Outside In

by Sarah Ellis

  “Was this a fun mutual activity?” Blossom asked, her gaze level and calm.

  “Yes. Yes, it was.”

  “The magazine said that friends talk about plans and feelings.”

  Maybe it was the moment of the day, when things disengage before changing gear. Maybe it was the place or maybe it was just this girl. She made Lynn want to crack up and cry at the same time.

  It tumbled out. Shakti and the claw-handed chandelier and Clive and the flood and Choirfest and married Brandon. All the mess of the past few weeks.

  Somebody turned up the volume of the rain. The tarp began to sag. Lynn pulled her feet farther into the dry zone.

  Blossom didn’t comment. She just listened but her listening was so intense that Lynn found herself saying something she had never said aloud. She looked out through the mist walls of the floating room.

  “Sometimes I hate her.”

  “Yes.”

  Lynn turned to meet Blossom’s eyes, the quiet gaze of a sudoku master, concentrating as though Lynn were a stray eight that needed a box and a column and a row to be in.

  Blossom frowned slightly. “I have a question.”

  Lynn was too busy swallowing to speak. She was going to need another sock, any second. She nodded.

  “Is this a typical citizen family?”

  “Um, I don’t really get the question. What’s the citizen thing?”

  “Citizens. That’s you.”

  “And not you?”

  “No.”

  “Are you a new immigrant or illegal or something?”

  “No.” Blossom bit her bottom lip. “I’m an Underlander. Oh. I’m not allowed to tell you about us. That’s a rule. We have to be invisible to citizens. But I wanted to find a friend. Tron used to be my friend but now he acts like he’s ashamed of us. And I love Larch but he’s fearful of so much. And I’ve been reading stories from the library about citizen girls and their friends. They all have friends. And then I saved your life so I thought I would try to be your friend because if you were already my friend I would know that I could trust you and then I could tell Fossick about you, but I have so many questions and I can’t really answer any of your questions because I am already disobeying him and all the books say that friendship is supposed to be equal.”

  In the middle of this confusing declaration, Blossom’s voice started to wobble. Any minute now she was going to need a sock, too. Lynn leaned over and grabbed her hand.

  “Hey. It’s okay. You don’t need to tell me one single thing. You can just be mystery woman.”

  “Really?”

  “Really. We can even have a code word. If I ask you about something that you’re not allowed to talk about, you can just say, like, pretzel or something. Try it. Come on. Who the heck is Fossick?”

  “Um. Pretzel?”

  “You got it.”

  Blossom grinned, reached into her pack and took out a plastic cup. “Thirsty?”

  Lynn nodded. “But I’ve got my own water bottle.”

  “Wait, this is better.” Blossom held the cup out beyond the tarp and then took her umbrella and pushed up the baggy tarp roof. A great whoosh of water drained off, filling the cup to the brim. Blossom plucked out a single leaf and offered the water to Lynn.

  Drinking the rain. How odd. How perfectly ordinary. How delicious.

  “Okay. I didn’t answer your question. No, we’re not a typical citizen family. Shakti is not typical of anything. My friends Kas and Celia, their families are more typical, I guess. Two parents married to each other, that’s the usual citizen thing.”

  Lynn handed the half cup of rain back to Blossom.

  “These friends. Do you tell them everything?”

  “Not exactly everything.”

  Blossom set down the cup and beamed her sudoku gaze.

  “You can’t tell them or anyone else about me. You have to keep me a secret. It’s important. If the authorities find out about us we could lose everything. Our home. Each other. You must make a solemn vow.”

  Solemn vow? The authorities? Even if there were no amulets, this person in a kilt was definitely from another world. What had she said? An Underlander? Was this a cult or something? But Blossom just didn’t have the borderline crazy look of those ones with the pamphlets. She just seemed, well, some combination of young and old and, more than anything, real.

