“Are you sure everything’s okay?” Heather asked. “You look like you’re somewhere far away.”
“No. Sorry. I mean, yes, I was just thinking about us, and about the kiss. It really was great.”
“Wow. Thanks, Tony Tiger. It’s an honor to be an important part of your nutritious breakfast.”
“No, that’s not what I meant. I meant—”
“Oh, so now you think I’m imagining things?”
How had things gone so bad so quickly? “No, really, I—”
“You do. You think I’m cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs.” She glared at me for a second, and then the corner of her mouth quirked up.
The knot of anxiety lifted from my chest. Mostly. “Hey, you do know I think you’re magically delicious, right?”
“Uh-huh. Prove it.” She kissed me again. This time, with more passion. Or maybe it was determination.
She pulled me away from the door, still kissing me, and we kiss-stumbled our way to the nearest hardback chair. She plopped me down onto the chair and straddled me, wriggling down on my lap with a smile that belonged on a cat in an aviary. Then she pulled my head to one side and lunged for my throat. I jumped, but she held me pinned down. Her teeth didn’t break skin, just bit playfully at the side of my neck, and then it was warm lips and hot breath on my throat, my jaw, my earlobe. That last caused waves of heat to pulse through me, and I began to thrust rhythmically against her. She made a soft encouraging moan in my ear. She grabbed my hand and slid it along the low opening of her shirt, under her bra. Her nipple pressed hard against my fingertip, and her lips brushed my ear as she whispered, “Do you want to kiss them?”
“Yes,” I said, feeling awkward and weird to be saying it out loud. But with her body pressed against mine, her breath hot on my ear, and a similar heat now warming my lap, yes, I most definitely did.
“Mmmm. Say yes, Miss Brown,” she said.
And for some reason, hearing her name was like a slap. And not the good kind. It jolted me out of the pleasant, sultry bubble in which we existed and back into a reality where she wasn’t Heather Flowers, the girl I’d loved, but Heather the grown and experienced woman. I felt like I’d been floating in a kind of dream, an extension of moments with the Heather of my memories and, oddly, with Dawn. Another side effect of my exile maybe?
My hands moved over to her arms.
“Heather—”
“Miss Brown.”
“I think we should stop.”
“No.” She nipped at my earlobe. “I think that’s a terrible idea.”
“No, really.” I lifted her up and away as best I could, but that only budged her an inch or two. “I’m sorry,” I said. “It’s not you, it’s me. I need more time to recover from exile, and to clear my head I think.”
“Why?” she said, and her hand rested on my crotch. “It doesn’t feel like you need more time. And I can take care of your head.” She wriggled in close again, and kissed the corner of my mouth as her hand squeezed the most sensitive part of my body, pumping good feelings all through me. She whispered, “I can give you a memory you won’t mind reliving. And I can teach you how to make a woman very happy.” She kissed me then, a long, deep kiss, and when our lips parted she whispered hot into my ear, “Do you want me to teach you?”
My hands slid off of her arms, to her waist. I could feel her mouth spread into a grin, pressed against the side of my face.
“Yes,” I exhaled.
“Yes, what?”
“Yes, Miss Brown.”
14
She Blinded Me with Science
I lay sprawled across the chaise longue, dozing, with pleasant feelings still shivering along my legs to the tips of my toes. Heather left to use the restroom with a promise to be right back.
My smile stretched so wide I felt the pull and pressure of it.
Right there, right then, the anger and fear and frustration of the past day were weak and distant creatures, in no danger of killing this pleasant feeling. For the first time since, well, before my exile, I felt truly relaxed, truly at peace. I glanced at my watch. Just after 2 P.M. My first day of freedom was more than half over, and we’d spent more than an hour playing around in the library, making zero progress on proving my innocence—I grinned. If anything, Heather had made me significantly less innocent. And I felt only the faintest concern about the enforcers’ deadline. If I was going back into exile to relive memories, this was certainly a better way to spend my time than fighting feybloods or accusing my family members of crimes.
