Okay, I blushed. "Uh, I had an accident in chem lab?" I alibied."Oh, really?"I don't think she believed me. First of all, she knew we always wear enou...gh safety equipment to walk through fire. And, secondly, I am very meticulous in chem class. I'm the one who always gets picked to refill the reagent bottles under the hood, because I never spill."I read the brochure, you know," mom added."Did you!" I responded brightly.That was all that was said. Like I said, it's best if parents and children. I discovered this poignant reality just before I started college.I met Mary at a YMCA Youth and Government event in Sacramento in the middle of my senior year in high school when she approached me during a break in class. "Do you understand anything about this lecture?" she asked. The class wasn't even a lecture, it was a discussion. But this seventeen-year-old’s face was pure innocence. With her timid smile and puppy dog expression, the petite brunette reminded me of Katie Holmes from her. His lover, older than the boy by at least ten years, smiled indulgently at his young friend and opened his arms to welcome both he and the spitting cat back into his fold. It seemed to Anna that whatever losses the two men had suffered in this fire, they would be manageable.Anna stared at them and wondered how that felt. What would it be like to know that all you really needed was what you already held in your arms? There had been a time when she'd thought she'd known the answer to that. Now. When Laird McVörss and Laird Clair arrived the old woman had barely enough breath left to speak to the two men before she gave up her soul to heavens. ”One of your clansmen did murder me, and one of your clansmen tried to save me. I know not which so I will leave it to the Lord to give the right clan my blessing. He will find the Moon Maiden and take her as a harlot, but she will be an innocent. He that takes her maidenhead shall be blessed with peace and happiness for him and his clansman. He.