Untamed

would guess that by now Shekinah has told Neferet I'm here, wouldn't it seem very unusual behavior for her?"
    "Yes," I admitted reluctantly.
    "It would be more than unusual—it would be utterly bizarre," Aphrodite said.
    "Then you must return to your room so that we give Neferet no reason to look more closely at us than she already has," Grandma said. "But, you will not sleep unprotected." Grandma got up a little stiffly and went over to her pile of bags. She started digging through the pretty blue carry-on she liked to call her "overnight bag."
    First she pulled out a beautiful dream catcher. It was a leatherwrapped circle with lavender-colored string webbed inside, and caught within the center of the web was a smooth turquoise stone, the breathtaking blue of a summer sky. The feathers that hung in three tiers from the sides and the bottom were the pearl gray of a dove. Grandma handed the dream catcher to Aphrodite.
    "It's gorgeous!" she said. "Really. I absolutely adore it."
    "I'm glad you like it, child. I know many people believe dream catchers do nothing more than filter good dreams—or maybe not even that. I've made several of them lately, and as I wove the protective turquoise within the center of each one, I thought about the need to filter more than bad dreams from our lives. Take this and hang it in your window. May its spirit protect your sleeping soul from harm."
    "Thank you, Grandma," Aphrodite said sincerely.
    "And one more thing." Grandma turned back to her bag, searched a little while, and then brought out a pillar candle that was a creamy white color. "Light this on your bedside table while you sleep. I spoke protective words over it last full moon and let it soak up the rays of moonlight all that night."
    "Been a little obsessed with protection lately, Grandma?" I asked with a grin. After seventeen years, I was used to Grandma's weird way of knowing things she shouldn't know—like when guests were coming, or a tornado was brewing (long before Doppler 8 was invented)—or, in this case, when we would need protecting.
    "It is always wise to be cautious, u-we-tsi-a-ge-ya. " She took Aphrodite's face between her hands and kissed her lightly on her forehead. "Sleep well, little daughter, and may your dreams be happy ones."
    I watched Aphrodite blink her eyes hard and knew she was struggling not to cry. "Night," she managed. Waving at me, she hurried from the room.
    Grandma didn't say anything for a little while; she just gazed thoughtfully at the closed door. Finally she said, "I don't believe that girl has ever known the warmth of a mother's love."
    "You're right again, Grandma," I said. "She used to be so awful, no one could stand her, especially not me, but I think most of it was an act. Not that she's perfect. She's majorly spoiled and shallow, and sometimes she can be seriously hateful, but she's . . ." I paused, trying to put Aphrodite into words.
    "She's your friend," Grandma finished for me.
    "You know, you're freakishly close to perfect," I told her.
    Grandma grinned impishly. "I know. It runs in our family. Now, help me hang our dream catcher and light our moon candle—then you need to get some sleep."
    "Aren't you going to sleep? I got you up in the middle of the night, and you said you'd already been up for hours."
    "Oh, I'll sleep for a while, but I have plans. I don't get to town often enough, and while my vampyre family sleeps, I'm going to do a little shopping and take myself out to a lovely lunch at the Chalkboard."
    "Yum! I haven't been there since last time you and I went."
    "Well, sleepyhead, I'll let you know if it's as good as we remember, and then maybe the next really rainy day, you and I will revisit it together."
    "So really you eating lunch there is just reconnoitering to be sure it hasn't gone downhill?" I pulled the chair over to the window and searched for someplace to hook the dream catcher Grandma handed me.
    "That's exactly it. Honey, what do you want to do with the nanny cam?" Grandma held up one of the little viewscreens. Even though it was turned off, she handled it carefully, as if it might be an explosive device.
    I sighed. "Aphrodite told me that there's an audio feed with it. Can you see a sound button?"
    "Yes, I believe this is it." Grandma pressed a button, and a green light came on.
    "Okay, well, why don't we just leave on the audio, without the video? I'll put it by my bedside. If anything stirs, I should be able to hear it."
    "Much better than watching the