Etiquette of Exiles (Senyaza Series Book 4)

by Chrysoula Tzavelas

  Her smile becomes quiet and smug, “You have a future.”

  You raise your eyebrows. “Don’t get too caught up in cleverness, now. You’ll cut yourself.”

  Her smile fades. “I think you’ll be interesting. But not if you’re murdered over a blanket or imprisoned for stealing bread. That will be boring for all of us. The envelope is an investment in your future. Is that dull enough for you?”

  “Poor Tia. Did your newest toy bite you?” says a voice of bronze beside you, and Tia stiffens as if she too is facing the lightning. A third trespasser stands at the table, dark-haired, with a tie, and his white sleeves rolled up. The wind blows off his back, but the other patrons of the coffeeshop do not seem to feel it.

  Tia slowly raises her gaze to the newcomer, then casually sips her coffee. “What brings you here?”

  “Curiosity. And a problematic sense of responsibility.” The newcomer studies you, and you stare back. There is something almost familiar about this one.

  Slowly Tia says, “I’m fairly sure you’re not responsible for him.”

  “He’s nameless. Doesn’t that make him my responsibility?”

  “I have a name,” you interject, impatient with being talked over.

  The newcomer meets your gaze. “Perhaps you will, someday. I can already see that this time it fits you much better than last time. Which was, alas, my fault.” His gaze goes far away and, just for a moment, an image bobs up to the surface of the river of knowledge: a very young woman. You do not know her name, or even really know her face, but you know she existed, and you know he is lying about something.

  “I would be very interested in hearing about what you’re seeing,” says Tia carefully.

  “I’m sure you would, but I don’t hear any reason why I should tell you.” He keeps looking at you as if you’re an experiment he’s about to take notes on.

  You pick up the packet and stand. “I don’t think you two need me here for this negotiation, so I’ll be on my way.” And you leave. Neither of them try to stop you as they continue their discussion. You’re not sure either of them even really notice.

  The first place you find to sleep is very cheap, because you don’t know how long the money will need to last. But you hear rats in the walls as you lie in the dark. Their claws skitter against the walls, stilling for only a moment when a neighbor pounds a fist against the wall. The sound makes you uncomfortable: images of blood and traps and rage rise to the surface of the river of knowledge. You are too uncomfortable to sleep, so you do the practical thing and leave in the middle of the night without any plan to return.

  The next place you find is more expensive and more insulated from the natural world. You hear nothing but the air conditioning when you rest at night, which does not take away the memory of the rats in the walls.

  “It’s sad, but if they go where they don’t belong, they need to die. There’s no other way to keep them away,” you remember me saying. You roll over. You don’t want to listen. But now, in the silence, you can hear my whispers. You exist for a reason, and you must remember it and find her. You must become what I failed to be.

  The next morning you look at the people in the public places. Your eye is drawn, naturally, to the young women. They are all beautiful, in the ways young women have always been beautiful, and you do not find the exercise tedious. After a while, though, you consider that it is not productive, and simultaneously you realize you are searching for something familiar in the faces that pass by.

  Is it the pale-skinned girl or the dark-skinned girl? They both have dark hair and that, at least, is right. The sunny-haired women become background noise. But neither dark-skinned nor light-skinned is familiar. Young. Dark-haired. Find her, and make everything better again.

  You wonder how you can have habits when you don’t have memories. Your attention turns inward even as you let your eyes rest on the passing crowds, and you study the river of knowledge. Something bubbles there: not information, but a pattern. Lines make letters, letters make words, and you will not listen to me, but you learn to read what even I cannot.

  “It seems,” you say aloud, “that whatever was previously here has left a sticky residue behind. Perhaps we ought to scrub it out.” You stand up and leave the public place, returning to the room you’ve claimed as a temporary home. You stay only for a moment, and then you go out and find a library.

  She’s out there, whether or not you listen. You won’t be able to forget that. The yearning is part of you.

