Thresholds

by Kiriki Hoffman, Nina

  Gwenda handed her a big snowy handkerchief.

  She wiped her face and blew her nose, then she climbed unsteadily to her feet and went to the bed.

  Bikos lay with his hands folded across his stomach. She touched his hand. It was only faintly warm, and already stiff.

  She looked across at Raspberry Woman. The medic’s eyes were wide and wet. “I wish I could have helped him.”

  Maya sniffled. She stroked the egg down her cheek over her tears. She fetched her sketchpad and looked for a blank page, but she had used them all. She reclaimed one of the drawings and found a different pencil in the outer pocket of her backpack. Resting the sketchpad’s stiff cardboard against the bed, she placed the loose page facedown, and on its back she drew Bikos’s abandoned body, the resting peace of his empty face.

  Her sobs stopped. The flow of line from her brain through her hand and out the end of the pencil calmed her.

  Gwenda’s hand rested warm on her shoulder. Maya’s fingers slowed. She lifted the pencil tip from the paper and closed her eyes.

  Stephanie and Bikos were gone. Not coming back. Miracles were all around Maya, and they couldn’t stop death.

  TWENTY-THREE

  “Maya, are you all right?” her father asked at the supper table.

  Maya had gotten home just in time for curfew. After . . . everything, she had curled up in a big cushiony chair in Benjamin’s apartment, communing with the egg, sharing sadness. Gwenda had brought her more vinegar soup. At first, her stomach tightened, but then it growled, and she ate and was comforted. Then she felt terrible for letting go of her sadness and betraying Bikos’s memory.

  The moon-pendant Tree Sister sat beside her and stroked her back, saying nothing.

  Benjamin finally sat down beside Maya and gripped her hand. “You saved his friend. That was what he wanted.”

  Rimi’s sorrow tasted of salt and peppermint.

  Eventually, Maya got up and washed her face and came home. The Janus House people had kept all her drawings except the last one, which she had tucked into her backpack. She had set the table, though it took her longer than usual; she kept zoning out, waking up to see her hand holding a spoon or a napkin. With a start, she would remember her task and continue it.

  Candra had been on dinner duty, and she had made spaghetti and meatballs, garlic bread, and salad, one of Maya’s favorites.

  The other kids had talked about their day already. Maya had been trying to figure out what to say when it was her turn.

  She blinked and looked down at her plate, where she had used her fork to drag the spaghetti into spirals with clear centers, like the ones in the picture Benjamin had drawn of his family.

  “Just sad,” she said.

  Mom sighed and said, “New sad or old sad?”

  “Both,” said Maya. Her stomach rumbled, and she remembered she was eating for two. She ate a bite of spaghetti. Her appetite woke up. Again. She bolted her food.

  “Whoa,” said her father. “Maybe you should chew before you swallow?”

  “What’s the new sad?” asked Candra as Maya reached for seconds.

  Maya didn’t know how to answer. She couldn’t tell her family she had watched someone die. They would want to know details.

  She glanced around the table. All of them were staring at her. She loved them so much, and they were receding from her. A wall of secrets closed her off from them now.

  “Are your new friends making you sad?” Peter asked.

  “Kind of. Not them, really, just some things about them.”

  “Gwenda’s little brother, Bran, is in my class,” Peter said.

  “He is? I didn’t even know she had a brother.”

  “He’s weird.” Peter munched the middle out of a piece of garlic bread and held the crust under the table for Sully.

  “What kind of weird?” asked Dad.

  “He hardly talks at all, and he eats weird food, and he sits alone all the time.”

  “Benjamin and Gwenda were like that, too, but I sat with them anyway,” Maya said.

  “Did you tell us their last names?” Mom asked.

  “Um, maybe not. Janus, Porta, Gates? There might be others. Those are the ones I’ve met,” said Maya.

  “I’ve got a Janus girl in one of my classes,” Dad said.

