“That sounds fabulous,” Mom said. “I should make some caramel apples and popcorn balls to sell for the fund-raising.” She almost sounded like her old self. “I can even help with the decorating.”
Charity coughed and gave me a look that seemed to say, Do you think Mom will even remember offering her help by tomorrow?
I shrugged.
“That would be wonderful, Mrs. Divine,” Gabriel said.
Daniel checked his phone again. “Katie will be really excited to have your help. I’ll give you her number.”
He looked at the screen of his phone one more time. Hopefully, he wasn’t expecting a text from Katie or something like that. But then a worse thought crossed my mind. It was hard to remember what had happened while I was in Mishka’s mind-control trance, but I suddenly remembered her saying something about partying with Daniel—tonight. But Mishka was dead, so if that was who he was expecting, then surely her text would never come.
“I’ll be pulling extra shifts until then to get the store ready,” Daniel said. I glanced at his phone, now just as anxious as he was to see if it beeped.
I wondered how I could ask him about what Mishka had said to me without giving away that I’d talked to her. Or the fact that I’d been involved with her death.
“And what about you, Grace?” Gabriel asked. “Are you finding your community-service project worthwhile?”
“Yes,” I said. Hopefully, he wouldn’t ask me anything too difficult to answer without red lie marks splotching up my neck. “More so than I thought I would.”
“Good. I was hoping you’d get into it. See just how much good a person can do in the world. I have a feeling you’ll be hooked by the end of the project.”
“I think I already am.” I didn’t have to hide any splotches on my neck—I was speaking the complete and total truth.
“Then perhaps my work here will be easier than I thought.” Gabriel stabbed a cucumber with his fork. I realized it was Mom’s special gold one, while the rest of us were eating with silverware. I couldn’t help staring at it.
Gabriel gave me a funny smile and wiggled his fork. “As you already know, I’m allergic to silver. It was kind of your mother to offer me such a nice alternative. I have to admit food doesn’t taste quite as good when eaten with plastic utensils.”
“That must be terrible,” Charity crooned. She sounded like she was trying to seem older.
Daniel’s phone beeped. I jumped. He grabbed it and practically shot out of his chair.
“I’m sorry, but I need to leave.”
“Really?” Mom said. “Are you sure? We haven’t even had the tenderloin yet.” She turned to Gabriel. “It really is magnificent, if I do say so myself. My mother’s recipe.” She looked back at Daniel with a sweet smile on her face. “It would be a shame for you to miss out, Daniel.”
I almost choked on an almond from my salad. That was the second time Mom had been nice to Daniel in one evening. Usually, she just tolerated his presence because Dad said she couldn’t forbid Daniel from coming into our house anymore. Mom turned her congenial smile back on Gabriel. Either Pastor Saint Moon was a great mood stabilizer for my mother, or she was trying that hard to impress him. Perhaps there was some benefit to having him around.
Daniel’s phone beeped in his hand. “Sorry, I really do have to run.”
“Where are you going?” I got up from the table. “I’ll come with you.”
“Grace,” Mom snapped. “We have company.”
“No.” Daniel was already in the foyer. He grabbed his jacket from the coatrack. “I told Mr. Day that if he needed me tonight, I’d come do an extra shift. I’ll be working late. Stay here and eat.” He went out the door before I had a chance to respond.
Why would he be so anxious about getting a text from Mr. Day?
But at least I knew it wasn’t from Mishka.
“Tell us more about France,” Charity said to Gabriel.
I sat back in my chair and stared at my food.
I suddenly had no appetite again.
AFTER DINNER
I was busy clearing the table while Mom had Charity and Dad helping her dig out all of our Halloween decorations from the basement storage room. She wanted to send them with Gabriel for the fund-raiser. Gabriel had offered his help, but Mom had shooed him off to Dad’s study, refusing to let him lift a finger.
I passed the study with an armload of dishes and saw Gabriel sitting in Dad’s chair, flipping through one of Dad’s many books. He ran his hand through his long, wavy hair. I was right; he and Talbot did look like they could be cousins sometimes—even if most of their features weren’t the same. I wondered if Gabriel really had done nothing to stop Talbot’s family from being slaughtered. How could he allow that after what had happened to his own sister?
I sighed. Is there a difference between being a pacifist and being a coward?
I went to the kitchen and deposited the dishes in the sink. When I came back through the hall toward the dining room, I found Gabriel standing in the study’s doorway.
“Did you want to ask me something?” Gabriel stepped sideways so I could enter the study if I wanted.
I hesitated and almost said no, but I couldn’t shake the image of Gabriel standing aside while a mother and father were murdered at a little boy’s birthday party. Had he actually been there? Or was it merely something that had been out of his control? I followed Gabriel into Dad’s study and sat in one of the chairs in front of the desk.
The only thing was, I had the same problem here as I did with Daniel. How could I ask him the questions I had without revealing how I knew what I knew in the first place?
“Something troubles you,” Gabriel said. “Are you still not seeing the merits of your service project? I can assure you, Grace, charity and compassion will provide a much fuller life than any other avenue in front of you.”
“But everyone is capable of charity and compassion. What I don’t understand is why you don’t use your special abilities to make a difference. There are a lot of dangerous things out there. Shouldn’t we be doing everything we can do to stop them?” I couldn’t let go of the thought of that old man killed in his house by those demons. What if Talbot and I had been able to find them earlier? What if we could have saved his life? “I don’t understand you. You have the ability to make a difference, but you just hide up in the mountains with your pack, completely cut off from the world. Why would you turn your back on what the Urbat were originally created to do? Why do you want me to do the same?”