Cass's first instinct of the house was that it smelled funny.

She supposed that all little old ladies' houses smelled different from regular houses, but usually people would think of gingerbread cookies and warm milk and a kitchen fan always on or the sound of knitting needles and the creak of a rocking chair. Cass guessed that that was just because of Nana's house in France, where chocolate chip cookies were always in the oven and the house was always toasty warm but she would still insist you wear another sweater anyway. Grandma Angie, however, was very different.

At her prime time, she was considered the best female conceptual artist of her generation. Still, no pictures, sculptures, or anything hung on the walls or stood in the living room. Abd now, Cass wasn't even sure if she could even pick up a pencil. The house was old, and Grandma had done nothing to keep it concealed. The walls were probably once white, but now little bits of wallpaper crumbled under Cass's touch. Her mother took her daughter's shoulders as she looked around, like one blow would cause the whole thing to collapse.

The windows were dirty and the hardwood floor was clouded over with dust. Barely visible imprints were in the gray: a right foot, a left foot, a little mark where Grandma's cane must've been. Over the lone couch was an old bed-sheet, stains of whatever had spilled on the antique linen. Cass walked over to the kitchen, where the tap was still dripping. She bent the handle down and the rusty faucet end sputtered to life and spewed water even harder. Her mother hurried over and desperately wrenched the handle around, but it popped off at the third tug. She ran a hand through her black hair like she was wondering if it had suddenly turned gray, then scrambled through the cabinets while Cass watched the sink water slowly rise.

Finally, her mother rose, holding an old, blue, plastic bucket, and shoved it under the sink. Cass watched the sink water slowly deplete with a sucking sound down the drain. Her mother let a deep breath through her teeth and smoothed the hair out of her brow, tucking a few strands back into her bun which promptly fell back out again. A shuffling came from the dark hallway across the room, and Cass and her mother quickly straightened to meet Grandma Angie.

But apparently she didn't want to meet them, because in her hands Cass saw through the shadows the hazy form of a rifle's barrel. There was one last muffled thump of the bottom of her cane, the sound of a rifle reloading, and a gruff voice cut through the dark.

"Who's there?" There came a clattering noise on the ground and Cass put her arms up quickly, certain the thing was a grenade, or a smoke bomb, or a shell of poison gas that would fill the whole room with toxic gasses and leave her and her mother gasping like fish out of water. "If yer muggers, the neighbors have much nicer stuff," Grandma Angie continued. The rifle barrel wiggled around like a worm. "All I gots it a gun."

Cass was scared out of her mind. How untimely, she thought, to be murdered by her own Grandma. She looked anxiously at her mother, and was surprised to see her shaking her head tiredly.

"Mother?" she ventured. "It's Gracie."

For a moment Cass was frightened that Grandma Angie wouldn't understand and scream, "Mah daughter's name is Gracie too!" then fire the shot anyway. But after a second, the rifle dropped and Cass shrieked and ducked as a blank shot was fired in the living room. As lightning and thunder started to fade, Cass slowly straightened and waved swirls of white smoke away from her face with a cough. Among the sound of water from the sink and the ringing in her ears, Cass heard something else:

"Gracie! You looks great! Great Gracie!"

It was Grandma Angie, she soon saw through the thinning haze, hugging her mother who stood uncomfortable in the embrace of a woman about a head shorter than she. Gracie chuckled nervously and patted her back.

"Yes, yes, are you all right?"

Suddenly, Grandma let go and looked at the ground, like a little child caught doing something wrong. Cass and her mother exchanged a worried look.

"Mother," Gracie started again, a little gentler, "Cass and I will help take care of you-"

Grandma Angie's eyes flickered back up and Cass suddenly saw herself caught in two owlish gray eyes. "Cassiopia!" She squealed, clasping Cass's hands in her own bony fingers. "Pia! Pia looks so great! Just like ya Mama," she said with a wink. Cass smiled weakly, not wanting to be rude, but Grandma's grip was tight and her breath stank of toothpaste, like she drank that stuff with afternoon tea. Also, it seemed she had forgotten her dentures, because two sets of pink gums smiled toothlessly up at Cass. Finally, though, Grandma let go and Cass rubbed her hands secretly behind her back.

Angie shuffled back over to her cane and stumped over to the hallway, bending down with some difficulty and picking up the rifle and what Cass had thought to be a grenade. Now, it was just a pair of dentures. Cass didn't know whether to cry or laugh. So she laughed. Whenever Cass had the option, she laughed. Grandma Angie peered at her through her golden-rimmed glasses and chuckled too. She had white hair with only a single few leftover black strands mixed with the snowy bun tied loosely to the nape of her neck. Her skin was saggy and wrinkled, and her gray eyes were foggy. But she wore no hearing aid and she still seemed definitely able to handle a rifle.

Cass's mother gave another nervous laugh but Cass watched Gracie's eyes sweep over her mother's blue slippers, baggy pants and faded shirt, and untended hair. There was something Cass knew was missing; maybe it wasn't about her grandma. But it rose in power and strength in her mind, but kept slipping away from her.

She didn't notice until took a step and slipped on it.

They had never fixed the sink, and now waterfalls pooled onto the tiled floor. Gracie frantically looked for more pots and pans to save the water. Cass frantically looked for a phone to call a plumber. And Grandma Angie jumped up and down with her cane in the living room excitedly, cackling. "Them broken faucet isn't not any trouble for us Titans!"

By the end of the hour, they had solved two problems: Cass's mother had successfully sealed the faucet opening with a considerable amount of duct tape, and Cass had called the plumber who fixed it up in ten minutes (most of which was spent undoing the tape). But there was still one more issue. Grandma Angie had gone to bed again and tucked the rifle back to its beloved place in her closet. Yet she had left her dentures on the floor.

Cass thought it was like a pimple: ugly to stare at, but no one wants to touch it in case it would somehow blow up. That thought made her crack up, but she stifled the laugh; her mother was already on edge. In the end, her mother used a pair of rusty fire tongs to drop the dentures into a clean glass of water from the sink inside the bathroom (she was still frightened by the one in the kitchen).

In the end, Gracie had plopped down onto the old couch with Cass, raising plumes of dust. She put on a faltering smile and put an arm around her daughter.

"It isn't so bad."

Cass usually wasn't one to be a downer, but she fancied herself as a realist.

"The sink exploded, we were almost killed, and that cup of teeth is really freaking me out." They stared at the twin set of dentures floating in the glass resting on the table in front of them. The teeth grinned at them like they were laughing.

"The plumber came, it was a blank, and yes, that is disturbing, isn't it?" Gracie Titan chuckled weakly and Cass rested her head in the crook of her mother's neck. "I'll go get a glass that's not see-through," she promised, then leaned over and kissed the top of her daughter's head. "I'm really happy you were okay with coming." Cass shrugged and smiled.

"I wouldn't miss this for the world."

She felt her mother smiled. "What about for Akaya?" Cass ripped herself away from Gracie, who lifted an eyebrow. "Hmm?" Gracie smiled; Cass didn't think she could count how many times Kirihara called for her daughter? "You're blushing, Sweetie," Gracie teased, but Cass's face was perfectly normal. There was just a look of horror on her ten-year-old face.

"I never blush!" Cass said loudly, mostly to herself. Her mother smiled again but shook her head.

"Well, really. Then I must be mistaken." Cass blinked before sitting back down and looking blankly at the dusty TV. Gracie shook her head secretly behind her daughter's head.

Cass could be so stubborn sometimes.

But Cass couldn't mask the tiny flush that barely crept onto her face.

Stubborn in thinking that it wasn't true.