Nathanial watched Lilith pace past the tall casement windows of the dining room. He knew better than to disturb her while she sorted out her thoughts. In 1962, after the Ash Wednesday storm destroyed the other sisterlines, she and Shiloh fled the pain and confusion of so many deaths and wandered the country.

Eighty years had passed since then. Time and distance had erased the total familiarity and acceptance they'd shared with him as oathsister and oathbrother by caterdru bonding.

He hadn't realized how much he missed the emotional link of his drubond with them until they returned, but it didn't matter. They came home. Together, they would learn to be a family again.

Lilith paused in front of the windows. The last rays of the setting sun transformed her platinum hair into a brilliant halo.

Great Aunt Elizabeth rose from the window seat and stared up at her niece. Lilith towered over the older woman.

Elizabeth said, "We need you here."

Lilith laid her hand on the diminutive woman's shoulder. "You're the eldest female of our sisterline. By all rights, you should be the one to decide in this matter."

Aunt Elizabeth shook her head. Soft gray curls framed her nut-brown face. "I am too old for this fight. That's why I called you home when he came here and offered to buy our land."

Percival came over to the oak table. He wore his hip-length salt and pepper hair in a ponytail tied with a single strip of worn leather. He leaned his hip on the side of the massive oak table and smiled at Elizabeth. There was no mistaking the confidence he projected about his half-sister's decision.

Nathanial sighed. Elizabeth was right. There was no other way. With only five of them left, they would never survive another attempt to resettle. They must stay and fight to keep their land.

Lilith sighed. "I don't know if I've made the right choice. It's too late for me to present myself as an older woman. I didn't foresee this human changing tactics and becoming a persistent suitor when I refused his offer for our land last year."

"Never you mind about that." Elizabeth went to the fireplace and the cauldron of soup hanging there. She lifted the spoon to her mouth and sipped. Their great aunt looked like a small child standing in the massive maw of the fireplace. Neatly mended patches adorned the knees of her faded jeans. "You're no longer a womanchild fresh from your first romancing. You can handle him."

Lilith leaned her cheek against the windowpane and stared outside. "I know what signs to watch for now. I won't allow myself to be deluded again by my desire for children."

Elizabeth motioned at them to line up at the fireplace. She picked up a towel, wrapped it around the handle of the cauldron, lifted it from the hook and placed it on the metal trivet on the blackened firestone. Lilith and Shiloh joined Percival and accepted their portions. The men towered a full two heads taller than Elizabeth's slight form.

Nathanial came last. Elizabeth's head barely reached the top of his abdomen. He accepted his bowl and escorted Elizabeth to an ornately carved chair with thick cushions that raised her to a more comfortable height at the table.

When he seated himself in the next seat, the bright metallic shape of a yada popped out of a cubbyhole beside the fireplace and swiftly cleared the ashes off the blackened hearthstones. Shiloh's mechanical devices served them well. He'd created them two decades ago in order to save them time and energy keeping all the empty rooms of their homes suitably clean.

Shiloh had named them 'brownies' but the patent office said he couldn't because that word wasn't considered politically correct. So, he settled on 'yada', obtained his patent and sold the subsidiary rights to a small company to produce and sell the robots on the open market. Since then, their sisterline had reaped the dual benefit of yada labor and extra coin for the family coffers.

Lilith paused with her spoon in mid air. "Uncle Percy, which dog did you choose for tomorrow's gifting?"

Percival put aside his piece of buttered bread. "I chose Shillelagh. He's two and a half years old. His training is complete and he's already neutered."

Lilith inclined her head towards the bread. Percival passed it to her along with the butter. "Shelley knows all the commands, both hand and verbal for his guard dog duties. I'll bathe him tonight. Tomorrow he'll be all prettied up with not one hair out of place."

Lilith studied the simple fare laid out before her. "I know it hasn't been easy having me come back and disrupt your lives like this. For the most part I've tried not to interfere with what you've established here during our absence."

She sliced a piece of bread and pointed her knife at Percy. A wistful smile softened her face. "I know you've done your best, but I've noticed a few changes."

Uncle Percy opened his mouth to speak, then hesitated. Elizabeth reached over and squeezed his hand. He cleared his throat. "What changes?"

"The Porta-Potties in the field behind the barn, why have so many with only three persons living here? And that clay track? Is it a landing field? I didn't see any aircraft in the barn."

"Oh, those changes." Percy dismissed her questions with a wave of his hand. "They're for the biker reunion."

Lilith raised her left eyebrow.

"They hold a big bash here every summer. The rental fees they pay us take care of the taxes on the land. They race their bikes on the track. It's all very safe. The riders wear helmets and use giant orange rubber coated things that look like slinkies to hook their keys to their waists. That way if they wreck, the slinky pulls the key out of the ignition and shuts the bike off without endangering the spectators."

"They're very polite," Elizabeth added. "The women come to me and ask me about herbs. Some of the men have big potbellies, some are little and lean, some are hairy, and a few shave their heads bald. They have all kinds of tattoos and they're the shyest bunch of guys I ever did see. They stare at you and drink their beer. By the time they get up enough nerve to talk, they're usually too drunk to be any use for making love."

Percy stretched out his left arm. A long wavy line of intense blue ogham lines wrapped itself around his arm from wrist to shoulder. "They like our tattoos. The woad gives them a dark blue shade they haven't been able to achieve with their dyes."

Nathanial rubbed the soft brown fur on his arm that concealed his tattoo. It listed his foremothers and forefathers for ten generations. He remembered how much it itched when his fur grew back after shaving it off. The others were lucky. They never had to put up with that additional irritation when they received their tattoos.

The Sidhe way of keeping track of their ancestry made perfect sense to him. He never understood how humans avoided the dangers of inbreeding. Their generations came and went so fast he found it difficult to keep track of their sisterlines.

Uncle Percy nodded at Shiloh. "When they find out how much you know about repairing and creating mechanical devices, they'll be lining up to pay for your services."

A shy smile flickered across Shiloh's face. He ducked his head down and stared at the table. Keen interest hummed from Shiloh into Nathanial across their drubond.

Percy passed the bread to Nathanial. "If we have to sell the land and leave, I can talk to Jubal, the one who usually tattoos the bikers. He has the salves and equipment for a complete laser removal of body hair. I know he'll help me. It may take a couple of days but we should be able to remove enough of your fur that no one will suspect anything about you."

Nathanial picked up a slice of bread and buttered it. His hand trembled. He'd feel naked without his fur but he would do whatever it took to safeguard his family, no matter what.

"We haven't come to that point yet." Lilith's voice sliced through the subdued silence Percy's suggestion had created. "We may never come to such a point. There's no need to discuss such dire measures right now."

Casting a relieved glance at his oathsister, Nathanial sat back and waited for her to finish talking. Her eyes went dark and distant. "I know it's hard to change. Our sisterlines survived all these centuries by keeping to ourselves. The problem is there's only five of us left now."

Lilith sat back in her chair. She looked at them one at a time then gave a decisive nod. "Uncle Percy has the right idea. We need allies. That's why I donated land to Lacrimas to build a clinic. That's why I'll seek out this female physician tomorrow and give her Shillelagh. If we had a physician allied with our family eighty years ago maybe more of us would be alive today."

Nathanial looked at Shiloh. Absolute acceptance flowed to him along their subconscious drubond link. Nathanial relaxed. His oathbrother's instincts supported his. Their duty was clear.

He rose to his feet, turned to Lilith and bowed. "We are your caterdru. We support your decisions, no matter what."

The tension in the room eased.