Vision In Silver

CHAPTER 11

Firesday, Maius 11

Simon stared at the two stinky children who stood between Pete and Eve Denby. Not an unclean kind of stinky; more that there were so many smells covering them he couldn’t identify them. Not without a closer, and more thorough, sniff that would have the parents snarling at him.

Not that he would blame Pete and Eve for snarling. All the humans who had returned to work this morning were pretending he hadn’t been “bite all humans” angry yesterday, but they were as wary of him as they’d been before Meg started working in the Courtyard.

He wondered if there was a way human males said they were sorry about something without saying they were sorry. Because he wasn’t sorry about being angry. All the terra indigene were angry about the blood prophet pups being killed. But he was sorry that he’d tried to bite Ruthie and Merri Lee, who weren’t the kind of humans who would drown puppies or kittens . . . or babies.

Neither were Pete and Eve Denby, who had shown courage by coming here—and a confidence that their pups would be safe with the Others.

Which brought him back to the children, who looked as if they were waiting for him to sprout fur and grow fangs.

Irritating whelps. As soon as Pete and Eve were gone, he’d chuck them outside.

Caw, caw.

And having them outside would make it easier for curious terra indigene to observe them.

“This is our son, Robert, and our daughter, Sarah,” Pete said. “Children, this is Mr. Wolfgard. He runs the bookstore.”

“Can you really turn into a wolf?” Robert asked.

“I’m always a Wolf,” Simon replied. “Sometimes I shift to look human.”

“Can you, like, get furry and stuff?”

Before he could decide if he wanted to answer that—and what did a young human mean by “stuff”?—there was a thump and a yelp at the back of the store. Then Ruthie hurried toward him, looking mussed and agitated, which was odd because she was usually a well-groomed female.

“Mr. Wolfgard?” she said.

First things first. Get the stinky children outside without upsetting the parents since he wanted them to look at the buildings that were for sale across the street. Then he’d deal with the thump and yelp.

“This is Ruthie Stuart, Officer Kowalski’s mate. She will show your pups around the Market Square,” Simon said.

Sarah giggled. Robert said, “We’re not pups; we’re kids.”

Simon looked at Robert and Sarah, then at Ruthie.

Kids. He’d heard Merri Lee say something about when she was a kid. But the word didn’t apply to her now because she was an adult, so it had never occurred to him that, maybe, humans had a little shifter ability that they outgrew as they matured. When she had said kid, maybe she had meant kid?

He eyed Robert and Sarah with more interest. “Little humans can shift into young goats?” Kids were tasty. Would human-turned-goat taste different from goat-goat?

“No,” Ruthie said firmly. “Humans can’t shift into any other form, and while human children are sometimes called kids, they are never goats.” She took a breath and looked at Robert and Sarah. “It would be better not to use the word ‘kid’ in the Courtyard because goats are edible and children are not.”

Simon watched all the color drain out of Eve Denby’s face.

“What time are you supposed to look at the buildings?” he asked.

Pete hesitated, then looked at his wristwatch. “We should go now.” He pulled a five-dollar bill from his pocket and held it up as he looked at his boy. “Share that with your sister and get a treat.”

Robert took the money.

Another thump from the back room followed by a loud snarled curse. Then Skippy Wolfgard bolted into the front of the store and spotted the money in Robert’s hand.

Before Simon could grab him, the juvenile Wolf with the skippy brain snatched the money out of Robert’s fingers, took a couple of quick chews, and swallowed.

Shit, fuck, damn, Simon thought. Grabbing Skippy’s tail, he hauled the Wolf toward him before glancing at the boy. No blood, no screaming, no missing fingers.

As Simon changed his grip to hold Skippy by the scruff, the juvenile’s eyes widened in surprise just before he barfed up the money and half a mouse.

Sarah squealed and jumped away from the mess. Robert leaned forward to get a better look.

Skippy said.

“Sorry, sorry.” John Wolfgard rushed to the front of the store. “He got away from me.”

“He ate a mouse,” Robert said, sounding intrigued.

“You ate a worm once and barfed up the worm and a penny you must have swallowed along with it.” Eve sighed and looked at Simon. “Do you have any rags or something to clean that up?”

“I’ll take care of it,” Tess said, coming through the archway from A Little Bite.

Simon didn’t bother to swear. Tess’s hair was solid green and curling, a sign she was agitated about something.

The Denbys stared. Ruthie stood still. Skippy tried to squirm out of Simon’s grip and eat the regurgitated mouse.

“You. Go with her.” Tess pointed at the children, then at Ruthie. “You two go look at the apartment buildings.” She pointed at Pete and Eve, then turned to John. “You take Skippy outside. And do not tell Meg he ate a mouse or she won’t let him stay with her in the Liaison’s Office.”

Everyone rushed to obey, leaving him facing Tess over a puddle of barf.

“Find something to do,” she said.

This wasn’t the time to remind her that he was the leader. He edged around her and headed for the stairs. But he looked back and saw Tess watching him. She did not look happy.

Of course, he wouldn’t be happy either if he had to clean up the barf. It smelled worse than the Denby children.

Leaving Jake Crowgard perched on the front counter in the Liaison’s Office, Meg dashed over to the Three Ps, the Courtyard shop for paper, postage, and printing. When she’d opened the back door of her office a few minutes ago, she’d seen the lights go on in the shop, so she knew Lorne was getting ready for his workday.

Just need a couple of minutes to check on Lorne and make sure he’s okay with being here today, Meg thought as she stepped into the shop. Just need a few minutes to . . .

