.  “What about the others?”  She whispered, fear creeping into her eyes.  “People have been leaving, Matt told me.  Because of what happened the other day, they’ve been leaving.”
            “Enough are still here,” I mumbled.  Enough, or too many, whatever.  Either way, more will come.
            “This scares people, Mar,” Jacqueline said.  “What’re we going to do?”
            Kellin looked up.  “At dinner, we’re going to tell them.”
            What?  I goggled at her.  Sure, the idea had crossed my own mind earlier, but I still wasn’t sure that people were ready to hear whatever we might say.  “Tell them what, Kel?”
            “That there’s more to the world than what we used to see in our everyday lives.  WE tell them that there’s forces out there beyond the human or the divine and demonic that will haf effects on us going forward—have already affected us in the past few weeks.  We tell them the truth and live with the consequences for good or ill.”
            I sighed.  Between the fight and Phelan’s arrival, she was right.  Everyone who was left here needed to know.  Hopefully, Matt was right about people being made of sterner stuff.
            Made of sterner stuff.  Better now than later.  I glanced at Jacqueline, thinking briefly of Davon, who’d think all of us were batshit crazy.
            But he’d stay, because where else would he go?
            Wouldn’t he?
            “Do you think they’ll be able to take it?” Jacqueline asked in a small voice.
            “Either they will or they won’t,” Kellin said tiredly, glancing at me.
            “It’ll be okay,” I said softly, fingers gliding over the cards before I tucked them completely away.  “Matt seems to think so, anyway.”
            “Matt said you should tell everyone?”  There was a note of incredulity to Jacqueline’s voice.
            “Matt said he thought the people still here could handle it,” I said quietly, staring at my hands.  I scooped up the box of tarot cards a moment later and got up to put them away.  “Tonight, we’ll find out if he was right.”

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            “I thought you were afraid to do that,” Kellin croaked from behind me.  I whipped around to stare at her.  She was gaunt, leaning against the shelves and staring down at me with sunken eyes.  She had a blanket pulled around her shoulders, dressed in old jeans and her sandals.  She nodded toward the spread.  “What were you looking for guidance on?”
            I shook my head a little, shifting so I could sit cross-legged on the mattress.  “Just Thom,” I said quietly, gathering up the cards and tucking them back into their box.  She drifted to join me, seating herself next to me and shivering a little.
            “Are you two all right?  Jay said we’ve been asleep for a few days.”  Her voice sounded terrible, but I suppose mine would, too, if I’d suffered what she’d suffered.
            “We’re okay, I think,” I said softly.  “He’s having a chat with someone right now.  Someone new.”
            Kellin raised a brow.  “Someone new?”
            “Yeah.  Someone Kira sent.  You remember her, right?”
            “Thom’s cousin?”  Kellin nodded stiffly, as if her neck still bothered her.  “I remember her.  She seemed nice.  Open-minded.”  She was quiet for a moment before she looked at me, hard.  “What happened to her, anyway?  Do we know?”
            “She’s still alive,” I said softly.  “That’s what he said.”
            “Thom?”
            “No.   Phelan, the one she—or her husband, or something—sent.  Phelan Conrad.  He’s…old.  But he doesn’t look old.”  I exhaled, rubbing my temple.  “Not just an old soul.  Something different.”
            “Huh,” Kellin said quietly.  “That would explain it.”
            “Explain what?”
            “When I woke up, I could feel that something had shifted.  In our favor, it felt like, but I wasn’t sure.”  She was quiet for a moment before she asked, “Did you set new wards?”
            A shiver worked its way down my spine and I nodded slightly.  “Yes,” I said quietly.  “Yes, I did.  They’re oddly strong, and I’m not sure what I did to them that made them that way.”  I smiled weakly.  “Wardings are more your forte.”
            “They are,” she agreed, rubbing her eyes. “But I’m glad to know that you can somehow manage without me if you have to.”
            I touched her knee.  “Nothing like that is every going to happen again, Kel.”
            She smiled wryly.  “Have you seen that?”
            “No,” I admitted.  “But we’re not about to let them get that close again.”
            “How are we going to prevent that?” she asked softly.  “Did we ever figure out who was undermining the wards?”
            “No,” I said again, then sighed.  “But we were talking about that, Rory and J.T. and Carolyn and I, while we were out working on the wards.  That’s why they’re stronger; it took all of us to make them like that.”  It was mostly a lie, but she didn’t need to know that, especially when I wasn’t sure what I’d done.  “We don’t know who could have done it, Kel.  For all we know, the person that did left after the fight.”
            “Do you really believe that?” she asked in a whisper.
            I winced and looked away.  “No,” I whispered back.  “I wish I did.”
            “We have a job to do, then,” she said simply, softly, and shook her head slightly.  “We have to figure out who did it, make sure they can’t do it again.”
            “Yeah,” I said softly, staring off at nothing.  My stomach twisted back on itself.  A little part of me didn’t want to know, was worried about who might have betrayed us—and why.  “Look, uhm.  Can we not talk about this right now?”
            Kellin seemed startled, blinking at me.  “Are you okay?”
            I nodded a little.  “Yeah, there’s just a lot of other stuff on my mind right now.  You should meet Phelan.  He can probably help us with our problem.  The undermined wards, I mean.”  I wrapped my arms around my knees.
            “Do you really think he can?”
            I looked at her sidelong and managed to smile.  “He’s older than dirt and knows more about all of this kind of stuff than the rest of us combined.
            “Of course I think he can help.”