  But you read books instead. You learn things. Sometimes it is something we already knew, but there is always the fiction section. The river of knowledge doesn’t retain the fiction. Lies and rats in the walls. A girl with dark hair walks by. Is it her? Pale skin? Dark skin?

  But you do not look up. You will not listen. You read a strange story about the adventures of a girl who shares a body with her brother, and you only look up when the brother vanishes for good. “I like this one,” you say.

  Why won’t you listen to me? I know the only story that matters. Listen! Just listen. You’ll like it.

  But you push down on what I send to the surface. It makes no sense. Neither of us can rest while you resist like this.

  It is night and you stand in front of a mirror, looking at yourself. Your eyes narrow and you frown. It is only your reflection, my child. I’m not in the mirror. Let me draw you under again and show you what you need to know.

  “No,” you say. “No. You’ve run away and left me behind. I am not you, whoever you are.” You are hard, harder than I ever was. If you were sent to kill the rats, you would not grieve for them.

  What have I done?

  I try to explain, but you turn on music and pour the noise into your ears. It is an assault on what lingers. You will not listen. I wanted to be nothing, and you are answering my wish. I would regret—

  The knock on your door is loud enough to cut through your music and my weeping. You open it. Two women stand there. Dark haired, both, one with light skin and one with dark. Before the dark-skinned one, smaller than her companion, can do more than greet you, you turn away and close the door. Good. It wasn’t her.

  You pause and open the door again. The smaller woman raises her eyebrows. “Hi there. Cat? I’m Ascensción Flores Galvinez and this is my companion, Jen. Tia pointed us in your direction.” The taller woman meets your eyes. She isn’t young at all, not like the woman we must find.

  But you ignore me and step out into the hall to join them, as you think, “How beautiful,” and then, “It will last.”

  Book 2

  Children’s Game

  Chapter 1

  “This afternoon, let’s go on an adventure,” said the babysitter, as she buckled Kari and Lissa into the car.

  “Are we going to Disneyland?” Kari asked. She really wanted to go to Disneyland someday.

  “Are we going to the moon?” That was Lissa. She thought the moon was okay, but she loved to tease her twin sister.

  The babysitter, whose name was Marley, smiled. “We wouldn’t be back in time for dinner if we went to either of those places. But I found a new playground. Let’s go explore!”

  The new playground was in the middle of a park with a ball field and some buildings. There was a row of little houses along one edge. Some old men played chess on tables in front of the houses.

  Marley said, “We won’t bother them.” She frowned. “It’s funny. There were lots of kids when I scouted the place, but today it’s almost empty.”

  Lissa and Kari didn’t mind. If there were lots of kids at the playground, you had to wait in line and take turns more. They spent some time looking at the toys before deciding what to do first. There was a castle with a hanging bridge, four towers, and three slides. And a merry-go-round with a net. And a giant jungle gym shaped like a star. And a pirate ship. And a music center. And tunnels. And a balancing log. And a see-saw, too. But she and Kari had to stay away from see-saws.

  Kari shouted, “I’m going to have fun,
” and ran over to the castle. She climbed up a rope ladder to one of the tall towers. It had a blue roof like an upside down ice cream cone, which was exactly right. “Lissa! Come be a princess.” Then she looked over the playground, pretending it was her kingdom. Maybe she could find a prince to rescue.

  Lissa climbed up beside her. “We have to find a dragon to talk to.”

  “You always want to talk,” said Kari. “I want to fight through dire peril to rescue Han Solo. Smash! Pow!”

  “Fine. Who are you going to fight?” Lissa asked. Kari looked at the playground again. There were a few other kids, but two of them were babies and the rest of them were big kids. Big kids always seemed to forget how to play. Kari hoped that would never happen to her. She wished she could fight off whatever made them so boring, but Marley always said No, leave them alone.

  Then Kari spotted somebody their own age. “He looks like he needs rescuing. Let’s go see!” She hopped down a step and went down the spiral slide. It was so smooth and slippery that she slid right off and landed on her bottom. Then Lissa crashed into her back. “Oof!”

