Elizabeth stood at the stove, stirring up the almonds and cinnamon stewing in a stockpot of red wine. The housemates had spent the day raking up leaves and winterizing the garden, as Dirk put it, and now they were burning the leaves and standing around staring into the flames like their prehistoric ancestors. Unlike the prehistoric ancestors, however, they had the advantage of a gas stove on which to make mulled wine.
The fire was in part a mildly illegal celebration of the successes of the week. The issues relating to the ownership of the house had been straightened out and a major audit was underway at the firm that had been managing the trust. They received contrite and ingratiating phone calls from the partners of the firm on a daily basis now. The shoe store had been closed all week. Becky had been coming and going, but she skulked away whenever she saw that they saw her.
Marla's Cadillac was double-parked out back in the parking spots reserved for the bookstore. Miss Price had managed to get an orange sticker slapped on it, but they were certain, mostly, that Marla would not be coming back to claim her abandoned vehicle. Elizabeth noticed that Alice had been hacking around in the state government as well as the city. She seemed to have gotten into the DMV and was making noises about perhaps switching the title of the Cadillac into her own name.
"The car's in horrible shape. It burns oil like crazy," Elizabeth had told her.
"But it's way too cool to let disintegrate out back, or get impounded. And I know how to fix cars, I can get that oil problem taken care of."
Joe appeared to be aware of what Alice was up to, but was still managing to overlook it. Elizabeth suspected that he was gradually finding it more difficult to do so. She wasn't sure why he hadn't taken off yet, until she overheard him talking with Bob one evening, when they were watching football on television.
Joe had said, "Tell me, living with the cute blonde twins, is it…"
"Oh yeah. Just not in the way you'd think."
Outside of the remaining Apocalyptic forces, which had gone completely to ground, Trip was the only person who was not doing pretty well at this point. He had become very absentminded. He would leave for work in the mornings and circle around the block and come back as if he had forgotten where he was going. He didn't seem to remember anything about his ordeal by makeup, but Elizabeth noticed that he rubbed his jaw every time he saw Bob.
Penrose wandered into the kitchen and looked out the back window. "What's this? 'Remember, remember, the fifth of November'?"
"It's the fourteenth," said Elizabeth. "We're only burning leaves."
"Isn't that illegal in the city now?"
Elizabeth shrugged. "I suppose, but we've got a cop here already and he hasn't arrested us."
They chatted for a few minutes and Elizabeth gave him the latest news from the bookstore. The subject came around to the events of the previous weekend. Elizabeth said, "You know, Trip really hasn't been the same at all."
"He should be back to normal in another week. I think."
"You think?" She picked an almond off her spoon and popped it into her mouth. Munching, she commented, "You're not quite as good at the mind control thing as Titania Shevrell, are you?"
Penrose fidgeted with the salt shaker. "She's had considerably more practice than I. She's never been bound by ethics or any consideration of other people's free will, so she feels free to do as she wishes to others. And she does."
"You're sure you won't show me how to do it too? I would have thought you'd be happy to teach me how make Trip go away."
"Be that as it may," he said, "it's a little too advanced for you. How are your witching lessons with Miss Price going?"
"Well, we're still working on Seeing Things. She won't teach me how to Do Things until I'm better at Seeing Things."
"Very sensible. I won't teach you how to Do Things until she does," he said virtuously.
"Oh, c'mon. Something simple?"
"No." He banged the salt shaker onto the table.
"Fine." Sniffing, she dipped herself a mug of wine and went out to join the others by the fire.
Joe held a long stick and poked at the heap of burning leaves. "We really shouldn't be doing this."
Alice said, "Oh, don't worry. It's okay to burn stuff in the city. People have fires in their fireplaces all winter long."
"But there's no ordinance against that," he said.
"What if we burn something besides leaves? Then we wouldn't be burning leaves, exactly," said Elizabeth.
"Absolutely!" Alice ran over to the woodpile and brought back a log, which she heaved into the middle of the leaves. A shower sparks flew into the air and the others reflexively hopped back.
"Barbecuing is legal too. If we cook something on the fire, then it's a cookout," Elizabeth said.
Joe sighed.
Dirk and Kevin, who were sitting together on a frilly cast-iron bench and drinking wine, made suggestions. "There's some tofu dogs in the refrigerator. You could roast them over the fire. Hey, and there's always bread," Kevin said.
"What would we do with that?" asked Dirk. "Make roasted toast?"
"Sure, why not? Celebrate with toast!" They clinked their mugs together.
Alice went into the house and came back, wrapping a square of aluminum foil around a potato. "I remember cooking potatoes this way when we were camping." She pitched the potato into the pile of burning leaves.
"Did you prick it with a fork?" asked Elizabeth. "It'll explode if you didn't."
"No, but you always say that. I've never pricked a potato and I never had one explode." Flipping her hair, she went over to Joe and snuggled under his arm. "Now it's a barbecue. Totally legal," she told him.
While Alice was preoccupied with cozening Joe, Bob took a folding knife from his pocket and surreptitiously poked a few holes in the potato.
Elizabeth felt a light touch on her shoulder through her winter coat. It was Penrose. He joined the rest of the household by the fire, where they watched the flames dance through the leaves and breathed the wintry smell of smoke in cold air. Above them, stars flickered in the bare branches of the trees and reached down to greet the sparks as they flew up into the blue winter night.