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            I didn’t go to check on Kellin, or even to distract Jay when I left them together.  I headed for the cubby I shared with Thom to retrieve the cards.  They’d been a birthday gift from Rory and Drew years earlier.  I’d only taken them out once since the end, those first hours after shit had hit the fan.  A part of me was still afraid of what would happen when I spread the cards.
            I told myself I couldn’t keep denying the urge to read them, to use my Tarot deck for the purpose they were intended for, and now was as good a time as any.  I didn’t have anything to be afraid of.
            I was probably lying to myself, but as I stripped out of my muddy clothes and rummaged around for clean jeans, a shirt, and the deck, I decided I didn’t care.  My mind was made up.
            I had questions, and I would have answers.  Damn the consequences.
            I shimmied into clean clothes and laid out the cloth that I used to wrap the box I kept the deck in.  I knelt down on the mattress in front of the cloth, the cards slipping through my fingers as I shuffled the deck, starting to concentrate.  There was something soothing, relaxing about handling them, though I could feel my fingers beginning to tingle as I kept shuffling them.  I concentrated on Thom as I sifted through the cards, eyes lidding, fluttering as if I was dreaming.
            The trance broke once I’d laid the cards out before me, just three—a simple spread.  I was too afraid of what a more complex one would tell me.  A simple past, present, and future spread was better, less threatening to my psyche.
            That’s what I thought, anyway.
            I had to take a deep, steady breath before I could look down at the cards I’d laid out, and I was glad I had.  My lips thinned as I stared at the cards before me. 

            “Thom!  Behind you!”
            I watched with growing horror, as if we were all trapped in slow motion.  The creature reared back with a massive paw, bigger than my head, lifting it to strike Thom from behind.  He spun, looking around wildly—he couldn’t see it.
            Oh god.  He can’t see it!
            Then, at the very last possible second, he stiffened, then dove.
            One of the thing’s claws caught him over the shoulder, sending his dive into more of a tumble, but at least it hadn’t broken his neck in one blow.

 
            I shivered a little.  Whether or not he believed, whether or not Phelan convinced him, the damage to his abilities had already been done.
            That’s a conversation for Phelan and I—or Phelan and him—to have at another time.  My hands curled into fists on my knees as I stared down at the cards.
            A new one lay across the top of the spread.  It must have slipped from the top of the deck while it was still in my hand, while I had my vision.
            The Star.
            Hope.
            There was always hope.

