Mindtouch

by M. C. A. Hogarth

  On their way home, Vasiht’h said, “You know she finds you attractive.”

  “Does she?” Jahir asked, startled.

  “You didn’t realize?” Vasiht’h said. “I thought, since you bought her a gift…”

  “It was the furthest thing from my mind.” Jahir glanced at his roommate. “Have I unintentionally initiated a courtship?”

  “No,” Vasiht’h said. “At least, nothing that formal, not with a bag of coffee beans! But you might have given her hopes.”

  Jahir shook his head. “I hope not. She seems a sensible woman; hopefully she won’t take it for more than it was.”

  “I hate to tell you this,” Vasiht’h said. “But there’s almost nothing sensible about love.”

  That made him laugh, and that he could despite the experiences that informed his opinions on the matter was something of a triumph. Jahir smiled up at the gray sky and said, “And here I thought you had no idea on the matter.”

  Vasiht’h muttered something, but he didn’t press.

  “Come,” he said instead. “The day is good and not yet sped. Let’s go shopping for the new year feast. Mera will be sore disappointed if we don’t mull enough wine to inebriate him.”

  “I don’t think we have enough money to buy that much wine,” Vasiht’h said. And then paused. “Wait, we’re mulling wine? I don’t even know what mulled wine is!”

  “Then,” Jahir said, amused, “I shall teach you.”

  Vasiht’h slept in the morning of Maker’s Day. No doubt his mother would have been scandalized, but after the pummeling finals had given him he felt he was entitled to some sloth. Not much, but some. In fact, he’d been planning to sleep until well past breakfast, but the smell of something baking lifted his chin from his mound of pillows. He wrinkled his nose and then pushed himself reluctantly upright before padding into the great room.

  There was a fire on the hearth, hissing and popping. On the table there was a coffee pot and two saucers, but only one cup; the missing cup was in the kitchen at Jahir’s elbow. The Eldritch was bent over a data tablet, leaning past a bowl where he had both hands mired in something.

  “What on Her worlds are you doing?” Vasiht’h asked, joining him.

  “I,” Jahir said, “am making the feast bread. You did not tell me it involved sticky toppings.” He looked down at the bowl. “I tried a spatula, but it seemed faster to mix it by hand.”

  “And now you’ve got butter all over your fingers, where it’s melted because of the warmth of your skin,” Vasiht’h said with a laugh, but he was having trouble breathing. His roommate was making him breakfast? His holiday breakfast, at that?

  “Alas,” Jahir said. “I fear my festival bread is destined to the same questionable state as your mother’s.”

  “It will still taste good,” Vasiht’h said. “Let me get it out of the oven so you can spread the topping on. You’ll see, by the time it’s done melting in there you won’t be able to tell it was messy.”

  “It’s not the topping I’m worried about, so much as my hands!”

  Vasiht’h grinned. “Just lick them. That’s what we used to do.”

  Jahir wrinkled his nose, and if there was anything as ridiculous as an Eldritch prince in his kitchen, in an apron too short for him, fingers deep in sugar… Vasiht’h hid a laugh and got the bread out.

  The bread wasn’t the only thing Jahir had managed… somewhere he’d found a proper nut butter, an imported one from Anseahla, and sweet citrus wedges. The coffee was oily and black, and cut through the honeyed sweetness. That his roommate had bothered to research the morning customs for the holiday—he hadn’t had to. It made Vasiht’h wish he could have done the same, but of course there was no information about Eldritch holidays available and Jahir had deflected the question any time anyone had asked. If the children hadn’t been able to get an answer out of him, Vasiht’h knew better than to try. That he’d at least been warned they gave gifts was enough.

  The gifts came after breakfast. Jahir brought him his and set it on the table, with a touch of hopefulness in his eyes… Vasiht’h took it and eyed him. “You didn’t have to buy me something.”

  “It is the custom, though,” Jahir said.

  And it was. But the custom for Glaseah was about crafting the shape of the year in front of them, and Vasiht’h wasn’t sure how he felt about receiving one. Part of him hoped Jahir didn’t understand, because it gave him space to breathe past his own conflicted feelings: about his life after school, about his fondness for the Eldritch, about the unlikelihood of any of it coming out the way he hoped.

