“Council’s still in session,” said Benjamin.
Maya looked past him at a mosaic of strangeness. She couldn’t sort it out, not with all the sounds and smells.
“Whoa,” Travis said, holding his nose. “Don’t know if I can face that without puking.” He blinked, his eyes tearing up. “Oh, my God, what is that smell? Is that person glowing? My eyes hurt. I can’t—” He turned and backed away.
Rowan closed the glass door, silencing most of the noise and odors, and followed Travis. “We’re bred for dealing with this, and we eat food that helps us, too,” he said. “We should start you on some softbread and see if it helps.”
“I want to see what’s in there,” Travis said, and coughed, then sneezed, then coughed again. “
Boy
, do I want to see it! And hear it, and everything else, but I so hit overload. Guess I’ll have to wait.”
“Do you need to leave right away?” Rowan asked. “Let us get Maya introduced to the council, and then we’ll get back to you. There are things we need to talk over today if we can.”
Travis checked his watch. “I’ve got maybe forty minutes before I need to leave.”
Rowan opened a door halfway down the hall. “This is my family’s place. Hey, Kallie. Could you get Travis a snack? Something with
palta
in it?”
“Uh—” said a voice from within. “Okay.”
“That’s the food additive that helps us deal with portalwise stuff. We give it to all our
giri
. Wait for us as long as you can,” Rowan said to Travis. “Please.”
“Sure,” said Travis. He sneezed again and went into the apartment.
“Maya, are you all right?” Benjamin asked as Rowan went back to the door.
Maya coughed. The smells still scraped against her nose and throat. “I don’t know.”
“She had
palta
yesterday,” Gwenda said. “It takes a while to build up in the body, though.”
“Let’s try,” said Rowan. “Great-Uncle Harper specifically asked us to bring you.” He opened the door again and stood to the side, letting her see into the room.
Before her was a courtyard ringed by the walls of the apartment house, roofed by gold-tinted glass that turned the blue sky slightly green and gilded the clouds. In the courtyard, plants and trees grew, some familiar, some so strange she knew they came from Somewhere Else.
In the center of the courtyard was a ring of tables, and at the tables sat many kinds of creatures. There were several that looked like basketball player–sized dinosaurs, and one that was a white lump of something jiggly with deep dents that moved around. Bubbles of golden gas encased some of the others, who were indistinct through the haze but appeared to have many slender limbs and no obvious heads. There were two giant centipedes; Maya knew somehow they were not Loostra. On one of the tables sat something that looked like a small planet with its own atmosphere, continents, and oceans. Benjamin’s mother was talking to it.
Spaced around the many creatures were plates and trays and cups and bowls and other strange dishes of what was probably food and drink. Some of the contents steamed, some sizzled, some moved.
The smells and sounds attacked her nose and ears.
The egg, so quiet most of the day, woke and quivered on her wrist. She felt several little jabs in her arm, bright darts of pain. A flush of heat and cold ran through her, and then she could breathe easier and things didn’t smell so bad. The sounds smoothed out, too; she didn’t think she’d lose her hearing immediately anymore.
Maya opened her pack and rummaged for her sketchpad and pencil.
Rowan gripped her arm. “Not now,” he said, and then snatched his hand back. “Ouch!”
Maya let the sketchbook slide back into its compartment.
Great-Uncle Harper rose from a table nearby. Today he wore a robe of sky blue. “Friends and colleagues,” he cried, and all the grunting, screeching, rumbling, grating, and peeping stopped. Harper approached Maya and said, “Will you come and be presented?”
“What?” Everything she knew was seesawing inside her. One giant centipede, okay, she could deal with that. So much strangeness at once—
She teetered on her feet. Another spike of pain at her wrist, and she found her balance.
Egg-person, what are you doing to me?
Protecting you.
She swayed. Benjamin supported her this time.
One more tiny jab from the egg, and she blinked and steadied. She felt remote, her emotions calmed, packed up and put away. In the back of her mind, something was upset, but its alarm was soft and ignorable. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Okay. She could get through this. She could go crazy later.
