“No, no, this is way more entertaining,” said Mary. She flickered, disappearing from the chair and reappearing next to Sam. Her clothes had changed during the transition, becoming grayscale—gray jeans, black sneakers, white peasant blouse with crows and tombstones embroidered around the neck and wrists. She beamed at him. “Think I look believably dead?”
“I think you look believably like me getting grounded,” said Sam direly. Emery knocked again. He sighed. “Coming, Grandma!”
Sam barely had the door open before Emery was pushing her way inside. She stopped dead when she saw Mary.
“Oh,” she said. “Hello.”
Mary smiled. Not brightly, but sadly, with the weight of a whole lot of very long roads weighing it down.
“Hi, Emery,” she said. “Long time no see.”
Sam looked back and forth between the two of them, eyes going wide as he added two and two together and came up with a number that was something like four and something like “oh, fuck.” Finally, he managed to squeak, “You two know each other?”
“Your grandmother came to the crossroads a long time ago,” said Mary, voice gentle, like she was trying to explain some terrible idea to a child. “She was worried about a lot of things. Her own daughter, mostly. This was before you, Sam, before you were even a shadow on the horizon. She wanted to purchase a guarantee of a happy future. And I talked her out of it.”
Emery burst into tears and ran the last few feet to Mary, throwing her arms around the other woman’s neck and sobbing into her shoulder. Sam blinked.
“I feel like I’m missing like, two-thirds of this story, and it’s the part that makes it okay for you to make my grandmother cry and say you talked her out of buying a happy ending, so it would be awesome if someone could tell me why I’m not supposed to be angry right now.”
“Because, silly boy, she would have been narrowing her life from a highway to a side street,” said Mary, patting Emery on the back. “No more questions, no more choices, just a single pre-determined path that she would have had no choice but to follow. You, for example. I can guarantee you wouldn’t exist, because you’re way too much of a wild card for the crossroads to be comfortable having in their deck. A half-fūri trapeze artist? Please. You’re a nightmare to any organized plan. Buying a future means selling the ones you didn’t use. That’s a lot of power to waste on making yourself miserable.”
“But she said happy ending,” protested Sam.
“Uh-huh. Ever done drugs?”
Sam froze, looking guiltily between Mary and Emery for several seconds before he said, “I, uh, smoked some weed with Ananta once. She offered, and I was curious, and the carnival wasn’t open. Um. Sorry, Grandma.”
“How did it make you feel?” asked Mary, before Emery could say anything.
“I don’t know. Floaty. Sort of silly. My feet were fascinating, which was good, since I couldn’t tense enough to change forms. Which freaked me out, once I realized it, and then I got into an argument with one of the cobras over whether I was being insensitive for being angry that I couldn’t pass myself off as human anymore.”
“How do you get into an argument with a cobra?” asked Mary.
“The tips of their tails are really flexible. They can use a stylus, and wow, do they know how to swear.” Sam shook his head. “The whole thing made me feel really stupid and sort of trapped, like I didn’t get to decide what I was going to do, I just did it.”
“Great,” said Mary. “Now magnify that feeling. Imagine waking up every morning and just doing things, going through the motions of your life without making any actual decisions. You wouldn’t go to the store because you looked in the pantry and realized you were out of noodles, you would go to the store because your feet had you halfway there before you noticed you were out of bed. Everything would be kismet, which sounds great until you realize that you haven’t decided to do anything in years. Everything happens. You can’t make it stop.”
Sam grimaced. “Okay, that sounds really awful.”
“That’s why she talked me out of it,” said Emery. She reached up and touched Sam’s cheek lightly. “My silly little ideas of what it meant to be happy could never hold a candle to this world.”
“Glad to help,” said Mary. “Now can we talk about how you went and got old? Hen’s teeth, Emery, last time I saw you, you were the hottest thing in six counties. Now you’re down to like, three.”
