by Jade White
When Aibek finally returned, it was on the heels of a woman who looked to be around Amelia’s age, even if she was a few inches taller than Aibek. She was darker than her younger siblings, though still not as dark as Aibek. Her eyes were crystal blue and her hair was the same dark brown as the rest, though it was only shaved on one side, with the rest of it messily braided over her shoulder. She was a curvy woman, making Amelia feel less like an hourglass and more like a mailbox in comparison.
“And here we have the self-proclaimed boss of the family,” Aibek declared, gesturing to her with one hand. “She just lets me pretend whenever there is trouble or something she does not want to be bothered with.”
She slid Aibek an exasperated glance before offering sweetly, “Is it my fault if no one else has any common sense? No, I don’t think it is.” With that said, she very determinedly started to ignore him.
“I’m Anara,” she offered in a low, cool voice, as she held out a hand. Amelia shook it briefly. “I don’t know if you remember me, but we met yesterday,” she added.
“Ah, vaguely,” Amelia returned. “Sort of. Not really.” She shrugged loosely.
Sezim snickered behind one hand and offered in a singsong tone, “She remembered me.” Amelia wasn’t entirely sure why that was apparently so special, other than the novelty of meeting another shifter when it was rare to meet any outside of the family.
(And yet, Amelia had met two families of them. Though she supposed the second family was perhaps the universe trying to apologize for the first family. If so, it was an apology she was willing to accept.)
“Well,” Anara sniffed, though she didn’t seem truly annoyed, “it’s not like we had a proper introduction.”
“Amelia, by the way,” she offered as an afterthought. She had never introduced herself so many times in one day outside of starting a new semester. She kept expecting someone to suddenly decide that they should go around the room telling facts about themselves. Luckily, that did not happen.
Faina clapped her hands together briskly, drawing all eyes in the room to her. “Now that everyone is here, would anyone like to actually eat?” she asked, gesturing theatrically to the tower of bowls, the pile of forks, and the pot of pasta. “If so, you’re all free to dig in.”
Just as Amelia suspected, everyone simply picked up a bowl and began jostling for a position at the stove. Gratefully, Amelia accepted the filled bowl that Aibek pressed into her hands before she even had a chance to stand up from her seat at the counter. Another bottle of water followed it a moment later.
It was a very relaxed affair. Amelia and Sezim sat on one side of the counter, with Sezim all but glued to Amelia’s side like she was some sort of superhero. Faina stood on the other side of the counter, her bowl in her hand as she leaned her side against the granite.
Aibek leaned one shoulder against the refrigerator, one ankle crossed over the other and his bowl held close to his chest. Anara simply stood in the middle of the room, as if to be part of any conversation that broke out, regardless of who was speaking. Serik, as if he had given up on caring in the least bit, simply sat on the floor, his back against the counter and his knees drawn up to cradle his bowl. If any of them were even aware that the kitchen was too small for the amount of people using it, none of them seemed to care.
Amelia ate in silence for a moment, listening to Sezim and Anara bicker over who had to make the next trip down the mountain and to the store, which was apparently enough of a hassle to warrant a drawn out argument. Eventually, though, they fell silent long enough for Sezim to poke at Amelia’s shoulder with two fingers and wonder, “Can you tell us what happened before we found you in the snow?”
No one else said anything, as if they weren’t sure whether or not pushing the matter would upset her, but they were all side-eyeing her curiously. Even Serik had quietly gotten to his feet and clustered close to Faina on the other side of the island. And yet the attention wasn’t uncomfortable; Amelia wasn’t getting the impression that they would be angry with her if she decided to say ‘No thanks, I’m not comfortable talking about it.’ “I guess so,” she agreed easily enough.
The words came more easily than she had expected them to, as she told them about the curiosity and the excitement of finding another shifter, until it turned to annoyance at his behavior. Her surprise and fear the next morning when she realized she had been drugged, and the draining, anxious anticipation of being locked in the trunk for hours. In fact, she felt oddly detached as she explained it, though, as she wrapped the story up with a light, “…and then Aibek found me in a snow bank, and you all know what happened from there.” She snapped back to herself when she realized that the others—all five of them—looked quietly outraged on her behalf. Faina looked as if she were contemplating adopting Amelia right then and there.
Eventually, Faina mused thoughtfully, “They’ll probably be a bit long, but otherwise, some of Serik’s old clothes would probably be a decent fit for the time being,” as she tapped the round end of her fork against her lip.
“I guess I can dig them out of the back of my closet,” he mumbled into his bowl before stabbing a bite into his mouth. Evidently done with the conversation, he melted back down the side of the counter to sit on the floor again.
“Oh! I—thank you,” Amelia stammered, blinking at Faina and the spot where Serik had been a moment before.
