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Only after Mrs. Horvat was sitting down—not beside Bizzy, who had immediately walked over and sat by Ryan—did the door open again for Dr. Withunga and Jannis to come in. Dr. Withunga stopped in the doorway because she saw Mrs. Horvat. Jannis only saw that Mrs. Horvat was sitting in what Jannis apparently regarded as her chair, and said, “Oh. You.” So Mrs. Horvat had come before, and Jannis had been there, and it didn’t look as if they had formed a deep and abiding friendship.

  “I’m trying not to extrapolate anything from your presence here today, Mrs. Horvat,” said Dr. Withunga.

  “I’m not going to pursue any action against you for working with my minor daughter without my permission,” said Mrs. Horvat. “For now.”

  “What a relief,” said Dr. Withunga. “For now.”

  Mrs. Horvat, who recognized irony when she heard it, shot a sharp glance at Dr. Withunga, who ignored her.

  “Some of you remember Mrs. Horvat, Bizzy’s mother,” said Dr. Withunga.

  “Just me,” said Jannis. “Several years ago.”

  “Before the Horvat family moved to Charlottesville,” said Dr. Withunga.

  Mrs. Horvat said nothing and looked at no one except Dr. Withunga.

  “Since Mrs. Horvat was very clear at that time about not wishing to explore whatever micropower she might have,” said Dr. Withunga, “I expect that she has her own agenda, and we might save time by letting her take care of whatever errand brought her here.”

  “You’re very kind,” said Mrs. Horvat, not sounding as if she thought kindly of anyone. Ryan wondered if there was some kind of weird curse bound up in those words, the way Bizzy said her mother could curse with “How clumsy of you.” But what would the curse be? Obsessive kindness for a couple of days? Not much of a curse, really.

  “I’m here,” said Mrs. Horvat, “to give you a warning.”

  “Why would you want to threaten us?” asked Jannis.

  Mrs. Horvat stopped talking and stared at Jannis. “What do you mean?” she asked, and then apparently understood. “I shouldn’t have said ‘warning,’ apparently. I should have said, I’m here to alert you to a danger that is quite likely to spill over from my family to affect this group.”

  “Danger?” asked Dr. Withunga.

  “I am quite aware that what I’m going to tell you will sound paranoid, but I’ve lived with this for most of my life. This is what caused my parents to bring me to America, and it’s why I have been ready to move at a moment’s notice ever since.”

  “Can you possibly be any vaguer?” asked Jannis. Mitch snickered.

  “My birth country was Slovenia,” said Mrs. Horvat, “though when I was born it was still part of Yugoslavia. A very minor part, which was mostly ignored by the Serbs and Croats, who thought they ran everything. But Slovenia has an ancient history, and it includes a group of people who watched out for čarôvnice. A poor translation of the word is ‘witches.’ I was labeled a čarôvnica at an early age, because I could curse people.”

  “Watched out for witches?” said Dr. Withunga. “Protectively? Or with hostility?”

  “Hostility,” said Mrs. Horvat. “But in Slovenia, this group, the lovece, ‘loveks,’ began before there was any nonsense about witches being servants of some imaginary devil. What the word used to mean, what the group used to search for, was people who could affect other people in a magical way.”

  “Like making them yawn?” asked Dahlia.

  “That would be hard to detect, don’t you think?” said Mrs. Horvat. “I could be heard to mutter things, and then the person I was saying it to would have accidents. Nothing awful, mostly, but a degree of, a frequency of misfortunes that pointed a finger at me. Under the influence of Puritans in England, such people might have been burnt alive. In Slovenia, knives and swords were regarded as sufficient, though hanging and drowning and throwing from high places, of which there are many in Slovenia, were sometimes used.”

  Mitch said, “And you think they would interpret our micropowers as—”

  “I don’t think,” said Mrs. Horvat. “I know. I could not understand why, having discovered where my family went, they have been content to stalk Bojana and me without ever taking action.”

  “Maybe they were afraid of getting cursed,” said Jannis.

