Thresholds (8 page)

If Gwenda was a witch, maybe the soup was a spell. But Maya didn’t care. She felt like she’d been waiting to eat this soup for ages. It was just right, not hot enough to burn her tongue, not too cool. It tasted like vinegar and sour grass and spinach. Normally she didn’t like any of those things. What was wrong with her?

Vinegar, sour grass, spinach, maybe mushrooms, and something that tasted like pine bark smelled. Suddenly her favorite food in the whole world, even better than pound cake. She could feel it making her strong and well, chasing away all the tired.

“Travis, you want something to drink?” Gwenda asked.

“Yeah, I guess,” said Travis. “What you got?”

She went to a turquoise refrigerator and looked inside. “Root beer,” she said.

“My favorite.”

Gwenda poured a glassful of brown liquid. She moved her fingers over it and handed it to Travis.

He took a sip, then a gulp. “Wow. It’s the best I’ve ever tasted.” He lifted the glass to his lips and tilted his head back. Maya, spooning up delicious sour soup, watched Travis set the mostly full glass down and yawn.

His eyes dropped shut. He slumped in his chair.

Maya froze with the spoon in midair. “Did you just drug him?” she asked, panicked.

“Uh-huh. It’s for the best. We can’t let him find out what happened to you, Maya,” Benjamin said.

He sounded like he already knew.

She dropped the spoon and cupped her right hand over her left wrist. She felt a pulse under her palm. Her pulse or the egg’s?

If root beer could knock Travis out, what was this soup doing to her?

She sat back and checked in with herself.

She had been faint with hunger and pain when Travis brought her here, had wondered if she was going to die. Now she felt . . . almost normal again. Maybe the soup was just what Gwenda had said. For stamina and strength.

She looked at Gwenda.

“We won’t hurt you,” Gwenda said gently.

Maya had heard that already today, from Chikuvny Boy, right before Big Pain.

“We won’t, Maya. Travis will be fine. He’ll wake up in a couple hours without even a headache.”

“But—”

“There are some things,” Benjamin said, “lots of things, we can’t share without good reason.”

“This is major, Maya,” Gwenda said, “like, change-the-rest-of-your-life big. It’s something most people can’t help you with, but I think we can. I hope we can.” She shook her head. “I don’t know. It might even be my fault. I’ve made so many mistakes lately. Please let us help you.”

How could it be Gwenda’s fault? She didn’t even know Chikuvny Boy.

Chikuvny Boy. Her egg. Change the rest of her life?

The back of her throat felt tight. She uncovered the egg. The glowing, colored bump had collected back the little lights that had been swimming around under the skin of her forearm. It was warm and strange, though she was getting used to it, the way she could no longer bend her wrist all the way. She opened and closed her fingers. They worked fine.

She could go home with this, and then what? She was pretty sure no doctor she could find in the phone book would know what it was or how to treat it.

She sniffled, then nodded. “What is this?” she asked Benjamin. “Do you already know about it?”

“We don’t recognize it, but we know about strange,” he said. “We deal with strange every day.”

Maya’s heartbeat sped up. She felt a prickling across her scalp and down the back of her neck. She had an image of herself standing with her hand on a doorknob, about to turn it and open a door into another world.

Benjamin said, “Did Chikuvny Boy tell you why he gave you the—the—”

“
Sissimi
,” she said.

“
Sissimi
?” said Benjamin. “Wasn’t there something about that in the—”

“
Sissimi
,” Gwenda said at the same time. “You have a name for it! That’s the first power. I’ll be right back.” She rose and left, then returned carrying a big, battered, leather-covered book. It was way fatter than the book Benjamin had been reading at school, and it looked even more beat up.

Gwenda and Benjamin sat at the table with Maya and the sleeping Travis. “Did he tell you anything about it?” Benjamin asked Maya.

She touched the bump. It felt velvety-soft and warm. She tried to remember exactly what Chikuvny Boy had told her. “He said it’s a treasure and a perfect friend. He said it needs somebody local. He was really sick, and the
sissimi
was dying. I guess he wasn’t local enough, though how can that be? The
sissimi
needs to eat me. He didn’t tell me that part until after he put it on me, though. I just thought he was going to give it to me and I’d find it some food. Is it some kind of vampire egg?”

