Anna agreed and crossed to the opposite side of the room from the entryway. That wall was dominated by a large fireplace flanked by bookcases, which was also constructed from dolmen stones just as she had supposed. In the right hand corner adjacent to the fireplace was an archway constructed of dolmen slabs that lead into the stairwell; on the opposite side was an identical archway leading into the next room. Anna crossed the threshold, but paused on the stair landing to wait for Méabh, who paused long enough in front of the fireplace to touch it briefly before following Anna into the next room. Again, though, as she crossed through the double archway she lingered momentarily and touched the stones lightly; she even brushed each foot against the slab of the landing.

The room turned out to be a kitchen, with two doors on opposite walls, the inner one leading down into the basement and the outer one out onto a back porch. Méabh then followed Anna through an open archway adjacent to the basement door down a short hall, passing a small bathroom on her left before emerging into the dining room. It was dominated by a huge walnut table surrounded by eight chairs. The front outside wall was, as with the same wall of the front room, filled with windows, while the other outside wall opposite the entry hall was covered by a built-in walnut china cabinet. An archway in the back wall led into a small library, its four walls covered with bookcases except for the window in the outside wall. Another, smaller archway led into a back solarium, which was filled with plants and contained several pieces of wicker furniture.

Both archways were made from the same dolmen stone used in the fireplace and the other entryways. As before, Méabh would pause within each to lightly touch the blocks. When she reached the solarium, however, she untied the rope belt and removed the robe, laying it over one of the wicker chairs. She then stood in the middle of the entryway, planted her feet apart, and reached up to lay her hands on the arch stones above her head; she then closed her eyes and began to mumble softly. For a brief moment, Anna failed to perceive one crucial aspect of Méabh's appearance. When it did dawn on her, she stared at the massive woman wide-eyed and speechless for a couple of moments before blurting out:

"You're naked!" And indeed, Méabh was completely, fully, and wondrously nude.

Grinning with genuine amusement, Méabh opened her eyes and said, "It took you long enough to notice it."

Anna blushed involuntarily; she then gulped and asked, "Why?"

"Clothes get in the way of the weaker impressions," she explained as she stepped out of the archway and retrieved her robe, "and I did not want to have to take too much time undressing."

"Are you psychic?"

Slipping the robe back on and retying the rope, she replied, "Not in the way you mean it, but I am sensitive to certain influences and forces."

"Did you feel anything just now?"

"It does not work that way. It is not anything like a tangible feeling, like touching the stone with your hand. It is more of a perception, or perhaps I should say an intuition. I was trying to confirm a suspicion, but I received no insights."

"I don't understand then," Anna pressed; "if you're not psychic, why did Jaim choose you to be the sheep?"

"Your people wanted a committed believer; well, not only do I believe in the supernatural realm, I am on rather intimate terms with it, and I mean that quite literally."

Startled, Anna did a mental double take, but before she could inquire further, Jaim appeared in the archway. "We are finished setting up. It is an hour before sundown; Jeremiah wants to wait at least two hours before we calibrate the equipment. Is there any food in the kitchen? I can whip up a light supper while we wait. I also brought snacks and drinks, and a bag of coffee."

"I took the liberty of ordering a catered meal," Anna told him as she and Méabh headed for the dining room. There she found Jeremiah placing the two meters on the table. "It should be here anytime soon," she added.

As the others gathered around the table, Jeremiah produced a cassette tape recorder which had a strap attached to it. He took a moment to insert a tape and plug in a microphone, then he slipped the strap over his head to let it hang from his shoulder. He clipped the microphone to the front of his sweater before switching it on. "Testing, testing," he said as he checked the volume intensity meter on the recorder. Grunting with satisfaction, he switched it off and rewound the tape.

"I'll have this on all the time starting in just a few moments. The mike should be sensitive enough to pick up your voices as long as you are reasonably close, but I will be using it mostly to keep a record of what's going on. Once I turn on the parabolic mike I suggest we stay out of the front room, so that we do not disturb its calibration. Since Jaim is the one conducting the experiment, I suggest that we do not ask for his opinion of any manifestation, though we are free to discuss it among ourselves. Rather I suggest he give his impressions as and when he sees fit. Does everyone agree?" He received nods all around.

