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and a tank top. Her cheeks glowed, and there was a sheen of sweat on her chest and throat.
    “Hi,” Jason said. “Have fun?”
    “It was exhilarating!” she said. “I really felt actualized this time! I could feel the energies rising from the mound!”
    “Great,” Jason said.
    Catherine Adams was tall and trim and blonde. One of Jason’s friends had once described her as a babe, which had startled him. He hadn’t thought of his mother in those terms. But once it was pointed out to him, he had realized to his surprise that she was, indeed, an attractive woman. At least compared to the mothers of most of his friends.
    Catherine walked into the room, her drum balanced on her hip. “Talking to your friends?” Her voice was husky from chanting.
    “Yes.” He turned and saw Dood S’s last statement.

    DONT MIND MY JOKES HAHAHAHA IM TOKING AS IM TYPING

    Jason looked at the screen and concluded that this really wasn’t his day. Catherine looked over his shoulder at the screen and he could hear a frown enter her voice. “Is this anyone I know?”
    “No,” Jason said. He was tempted to say, He’s a pedophile in Montana, but instead said, “Someone I just met. Some little town in Montana. Don’t worry, she’s not going to sell me any grass.”
    “We’ll talk about this later,” Catherine said. There was an ominous degree of chill finality in her tone.
    “Right,” Jason said.
    *
    About 8 o’clock, a fifth shock was felt; this was almost as violent as the first, accompanied with the usual noise, it lasted about half a minute: this morning was very hazy and unusually warm for the season, the houses and fences appeared covered with a white frost, but on examination it was found to be vapour, not possessing the chilling cold of frost: indeed the moon was enshrouded in awful gloom.
    Louisiana Gazette (St. Louis) Saturday, December 21,1811

    Supper was not a good experience. Jason ate chicken soup left over from the weekend and day-old homemade bread while his mother quizzed him on the temptations of the Internet. “You spend too much time online,” she said.
    “My friends are online,” Jason said. “It’s cheaper than calling them long distance.”
    “You need to make new friends here,” Catherine said. “Not hang out with druggies on your computer.”
    “I can’t get high online,” Jason pointed out. He could feel anger biting off his words. “I was just waiting in the chat room for Abie and Colin. I can’t ask everyone in the chat room whether they do drugs before I talk to them.”
    “Drugs are a black hole of negativity,” Catherine said. “I don’t want you around that scene.”
    “I’m not into drugs!” Jason found himself nearly shouting. “I couldn’t skate if I took drugs, and all I want to do is skate!”
    “What’s on the Web that’s so wonderful?” Catherine demanded, her own anger flaring. “Drugs and porn and advertising. Nothing but commercialism and materialism—”
    “Talk!” Jason waved his hands. “Conversation! Information! My friends are online!”
    “You need to make friends here,” she said. “We live in Missouri now.”
    “I don’t need to make friends here! I’ve already got friends! And the second I can get back to them, I will!”
    She looked at him from across the table. The anger faded from her expression. She looked at him sadly.
    “You can’t go back to California,” she said. “You know why.”
    “I know, all right,” Jason said.
    Concern filled her eyes. “If you go back to California,” she said, “you’ll die.”
    Jason looked at the framed photograph of Queen Nepher-Ankh-Hotep that sat on the side table between two sprays of Aunt Lucy’s irises. The Egyptian queen looked back at him with serene kohl-rimmed eyes.
    “So I hear,” he said.
    *
    Back in 1975, an Oregon housewife named Jennifer McCullum was informed by a vision that in a previous life she had been Queen of Egypt. So benevolent and spiritual had been her reign that she