  The other part of him knew better. Jahir was far too good at listening.

  He set the gift on his lap and unwrapped it, slowly, making it last… half afraid of what he would find. And what he found puzzled him. “It’s… a kit?”

  “Open it?” Jahir said.

  He did and found thread and needle, and a jar of something that he opened and sniffed—something buttery? And a selection of… patches? In tan leather?

  “It’s a repair kit,” Jahir said. “For your bags. I noticed some of them are fraying.” He threaded his fingers together. “The shoulder bag particularly seems old, almost to the point of needing replacement… but I thought you must like it to keep it, thus the kit.”

  Startled, Vasiht’h said, “I… I don’t even know how to sew!”

  “I can teach you,” Jahir said. “And to maintain the leather also, so it lasts longer.”

  “I’d like that.” He looked again at the kit and no longer wondered if Jahir had understood the spirit of Glaseahn gifts. Maintenance of things one intends to keep, along with the tools and teaching to make it possible… the Goddess Herself would have approved of it, and the commitment they implied. Friendships, too, needed maintenance. He drew in a deep breath. “I have something for you too. Wait here.”

  He returned with an envelope and set it on the table between them. As Jahir reached for it, he sat and tried not to fidget. He had a good guess at the reaction he was going to get, but like Jahir’s gift, it implied his own involvement, and he never liked to intrude on the Eldritch’s privacy.

  But the expression on Jahir’s face when he read the slip inside the envelope blew all those worries away. His roommate looked up, wide-eyed. “You have bought concert tickets?”

  “I have bought season passes to the student concert series,” Vasiht’h said, trying not to twitch his tail. “We can go to any of their performances. Or all of them. They have everything from chamber music to full-on orchestras, and choral groups… everything the music college does, they offer.”

  “Oh, Vasiht’h!” Jahir said. So quietly to be so heartfelt. “I wonder when the next performance is?”

  “Next week!” Vasiht’h said. “But today there’s an outdoor choral concert if you’re interested. They’re doing holiday carols. It’s not for a few hours, and we’ll have plenty of time to be back to start baking for tomorrow…”

  “Oh yes, we must!” Jahir said. And laughed. “It’s perfect. Thank you, alet. It is… it’s perfect.”

  “And maybe while the cake’s in the oven, you can start teaching me to sew,” Vasiht’h said. “I can’t believe you noticed that my bag’s coming apart, but you’re right. And I’d hate to lose it.”

  “I would be delighted.”

  And that was what they ended up doing. Vasiht’h wondered how he’d learn to sew when they only had one needle between them, but Jahir had a similar kit: older, definitely, and larger, with materials for cloth as well as leather; when Vasiht’h asked, he said, “Some clothing needs to be sewn closed,” and that struck him as so bizarre that he didn’t ask. It wasn’t until much later that he looked it up on the u-banks and found out that yes, there were outfits that were fastened onto people by sewing a few stitches here and there in lieu of something more reasonable, like stick-strips or zippers or even buttons.

  Clothing baffled him, but he was grateful to learn the mending, and sitting with Jahir over the practice
squares he felt a frisson of contentment so intense it was almost painful.

  After that, they walked to the center of campus. The concert was taking place in the grand plaza in front of the university administration building, and five tiers of bleachers had been set up for the chorus, which was over a hundred members strong: not only Pelted and humans, but some of the aliens as well. Vasiht’h saw the Phoenix and Akubi sections standing in the back and hid his grin, anticipating his roommate’s surprise.

  The first time the Phoenix section lifted their voices, fluting far above the range of any humanoid throat, he felt Jahir shudder next to him. And the Akubi, birds as tall as a room and with chests broader than Vasiht’h’s barrel, could sing both higher and lower than any of their Pelted companions, and their basso crooning made even his fur stand on end. He could only imagine how it sounded to his roommate, with his so-much-better ears. Like Heaven, maybe, if his expression of bliss was any indication.