Switching on the recorder again, he checked his watch quickly and said, "Begin Tape One; 17:47, April 30, 1985. Location: Doherty House, Cairnsford, Colorado. Append description and history of location. In attendance: January Ian Mariposa and Bastet, principle investigators; Jeremiah Arkenton, assistant investigator and test subject, non-believer; Méabh hÉireann, assistant investigator and test subject, believer; and Anna Regan, test subject, neutral control. Purpose: to conduct psychical research experiment on the supposed supernatural phenomena reported to manifest within the location. Append paranormal history of location. Goal: to test efficacy of sheep versus goats phenomena on the ability to perceive apparition phenomenon often reported at location. Append experimental equipment list. Equipment has been set up in front room of ground floor; will wait at least one hour after nightfall for calibration to allow temperature equilibration."

"Beltene," Méabh commented when Jeremiah had finished.

"Walpurgisnacht," Jaim countered, and Anna added, "One of the nights of the year when the dead walk the earth."

"We shall see," Jeremiah said. Then any further conversation was halted by a soft meow from the entryway. There stood Bastet, looking at them expectantly, just before she walked off towards the front door.

"I believe our dinner has arrived," Jaim remarked, just moments before a knock sounded.

Dinner turned out to be lasagna, which Méabh did not care for. However, afterwards Jaim set out the snacks and the drinks, which included several bottles of mead, so she was able to console herself with them. He also set up a coffee urn on the serving shelf of the china cabinet and soon the house was filled with the aroma of strong black Turkish coffee. The four then sat around the table and Jeremiah and Méabh listened as Jaim and Anna swapped stories about the house.

At the appointed hour, they went into the front room to calibrate the equipment. First Jeremiah waved the two meters around and recited readings off the dials at frequent intervals. Then he took a dozen pictures, four of each of his companions alone in the room. When it was Méabh's turn, she shed the robe and stood in the middle of the room, hands on hips and one leg bent. "This is a serious scientific investigation," he admonished her, though in his normally deadpan voice, "not a photo shoot for a men's magazine."

"Just take the damn pictures," she said irritably, "you'll need something to liven up the journal article."

Finally, he switched on the parabolic microphone and adjusted its volume as Méabh recited passages from The Cattle Raid of Cooley in her lowest whisper. Once he was satisfied, he shooed her out of the room, turned on the attached reel-to-reel tape recorder with its eighteen hour tape, and tiptoed out of the room.

The next few hours they spent in silence, waiting for the manifestations to occur. The stillness was broken only by quiet, incidental sounds: Jaim turning pages as he read in the library; Bastet mewing or the sound of her trotting over the floorboards; the occasional declaration of "Check" as Jeremiah and Méabh played chess, and the three times Jeremiah changed tapes, when he stated the tape number and the time; as well as Anna's nervous pacing. Whenever anyone made a noise Jeremiah believed was loud enough to be picked up by the parabolic microphone, he stated the time, the nature of the noise, and what caused it, which most of the time was Anna. Finally she got tired enough that she sat at the table to watch the game and after some minutes she was able to relax.

It was about 10:30 when finally something happened. Méabh had just checked Jeremiah, when she stood to pour herself some more mead, turning her back to the entryway into the front room. Jeremiah sat with his back to it as well, so it was Anna, looking up in a moment of boredom, who saw it first.

"Oh, my God," she whispered.

Jeremiah and Méabh turned around simultaneously. Neither of them said anything at first, then Méabh spoke: "Jaim, we have company," as Jeremiah stood to retrieve the camera shutter remote. He took three shots in rapid succession, then began to describe what he was seeing as Jaim came into the dining room, Bastet at his feet. Both stopped short when they could see into the front room, and Bastet arched her back, fluffing her tail, and hissed.

Beside the archway by the fireplace stood a naked woman. She was of average height with an elfin figure. Her skin was a dull, dead white, free of blemishes but sallow with a light ash-gray undertone. Her body was emaciated, as if ravaged by some emotional consumption rather than disease, and her face was gaunt and haggard. Her eyes were especially haunting: they were large and round, swollen, and blood-red as if from constant weeping. Her long, straight black hair was water-soaked and plastered to her face, shoulders, breasts, back, and sides; her skin was beaded with water and she left foot-shaped puddles as she walked.

Yet there was nothing overtly spectral about her, no glow, no misty translucence, no ectoplasmic effusion, not even the clichés of clanking chains, ghostly moaning, or oozing gore. She looked for all the world like a living woman who had just walked out of a shower to see who had invaded her home. As a matter of fact, she made straight for the four investigators, watching them the entire time.

