Meeting Read online

  “The particular skills we have, you will not be able to acquire,” Sarutha said. “It’s possible you could drop singing and magic principles classes—”

  “Even if I can’t do things, maybe I can learn about them, so I know what you guys are doing,” Maya said.

  “If you feel that way, then of course, please continue to study. If you are frustrated by the classes, know that you can give them up. We could design other training for you that would prove more useful. Meanwhile, though, you and Rimi are developing these other skills that could be very, very valuable to us. Columba could give you a new curriculum suited specifically to your skills and potential.” Sarutha paused and looked over the neighborhood. Dusk was coming, and a cool wind was chasing leaves off the trees. Maya hunched her shoulders, and Rimi warmed around her, stopping the wind from chilling her.

  You are the best magic, Maya thought.

  I know, Rimi thought, with the creamy feel and lemon meringue taste of her smile.

  “Meanwhile, about the homework I gave you,” Sarutha said.

  Maya unzipped her pack and pulled out the manila envelope. She opened it, then tilted it to shake the piece of folded material out. It sizzled against her hands, though, and she dropped it. “Ouch!”

  Not nice! Rimi picked up the material and shook it out. It was heavy dark canvas, with a picture embroidered on it in thick colored thread. It showed three people close together. The people were not human. They had wings hunched on their backs, and their hair was like heavy vines that reached the ground, though some of it curled and hung around their bodies as though it were tentacles. They posed as formally as people in Egyptian tomb paintings. Two had wing-hands extended, their arms bent with one hand facing up and the other down, and the third person had wing-hands bunched tight, hands folded beneath his chin, head bent forward.

  Krithi, Rimi thought.

  “Krithi,” Maya said at the same time, her voice tight. She flexed her hands, which were red and painful. White blisters puffed up through the reddened skin. Pain made tears spill from Maya’s eyes.

  “Did the picture hurt you? I’m so sorry,” Sarutha said. She looked at the picture hanging in the air, then leaned over Maya’s hands. “Let me help you.”

  Maya held her hands out, and Sarutha crooned and waved her hands above them. The red and the pain faded, and the blisters sank away.

  “Thank you,” Maya said. “Why would it do that?”

  “I don’t know,” Sarutha said. “I’ve touched it and nothing happened. I never expected it to hurt you. Rimi, can you discover anything about it?”

  I will sisti it, Rimi thought.

  I’ve heard you say that before, Maya thought. What does that mean?

  It is all the senses I can use without touching something, though I am already touching this, but not with my fenshu, and it is—it is strange. There are slurzies in it, little things that are almost alive. Rimi laid the picture on the balcony floor. There. Not touching it any longer, and the slurzies are quiet now. Now I sisti.

  Maya felt Rimi exploring the picture. Rimi studied it and saw an overlay of colored light that formed a symbol. The lines were light green except where they crossed each other, and there they glowed red. They looked woven, and then there were some doodly parts. Maya got out her sketchbook and drew the symbol, then sketched a quick copy of the Krithi images.

  Rimi shifted and looked again, and this time Maya sensed handprints on the cloth, mostly around the edges. She sensed them as some kind of blurring, with a sort of scent or personal marker attached. Some of the blurs smelled familiar to Rimi—Sarutha’s touch was there, Columba’s, Harper’s. Others, under the Janus House people prints, smelled alien to Maya.

  Rimi moved closer, drawing in the scents. Oh, I remember.

  Krithi, Rimi thought. Maya felt a prickling of Rimi’s sadness. Is that the right word? It might not be, but I didn’t know words then. I remember the people. I don’t remember them very well, because it was before I had frames for thinking. I remember being torn from the mother plant, and finding my friend. I wasn’t quite ready for that, not quite ripe, but old enough to survive it. Then my friend and I were taken elsewhere, and that hurt as though I burned with fire. The portal! Worse pain than being ripped from the mother plant. If I hadn’t had my friend to nest against, I would have died.

