“Yeah.” Taylor nodded. “It’s me.”

“I think I need to sit down,” Gen murmured faintly.

Taylor immediately went to his sister’s side and put an arm around her shoulders. “Get her a glass of water,” he mouthed as he guided her into the living room. The last thing I saw before heading into the kitchen was the two of them sitting on the living room couch, Taylor with his arms around his sister, and Gen crying into Taylor’s shoulder. It wasn’t hard to tell that she had truly missed him.

“I can’t believe how long it’s been,” Gen was saying as I sat down on the couch next to her, setting the two glasses I carried down on the coffee table as I did so. She picked up one of the glasses and took a small sip of water. “I can hardly believe that you’re even here…” She swiped haphazardly at the semi-dried tear tracks that were still visible on her face. “How long?” she asked, her tone turning vaguely accusing.

“What?”

“How long have you been hanging around this place without telling me you were here?” She paused. “And why the fuck didn’t you tell me that you had been coming to Arcana every day?”

“I’ve been stuck here for twenty-five years, Zoë,” Taylor said evenly. “And would you have believed me if I’d told you who I was?”

“Of course I would have!” At Taylor’s raised eyebrow, Gen sighed. “No, I suppose not. Though I did wonder after you left that article behind.” Gen nodded to me. “Ria showed it to me after you left that afternoon.”

“Ah.”

A tense silence descended on us, until Taylor broke it. “So why have you been using Dad’s name as your surname?” he asked.

“For privacy. If I’d showed up at school for the first time calling myself ‘Zoë Hanson’, it probably would have been hell to say the least. There are still people who deride the name of Hanson, and there are still people who want to say how sorry they are.” She rolled her eyes. “So I took on my middle name and Dad’s name – Mom did the same. I’ve gotten so used to being called ‘Gen Walker’ that I don’t even bat an eyelid anymore. The only person who doesn’t call me that is Mom.”

“Except in public.”

“Yeah.” Gen nodded. Her gaze trailed down to her hands, and she promptly sat on them. She had recently kicked her long-time habit of biting her fingernails whenever she was nervous or had a spare moment. “It sort of defeats the purpose of having an alias if she slips up and calls me by my real name.”

“So what now?” I asked.

Gen raked her hair back off her face. “Well, I’m supposed to go to my mom’s place for dinner tomorrow evening…”

“I can come with you if you like,” I offered.

“You don’t mind?” she asked, and I shook my head. “Okay. Sounds good to me.”

I watched the two of them for a little while, before standing up. “I might let you guys catch up,” I said as I left the living room, heading for the bathroom.

I closed the bathroom door behind me and went to the vanity, leaning on it and staring down into the sink. The pale blue porcelain was stained bright red, especially around the drain, the remnants of my last attempt at disguising the dark brown that was my natural hair colour.

“You really don’t know how lucky you are, Gen,” I whispered. Gen may have lost both her father and one of her brothers, but she was at least getting to see the brother she had lost again. I would never be able to see my father again, short of losing my own life. And that was something I did not plan on any time soon.

Losing interest in the dye-stained sink, I allowed my gaze to travel up to the reflection of my face. As much as I tried to deny it, what Taylor had told me before dropping his little bombshell in my lap was true. I did look a lot like my mother. Dark brown hair with red highlights that fell in loose curls to my shoulders, dark brown eyes, high cheekbones, an upturned nose. My mother of course looked older than I did, but she had aged gracefully. It was part of the Chalmers-Hall gene pool for the women of the family to look younger than their years.

When my reflection ceased to hold my interest, I turned away and set about doing what I had come in here for in the first place. A shower.

A knocking sounded at the door just as I stepped out of the shower and wrapped a towel around myself. “What is it?” I called as I grabbed another towel and started drying my hair.

“Ria, can I talk to you when you’re finished in there?” I heard Gen call.

“Yeah, sure…” I squeezed the last of the water from my hair and bent over at the waist, letting my hair hang loose, and wrapped the towel tightly around my hair. “Lemme get dressed first, okay?”

Once I had dressed in clean jeans and a long-sleeved black shirt that had a triquetra printed on front in silver, and had dried my hair, I went back out into the living room. Taylor had disappeared to parts unknown, and Gen was sitting on the couch, twisting the plain silver bracelet that she had worn since we had met around her wrist. She looked at me as I sat down next to her.

