"They know I'm coming?" I asked. Lorraine shrugged. "I told them I was bringing someone, but I doubt they listened." "Do they know I'm an elf?" Lorraine shook her head. "I said, my boyfriend, Sean." She glanced at me from the corner of her eye. "Is that okay?" "Sure. But, we need to make it official so I can say it. Lorraine, will you be my girlfriend until midnight?" She grinned. "Okay." "Do you want me to use a glamour to look human?" She didn't answer. "Lorraine?" Still nothing. "It's okay if you do. Most of my girlfriends who knew didn't want their families to know. I understand." "It's just…" She stopped, struggling to explain, or at least do it in a way I wouldn’t be offended. "It's just your family is difficult, and you want to get along, and you don't want to cause trouble, but you don't know how they'd like you dating an elf. You’re afraid it will cause trouble, but you don't like asking me to hide what I am," I filled in for her. She glanced at me, surprised. "Yeah." "You're not the first woman to have this problem. Some of my real girlfriends have too." Lorraine had never fit in with her family. She never measured up to her parents’ standards. She didn't get good enough grades. She had the wrong friends. She was a bartender. Her husband wasn't good enough. Why did she didn't get a divorce? He wasn't that bad. Why wasn’t she dating again? She’d heard it all again when her parents had called to invite her for Thanksgiving. She was in tears by the time she got off the phone so I offered to go with her. "You don't know how much I appreciate this." "I don't? You never met my father. I was never good enough for him, and I wasn't cut out to be a vintner. That was a big disappointment for him. He was quite unhappy that I became a knight instead. And that I stopped worshipping Dhiarus like he did. It took Dhiarus’s intervention to get my dad to finally leave me alone about it." "Really? You never told me that." "I'm a thousand years old. There's plenty I haven't even had a chance to tell you about yet." I cast a glamour about two blocks from her parents' house. When we got there, Lorraine looked me over. "You look almost as good as a human." "Thanks, I think. I can't do much about the accident. I tried to change it." "Don't worry about it. Though, there will be questions." "That's not a problem. I'm used to it." I put an arm around her. "It'll be okay." "I hope." "I can always bewitch them into treating you like royalty." "You can?" "Maybe. It’s an Unseelie spell. I shouldn’t cast it. And it’s difficult under proper circumstances. Here, with all the iron, it's not so easy." "Just having you here helps." I smiled. "Let's go inside and get this over with." In the house, Lorraine introduced me to her parents, Frank and Judy, and her brother, Phil, and his wife, Diane. Phil mentioned the kids were around someplace, hopefully staying out of trouble. I increased the strength of the glamour. Children could sometimes see through a weak once. "Thank you for having me." I gave Judy the wine I'd brought. It wasn't for my dad's vineyards, although he did make small batches of human wine. It was a high-quality brand of the variety Lorraine said her parents drank. Judy smiled politely as she took the wine. I could tell she didn't know the quality. She’d know when she tasted it. Maybe. Some people didn't have that discerning of taste. "Mom, is there anything I can do to help?" Lorraine offered. "There's plenty," Judy assured her. "Sean, come join us in the family room," Frank said. "You don't want to be in the kitchen when those three are cooking." "Go," Lorraine agreed. "Too many cooks and all that." I followed Frank and Phil to the other room. “So what do you do? Phil asked. “I’m sure you met Lorraine at the bar.” "Actually, I didn't, though that's where I got to know her. We met at the DMV. We were stuck in line for almost an hour. I'm a consultant for the police." "What does that entail?" Phil asked. "Mostly crime scene recreation. I use CGI software to make the scenes digitally. I've also done sketch artist work." "Isn't there are software for that now?" Frank asked. "There is and the station has a copy. But if the computer isn't working or if we need sketches from multiple people, I'll do some of them. And sometimes I can get the details closer than the machine." "What kind of accent do you have?" Phil asked. "Danish." "Were you born there?" "I was. My mom was an ambassador and was there when I was born. I spent a bit of time with her there. The rest, I spent with my dad. He was a vintner so he didn’t travel that much." "Which winery?" Frank asked. "It's not one you've heard of. He's gone so it's been closed for many years." "What about your mom? Is she still around?" "No, she's gone too. I lost them and my brothers suddenly." "What happened?" Phil asked. "I don't know. There wasn’t a lot of information." "Is that why you work with the police?" "I don't want others to suffer. If I can help, why not?" "So how did you end up with Lorraine?" I shrugged. "We get along well. It was the shortest hour at the DMV I've ever had. She told me she was a bartender but hadn’t told me where. It was a nice surprise when I saw her at the bar. I was new in town so is nice to see