Grandma Margot pulled up her sleeve to expose her white, darkly spotted right forearm. "I have my moles, Prentice. They tell me things."

I laughed. She looked inscrutable. "Sorry, gran?"

She tapped her wrist with one long pale finger; there was a large brown mole there. Her eyes were narrowed. She leaned closer still and tapped the mole again. "Not a sausage, Prentice."

"Well," I said, not sure whether to try another laugh. "No."

"Not for eight years, not a hint, not a sensation." Her voice was low, almost husky. She looked as though she was enjoying herself.

"I give in, gran; what are you talking about?"

"My moles, Prentice." She arched one eyebrow, then sat back with a sigh in her wheelchair. "I can tell what's going on in this family by my moles. They itch when people are talking about me, or when something… remarkable is happening to the person." She frowned. "Well, usually." She glared at me, prodded me in the shoulder with her stick. "Don't tell your father about this; he'd have me committed."

"Gran! Of course not! And he wouldn't, anyway!"

"I wouldn't be too sure of that." Her eyes narrowed again.

I leant on one of the chair's wheels. "Let me get this right; your moles itch when one of us is talking about you?"

She nodded, grim. "Sometimes they hurt, sometimes they tickle. And they can itch in different ways, too."

"And that mole's Uncle Rory's?" I nodded incredulously at the big mole on her right wrist.

That's right," she said, tapping the stick on one footrest of the wheelchair. She held up her wrist and fixed the raised brown spot with an accusatory glare. "Not a sausage, for eight years."

I stared at the dormant eruption with a sort of nervous respect, mingled with outright disbelief. "Wow," I said at last.