by Dima Zales
“Fluffster said you have something major to tell us, but he wouldn’t say what—said we have to hear it from your lips,” Felix says with a worried frown. He looks to Kit for support, but the shape-shifting Councilor merely shrugs and makes herself look like me.
“Right.” I take off my shoes and grab Fluffster from the floor to further calm my nerves. “Let’s go to the living room, and I’ll fill you in.”
Once we’re comfortably seated, I tell them all about my Headspace encounter with my father and my realization that I have a map that (probably) leads to him. I then go over my deadly “what if I go” vision and conclude with Nero’s potential reaction to the whole thing.
“I wonder if it was the lack of oxygen alone that killed you?” Felix muses as the cat jumps onto his lap. “A simple scuba suit could help then, unless there are toxic agents in the air. Could you tell?”
“I have no idea,” I say. “It could’ve also been radiation—given the way the world itself looked.”
“A Hazmat suit then.” Felix scratches behind Lucifur’s fluffy ear, making the creature purr. “Or even—”
“Can we first talk about the elephant in the room,” Fluffster states loudly in my head.
The couch creaks.
Kit has turned herself into a small elephant and is scratching her floppy ear with her trunk.
“Huh,” Felix says, looking at Kit’s form. “You’re not just in the room. You’re also the elephant of surprise.”
I roll my eyes at the awful pun. “Right. Just like that famous movie, The Fifth Elephant.”
Though I can’t see the white in Fluffster’s rodent eyes, I get the distinct impression that, like me, he’s rolling them with the expertise of a teenage girl. “As I said before, you shouldn’t go,” he says to me, pointedly turning away from the elephant/Kit. “Nero might have a good reason for wanting to stop you.”
“Out of the question.” I place the chinchilla on the carpet. If Fluffster is going to take Nero’s side, he can rub his own chin. “If you want to help, think of a way I can survive the trip.”
“A spacesuit.” Felix mindlessly strokes the cat’s belly.
“NASA doesn’t sell that stuff.” I pinch the bridge of my nose. “Please don’t say you want to fly to Houston and rob a museum.”
“I’m talking about a cosmonaut suit,” Felix says. “After the Soviet Union collapsed, a black market sprang up for the gear used in their space program. I happen to know a guy. I used a few parts he gave me when I built Golem.” He looks wistful at the memory of the destroyed robot. “The only problem with this idea is that it’s going to be costly.”
“I have money,” I say. “How much are we talking about?”
“Probably upward of seventy grand per spacesuit.” Felix stops stroking the cat, but she nudges him with her paw and he resumes his duties. “So that’s over two hundred thousand if you, me, and Kit go together.”
Fluffster’s eyes bulge at the insane expenditure until he looks on the verge of turning into his monstrous form.
“See if you can get your guy to give us a lower price,” I say quickly. The last thing I want is for my pet chinchilla to eat my roommate. “I don’t have enough for that.”
“Right.” Felix gives Fluffster a worried look as well. “Hopefully, he’ll consider a bulk discount. If not, maybe I can use my powers to pay at least part of the cost in trade.”
“Shady favor for shady people?” I resist the urge to bite my nails. “How about you invest in a stock I recommend instead? Just make sure Nero doesn’t find out I gave you the tip; I’m not supposed to be investing on my own or through friends and family.”
Fluffster’s scary expression is replaced with a curious one.
Good.
In the future, we’ll have to make sure to have money conversations outside our apartment.
“That actually sounds like fun.” Felix attempts to stop stroking the cat, but she forces him to keep going once more. “I have some savings I can dedicate to this. What company did you have in mind?”
Pretending I’m doing my job for Nero, I let my intuition (or whatever it is) pull a stock from the ether.
“Cedar Fair—the amusement park operator,” I say. “Their ticker is FUN.”
“You sure?” Fluffster narrows his eyes. “I refuse to have this household live in squalor.”