  “Whatever else these lovece are, they are not cowards,” said Mrs. Horvat. “Many have died over the years, but when they want a čarôvnica dead, the čarôvnica dies.”

  “So this is a secret society of witch hunters,” said Jannis. “I feel like I’m trapped in the ending of Peggy Sue Got Married.”

  “I don’t know what that means,” said Mrs. Horvat.

  “It’s a movie,” said Mitch. “One where Nicolas Cage gets really weird.”

  “He’s always weird,” said Jannis.

  “You are amused by what?” asked Mrs. Horvat.

  “The whole idea of a secret society that believes in witches and goes around killing them,” said Mitch. “Come on.”

  “How long did you live in Slovenia?” asked Mrs. Horvat defiantly.

  “It’s a modern European country,” said Jannis. “They have, like, cars and flush toilets.”

  “And here in America, there are people who play with snakes because they think God protects them from snakebites.”

  “Every country has its loons,” said Dr. Withunga.

  “In Slovenia, one group of loons got organized and passed on their lunacy from generation to generation. I know what I am talking about, and you do not, so stop ridiculing and start listening.”

  “We’re all ears,” said Jannis dryly.

  “Still ridiculing,” said Mrs. Horvat.

  “But listening all the same,” said Bizzy.

  Mrs. Horvat froze for a moment but did not look at Bizzy. Then she went on. “I believe that they did not attack me or Bojana because they were looking for you.”

  “We’re not Slovenian,” said Dr. Withunga.

  “They have no reason to confine their activities to searching for Slovenian čarôvnice.”

  “Can you spell that?” asked Mitch. Ryan had been wishing to know the same thing, but he didn’t want to get on Mrs. Horvat’s bad side.

  “It would be a waste of time, because you don’t have a letter that makes the sound ‘tsuh.’”

  “We use two letters for that,” said Jannis. “As in the word ‘tsar.’”

  “Are you philologists?” asked Mrs. Horvat. “Am I here to acquaint you with Slovenian orthography?”

  “You’re alerting us to danger,” said Dr. Withunga, “and I’m sorry if my young compatriots are too full of their own certainties to understand that historically, micropowers were bound to be misunderstood. As, for that matter, they continue to be misunderstood today.”

  “I have delivered my message,” said Mrs. Horvat, “and one person here has understood it. I will go now.”

  “Wait,” said Jannis. “I mean, come on. What does ‘danger’ consist of?”

  “Sudden death. Or maybe kidnapping, or a car out of control, or a large object falling from above.”

  “Like a Road Runner cartoon,” said Mitch.

  “Apparently another reference to some American entertainment,” said Mrs. Horvat, rising to her feet.

  “What are we supposed to do?” asked Jannis.

  “Are you taking me seriously now?” asked Mrs. Horvat.

  “You are serious, aren’t you?” asked Jannis.

  “I came here as a kindness, because Bojana seems to value her time with you, and I did not want her to lose all her new friends. Especially because when they start killing, it means they no longer think Bojana and I have any further use, and we will probably die along with you.”

  “It sounds like you’ve moved before,” said Dr. Withunga. “But you aren’t going to move again?”

  “Where?” asked Mrs. Horvat. “They found
us here within a week. I don’t know how.”

  “So you’re giving up?” asked Mitch.

  “I am not giving up,” said Mrs. Horvat. “My daughter keeps company with a čarôvnik who has the power to protect her. My own micropower, to use your term, is a fairly effective defense if I see them coming in time.”

  “So you’re safe enough,” said Dr. Withunga.

  “But you are not,” said Mrs. Horvat. “Still, you are safer knowing than not knowing.”

  “What do we know? What should we be looking out for?”

  “I don’t know who will come for you. Or when, or how.” Mrs. Horvat shrugged. “Be paranoid.”

  “Thanks,” said Mitch. “Mission accomplished. At least if I die, I can make sure my killers are covered with spiders.”

  “A tiny vengeance, but perhaps it will ease your final moments,” said Mrs. Horvat.

  “Thank you for coming,” said Dr. Withunga.

  “I think you should stop assembling like this,” said Mrs. Horvat. “It puts you all in danger, and young Mr. Burke will only be able to protect one person.”