“Last time I saw you, my daughter was three years old, and I was terrified that raising her on my own would do something to hurt her,” said Emery. “Between her and Sam, I’ve been a mother twice over. That sort of thing ages a body. You don’t look any deader.”
Mary grinned. “Good thing, too. I never did feel much like rotting.”
“What brings you here? Are you—” Emery’s expression hardened, shuttering itself, until her face had become a fortress. “Absolutely not. Samuel Coleridge Taylor, I forbid you to have any dealings with the crossroads.”
“I wasn’t,” Sam protested. “I didn’t even know they existed until Mary showed up and started lecturing me about leaving them alone. Can you please only yell at me for things I’ve actually done?” He realized his mistake too late, and winced.
“You mean like sneaking away to take some girl’s Aeslin mice to the airport?” Emery asked.
“Wait,” said Mary, holding up her hands. “You’re mad at him because he helped the mice? Antimony’s mice? You’re serious?”
“You know her?” asked Emery sharply.
“I’m her babysitter,” said Mary. “I’ve been the Price family babysitter since shortly after I died, back when they were still the Healys, and still believed the rest of the world would eventually allow them to put the Covenant behind them. You’re honestly mad about this? For the love of Hades, Emery, that girl did nothing but save you—”
“She burned my carnival!” Emery snarled.
“You have insurance! You’ll get it back, you’ll get it all back, and she saved you, as surely as I did, by doing her job. That little girl—that child, because they are always children to me, Emery, the only children I’m ever going to have—risked her life on your behalf, and this is the thanks she gets? You berating her boyfriend because he dared keep his word to her? Come on. I thought better of you. Honestly, I’m astonished that you didn’t think better of yourself.”
Mary’s glare had an almost physical presence. Emery held up under it for a few seconds before she wilted, shoulders slumping, and turned her face away.
“Do you have any idea how hard it is to raise a child, to make him happy and healthy and secure in himself, when you know every minute that the world is full of people who would hurt him if they could, all because of things he didn’t choose? I love my boy. I love him for who and what he is, and I wouldn’t change it. But that girl was every nightmare I’ve had in the past twenty years all wrapped up in one.”
“Her name is Antimony,” said Mary. “She saved you. I won’t ask you to be grateful, because it seems like that would be pushing it, but I will ask you to be respectful. She’s earned that much. Sam?”
“Uh, yeah?”
“If you need me, call. I always hear when my kids call, and I’ll do my best to come. I can find you.” Mary took one last look at Emery, and then she was gone.
“Oh, God.” Emery put her hands over her face. “What have I done?”
Sam didn’t answer.
* * *
MINDY
We squeezed our bodies beneath the door, the weight of my belly making the task more difficult than it should have been. It was good, that we undertook this journey now: had we waited, I might have found myself unable to move easily through the airport, and all would have been lost.
On the other side of the door, the floor was covered in dull red carpet, and smelled of many feet. It had been cleaned recently, for there were no smells more th
an a few hours old, and yet it had already been transformed into a highway of informative filth.
Humans walk through a world filled with information they can neither access nor understand. I pity them for that, even as I rejoice that we have something that they do not, that we can be useful. Some of the people who had passed through this place had come from home. Their footsteps left traces of Portland soil, of Portland flora, behind. But unless we wished to track them down, presume they were visitors to this place and would be returning home in the fullness of time, and stay with them until their pilgrimages ended, knowing where people had been was of less use.
Long stretches of wall were exposed, leaving no cover. But people walked in all directions towing small cases behind them. If we timed this correctly . . .
“Follow me,” I said. Mork nodded, and we moved to the edge of the large metal rack which offered our current concealment. A woman in very tall shoes walked by, towing a black bag with many zippers. I ran, leaping to the side and climbing onto the top. Mork did the same. The woman did not notice, but walked on, pulling us with her.