“When I do the same thing for Nero, he claims to make bank,” I say defensively. “Why shouldn’t it work for Felix?”
“I’ll invest later today.” Finally setting the cat aside, Felix takes out his phone and types something—no doubt adding FUN to his to-do list (possibly for the first time).
Lucifur gives him a baleful glare but lets him live. For now.
“I also have some spare cash I’ve been meaning to deploy,” Kit says as the cat starts grooming herself. “Can I jump in on this transaction if I let you keep half the profits?”
“So long as you don’t blame us in case of a lack of profits,” I say.
“And chip in for the rent,” Fluffster adds.
“Deal,” Kit says.
Felix puts down his phone, looking thoughtful. “Even if we get a spacesuit, we’ll probably need to retool it for the unique dangers of the world you saw in your vision—that and somehow figure out the exact nature of those dangers. I’ll have to get some help from an engineer, and we’ll have to pay this person as well.”
“If you let me keep all my FUN profits, I can help you with that problem,” Kit says and makes herself look like a round-cheeked young woman with the dorkiest smile I’ve ever seen. In a nasal voice that sounds like a spoiled (but then later rehabilitated) princess, she adds, “A gnome owes me a favor.”
“A gnome?” Felix and I say in unison but with different intonations. Mine is “now you’re telling me there are gnomes?” while Felix just sounds like Christmas came early.
“A gnome.” Kit turns back into her usual self.
“You have a deal,” Felix says to Kit, then looks at me. “Gnomes are amazing with technology. Especially hardware—which is exactly what we need.”
“Gnomes,” I repeat slowly. “I thought they’d be good at growing beards and gardening.”
“I suspect that Itzel will educate you about gnomes,” Kit says in that same goofy voice. “The trick is to make her shut up about it.”
“I didn’t think gnomes were allowed on Earth,” Felix says. “I’ve only met a few while visiting Gomorrah.”
“Being on the Council comes with many perks.” Kit sits straighter, her voice back to its usual anime-character pitch. “We have access to all sorts of secret maps to the Otherlands, and we’re allowed to bring over any Cognizant, even those that are typically forbidden on Earth. We just have to use proper precautions.”
So this is how Nero got the orcs here, and the proper precautions in that case included making them wear makeup to cover their green skin. I suppress a shudder as I recall how viciously Nero killed said orcs for bruising me.
Pushing the gruesome images away, I say, “Great. When can we get the spacesuit and meet this gnome?”
“My spacesuit guy will need a few days.” Felix steeples his fingers. “I’ll also need some time for your suggested investment to pay off.”
“I’ll be too busy to get Itzel until I’m done planning the funeral,” Kit says. “Afterward—”
She stops talking. She must’ve realized everyone is staring at her with varying degrees of open-mouthed shock. “Did I forget to mention the funeral arrangements I was tasked with?” she asks guiltily.
We keep staring at her, though I have a strong urge to get up and shake the information out of her—but the memories of her turning into a gator (and a drekavac) stop me from doing so.
“Nero and I petitioned the Council to dedicate a Farewell Rite to Rose,” Kit explains. “Once everyone agreed, I was tasked with the bulk of the administrative work—no good deed goes unpunished and all that.”
Felix whistles. “A Farewell Rite?
Wow. Of course, if anyone deserves such a great honor, it’s Rose. I bet Vlad will be pleased.”
“Assuming he attends.” Kit turns into Vlad, and her face looks like a mask of grief. “No one has been able to get in touch with him.”
“I’m sure he’ll be there,” Felix says.
Kit turns back into herself and opens her mouth to reply, but her phone chirps. She looks at it, then leaps to her feet. “Funeral duty calls,” she says. “I have so much to do. I’m not sure when I’ll be back.”
She heads out of the room, but then she turns and says, “I think it would be nice if you gave a eulogy at the event.”
Blood leaves my face. “Are you talking to me or Felix?” I ask as the sinking feeling spreads through me.
“You, of course.” Kit frowns at me in confusion.