  Then we came to another place that was much hotter and drier. Friend and I went into the baths there and floated in warmth and comfort, and there were tastes like none I’ve found here, and the rush of his feelings, and so much new around me, and other people’s touches, and tests and probes, though I only know that now, not then. Then it was just pushing, poking, things coming into Friend and taking bits out. Some of the tastes and feelings I loved. I remember—there was a friendnet there, too, two more of me and their friends. We weren’t allowed to touch, but I could still sense their nearness. I learned Bikos’s name, and his feelings. We learned to join—

  Rimi broke off. Maya felt fluttering against her skin, and then a tightening as Rimi wrapped around her. You’re mine, Rimi thought.

  Yes, thought Maya.

  Part of me is still Bikos. As part of you is still Stephanie.

  Maya wasn’t as sure about this, but she thought, Yes.

  Rimi was still. She leaned into the cloth again, collecting smells/senses/heat/magic traces. One of the ones who touched this, it was someone Bikos knew. There were three important people who stayed with him—the guardian one, the mother one, and the smooth-everything one. These memories are so fuzzed to me, though. I was never under Bikos’s skin the way I was with you. I didn’t get a chance to be inside his senses all the way, and my own senses were babies then, not very sharp. I caught the big feelings, but not the little details. One of these touches on the cloth, though, it is from someone we knew.

  “Maya? Rimi?” asked Sarutha.

  “Where did this come from? One of the people who touched it was someone who knew Bikos.”

  Sarutha drew in a sharp breath, a hiss over her lips. “One of Columba’s agents was doing an energy scan. Routine. He saw a knot of strange energy in a park a little north of town, and when he went to investigate, he found this, and scorch marks on the ground. It’s energy we haven’t seen before. We, too, suspected Krithi, but we weren’t sure, despite the artwork. I need to report this to Harper.” She stood up. “Is there anything else you can tell me?”

  Rimi pressed herself against the cloth. Flurries of spitting sparks rushed up at her, and she snapped back. It’s still alive, and it’s watching, she thought. I shouldn’t have touched it. Now it knows I’m here.

  NINETEEN

  “Oh, no,” Maya said.

  “Tell me,” said Sarutha.

  Maya stood up and held out her hands. She tugged on Rimi, though she didn’t know how she was doing it. She pulled Rimi to her, gathered in her scarves and waves and wings, her flows and flowers, pressed them all together and hugged her tight. Rimi clung to her. For the first time, Maya had a sense that Rimi had weight—not a lot of weight, but substance, mass, dimension. She had seen Rimi as large when Dr. Porta’s visibility potion kicked in, but she had still been thinking of Rimi in shadow terms.

  “Maya? Rimi?” Sarutha said.

  “Rimi says the cloth is alive, and now it knows we’re here.”

  “Kiri alamaka,” Sarutha muttered. “Stand back.”

  Maya boosted Rimi and backed off the balcony and into Sarutha’s apartment.

  Sarutha rubbed her hands together and flexed her fingers, rubbed the balls of her thumbs across her fingertips. She sang three notes, then made some very fast finger motions while singing a song with lots of short notes that bounced up and down. Maya could almost see an outline of the song, with lots of peaks and valleys, and black and red tints. Sarutha crossed her index and middle fingers one over another and pointed toward the cloth, then sang something strong, loud, and fast.

  Rimi stirred against Maya’s shoulder. I sisti it, she said. She sends stop power at
the cloth. Now it wraps around it, and nothing can get out.

  Sarutha snapped her fingers, stood with one finger on her chin, then closed her first two fingers over her thumbs on both hands and sang something else, waving her fists at the cloth. She snapped her hands open, and Rimi thought, A second layer of nothing-gets-out. Good. Good. Rimi stopped drooping and lifted her own weight off of Maya, living in air again the way she always had, a buoyant being.

  “That should do it,” Sarutha said. She went to her power picture, an ugly picture of a big-eyed kitten, and tapped it to open communications. She spoke with someone at the other end in Kerlinqua. The only word Maya recognized was dirty.

  The picture answered her. They had a short exchange, and then Sarutha nodded and turned away. “Columba will send a containment team up, and we’ll isolate it so it can’t send any more information out. Rimi, do you know whether it was sending bulletins earlier?”