Humans are predators, for all that they prefer their food pre-killed and packaged for their convenience: motion catches their eyes more than any other thing. Having made it to the safety of her bag, we were likely to remain safe until needs forced us to move again. I held my whiskers perfectly still, forbade my ears to flick, and focused only on charting our surroundings. We would need to be able to navigate this airport if we were to transverse it without unnecessary difficulty.
“Look,” breathed Mork. I turned my head the smallest of fractions, and beheld what had captured his attention: a black rectangle hung high on the wall, covered with numbers, times, and the names of cities.
Our helpful transport was no longer so helpful. We were passing a row of empty seats. I leapt, Mork close behind me, and no one screamed or threw anything, leaving me to believe that we had once more escaped notice. It couldn’t last forever. I was going to take full advantage while I could, for did not the Violent Priestess say, lo, The Best Offense Is a Sneak Attack?
According to the board, there were four flights departing for Portland within the next two hours. One—the soonest—was on the opposite side of the airport. I dismissed it as an option. By the time we could make our way there, the plane would likely have departed, and then we would be too far from the other three. Each of the other flights presented its own disadvantages. I bristled my whiskers.
“Have you any scripture?” I asked.
“Not . . . not that you would know,” said Mork awkwardly.
I glanced at him. “You speak of a Priestess known to the Lost Colony?”
“The Obedient Priestess.”
“Ah,” I breathed. “We know her as a child. We were denied the glory of knowing her as a woman. What would she have said?”
“She did say, lo, Aim For The Middle, For When You Strike True, It Is a Bullseye, and When You Miss, There Is Much More Target.”
“So be it,” I said, unable to stop the thrill that ran down my spine as I heard new holy words, words we had been so long ignorant of. “Truly, she was wise, and we will be enriched beyond all measure by growing to know her better. The second departing flight, then. If we can achieve it, we will be home before the clock strikes nine. If we cannot, we will take the next. Thus will we chip away at our obstacles, and find ourselves well-redeemed.”
The second flight was in the same part of the airport as our current hiding place, if the numbers on the gates were to be considered accurate: we would still need to travel a great distance, but it was not overly ambitious, nor beyond our means. We could do this.
We would do this.
A man walked by, heading in the direction we needed to go, toting another case like the one we had ridden before. I glanced to Mork, flicked an ear, and leapt. He leapt with me, into the next step on our adventure; into the future.
* * *
SAM
“I don’t hate you, but I’m not going to let you draw anti-possession wards all around the border of my hotel room, and even if I wanted to let you, you wouldn’t do it, because we can’t afford to have the room cleaned,” said Sam, for what felt like the fifty-seventh time. “Mary didn’t try to possess me. Not once. She looked at me sort of like I was six years old and needed to learn how to clean my room, but that doesn’t feel like a precursor to possession. A time-out, maybe. She’s a babysitter.”
“You don’t understand the forces you’re toying with, Sam,” snapped Emery.
Sam relaxed a little. If he was back to “Sam” instead of “Samuel,” she was calming down. Anti-possession wards notwithstanding. “I understand that she cares about Annie, and that she’s actively looking for her, which means I don’t have to. I want her to keep coming around, if only so I can sleep at night.”
Emery paused. “What do you mean?”
“I met a girl, Grandma. A girl who liked me. Liked me-liked me, not just ‘better be nice to the boss’s son.’ She kissed me when I was like this, you know?” He waved a hand, indicating all of himself. “She didn’t pull back or ask if she was going to get fur in her mouth or say anything weird about how kissing a dude with a tail was sort of kinky. I know you love me, I know you don’t care, but my dating life has never been totally awesome. Human girls get weird.”
They had done more than kiss while he was relaxed enough not to look human anymore. Somehow, he didn’t think his grandmother would appreciate hearing that. He was also pretty sure Annie wouldn’t appreciate him telling that, and while she was probably hundreds of miles away playing roller derby under an assumed name, Mary was only ever a thought from smacking him in the back of the head.
Having ghosts around sure was a good way to learn how to watch his mouth.