  “Sorry!” said Lissa. They helped each other up and went over to where a little boy sat on a small hill.

  “Do you want to play?” asked Kari, as soon as they got close enough. He was a little bit bigger than they were, with light hair, blue eyes, and a big nose.

  “No,” he said. “Go away.”

  Kari bit her lip, but Lissa walked closer. “She’s Kari. I’m Lissa. What’s your name?”

  The boy sniffed and wiped his nose. “Eli.”

  Kari realized he was sad, not mean. She sat down beside him. “Why are you crying? Did you fall and hurt yourself?”

  Lissa sat down on Eli’s other side. “Did a big kid push you?”

  “Nobody pushed me.” He sighed. “I used to have a friend. But he got sick and he doesn’t remember me anymore.”

  Kari frowned. “A kid?”

  Eli shook his head. “A grandpa.” He pointed at the row of little houses and the old men playing chess. A lady stood beside one old man in a wheelchair. He looked like he was about to fall asleep.

  “He told me stories,” Eli said sadly. “And he carved sticks. See?” He pulled out a wooden owl from his pocket.

  “It’s not done,” objected Kari. There was still a lot of stick left. The top of the owl’s head and feet were barely carved. It was more like a wand than an owl.

  “No, it’s supposed to look like that,” Lissa said. “It has a voice.”

  Kari stuck her tongue out. “I can’t hear anything.”

  “She’s right,” Eli said. “It’s finished. He did it a long time ago.”

  Shading her eyes, Kari studied the distant old man. “Is he asleep all the time now? We know somebody who was asleep for days and days, but she finally woke up. All better now!”

  “He’s awake a lot. He just doesn’t remember me anymore. His brain broke.” Eli looked down at the owl. “Sometimes he gets mad. My mom said he’s had to fight a lot of demons in his life.”

  Kari’s eyes opened wide. “Demons?”

  Lissa poked at the ground with her finger. “We were supposed to help the sleeping lady, but we couldn’t.”

  “Demons, Liss,” Kari repeated, urgently. “If he’s a monster hunter, we should help him.”

  Lissa looked up. “Yeah. We should.”

  “You can’t help him,” Eli said. “Even the doctors can’t help him.”

  “Our uncle says that we’ll be able to do anything we want someday,” Kari explained. “But we couldn’t help our friend Penny. So I want to try.”

  Eli looked puzzled. “How?”

  “We’ll go on an adventure. We can find what he lost. Give me that stick.”

  Interested, the boy handed over his stick. Kari looked at it a moment with her magic eyes. She didn’t know how to talk about what she saw, but she knew it was enough. “Help me, Lissa.”

  Lissa held Kari’s hand. Kari used the stick to draw a big circle in the air, then pushed the stick into the center and turned it like a key. The light flickered and the invisible door opened. “Okay, now we step through. Come on, Eli!”

  Chapter 2

  Eli jumped to his feet and stepped through the circle. Lissa followed and Kari went last, letting the invisible door close behind them before returning the stick to Eli.

  On the other side of the door, the park looked almost the same. Almost. There was all the playground equipment and the grown-ups doing their grown-up things. But the grown-ups were made of scribbles of crayon, all except Eli’s grandpa. He was completely gone.

  “Come on!” Kari said and set off toward the playground. The equipment was bigger than it had been before. As they got closer, it seemed a lot bigger. They stood in front of a full-size castle with broken walls and a closed drawbridge.

  “Hello!” called Lissa. “Can we come in?” A head looked over the broken wall, then vanished.

  The drawbridge rattled down slowly. A lady in armor waited on the other side. She had a lance and a sad face.

  “Mom!” Eli said. “I want to see my grandpa, please.”

  The knight shook her head. “You can’t, Eli. He’s locked inside a room in the castle and nobody has the key.”

  “We’ll find the key!” Kari said boldly.

  “If only you could,” the knight said, and touched her hand to her forehead. “If you did, I would show you the room and you could speak with him again. But nobody can. It’s impossible.”

  “We’ll do it.” Lissa’s voice was firm.