  I think it only woke up when I touched it with my fenshu. Before that it was stupid and dead.

  It burned me, Maya thought.

  I think it was just kicking while it was asleep. It didn’t mean it.

  Maya looked at her healed hands and thought how awful it would have been if Sarutha hadn’t helped her. If she couldn’t hold a pencil to draw, she was pretty sure she’d go crazy.

  If your hand ever hurts that much again, I’ll make you a hand, Rimi thought.

  Maya blinked. Love you, she thought.

  “Rimi? Maya?” Sarutha said.

  “Rimi thinks it wasn’t awake until she touched it, and you jumped right on it,” Maya said.

  “Aleyma,” Sarutha said. “Thank goodness, and badness, and every ness between. Columba will alert the watchers to track any other obtrusive energy, especially if it moves our direction. They would be doing that anyway, but sometimes it helps to remind them.”

  Sarutha came close and laid her hand on Maya’s shoulder. She looked deep into Maya’s eyes. “Think about this, my dearest one. A strange and scary thing happened, but still, before and after and around it, you and Rimi were exploring, learning, and telling me what you discovered. This is exactly the sort of thing Columba does. She may be your natural workmate.”

  “But Namdi, I want to be an artist. I don’t see how that fits in with security.”

  “You drew us a picture of the person we were to search for, when Bikos was lost. You’ve showed us visions of the Krithi home planet we have not seen before. Your art informs us, and it is beautiful, too. Your skill works with this job very well.”

  “But that’s—” Maya thought of the graphic novels she’d imagined drawing. She and Steph had had a master plan, writer and illustrator team. They had ideas for several fantasy series. Maya had cut that plan loose when Stephanie died. It had been creeping back into her mind recently, small and secret, only its edges visible.

  We can do both, Rimi thought.

  “No decisions are necessary now,” Sarutha said. “Take your time thinking about it. Just know in the meantime that we very much appreciate your help and skill.” Sarutha patted her shoulder. “Time’s up for today, my dear. I’ll see you Friday.”

  Maya glanced at her watch. Five minutes to five. “Okay,” she said. “Thanks, Namdi.”

  TWENTY

  “Do you know what costume you’re going to wear yet?” Helen asked Maya Thursday morning before language arts class started.

  “I don’t even know what ghost to write my story about,” Maya said. “Did you decide whether to trick-or-treat?”

  “I think I’ll go,” said Helen.

  “Yeah, why not? Disguise yourself, meet the neighbors, get free candy. Hey, where do you live? Do you want to come with me?”

  Helen looked at her, considering. Maya got that judged-and-dismissed feeling. She hated it. That was one thing she had enjoyed about being adopted by Janus House—they couldn’t dismiss her once she and Rimi bonded. They had to figure out how to make the best of her being one of them. Sure, they judged, but they couldn’t vote her off the island.

  “Maybe you already have plans with your other friends,” Maya said.

  “Don’t you have plans with yours?” Helen asked softly as Ms. Caras rushed in and took her place behind the teacher’s desk.

  “We haven’t talked about it much, but I think I’m going to convince Gwenda to come with me.” Maya glanced at Travis, on her other side. He was doing his best sleep-imitation-or-reality, body sagging in total relaxation, head lolled to one side, mouth half open, soft snores coming out. “Travis is going to be handing out candy, so he can’t come. That’s about as far as I’ve gotten.”

  “Don’t you have siblings? You talked about them that first day when we were discussing our summers.”

  “Yeah, a younger brother. My sister’s seventeen. She’s too cool to go out.”

  The bell rang, leaving Maya with the unsettled sensation of a conversation only half finished. Helen hadn’t answered the question about whether she’d join Maya trick-or-treating.

  Whatever you do, whoever you are, I’ll be with you, Rimi thought.

  Thanks, Rimi.

  “All right, class,” said Ms. Caras. “Ghost stories are due tomorrow. Everybody already wrote a suspenseful opening, starting with a sound in the house. You can use that as your story start, or start over, but remember to keep it scary. I hope you’ve all settled on who your ghost is and whom your ghost is haunting. The rest of the story should write itself. I’ll give you some writing time now. If questions come up, raise your hand and I’ll come and talk to you. Anything before we start?”

