He was looking too closely into her face. Possibly he hadn't heard her.

She set her voice to the proper tone and said, "I'm sure that-"

"Justine, how much do you know?"

"What?"

"This telling fortunes. This bunk. This-piffle," said her grandfather, and he brushed something violently off his sleeve. "I hate the very thought of it."

"You've told me all that, Grandfather."

"It's not respectable. Your aunts go into a state whenever we speak of it. You know what people call you? 'The fortune teller.' Like 'the cleaner,' 'the greengrocer.' 'How's that granddaughter of yours, Judge Peck, the fortune teller. How's she doing?' Ah, it turns my stomach."

Justine picked up her magazine and opened to a page, any page.

"But, Justine," her grandfather said, "I ask you this. Is there anything to it at all?"

Her eyes snagged on a line of print.

"Do you really have some inkling of the future?"

She shut the magazine. He locked her in a fierce, steady frown; his intensity made everything around him seem pale.

"I want to know if I will find my brother," he said.

Yet immediately afterward he turned away, watching the train's descent into the blackness beneath Manhattan. And Justine repacked her straw bag and brushed cheese crumbs off her lap and put her coat on, her expression calm and cheerful. Neither one of them appeared to be waiting for anything more to be said.

Because they were trying to save money, they took the subway from Penn Station. Justine loved subways. She enjoyed standing on them, gripping a warm, oily metal pole, feet planted slightly apart and knees dipping with the roll of the train as they careened through the darkness. But her grandfather distrusted them, and once they were off the shuttle and onto the IRT, he made her sit down. He continually rotated his face, scanning the car for enemies. Silent young people returned his stare.