“Thank you,” was the first thing she said.

“For what?”

“Just…everything. But mostly for that.” She let out a small sigh. “I honestly thought I’d never see him again. None of us did. And now…I realise that I don’t really have much of a right to miss him, because I never knew him. I wasn’t even three when he died – I honestly don’t remember him that well. I just have little flashes.” She scratched the back of her right hand. “Do you know what my first memory is?”

I shook my head. “No.”

“Losing him. The morning after he died, when my mother told me that my big brother had gone to Heaven…that is the first thing I remember. And I remember Jess and Ave crying, and Zac just sitting there frozen…” She shook her head. “It was awful. Ironic, isn’t it – my first-ever memory just happens to be my worst. Nothing since, not even Dad dying, has been able to top it.”

“You have every right to miss him, Gen,” I said quietly. “He’s your brother.” I looked over at her. “Do you know how I knew your real name?” She shook her head. “He told me. He felt I deserved to know who you were. And now that I know who you really are, I think I know why he’s been stuck here for as long as he has been.”

“Why?”

“To keep an eye on you.”

Gen snorted. “Yeah, right. It’s not like I do anything he needs to keep an eye on me for.”

“Gen, he’s your big brother. I don’t know shit about brothers, because I only have sisters, but I do know something about being older than the rest of my siblings. You’ve got this protective instinct when it comes to those younger than you – something I’m guessing you don’t have, because you’re the youngest in your family. You sort of feel like it’s your duty to watch over them, in case they do something amazingly stupid. And I think that’s why Taylor has been stuck here for so long. Partly because he feels that it’s his duty, and partly so that he can see you grow up, because he can’t be there physically anymore. It’s the only way that he can be any part of your life.”

We sat there in silence for a little while. “So are you absolutely sure that you want to come with me tomorrow night?” Gen asked. “I mean, you know what my mom’s like, but I don’t think you’ve ever spent more than half an hour in her presence. This is going to be a whole fucking evening with my mother.”

“I know that. And I’m prepared for it. I think that as long as I don’t let slip that I know your little secret, we’ll be fine.”

“Well, let’s hope that you’re right.” She let out a quiet chuckle. “I’m just hoping that my brother doesn’t decide to tag along, because that would seriously be the end of it all.”

“Would your mom be able to see him?”

Gen shrugged. “Honestly wouldn’t be able to tell you one way or the other. But I’m hoping not – or if she can, that he doesn’t choose to show himself any time soon, because I quite like my mother alive.”

I laughed. “Me too, Gen. Me too.”

---

“So why exactly are you doing this?”

I turned away from my bedroom mirror. Taylor sat on my bed, his right leg stretched straight out toward the end frame of my bed, the other tucked under his right knee. One of my books from college, the Iliad – one of my classes had been Classical Greek – was open on his lap. He had been completely absorbed in reading it for over an hour.

“Doing what?” I asked as I tried to push a black chopstick into place.

“Spending an evening with my mother.”

I shrugged. “Something to do, I suppose?”

He snorted. “Right.”

“Taylor, do you know what I do on Sunday nights when Gen goes out?” I asked; he shook his head. “I sit in the living room of this apartment, a great big bowl of Doritos on the couch beside me and a bottle of Sprite on the coffee table in front of me, and I watch movies on cable. I don’t have many friends – I mostly kept to myself in high school and in college. Plus not many people liked me. I’m a bit of a know-it-all, in case you haven’t already guessed.”

“You mean that this” he gestured to the book in his lap “isn’t just for show? I never would have guessed…”

“Oh be quiet,” I said, smothering a giggle.

Gen and I had become quite accustomed to having Taylor around over the past week or so. And during that time, we’d learned quite a bit about him. There were some things that the loss of his life all those years ago had robbed him of – he no longer had a heartbeat, he didn’t breathe, he didn’t have a reflection, he was invisible to everyone save for Gen and I, and his footsteps made absolutely no sound when he walked. He could be running on concrete, wearing the Doc Martens that I’d noticed he rarely took off, and he wouldn’t make a sound.