And another thing—I finally felt at home in my body. I hadn’t realized until now, but since my return I’d been uncomfortable in my own body. It wasn’t the body I remembered. But over the past couple of hours, I’d been made acutely aware of every inch of skin, and controlled and flexed and stretched muscles that I normally wouldn’t even think about.
I got up and dressed, retracing the trail of clothes between the wooden chair and the chaise longue, with a stop at the table to set the silver candlestick holders upright. I actually blushed a bit there. It would certainly be a long time before I let anyone see my memories now.
I moved to the doors. Heather was taking a long time. Maybe I should grab us both something to drink. That seemed like the right thing to do.
I heard Heather speaking beyond the doors in a low tone. “Well now I’ll never know, will I? I have to go.”
I stepped back from the door just as she opened it.
“Everything okay?” I asked.
Her hand touched the outline of her mobile phone in her pants pocket. “What? Of course, why?”
“I thought I heard you on the phone. You sounded upset.”
“Oh. An argument with Orion. Money stuff.” She closed the door. “In some ways, you’re lucky. You haven’t really had to deal with all the crap of adult life yet.”
“Yeah. Lucky.” I moved to her side, ran my hand down her arm, took her hand. “So, does this mean, you know, that we’re dating?”
She lifted my hand, looked at it, then pulled me over to the chaise and sat down, pulled me down next to her.
“Is that what you want?” she asked. “To date me?”
“Yes. I thought about it a lot in exile.”
She leaned against me, laid her head on my shoulder. “That’s the problem, Finn. You’re a former exile. And you’re obviously in some kind of trouble now. But I’ve already got problems I’m dealing with. And a son to think about.” She straightened, and held my hand to her chest, so that I felt her heartbeat. “I want to say yes, Finn. It would be nice for it to be us, together against the world again. But before I make any decision, I really need to understand what’s going on. I just can’t take any risks right now. And I need to know if you’re going to be here a week from now, still wanting to date me.”
“I know. I get that.” I sighed. Finn and Heather against the world. A promise I’d made to her many times. “Okay. I’ll tell you everything. But it is only for you to know. I’m not sure yet who I can trust.”
“I promise,” Heather said.
I told her, about the attack on the Other Realm, the sasquatches at Fort Worden and the feybloods at the Hole, about the memory of my mother’s journal. For some reason, I just couldn’t bring myself to tell her about Felicity’s body though. Or about my father.
I was protecting her. That’s what I told myself at least.
“Wow,” she said when I was done. “And that’s all you know?”
“Yeah.”
She looked at me a few seconds, and tears filled the corners of her eyes. She looked away as they ran down her face. “Okay.”
“So, what do you think? About us, I mean?”
Heather took a deep breath, expanding her chest beneath our entwined hands, and wiped the tears from her face with her shoulder. She let my hand slide down into my lap. “I think maybe you have enough to focus on without worrying about me.”
“But—”
She held up her hand. “If you’re still here i
n four days, and … and if you still want to ask me out, I’ll say yes. How’s that?”
“Right,” I said. “Of course. No, you’re right.”
Heather stood, and crossed to the waist-high marble pedestal with the large tome on it. “So, someone wants you back in exile, and doesn’t want you speaking with a warded spirit?”
“Yes.” I stood and joined her.
“And I assume whatever you wanted help to research is related?”
She opened the tome, revealing blank pages.
Research. Right. I sighed.
“I need a list of every being my family warded against Talking.”
Heather arched an eyebrow at me. “That’s going to be a long list. Do you have any other criteria, maybe something that would help narrow the search a bit?”
“Well, I guess we can forget anyone who was cremated, or unmade.” Throw a ward on a spirit and then destroy the body, and I’d have to practically kill myself just to connect to the spirit, let alone Talk to them. There wouldn’t be much need to exile me.
“Still has a body. Got it. Anything else?”