Jeremiah finished his dictation and took a few more pictures. He then asked, "Méabh, do you see her?"

"Yes," she confirmed, and Anna added, "I see her, too."

Jeremiah looked up at Jaim with concern, the first time all evening a genuine emotion crossed his face, if ever so briefly. Jaim looked back at him and replied to his unspoken question, "Have no fear, I see her as well, as does Bastet." The cat had relaxed somewhat, but she still stared at the banshee, moaning.

"But that's impossible," Anna objected. "If she's showing herself, then one of us must be fated to die, but that person shouldn't be able to see her." Suddenly she gasped in dismay. "Oh my god, there must be someone else in the house!"

"Don't jump to conclusions," Jeremiah admonished. "Let's wait and see what happens when she reaches us." Meanwhile he picked up the two meters, one in each hand. "Stay clear of the arch," he instructed, and the four people disbursed themselves, with Jeremiah standing beside the entryway, Anna in the opening to the short hall from the kitchen, Méabh in the archway into the library, and Jaim next to the armoire. Bastet sat at his feet.

Presently the banshee entered the dining room. As she passed him, Jeremiah reported, "Strong electromagnetic field, twenty-five times above background; temperature reading twenty degrees below normal; no indication of interest in any one of us." But he was wrong; as it passed Anna, it reached out at the last minute and touched her on one arm.

The poor woman jumped back as if struck by a snake. The banshee reacted by taking a step towards her and holding up its arms, as if seeking to embrace her. Paralyzed with terror, Anna was unable to move, but before it could reach her Méabh intervened. She leaped at the banshee and grabbed one of its arms; at the same time she called out, "Maria!" in a commanding voice that boomed like thunder.

The banshee stopped dead and whipped its head around to face Méabh. For a brief moment it just stared at her; then it rapidly transformed itself into a beautiful young girl. Startled, Méabh let go of it and took a step back, while in the same instant the "girl" turned wraithlike: its formally corporeal body became translucent, its hair and eyes lightened to bright silver, and a thin, glowing mist surrounded it like a shroud. It rose off its feet and its hair floated in long, snakelike locks around its head as it levitated in front of and slightly above Méabh. Bastet threw herself across the room towards the phantom, but before she could reach it, it opened its mouth and shrieked, emitting a sound so harsh that the four humans clapped their hands over their ears in pain. A second later its glow intensified, briefly becoming too bright to bear, then it vanished in a flash. When the four people could see again, the specter was gone.

Though still somewhat shaken, Méabh recovered the fastest. "I should have realized this sooner," she said, more to herself than her companions. "I did realize it before, but I was uncertain; I should have trusted my instincts. Damnaigh!"

Jaim was the first to Anna's side. "Are you all right?" he asked her, concerned.

For a moment she could not speak; then she started trembling and whispered, "I'm going to die."

"We do not know that," he tried to reassure her, but she shook her head. Taking a deep breath, she got hold of herself, then squared her shoulders and looked him straight in the eye. "No, I am going to die." Her voice wavered a bit, but she sounded so certain that Jaim could not respond to her.

"We all die sometime, my dear," Méabh told her, "though whether you will die tonight is a different question. However, we have more important things to worry about." When Jaim gave her a puzzled look, she added, "There are no ghosts in this house."

"Are you crazy?" Anna objected. "We just saw one; it touched me —"

"The dead do walk this house," Méabh interrupted imperiously, "but not in the way you imagine. That which we saw was not Maria Doherty; it was something else, impersonating her. It was an actual Bean Sí, a 'fairy woman', not a ghost impersonating one."

Anna made a short, barking laugh. "Wait a minute. Are you trying to tell us that this house is haunted by fairies?"

Méabh narrowed her eyes in irritation at the younger woman's insolence, but she replied, "Yes, that is exactly what I am trying to tell you."

"That's got to be the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard --" she laughed, but Jaim cut her off firmly. "Do not be too quick to mock, Ms. Regan; according to Irish lore, what we call the fairies are the pagan dead, trapped on earth because they are too good for Hell, but not good enough for Heaven. To the ancient Irish, the fairies were ghosts, or near enough to it. If Méabh is right, we may be in grave danger." To Méabh he inquired, "What led you to this conclusion?"