Harper held out his hand, and she resettled her backpack on her shoulders, tightened the straps, and clasped hands with him. She wondered if the egg would shock him. It didn’t. Maybe when she initiated contact instead of other people grabbing her, the egg let it happen. Then again, Gwenda and Benjamin had touched her without getting zapped.
“I want to explain your situation to the council,” Harper said softly, so only she and the others nearby could hear. “Before we do that, may I have your answer? Will you let us make you part of our family?”
“I’m really confused right now,” she said.
Harper turned his head, looked at what she was seeing. “Ah,” he said. “I imagine so. It’s been a long time since my wander year, but I recall that shock in a new situation. Can you take your mind back to a time before this confusion, and make yourself calm?”
Maya nodded, cupped her hand over the egg, moving her thumb over it. “I did. I think I’m there.”
“Did you consider joining our family last night?”
“I did,” she said.
“What was your conclusion?”
“Give me a moment.”
She considered her problem one more time, from the state of egg-induced calm, and decided again that she needed a family that understood her new state, in addition the family she had been born into. She needed help with the
sissimi
, and she wanted to hang on to the magic. “Yes. I will join you.” Her stomach clenched as she spoke. She was setting changes in motion, and she didn’t know where they would lead.
Gwenda touched her arm. Benjamin smiled. Rowan frowned less.
“I can’t—live with you and do what you all do, though. The special food, the classes, whatever it is you do I don’t know about yet. I need to live with my own family. All right?”
“We would not expect you to. There are some things you should learn, and you’ll need—” Harper broke off. “We need to negotiate. I will accept your yes as a yes, details to be decided upon later, to the benefit of all. Welcome to the family, cousin.” He kissed her cheek and then the ring he had given her the night before.
He led her forward. All the beings had been waiting quietly. Harper nudged Maya to stand in front of him, and he rested his hands on her shoulders. “Council, may I present our new and accidental cousin? This is Maya, who through mishap became the bond-sister of one of the missing
sissimi
. Maya, will you show them the bonded one?”
Egglet, are you all right with being seen?
I don’t know what “seen” is. Does it hurt?
No
, she said, and wondered. She unbuttoned her cuff and turned back her sleeve, revealing her egg and its inner lights, glowing greens and blues with sparks of yellow.
Some of the creatures made noises. A few leaned forward and thrust parts of themselves toward her. She heard a hummingbird flutter: a fairy scudded through the air and hovered just above the egg, reached down a slender arm to touch Maya’s skin, and left a tiny gold fingerprint. It was not the fairy she had seen before, the one who had started this chain of events that led to Maya standing here, in a hidden courtyard, surrounded by otherworlders. Its hair was pale instead of dark, and its features were different. It looked up at her face. Then it rose past her, gilt dust fluttering from its wings to settle across her shoulders. It sang something as it flew, then came to rest in a flower the size of a salad plate on one of the otherworldly shrubs.
A creature in a bubble reshaped itself so that it was taller, and said in a warm and melodious voice, “We all congratulate you on this auspicious addition to your family, Istar Harper, and we thank you for bringing these troubling new developments to our attention. We will continue to monitor activity along the portalways and inform each other of any suspicious traffic. Our cogitators will reflect on how to detect unsanctioned activity. Now, if it can be arranged, I am ready to return to my own portal.”
Other creatures shifted position and added their own kinds of noises.
Harper said, “Thank you again, Maya. We have a lot to discuss, and time to discuss it. Excuse me while I see my guests out.”
“Sure,” she said.
He patted her and went toward a wide archway across the courtyard where most of the guests were heading.
One of the guests, a tall, slender woman in slate gray clothes with creases that looked as though they could cut, lingered, then came closer. She appeared almost human, though her skin was a grayish rose color, and her eyes were black without whites. A complicated black and silver scarf, looped in on itself so it looked like a cloth chain, wound around her shoulders and draped over her head, not quite concealing the fact that she was bald.
“I Ara-Kita Zizillian am,” she said to Maya. “You, I, necessary to interact.”
