Dia put some fruit and granola on top of her yogurt and then threw caution to the wind and added a toasted muffin to her menu.  Edwards had been diligent in ensuring that there was always something vegetarian for her, an effort she didn't take for granted.  She smiled her thanks to him as he held the chair for her and then poured her some coffee.  "So today is the vicar and Mrs Galbraith?" she asked.

Betty Jo frowned at her toast.  "Too true."

Ian frowned at her frown. "Really, I think you'd be better off just forgetting the both of them."

"And let them pester you?" she asked.  "Making you cranky and difficult to live with?"

"Yes, well, I'm eager for them to make you the same, you know," Ian retorted.

Lev walked in then, Cele the cat at his heels. Ian grinned to see it.  "You've got cat hair on your shirt, Lev."

Dia looked at him, biting her lip.  "I really am sorry," she told him.  "I've no idea what Cele is thinking he's doing.  I sent him home twice along with Salem and they both came back right away."

Lev glared at her as he took a seat and looked up gratefully at Edwards who poured him strong coffee.  "Ian, I don't think we have much to worry about here. Mostly I'm still concerned about visits away from the manor. I don't suppose you'd consider not letting them go anywhere."

Ian looked at him. "I want to get a little this year," he replied.

Betty Jo snorted.  "You could always just ask, you know.  I'm a reasonable woman."

"Will you please stay home?" Lev asked.

"I've no problem not going to Bath.  Or Salisbury.  I'm afraid that the vicar and Mrs Galbraith are unavoidable.  But Dia can stay home.  Would that help?"  Betty Jo asked him.

"Lev, this is why I pay you the big bucks. Take them where they want to go.  But if they agree to put off the trips to Bath and Salisbury, I wouldn't mind."

Lev snorted this time.

Dia exchanged a glance with Betty Jo and then said.  "I'm as happy staying close to home.  Bath and Salisbury aren't going anywhere.  And I can do some work of my own while Betty's taking one for the team."

"See?   Now wasn't that easy?" Betty Jo asked Lev. 

"Right. Now tell Mrs. Galbraith I'm gay and I'll be a happy man."

"I'll slip that in over the scones," she promised.  "But she'll probably see that as a challenge to her womanhood or something so I'm not sure it will help you out."

Ian laughed. "Sorry, old fellow. All the mothers around here are of the old school. Find nice boys for their daughters. You could carry an Uzi over your shoulder. I think that would work better."

Dia laughed.  "Just the accessory for a garden tea party," she said.  "It'll be trend setting." 

In the doorway Cele and Salem appeared, gliding into the breakfast room, sinking onto their haunches on either side of the door like a matched pair of sphinxes.  They meowed loudly at the table, presumably a good morning.  Or maybe not as behind them in the doorway something shimmered.

Lev was on his feet and reaching for his pistol in one smooth motion. It was aimed squarely at the person shimmering into existence in the doorway.

"Oh bloody hell," Dia said and tossed her napkin on the table.  The cats seemed unconcerned, meowing a welcome to Wicket, emerging along with Miryam.  "How unbelievably crass, Mother."

"Your message said it was urgent, darling, so naturally I assumed you were expecting me," Miryam said.  She stared at the pistol pointed at her chest and then the man holding it.  "You'll do very well indeed, I'm pleased to see."

Betty Jo rang for Edwards.

It took a few minutes but things were arranged. Lev put his pistol away, clearly ignoring the comment, Ian stood and welcomed his new guest as if it were the most logical entrance possible, Edwards brought a table setting and fresh tea and coffee, and Miryam took the seat set for her beside Dia.

"Are you staying, Mrs...Batal is it?"

"Ms or Miss actually," she said.  "But Miryam is fine.  I've no idea if I'm staying or not, as I've yet to learn the nature of the urgency that elicited such a appeal for my help."

"Cut line, Mother.  You know exactly why I called you," Dia said.  "Cele is here.  I assume Elihu has died."

Miryam sipped some tea.  "Lovely, there's nothing like English tea."  She replaced the cup in the saucer and turned to her daughter.  "He was freed from this life yesterday.  He was buried early this morning, Israeli time."

"I grieve for your loss and my own."  She paused and when Miryam said nothing she went on,"  And the book?"

Miryam met her eyes, sipping more tea.

"Elihu?" Ian asked. "He was your teacher, I seem to recall?"

Dia nodded.  "And, unless I miss my guess, her lover my entire life," she said.

Miryam smiled and shrugged. 

"I see," Ian replied quietly. "I'm sorry for your loss then."

Lev was frowning as three cats stared at him.

"Thank you," Miryam said.  "That is most kind."  She returned her gaze to her daughter.  "He loved you.  He left you everything he had."

