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Colin has learned to follow his impulses. Sometimes it's the universe pulling him in some direction, and arguing with that would be stupid. So he went out for a bicycle ride in the chilly winter evening.

About an hour later, he finds himself outside the house. He had been waiting for the right moment. It must be this one. He can see Mrs Jameson's silhouette through the kitchen's window, and the light on in Sammy's bedroom upstairs. The rest of the rest of the house seems quiet.

Stamping his feet to chase away the cold, he walks to the entrance and rings the doorbell.

"I got it, Mom!"  Sammy is glad for an excuse to get away from her homework.  She bolts down the stairs and answers the door.

She seems very surprised to see Colin there, alone.  She looks around, expecting to see someone in the shadows, but finding no one.  "Colin?  Hi, come in.  Is something wrong?"

Colin looks very close to turning into a statue of ice. It's not quite the relief he thought it would be to the burning in his neck.

"Thank you. Yes, there is definitely something wrong. Wasn't the world supposed to be warming up? I think this might be the coldest winter since I got here."

He takes off his gloves and puffs on his hands to revive them.

"I... Well. It's complicated. No, not really. It's simple. Just a bit hard to believe, I guess. I have a message. For your mom."

Sammy blinks.  "A message for my mom?"  She looks uncertainly at him.  "OK.  If I leave you alone in the kitchen with her, you're not going to ask my mom to go to the movies with you, are you?  Because I might just have to run away to South America if you do that."  She shudders.  "Never mind."

She walks with him to the kitchen.

"Hi you two.  I thought I heard Colin.  You want some hot chocolate?"  Sammy's mom is putting the last of some food into the freezer.

Sammy looks at Colin.  "That depends.  Can I stay, or should I go back upstairs?  Do I have to start learning Portuguese?"

"Huh?"  Mom says, a look of confusion on her face.

"Good evening, Mrs Jameson. Yes, I'd really like some chocolate, please."

He turns to Sammy. "Please stay. You're involved, after all, and I think it would be easier if you were here."

He turns back to Mrs. Jameson. "There's something I should tell you. It might take some time, so you'd better sit down, I think."

"The reason there's so much room in the freezer now is Nick.  Out of nowhere, Nick showed up and asked me and Elrod to go see a bunch of romantic comedy movies with him on Saturday.  I went to get him a blanket to warm him up, and while I was gone he asked Laney to go with him, and Elrod, and me.  And Elrod volunteered to drive us all there!"  She looks at Colin, then back at her mom.  "So I ate three cartons of ice cream and one of the cherry pies.  That's why I felt too sick to eat dinner.  And that's why I'm afraid to leave you alone in the kitchen with one of my male friends who shows up alone and unexpected and says he has a message for you.  I swear to God, Mom, if anything else weird happens, I'll run away to Brazil."

Kim chuckles.  "Brazil is a little far.  Can't you go to Canada so we can come visit?"  she says, getting a pan to heat some milk.  then digging out the chocolate.

"That was nice of Nick. Greg showed me the program, and I was thinking about asking Sarah the same. Though it's not really her kind of movies."

From the look of Sammy, he realizes he must be missing the point.

"What was wrong with that? You had other plans for saturday?"

Sammy just moans.  "Sure.  You should ask Sarah.  Why should either of you miss the show?"  She looks at Colin.  "Nick.  Nick. Asking Elrod and me, after what happened... then asking Laney out, when he's never met her before, in my house, when I'm right there?"  There's a slight edge of hysteria to her voice.  She gets up and retrieves a jar full of cookies from a nearby counter-top.  She starts eating them, not offering to share any with anyone else.

"I think what Sammy is trying to say, without actually saying it is that she still likes Nick.  And if he dates Laney then he can't date her."  Kim just smiles and melts chocolate into the warming milk.

"Yeah," Sammy says, around a mouthful of cookies.  "something like that.  Close enough for now."

Colin is confused.

