The subject headings in the third bank of card drawers were the most
interesting of all. They, too, branched and forked and rejoined
themselves like the meanderings of an ant colony on the march. He'd go
in sequence for a while, then start following cross-references when he
found an interesting branch, keeping notes on scraps of paper on top of
the file drawer. He had spent quite some time in the mythology
categories, looking up golems and goblins, looking up changelings and
monsters, looking up seers and demigods, but none of the books that he'd
taken down off the shelves had contained anything that helped him
understand his family better.
His family was uncatalogued and unclassified in human knowledge.
#
He rang the bell on Marci's smart little brick house at bang-on six,
carrying some daisies he'd bought from the grocery store, following the
etiquette laid down in several rather yucky romance novels he'd perused
that afternoon.
She answered in jeans and a T-shirt, and punched him in the arm before
he could give her the flowers. "Don't you look smart?" she said. "Well,
you're not fooling anyone, you know." She gave him a peck on the cheek
and snatched away the daisies. "Come along, then, we're eating soon."
Marci sat him down in the living room, which was furnished with neutral
sofas and a neutral carpet and a neutral coffee table.
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