“Three of my brothers have gone missing,” Alan said. “That’s why I was so upset. One disappeared a couple of weeks ago, another last night, and one this morning. Krishna… ” He thought for a moment. “He taunted me about it. I really wanted to find out what he saw.”

Kurt shook his head. “Your brother went missing last night?”

“From my house.”

“So what the kid saw… ”

Alan turned to Natalie. “A friend of Kurt’s was in the park last night. He says he saw my brother being carried off.”

Kurt shook his head. “Your brother?”

“What do you mean, ‘carried off’?” Natalie said. She folded her slice in half to keep the toppings from spilling.

“Someone is stalking my brothers,” Alan said. “Someone very strong and very cunning. Three are gone that I know about. There are others, but I could be next.”

“Stalking?” Natalie said.

“My family is a little strange,” Alan said. “I grew up in the north country, and things are different there. You’ve heard of blood feuds?”

Natalie and Link exchanged a significant look.

“I know it sounds ridiculous. You don’t need to be involved. I just wanted to let you know why I acted so strangely last night.”

“We have to get back,” Natalie said. “Nice to meet you, Kurt. I hope you find your brother, Andy.”

“Brothers,” Alan said.

“Brothers,” Natalie said, and walked away briskly.

Alan was the oldest of the brothers, and that meant that he was the one who blazed all the new trails in the family.

He met a girl in the seventh grade. Her name was Marci, and she had just transferred in from Scotland. Her father was a mining engineer, and she’d led a gypsy life that put her in stark contrast to the third-generation homebodies that made up most of the rest of their class.

She had red hair and blue eyes and a way of holding her face in repose that made her look cunning at all times. No one understood her accent, but there was a wiry ferocity in her movement that warned off any kid 

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