  Candra said, “These kids, last name Janus? Porta? Gates? Come to think of it, one of the guys on the school paper was talking about doing an exposé on them. Their family has lived in Spores for decades. They’re ultrapolite. They all do their homework on time. They don’t join anything; they don’t make friends; they don’t participate in extracurriculars; they never come to games. He figures they must be hiding bodies in the basement, or maybe they have weird religious practices. I’m getting excited just thinking about it. Peter, make friends with that kid Bran. Try to find out about his home life. Maya, you’re the only person I’ve heard of who’s been inside the building. What can you tell us about what’s behind their doors?”

  Maya shrugged. “Apartments,” she said. “A central courtyard with cool plants in it. And man, can they cook.”

  “I can’t believe they’re that boring! There must be more to it!” Candra said.

  “That’s all I got,” said Maya.

  Candra narrowed her eyes. “You’re hiding something. I’m going to dig it out. Just you wait, missy!”

  “Color me scared,” Maya said. She hoped Candra thought she was kidding.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Maya woke in the middle of the night and didn’t know why.

  Where her Idaho window used to be, all she saw was dark.

  She turned her head. Faint orange light from the streetlamp came in through her Oregon window and printed a tangerine shape on the ceiling.

  She glanced at the clock. Three A.M. The house was silent.

  What had awakened her? A sound? She struggled to sit up. Her left arm was tangled in pillows.

  The egg! It was hot against her wrist, and pulsing. Throbbing.

  She turned her ring three times, then sat up and switched on the bedside lamp.

  Light flared by her bookcase: a flickering sheet of orange, red, and yellow, along with a wash of chikuvny scent. Gwenda stepped out of the lightstorm, yawning into her hand. She had on a blue flannel nightgown and looked way too ordinary for someone who had just appeared out of thin air.

  “Is it now?” Gwenda whispered. She had a basket over her arm.

  “I think so,” Maya whispered.

  Gwenda took a stick out of the basket and traced the walls of the room with its tip, writing symbols in the air. She scribed toward the ceiling, then the floor. She sang pieces of melody. “Okay,” she said. “I’ve warded us, even stronger than I did last night. Nobody can hear what goes on in this room or come in until I take the wards down. Even if I have to go for help, we should be okay.”

  “Thanks,” Maya said.

  Maya lifted her left wrist and stared at it. Gwenda settled next to her on the bed, staring, too.

  The egg lay on top of Maya’s skin now, like something superglued to her wrist, no longer under her skin. Colors streaked and swirled and exploded over its soft shell. She touched it. Velvet soft, a pulse of heat against her fingertip, a burst of butter yellow. For a moment she couldn’t breathe. Sweat wet her forehead and scalp, soaked her back. Something . . . something . . .

  A tiny cracking noise.

  Hatching.

  What was she supposed to do?

  Panicked, she stared at Gwenda.

  What if Rimi died?

  “It’ll be all right,” Gwenda whispered. “Help is just a short step away.”

  “I should have brought food,” Maya said. “I didn’t even think. What if it’s hungry? What does it eat? Why didn’t I ask Ara-Kita what to do when I had the chance?”

  “Sissimi can get along on all worlds, as long as they connect to someone local. It’ll be all right, Maya.”

  Crack!

  She couldn’t move.

  The e
ggshell split. A tiny green tendril poked out. Then another, and another, and another. They waved in the air, little flat ribbons of green, dancing. Curling and straightening, like baby fingers reaching for the moon.

  Maya held her right index finger above the green ribbons. One wavered toward her finger, touched it. The faintest flick, the touch of a feather. It curled around her finger.

  The other ribbons reached for her finger, too. Then more and more of them came out of the egg, longer ones, wider ones. They wound around her fingers, locked her fingers together, and bound her right hand to her left wrist. They were warm and damp, stretchy and superstrong, tight, but not tight enough to hurt.

  Oh, man. Her arms were locked together. This was going to be hard to hide.

  So many ribbons came out of the egg that her right hand looked like it was mummy-wrapped in narrow bands of green. She couldn’t figure out how the egg had held all those ribbons.

  Finally a small green lump came out of the egg, the base of all the ribbons, and her right hand broke free, taking the lump with it. Her hand was tied up tight to itself, but it wasn’t connected to her left wrist anymore.

