"She waited a moment longer, thinking something, then beamedapproval at me. She came up and kissed me on the cheek. "Sweetie," she said. "My defiant...darling! That was very brave,and also very sensible. It's as I've always suspected, you'remarvelous! Strong enough to handle nearly anything! A natural!"A natural what? She didn't say. Instead, obviously feeling goodabout herself and me, almost humming aloud, she wandered over tothe mail, examined it, left the bills for me to pay, picked up. Yeah, I’m in the right place. “Wha?” I start to ask but his smile cuts me off. “The 5-0, po-9, feds, po po, whatever you wanna refer to ‘em as.” Immediately I picture him watching through his curtains with a cigarette in his mouth as I try to deter to the police. I almost laugh, but then I remember my anxiety. “Oh,” I answer nervously. “I’m Joel, but you can call me Papa Joe, Big Joe, doesn’t matter, and you?” he says, pulling out a box of cigarettes from the pocket in his shirt. I knew. From what Ellen had told me, this didn't sound at all like what Joyce had been actually training her for."Can you do everything that Joyce does, figure out what product needs to be sent where?" No. She isn't teaching me that. She's showing me how to do what she said she wanted. I can do that now. It isn't even that hard for me."I got up and went to shower. Ellen came with me. From her actions in the shower, she was obviously hoping I had some more immediate designs on her body. I didn't have. She groaned and sat up flicking her lamp on to illuminate her room she had too many thoughts running through her head, the loss of Kenspeckle and tanith, her being Darquesse and how she let slip that she was in love with fletcher. She also thought about Caelan but she pushed it to the back of her mind. She turned toward her wardrobe to put on her black clothes and saw the figure she flinched back clicking her fingers on impulse summoning a flame that illuminated the face of her Reflection. She.