Because my life didn’t suck enough, when I awoke on Sunday I had another Stork dream to contend with. This one at least felt like a move in the right direction. Jaelle. Finally, she put in an appearance. Unfortunately, there was a hitch, a big one: there should have been at least two other potential mothers present. With only Jaelle, it felt like inadequate information. And, of course, the two separate, non-twinlike essences seemed a problem, too. And it was short. Too short, I feared.

I made a conscious effort to ignore these anomalies, shelve them. Burrowing under the covers, I wished that it had all been a dream. Everything. Beginning with our move from California to Minnesota. Had we never come to Norse Falls, I’d be blissfully ignorant of my gift — and have a much better tan. But there’d be no Jack. Even though the thought of him made me hurt at a molecular level, I couldn’t imagine a life without him.

I rolled over and snatched my phone off my nightstand. Penny had left me a what happened 2 U? text, but that was it. What did I expect? I’d asked Jack for a “break,” after all.

I showered and arrived wet-headed downstairs, where I found Stanley on his laptop and my mom unloading the circa-1977 dishwasher.

“Good morning.” My mom eyed me nervously.

I grunted a response.

“How do you feel? Did you sleep well?” she asked.

I collapsed onto a chair, which I figured was reply enough.

“We were just talking about last night,” Stanley said. His voice was chipper; he was obviously clueless as to my mom’s concern and my slump. “Though nothing’s been released to the press yet, some findings are coming in.” He lowered his computer screen. “Some of the birds were brought to Walden for a necropsy. The findings are interesting, to say the least.”

“Why?” my mom asked.

“Preliminary evidence suggests they suffered from a sudden plunge in body temperature, but that would have meant they were flying at altitudes they couldn’t sustain.”

“You’re ruling out another possibility,” my smart mom said. “A cold air mass could have descended to them.”

I could tell by the way Stanley’s forehead folded into pleats that he rejected this theory. “Anything cold enough to drop birds from the sky would have been felt on the ground. We’d have had record lows last night.”

I looked out the window. The sky was a dingy aluminum; drops spattered the pane. Though I wondered at the origin of this particular weather system, it didn’t look particularly cold outside.

My mom closed an upper cupboard on a tidy row of mugs. “It was an ugly mess and unfortunate; that’s a fact we can all agree on.”

My mom looked at her watch. “Are you about ready?” she said to Stanley. “I don’t want Leira to wake up alone.”

The phone rang, and we all turned our heads in unison.

“Hello,” my mom said into the receiver. “We were just on our way.” She paused, listening. “We’ll be there as soon as we can. Thank you for calling.” She hung up and brought the heel of her palm to her forehead.

“What is it?” Stanley asked, standing.

“Leira’s fever has spiked again. They want to discuss a different antibiotic. We need to go now.”

“I’m coming with you,” I said, pushing away from the table.

The lobby of Pinewood General was becoming all too familiar. This fact was confirmed when the nurses didn’t ask us to sign in or check for our visitors’ badges. We could probably have used the staff elevators without turning too many heads.

Leira’s doctor met us in the hallway, where he quickly updated us on her relapse and treatment options. Not one minute after my mom and Stanley agreed to a new round of IV-delivered antibiotics, her cell phone rang. The conversation was brief but tense.

“That was Ofelia,” my mom said, dropping her phone back into her purse. “She’s down in the emergency room with Afi. He collapsed at the store.”

I pressed my eyes shut at the sight of my mom wiping back tears and Stanley rubbing her shoulder.

“You go,” he said. “Take Kat with you. I’ll stay with Leira.”

My mom and I didn’t even speak as we made our way down to the emergency room, no directions required. I was too stunned and overwhelmed to work up the saliva necessary to form words. My mom, I could tell, was busy keeping her emotions in check. The occasional wipe of her wet cheeks confirmed this.

We found Ofelia in the waiting room.

“What is it?” my mom asked.

“They think it’s his lungs,” Ofelia replied. “The doctor’s waiting to speak with you.”

My mom hurried off after a woman in a white lab coat. I started to follow her, but Ofelia tugged on my arm.

“A word, if I may,” she said, and looked around to make sure no one was close enough to overhear.

I sat down next to her. “OK.”

“How’s Leira?” she asked.

“Not good. And now Afi.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “And on top of last night.”

I clutched at the arms of the vinyl-padded chair. “A rough weekend.”

“I wonder if the council should confer,” Ofelia said, tucking an AWOL wisp of hair back into her loose twist.

“We will. Tonight.”

“Oh,” she said. “With everything else going on, you have a bestowment, too?”

I nodded my head. Before that moment I hadn’t decided yet just what to do about last night’s dream. With Jaelle as the only vessel and with multiple souls, the entire equation was backward. But if I’d learned anything at all in the past twenty-four hours, it was that life was unpredictable. And with everything else hanging by a frayed thread, what difference would a slightly unorthodox bestowment make? In for a penny, in for a pounding.

My mom returned from her consultation. “His lungs have filled with fluid; it’s called a pulmonary edema and is likely due to an infection,” she said. “They’re going to admit him and administer an intravenous diuretic and antibiotics if they find an infection. He’s on oxygen, too.” My mom pulled her hair back nervously. “Can you believe we’ve got two of them on breathing machines? What are the odds of that?”

Personally, I could believe it. Because the odds of a family with mercreature genes having lung problems had to be pretty high. Not that I’d be opening my fish mouth with any such news.

“Thank you again, Ofelia,” my mom continued. “You’ve been such a help with my father. What did we take you away from? Did you have to close the store?”

“Don’t worry. The new girl, Kat’s friend Jinky, was able to help out. She’s been such a godsend already.”

Even I had to admit that Jinky was a huge help. But godsend? That had to have been a first for her.

I spent the rest of the day migrating between Leira and Afi. Both were too sick to appreciate the bedside vigil, so later in the afternoon I took Ofelia up on her offer of a ride home. I waved her away from the curb, promising to give my sister Storks plenty of notice for our council meeting that night. I would. As if I needed Grim to show up all grinchy.

The house felt empty. I picked up my phone about a dozen times to call Jack; he deserved to know about Leira and Afi, but I couldn’t risk him coming here to console me. Marik had been clear about Jack’s effect on him. Without knowing how close was too close, I couldn’t have them on the same street. Besides, it was best, for now, to perpetuate our “break.”

I did phone Penny. At first she was chilly with me, asking why I took off. She didn’t ask about Marik directly, but her tone implied confusion. The conversation was quick; she was obviously going to make me work to make amends. She did, at least, update me on the bird situation. All kinds of theories were floating around, everything from a prank by Pinewood to insecticide poisoning to a high-altitude lightning strike, the day’s continued showers probably lending credence to the latter. Stanley’s cold-air-mass explanation had obviously not been released yet or had been dismissed.

I also finally got a hold of my dad, who was surprisingly tight-lipped about where he’d been all day and why he had never returned my messages. I could hear him jangling keys and huffing about, and it was nice to know that he was on his way to visit Afi, allowing my mom and Stanley to focus on Leira. Say what you will about the guy — he’d made his mistakes — but he came through when you needed him. That said a lot about a person. I just wished as much could be said about me.