The grin Dad broke into was abrupt, like the sun suddenly beaming through stormclouds, golden and bright. "I can be that, son. I can be that. Been that before, even, so it ain't like you've got a rookie on side."

He proffered the teddy-bear again, this time holding it out until Barney took it.


Allie's brow furrowed, trying to work that out in her head. It wasn't anything like how she'd heard the word used before. Then again, the old ladies she'd heard were only seventy or eighty. Ghastly was four hundred. And when it put it like that, it seemed less bad. Actually, it was a lot like what faeries did. They taught lessons, right? Ghastly was just teaching people to look deeper.

"Why would they find it hard to find something worth liking?" she asked uncertainly. "You're really easy to like."