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"Aha!" I settled back intothe lid revealed a ed badly, the colors faded; others stuck to the thick backing paper used for shots taken by ran’s old instant camera

"Ooh, I love pictures Letaside a stack of boxes, she plopped down on the couch besideeach one as I did "This is randpa Peahi on his boat He called it The Dreamcatcher He always said he narandma’s attention, and it here he proposed to her He was out at sea on it, all alone, when he had the heart attack that killed him Gran couldn’t bear to look at the boat after that, so she sold it"

"So, is he the ancestor with the siren blood?"

"None other I think it’s why he loved the water so reat-aunt Lopaka wanted a copy She’d told me before that she and Grandpa were close before he left the siren islands

The next shot was of Ivy, blowing out the candles on her fourth birthday cake It was one of those cakes that had a doll in the middle so that the cake looked like the doll’s poufy dress It had been iced so that it looked quite a lot like Scarlett O’Hara fro hoop-skirt Ivy had been so delighted She’d played with that doll all day, every day after that, swiping clothes fro deeper in the box, I saw that sae swih more pictures and spotted several of me in my ballet clothes There were even a couple of shots of e at one of ood There were few ies of reat purge after he left I had grabbed a few and hidden the that last bit of the past I still had thehtstand I never looked at them anyh the box ofhappily My psychiatrist had taskedpictures of myself and my baby sister fro that box put an end to the cleaning for the day E, until it was time for her to leave and o

I returned most of the photos to the box and closed it reluctantly, leaving only a pair of photos out on the coffee table to take to ry, but I fixed myself some food anyway I have more control over my vampire nature than I used to, in part because I’ve learned not to go too long between ht’s menu was from the assortment of baby food I had stocked up on: squash, plus pureed chicken and noodles, waranic applesauce for dessert Not exactly haute cuisine, but so much better than the full liquid diet I’d started out on after the bite that I wasn’t about to complain

I ate at the kitchen counter, then rinsed the dirty dishes and put them in the dishwasher It was nearly full, so I went ahead and started the cycle On i back into the living roo I knew I should finish going through the boxes, but I so wasn’t in theto put them back as is After some internal debate I decided that I would deal with them tomorrow, and on impulse I sat down in front of the co ail Andrews had very definitely not hiredto payjust kept bugging o So to satisfy ht upa little research I felt a ain--this ork she should have done

There was nothing on Harry Jacobs Well, not quite nothing There was a Harry Jacobs ned a used-car lot in Tulsa; I found links to videos of a couple of seriously bad commercials he’d made But they were recent, and he was not in prison, so I illing to bet that he wasn’t the right Harry There were other Harry Jacobses, but nowhere near Santa Maria

So I tried Abigail Andrews Again, nothing useful

Now, I know not everybody lives a neorthy life I’m sure there are plenty of people who have no identity online at all But Abby had so scars There would nor that had caused the nada In my head I heard that ancient childhood taunt: Liar, liar, pants on fire, your nose is as long as a telephone wire

As an experi at a whole history of her achieveymnastics titles and her second-place finish in the tristate spelling bee back in grade school

Similarly helpful results popped up when I searched Dawna’s na on Abby