"And the book?" Dia pressed. 

"All of his books," Miryam said.  "His library is extensive, a lot of it very unique, very esoteric as you know."

"Will all of them be showing up here?" Ian asked, sitting back more comfortably.  "I only ask in that I'll have to make more room for Dia."

Miryam frowned sweetly.  "Why would they?  Is she relocating here permanently?  I thought this was only a visit."

Dia hit the table with her palm making the china clatter.  "Stop it," she said.  "I want to know about the Key of Solomon."

"You have a copy of the text?"

Dia leaned towards her, her eyes glittering dangerously, while the cats yowled softly.  "Are you being deliberately obtuse or is this your idea of a joke?  You forced...you forced the government to send me that book in the diplomatic pouch.  I want to know why."

Miryam settled back in her chair.  "If it was sent to you presumably it is because it is yours."

"And would have been every bit as much hers had it remained in Israel," Ian pointed out.

"One would assume so," Miryam said.

Dia hissed, shoving her chair back from the table and the cats yowled again.  Then she flicked her fingers outward, hard, palm upward followed by an equally hard grabbing motion and the book appeared floating an inch above her hand.  She snapped the fingers of her other hand and on the floor beside her a lit brazier appeared.  She  looked at her mother, moving the book over above the brazier.  "Tell me about this book or I'll conclude that it is of no importance and burn it."

Miryam met her stare.  "No you won't."

Dia let the book fall lower towards the brazier so that the leather binding began to smoke and stink from the flames.  "Watch me," she said.

Ian commented, "Her book, as you say. She may do as she likes with it. So I suggest you give her a reason to reconsider this option. "

Miryam eyed her daughter.  "You are still the same willful, impetuous..."

"Brat?" Dia finished for her, lifting her chin.   "Or have you picked another appellation?"

Miryam's expression didn't change.  "Elihu sent it."

"Dia, the smell of scorched leather is rather revolting.  Might you put the book down for a bit, or else hurry up and destroy it? It's quite putting me off breakfast," Ian commented quietly.

Dia flushed slightly and lifted the book out of the way of the flames.  Then she made a sweeping gesture with her hand and the smell was gone.  "I apologize," she said. 

Betty Jo reached over, patting her back.  "No need, honey."

"So, Miryam. If you had no intention of answering any of Dia's questions, why did you come?" Ian asked as he let Edwards pour him more tea.

"I have yet to be asked a question I can answer," Miryam said.

"Mother, this is not one of your exercises designed to train me nor am I seven years old anymore.  I am not going to play games with you, rephrasing my question until I stumble upon a formulation that pleases you.  You know something about the book and why it came to me, why it came to me here instead of remaining in Israel until I returned and you also know why you're being so bloody mysterious about the whole thing."

Miryam shook her head.  "In truth there is very little I can tell you.  Elihu was its caretaker.  When he realized he was going to die he determined that you were the one to whom the book should pass."

"Why me?" Dia demanded.  "Why not you?"

"Because I do not...meet, let us say, the requirements laid down when the book was created."

"Pleasant and prone to answer questions easily?" Ian suggested. "Willing to be reasonably coherent where possible? Coming to visit when invited but not otherwise?"

Miryam met his eyes with a smile.  "I am not a virgin," she said blandly.

"Ah, can the unicorn be far behind?" Lev muttered.

Betty Jo kicked him under the table.

"A rather silly requirement with regard to magic," Ian replied. "Personally I find requirements based on intelligence and bravery and common sense far more useful not to mention far more helpful."

"Oh I agree, but it wasn't up to me or Elihu.  And in those days virginity held more a universal cachet than it does now."

"In those days?" Dia said.

"When the text was created."

"You keep saying created, not written," Betty Jo said.

"Well," Miryam explained, "It is a more accurate term as Ian could explain.  It is as much a book as an object of power.  The writing was one of the ways the power was woven into the object."

"Words of power, rather than words merely as a tool for passing on information," Ian commented thoughtfully. "A fairly common usage in magic, especially so when books were rare and expensive in their own right. The mere act of writing, or being able to, elevated a person to the heights of power.  The Key of Solomon.." Ian let the thought float away.

"Actually that is a rather poor translation of the title, that has passed into common usage," Miryam said.  "It is really the 'Key to Solomon.'"

"Ah, so you are proposing that the book, in itself a treasure, leads onward to yet a greater treasure, and one not merely consisting of what knowledge it might reveal. Interesting. Yet all the more reason not to risk it sending it away from the place where its been safe for... for how long?"

"She was here, not there," Miryam said.  "The investment of the guardianship was not something that could be delayed.  It will be rather like it is with Salem.  Where Dia is the book will always be close by, if only in the spaces between."

