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tortilla. “No worse than the previous ones, I think, or not much worse. The only real difference was that the novels she wrote after Shores of Hollywood were all written in the third person—that one was the last of her first-person novels.”
    â€œAre they all,” asked Scott, “the unpublished ones, still about Cyclone Severiss?”
    Cyclone Severiss was the protagonist of all Aunt Amity’s published novels; the Severiss character had been a female private investigator in the Los Angeles of the 1920s. Scott had read most of the published ones and had always privately thought that Aunt Amity had tried so hard for period accuracy that the pace of the books dragged.
    â€œThe ones I’ve looked at,” answered Claimayne. The food dropped off his fork, and he patiently set about recapturing it. “In any case, this fellow Ferdalisi wants to look at them, and any notes she might have kept.”
    â€œHe’s a publisher?”
    â€œOr an agent, or something. We’re hosting a memorial party here on Saturday, as Ariel mentioned, with some literary and film folk, so maybe he believes there could be a resurgence of interest in my mother’s work.”
    â€œAnd some money,” put in Ariel. Looking across the table, she added, “You two will still be in residence, to act out the charade of her insane so-called ‘last will’—but you don’t need to mingle at the party.”
    Scott kept his attention on the food in front of him and just nodded, but Madeline looked at her cousin across the table. “There was a cannon too?”
    Ariel stared at her in incomprehension, faintly shaking her head.
    â€œClaimayne said there was a cannon,” Madeline went on, “as well as a grenade.”
    â€œCanon law,” said Claimayne, smiling at her over the mess he’d made of his plate. “God’s law. Canon with only one ‘n’ in it. My mother went against it, you see, with her grenade. I’m sorry I wasn’t clear about that.”
    Madeline nodded magnanimously. “Well, it’s hard to be clear about grenades,” she allowed.
    Claimayne nodded vaguely, then turned to Ariel. “Salomé!” he said. “Bite but a little of this enchilada, that I may eat what is left!”
    Ariel glanced at his plate. “No,” she said. Then she gave Scott a narrowed look. “On her last day she made these stupid banners for you two, with a felt marker and an old box of accordion tractor-feed paper—‘Welcome home, Scott,’ and ‘Welcome home, Madeline.’”
    Scott’s expression didn’t change, but he felt his scalp contract and he carefully laid down his fork. He didn’t look at Madeline.
    â€œOh?” he said in a neutral tone.
    Ariel gave him a thin smile. “You won’t see them. I threw them in the trash.”
    â€œOh,” said Scott.
    â€œOh,” echoed Madeline weakly.
    Claimayne smiled. “Our Ariel just is not sentimental, is she?”
    BEFORE GOING DOWNSTAIRS TO dinner, Madeline had found sheets, blankets, pillows, and pillowcases in the same linen closet they’d always been in, and she and Scott had made their beds and got the windows open. Madeline had found a broom to sweep the worst of the dust and cobwebs away, and Scott had carried up the electric heater and plugged it in and stood it in the connecting doorway between their rooms.
    Now, the awkward dinner having finally come to an end, theyhad trudged back up the stairs, and Scott had absently knocked at the Garden of Allah door, and they were in Madeline’s room. The air was now comfortably warm. Madeline was leaning back on her elbows on the bedspread and Scott was sitting cross-legged on the wooden floor.
    After several seconds of silence, Madeline sat up and exclaimed, “No more real than the wizard of Oz!”
    After a pause, “Maybe Ariel was listening, outside the door,”