  Feeling half like a kid doing a pinkie swear and half like a witness taking an oath in court, Lynn replied, “Okay. I promise. I mean, I make a solemn vow.”

  Blossom exhaled. “Thank you. Thank you, Lindisfarne. That’s a joke. Well, more a tease than a joke. Next time we can talk about hobbies. That’s another joke. Now I’ll go.”

  It could have been abrupt but it was just clear and tidy. And there was to be a next time?

  “Um, Blossom?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t actually know how to get back.”

  “Oh.” Blossom looked around and thought for a second or two. “The nearest stop for your bus is four blocks south and one block east.”

  “And that’s …”

  “Oh, sorry.” She pointed. “That direction. Then turn left.”

  “Cool. Great. Here’s your umbrella.”

  Blossom shook her head. “No, it’s for you. Umbrellas are an easy find.” Then she headed off into the trees at the edge of the lake and was gone. Invisible girl.

  Lynn whapped the umbrella open. Polka dots. Secretly she still loved polka dots. Were there once some polka-dot overalls?

  She twirled the umbrella before heading out into the wet and noticed something odd. All collapsible umbrellas died the same death. The ends of the spokes became detached from the fabric, leaving flapping nylon and naked metal points that threatened to put out the eyes of fellow pedestrians. When that happened, the umbrellas ended up in a garbage bin, like so many dead herons.

  But this umbrella featured ingenious little reinforcements at the end of each spoke. Neatly sewn in rainbow colors, they were obviously a post-production addition, and done by hand.

  Who would take the time to mend an umbrella?

  SIX

  Cottage Country

  Choir block, last block of the day. No choir. No choir teacher. Everyone was still being kind, and the vice-principal had suggested she just go home early. Once that would have been a treat. Back in ancient times, a month ago. Back when home was normal.

  Now, not so much.

  “I think I’ll go to the resource center and catch up on some homework.”

  The veep looked impressed.

  The resource center was quiet and deserted. Lynn settled into one of the armchairs and took out her phone. She was on Clive’s cellphone plan. How much longer would he keep paying for that? She didn’t even know how much it cost. She was going to have to know how much things cost. She took that worry and shelved it.

  There were texts, lots of texts, from Kas and Celia. They were being excellent friends, reporting regularly. The big news, overwhelming even the choir competition itself, was that big-hair, big-voice Alexis was discovered drunk in the room of some boy from McMinville and she was being sent home but first they had to wait for her mother to come and get her.

  Would Celia be singing the solo? What was going to happen to Alexis? What was going to happen to the boy? Where the heck was McMinville? Lynn sent back appropriate replies full of punctuation, but even as she typed she found her mind wandering.

  Actually, her mind had wandered for days, and always the wander ended with a girl in a kilt drinking rain. She had gone over every bit of their odd conversation.

  Blossom. She idly typed it into the phone. An old TV series. What kind of series? When? She waited for a message from a cloud. Oh, this was way too slow. She pushed herself out of the armchair and sat down at a computer.

  Blossom. A science defi
nition, a singer named Blossom Dearie, something about start-ups. Peaseblossom, a fairy in Shakespeare. Fairies, hmm. Click, click, click. A species completely independent of humans or angels. She seemed independent, all right. Noted for mischief and malice toward humankind. Not noted for saving their lives, apparently.

  On the basis of the evidence she was probably not a fairy.

  The real question, and there was no link for that, was when and where was Blossom going to turn up again? What and where and if? Bus stop? Well, it would have to be. Unless she was going to be down by the lake. Should Lynn go there and have a look? Today? No, probably today was too soon. When Blossom said, “Next time,” she probably meant next week, or even a few weeks.

  The buzzer ripped through Lynn’s thoughts, and she went to her locker to pack up, to send a few more exclamation marks to the Diode and to delay what she was sure was going to be a disappointment at the bus stop.

  Blossom wasn’t at the bus stop. She was right outside the front door of the school, bouncing on the balls of her feet and smiling with her whole face. Students flowed around her like she was some rock in a river.