a familiar face." "How long have you lived there?" "A little over a year." "Were you a consultant before this too?" "No, I worked as a store clerk. But I couldn't pass up this job." I didn't say it was because the military put me there after telling everybody from my old life I'd died. I have to tell the truth. I don't have to tell all of it. "What do you do Phil?" "Data entry at a corporation downtown." I nodded. "Not a bad job. And benefits are usually good in companies like that. How about Diane? Does she work?" Phil nodded. "Part-time from home. That way we don't have to worry about daycare." "That's a good idea. Frank, you're retired, aren't you?" A scream from one of the kids cut him off. "Excuse me." Phil hurried out. "They're fine," Frank assured me. "They have vivid imaginations and get excited as they play." I nodded. "I remember doing that. I knew how to stop my mother's heart. I was fearless. I'd climb anything I could find." "You had a few broken bones growing up?" "Not so many. I was good at it." Phil returned with two of his kids in tow. Both were red-faced and grinning. "This is Finn and Jasmine," Phil introduced them. "They're going to cool off for a while." Both sat on the couch without a word. A moment later, another little girl entered. She did a double-take when she saw me. Her head cocked a moment. I realized she could see through my glamour. "Who are you?" She asked. "Susie, this is Sean. He's Aunt Lorraine's boyfriend," Phil told her. "Hi." She came and sat next to me. "You’re nicer than Peyton. That's why he's not our uncle anymore." "Susie, behave." "I was. I said Sean is nice." "Susie has an overactive imagination. She thinks she can tell someone's personality just by looking at them," Phil explained. "Some people are observant and pick up on micro-expressions," I pointed out. "Last month, when those people are found in that guy’s basement, they showed one she claimed had dark gray skin and yellow eyes." "She was playing, Dad," Jasmine claimed. "One of the women is a friend of mine. I think she may have done some LARPping. Perhaps Susie saw a picture of her in costume as a drow," I suggested, glad Kat had mentioned that once. "What's a Drow?" Finn asked. "A dark elf. They're supposed to be bad guys." "She wasn't a bad guy," Susie claimed. "LARPing is a game of pretending," I explained. "You dress up in costume and act out a story idea." "Like when we play the raft, and the blanket is a raft, and we’re sailing across the ocean to escape the bad soldiers?" Susie asked. "Something like that." "Dad, can we have a soda?" Jasmine asked. "As if you three need more sugar." "We’re thirsty," Finn insisted. "Let me talk to your mother. Maybe water would be a good idea. Sean, would you like something? A beer perhaps?" "Please." He and Frank left for drinks. Susie leaned over and whispered, "I won't tell. They don't see you. They don't see a lot." I wondered about that. "You'd make a good uncle, but Aunt Lorraine doesn't want to marry you," she said out loud. "Susie, don't say stuff like that," Finn scolded. "It's okay. Marriage isn’t in our plans. We haven't known each other that long." Susie, can you hear me? I thought. I waited a moment. Susie? Still nothing. She wasn’t a mind reader, but perhaps a mage. I wondered if I meant should mention it to Lorraine. Phil and Frank returned with three glasses of water and three beers. "Your mother said you could have soda with dinner tonight," Phil said. "How did you hurt your leg?" Susie asked. "My leg?" I frowned. "You broke it." She was definitely some kind of magic user. "A big heavy box fell on it. But it's healed now." "Yes, you need to stop being careless," she said. I froze. She sounded just like my mother, not the same voice but her tone and inflection, despite speaking a different language. "Susie, be polite," Phil scolded. "She's right. I do need to be more careful. "So, what were you three playing that got you in trouble?" I asked. "I'm allergic to brown. It's like the floor is lava, but you can't touch anything brown, not just the floor. There are tan and brown tiles. We can only step on the tan ones. "And the scream?" "Finn jumped on the wrong chair. It was brown," Jasmine explained. "Then he fell off onto a brown part of the floor." "Sounds challenging. You need to pay close attention to everything." I played a similar game with my friends, only we were jumping from tree to tree. "Can we watch a movie?" Finn asked. His dad shook his head. "Dinner is almost ready." "But…" "You saw the parade this morning. We came to visit, not watch TV." Finn sulked. "What kind of movie would you watch if you could?" I asked. Finn shrugged. "Something your grandparents have?" Finn shook his head. "Something we streamed." "But aren’t there hundreds of movies online?" "Yeah." "So you’d spend the whole time between now and dinner just looking for the movie, and you'd get to watch maybe five minutes before you had to eat?" "He's right, we don't need to watch a movie," Jasmine agreed. "Sean, can you tell us a story?" "Will you?" Susie clutched my arm. I sighed and obliged. I told them a few stories I'd learned from an ex-girlfriend who had kids and a few from when I was little until we were called for dinner.