“And is this going to be a big event?” I do my best to swallow my rapidly pumping heart back into my chest.
“Huge.” Felix gives me a pitying look, then conspiratorially mouths to Kit, “Sasha isn’t a fan of public speaking.”
Not a fan of public speaking. That’s like saying arachnophobes aren’t fans of tarantulas.
“She was fine when she spoke in front of the Council.” Kit turns into me—but a version brimming with impossible levels of confidence and determination, kind of like Wonder Woman.
She’s right. I did speak to the Council without freaking out—at least on my second go at it. In my vision, I fainted from the anxiety.
Taking in calming breaths, I consider that. Could it be that I have conquered my biggest fear? But if so, why do I feel like rabid skunks are trying to chew their way through my intestines?
Then again, this is for Rose.
“I’ll do it,” I hear myself utter. “I’ll say a few words.”
“Great,” Kit says and leaves.
I sit there, staring blankly at the turned-off TV.
“I’m going to get a head start on the spacesuit,” Felix says from somewhere. “That and investing.”
“Sure,” I say numbly. “You do that.”
Felix leaves with the cat on his tail, but I just sit there, trying to convince myself that public speaking is not the equivalent of facing the gallows.
“Hey,” Fluffster says in my head. “I just wanted to say that if meeting your father means this much to you, I won’t get in your way.”
“Thank you.” I focus on the concerned-looking chinchilla.
Picking him up, I stroke his heavenly fur and immediately feel soothed.
“Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help,” Fluffster says.
“There is something, actually,” I tell him, deciding not to think about that speech for now. “I’d like to learn Russian.”
“Russian?” The domovoi looks up at me.
“I need a way to communicate with my father,” I explain.
“I can speak Russian.” Fluffster straightens his whiskers.
“I know that, bud.” I smile down at him. “I was hoping you’d help me with this.”
He puffs up like a feisty kitten. “Of course.”
“Great.” I pull out my phone and download every app for learning Russian, then a few ebooks on the same subject.
Then I tell Fluffster my plan. I will go into Headspace and get a vision of me using all these tools, one after another—which should allow me to choose the one that fits my learning style best and will give me a decent head start.
Thus decided, I concentrate and find myself in Headspace.
Chapter Six
I touch the shapes around me all at once and receive an onslaught of Russian education, hours and hours of it, until eventually, I run out of my seer power.
Back in my living room, I assess my prodigious progress. I learned a lot from all the apps and books, and I remember most of it.
Where was Headspace when I was cramming for finals in college? I could’ve aced any test like this.
Interestingly, though Russian has a reputation for being a hard language to learn, I’m not finding that to be the case. If anything, the opposite seems to be true for me. Granted, the alphabet is a little wonky—H isn’t an H, and P isn’t a P, but overall, it feels extremely natural to me. I especially like how the alphabet lets you read pretty much right away—Russian spelling is more or less phonetic.
“Nu kak?” Fluffster asks me in Russian.
“I didn’t learn that yet,” I say sheepishly, though I feel like I’m on the verge of understanding. “What does it mean?”
“Approximately, ‘so how goes it?’” Fluffster explains, confirming my unvoiced guess. “I probably should’ve instead used a more common, ‘kak tvoi dela?’”
I smile. Despite the way it sounds, “kak” doesn’t mean rooster or male genitalia. It’s the Russian word for “how,” so I reply with, “Horosho.”
“Wow,” Fluffster says. “Your pronunciation is really good. Surprisingly good.”
“I had hoped it would be.” I beam a hundred-megawatt smile at him. “After all, I learned it as a child—during the critical time in your life when you form the muscles involved in speaking.”
As I say this, it occurs to me that the same reasoning might explain why I’m finding these lessons so much easier than most people do. I’m relearning instead of picking up from scratch—and that’s always easier.
“Why don’t we watch some movies you’ve already seen but with Russian voiceover?” Fluffster suggests. “I know a good website for that.”
