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enough to hold his hand, much less kiss him.
    "So, what'll it be? Dad?" Her father was still angling
for a title.
    "How about not?" She'd already called him that, but it
was a mistake. She'd been swept away by the moment. "Dad"
sounded so intimate, so close. Everything they were not.
    "How about Father, then?" He picked up his own mug,
embellished with a leaf motif.
    "Formal, but acceptable," she said. "Do you prefer Zeke or Lord something or another when I talk about you to
others?"

    He grinned at her. "Lord something or another? Now
who's being formal?"
    She grinned back. Despite her recent dark mental
trend, she was usually pretty nice. And she was pleased
that they were having their first normal conversation. She
didn't want him totally out of her life. Where would she
go for holidays?
    She wondered what kind of freak show Thanksgiving
celebration they'd have here. It would probably include
that evil hairball.
    After her father's return she'd fallen into a mud puddle as
she was preparing to climb the shop stairs. Her capris were
soaked, stained with brown slime, all because that stupid
shop cat tripped her again. On purpose, she was sure of it.
    As she sat in the cold puddle, her underwear glued to
her skin, she'd seen the cat run up the steps past her father,
who gave him a stern look before he jumped down gracefully to join her.
    Her father reached down to scratch the cat's ears. He
lifted his chin and purred, eyes closed.
    "What's with that cat? I never knew you had one."
    He sighed as if already exhausted from dealing with
her. "You have to watch out for Knot. He's a sneaky cat."
    She looked at her father, incredulous that he owned a
cat. He'd had time for a cat, but not for a daughter? "You
know Mom was allergic to cats."
    "So she said." He didn't sound convinced. So now Mom
was a liar, too? "Knot is different from most cats. He was the only cat your mother would pet." He smiled at some
long ago memory. "We used to be a happy family, believe
it or not."

    Goose bumps flecked her skin. A happy family. Keelie
searched her father's face and saw pain in his eyes. Maybe
at one time they had been a happy family, but he'd screwed
it up when he left. Any chance they had to be a family
again, just the two of them, was haunted by that fact.
Thirteen years of nothing did not entitle him to be called
Dad or Father. She'd call him Zeke.
    The cat opened his eyes and looked at her, almost as if
issuing a challenge. Could cats be that smart? She wanted
to boot his heinie out the window.
    The cat was a relic from her childhood, from the time
when Mom and her dad were together. She stared back at
the evil feline. It didn't seem that old. How long did cats
live?
    "Knot must be really old."
    "Very. But he comes from a line of long-lived felines.
He might outlive us." Her father smiled.
    "Hypothermia kills millions every year, Zeke. I may be
the next victim."
    "There's a big tub in the bathroom," he said, pointing
to the only real room in the apartment. "You can wash out
your clothes in the sink. I put the bag with Tarl's costume
by your bed. You won't have to wear them for long, just
until we get your luggage from the airline and get you fitted for decent garb."
    She wrinkled her nose at the memory of the hideous mud costume. "Thanks, I think. At least they're dry.
What's garb?"

    "It's what we call the costumes we wear here. Since
this is a Renaissance Faire, you'll have to wear Renaissance
costumes, at least during the day when the mundanes are
about."
    "Mundanes? It sounds like a disease."
    He laughed. "They can seem like one, too. But it's just
what we call the visitors."
    "Oh." She put a world of feeling into that little syllable.
    He looked at her, silent. "Of course, we also call them
our bread and butter, and we're always polite to them.
Courtly, in fact."
    "I won't forget it." Did he think she was a baby? She'd
wear the clown outfit until her sweater set and capris were
washed