MY MOTHER’S EXPERIENCE as a real-estate agent came in handy over the next few days as she trolled through listings in search of the perfect home for our cobbled-together pack. For a while, though, I thought she’d gotten cold feet from the way she rejected each offering out of hand. One was too expensive, another too small, a third too remote.
Our rental house was starting to feel excessively cramped by this point, bursting at the seams as it was with dozens of unruly shifters. So I was glad to flee the premises when Celia showed up after work one evening with a big smile on her face. “I found it,” she said simply.
We piled into vehicles and followed her sporty car beyond the town limits, up through a series of winding foothills, and then down into a valley along a rutted gravel road. Fin