Faina beamed at her. “It’s not a problem, honey,” she replied, before she looked down toward the floor. “Right?” Serik’s hand emerged from behind the counter, offering a thumb’s up. “Right!” Faina carried on, as Serik’s hand disappeared again. “Now, you just finish eating, and then we’ll find somewhere for you to get comfortable for the night. Tomorrow, Aibek can show you around.”
Amelia wasn’t sure how much else there was to see of ‘around,’ considering she was pretty sure the house consisted of three rooms and a hallway, but she agreed either way, with a pleasant, “Sounds like a good plan.”
It was dawning on her, just then, just how much she had lucked out.
CHAPTER TWO
Amelia slept on the couch in the den that night. She had the fuzzy blanket from the night before and an extra pillow, and the fire continued burning through the night. For pajamas, she was given a long sleeve t-shirt and a pair of sweatpants that were both a bit too long. She fell asleep almost as soon as her head was on the pillow, even after eighteen hours of sleep.
Her dreams that night were jumbled, just lights and sounds and smells crashing together until she could hardly tell what she was hearing from what she was smelling. When she woke up the next morning, it took her almost a full minute to remember where she was.
She sprawled on her back on the couch cushions, staring at the ceiling. The only sounds were the crackling of the fire, her breathing, and her own heartbeat, as if she was the only person left in the world. It was sort of unnerving, the way it felt like everything outside the walls had disappeared. She levered herself upright, determined to explore the house a bit.
As it turned out, though, there wasn’t much to explore. There were no hidden secrets in the den, the kitchen, or the hallway. There was a shower in the bathroom, and she took advantage of it before she changed back into the hoodie and jeans from the day before. She hadn’t exactly worn them long enough for them to be dirty.
Exploring the house did raise one question, though. She had no idea where the others were. There were no bedrooms. Unless everyone else had decided to sleep out in the snow, Amelia was at a loss.
She did find cereal in the kitchen, at least. Glad for something familiar, she had breakfast and returned to the den to page through a book until one of the others reappeared.
She had been awake for perhaps half an hour when Aibek came inside, a bundle of winter clothes in his arms. He dropped them unceremoniously onto one of the armchairs and looked at Amelia expectantly as he asked, “Did you eat?” He waited until she closed the book that she was barely paying any attention to and nodded before
he added, “Wonderful,” and gestured toward the winter clothes. “Considering the weather, we are not sure when you will be able to leave,” he admitted apologetically. “So it will be best to show you around sooner rather than later.”
Amelia sighed out a slow breath and nodded. “Yeah, alright,” she agreed, her disappointment readily apparent in her lackluster tone. And yet, she wasn’t as disappointed as she could have been. Considering everything that had happened and where she was, part of her had been expecting that it would be a while before she could get back home.
She moved over to the armchair, where she pulled on another pair of socks and a pair of snow boots that pinched her toes, followed by a down coat. She slipped a hat onto her head and a pair of gloves onto her hands, and she finished off the puffy, slightly marshmallow-y ensemble by winding a scarf around her neck. And if she was a little jealous of the fact that Aibek could get away with a much slimmer outfit, well, she figured that jealousy was justified.
She stood up, shifting on her feet until the boots were as close to comfortable as they were going to get, and turned to face Aibek expectantly. His expression looked slightly pinched, and with an exasperated huff, Amelia sighed, “Go ahead, get it over with.”
At the very least, he was polite enough to keep his fit of laughter to less than thirty seconds.
“You good?” Amelia asked expectantly. “Are you done? Can we get on with this?” she added, though there was no ire behind the words. She ushered him forward expectantly, and with a good-natured eye roll, he led the way out the door.
Amelia stepped out into a winter wonderland.
Well, it was a porch. A metal porch suspended about fifteen feet off of the ground by half a dozen sturdy posts. There was surprisingly little snow on the porch, considering it was snowing heavily right at that moment, but that made sense a moment later once Amelia noticed the shovel and the broom leaning against the porch railing.
If she squinted through the snow, she could just barely make out four similar, smaller buildings scattered around the area.
She trotted after Aibek as he took the stairs down to the ground, and there was a small hut under the porch, also remarkably clear of snow. “Water and such,” he supplied. “We clean it off a few times a day. I do not expect we will have enough trouble that you will have to step in, but if you do, we typically just use the broom and shovel.” He gestured up to the porch and then carried on walking.
Aibek made tromping through the snow look much easier than it was, Amelia reflected as she followed him toward another of the raised structures.
The first one had a cluttered porch, as if whoever lived inside couldn’t be bothered to put any of it away and instead simply cleared the snow around everything. “The twins’ room is in here,” Aibek explained, and then turned and gestured to the next, considerably neater one. “Anara lives in there.”
He carried on after that, admittedly not far, to a slightly more isolated, though equally small, structure. “My mother is in here.” Which just left the largest of the structures, which Aibek gestured to with a flourish. “And this is where I live.”
Amelia glanced between it and Faina’s house in quiet confusion.