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            Thom wasn’t far from where I’d left him earlier, though he was hobbling around with his crutch, a sign that J.T. wasn’t looking.  He was scowling at his sketchbook as we approached, but looked up at the sound of our footsteps.  His expression brightened as he saw me.  He set his sketchbook down on the chair he was supposed to be sitting in and took a few limping steps toward me.  The pain showed in his expression, so I stepped up the pace to keep him from pushing his limits any further.  I could almost feel Phelan grinning behind me as I took Thom gently by the arm and tried to tug him back to his chair.
            “Who’s that?” Thom hissed, looking over my shoulder at Phelan.
            I moved his sketchbook and pointed him into his chair.  “Phelan Conrad.”
            Thom went rigid, falling into his chair and wincing.  My brows knit and I touched his arm.
            “Are you okay?” I asked quietly.  He nodded, eyes never leaving Phelan.
            “Kira sent him.”
            Phelan smiled.  “Aye, she did.”
            Thom’s fingers tangled with mine.  “Why?” he asked, a note of desperation in his voice.
            “Why what?  Why did she send me?”  Phelan’s brow creased.
            Thom shook his head slightly.  “No.  Why did she marry him and not tell me?  Why did she run away?” His voice dropped to a whisper.  “Why didn’t she warn me, if she knew?”
            Oh, Thom.  I squeezed his hand tightly.  He swallowed hard and looked at me.  “I was going to tell you,” he said softly.  “There just…there wasn’t…I didn’t…I just forgot.”  He reached for my face as I crouched next to his chair.  “I’m sorry.”
            “Don’t be sorry,” I said, my fingers covering his.  “I’m sure you meant to tell me.  Phelan already broke the news anyway.”
            “On accident,” Phelan said, smiling weakly.  “I thought she’d know.  Teague talked about the two of you and how important you were to Kira.  I’m sorry I wasn’t here before.”
            Thom just stared at him.  “Could you have stopped this?”  He waved his free hand toward the ruined dorms behind us.
            Phelan shook his head sadly.  “No.  Nothing could have stopped that.  Believe me, we would have if we could.”
            “Then you don’t have anything to be sorry for,” Thom said quietly.  “We’re all still alive here.  None of us are in immediate danger of dying.”  A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.  “I think she’ll forgive you.  Eventually.”  Thom finally got a good, long look at me after that.  He frowned.  “You’re all dirty.  What were you doing?”
            “Oh,” I said, feeling my cheeks flame.  I didn’t exactly want to tell him where we’d been.  He probably wouldn’t take it very well.  “I was playing in the mud.”
            Thom’s gaze flicked between Phelan and I for a few seconds.  “With him?”
            “She was showing me the first place she ever saw a camazotzi.”
            “A camelwhatsit?”
            “A camazotzi,” I said softly.  “One of the things that attacked us the other day.”
            He stiffened, lips thinning.  “The ones that hurt you.”
            At least he’s not angry that we were down in the ravines without anyone knowing where we were.
            Phelan looked at me quizzically.  “I thought you said he didn’t believe.”
            I just stared at Thom.  Pain flickered through his gaze.
            “It’s like I said the other day,” he whispered, staring at me.  “I love you.  It doesn’t matter what I do or don’t believe.  I love you and that’s all I need to know.”
            “Is it?” I whispered.
            He nodded.  “Yeah.  It is.”
            “May I…ah…interject?” Phelan said.
            Thom tore his gaze from me and stared at him, jaw setting.  “Why?”
            Phelan shook his head slightly.  “Just thinking that maybe some of what I know may shed some light on the importance of, ah, belief in this sort of situation.”
            “I believe that there’s things out there,” Thom said, voice hitching slightly as he continued.  “Things I can’t see, can’t sense, but the others can.  They’re out there, I know that.  What else is there to know?”
            My heart sank a little and I looked helplessly at Phelan.
            “Kira thought it was a little batshit, too,” Phelan said softly.  “At least at first.”
            Thom just stared at him. “How?  She’s believed in past lives, all of that, for as long as I can remember.”
            I squeezed Thom’s hand.  Kira had told me about the boy she saw in her dreams, the face that had haunted her since she was old enough to realize she was dreaming.  We’d talked about it one Thanksgiving out on her balcony while Thom and my brother screamed at football on television.
            “He haunts my dreams.  I just want to know who he is, who he was.  He just feels so real, so important.  Like he’s a piece of a past I can’t remember.”
            She’d met Teague the following September.  Thom didn’t like him much, but I’d reminded him more than once that it wasn’t up to him.  He’d sulked for days and never really admitted I was right.
            Phelan grinned at Thom.  “It’s one thing to believe in the power of dreams, even in past lives.  It’s entirely another to run into that person on the street and find out that they’re some kind of equivalent to Aragorn and Gandalf combined out of Lord of the Rings—after you’ve started to fall in love with them.”  He eased closer, voice growing quieter.  “She was pretty shocked, especially after she started to unlock her own talents.”
            I looked up at Thom, watching him struggle to control his expression.  He went a little more tense and I barely suppressed a wince.
            Maybe this wasn’t a good idea after all.
            “What kind of talents?” he asked, voice heavy with a mixture of concern and suspicion.  His hand tightened around mine so tightly that his knuckles went white.
            “That hurts, Thom,” I whispered.  He didn’t hear me; he was too intensely focused on Phelan.
            Phelan sat down cross-legged on the ground in front of us.  “She’s sensitive.  She can catch glimmers and her instincts are good.  Strong-willed, too.  I’m sorry I won’t be there to see what Teague can teach her about will-working.”
            Wow.  Kira?  Shock must have shown on my face because Phelan flashed me a brief smile.  Thom noticed and scowled momentarily, gaze softening when his gaze flicked to me.  He glanced at our hands and his fingers loosened.
            “Sorry,” he mumbled.  I’d smiled weakly at him.
            “‘s all right.”  I glanced toward Phelan.  “I can go, if you two want to have a private chat.”
            Thom glanced at Phelan, too, then murmured, “No.  Stay a few minutes longer.”  He sighed and shook his head, still staring at the other man.  “Just because my cousin has some kind of ability—which I’m not entirely convinced of—that doesn’t mean I do.”
            I had to look away so Thom couldn’t watch my face fall.  Why is he being so damned stubborn?  He knows this stuff is real.  He knows I know that he at least used to be able to see it all.  What they said he did, after the Shadow Man threw me, he couldn’t have done if he hadn’t been able to see it, or sense it.  I just don’t understand.
            “You’re right,” Phelan said softly.  He glanced me, then back at Thom.  “Though by the same token, just because you don’t believe you’ve got some ability doesn’t mean you don’t.”
            A shudder ran through Thom, so violent he let out a little gasp of pain, one hand drifting to his ribs.
            “You know what, Mar?” he said softly, “Maybe you should go check on Kel or something.  I think our new friend and I might need some privacy after all.”
            I stood up slowly, my fingers brushing his cheek.  He turned his face to kiss my fingertips as they trailed past.  “Are you sure?”
            “I’m sure.”  He smiled wryly.  “Try to keep Jay busy for a little while, too, huh?”
            I kissed his cheek, nodded, and walked away.  Hopefully Phelan would manage where the rest of us had failed.
            It was a small hope, but a hope nonetheless.

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