“I don’t think so,” Benjamin said. “There was message traffic—”

“Wait.” Gwenda flipped through the book. “
Sissimi
,” she said. “Ah. Here you go. They’re not parasites. They’re protectors. They bond for life. Hmm. It must have been in extreme distress to hook into you like it did. Normally they’re helpers, and the connection feels good.” She frowned at the book. “Wait a minute. Benjamin? How would you translate
shri
?”

“Stealth?” he said. “Spying?”

She pointed to a passage in the book, and he leaned over to look. Maya looked too. The page was interesting, but there was nothing on it she could read, just strings and swirls of unknown symbols in different colors.

Benjamin frowned at her egg. “‘Information feed’?”

“What does
that
mean?” Maya asked.

“There are some words I don’t get here, but I think it says
sissimi
are sent out with explorers and spies to gather information and send it back. Send it back to where?” He flipped a page and searched through more explosions of symbols.

Gwenda scanned down the page, moving her fingertip. “Oh, why is this book always so confusing?” she cried at last.

Maya stroked her egg with a fingertip. A silent vibration started in its heart, a purr without noise. It felt lovely, and colors shimmered under her fingertip, shifting from indigo to orange to yellow. “How could this send anything anywhere? Is it like a radio?” she asked.

“The book doesn’t explain,” said Gwenda. “It never does.”

“Does it say how I can get it off?” She pressed the egg to her cheek, felt the thrum against her face and in her arm. Warm. Soothing. Nice. Maybe she didn’t want to get it off.

“I don’t think it comes off now until it hatches,” said Benjamin.

“How long does that take?”

He shook his head. “The book doesn’t say. We need more information.”

“Listen to this,” Gwenda said. “‘The
sissimi
bond is so pleasant that unsuitable people seek it out.
Sissimi
nurseries are heavily guarded. Only special people are allowed to bond.’”

“How special am I?” Maya asked.

“Well, you’re not somebody they picked,” Benjamin said. “But you’re special because you saved it from dying.”

“There are nurseries for things like this,” Maya muttered. “Nurseries. Where?” She stroked the lump. Color rippled in response to her touch. “How come you guys have even heard of this? Is it something everybody knows about but me?”

“No,” Benjamin said. “Very few people know. But we do. It’s our job to know.”

“Where are these
sissimi
nurseries?” Maya asked.

Gwenda bit her lip, ran her finger over a block of symbols in her book. “Not on Earth,” she said.

Okay
. Breathe, Maya.
Okay. She could deal with this.

Maybe.

“What is it?” She touched her egg. Warm as a muffin just out of the oven, soft, with a little give to it, but firm underneath—not rock hard, but solid, like an unripe plum. Colors pulsed over its surface, waves of them shining up through the thin pink membrane of her skin: aquamarine, emerald, rose, turquoise, citrine.

“What does it hatch into?” she asked. “What does it look like?”

Gwenda flipped the pages back and forth. “The book doesn’t say. There’s no picture.”

“Is it an animal? Is it a plant? Is it—is it a fairy?” She stroked her finger over the waves of colors. The egg thrummed.

Gwenda searched the book’s pages again. “It says it turns into something different with every species it encounters. No specifics.”

“Did Chikuvny Boy tell you anything else?” Benjamin asked.

Maya closed her right hand gently around the egg. It radiated warmth and purred against her palm, against the bones of her left wrist. She felt sleepy. Her stomach was full of pound cake and strange, satisfying soup. She could still taste the sour on her tongue, but she liked it. She felt as though she was wrapped in a warm blanket of good health.

What had the boy said to her? “He said she was a seer. I don’t know what that is. Companion. Collector. Protector. He said . . . he said I had to teach her.”

“Teach her what?” asked Benjamin.

Maya shook her head. “I don’t know.”

“Teach her how to be local,” Gwenda said slowly. “That’s why Chikuvny Boy picked Maya.”

“That, and I was wearing
chikuvny
,” she said.