"All the clues were in your story about the history of the house. The Indian legend of the skinwalker taken by the 'spirits'; James Cohen's description of the slua sídhe, the 'fairy host'; the deaths of the children; the hostility of the 'spirits' to a Christian priest; the aunt's and the third wife's claims of having lovers visit them at night; those people driven insane or to suicide; the disappearances; the fact that only people of Éireann blood can see the apparitions whereas others only see the Teine Sídhe, the 'fairy fire' -- it all fits!"

"Which race do you think they are?" Jaim asked, his curiosity up.

"Possibly Boccánaigh, but my guess would be the Daoine Sídhe."

Finally losing her temper at all the nonsense, Anna spat, "What the hell are those?"

Undaunted by her outburst, Jaim explained, "The Boccánaigh are what we would call hobgoblins; mostly mischievous pranksters, but with the potential to be harmful. The Daoine Sídhe are the fairy aristocracy. They are the most powerful and dangerous of the fairy races --"

"They are more than that," Méabh interrupted. "They are the humanoid race that accompanied the Xothians to our world. Their knowledge of glamour is so great they can warp the very fabric of reality. Even the Fomóraigh fear them."

"-- but as I understand the legends," he continued smoothly, "they are not necessarily hostile. What do you believe set them off?"

"It could have been anything, but my guess would be the building of this house. The Sídhe are very particular; They have specific, what did you call it, taboos?" Jaim nodded. "Well, people who have angered Them by breaking one of these 'taboos' have usually come to grief: they have had their livelihoods ruined; they have been sickened, maimed, kidnapped; they can be tormented until they commit suicide or are driven insane; they can even be killed outright. Even just spying on Them could be dangerous; Cohen did not interfere with the procession he witnessed in any way, yet the Banríon an tSlua, the queen of the host, addled his wits simply because he saw Them. Plus this is one of the two nights They are at Their strongest. At midnight They will begin Their move from Their winter to Their summer home. If we are still here when that happens we may become trapped in Their world."

"How so?" Jeremiah asked. Anna had by this time given up on the conversation and had sat in one of the dining chairs in a huff.

"I believe this piece of land intersects with a portion of the Otherworld, what you would call fairyland; in fact, one of their riding paths must pass through it. Under the right circumstances, at certain times of the year, month, or even day, the barriers that separate the two worlds can weaken, allowing the Sídhe to cross over briefly into our world and be seen. That would account for all the reported manifestations, including the apparitions and the processions. The stones of the dolmen may have somehow intensified this effect, causing a true merging of the two worlds at this one spot. Any person who walked onto this land at that time could enter the Otherworld and become trapped there, while the Sídhe Themselves could carry people off into it if they wished. Liam Doherty may have sealed his own fate and that of his family when he used the dolmen stones as part of the house's construction. Had he simply removed them, probably nothing would have happened, because then the weakening of the barriers may not have been enough to allow the house to cross over. But by including them in the construction, he preserved the effect, and the next time the Sídhe came through they found a house right in the middle of their path. One of Their taboos is to build a house across one of Their riding paths, for which They have been known to kill."

"Why did they wait three years, though, to take revenge?" Jeremiah asked.

"I cannot say. The Sídhe are inscrutable; They do what They do for Their own reasons, which often makes no sense to us. They have Their own code of morality, which differs strongly from ours; hence They tend to react all out of proportion to what we would think is the seriousness, or lack thereof, of the crime. I would not be surprised if the disappearances, suicides, and accidental deaths all occurred on nights when the slua sídhe rode through the house."

"Quiet!" Anna suddenly said. When everyone had stayed silent for some moments, she then said, "Hear that?"

They each strained their ears, but it was Bastet who heard it first. She had been sitting on the table, listening to the discussion between the four humans, but now she stood and looked around, her ears swiveling to catch the slightest noise. Then she began to moan softly.

"What do you hear?" Jeremiah asked her.

Anna's face brightened as she smiled. "Footsteps!" she cried happily.

"I also hear them," Jaim confirmed, "as well as what sounds like knocking or tapping."

Méabh nodded as she added, "I also hear whispering; it sounds vaguely familiar, but I cannot quite make it out." Focusing on Jeremiah, she asked him, "Do you hear anything?"