  “Bizzy,” said Mitch.

  “Bojana is her name,” said Mrs. Horvat. “And if he loves one of you more than he loves my Bojana, he will protect that person first.”

  Jannis looked at Ryan with a wry smile. “Do you love me, Ryan?”

  “You have my respect,” said Ryan. “And I don’t wish anything bad to happen to you.”

  “Sounds like love to me,” said Dahlia.

  “God be with you all,” said Mrs. Horvat, and she was out the door.

  “That was . . . illuminating,” said Dr. Withunga.

  “Not really,” said Ryan. “We don’t know anything useful, except if somebody stabs us in the back or shoots us from a half-mile away like in American Sniper, we’ll have a moment of understanding what we’re being killed for, and then we’ll be dead.”

  “How seriously should we take this?” Dr. Withunga asked Bizzy.

  Bizzy shook her head. “People look at me on the street, but they always have. Maybe some of them are these loveks, but I don’t know who is what. If they’re even here. I don’t understand my mother. Do any of you understand your mothers?”

  “Not me,” said Ryan.

  Nobody volunteered as a mother-understander.

  “Should we stop meeting?” asked Jannis.

  “Nobody is required to be here,” said Dr. Withunga. “But there are two ways of responding to this. One is to go into hiding, which may or may not work at all, since if anybody wanted to, they could have already identified every one of us.”

  “The other way of responding?” asked Bizzy.

  “Keep meeting and try to understand our micropowers. Try to weaponize them if we can.”

  “Mission accomplished,” said Ryan.

  “A very narrow weapon, with only one shot in the chamber, but a powerful one all the same,” said Dr. Withunga. “And my own micropower tells me that if somebody’s planning to kill us, they aren’t within fifty meters, or else they don’t have navels.”

  “What do the spiders say, Mitch?” asked Jannis.

  “Silent as always,” said Mitch. “Nor do I think they’d care if I lived or died.”

  “Unrequited love is so sad and lonely,” said Jannis.

  “Can your micropower be weaponized?” Mitch asked Jannis.

  Jannis shrugged. “I’m not going to try to find out,” she said. “Nor am I going to tell anybody what it is, because I don’t want you brainstorming ways that I can, like, kill people or cause bad weather or something.”

  “Dr. Withunga,” said Ryan, “do you think there’s a way for Bizzy to weaponize her . . .”

  “Glamor?” asked Dr. Withunga. “I wonder if these . . . loveks? . . . have ever seen her in all her glory.”

  “Have we?” asked Jannis. “I mean, yes, she’s dazzling, but what if she goes into glamor mode with us close by? Being with a group of micropots can supposedly intensify our powers.”

  “I can’t imagine her becoming any more beautiful,” said Mitch. “Not that I mean anything by that.”

  Bizzy waved him off. “It’s not about beauty. We talked last time about how maybe I’m also giving off some kind of . . . attraction pheromone or psychic blast or something.”

  “And maybe that gets more intense when you’ve got other micropots around,” said Dr. Withunga.

  “I don’t want to test it to find out,” said Bizzy. “Because how would that even help? We don’t want to attract these lovece. Loveks.”

  “Attract or distract?” said Ryan.

  “I don’t know,” said Bizzy. “I don’t really even want to know.”

  “I know I find it distracting,” said Mitch. “And it didn’t make me run to you in slow motion like in a rom-com.”

  “Well, then,” said Ryan, “Bizzy is safe from any Mitch-like loveks.”

  “Nobody’s like me,” said Mitch.

  Jannis whispered something that Ryan guessed was along the lines of “Thank God.”

  “It’s also distracting to have spiders crawling all over you,” said Bizzy.

  “Sure,” said Mitch, “but my micropower doesn’t make spiders move any faster. Somebody coming in with a machete to wipe us out would have all our heads off before any significant number of spiders got halfway here.”

  “So most of them aren’t close?” asked Jannis.

  “I try to keep them out of your way,” said Mitch, “because none of them deserve to die under your big feet.”

