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scribbling notes in it. “Continue,” he said, looking up at her.
    She launched into the story, deciding to stick as close to the facts as she could. “It was actually a band of homeless kids, and I did think at first that they meant some harm, since I couldn’t speak their language, but it all turned out fine. I’m fine!” she stressed. It had been scary at first when she woke up in that room at that dingy motel, but she didn’t want to tell him that.
    “Hold on a sec. Besides the fact that you shouldn’t be walking alone in the park at that hour, first you tell me it was ‘a harmless homeless person,’ and now you say it was a roving band of foreign kids. Kids can be dangerous in groups, you know.”
    “They’re not dangerous. I swear. Forget I mentioned it,” she said.
    “Ingrid, look at me.”
    She looked at him.
    “This is serious. There have been a bunch of burglaries in town, and we’re convinced it’s a group that’s not from around here, which sounds very much like these kids you’re describing.”
    “You sound like a cop,” Ingrid said.
    “I am a cop.”
    There was really no way of explaining this properly, so she backpedaled. “They’re just a bunch of desperate kids who’re new to the area. They’re not from here, Matt, and they don’t know this culture—how things work.” This was all kind of true.
    She was being honest. Her attacker had not been a homeless person at all but rather a group of pixies. The reason the stranger in the park had appeared tall and lumbering was because the five pixies had climbed one on top of the other’s shoulders and covered themselves in a long, draping coat—thus the bizarre gait. But the pixies were homeless, since they certainly were not from this world. So in a sense they were foreigners, refugees really. They were not allowed to use money, only barter, and in a pinch they resorted to theft. The pixies had kidnapped her— stolen her from the park—since that was the way they operated. But it was all very harmless. Pixie magic, while powerful, could be contained, and they had contacted her because they needed help. Still, she couldn’t exactly tell Matt that they were magical creatures somehow trapped in mid-world and had sought her help to find their way back home. Ingrid wasn’t sure exactly how much Matt believed in her magic; he still seemed a bit skeptical, unlike most of the townsfolk who had easily acclimated to the small enchantments that now pervaded daily life in North Hampton. She hoped it was just his careful nature and not a sign of closed-mindedness.
    “They don’t mean anyone any harm. Please, let’s just forget about the whole thing,” she said. She found she didn’t much care for Matt’s tone, and he was making her feel as if she were in an interrogation room.
    “Well, you’ll have to tell me where they are, so we can bring them in for questioning,” Matt said, looking piqued.
    “Oh no, I sent them away. And they promised not to return or ever trouble anyone in North Hampton again.”
    “Great!”
    Ingrid did not like the sarcasm, and she saw that Matt had picked up on her displeasure.
    “I’m just worried about you … for your safety,” he said. “I know you do some amazing—some people even say miraculous —things for people in this town, but you need to leave police matters to the police.”
    “What do you mean ‘some people say miraculous’?” Ingrid asked, her nerves on edge.
    “Come on now, you don’t really expect me to believe …”
    “In magic?” she prompted.
    “Well, yeah. I mean … there’s no such thing.”
    “No such thing?” Ingrid snapped. “You’re sure about that?”
    “Ingrid—did I say something wrong?”
    Ingrid shook her head. Patronizing she could stand, but complete disbelief? She was shocked. If Matt didn’t believe in magic—if he couldn’t accept that she was a witch—what kind of future did they have together? If he couldn’t see her for what she was, truly,