  One of the other kids raised a hand. “I found a list of ghost rules at a site online,” he said, “and I made copies.” He waved a handful of papers.

  “Wonderful, Reuben,” said Ms. Caras. “Let’s pass those out and take a look at them. Remember, there are a lot of different versions of ghosts, so if you don’t like these rules, you can find others, or make some up. This could give you a starting point, though.”

  The rules were from a TV show about a woman who could talk to ghosts. Maya read down through them, mentally checking whether she believed them. Some of them seemed like other ghost rules she’d heard—ghosts could create cold spots, ghosts could go through things. Some of the rules were strange. Some seemed made up to make the show work. Most of them made Maya think of stories. If only Stephanie could see the list, she’d be off and running with a story in a second.

  Helen flipped through the pages and then nudged Maya. “Find your ghost yet?” she whispered.

  Maya shook her head. “Nope.”

  “Here’s an idea for you. Twin ghosts.”

  Twin ghosts! Maya thought about it and liked it. “How did they die?” she whispered.

  “Their mother locked them in the car and pushed it into a lake.”

  “E w w w!”

  “That really happened,” Helen whispered. “Well, not the ghost part, and not the twin part, but a mother locked her kids in the car and drowned them.

  “Why aren’t you using that one?”

  “I don’t believe in ghosts. But I’ve already decided to write something else. You can use that one.”

  “Okay,” said Maya. “What are you writing?”

  Helen folded the ghost rules and tucked them into her messenger bag. “A girl and her brother’s ghost,” she whispered.

  Maya thought about Peter as a ghost. He probably knew all the ghost rules from the books he had been reading, so he’d know how to be a good ghost. But—no, she didn’t want to think about Peter dead.

  “Reuben, thanks again for sharing this interesting information,” Ms. Caras said. “Here’s the way some people divide up ghosts.” She went to the white board and wrote, “Dead People,” “Recorded Events,” “Poltergeists,” and “Fake Ghosts.”

  Ms. Caras said, “Some people think ghosts are dead people who can talk and think and act as though they were alive.” She tapped the words “Dead People.”

  “Other people think there’s kind
of a ghost recording of a traumatic event that happened in a particular place that replays. Like if someone was murdered in the bedroom, you might see that murder replayed once a night.” She tapped “Recorded Events.” “In that case, there’s nobody there, really, it’s just a replay. Some kind of psychic energy makes an imprint on a place, and you hear someone singing the same song in the hallway every night, or footsteps going down the staircase to the basement every time it rains. It can be spooky, but you can get used to it, and it won’t hurt you.”

  She tapped the next label. “The third kind of ghost is a poltergeist, or noisy ghost, something that throws things, breaks things, turns faucets or electronics on and off, or generally makes mischief. These might be ghosts or dead people, but a lot of people think this energy comes from troubled teenagers.” She looked at each student in turn. “You are all probably lovely people for whom everything goes right—no poltergeists in this class. But maybe you know somebody weird things happen around.”

  Helen looked sideways at Maya. Maya smiled and looked sideways at someone else.

  I could move something right now, Rimi thought. The eraser on the ledge below the white board twitched.

  I don’t think that’s a good idea, Maya thought. We’re supposed to be keeping our own secrets.

  Salla. You’re probably right. The eraser settled. Though how would they know it’s our secret?

  “And finally,” said Ms. Caras, “Fake Ghosts. Sometimes these are tricks people set up to fool other people, like séances where fake mediums pretend to communicate with the dead. Other times it’s all in a person’s head: they think they’re seeing and hearing things they aren’t.”

  She leaned against the whiteboard and smiled at the class. “You can use any of these ideas, or others if you have them. Now, everyone, start your storytelling.”

  Maya wrote her name and the class and date at the top of a piece of paper, then sat with the tip of her pencil on the top line where she would put a title.

  Let me, Rimi thought, gently tugging at the pencil. Maya let go of it but kept her hand loosely cupped around it, moving her hand as the pencil moved. When it stopped, she had to move her hand to see what Rimi had written.