Follow-Up Week, Day Six

Saturday, October 6, 2007
2560 St. Ann's Avenue
North Bellmore, NY

Ray flopped back in one of his sister's chairs and rubbed at his face with both hands. He'd all but forgotten, over the course of his time in Melcene and Nyissa, just how badly his sister reacted to certain things. Oh, sure, she'd come to a measure of acceptance once, but between the Dr. Mezga incident and today's headlines, it really just wasn't a good week for her. At least she was still letting him teach the boys as his apprentices. He'd been worried about that. Of course, it helped that she was in Montauk just now and all he had to deal with was her husband, Alan.

"Hey, Ray?" called Alan from the kitchen. "Do you have any problems with ordering Chinese tonight? The boys and I don't usually bother with cooking when Catherine's away."

"No, I'm good," Ray said. "Do you have a menu?"

"Sure. Joey? Send your uncle a menu, would you?"

"I need a line of sight, uncle Ray!"

Ray headed into the kitchen. Alan Haff, a tall, somewhat angular man in his late thirties, watched with some amusement as his five year old son concentrated fiercely on the paper lying on the kitchen counter. A few moment later it lifted into the air and wafted its way over to where Ray was standing. "Thank you," Ray said.

"You're welcome, Uncle Ray," said Joey. "Dad, can I go play in the backyard?"

"Only if you and Alex are back inside by the time the delivery man rings the doorbell," said Alan. Joey nodded and dashed out the back door.

"Wow," said Ray. "I didn't know you guys were letting them use their talents so casually around here."

"We're not," said Alan. "Not usually, anyway. I don't want them taking it so lightly that they start abusing it in public."

"Thank you," said Ray as he scanned the poultry section of the menu. "That makes my job a lot easier, having their parents' support."

"I don't know that I'd go that far," said Alan wryly. "Catherine's still not enthusiastic about the prospect, you know."

"I know," Ray admitted. "I'm really sorry. I don't know what else to tell you guys, except that with the way they're doing it now, it probably would've hit a little before puberty whether I was here or not."

Alan nodded slowly, leaning against the counter. "We owe you some thanks, then," he said. "It could've gone a lot worse, huh?"

"It really could've," Ray said. "You know, I probably should've said this months ago, but you're taking this a lot better than I ever thought you would."

"Because I'm married to your sister?" Alan asked, amused.

"Well-" Ray hesitated; Alan held up a hand.

"Ray, there's something you ought to know. I need to ask you not to mention it to Catherine. She really wouldn't take it very well."

Ray eyed the other man with more than a little suspicion. "What?" he asked warily.

"Nothing harmful. At least, not as far as I know. It's... more of a reputation thing, or at least it was originally. But it's a big part of why I'm not as taken aback by all this as my wife. Promise me you won't tell her I said this?"

"If you insist," said Ray, the menu forgotten in his hand.

Alan nodded. "All right. It's like this. My great-grandmother on my father's side came over from England when she was a young woman, looking for work as a nurse. Great-grandma Lil never really talked about her family growing up, and I got the impression she didn't really like 'em very much. I didn't find out about why until I did some genealogical research."

Ray winced. "That's never a good thing," he said. "Should I sit down?"

"Probably not," said Alan. "It's not all that big a thing now, but back then- well, it was enough to make Great-Grandma Lil very, very happy to take Sam Haff's last name when she got married. It just turned out that she'd been giving the rest of the family a fake maiden name all along, too."

"Uh huh," Ray said; he still wasn't sure he shouldn't be sitting down for this.

Alan shrugged. "I don't really blame her," he said. "Remember, this was the 1920's. The last name 'Crowley' wasn't exactly a ticket to popularity in polite society."

Ray blinked a few times. "You don't mean as in-"

"I don't know, Ray, I honestly don't. Great-Grandma Lil's Ellis Island papers said her mother's name was Rose Kelly, and that she was a divorcee. I haven't had the chance to look her up any more than that, but the one time I looked up Crowley in the encyclopedia, he was married to a woman named Rose Edith Kelly for a while."

"Oh, man," said Ray. "Considering that the popular press was calling him the wickedest man in the world for ages-"

"You can see why my great-grandmother wouldn't've wanted to have a name even the least bit associated with him, whether they were related or not," Alan confirmed. "And why it would be something of a family tradition to keep it quiet. Great-Grandma wanted her kids to be respectable citizens, and she kept my grandfather and his siblings as far from any unusual or weird studies and interests as possible. Grandpa Richard wouldn't even let my father dress up and go trick-or-treating at Halloween. The way I see it, you don't really put that much emphasis on keeping quiet about something unless there's a really good chance that it's for real."

"And you don't worry so much about kids getting interested in weird things-"

"Unless they're likely to turn weird on you," Alan confirmed. "So... you can see why I'm not really all that surprised about the boys. Or about what you do. Or anything else that's been going on lately, for that matter."

"Wow. So what are you going to do about it?"

"Do?" Alan shrugged. "Nothing to do. I'm a family practitioner, Ray. That's all. Nothing spectacular, nothing extraordinary. My sons are the extraordinary ones in this family. If they inherited it from a great-great-grandfather I'm not even sure about, so what? All the more reason to make sure that someone morally trustworthy teaches them how to use them. God knows Catherine and I aren't suited to it, and Sensei Chris and Sensei Darren have their hands full already."

"Thanks," Ray said, grateful and a little bit awed. "I don't know what to say."

"Well, you can start by saying what you want for dinner. I'm starved."