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“I trust you, so it’s fine. Besides, I can’t wait to see what you got our cats.”

Her last two words hit him out of the blue.Our cats. Last night, when she’d told him this seemed more like home than her apartment, he’d tried not to get his hopes up too much. She’d been exhausted, and he’d worried she’d come to her senses when she wasn’t so tired. However, now she was talking like moving in was a given, and the only question was whether she would use his current bed when his new one came in, or a different bed. He’d been afraid to get his hopes up too high when she’dmentioned possibly using his bed earlier, but the way she said ‘our cats’ made him think maybe it was safe to do exactly that.

“Ourcats. Yes. They are.” He smiled at the boys, stood, and walked to the tree. He brought both packages back to his chair. Genie’s gift had been a bunch of pages for him to leaf through, but he’d purchased a small binder to put pages into for Ezra and Elijah’s gift. Since their presents weren’t tangible and they’d have to read about them.

They were already going out of order, so he handed Ezra his first.

Ezra had been playing with Ferocious, and he dumped a pile of wrapping paper on the kitten and then turned towards his gift. He tore the paper off, dumped it on the delighted kitten as well, and then opened his deep green binder, and it took him a second to make sense of the itinerary: The McWane Science Center one day, and early the next morning, they’d drive to nearby Huntsville and visit the Space and Rocket Center, where they’d take in the public areas first, and then after the sun went down, Daniel, who works as a consultant for the Marshall Space Flight Center, would give them a ‘behind the scenes’ tour and show them things the public no longer gets to see.

“Wow. Oh wow! Dev, this is incredible! Two days out! And I get to see all kinds of science things! And the rocket that went to the moon! And they haveactualmoon rocks!”

“Along with lots of other things you’ll find interesting and your brother won’t, yes. I’m glad you like it.”

“Like it? I love it!” he jumped towards Dev and it was obviously the human in control and not the cat, because it was damned awkward, but he landed in Dev’s lap and threw his arms around Dev’s neck, and Dev was more than happy to hug him back.”

“Hey! Mine’s the same size,” Elijah said. “I can’t wait to see where I’m going, so I’m opening my present now.”

Dev resituated Ezra on his lap and nodded to Elijah, who ripped into his paper and opened the deep burgundy binder. On day one, they would go to the Birmingham Museum of Art, and on day two, they would go to nearby Decatur, to the Alabama Center for Arts to view their current exhibits and galleries. Elijah had an appointment with the head of their visual arts department — who happens to be a lioness — to show her three to five pieces he’d created. She would look over his art and talk to him about technique and use of color, use of different kinds of media, and other things Dev hadn’t fully understood. She would then either assign Elijah something to create that would challenge him, or she’d let him decide what to create based on their conversation, and then she’d check in with him at various stages to talk about it, and to give him input and pointers.

Elijah looked up, tears forming in his eyes. He handed the binder to Genie and came to Dev as the tears spilled over, and Dev used his free arm to clutch Elijah to him.

“It isn’t just a day out, it’s a chance to get someone who knows about art to help point me in the right direction. IknowI’m better than other people at art. I’ve always known it would be something I can be really, really good at if given the chance, and you’re giving me the chance.”

Now the tears really fell, and Elijah told his brother, “Okay, so maybe I want to be good for both of us, now, and not just for you. It’s scary, isn’t it? What if she thinks everything I show her is awful, and there’s no hope for me?”

“If she does then she’s bloody blind,” Ezra told him. “Now, who is she? What did he get you.”

“A trip to a museum in town one day,” Dev told Ezra, “and a trip to the Alabama Center for Arts the next day, not far from Huntsville, where we’ll take you, actually.”

Elijah squeezed Dev even harder. “He’s arranged for the head of the visual arts department to look over my work and talkto me, and assign a project she thinks will help me get better, and then talk to me through the various stages of the project until it’s finished.”

“Oh, wow. He managed to get us both personal attention as well as the museum trips, but for what we’re interested in.” Ezra kissed Dev on one cheek, Elijah kissed his other cheek, and Dev hugged them both tight.

“I’m glad ya’ll like your gifts. This year, I was restricted and couldn’t buy the two of you physical things. I hope next year will be different, but that’s up to the two of you. Now, someone hand the last present to Genie, so she can see her present.”

Ferocious realized another gift was about to be opened and he came to play with the new paper. Genie ripped into her gift and tossed the paper on the floor for the crazy kitten, and found herself holding a binder with faux wood grains on the outside. She opened it and flicked through the pages.

“How did you know? I never told you how badly I want this!”

“I was considering a way to safely let your owlchangeand eat, and brainstormed possibilities with Brooke. She told me you’ve always wanted a treehouse your human form could be at home in, and it kind of all came together.”

“I should be weirded out that she picked that out of my brain, but Ilovethis.” She furrowed her brow. “But why did I have to see it last?”

“Because the base of it’s built, and we can walk outside and see it. I have a jumpsuit and boots for you, but the twins and I will be fine outside for twenty minutes as we are.”

“How cold is it?”

“Thirty-nine, last I checked.”

“And ya’ll are going to go out barelegged and barefoot? Those robes will be pathetic against thirty-nine degrees!”

“What is it?” Elijah asked, stretching to try to see. “You got her a treehouse?”

Genie turned the sketch of the treehouse to them, complete with a chaise lounge in a little reading nook, and then flipped the page to the picture of the cage that would go on the roof. The cage was six feet tall, and five feet by five feet, two layers of bars, and a mesh layer over the inner cage. She’d be able to walk in as a human, lock the latch from the inside, and thenchangeinto her owl form, safe from everything bigger than the holes in the screen, which not even a mosquito could get through, though the wind and the sunshine could. There was a little compartment at the bottom, so she could put a field mouse or a frog or whatever she wanted to eat into it, and then once in her owl form, could open the door from a perch near the top. When it came out of the compartment, she could dive and kill it, and then eat. She’d be in a tree, high up, butsafe.

“You’ve seen us in our other forms,” Ezra said, “and we saw Dev when he bit us, but Elijah and I haven’t seen your owl. Would you trust us enough tochangearound us?”

“I absolutely will,” Genie told them. She looked at Dev. “I’d like to see your snake, too.”