“I don’t like her,” said Emery. “She’s a Price. She’ll only get you hurt.”
“I don’t think you need to like her, Grandma,” he said. “I’m pretty sure the only one here who needs to like her is me. And I like her plenty.”
“She’s dangerous.”
“I’m dangerous.”
“You’re not, baby, you’re not.” Emery started to reach for him, then seemed to think better of it and pulled her hands back. “You’re special.”
“Grandma, I’m a monkey.” Sam shrugged. “I’m not complaining. I like being a monkey. I like being able to go back and forth. I can walk around in the human world, doing whatever, and then come home and know that I’m stronger and faster than they could ever hope to be. But even if I didn’t like it, that wouldn’t make it change. I am always going to be what I am, which means I am always going to be looking over my shoulder for Covenant assholes and bigger monsters. I’m not going to go to college and have wacky hijinks. Jimmy Wong isn’t going to play me in the movie. I’m totally cool with all of these things. I like who I am, I like my life. But you don’t get to tell me Annie’s dangerous and I’m not. Maybe I’m a different kind of danger. I don’t think so, though. I think we’re pretty much the same kind of health hazard.”
Emery sighed, pressing a hand to the hollow of her throat, like she was trying to trap her breath inside. Like she thought she could keep herself from shaking into pieces. “I don’t want to lose you.”
“You’re not going to lose me. You’re my Grandma. You raised me. When I was little, I always wondered why you didn’t do like the young grandparents in Lifetime movies and tell me you were my actual mother.”
“I let you watch too much television,” Emery sniffed. “And I didn’t want you to think I could answer questions about your father, or that you were adopted. You needed to know you were mine, but that there were things I couldn’t tell you, because they’d never been mine to know.”
“See?” Sam smiled encouragingly. “We have so many years of just us. We have bad jokes and too much TV and ‘don’t hang from the ceiling, it’s uncouth,’ and setup an
d teardown and everything. You’re never gonna lose me.”
Emery opened her mouth to reply. Then she paused, eyes narrowing as she really looked at her beloved, boneheaded grandson. When had he gotten so tall? When had the fur on his cheeks gone from baby fuzz to something that looked like it could break a razor in two? When had he grown up, and why hadn’t she found a way to stop it?
“You’re going to go after her, aren’t you.” It wasn’t really a question.
Sam’s smile wilted a little, losing its edge of encouragement, gaining an edge of melancholy. “Wouldn’t you? If you were in my position, if someone you lo—liked a whole lot was out there somewhere alone and maybe scared, wouldn’t you go after them?”
“Yes,” she said. “My brave boy, yes.”
“Good,” said Sam, and folded his grandmother into a hug, staring over her shoulder at the wall.
He was going to go after her. Just as soon as he knew where to go.
* * *
MINDY
The first man stopped at a gate some distance shy of our destination. We hopped down before we could be seen and rushed to the shelter of the nearest trash can, sticking close to its base, where we could be reasonably sure we would go unseen. A Dorito greeted us there.
“Praise the divine,” Mork murmured, and broke it in two.
“Praise the divine,” I echoed, and pretended not to notice when he passed me the larger of the two pieces.
We sat in peace for a moment, enjoying our scavenged treat, watching the people come and go. There were so many of them, humans in unbelievable array. Some were dressed as for ritual purposes, garments all of one color, tight-fitted and tidy. Others looked as if they were preparing for a very long nap. None of them saw us. We moved through their world but apart from it, separated by scale.
Mork followed my gaze, and asked, “Do you envy them?”
“Envy them what?” I looked to him, ear cocked to show curiosity. “Their size? It would be nice, to be so protected from predation. But look how much they need! What fills my belly is but a crumb to them. They are endless hunger. They will devour the world, and they still will not be fulfilled. And lacking predators to turn their hands against, they turn so very often on each other. No. I do not envy them their size.”
Tricks for Free Page 40