"Maybe I'm naive, but couldn't it just be that Nick would like you two to be friends, he invited Laney because the festival is, well, open to the public, and he thought she might like the movies, and, on an unrelated note, that this much sugar isn't too good for your brain?"

He thinks about it some more, then shakes his head.

"Besides, Laney isn't interested in Nick."

Sammy glares at Colin and defiantly takes a big bite out of yet another cookie, chewing it as if daring him to say one more word about sugar.

"She likes John.  I know that.  Anybody can see that.  EVERYBODY can see that.  Maybe you're right about the other things too.  That doesn't mean I have to be comfortable with any of it."  She opens the sugar dish on the table and deliberately pours a spoonful of sugar onto what's left of the cookie.  She lifts that concoction to her mouth, then sighs sadly and sets it all down.

"Not your fault.  You can't help what I am.  You just held me here, you didn't make me.  You said you had a message?"

 

"Yes."

He seems to hesitate.

"Mrs Jameson, what has Sammy told you about me?"

Kim looks up, "You have a girlfriend."  she says, returning her attention to the chocolate milk she's making.

Colin is taken aback for a moment.

"Right. But I mean about my special abilities."

He turns to Sammy. "You didn't tell her anything?"

"That's your business, not mine," Sammy replies.  "She knows we all have abilities, but well, the details never seemed to matter much.  You're my friends, and she's met you and likes you; that's enough.

"But you said you had asked her... Never mind."

He turns back to Mrs Jameson.

"What I'm going to say might be a little hard to believe, but I swear it's the truth. Sammy can tell you I would never joke about something like this."

He looks down at the table, fiddling with the embroideries of the tablecloth.

"I am an ambassador from this world and the spiritual world. I can ask the spirits for help, when necessary. Sometimes my tasks include carrying messages. That's why I'm here this evening. I have a message for you. From... well... from your mother."

Kim looks up.  "This ought to be good.  what does mom have to say?"

"The message took some time to reach me, because she's... in a special place. There is a sort of heaven for djinni. A friend of mine calls them the angels of the air. She's there with your father. She said -Tell her that I blamed her for my whole life.  I know better now, and I'm sorry for who I was and what that made her become.  But I'm proud of the person she is now.-"

Sammy reaches over and grabs her mom's hand.  That's not a whole lot for what she said and did.

"Well."  Kim says, continuing to stir her rapidly blossoming hot chocolate.  "That was nice of her to say."  She looks at Sammy, "Little late, but I guess it's the thought that counts.  Right?"  She nods towards the cabinet, get some mugs down honey.  Sammy can feel the air begin to move in the room.  Mom's powers have atrophied, but they're starting to leak out and move the odd scrap of paper on the desk and gently shift the curtains.

Sammy gets up and hugs her mom tight.  She fiercely whispers, "Don't let her hurt you again.  I've been proud of you my whole life.  Daddy loves you, and all of us girls love you.  I can't imagine a better mom.  That woman owed you a whole lot more than you got, even if she says she's sorry about it now.  I hope she's really, really sorry."  She moves away and gets the mugs.

Kim hugs Sammy back and nods.  When Sammy brings the mugs she pours everyone some of the hot chocolate.  "I'd like to say thank you Colin."  she says, "That was very nice of you to pass that along."

Colin is a little embarrassed. This is exactly the reaction he was expecting.

"I wish I could have done more. I can't really express the feeling behind the message. You see, when one passes beyond, there is such... clarity. It's like realizing all the mistakes one has made in his whole life in a single moment. And yet, it's over. You can't go back to fix them. Everything you left behind is out of reach. This message is everything she can do now. It's all she can offer."

He stirs his chocolate in silence for a moment.

"There's more." he says, turning to Sammy. "I hoped to find your  grandfather, and ask him something about the djinni, or even better the half-djinni. But he knew of no one. You are something really rare, if not totally unprecedented. And here's the most important part. He said that none of the traditional rules apply to you. You're not bound by them." he stresses that word, 'bound', trying to get Sammy to understand what he really means.