"Spaces between?" Betty Jo asked, fascination plain.

"If you imagine reality as a layer and non-reality as another layer there is a space between them that is neither...neither here nor there, one or the other.  Sometimes called the neither-nor," Dia said.  "It is a place where, for example, one encounters the souls freeing themselves from this life or already freed but not yet born in the next cycle, who have also not yet completed the crossing to their next waystation.   It is dangerous for the living because one has no landmarks, no guideposts and souls easily lose their way back.  What she is saying is that the book in effect casts a shadow there that creates a tether between it and its guardian.  It explains, in a roundabout way, why it wasn't possible for the book to remain in Israel if I wasn't there."

"The neither-nor. Not a term I'm familiar with. Veils, interstices as Marc would say. Julian has a study which sits in between our time and others, which is much the same thing, it being tethered to him, so he can reach it no matter where he is.

"So, Dia, it seems you might want to leave it between the veils rather than keeping its manifestation in this reality.  It would be safer at any rate. For it, for you and for others," Ian concluded, looking over at Betty Jo.  Then after a pause he looked back at Miryam. "What did you mean about Lev?"

"Hang on a sec," Betty Jo said.  "Is this place the place Liam is able to navigate?"

"Liam?" Dia asked, signaling agreement to Ian as the book vanished along with the brazier.

Betty Jo nodded.  "Dinah told me about him once.  He's an Awakened, with a gift she said Stephen told her was unique to him.  She called him a soul hunter.  Like when Stephen was stabbed he almost died.  He gave up, was willing himself to die.  Liam brought him back, brought his soul back to his body."

"A rare gift indeed," Ian said. "Some mages, magicians and witches can navigate it obviously. I wouldn't have thought an Awakened would have the ability," Ian replied. "Others can as well, those not quite human."

Betty Jo nodded.  "Thanks.  That's all for now," she said, smiling.

"So Mother," Dia said, " What did you mean about Lev?"

Miryam looked at Lev.  "You will need a guardian.  It would appear it is he."

"No, my job is guarding Betty Jo," Lev replied easily. "More than happy to keep an eye on Dia whilst she's here but once she leaves, not my problem."

"And your whole life, you've always been the one who decides?" Miryam asked.

"Meaning what, exactly?" Lev asked, his eyes narrowing.

"Master of your fate, commander of your destiny, if you even admit such concepts."

"My life is my own. I do as I please, so yes, feel free to be snide all you like. I've no calling, no destiny."

"Tell me, how do you feel about learning a new thing?" she asked.

"And I should answer this, why?" Lev retorted. "You are an honored guest here, but my personal life is my own."

"I wouldn't have thought that question was all that personal, myself, but suit yourself.  How do you like Cele?"

"I don't."

Miryam laughed.  "I see.  How sad for you."

"You know, asking someone to do a thing generally works far better than manipulating them into it," Ian offered, regarding Lev's furious glare.

"I'm not asking him to do a thing.  Cele does as he pleases, as I'm sure you know."

"Ah, well then. Lev feel free to leave if you like. And you're still working for me."

Lev regarded Ian, nodded, then stood and turned with one fluid motion to walked out of the room.

Miryam looked at Dia.  "Was there anything else darling?"

"Oh I'm sure there's a number of things you know that you haven't told me.  But I'm not going to lower myself to the sort of cross-examination required to pry them out of you," Dia said.

"I'll take that as a no, then," she said.  "When may I expect you back in Tel Aviv?"

"I've no idea," Dia said.

"Well," Ian said rising. "Thanks for coming by. Next time, do ring first. We'll invite you to dinner."

"Indeed," she said.  "I am delighted to have met you both," she added, standing up.  "Do give my best regards to your father," she told Betty Jo.  "I trust he is well."

"He is," was her only response.

"I think you know your way out," Ian said. "Good day."

She smiled and winked out.

"Bitch!" Dia spat just as she vanished.

"So," Ian said. "What time was your meeting with the vicar, Betty Jo? I think I hear Lev bringing the car round."

"Whenever it is I reschedule it for," she said ringing for Edwards.  "Dia, honey," she said softly.

"I'm fine, " she said.  "I'm used to her by now.  I'm just sorry you both were subjected to that.  I should have known and spoken with her privately."  She glanced at Ian as Edwards came in.  "I'll speak to Lev.  She had no right."

Betty Jo whispered a few words to Edwards who nodded and then left to call the Vicar.

"Why don't you go tell him to put the car away," Ian suggested.  "He's probably feeling badly that he let your mother get to him."

She smiled and stood.  "Good idea."

Betty Jo watched her leave and then went over to sit next to Ian.  "You were notably restrained."

"Was I?" he asked, amusement touching his lips. "She reminded me of myself."