Maya looked at Gwenda, whose eyes were wide. Gwenda shook her head, as though she didn’t know any more about this than Maya did.
Rowan stepped in front of Maya, facing Ara-Kita. “Traveler,” he said. “Explain, please?”
“Keeper,” she replied. “I Force am. Crimes division. Matter of the missing
sissimi
, information to pursue.”
Rowan turned to Maya. “She’s the police.”
Maya took a deep breath. The egg-induced calm was still with her, so she didn’t feel fear, just detached curiosity as she wondered whether she was about to be arrested. Where did portal people keep criminals?
“I’ve already told everything I know,” Maya said, her voice level.
Ara-Kita nodded. “Heard. Wish embryo to interrogate.” “What?” Maya cupped her hand over the egg and stepped back.
“Only a moment it takes. Kita to it talks.” The black and silver scarf lifted a snakelike end, complete with a knob that could be a head, and swayed in the air, as though surveying Maya.
“Traveler Zizillian,” Rowan said, “you speak with a member of my clan. Have you cleared this request with our
istar
?”
“Not formalized. Only a moment the questions take. No harm.”
“Traveler,” said Rowan, “I mean no disrespect. Come back when you have cleared this request, please.”
The solid black eyes stared at Rowan, and the eyeless snake-head stilled to focus on him as well. After a concentrated moment, both heads bobbed. “Will. Kita greetings to little kin sends.”
“Kin?” Maya said.
Ara blinked. She lifted a seven-fingered hand, and the snake-head lowered to rest on it. “Kita
sissimi
is,” she said.
“A
sissimi
!” Maya stepped closer, staring and staring.
The knobby head came nearer, as though it stared, too, though there was nothing on it that looked like eyes. Silver was woven through its black length in intricate patterns. It did not look quite solid. Maya lifted her right hand toward it.
“Maya, wait,” said Gwenda. “If you grant it permission to touch you, it may interact with you in ways we don’t understand.”
“But it’s—is this what mine will look like?”
Ara said, “Every one different comes. Much on partner depends. But
sissimi-sissimi
without barriers can talk. If yours memories of the theft has, can mine tell.”
Egg-person, do you want to talk to one of your own kind?
You are my only kind since I lost my other Other.
Maya closed her eyes. She felt as though a rosebud were opening in her chest, and at the same time, there was a sad taste in her mouth, the salt of tears. She stroked the egg.
Its partner says it is a being like you. I so much want to know more about you, and these people could tell us something. But what if it wants to hurt you?
We are strong.
Maya smiled.
We don’t know our strength yet.
Aloud, she said, “Pleased to meet you, Ara-Kita. I’d like to wait until Harper says it’s okay before my
sissimi
talks to yours.”
The snake relooped around Ara’s neck and rested its head on top of her head. Ara bobbed again. “Will arrange.” She turned and followed the others toward the far exit from the courtyard.
“Rowan, thanks,” Maya said.
He huffed out a breath. “You’re one of us now, whether I like it or not. We take care of our own. You’ve got a lot to learn before you meet travelers. Which is what I want to talk to Travis about, too. Come on.” He headed toward the glass doors.
Maya looked at Benjamin, who smiled and shook his head. “He means well.”
“Are you sure?” she asked, smiling.
“Pretty sure. Let’s go find out if Travis is still here.”
“So Rowan can give us some more orders?”
“Right,” said Gwenda. “Hey. Are you hungry?”
Maya’s stomach growled loudly. “Starving,” she said. “We can fix that.”
Maya glanced at the half-consumed oddities on plates on the table.
“Naw, not that. It’s all specific to who’s eating it, and most of it’s poison to us,” said Benjamin. “Let’s go to Rowan’s.”
NINETEEN
Rowan’s apartment was
different from Benjamin’s. There was no tent drapery, no inlaid fretwork tables. The walls were pale yellow, the furniture upholstered in soft green. The living room looked like it belonged in a sitcom apartment: near normal, except for a bonsai tree on the coffee table and two potted pines in the corners. A small bookshelf held dictionaries and encyclopedias. A framed painting above the couch showed a stormy Oregon coast scene.