  He waited as they began the walk back for the inevitable conversation; realized that he was waiting for it, and how much pleasure it gave him anticipating it.

  “I could do that every day,” Jahir said at last with a sigh.

  “Well, now we can do it every week,” Vasiht’h said.

  “But then when will have time for ice cream?” Jahir said wistfully.

  Vasiht’h laughed. “Obviously we’ll go to the concerts, and then go out for ice cream. Problem solved.”

  “Yes,” Jahir said, and grinned at him. “I suppose it is.”

  Cooking for a feast, even of only six people, was far more work than Jahir had imagined. It made him wonder how the servants managed at home. So much he didn’t know, even about his own world; he had to believe he’d return far more prepared for whatever responsibilities would come to him. Vasiht’h made a good guide in this as in all things, and set him to preparing in advance for the dishes that would need to cook or rest overnight. He set to it with a good will.

  In the morning he did not rise immediately, but let himself enjoy the sensation of ease, the strangeness of a new year on a new world. At home it was already summer, and his mother would be preparing for attendance on the Queen for the summer court. He might have gone with her this time; it was not required of the heirs to join their matriarchs for the courts, but many of them went anyway, to meet the men or women to whom they would eventually be betrothed—if they hadn’t already been, in the childhood ceremony. Jahir hadn’t been, and though his mother had made no mention of it he knew there was talk already. He probably would have been dutiful and gone, and would right now have been overseeing the packing of his trunks.

  Instead he was here: free and with the promise of all the known worlds before him, a celestial diadem to shame the Queen’s, and with the beautiful uncertainty of a life amid alien confederates, all of them unpredictable, and all their learning available to him. He set his head back down on the pillow and allowed himself the luxury of remaining abed until he heard the clatter of bowls in the kitchen. Then, smiling, he drew on a robe and went to help.

  In the early afternoon their quadmates arrived, bearing their own gifts: Brett had brought some outrageously alcoholic eggnog, something Jahir had never had until the Seersa plied him with it. “This goes to Vasiht’h,” he said with a laugh, because its richness reminded him of kerinne. Merashiinal came with arms full of pine boughs and packs of candles to decorate the table. His roommate Leina brought a delicate flan, quivering on the plate, and Luci brought up the rear with a plate of bright purple potato wedges, arranged in a circle around a bowl of some creamy yellow dip.

  In short order they had the feast assembled: a roasted goose and a caramelized ham, a salad dressed in a light sauce, a great dish of greens that had been steamed and then sauteed to flavorful perfection, purple potatoes and yellow—served mashed and candied with pureed nuts a darker swirl in them—mushrooms stuffed with spiced crab… and the wine, mulled to Jahir’s satisfaction, though he was not a great drinker and had not the exact spices for it. Plus cider and water and then coffee and eggnog and strong black tea to go with the flan and the honey cake, and the marzipan balls and peppermint brittles Vasiht’h had overseen cooking down on the stove with all the ferocity of a hawk.

  It was good to see Luci laughing. Jahir could see the shadows in her eyes, but she seemed better, and when he asked Brett later, the Seersa said, “Oh yes. She’s been much more here, if you know what I mean.”

  “I do,” Jahir said. He was cleaning dishes, something that involved sliding them beneath what appeared to be a magic wand mounted alongside the refrigerator, which left them spotless. “And I’m relieved to hear it.”

  Brett set another stack of plates beside him and said, “So can I ask you something?”

  Jahir glanced at him.

  “How do you do it? The volunteering.” He rubbed his hands on his sides. “I know I’m going to have to do a pediatric round at some point, and… I don’t know how I’ll be able to do it. Sick adults I have no trouble with. Sick kids…” He shook his head.

  “I suppose it’s done the way one does anything else,” Jahir said. “By bowing one’s head and moving through it.”

  “Do you have any?” Brett asked.

  “Children?” Jahir said, startled. “No.”

  “Want them?”

  Such a question. It could only be asked by aliens, who either had children easily, or had access to technologies that could make them possible. “Yes,” he said. And at Brett’s glance, added, smiling, “Not yet, however.”