  The knight shrugged and went back inside the castle. Kari turned to Eli and her sister. “She could have given us a hint.”

  “We’ll have to ask her instead,” Lissa said. She looked up at the sky.

  “Her?” Eli asked, looking confused.

  “A good spirit who watches us sometimes,” Lissa explained.

  “She’s our fairy godmother.” Kari bounced on her feet. She kept hoping the good spirit would give her a fancy costume one day, but it hadn’t happened yet.

  Lissa shook her head. “Not a fairy. Something else.” She raised her voice and sweetly called, “Good spirit, good spirit, can you hear us?”

  Kari turned around and around, listening hard. Usually the good spirit talked to them at night, but sometimes they heard her when they needed advice during the day. But when another lady appeared in front of them, Kari was so surprised, she fell down. “Ouch!”

  “Are you the good spirit?” asked Lissa.

  The lady had a wreath of flowers in her dark hair and she wore a long blue princess dress. She smiled. “Today I’m your oracle, it seems.”

  As soon as the lady spoke, Kari bounced to her feet. She’d never seen the good spirit before, but she recognized her voice. “Yay! I knew you’d help us. Do you know where we can find the key to unlock Eli’s grandpa?”

  The lady in blue spread her arms and closed her eyes. “The key has been broken into four crystal orbs and hidden in earth, wind, water, and fire! But if you are brave and wise and a good friend, then you can find it and achieve your goal.” She opened one eye, peeking at them. “How does that sound?”

  Lissa giggled. ”Silly.”

  Eli said, “Scary! But if it will help my grandpa, I can do it!”

  Kari threw her shoulders back. “Thank you very much!” The good spirit smiled, curtseyed, and faded away. Kari said, “Okay! Now that we have a prophecy, let’s go, everybody!” She raced away from the castle to the exact middle of the playground, then had to stop and wait for the other two to catch up.

  “Where are you going, Kari?” Lissa asked, exasperated.

  “Earth, wind, water, fire!” repeated Kari. “Look at that desert! I’m sure one of the crystal orbs is in there!”

  Chapter 3

  The golden desert glittered in the distance. When Kari shaded her eyes she could just see a strange fortress on top of a steep dune.

  Eli said uncertainly, “How would a key to my grandpa get all t
he way out there?”

  “I don’t know,” Kari said. “Maybe it was stolen by harpies. It doesn’t matter! We have to save him!” She set forward into the sandy wasteland and promptly tripped over a rock. “Ow!”

  Lissa sighed and held out her hand. “You keep falling down. Hold my hand and I’ll help.”

  “The oracle did say we had to be good friends,” Eli added. He held out his hand, too.

  Kari pouted. “I can do it on my own. Heroes need to be tough!”

  Eli and Lissa looked at each other, then shrugged. Kari nodded and stomped ahead. At first it was hard to walk through the sand because her feet kept sinking. Her shoes filled up and she had to stop twice to empty them. The second time, Lissa said, “The ground changes ahead.”

  Kari had been so focused on the weird fortress on top of the hill that she hadn’t noticed. But up ahead the ground was hard and dusty, with scattered, tough-looking plants. She frowned. “I thought deserts were sandy.”

  “Not all of them,” said Eli. “I’ve heard stories.” He walked past Kari, and she scrambled to catch up, making sure to avoid the spiky bushes.

  “Look,” called Lissa. She pointed at a helmet under one of the trees. “How sad.”

  Kari ventured over to it. It was round and smooth, except for a hole on one side. She picked it up and held out it out to Lissa.

  Lissa shook her head. “I don’t want to know.”

  “There’s more over there,” said Eli. He went off to one side and up a mound. Some small bits of metal clattered down the hill. “Look, something’s buried.”

  Kari climbed up after him. The mound had thorny plants growing all over it, which scratched her bare legs. Eli stood beside a big tube sticking out of the mound, poking it. There was another helmet at his feet. On the far side of the mound were even more lost things: rifles and tires and backpacks, all in ugly shades of beige and tan.