Free Trolls in the Hamptons by Celia Jerome Page A

notes, using me—but for what purpose? To get a plate of Mrs. Abbottini’s lasagna?
    I was glad when I heard Susan’s key in the lock, but she just popped her head in to say they’d heard Mrs. Abbottini’s TV from the hall, so she and Van were going to bring the flowers over. She handed me two other bouquets, one of roses, one of orchids, to put in water.
    â€œThe orchids are for you,” Grant said. “The rarer beauty.”
    How could you throw out a guy who said things like that? And he was looking at me with such compassion and understanding, longing for me to believe his tall tale. I sat down again once I’d fussed with the flowers, but this time on the leather chair, away from him.
    â€œNo matter how odd my family and friends are, they are not witches and warlocks and creatures out of Tolkien. They are normal, everyday loonies, trying to raise families, make a living, and find a measure of satisfaction and happiness doing it. No one is out to destroy the world. They are just like everyone else.”
    â€œExcept they are not.” He brushed a dark curl off his forehead. “The world may think so, and they try to behave as if it were so. Some of them”—he nodded in my direction—“might not even realize how special they are. But you and your neighbors are far different from the average citizen.”
    â€œNo, they are just small-town eccentrics making wild guesses, playing the odds, counting on coincidence. I do not believe in any psychic hocus-pocus. My own father’s warnings and portents never made any sense.”
    â€œTell me, have you ever heard of the Royce Institute in England?”
    â€œOf course I have. Everyone in Paumanok Harbor has. The Royce people adopted the Harbor as a kind of sister city. The mayors visit back and forth, and there are always a few Brits teaching at the local schools. They offer free college to any graduate from the high school; free prep school if a junior high kid passes the tests. Room, board, travel expenses, tutoring, the works.”
    I ought to know. My parents met there. My grandmother pushed for me to go, but I insisted on art school. Besides, it sounded like one big matchmaking operation. Nearly everyone who went got engaged or married. Grandma Eve swore the tea leaves said I’d never find my soul mate except through the institute, never be a complete person. So far she was right, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t wrong in the long run. We fought over it a lot before and after college. I guess she is still disappointed in me, but we don’t speak much.
    I did not want to talk about some fancy foreign university, but Grant was determined. “Well, here is another story, more a history lesson, but this one is easily proved. You can check online.”
    As if everything on the Web was true. Hell, the Easter Bunny could have a MySpace page.
    â€œThe institute’s full name,” Grant began as if I were eager for a lecture, “is not generally made public. The university is open to everyone; the Royce-Harmon Institute for Psionic Research is known to a large but select group. It was founded by a family of British noble-men and their offspring, the males of the family all possessing a unique trait: they could tell if someone spoke the truth or lies.”
    Kind of like Susan, I thought, but did not say. She’d gone to England the summer after high school. I never asked what she did there.
    He went on: “Some of the daughters developed the family gift also, so it was carried through the female line as well, not just the heirs to the earldom or their male cousins. One Earl Royce had an illegitimate son, the Harmon in Royce-Harmon, who married a Gypsy woman. She came from a family of fortune-tellers and horse-tamers, and possessed what was called ‘the sight.’ The Rom were definitely descendants of the Unity world. Close breeding among their narrow circles kept the magic in