  The eggshell darkened to gray. It shredded and fell off, then powdered and blew away like ashes.

  Maya flexed her left wrist. There was a pale pink oval of skin on it in the middle of her summer tan. Her wrist worked again, though, and it didn’t hurt.

  She sighed and looked at what used to be her right hand.

  The lump sat on top of her fingers. All its streamers wriggled, tensing and untensing around her hand. Some unwound and reached up and down and out.

  It looked like nothing she’d ever seen before. Had Kita ever looked like this?

  “Rimi. What are you?” she whispered.

  Rimi.

  “I know that. What else are you?”

  Rimi thought a smile at her, and Maya had to laugh.

  Gwenda held out a finger. Emerald ribbons lifted from Maya’s hand and danced toward Gwenda’s.

  “Hey, Rimi,” Gwenda crooned, edging her finger closer. Ribbons wrapped around Gwenda’s finger, reached past it to envelop her hand.

  “Wait a second!” Gwenda tried to pull away, but Rimi wouldn’t release her. “Oh! She’s so strong! Let go, Rimi!”

  Look what I caught. The sissimi’s little-girl voice sounded proud.

  Maya laughed again. She couldn’t help it. She was sitting in her bedroom after three A.M. with her drawing hand mummy-wrapped by her alien friend, who had just caught her human friend and wouldn’t let go.

  “Maya?” Gwenda said.

  Can I keep it? asked Rimi.

  “Maya? Tell her to let go. Maya?”

  TWENTY-FIVE

  “Rimi, we need to talk,” Maya said. Gwenda had managed to peel off the green ribbons that bound her to Maya—but only because Rimi let her, after a few minutes where the sissimi held on so tight Maya actually wondered if she and Gwenda would be welded together for life. “You can’t live on my hand.”

  I know. There is much more of you I need to learn. Emerald ends of ribbons rose wavering in the air, flickering like snakes’ tongues. What next?

  “If you’re going to stay on me, I need you someplace I can cover with clothes. My back?”

  Where is that?

  Maya frowned and tried to reach her back with her right hand. Her nightgown got in the way. Finally she slid her green-wrapped hand inside the neckline behind her head. She felt shifting on her hand, heard faint crackly noises, then felt stripes walking down her back. A final tickle against her fingers, and Rimi was away. Maya rested her freed hands on her thighs and flexed her fingers, smiling at the return of independent function, as many thin warm things moved around on her back.

  “Disturbing,” said Gwenda, watching the back of Maya’s nightgown.

  “What does it look like?” Maya rose and went to the mirror. She turned her back and tried to peer over her shoulder. Things lifted and shifted under her nightgown like a nest of baby snakes. Several green ribbons rose up from the neck of her gown and eased into her hair, wove through it. “Rimi?”

  I need to know you.

  A wave of tiredness washed over Maya. She went to the bed and sat down, carefully, then lay on her stomach. “Can I put a blanket over you?” she asked Rimi.

  That is fine. You cannot hurt me. I am too strong.

  “Is it okay?” Gwenda asked.

  “Yes.”

  Gwenda worked the top sheet and blanket out from under Maya and covered her with them. “Go to sleep,” she said. “I’ll get some blankets and food from my place and come right back. I’ll watch tonight.”

  “Thank you,” Maya murmured, and then, despite the nest of flat, wriggling snakes on her back, she fell asleep.

  “Maya?” someone murmured in her ear.

  Maya groaned. She was lying on her stomach. Usually she slept on her back. She felt so hungry!

  A sliding sound near her head, and the smell of soup. Maya groaned again and pushed herself up. Gwenda, huddled in a puffy green quilt, was sitting by Maya’s bed. She held up a small cauldron full of steaming vinegar soup.

  Maya turned over and reached for the cauldron. It was heavier than she expected. Gwenda gave her a wooden spoon, and she ate. When she finished, she looked at the clock. Five A.M. “What happened?” she asked.

  “We both fell asleep,” Gwenda said. “I set my inner alarm for four thirty, though, so we can tidy things up before you go back to your regular life. Where’s the sissimi? Last time I saw it, it was on your back, but now—”

  “Huh?” Maya reached behind her and felt her back. It felt flat and normal. “Huh? Rimi!”