  “No, me neither,” Brett said with a chuckle. “But I do want them, you know? And I know when I go into that round, I’ll be looking into those faces and thinking ‘what if this was my baby?’” He shuddered. “I have nightmares about it.”

  “It seems a strange thing to have nightmares about when you have none of your own,” Jahir ventured.

  “Is it?” Brett said. “I guess you’d know.” He sighed. “Well, I’m borrowing trouble, and on New Year’s Day, too. Vasiht’h would poke me and tell me to take care what shape I’m forcing the year into.”

  “Do I hear you talking about me poking you?” Vasiht’h asked, padding into the kitchen to refresh the coffee pot.

  “You do,” Brett said. “And I’m all for that fat chair over there, which is too far from you to be poked.” He grinned at Jahir and ambled off.

  “What was that about?” Vasiht’h asked.

  “I’m not sure.” Jahir finished with the last of the plates and looked after Brett. He thought of KindlesFlame’s observation, and wondered.

  They spent the rest of the evening playing board games while making desultory attempts to reduce the remainder of dessert to crumbs. Merashiinal had gone through enough of the mulled wine to declare himself pleasantly inebriated, and a tipsy Ciracaana was wholly beyond Jahir’s experience: the male could sing, and did, and often interrupted himself to make some witty remark that had them all dissolved into laughter made more painful by far too full stomachs. He was sad to see them go.

  Luci was the last to take her leave, and she hugged Vasiht’h at the back door.

  “Everything bearable?” the Glaseah said.

  “It hurts, but… yeah. Bearable.” She rested her head against Vasiht’h’s. “Thanks for not asking if things were okay.”

  “I didn’t think they would be,” Vasiht’h answered. “I just wanted to know how you were.”

  “You’re a gem,” she said. “Both of you. And thanks for the party.”

  “Any time,” Vasiht’h said, and closed the door behind her, looking satisfied.

  “Well, then, alet,” Jahir said. “Have we made a good shape for the new year?”

  “I don’t think the Goddess could complain,” Vasiht’h answered, and dropped onto the carpet in front of the fire. “Though I think if I eat one more thing, I’ll pop.” He draped his upper body on one of the chairs and said, “We still have a few days left of vacation. What do you think you’ll do?”

  Jahir savored t
he notion for several moments, settling on the chair before the fire’s last embers. “I think,” he said at last, “I will gorge myself on sleep and leftover goose. And dream of music.”

  “Funny you should say that,” his roommate said. “Do you know, last night I heard that chorus in my sleep?”

  Jahir smiled and let his head rest against the back of the chair. “So did I.”

  He thought nothing of the coincidence: the music had been glorious. He also had the feeling Vasiht’h was staring at him, but when he opened his eyes, his roommate was watching the fire.

  CHAPTER 18

  “A question,” Jill repeated when Vasiht’h approached her about it. Jahir was still inside, whispering the last of his dream-offerings to the girls, so it seemed a good time.

  “Yes,” he said. “I wanted to ask your advice on something. I’m starting research for my thesis, and it’s on the effect of dream interventions on mental health.”

  The woman’s eyes lost focus a moment, then she looked at him with lifted brows. “I’ve heard some pretty wild topics around here, but I think that might be the least expected of any I’ve run into. This is… what, an exploration of your esper abilities on people as psychiatric patients?”

  “More or less,” Vasiht’h said. “I was wondering if I could do it here. Before I talked to the hospital board, I wanted an insider perspective on whether it’s a good idea. What do you think?”

  Jill frowned, her arms folded and her fingers drumming a beat on her forearm. “Mm. If you want my advice… I’d ask if you could do it on the staff, not the patients. There are a lot more hoops to jump through if you want to run studies on patients. We staffers, on the other hand, are used to being abused.” She grinned, and then added, rueful, “And we could use any help we can get. A medical study that involves us sleeping sounds divine. I’d sign up in a heartbeat.”

  “That’s a good idea!” Vasiht’h said. “Thank you, Jill-alet.”

  “My pleasure,” she said. As Jahir stepped out of the room and closed the door gently behind him, she said, “It really has improved their health… being able to sleep well once a week.”