“Summer! What happened?” Vixen cried. “Are you all right?”

“Yeah, I’m all right, I guess,” Summer replied. “Just pissed off, hurt, and humiliated. That asshole!”

“What happened?” Jack asked.

“I came down here with Rusty Frankovich to see a movie,” Summer replied, obviously exasperated. “I . . . I didn’t really want to come down here with him, but his dad works with my dad so they thought it would be all right. Right in the middle of the movie he put his hand on my . . . on my . . . on my boob, damn it, and when I told him to take it away, he wouldn’t. So I slapped him and he went storming out. I don’t see him , and I don’t have any way home unless I call my folks. That was pretty damn rude of him on a first date.”

Jack and Vixen looked at each other and grinned wordlessly. After all, this was still technically their first date, and it was pretty clear to both of them that if they’d gone through a second movie there would be more than a little more touchy-boobie on the outside of Vixen’s shirt – maybe much more.

“Yeah, sure, we’ll take you home,” Jack said, realizing that there was little else that he could say. He made a huge mental note to not say anything about what he’d seen the previous afternoon. He hadn’t even thought of mentioning it to Vixen; only the woman at the photo shop knew anything about that little incident from him. Considering the fact that Summer still seemed pretty wrought up, he didn’t even want to think about how high she would blow up if she knew there were several nude photos of her sitting in the notebook in his room. “I don’t know why you’d want to even consider going out with a jerk like Frankovich, though.”

“It wasn’t my idea,” Summer sniffed, settling down a little. “It was my dad’s. I thought it was a dumb idea and I was right.”

“Well, come on,” Vixen said gently. “You’re safe now. I agree, Rusty is a jerk, but there are some good guys around. Jack is one of them, you know that.”

“Yeah, I . . . ” Summer started, then a realization came over her. “You two are here together?”

“Yeah, so?” Jack smiled. “We decided to come down and catch a movie and have some dinner. Which makes me think, are you real anxious to get home? We could do a drive-through if you are.”

“You’re dating?’ Summer said in amazement. “I hadn’t heard that!”

“Well, a little,” Vixen grinned. “We’ve been hanging out some, doing some birding and like that. This is the first time we’ve gone to a movie.”

“Well, I’ll be darned,” Summer shook her head. “I wouldn’t have thought that the two of you would get together, but when I see it, it makes sense. Look, I really don’t want to screw up your evening. I can still call my dad. It would serve him right to have to come down here to pick me up.”

“No, that would just cause more trouble,” Jack replied wisely. “If you want to come along, that’s fine with me. Just don’t order the most expensive thing on the menu, my pockets are getting a little light until I can get some work done the first of the week.”

“Oh, you don’t have to buy me dinner, too,” Summer protested. “I’ve got money, and I think I already owe you more than enough as it is for rescuing me down here.”

“No big deal,” Jack shrugged. “That’s what friends are for. Let’s get out of here.”

The three of them headed outside. She was a little surprised to have Jack and Vixen lead her over to the truck, but Jack explained that he’d traded with his dad for the evening. “It’ll be a little snug, but no problem,” he smiled.

“Dibs on the middle,” Vixen grinned.

Still being gentlemanly, Jack held the door of the truck for Vixen and Summer to get in, then walked around to the driver’s side. He barely had his seat belt on before Vixen was snuggled up next to him, like she’d been in the movie, but without the interference of an arm rest between them. Jack glanced at her expression, which had a touch of evil in it. Well, not evil, just advertising to Summer. I’ve got a boyfriend and you don’t. As he drove out of the parking lot he was glad that the truck had an automatic transmission; it would be tough to have to drive a stick with his right arm lodged around Vixen. As before, it felt strange but good to have it where it was. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the faint smile on Summer’s face. She’d gotten the message.

They weren’t like that long though; the restaurant was right up the street. Jack felt just a little bit frustrated now about having Summer along – there was no way that he and Vixen were going to have that conversation they’d discussed on the way out of the movie. Maybe that wasn’t all bad; it probably was going to run to something around the idea of “Let’s not go too fast.” And really, he didn’t want to be all that fast; he’d enjoyed snuggling up to Vixen enough, along with everything else, that he didn’t want to run the risk of going too fast and lousing things up. He knew a good deal when he saw it, and from what he’d seen today he was on to a good thing.

They found a booth in the back corner of the restaurant; Summer sat on one side of the table, while Vixen snuggled up next to him. “So, Summer,” Vixen asked after the waitress brought them menus and water, “have you heard what’s been going around?”