  She handed Lynn an envelope. “He said you could visit. Open it.”

  The envelope had a window, like a bill, and it was covered with intricate doodles. Through the plastic window Lynn could see the message: you’re invited.

  It was too pretty to rip, so Lynn eased open the flap. The card inside was a match of lacy doodles.

  What: A Visit with Blossom and Larch

  Where: The Cottage

  When: Today

  “This is beautiful.”

  “Larch made it. He spent all morning. He’s very excited. Me, too. Last night I talked to Fossick for a long time. I told him all about the bus stop and the concert and you and wanting a friend. He was worried because of you being a citizen but I told him you were trustworthy and he said he thought I had good judgment and of course things had to change as I got older because nothing gold can stay. He said I could invite you for a visit, but we shouldn’t overwhelm you so it is just me and Larch. For a friendly visit. Can you come?”

  A chance to untwist some of the pretzels? Of course she would go.

  From the moment that they ducked into a driveway beside the dry cleaner, it was another zigzag route, as though there was a shadow grid underneath the official grid of the city.

  Lynn picked questions at random.

  “Where’s this cottage?”

  “In the Lingerlands. You’ll see.” Blossom stopped so abruptly that Lynn ran into the back of her. “This is an important part of the friendly visit. You can never tell anyone the location of the cottage.”

  “Got it. Solemn vow.” Lingerlands. This was moving quickly back into glurb territory.

  “What’s with the uniform?”

  “It’s a citizen disguise.”

  “Why not just wear pants and a hoodie or something?”

  “I used to. That’s what the boys wear. But Tron found this. All the parts — shirt, jacket, skirt, raincoat, even shoes. The whole thing was a throwaway and it’s so beautiful. It all goes together properly so that I can be invisible.”

  “But why do you need to be in disguise?”

  “It’s important that we’re not noticed.”

  “Why?”

  “We’re not official.”

  Official? What did that mean? “Who’s we?”

  “Our family. We’re Fossick, my father, and Tron and Larch, my brothers.”

  Each answer opened out into more questions, like a flow chart.

  “What’s the deal about citizens? Are you, like, immigrants from some other country or something?”

  The explanation that followed was as zigzag as the path they were following. But as Blossom described living “off the grid” and a complicated life of “finds” and the rules and work and the garden, the truth hit Lynn.

  A secret location, gardening, making a living without a job?

  Of course. It was a marijuana grow-op.

  Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. This family with the weird names? They might be bad news. And weren’t those places full of toxic chemicals and, like, guns? What was that news story? Some grow-op in the interior had been guarding their marijuana fields with a grizzly bear.

  “… Fossick says we come from under the ground like the strong grass and the lovely trees. Here we are. The Lingerlands.”

  It wasn’t a glurb world after all, but the familiar reservoir park. People in bright clothes played pitch and putt. A Chinese senior walked backwards up a gentle hill. There were some warning signs about coyotes but no mention of grizzlies.

  This would be the place to bail. This was so not making a good choice.

  But it was only going to be a visit. Like a field trip. And besides, Blossom seemed the opposite of dangerous.

  “How much farther?”

  “We’re close now. We came the long way round for security. We change our path often.”

  They walked along the running path for a few minutes and then Blossom, with a glance forward and back, slipped into the tangle of untended shrubs and ground cover that ringed the path. Lynn followed, sharp twigs grabbing for her hair, and vines tangling themselves around her feet. Down a gentle dip there was another path, narrow and rough like the path of animals, another concrete wall, another ring of the reservoir. Along that wall were things you would never notice because they were boring — metal screens, pipes, ducts, squares of metal.

  Blossom paused at one of the screens, pulled a key from her pocket and pulled it across the metal net, creating an eerie, shimmering sound.

  “That lets Larch know we’re here,” she said.