I considered. “Try anyone warded between nineteen eighty-five and eighty-six.” It made sense that the warding took place close to my exile. My Talking gift had been fully active for several years before my exile, so why wait until that particular Saturday to frame me, unless I hadn’t been a threat before that?
“Well, that should be a short enough list.” Heather closed her eyes. After a minute, she opened her eyes and frowned. “A really short list.” She lifted her hands, and the words ‘Non Respondet’ appeared in black ink on the page. “It seems any records of your family’s activities from that period have been expunged.”
Surprise, surprise. “Who could do that?”
“A head librarian, probably. Or someone in the ARC with the right access.”
I paced across the library for a minute. I knew the Legion had serious mojo, but actual positions in the ARC as well? Gods, I hoped not. With luck, they just had an evil head librarian on their team. My situation was rapidly shifting from pretty screwed to totally hosed as it was, I didn’t need the ARC as my enemy too. “Okay, if we can’t find the records in the library, could they be anywhere else?”
“I don’t know, I’m sorry.”
“Frak! The ledger and the library, they were my best shots.”
“Then maybe you should do something else for a bit? Maybe spend some time with your family. I find the answer often comes when you’re not looking for it. Meanwhile,” she pulled out her mobile phone, looked at the screen. “I’ve got some errands to run. But I’ll see you at dinner.”
I sighed. “All right. Thank you. And … thank you.”
Heather smiled a sad smile. “Of course. Happy to help.”
I left the library and made my way to Father’s room. He sat on the love seat watching a gardening show on television. Mattie sat at Mother’s desk, typing away on her computer.
“Hi, Mattie,” I said. “Sorry that took so long.”
Mattie grinned up at me. “No worries. Did you and Heather, uh, find what you wanted?”
I blushed. Did Mattie know? Maybe she just thought we’d made out. “Actually, no. It seems the records were erased in the library.”
She tapped her Apple computer. “You should Google it.”
“Google it?”
“Yeah. Here.” Mattie caused the computer’s screen to go white, with the word Google prominently displayed. Between the word and the primary colors, I assumed it was some kind of children’s game. “What are you looking for?” she asked.
I glanced over at Father. I didn’t feel comfortable discussing it in front of him. What if the Legion still had access to him somehow? They could learn what he knew.
“Why don’t we go up to my room. I was going to show you my Commodore anyway.”
“Cool, okay.”
Mattie closed her computer and said, “Papa, just ring if you need anything.”
Father looked at me. “Ring around the heartsie, you’ll see.”
“Okay, Father. Love you.” I followed Mattie out. “Thank you for taking such good care of him,” I said as we headed for my room.
“Of course,” Mattie said. “He’s lots of fun.”
“Really?”
“Oh yeah. He tells me stories sometimes, and we play games, or work on his inventions.”
“But wouldn’t you rather be hanging out with your friends?”
Mattie shrugged. “I hang out when I want to. Most of the time, though, there’s not much going on. They just sit around playing video games, or talking about boys, or want to go smoke and drink in the woods, and I’d rather just do my own thing, you know?”
We reached my room. As I opened my door, Sammy stepped out of Vee’s room into the hallway and turned back to give Vee a hug. Sammy now wore skin-tight red jeans and a black shirt with silver wings printed on the back.
I’d forgotten Pete had called her. Vee waved at me, then shut her door.
“So,” Sammy said, turning to face me. “It seems you’ve been busy.”
“Yeah, it’s been aces.”
“Aces. Right. What are you two up to?”
“Nothing,” Mattie said quickly. “We were going to check out his computer.”
“Uh-huh.” Sammy crossed her arms. “I know that look, Mattie. And don’t think I didn’t notice you trying to hide your laptop from me. What’s up?”
I shrugged. “She was going to help me search the Google for information I need.”
“Search the Google, eh?” She eyed Mattie. “I thought we talked about this. I showed you the Infomancer layer so you could help research cures for Father, and that was to be it.”
“Infomancer layer?” I asked.