I nod, excited, and we download The Illusionist, Now You See Me 1 and 2, The Prestige, and a few of my other favorites.
Because I’ve seen the films many times, I find the Russian easy enough to follow—or maybe I find it easy to follow because they use vocabulary I’ve just learned and/or picked up as a kid.
When Fluffster gets tired of watching, I force him to listen to me practice speaking Russian until it’s time to go to bed.
Except I can’t sleep. Now that I’m not focusing on learning my father’s language, my mind keeps coming up with what I’d say during Rose’s eulogy.
Eventually, I give up, get out of bed, and write down what I think will sound good.
And then I can’t sleep because I dread delivering the speech in front of a huge crowd.
After hours of tossing and turning, I get up, grab my phone, and study Russian for the rest of the night—probably making more progress than a graduate student would in two years.
When the smell of fried goodness wafts into the room from under the door, I trek into the kitchen.
Felix, Lucifur, and Fluffster are eating breakfast. The chinchilla’s bowl with hay is on the table next to Felix’s plate, and the cat’s saucer with Fancy Feast is on the floor.
The cat looks up at me with an expression that seems to say, “Dare come near our Majesty’s meal, and I will eat your face.”
Felix’s gaze is much warmer than the cat’s as he examines my sleep-deprived self.
I check his plate, spot the fried eggs and hash browns, and spy more in the skillets on the stove.
Score.
“Morning,” Felix says as I rush to put a heaping portion on my plate. “I hear you’re learning Russian now.”
“Da,” I say, grinning. “Eto pravda.”
“You weren’t kidding,” Felix says to Fluffster in Russian. “That’s great pronunciation.”
Fluffster looks up from his hay and gives me a wink.
I put my plate on the table and sit down. “Yeah. It’s not as hard as I feared,” I say in Russian.
“I imagine the three-gender thing will be tricky.” Felix gesticulates with his utensils. “This fork is female, this table is male, but an egg is neuter.”
“Da,” I say. “But the good news is that there are rules that help me figure out what gender something is.” Shoving food into my mouth, I chew hungrily.
“Sasha will be fine on that score,” Fluffster chimes in. “Even in English, there are a few gendered nouns. Like a ship is a she. Spanish a
nd French also have something like this. And besides, even if Sasha messes those up, she can still be understood.”
“Yeah. She’d just sound silly.” Felix gives us an evil grin. “Even sillier than usual, that is.”
Since my mouth is too full for a proper retort, I pinch his forearm instead.
“Hey.” He jerks his arm away. “After all I did last night?”
“About that,” I say through the food. “How did it go?”
“I got us a deal,” he says excitedly, the pretend injury forgotten. “The guy has a bunch of parts from Orlan, Sokol, and Birkut suits and can give us a bulk discount. I figured with a gnome on the team, we can put those together better than the Soviet engineers.”
“Good,” I say. “When do we get the delivery?”
“Working that out still,” Felix says. “Not long, though.”
I want to ask him how much it all costs but decide to do so when Fluffster is out of earshot.
“I also got us some Hazmat gear and other things I think we will need,” Felix says. “And Kit helped me decide where our makeshift lab will be.”
“Oh?” I spear more eggs onto my fork.
“Yep, in JFK,” Felix says.
I raise my eyebrows.
“Did you picture yourself waltzing into an airport wearing a spacesuit?” Felix’s unibrow attempts an answering arch.
I picture the looks on the TSA agents’ faces.
He’s right. It would not be a good idea, even on Halloween.
“We could bring the suits in some kind of bags, like luggage,” I say.
“You’re close,” Felix says. “The parts can go in suitcases, but the finished product will be built in one of the underground rooms—the one you get to if you take the wrong turn right before the hub corridor.”
“I didn’t realize there were rooms there,” I say. “I pictured pits with hungry crocodiles, or a post-apocalyptic H&R Block office with cannibalistic accountants.”