“Apparently not, if you two are dating,” Summer shook her head. “Actually, my grandmother has been visiting, so I haven’t been keeping up the last few days.”

“You didn’t hear about Mr. Ordway, then?”

“No, what about him?”

“We found him dead this afternoon,” Vixen said. “At least we think it was him, we didn’t get a good look.”

“Dead? Mr. Ordway?” Summer replied in shock. “No, I hadn’t heard that. What happened?”

“Don’t know,” Jack said. “We found him while we were out birding on the point this afternoon. Maybe I’ve watched too much TV, but we decided we’d better not mess up the scene if someone killed him. We went back to the Jeep and called the sheriff on Vixen’s cell. The deputy said later that he thought he’d been dead for a while.”

“Mr. Ordway?” Summer shook her head. “That’s hard to believe. I mean, he was, well, strange, but it just seems too weird to find out that he’s dead. I only had one class with him, and that was enough.”

“I’ll be curious to find out a little more about it myself. My guess is that we’ll have to wait till the Record-Herald comes out before we find out what happened.”

“Things change,” Summer said. “You know, it’s hard to believe that we were all little kids together in kindergarten not all that long ago. This time next summer we’re going to be heading off to college. At least I am, are the two of you planning on it?”

“Well, yeah,” Jack said. “I’m interested in wildlife biology, like that’s a surprise. I don’t know where I’m going yet but I’ve got a list of schools I’m investigating.”

“I’m going to college,” Vixen said flatly. “I don’t know where yet, or for what, but I figure that college is the best ticket out of Spearfish Lake I’m ever going to find. How about you? Do you have any ideas?”

“Oh, I’ve got ideas,” Summer said slowly. “I’m not real sure about what I’m going to be studying either. Maybe nursing. Nurses rarely have trouble finding a job, and they can go just about anywhere. I think I’m going to try to be independent for a while and see some of the country.”

“That’s something I’ve thought about,” Vixen said, “but there’s some other things, too. I don’t really have to make up my mind until next spring, and there’s ways I could delay that. I’ve given some thought to taking off a year after high school and doing something interesting. They call it a ‘gap year,’ and I don’t know but what I may have spent enough time in classrooms and need the break. On the other hand, I don’t know where the money would come from, and I don’t want to live at home, so there’s a good reason to at least do something. Either way, I sure am going to be glad to be done with high school.”

“No kidding,” Summer agreed. “I’m getting real tired of it myself, especially considering the number of jerks like Rusty Frankovich running around school. That doesn’t mean there won’t be jocks and jerks in college, but Spring tells me that there are fewer of them.”

“That’s something to look forward to,” Vixen agreed. “Jack and I were talking about it the other night. He wants to go to some school in a different part of the country, and I think it makes some sense, at least if the other part of the country is a little warmer than Spearfish Lake. I’m getting awful tired of Spearfish Lake winters.”

“Well, yeah, so am I,” Jack agreed. “I’d kind of like to go some place where the birds are a little different. I’m thinking maybe Florida or out west somewhere, maybe California or something. On the other hand, that could get expensive. The bottom line is that I don’t want to go anyplace that’s real close to home if I can help it. Maybe I can find a smaller school somewhere with the program I want and no football team.”

“That would be nice,” Summer agreed. “That would mean no football jocks running around. Spring goes to State, that’s a big football school. She says that the jocks are a pain in the ass but the fans are even worse.”

“There you go,” Jack smiled. “That cuts the list down right there. Now if I can find a place that meets those qualifications and isn’t a religious school, we’ve probably got a winner.”

“You’re right on that,” Summer agreed. “I’d just as soon find a place where they don’t shove Christianity down your throats all the time. This country was founded on the idea of religious freedom and I can’t see why anyone would want to give that up. There’s all too many places that are just not very tolerant of anyone with different ideas or different traditions.”

Jack tried to keep himself from smiling or otherwise giving himself away. And just who do we know, he thought, who has some really different ideas and traditions about religion? It sure would be fun to talk to Summer about that sometime, but this obviously wasn’t the time or the place. Fortunately, Summer was focusing on what Vixen was saying and didn’t notice his look of amusement.

“Yeah, I sure wouldn’t want to go to a place like that,” Vixen agreed. “My mother has tried to shove Christianity down my throat all my life and I’m sick of it. Yeah, there may be some good ideas there, but to make a fetish out of it just makes me sick. I mean, hell, do what you want to do, that’s fine, just don’t expect me to do things your way because you do them that way.”