  “The discussion is deteriorating,” said Dr. Withunga. From then on, they stayed on track but didn’t come up with anything useful except that Mitch should maybe try getting the spiders to race each other, in order to speed them up. And Ryan thought, if Jannis could stroke to draw bone fragments together, could she stroke somebody to make their bones, or at least one bone, crumble into powder?

  No. That’s not what it’s for.

  “What are these micropowers for, anyway?” asked Ryan. “Why do we even have them?”

  “The puzzle that dominates my thinking for the past ten years or so,” said Dr. Withunga. “I don’t mean, why did God give us these talents, but rather, why is evolution spraying out what may be nascent superpowers? Is there a chance that some of them will have a real impact on our survival? And are such micropowers transferable to the next generation?”

  “Your son has a micropower,” said Bizzy.

  “My son is a micropower detector. Neither of us is sure whether that’s actually a micropower.”

  “Of course it is,” said Ryan impatiently.

  “Such certainty,” said Dr. Withunga.

  “Minute distinctions aren’t helpful,” said Ryan. “Finding ways to augment our powers might be.”

  “What if two micropots mate?” asked Jannis. “Perhaps you and Bizzy are an experiment in the making.”

  Ryan blushed, of course; Bizzy, on the other hand, made no sign of having heard. At least she didn’t make a gagging gesture with her finger down her throat.

  “I think we ignore Mrs. Horvat’s warning at our own peril,” said Dr. Withunga. “So I think there’s some urgency in trying to figure out ways to defend ourselves. And each other. Meanwhile . . .”

  “Meanwhile?” asked Mitch.

  “Try not to go anywhere alone,” said Dr. Withunga.

  “So they can be sure to get two at one whack?” asked Jannis.

  “So we can try to protect each other. Augment each other’s powers just by being close by. And if worse comes to worst, maybe serve as a witness, to notify others.”

  “Worse coming to worst would mean that we’d both be dead,” said Jannis.

  “Worse coming to second worst,” said Dr. Withunga.

  “If there’s any danger at all,” said Mitch.

&
nbsp; “That’s exactly what Aaron is going to say when I tell him.”

  “Where is he?” asked Ryan.

  “You miss him?” asked Jannis.

  “He’s one of us,” said Ryan.

  “He’s interviewing for a job,” said Dr. Withunga.

  Ryan had nothing to say to that. He wanted a job, but his own father wouldn’t hire him.

  “I’ve got to get home and take out the garbage,” said Ryan. “It’s a pickup day in the morning.”

  “Such a responsible young man,” said Bizzy.

  Ryan didn’t take it as a snotty joke, even though if Defense had said it, that’s what it would have been. “I try to be,” he answered her.

  “That’s why Mother trusted you to be a reliable companion for me,” said Bizzy. “Because she saw you taking out the garbage almost every day. And taking it to the street. And bringing it back in. Very impressive.”

  Thanks, Dad, thought Ryan.

  “We learn so much about character by watching garbage-oriented behaviors,” said Jannis.

  “Not really a joke,” said Bizzy.

  “Not really joking,” said Jannis. “I didn’t know that about Ryan. A dependable garbageman. There are worse things to be at, what, fourteen?”

  “Almost sixteen,” said Ryan.

  “You look young,” said Jannis. “That will work well for you when you’re forty.”

  If I live to be forty, thought Ryan. If I don’t have to die to protect Bizzy.

  “But it’s not doing much for you now,” said Jannis.

  “He’s doing fine,” said Bizzy. “The most beautiful girl in the county is keeping him company.”

  She said it with a self-mocking tone, but it also happened to be true.

  “More than that,” said Ryan, “she sleeps under the same roof as me.”

  Not a good thing to say. Bizzy gathered her things and stood up. “Ryan,” she said, “can you walk me back to that roof we share?”

  “As you wish,” said Ryan, deliberately invoking The Princess Bride. Though he doubted Bizzy had ever seen or read it.

  “Her Westley,” said Mitch, in a fake sentimental voice. So somebody knew the movie.

  “You can explain who Westley is on the way home,” said Bizzy.