  A few steps later, she pushed aside some hanging vines, revealing a square the size and shape of a door. She slid aside a thin metal strip at the top left of the door to reveal a keypad. She punched some keys and there was a soft but official click, and the door edged open.

  “This is it?”

  Blossom nodded. “Don’t tarry. We like to get in and out neatly.”

  Lynn hesitated. Tarry? Who said tarry? Blossom grabbed her by the arm and pulled her over the threshold. “Come on.”

  The door clicked definitively shut behind them.

  Inside there was no dragon lair, no tapping of elvish miners, no stalagmite-encrusted cave. Lynn’s first impression was that it was like being inside a machine. It was warm and there was a low hum. Small lights glinted on the ceiling. Pipes snaked overhead. It was all hard-edged, metal, businesslike. It was very clean. It smelled like nothing.

  Blossom led the way through a labyrinth of pillars and pipes.

  “Watch your head.”

  Then they came to a blank white wall. As Blossom pressed on it and it began to slide open, the story in Lynn’s head changed again. How Nancy Drew was this?

  As the wall opened, it was like the curtain parting on a set that was a combination of trailer, tent, kid’s hidey-hole under the dining-room table, animal den, garage sale and attic junk room.

  Everything was layered. Rug on rug. The walls were a collage of pictures, maps, charts and small shelves covered in little creatures made of nuts and bolts. There were five or six chairs that seemed to be made of slotted-together cardboard, piled with cushions. The walls were a patchwork of doors.

  There were strings of Christmas lights looped around. A shaft of sunlight reflecting off a mirror set into a big pipe in the ceiling made a spotlight on the floor. A table, three doors long, was covered with tools and tin cans full of bits of things, and a big pile of empty toilet-paper rolls. Stalagmites of books grew up from the floor. Wire baskets hanging from the ceiling held fruits and vegetables, packets and packages. In one corner five bicycles were neatly parked.

  “Where are the plants?” said Lynn.

  “What plants?”

  Recalc
ulating! Nothing to do with a grow-op. “Um, house plants?”

  “Oh. There isn’t really enough light for plants inside. We have a garden, though. Some day we’ll take you there. Do you have plants at your house?”

  Lynn did not get a chance to explain the skeleton fig tree in their living room, because one of the doors — the doors that seemed like a wall — opened. A boy and a dog stepped into the hodgepodge room. The dog looked like a map of an island world, white with precise black patches. He stood knee-high next to the boy and seemed to be smiling.

  The boy had long, fine, curly, glass-colored hair and a pale face with a high forehead. There was something familiar about the face but Lynn couldn’t place it. He was hard to read.

  How old was he? Younger than her or older? He was taller, but plump like some of those short boys at school who hadn’t stretched out yet. There was something about the way he stood that wasn’t like a boy, yet not like a girl, either. He hunched his shoulders and stared at the floor like a shy kindergartener, but he was dressed like a man, in a suit, a rumpled shirt and a bright tie with slashes of color.

  Blossom put her hand on his shoulder. “Larch, this is my friend Lynn.”

  The boy nodded. “The visitor. Welcome. When we have a visitor we tidy up before she comes, we welcome her, we introduce Artdog, this is Artdog, who is named Artdog because he looks like a piece of op art, short for optical art, which is a style of art mostly in black and white, we offer her something to eat and then we talk.”

  Artdog whapped his tail on the floor and Larch reached behind one of the many curtains and brought out a plate. He handed it to Lynn.

  Neatly arranged were a package of raisins, a carrot, a piece of lettuce, a chocolate cream puff and a small lime yogurt.

  “There is construction on the Mary Hill Bypass. What does the visitor think about that?”

  All the time he looked away, into the distance or down to the floor.

  Lynn bit into the carrot and glanced at Blossom, who gave her a small nod.

  “Thank you, Larch. Um, about the Mary Hill Bypass. I don’t know too much about it. What are they constructing?”