  Here, thought Rimi, only Maya couldn’t tell where here was. Here felt like everywhere.

  “Where are you?”

  I am with you.

  Maya pushed back her nightgown sleeves, searching for signs of green. She felt the back of her neck. She got out of bed and looked in the mirror, lifted the gown and looked at her legs. No green anywhere. “Are you sure, Rimi? Where did you go?”

  I finished my explorations and took my next form, thought Rimi.

  “What’s that?” Maya asked.

  Something dark moved beside her. The bedside lamp threw her shadow across the floor and the dresser, and it looked like her shadow rose up, only it stayed where it was, too. Its twin rose to hover next to Maya, taking a more Mayalike shape, still attached at the soles of her feet. Here, said Rimi. I can stay with you safely, and no one will notice. And if something bad comes—

  The shadow swelled suddenly and surrounded her. It shimmered, cleared, and hardened. She felt like she was inside a giant, transparent pill capsule. She flattened her hand against the inside of the shell, which was smooth and slick. “Rimi! This is you?”

  One way of being me. The capsule melted and the shadow settled into the outline of her other shadow again. I have others.

  “Wow.” Maya plopped down on her bed, staring at her shadow. Companion. Collector. Protector.

  Collector of what? Shri? Stealth and spying . . . she would worry about that later.

  Friend. Friend who wasn’t going anywhere without her. “Wow,” said Gwenda. “Not like Kita. No wonder there weren’t any pictures in that darned book.”

  “I can draw that,” Maya said.

  Gwenda smiled. “Yes, you can.”

  Gwenda undid the wards and packed up everything she had brought with her. “Call me the same way if you need any more help,” she said.

  “Thank you so, so much,” said Maya.

  “You’re welcome. This is a part of my work I enjoy. Congratulations on your new companion. I guess I should say that to both of you.”

  Thank you, friend.

  Maya spoke Rimi’s words aloud, then said, “Rimi, how am I going to feed you now?”

  I can feed myself. I can eat light. I can eat dust. I can eat anything I touch.

  “But you’ll be selective, right?”

  I will only eat things that taste good.<
br />
  “Uh-oh.”

  TWENTY-SIX

  Saturday was a day to work on cleaning, unpacking, and setting up the house more, Dad decreed. He went to Home Depot and bought screens for the upstairs windows, plus picture hangers and bookshelves. They went through the house, fixing one room at a time.

  “Tonight we’re having Music Night,” Mom said midway through the morning, “so I’m going to bake now.”

  “Music Night,” Candra said, and stuck out her tongue.

  “If you honestly have better things to do, go and do them,” said Dad. “I’d rather have you absent than here and unpleasant.”

  “I invited the neighbors,” Mom said. “Maya, if you want to practice, I’ll excuse you from cleaning duty.”

  Maya put down her cleaning rag, washed her hands, and sat at the piano for the first time in the new house. She played “She’ll Be Comin’ Round the Mountain,” and she cried. (Stephanie had always sung, “She’ll be driving six white unicorns when she comes.”) She played “Long Black Veil,” and she cried, remembering it was Steph’s favorite. (“First-person ghost! How many songs are first-person ghost? How cool is that?”) She played “Wind and Rain,” about a girl whose jealous sister threw her in the river, and a fiddler found her corpse and made a fiddle out of her breastbone, and Maya didn’t cry, because before she got to the really sad part, Candra shoved her off the piano bench and said, “Stop it with the weeping!” and played “Papa’s on the Housetop” and “The City of New Orleans” and “Angelina Baker,” all happy or silly songs that Maya hadn’t heard since last winter. She found herself smiling, even though these were all songs Stephanie had loved, too.

  Were you done with the crying part? Rimi asked. If you want more, we can move her.

  We can? Maya thought. Oh, dear. I bet we can. Let’s not! She went to the art supplies cupboard and took down another sketchbook.

  “Didn’t you take one of those a couple days ago?” Dad asked.

  “I used it all up.”