“Well, we’ve got some time to look,” Jack suggested, hoping to veer the discussion away from what he suspected was dangerous ground. “Maybe we ought to get together some time and exchange notes or something.”

“Yeah, maybe we could,” Summer agreed with a grin that held an obvious double meaning. “I’ll bet the two of you will be exchanging some notes this year.”

“Naw, that’s elementary school stuff,” Vixen laughed, getting Summer’s joke. “But yeah, maybe we should talk about it some sometime.”

The waitress came for their order then, and after she left the discussion went into other areas. Jack still had his memory of seeing Summer the day before rattling around in his mind, a little more loudly than it had earlier in the day. The thing had seemed so, well, solemn! He suspected that there was more than a little something going on with Summer that she wasn’t willing to talk about, and Vixen’s suggestion of Wiccan seemed to lead the list of possibilities. Last night, he’d had the idea of getting on the internet to see what he could find out about it, but with everything happening he just hadn’t had the time. It seemed clear that they were going to get back a little earlier than they’d planned tonight, so maybe he could spend a few minutes on the ’Net.

Really, it was none of his damn business, and if she wanted to keep it a secret it was her right. After all, if the fact that she was a Wiccan was public knowledge, Summer would really take a beating from some of the pinheaded religious types around Spearfish Lake, like Vixen’s mother. That could really get ugly.

Half an hour later, they had eaten and were on the road back to Spearfish Lake. The sun was still in the sky, but it was getting low and would soon be setting. There were two or three places on the way back where Jack gave some thought to making a quick stop to check out the bird activity, even without binoculars or other gear, but having Summer along squelched that idea. Maybe, Jack thought, after we drop Summer off, Vixen and I can go somewhere and talk about what we discussed earlier.

Finally! This long, drag-ass day was ending, Sharon Nancarrow thought as she waited out the final minutes in the photo shop in the mall. A straight twelve hours stank to high heaven, but it was the price she had to pay to get the time off the day before to go to the Circle’s Venus Rite for Summer. It was rare to have that many people get together for a Circle at any time, let alone when Lughnasadh fell on a week day, so she hadn’t wanted to miss it. But twelve hours without a break, without a chance to leave the photo shop, that just plain sucked rocks. Goddess knew she was tired!

But still, she needed to call Eloise or Rowan to let them know about the photos that boy had brought in not long after opening. He’d been really casual about them, like they didn’t mean anything to him, but boys will be boys and it seemed likely that he’d run his mouth sooner or later. What really made her uncomfortable was that she wasn’t supposed to make personal phone calls at work, even on her cell – not that her boss had been around, but she just hadn’t been willing to risk it since there was a security camera in the shop. She didn’t know if he looked at it or not, but Goddess knew that Murphy ruled in such things. If there was one point that he looked at the tape, that would be it. While those who followed the Old Way didn’t believe in Satan, Sharon believed in Murphy’s Law – what can go wrong, will go wrong. It would just not do to be caught discussing Circle business on a security camera!

Sharon only knew a handful of people who followed the Old Way, only a couple of them outside the Circle, and they were just foundlings, not brought up in the Old Way like she had been, like her mother and Rowan had been – and like Rowan’s daughters had been. The Old Way – the real Old Way, not the modern rantings of foundlings – had been passed down from grandmother and mother to daughters from time immemorial, so far back that Sharon could scarcely imagine it. The trail that could be followed reached back a good seven hundred years, but it was only part of the trail, whose beginnings had been lost in many more centuries than that. Buddha, Christ, Mohammed were all new kids on the block compared to the long, shrouded history of the Old Way.

Generally speaking, men didn’t know of the Old Way, at least in the way Sharon knew about it. Her husband was aware that she participated in some family traditions that were closed to men, but knew nothing of the details. That wasn’t saying that there weren’t men who knew about it, but Sharon didn’t know of any. It was strictly a woman thing, a family thing, a thing to be kept quiet, especially from men. The followers of the Old Way had been persecuted for a thousand years and more. While they didn’t burn discovered followers at the stake anymore, the combined wisdom of fifty generations was that when outsiders discovered a Circle of the Old Way, trouble soon followed. To have this kid walk right up on a skyclad Venus Rite with a camera was just about unthinkable. But it had happened, which just went to show that Murphy really did rule even where the Goddess was concerned.