He did not answer; instead he picked up a pair of earphones from the table and put them on. Their wire ran through the entryway into the front room, where it was attached to the parabolic microphone. He frowned as he listened for a few minutes, then he reported: "The footsteps are a measured tread, like marching; the rapping is actually the sound of horse hooves stamping on hard ground." His frown then deepened. "The voices sound like chanting, or singing. . . ." He then took off the headphones and handed them to Méabh. "It sounds Gaelic; see if you can translate."

Méabh took them and put them on, and then closed her eyes as she listened intently. Meanwhile, Anna came up to Jeremiah to whisper to him: "If you can hear the voices, why didn't the Skeptics hear any?"

"If Méabh is correct," he speculated, "they may have simply chosen the wrong night for their investigation."

As if in response to his words, Méabh's eyes flew open. Her face livid with fear, she ripped off the headphones and threw them away. "It is the Daoine Sídhe," she declared, her voice trembling.

"How sure are you?" Jaim asked as Jeremiah retrieved the headphones from the floor.

Méabh made a visible effort to get control of herself. "I once lived with Them for seven years, and very nearly did not escape. I did not learn all their secrets, but I did learn their language; I can never forget it. It is them."

"Then perhaps we should leave," Jeremiah concluded in deadpan understatement.

"I think it may be too late," Jaim countered, and he indicated the archways: the stones were beginning to glow with an eerie silvery light, and it grew brighter by the second.

"We can't leave now," Anna objected, "the real experiment is just starting."

Méabh turned on her, enraged. "Are you really so monumentally stupid, or do you simply fail to comprehend just how much danger we are in?"

"Now just a minute!" Anna cried out, her own anger rising quickly. "I don't have to take that, especially not from a bitch slut like you!"

Méabh raised her hand to strike the other woman across her face, but Jeremiah grabbed and held her arm before she could carry it through. At the same time, Jaim seized Anna, who tried to attack the massive woman threatening her.

"That's enough, both of you!" Jaim ordered, raising his voice for the first time all evening. "Fighting amongst ourselves won't help." As if reacting to the open hostility all around her, Bastet started pacing back and forth the width of the table, yowling in consternation.

"It's starting already," Jeremiah said, to no one in particular. Anna's fury evaporated almost immediately. "Oh my god, what's happening to me?" she asked rhetorically, her face a mask of fear. "Let me go!" Méabh ordered Jeremiah, who tightened his grip on her arm.

"Méabh!" he barked, commanding her attention. "Focus! You're not thinking straight, you're just reacting emotionally. Think!"

Her eyes flashed at him with renewed outrage, and for a moment Jaim and Anna feared she would strike him. But then her face softened and she visibly relaxed. "I am all right now, Jerry," she assured him at last.

"What just happened?" Jaim asked, worried, as Jeremiah let go of Méabh's arm.

"The house is starting to get us. That slow mental deterioration you described, whatever's happening now has intensified it. It's breaking down our self-control; it brought out the latent hostility between the women, and just now you used contractions in your speech."

"It doesn't seem to affect you," Anna ventured hopefully, but Jeremiah shook his head. "I can feel it attacking my own reserve; I'm just more in control than you three."

"What, are you inhuman or something?" she snapped, her own control slipping for a moment.

For the first time all evening the hint of a smile appeared on his lips. "In a manner of speaking; I'm borderline dissociative."

"What does that mean?" she pressed.

"It means that I am disconnected from my emotions."

"You mean, like a sociopath?" she asked nervously.

Again Jeremiah smiled faintly. "Not that far gone, no, but definitely along the same path. The point is, the effect suppresses reason and allows the emotions to come to the fore. Since my emotions are normally deeply suppressed, I can resist it longer than most people." To all of them he added, "We have to focus our attention on what is going on, now, otherwise we are finished."

"But what's causing it?" Jaim inquired, trying to concentrate on an intellectual conundrum.

"The Otherworld," Méabh replied with certainty. She had by now recovered more of her normal ironclad self will.

Jeremiah nodded. "Exactly. Human sanity is a very complex and delicate balancing act. Fortunately there are several factors that help to reinforce it. One of the most important is the psychic web produced by the biosphere. We evolved within it, and it affected our rational development. That also means, however, that we depend on it, so if we encounter another psychic web different from the one we are used to, it can adversely affect us in turn. The 'Otherworld' of the fairies operates by a different set of laws and forces from our own universe, similar enough that we can live in it, but sufficiently different that its psychic web will drive us mad after prolonged exposure."