“But this is Uncle Finn,” Mattie said. “It’s still helping family.”
“And still dangerous,” Sammy said. “If anyone’s going to do this, it should be me. Come on.” She shooed us into my room.
I turned on my Commodore 64 and the monitor, letting it warm up. Not to search the Google, of course, but to play Wizball with Mattie as promised. In fact, I promised myself I would find time each day to do something fun with her. Especially if I only had three days to do so. Mattie set her flat little Macintosh on my desk and opened it, and the screen lit up right away. Sammy moved to sit in the folding chair.
“Wait,” I said, and hit Play on my boom box. Prince’s “I Would Die 4 U” started playing. “First, I think we need to teach Mattie how to dance!” I launched into my Ed Grimley dance, knees bent, one hand flopping around in front of my forehead.
Sammy glared at me. “No.”
“Ah, come on,” I said, and pulled my pants up over my belly button. “She’s going to think you don’t know how to have fun.”
“It’s not happening.”
“Should I tell Mattie about your Stormer obsession? Or how about the famous She-Ra incident?”
“Sure, if you want me to show her pictures of your perm.”
“Go ahead,” I said. “People have been rooting around in my memories for years, you think that scares me now? So, Mattie, Sammy had this She-Ra costume from Halloween, and—”
“Okay! Fine. I’ll join your stupid dance party.”
Sammy knocked her fists against each other sideways, then again behind her in a half-hearted manner.
“Feet too, Stormer,” I said. “You’re a loner, a rebel. Own it.”
Sammy exhaled sharply through her nose, then launched into her full Pee-wee Herman big shoe dance.
“Bitchin!” I said. “Mattie, your turn.”
Mattie shook her head. “I don’t dance. I look like a spaz.”
“Oh, come on,” I said. “Do you really think you could look any worse than me?”
“Just do it, Mattie,” Sammy said. “He won’t stop until you do.”
“Fine,” Mattie said. She stood up and started dancing, weaving her hands around each other.
We danced and soon were
laughing, and when the song ended, Mattie gave me and Sammy a big hug. “You guys are the best.”
“That’s true,” I said, breathing heavy.
A smile twitched at the corner of Sammy’s mouth, but she just said, “I feel exhausted,” and plopped down in the chair. “So, what are we looking for?”
I sat on the edge of my bed where I could still see her screen.
“Family records. I need a list of anyone our family warded against Talking in the year before I was exiled.”
“Okay.” Sammy typed a string of words and symbols into the little box beneath the Google logo.
“So,” I said. “Since I didn’t get the changeling crash course on modern computers, maybe you can fill me in here? Is this Google thing like a private arcana bulletin board or something?”
Sammy hit Enter. The screen filled with a list of paragraphs, each starting with underlined blue words. “I’m not here to teach, just search,” Sammy said as she scrolled down through the paragraphs. She clicked on one, and the screen went black, with a blinking white cursor. “But lo, your sad questions have filled my heart with pity for you. Mattie, while I do this, why don’t you explain to uncle Finn all about the Internet and World Wide Web.”
“What about them?” Mattie asked.
“Everything,” Sammy said. “Like he was five years old. Which shouldn’t be too hard, the way he’s acting.”
I bit back a sarcastic remark. Computers were the one area Sammy and I had always clashed. She excelled at programming, and made it clear she felt it was unfair I should be good with computers and a Talker. Looking back, I should have helped her more when she needed it, and recognized it more when she exceeded me, which was more often than I’d wanted to admit. Now she was light-years ahead of me, and the least I could do was let her enjoy her moment of gloating.
So Mattie explained the World Wide Web to me like I was a child. I’d learned all about Arpanet and bulletin boards before my exile. I was even hoping to get a modem and QuantumLink for Christmas. But the interweb sounded cool. Almost William Gibson cool. I’d read Neuromancer a half-dozen times that last year before exile, in between watching Bladerunner, Tron, and WarGames over and over on VHS.
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