“This one used to belong to my parents,” Aibek explained after a moment, “but my mother decided she would be more comfortable elsewhere after my father died.” He shrugged and rubbed the back of his head, his hat shifting. “It worked out well enough. I am a packrat, and Mom does not need much space.”
The conversation was suddenly immensely uncomfortable. Amelia shifted on her feet, snow crunching under her boots, and she cleared her throat. “So, where is everyone else?” she asked, deciding that a change of subject would be the best course of action.
Aibek snorted out a laugh. “Sezim and Serik are most likely taking their classes, or at least pretending to take their classes. Mom tends to keep to herself for much of the day. And Anara is probably still asleep and will remain so until lunch time.”
Amelia sighed wistfully, the scarf heating in front of her mouth. “I miss days where I could sleep until noon.”
“I could wake you up later, if you would like,” Aibek offered wryly, “but I do not guarantee you will not be disturbed either way.”
She scoffed. “You underestimate what I can sleep through,” she informed him. “But no, a morning wake-up call is fine, assuming I don’t just get up on my own.” They lapsed into silence again, and Amelia glanced around at the assemblage of miniature houses. “So, is this the extent of showing me around?” she wondered.
“Not quite,” Aibek returned, and he lifted a hand, motioning for her to follow him as he started to jog.
Jogging in knee high snow, as it turned out, was not a simple activity. Amelia learned that when she face planted into the snow and then had to wobble back to her feet like a backwards turtle. As she pushed herself to her knees and then scrambled awkwardly back to her full height, she could hear the unmistakable sound of Aibek laughing at her.
She did not pause to think. She simply acted. She bent down, scooped up a double fistful of snow, and mashed it into a hurried, roughly spherical shape before hurling it. Aibek’s laughter cut off with a muffled yelp when the snowball smacked him right in the face.
It was not a well-thought-out plan, though. Amelia realized that when Aibek ran at her, and she had just enough time to clumsily turn around and take two steps before he tackled her into the snow. An armload of snow was dumped over the back of her head a moment later, and she squealed in frigid outrage as she felt it slide down the back of her scarf. She flailed to dig it out, and Aibek’s weight vanished from her back so quickly it almost seemed like magic. She continued flailing as she tried to get up, until she finally went limp and admitted, “I’m stuck.”
With a huff of laughter, Aibek hauled her back to her feet with his hands under her arms. Once she was reasonably stable, she turned around to face him again and asked, as if nothing had happened, “So, what else did you need to show me?”
He rolled his eyes and carried on walking, though at a more sedate pace that time, and Amelia did what she could to walk in his footsteps.
They stopped walking when they came to a slope. Presumably, it was the same slope they had walked up the other day to get her to the house. It was a craggy, uneven slope, coated with rocks and snow, and it was rather apparent just by looking at it that anyone with less than four legs was not going to have a fun time climbing it without either climbing gear or a helping hand.
“This is how we come and go, most of the time,” Aibek explained, gesturing to the incline in a perfunctory way. “It is a bit hard to see if you do not know it is there, but there is a path leading down to a small lot we own. It is basically our garage.”
Amelia peered down the slope cautiously, wary of leaning too far over lest she lose her footing and go tumbling. She gave a low, impressed whistle. “You guys certainly take your privacy seriously.”
Aibek snorted and rolled his eyes. “Come on,” he sighed, gesturing for her to follow him again.
The walk was longer that time, cutting clear across the entire miniature village. When they came to a halt, it was at the base of another incline, that time climbing higher into the mountain.
“If something goes very wrong,” Aibek explained, “then this is how we get away. If that happens, then you will be very cold, but as long as you stay with us, you will make it back down the mountain. We will make sure of it.”
Amelia nodded slowly in understanding. “Has that…ever happened before?” she asked, unsure if it was a stupid question or not.
“Fortunately, no,” Aibek answered simply. “But we like to be prepared. The moment we relax is likely to be when trouble strikes.”
Without giving her a chance to ask any questions, he turned and began walking back toward the miniature village. Amelia hurried after him as best as she could without falling over herself again.
“So, how do you guys actually deal with getting down to the car?” she
asked once she was back at his side, since it seemed like a reasonably safe topic. “I mean, everyone was talking about shopping yesterday, and it sounded like it was a hassle.”
“It will be easier if I show you,” Aibek replied, and he sounded slightly amused as he said it. “Follow me,” he added, as if Amelia had been doing anything else. He turned toward the steps that led up to the porch of his own small house.
Once they were inside, it became apparent why his was bigger than the others. Presumably, the others had a bedroom and a bathroom and not much else. Aibek’s, however, was large enough that part of the bedroom doubled as a living space, the back of the couch acting as a divider between the den and the bedroom.
There was also stuff everywhere. The bookshelves had as many knick-knacks as books, the shelves on the wall were filled almost to overflowing, and the dresser played host to countless oddities. When Aibek had described himself as a packrat, he certainly hadn’t been kidding.