Sammy's eyes widen.  "Oh!  Th-thank you for asking.  I guess I only have to worry about the things, I, uh, inherited from him then."

"Which things?"

Sammy's eyes drop to the table.  That embroidery on the tablecloth is very interesting.  "I'm djinn enough that I've inherited more than just powers.  I've inherited certain... personality traits.  Identifying characteristics.  Behaviors.  Things that could make relationships... awkward."

"We have very open hearts."  Kim says softly.  "Would anyone like marshmallows?"

Colin is confused again. "I don't think I understand." he says, gently refusing the marshmallows.

Kim looks at Sammy, not wanting to say anything that might embarrass her.

"Open hearts.  Hearts with the capacity -- no, more a need -- to hold many occupants, yearning to be loved by them all and almost unable to do anything but fully love them all."  Sammy looks back at Kim.  "Is that about right?  I'm still fuzzy on the details, but that's kind of how it feels."

"That's a better description than I ever managed."  Kim says with a smile, and a hand on her daughters.

Colin scratches his head. "And you think that's different for you than for... the rest of people?" He shrugs. "If you think that's a djinn trait, then humanity must have had a lot of intermingling with the djinni in the past."

"You don't really understand Colin.  It's not like if you love your mother and father and aunt.  It's having four or five girlfriends.  Something most humans can't understand, let alone do.  Physical love as much as emotional."

Sammy tilts her head questioningly.  "You have different kinds of love for many people in your life, but... in a way, Sarah completely fills your heart, doesn't she?  Can you imagine, without horror, loving Sarah as much as you do now or even more, and loving somebody else, or more than one somebody else, as much and in the same general way, as you do her?  Without taking anything away from how you feel for her now?"

"That's not what I meant. I understand. I am not like that. But it's as you say. 'Most' humans. Not all. It's not a trait that makes you any less human. It sure makes your life more complicated, but not incomprehensible."

He thinks about it for a while.

"I hope that if you ever need a male friend that's just a friend, I can be there for you." he says with a smile.

"OK. Just... well, be careful of me, ok?  I don't want to ever hurt Sarah.  This... what's in me... I think its bigger than what you think it is."

"But not bigger than you." he sounds absolutely certain.

"I hope not."  She contemplates the marshmallows floating on her chocolate.  "I really hope not."

After finishing his chocolate, Colin thanks Mrs Jameson and takes his leave.

At the door, he turns to Sammy once more. "I had prepared something for you and your mother. I'm not so sure it was a good idea anymore. I think you should have it though. Do with it what you want."

He opens his backpack, and gets out a sepia drawing. It shows her grandmother, young again and smiling, and a djinn, with noble, exotic features. They seem to look at her with that look common to all loving grandparents.

Sammy isn't quite sure what to do with this, but she accepts it.  "Thanks.  I'll let Mom see it.  I'm... not sure.  I don't think she ever saw her father.  I don't know if its good or not."

"I think it will be good. Not today, maybe, but someday it will."

He closes the back pack and turns away.

"Bye, Sammy."

"Colin, I..."  Sammy's arms flap loosely at her sides, like she'd like to hug him but isn't sure about if she should.  "Listen, you did a good thing, even if it turns out she wasn't the best person... Mom came clean and revised some of what she had told me before.  The woman used to call my mom -- her very own daughter!-- such terrible, awful things.  She wasn't a nice person.  This drawing shows maybe what she could have been if things were different, if he had stayed, or if Mom hadn't been born... If, if, if.  That's a lot of life that has to be erased."  She winds up hugging herself.  "Thank you for trying. I wish the ending was happier."

"They didn't understand each other. That's why I looked for them. I hoped to help you understand yourself. You are a being of freedom. What I did, when you almost left us, was only to make sure you'd always know the way back home. Don't be harsh on yourself. And take your mother flying with you sometimes."

He jumps on his bike, and turns back to her with a smile.

"This is not an ending. It's a beginning."