They both stared at her.

“He said I could take care of her until she was big enough, then take her to a portal,” she said. “Portals are connected to
chikuvny
, right?”

They didn’t answer.

“And you guys know where the portals are. All this time, Chikuvny Boy was looking for you guys. I smelled right; that’s why he found me. I smelled like fairy dust. But the fairy came from your house, right?”

Neither of them said anything.

“You saw my drawing. You know I’ve seen her, Benjamin.”

“Yes,” he finally admitted.

She knew it. “She got out because Gwenda left the door open?”

Gwenda sighed. “Dumb Rowan. Talking about our business on the street. Next time he tries to get me in trouble, I’m going to use that one.”

“You left the door open,” Maya said slowly to Gwenda. “The portal?”

“No, not that door,” said Benjamin.

“Chikuvny Boy said I had to find a portal,” she said, “that she’ll need it. She can go home and they’ll—whoever they are, wherever they are—they’ll know what to do. Is that right?”

“We really can’t talk about this. Not without permission.” Benjamin’s face was blank.

“You can’t even tell me whether the fairy is safe? She slept on me last night.”

“That’s wild,” Gwenda said. “She was very skittery. She had never used a portal before, and it totally spooked her. But yeah, she moved on okay.”

“Gwenda!” Benjamin cried.

“She needs to know, Benjamin, you know she does.” Gwenda turned to her. “We’re not supposed to talk to
anybody
. So we don’t make friends with other kids. We don’t talk to strangers. We spend all our time together. Like a religious cult.”

“But you let me sit with you.”

Benjamin said, “You smelled right. We thought maybe you were family from out of town. Although even the youngest of us knows to get rid of that scent before leaving the house.”

She touched her egg to her cheek. It purred silently, comforting her.

All day long, people had mistaken her for something she wasn’t. Fairy dust and mistaken identity.

“I told you right away I didn’t know what
chikuvny
was,” she said to Benjamin.

“You’re supposed to pretend you don’t know. I should never have said that word to you. Even if you understood it, you would be right to pretend you didn’t.”

She shook her head. “That’s crazy!”

He smiled. “Yeah.”

“We can’t keep pretending we don’t know, any of us.” Gwenda closed the book, put her hands on top of it, and rested her chin on her hands. “Maya has a real problem, and it might relate to our other problems. We have to tell the Elders. We need help.”

The front door opened in the other room. Someone called, “Benjamin? Are you home? Why aren’t you at energy class? Have you seen Gwenda?”

Rowan walked into the kitchen.

Maya’s heart pounded, and she had a hard time catching her breath.

Rowan brushed the hair out of his face and glared at her.

“What’s going on
here?” Rowan asked in a voice so cold Maya’s skin prickled.

Benjamin straightened. “We have a situation.”

“Obviously.”

Gwenda touched Maya’s right hand. “Maya, show him,” she said.

Maya hugged the egg to her chest.

“Once begun, must go on,” Gwenda said. “Maya, show him.”

Maya felt strangely tender about her egg. It purred and comforted her, and it was so beautiful, all soft colored lights. It felt warm against her wrist, against her cheek. What if Rowan wanted to hurt it?

Gwenda had said there was no way to break the bond between them. Like it or not, her egg was on her to stay until it hatched.

She lowered her wrist and showed it to Rowan.

“What!” he gasped. He came to her and leaned over the egg, then stared at Gwenda.

“It’s called a
sissimi
.”

“
Sissimi
?” said Rowan. “The alert messages—!” His eyes narrowed.

“Here’s the entry,” Gwenda said, and handed him the book open to the right page.

He read it, frowning the whole time. Then he gave Maya a glare. “How did this happen?”

“We better explain it to everyone at once,” Benjamin said.

Maya had seen a lot of different people come and go from Janus House. Did she have to talk to all of them? “Who’s ‘everyone’? ” she asked.

“Really, just the Elders. Rowan can find out when they do,” said Benjamin.

Rowan walked to a picture on the wall and touched a painted cat. The eyes glowed. “This is Rowan. There’s been a development. We need an emergency meeting with the Elders,” Rowan told the cat.