Only a few more minutes, and she could try to call Rowan, to call Eloise. She probably should just have closed the store and called, but in spite of everything she didn’t want to lose her job – they could be hard to find in this place at the best of times. She wondered if she even dared use her cell phone from her car – people could listen in on cell phones with the right electronic equipment, after all. The other alternative was to call from home, unthinkable with her husband around, or find a pay phone that was fairly private and they were getting pretty hard to find in this day of cell phones. There were none in the mall that she knew of. She knew it would have been possible to drive to Spearfish Lake to see Rowan and Eloise personally but if she did it would be almost impossible to explain to her husband. That pretty well meant cell phone or nothing. Only a few more minutes, now.

Still trying to keep the truck clean, Jack took the long way into town. Actually, with having to drop Summer off it really wasn’t all that far to her house. They’d kept up a pretty good conversation along the way, although Jack had let Vixen and Summer carry a lot of it while his mind kept straying back to the scene the day before. One thing he’d noticed while they were eating is that after the waitress brought their food, Summer had tried to avoid notice as she looked down at the plate silently for a second. It sure looked like a prayer to Jack, although after Summer’s rant about not wanting Christianity rammed down her throat a few minutes before it couldn’t help but make him wonder.

In another few minutes he pulled to a stop in front of the Trevetheck house. “Jack, Vixen,” Summer said. “Look, I have to thank you guys once again. You two really were lifesavers, and I really appreciate it.” She let out a long sigh. “I guess I better go in and tell Dad that he’s a lousy judge of character where boys are concerned.”

“Don’t be too hard,” Jack counseled. “It’s not his fault, after all. Rusty’s a jerk, sure, but you’ve now got good reason to never go out with him again.”

“I suppose you’re right. Look, thanks again for being friends. I’ll try to do something nice for you sometime.”

“No problem,” Jack said. “Don’t be a stranger. I’ll see you at school, if not before. Do you want me to walk you to your door?”

“No, you don’t have to,” Summer grinned. “You’re not my date, after all. You might want to do it for Vixen, though.”

“What, with my mother looking out the window?” Vixen snorted. “As if.”

“Thanks again. See you around,” Summer smiled as she closed the door and turned toward the house.

“Well,” Vixen said, “there goes a pretty good reason why I haven’t dated until now.”

“Summer?”

“Well, Rusty.” She shook her head and continued. “There’s all too many guys like him running around this town, who think a date is a license to have their way with girls. At least you’re not like that.”

“I sure wouldn’t have done anything like that,” he said as he took his foot off the brake and steered away from the curb.

“I know you wouldn’t, and you did anyway, because I invited you,” she smiled. “Totally different situation. And, Jack, it felt good. I mean, I really liked it, and I want to do some more of it some time. But, well, uh, I don’t want to go any further than I want to go.”

“As far as I’m concerned, you’re the one in charge,” Jack told her. “I’ll go only as far as you want to go, and no more. I don’t want to push you into doing something you don’t want to do, or it would take the fun out of it for both of us.”

“Oh, I expect we’ll wind up going a little further, as long as we keep going together,” she smiled. “I don’t know how far that’ll be or when. But I’ll tell you this much, we didn’t get as far as I would have liked tonight. Bringing Summer home was the right thing to do, but I missed your hand being where it belongs all the way back.”

“Where it belongs? That can be fixed.” He let his hand slide down to her right breast. “There, is that better?”

“Much better,” she smiled. “I wouldn’t have wanted Summer to see it though. She’d have spread it all over town, it would get back to my mother, and there would go our fun.”

“I figured that,” he said. “I know this town is like a fishbowl and we’re not going to keep everything quiet, but we don’t need to be obvious about it. In fact, I think we’d better mostly be birding buddies, at least as far as anyone else is concerned.”

“We’ve probably ruined it already,” Vixen shook her head. “I really was a little forward with you this evening, but I wanted to tease Summer a little, you know, to let her know that my date went a lot better than hers. But maybe we can keep it on the innocent side for a little while anyway.” She let out a sigh. “I really don’t want that kind of reputation, but on the other hand, I do, at least a little. I’ve always been the ugly little girl no one wants to have anything to do with, and now that I have a guy I want to show him off a little, if nothing more than to prove that I can too have a guy.”

“Drop that ugly stuff,” he said a little firmly. “I’m with Dad on that one. Beauty is more than complexion, and in a lot of ways you’re a beautiful girl. Remember last night when I was talking about looking into the future? I look into the future at you a little, and see that you grow out of all the skin problems and become a real knockout, while these little tin goddess cheerleaders who put us down will be getting all fat and frowzy and blown out with too many kids. Then they’re going to be the ones looking at you and wondering how the shoes changed feet.”

“You know,” she said with a giggle. “If you keep talking like that, you might just find out that I’m willing to go further than you think.”

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