Tied With a Bow

she cried, indignant.
    “Now pretend you have some manners so I can introduce you. Benedict, this brat is my cousin Seri. Seri, this is Benedict.”
    Benedict had bent to offer Havoc his hand to sniff. Either the little terrier had forgotten their earlier encounter, or she’d decided all that dominance stuff was resolved. He straightened and held out his hand. “Good to meet you.”
    Seri let go of Arjenie and smiled to give Benedict the benefit of her dimples as she took his hand. “You’re a big one, aren’t you?”
    “Big enough. I hear you like to ski.”
    “I love to ski, and I’m good at it. Much better than my twin.”
    Sammy arrived with a snort of amusement. “She likes to fall down. Good at it, too.”
    “And who broke a leg winter before last?”
    Sammy turned to Benedict. “I’m the better skier, but like I said, she falls really well. Much better at falling than me. She’s had so much practice. I’m Samuel, but everyone calls me Sammy.”
    He didn’t hold out a hand, but then, his hands were full with those sacks.
    “Good to meet you,” Benedict said. “You’ve been collecting holly.”
    “For wreaths. Seri got this notion that she just had to make a couple wreaths, and nothing would do for that but fresh holly, so we’ve been tramping around the woods for hours. Not that the wreaths won’t look great, but—”
    “They know about Uncle Nate’s dream,” Arjenie told him.
    “Oh. Well, in addition to looking gorgeous, they’ll offer some protection when we add the elderberries and a whiff of magic.”
    “Hazel,” Seri said firmly, and bent to pick up Havoc, who was panting tiredly.
    Sammy shook his head. “Not hazel. I keep telling you—”
    “Why reinvent the wheel when—”
    “Persimmon seeds worked in the—”
    “Which was a totally different—”
    “But without the lemongrass. I know.”
    “Feverfew?”
    “Not unless the North is—”
    “I don’t think so. West and Air.”
    “Air? Air? Are you nuts? See you inside,” Sammy added to them, and the twins moved off with Seri stroking Havoc, arguing in the abbreviated way that made sense only to them.
    Benedict watched them leave, his head cocked. “Are they telepathic?”
    “Not in the usual sense,” Robin said. “I wonder what they’re up to.”
    “Ah.” Arjenie nodded. “I wondered about the feverfew. Feverfew does not make sense for protective wreaths.”
    “Plus they were off the land for about an hour earlier.”
    “You didn’t ask them about it.”
    “They’d tell me they were gathering holly. Which they undoubtedly did, and if I asked what else they were doing, they’d tell me what they saw on their walk, where they stopped to look at an ant bed or something. Everything that actually occurred except the thing they don’t want me to know about.” She looked at Benedict. “They don’t lie to me, but they are ingenious about avoiding the truth at times.”
    His eyebrows lifted. “You think they called Coyote here?”
    She shook her head. “They’re up to something, but not that. They know better. Magically speaking, you can mix traditions in a spell if you’re careful, experienced, and knowledgeable. But invocation is spiritual magic. Spiritual magic is accessed through faith, through a particular religious or spiritual practice. Basically, they’re too Wiccan to try contacting Native Powers.”
    “You’re sure of this.”
    Arjenie exchanged a look with her aunt. “They know better,” Robin repeated.
    “Feedback loop,” Arjenie said.
    A small V appeared between Aunt Robin’s eyebrows. She looked at the house, where the back door was just shutting behind the twins. “Feedback loop,” she said slowly, “is family shorthand for what happens when Sammy and Seri stop arguing.”
    Arjenie could tell Benedict needed more explanation. “When one of the twins gets an idea in his or her head and gets the other one to buy into it, a self-contained reality sets up shop in their heads. It is very hard to penetrate all that certainty. Sometimes,” she added, wanting to be fair, “they’re even right. Like with Amos Brown.”
    Robin sighed. “Being right one time in five just makes them harder to convince the other four times.”
    Arjenie thought about the summer of the aliens, the “gate” that blew up a small utility shed, and the time the twins decided everyone was wrong and telekinesis really could be used to fly. “They’re older now,” she said, trying to convince