Méabh favored him with a lopsided grin. "You are becoming positively garrulous, Jerry." He smiled grimly in response. "I told you I was being affected as well."

"I'm sorry, but as fascinating as all this is, we need to get out'a here."

"Anna's right ... is right," Jaim agreed, trying hard to concentrate. "Méabh, what are our options; can we just leave?"

She shook her head. "We may be able to get out of the house, but that would not do us any good, because the whole property is affected."

"Couldn't we just walk off the property?" Anna asked.

"Without knowing the right path, we could walk right into the Otherworld instead, and the paths change constantly."

"So where does that leave us?" Jeremiah asked, betraying no concern.

Méabh sighed in resignation. "As I see it our only hope is if we can convince Them that we would destroy the house if They let us go."

"Would they believe us?" Anna asked.

"I believe I can convince Them, but it could be difficult; I have no idea what demands They might make to ensure our good faith."

"We ... will ... just have to deal with that when and if it comes up," Jaim said.

"It may be difficult getting the historical society to agree to tear down the house," Anna observed.

Staring at her with barely suppressed wrath, Méabh replied, "I will destroy it myself then."

Refusing to be intimidated, Anna asked, "Okay, for now, what should we do?"

"We wait for the slua to appear. The Sídhe ride single file and the Rí an tSlua, the king of the host, leads the way. It is with him that I will need to parley. If you three want to salvage any of the evidence we have collected so far, I suggest you do it now."

"Alright then," declared Anna, "let's get cracking." And she marched into the front room with the other three following behind her.

Anna rewound and recovered the rolls of film from the cameras while Jaim secured the audio tape from the parabolic microphone and Jeremiah recorded a conclusion on the tape recorder that included a description of their planned encounter with the fairies. Méabh let her companions do the work as she watched, but at one point she came over to Jaim and quietly said to him, "I am worried about Anna."

Jaim looked at her in surprise. "How so?"

"She accepted the idea of her death more quickly than I expected."

"I think we all have," he observed, letting his irritation show through.

"But I would expect it of you and Jerry; you both have very strong characters."

"You should give Anna the same credit," he snapped; he then ignored her as he turned back to the tape. Méabh narrowed her eyes at him in anger, but she said nothing more.

When Jeremiah finished his recording, he popped the cassette out and gathered the others together. Along with the film and the tape, they went into a duffel bag, which Jaim then tossed onto the front porch through one of the windows. Afterwards they sat in the front room and waited for the inevitable. Having resigned themselves to their fate actually made the waiting easier, and the psychic effect of the influence of the Otherworld environment helped them to relax. Only Méabh seemed nervous as she paced about the room, but her nervousness was over the fate of her friends being in her hands; she more than any of them knew what would happen soon.

Jaim had opened his pocket watch and laid it on his lap to keep track of the time. He had just announced that it was midnight when the air in front of the fireplace distorted as from a heat shimmer above a road. The sound of singing and the tread of feet and hooves came louder now, and grew louder by the moment. Anna and the two men stood and gathered by the entry hall as Méabh shed her robe and walked into the middle of the room. After a moment a horse and rider emerged from the distortion. Both were magnificent in their splendor: the steed was of purest white, with a silver mane, eyes, and hooves that sparkled as if made of real metal. The rider was tall and fabulously handsome, his own eyes and hair silver, and his skin ghostly pale. He was dressed in a flowing white robe richly decorated with gold and silver designs, and he wore a tall, narrow, diaphanous crown made from a pale, silverish-blue crystalline material inlaid with gold and silver filigree and studded with diamonds. Both horse and rider were surrounded by a glowing silvery fog.

They came to a halt just in front of Méabh. The fairy king looked down at her for some moments as if trying to decide what to do, but presently he dismounted, though he seemed more to float down as if he were only a cloud. He glided around to the front of the horse and stood before the massive woman, staring down at her from his greater height.

Méabh started to speak. It was not any form of Irish a Gael, ancient or modern, would recognize. It had the same lilting, sing-song rhythm, but it was more complex in its grammar and syntax, and more delicate in its structure. It was as if she was singing a cappella, though it was clear that she was conversing with the fairy king rather than entertaining him.

The other three humans stayed very still and quiet at first, partly enthralled by the tableau before them, partly in fear that they might break some spell protecting them. Eventually, however, Anna could no longer restrain herself. Leaning towards Jeremiah, she whispered in his ear as softly as she could manage, "What do you see?"