Betty Jo grinned.  "No, she's much worse.  There's an edge to her that you never have."

He frowned. "Perhaps not now, but in the recent past that edge was quite evident. It comes from feeling oneself important enough to believe you have the right to arrange other people's lives. As apparently she's done with Dia. Tell me, how does Dia get on with your father?"

"They're very close actually.  He tried real hard to give her what her mother never seemed to, once he knew about her.  And once he was sure Mama wasn't gonna castrate him."

Ian grinned. "I'd like to have overheard that conversation."  He paused and thought for a bit. "I'd like to bring Jonah in on this. He's knows more of Miryam than I do, and might be able to give Dia at least some answers that she needs, and give them freely without all the manipulative tactics. Would you ask Dia for me how she'd feel about that?"

"Sure, I can do that.  If she says yes, I'll call him and see when he can come by, if you'd like."

"Yes. Please do. Invite your mum too if you think that will be alright. And ask them to stay a few days if they can."

She nodded.  "Kiss me, please."

He looked at her. "In the dining room? In broad daylight?"

"The table is a horizontal surface and we're getting behind on my project."

"Yes, well, braziers of fire and magical books tend to distract me, darling. Ever so sorry about that."  He leaned forward to kiss her.

"I'll just have to work harder to focus your attention," she said, demonstrating what she meant.

With a thought he cleared the table and locked the doors. "You're doing the explaining to Cook and the maids," he threatened as he picked her up and sat her on the table.

"They'll never even say a word," she told him, as she stripped them both with a thought of her own.  "Besides it's all your fault."

"Mine," he asked his mouth moving downward along her neck, his hands moving upward along her thighs.

She pulled him closer.  "Yes.  If you weren't so good at this I wouldn't be so demanding."

He moved her thighs apart. "Ah, well, shall I attempt to mend my ways?"

She wrapped her legs around his hips.  "Only if me being demanding is a problem for you.  Like if say, it's more than you can handle."

He entered her and she gasped. "I'll let you know if it ever is. Don't hold your breath waiting for it."

"What breath?" she said.  "You never leave me any.

"Ah," he said as he thrust.  "My plan must be working."

"What plan?" she asked, barely getting the words out.

"To keep you content and happy," he said between thrusts.

"I'd say so," she said, her hands clenching on his arms, her legs tightening as he increased the pace.  "Which means, " she said, each word a gasp, "so's mine."

"Oh?" he asked, freeing a hand long enough to push her hair out of her face as she shuddered under him. "Which plan is that?"

"To make you happy enough to want to keep me," she managed finally, as he slowed, driving her crazy. 

"There's no way I could ask you to leave," he said as he kissed the hollow of her throat and thrust into her suddenly, making her nearly scream with the sudden orgasm.

When she could speak again, as he started thrusting deeper, "You'd have to force me to leave," she whispered and then covered his mouth with hers.

As he reached orgasm, and she clung to him during it, he just held onto her. Then finally when it was over, he laughed weakly. "I love you, Betty Jo DuBois. And so far as I'm concerned my life and yours are intertwined as long as you want it that way."

"I love you too, Adrian Blakesley, so that's going to be a very long time," she said. 

Dia found Lev leaning against the car, staring at the trees to the side of the house.  She already bothered him, she knew. This would only make it worse.

He turned his head to watch her walking toward him. "I'm very sorry to have been rude to you. I don't like your mother much, but that is hardly an excuse."

She reached out a hand towards him and then stopped, letting it fall before it touched him.  "No, you've nothing to apologize for.  She's...she's a bitch, that's the only word there is for it.  And she brings out the worst in people.  I'm just really sorry for all this, for her and the cats and everything.  Plus I know me being here makes it harder to protect Betty, especially now."

His eyes had gone back to the trees but he turned now to meet her eyes. "I died for a cause once.  Well, as near to dying for a cause as one can get. I prefer to choose my path based on reason these days.  Passion, either for a person or a cause, gets you nothing but misery."

"Certainly hers has." Dia said.

"Don't worry about the cat. He and I have come to an accommodation. As for the rest of it, Betty Jo will be fine. She wants you here. Don't go all noble and take off."

"You'd tell me, wouldn't you, if my being here changes that, that she's really at risk?" Dia asked after a moment.

He met her eyes and said, "If I think you are a threat to her I will tell you," he replied evenly.

She smiled faintly.  "Ah, that answers my other question as well.  Thank you for saving me from having to ask it."

He cocked his head at her. "So, we aren't going to the Vicar's meeting?"

"No, we're rescheduling.  And also, possibly, hopefully, canceling Mrs. Galbraith, too."

"Ah, good. I've run out of polite excuses as to why I don't want any more cucumber sandwiches."