But at the same time, there were some things that death couldn’t have taken from him even if it had tried to. He had an absolutely devilish sense of humour, an amazing singing voice that the recordings he had made all those years ago could never hope to match up to, and one hell of an appetite. The fact that he was perpetually a seventeen-year-old boy may have had a lot to do with that, but it was still surprising. He was also an excellent cook, and was great at making coffee – so good, in fact, that we had asked him to help us out at Arcana. He made the coffee, and we sold it to our customers. It was a good partnership, and since he had joined us on staff running the café had become somewhat easier. His invisibility was a great asset to us to say the very least.

I finally coaxed the chopstick into place and stepped back from my bedroom mirror. Gen had told me to ‘just wear whatever’, but her judgement was often flawed at the best of times. So the outfit that I had put together was one I felt was appropriate for dinner with a friend and said friend’s mother – the only catch being that Gen’s mother was old enough to be my grandmother. Gen had told me that because of the fourteen-year age difference between herself and Taylor, her mother was slightly older than I might expect, but I definitely hadn’t expected Mrs. Walker to be as old as she was. I wore a dark blue shortsleeved blouse, black dress pants, and my black Doc Martens – I looked like I’d actually made an effort, but at the same time I didn’t look as if I was trying too hard to make a good impression.

I checked the time on my watch and grabbed my jacket and bag from the back of my desk chair. “I think it’s about time I went,” I said. “There’s plenty of food in the kitchen, you know where we keep the coffee, and you can use my computer if you like. Just try not to burn the building down, okay?” He snapped a salute without looking up from reading, and I allowed myself a quiet chuckle. “Sure you don’t want to come with me?”

“I’m positive.”

I shrugged. “Had to ask. Gen and I’ll see you later on.” He raised one hand at me in farewell, and I chuckled again before leaving my room.

Gen’s mother lived outside the city limits, a good ten-minute drive from where Gen and I lived on the east side of the city. When I arrived, Gen’s Honda was parked out the front; I pulled my Excel up alongside and cut the engine, and grabbed my jacket and bag from the front passenger seat.

Gen opened the front door after I rang the doorbell – she was dressed much the same as I was, only she wore a long black skirt and a dark green blouse, and her hair was pulled back into a French twist.

“Dinner’s almost ready,” she said as I stepped into the front foyer.

“I can tell,” I said, taking a deep breath – I could smell roast chicken, mashed potatoes, peas, beans, apple pie…my favourite things. “Lead the way, Miss Hanson.”

She gave me a strange look at my use of her true surname, before turning and leading me to the kitchen. Her mother stood at the stove, dressed elegantly as always, her long hair pulled into a long braid, stirring something in a large pot. “Rosaria’s here, Mom,” Gen said somewhat unnecessarily, before adding, “She knows, Mom.”

Gen’s mother stopped stirring and placed the wooden spoon she was using on the stovetop, away from any of the burners, and turned to face Gen and I. “Oh dear,” she said, sounding worried.

“I sort of figured it out yesterday,” I lied, shrugging.

“I see…” She sighed. “Well, there’s no sense in keeping up this pretence any longer. I suppose my daughter has told you everything?”

I nodded. “Though I wish Gen would have told me earlier, Mrs. Walker.”

“Rosaria, please, call me Diana.” Then she turned to her daughter. “And Zoë, I’m surprised at you. Rosaria is your friend – if you can trust no-one else, you should at least trust your best friend. Did I teach you nothing?”

“Sorry, Mom,” Gen said, sounding sheepish.

“As well you should be.” Diana pointed to the drawers nearest to the refrigerator. “Set the table, please.”

“I’ll help,” I said, following Gen and grabbing three forks and three knives from the drawer.

“I wish you didn’t have to see that,” Gen said as she snagged three placemats from the top of the refrigerator. “That was worse than if she just yells at me. At least then I can fight back.” Gen flashed me a small grin, and I followed her into the dining room.

“How old’s your mom again?” I asked as I followed her around the table, setting down cutlery as I walked.

Gen muttered to herself, counting on her fingers. “Seventy-one,” she replied.

I let out a low whistle. “Damn…”

“Tell me about it. I forget that she’s my mother a lot of the time. But then, my grandmother wouldn’t have the nerve to talk to me like she does.”