He frowned at her inopportune question, but when he leaned towards her, rather than reprimand her he reported, "I see the fairy king."

She flashed him a startled look. Looking up at Jaim behind them, she mouthed the same question to him; he pantomimed the same answer. Stepping back beside him, she stretched up towards his head as he bent down closer to her. "This is no longer the same experiment," she whispered to him. He gave her a puzzled look, but she simply retreated behind his back. Jaim almost turned around, but when he saw Méabh break off the conversation, he instead stepped forward beside Jeremiah. Anna looked up at Bastet sitting on his shoulders. Cat and woman locked eyes for a moment, then Anna stepped back out of sight into the entry hall.

Méabh walked over to where the two men waited for her. "He has agreed to let us go, in exchange for removing the house from Their path." Jaim sighed and even Jeremiah relaxed the tension in his face. "But," she continued, "as I feared He wants some assurance we will keep our word."

"What does he require?" Jaim asked with trepidation.

Her face expressionless, she replied, "He wants one of us to serve as a hostage. I have volunteered to go with Him."

Both men gave her shocked looks, though Jaim's expression was more animated. "What guarantee do we have that he'll let you go afterwards?"

"None," she said coldly.

"With the house gone," Jeremiah asked, "how can we get you back?"

"You cannot," she replied with finality.

Jeremiah nodded grimly. Jaim said in a grave tone, "We will miss you, my dear."

Méabh managed a weakly mocking smile. "I have lived among them before and managed to escape; I will find a way back, rest assured."

"If anyone can, you will," Jeremiah agreed; he then took her by the shoulders, pulled her close, and kissed her. When he let her go, she quipped wistfully, "Now you get affectionate." Then she squared her shoulders, turned, and started back to the king.

Anna came around the corner of the entryway into the front room. Jaim saw her out of the corner of his eye; something odd about her appearance made him turn to look, and he was startled to see her naked. Jeremiah spotted her as she walked up behind Méabh, but before either man could stop her she hit the massive woman on the back of the neck at the shoulder line with the heel of one of her shoes. Stunned, Méabh fell to her hands and knees. Anna dropped the shoe beside the stricken woman and made for where the king stood.

As Jeremiah knelt beside Méabh to check on her, Jaim moved to catch Anna, but Bastet threw herself off his shoulders, landed in front of Méabh, then turned and spat at her master. He stopped dead, confusion and consternation alternating on his face. Anna halted just before the king and turned around. "Don't interfere," she warned them all.

"Anna, wait, consider what you're doing," Jaim tried to counsel her.

"I have, Jaim, very carefully, believe me," she assured him; "but this is the opportunity of a lifetime. I have the chance of doing something no other paranormal researcher has ever done, to actually travel to another world and learn about it first hand." She then began to back up slowly.

"But if you go with them now, you may never be able to get back," he pressed.

"I understand the risk, but I've always been an explorer at heart. Well, now I get to indulge my fantasy literally as well as figuratively."

Jeremiah looked up at her. "This isn't necessary Anna. Now that we know the Otherworld exists we can find ways to observe it safely."

Anna chuckled, pausing in her retreat. "You of all people should understand why I'm doing this, Jerry. Besides, this is what the fairy woman was trying to tell me: not that I would die, at least not in the conventional sense, but that I would join Them in Their world and become one of Them."

Shaking her head, Méabh tried to struggle to her feet, saying, "I ... cannot allow you ... to do this."

"It's already done," she said firmly, taking a step back. Then she added, "I give myself freely to Them." As if in response, the king opened his arms to receive her. Without hesitation, she turned towards the king and walked into his grasp. She embraced him as he folded his arms around her head, hiding her from view behind the folds of his robe. The glow around him and his horse then intensified until it was blinding; it flashed once, and vanished. When the three remaining humans could see again, the stones in the fireplace and the stairwell archway were dark and the shimmering in the air was gone. The only sound there was now was Bastet yowling mournfully.

"Idiot woman," Méabh cursed, regaining her feet.

"No," Jaim dissented, "I think she understood exactly what she was doing, risks and all. Just before she left us she told me that the experiment had changed. I did not understand what she meant then, but now I believe I do."

"Well, I certainly do not understand," Méabh said peevishly. "Why did she do it?"

It was Jeremiah who supplied the answer: "She was a consummate scientist."

Created: October 28, 2006