She hadn’t been inside the Three Ps. Everything she’d needed to do her work at the Liaison’s Office had been provided, from the pens and pencils to the clipboard and pads of paper she used for it. Now she stood frozen just inside the doorway.

No prickling. No pins-and-needles feeling. No sense of prophecy. But as she looked at the sheer number of items on display, she knew entering the shop had been a mistake.

Then Lorne walked out of the back room and saw her. “Meg?”

He started to hurry toward her, then stopped, and she wondered what he saw in her face that made him look so worried.

“Is something wrong?” he asked.

There’s no danger here, no threat, Meg thought, feeling panic start to bubble inside her.

“I’ll call Simon.” Lorne turned toward the counter and the phone.

“No!” Her vehemence surprised both of them. “No,” she said again, struggling for control. “Don’t call Simon. Not yet. I just need a minute.”

She didn’t talk to Lorne the way she talked to Merri and Ruth about images and how she and the other cassandra sangue had been trained in the compound. If she tried to explain, would he understand?

Only one way to find out.

“I’ve seen images of office supply stores,” she said. “If this was a lesson, I would be shown an overall picture of the inside of the store. Then there would be images of the merchandise—one image to represent a particular kind of thing.”

“So you would be shown the outside of an appointment book and maybe an inside page that would show a date?” Lorne asked.

Meg nodded. “We only had the images that the Walking Names wanted us to have, instead of everything.” She gestured to indicate the shelves of merchandise that filled the walls and the two chest-high units that provided more display space.

Running out of time. She couldn’t leave Jake on his own for too long, especially when it was her job to take deliveries.

Lorne looked around. “So without someone setting boundaries, you would try to catalog everything in the shop as different images?”

“Yes. When I lived in the compound, I could have absorbed a whole binder of images during the course of a day. But there are so many things to see in the Courtyard, doing that now would be overwhelming.” Information overload. Blanking out because her mind had shut down for a few minutes. Had shut out the images.

Her reaction to being inside the Three Ps was another confirmation that the cassandra sangue could absorb only so much before they shut down—or looked for a way to relieve the pressure building inside them.

“Why did you come in?” Lorne asked.

After going inside Sparkles and Junk, she thought she could handle going into the Three Ps, but she couldn’t get beyond the doorway. Not today. “I wrote a letter to my friend Jean. She lives on Great Island now. But it was on plain paper and sealed in an envelope.”

Had she said anything worth saying in that letter? The act of writing it had absorbed her so much she couldn’t remember what she’d said. Had she even said anything anyone else could understand, or had she rambled, caught by the fascination of watching the pen form letters?

Not the same as writing down information about the deliveries. That was simple. And it wasn’t the same as keeping lists of books she’d read or music she liked, or even writing a few thoughts about her day. None of those things had the same compulsion to continue just for the sake of continuing.

Suddenly Meg understood why the Crow had cut her hair so short. Like Meg and writing a letter, she had been ensnared by a new experience and hadn’t wanted it to end.

“You want some pretty stationary?” Lorne asked. “I have a few selections.”

How much time would be lost filling page after page?

“Too much.” Meg reached behind her for the door. Had to go back to the office, to the familiar.

“Wait right there.” Lorne hurried over to a spin rack near the counter. He quickly selected a handful of items, then returned, holding them out to her. “Postcards. A picture on the front.” He turned one over. “And blank on the other side. You put a stamp in this corner, and the person’s address here.” He pointed to the two places. “The other half is where you write a message. Confined space.”

Confined space. The words should have conjured up an image of something she should hate. Instead, she felt relief.

Meg took the postcards. “I owe you money.”

“Just take the cards today.” Lorne opened the door for her, a gesture she understood meant she was supposed to leave. “We’ll settle up later. Besides, it sounds like you’ve got a delivery,” he added as they both heard the sound of a van’s side door sliding open, then closing a moment later.

Meg hurried back to the office and reached the Private doorway in time to watch Jake pick up a pen with his beak and offer it to the deliveryman. The man nodded to Meg, took the pen from Jake, and made a notation on the paper attached to her clipboard.

A deliveryman dropping off packages. Familiar. Jake playing the pen game. Familiar.

She looked at the postcards in her hands, fascinated by the photographs of Talulah Falls. All that water pouring over the edge of the world, creating mist and rainbows.

Something new. A confined experience.

Meg dashed to the table in the sorting room and laid out the five postcards, picture side up. Three of them were of Talulah Falls. One was a deer half shrouded by a mist rising from the ground. And the last one . . . Big red rocks rising out of the ground, their tops flat.

Plateaus.

A fizz of excitement filled her. Plateau. Resting place. Stable place where things could stay the same for a while, giving the mind a chance to catch up.

Was that why, after doing so much and absorbing so much, she was struggling now? Living in the Courtyard, she absorbed more images and information in a day than she would have seen in a week at the compound. And even in the compound, although no one would have told the girls why it was done that way, there would be one week of new images, and then the next week they would look at things they had seen before.

Plateau. Resting place. She had done some of that instinctively, reaching for a magazine she’d perused before instead of looking at the new issue. But she hadn’t done enough of it because she hadn’t considered how important it was to stop before she reached overload. From now on, she would give herself more resting places.

And if she needed those resting places, so did the other girls—especially the girls who hadn’t chosen to live in the outside world.

Meg picked up the phone in the sorting room and called Merri Lee. “Merri? I figured out another bit we need to put in the Guide.”