Having already raised four of her own children that had grown, she’d shared her momliness with Haley, Ryder, and him.

Possibly such events were exceptional, but the activities of shamans among the masses of the people in early medieval times probably owe the little attention they have received to the failure of documentation. What we get in the best literature is an emphasis on the refined offshoots of shamans—the transcendent superbeings (hsien) of Taoism.

My brother Basil was probably the most protective of me. He would be willing to wallop anyone with a knuckle sandwich (knuckle sandwiches, not knives or guns, were big back then) who messed with me.

Despite having been born in Scotland, he spoke French accentlessly.