Certainly, something else I wanted to know was whether or not Felicity’s preternatural incident had actually been her body being used as a horse by the Lwa. I was almost certain that it was, but there was still a small, nagging doubt. What if it was something else entirely? I couldn’t imagine what that might be; however, I couldn’t deny that she had been known to channel both the dead and the living herself, just like me. Her brush with that affliction was something for which I blamed myself because she had opened herself up to the other side of the veil when trying to protect me. And, as I had discovered, once they had their foot in the door, it was all over. They were unwanted houseguests with no intention of ever leaving.

Still, channeling was one thing. In this case what she had done was completely out of the park, at least in my experience. Either way, the thing that troubled me even more was whether or not it was going to happen again, whatever the cause turned out to be.

Therefore, it was for those reasons, and a number of others, that I once again found myself sitting in front of my computer, books piled about me, and the contact page of a university’s website glowing on my screen.

I suddenly noticed that the page was now finished loading, and the screen had been refreshed. In fact, it probably had been for several minutes because, in truth, I had just caught myself staring off into space. I rocked forward in my desk chair and looked at the blurry lines of type displayed against a muted background.

I rubbed my eyes then pushed my glasses back up onto the bridge of my nose. I blinked hard, trying not only to focus but also to forget the headache that was still raging inside my skull. Finding what I was after, I picked up the telephone handset and put it against my ear. Glancing between the phone and my monitor, I punched in the number listed on the web page before me. Before it even began to ring at the other end, I rocked back in my chair and began idly moving the mouse across the surface of my desk as if doodling on a notepad. A moment later, the buzzing tones abated and were followed by the sound of the phone being taken off-hook.