Dinner was fairly painless, considering the tension that now hung between Gen and her mother. I ended up leaving before Gen, after my offer to do the dishes was politely rejected, and got home well before eight-thirty. I could hear music drifting out from behind my front door – Oasis, by the sound of it – and I smiled. It seemed that our friend Taylor was as much a 90s music fan as I was – Oasis just happened to be one of the most-played bands in my iTunes library.

“Having fun, are we?” I asked as I hung my jacket up on the hook next to the door, tossing my keys onto the end table.

Taylor paused in playing air guitar and looked over at me. “Hi Ria,” he said. “You don’t mind, do you?” He nodded to the stereo. “I made a CD out of some of the songs on your computer.”

“No, that’s fine. I’m surprised you were able to figure that out.”

“It wasn’t exactly hard.” He grabbed the stereo remote and paused the CD. “Did…did Zoë tell my mother what I asked her to?”

“That was you who told her to say that?” I asked, and he nodded.

“Yeah. I wanted to let my mom know that I was okay, but I didn’t know how to get the message through to her. And now that Zoë can see me, I asked her to pass the message on for me.” He shoved his hands in his pockets. “How did my mom take it?”

“Well, she was surprised, but she took it fairly well.”

Taylor nodded. “Good.”

I stepped forward and took the remote from him. “What Oasis songs did you put on the CD?” I asked.

“Uh…Wonderwall, Champagne Supernova, and D’You Know What I Mean.”

I grinned. “Excellent.” I hit play again and skipped through the CD tracks until I found D’You Know What I Mean. “Come on, dance with me,” I said, dropping the remote on the couch and extending my hand to Taylor. He gave me a grin of his own and took my hand, and we spent the next seven minutes and twenty-four seconds dancing around the apartment together, singing the song at the very tops of our voices, Taylor’s well-trained but somewhat rusty tenor voice blending perfectly with my completely untrained soprano.

“Step off the train all alone at dawn…back into the hole where I was born…the sun in the sky never raised an eye to me…there’s blood on the tracks and it must be mine…the fool on the hill and I feel fine…don’t look back ‘cause you know what you might see…

“Look into the wall of my mind’s eye…I think I know but I don’t know why…the questions are the answers you might need…coming in a mess going out in style…I ain’t good-looking but I’m someone’s child…no-one can give me the air that’s mine to breathe…

“I met my maker, I made him cry…and on my shoulder he asked me why…his people won’t fly through the storm…I said, ‘Listen up man, they don’t even know you’re born’…

“All my people right here, right now…d’you know what I mean, yeah, yeah…all my people right here, right now…d’you know what I mean, yeah, yeah…all my people right here, right now…d’you know what I mean, yeah, yeah…yeah, yeah…yeah, yeah…

“I don’t really care for what you believe…so open up your fist or you won’t receive…the thoughts and the words of every man you’ll meet…get up off the floor and believe in life…no-one’s ever gonna ever ask you twice…get on the bus and bring it on home to me…

“I met my maker, I made him cry…and on my shoulder he asked me why…his people won’t fly through the storm…I said, ‘Listen up man, they don’t even know you’re born’…

“All my people right here, right now…d’you know what I mean, yeah, yeah…all my people right here, right now…d’you know what I mean, yeah, yeah…all my people right here, right now…d’you know what I mean, yeah, yeah…yeah, yeah…yeah, yeah…yeah, yeah…

“All my people right here, right now…d’you know what I mean, yeah, yeah…all my people right here, right now…d’you know what I mean, yeah, yeah…all my people right here, right now…d’you know what I mean, yeah, yeah…yeah, yeah…yeah, yeah…yeah, yeah…yeah, yeah…”

As the final strains of the song echoed around the apartment, we came to a stop near the kitchen; I bent over and tried to get my breath back.

“I can’t believe that wore you out,” Taylor said, sounding surprised. He cocked an eyebrow at me as I straightened up. His cheeks were bright red, but I suspected that was from the heat in the apartment.

“Yeah, well, you try sitting behind a shop counter for eight hours a day, five days a week, and not doing much exercise aside from climbing eight flights of stairs, and you see how it leaves you,” I retorted.

He rolled his eyes. “Thanks, Ria,” he said, referring to our little jaunt around the apartment.

“Anytime, Taylor. Anytime.”