Actually, the trusting-Brenna’s-judgment thing might have been how Nadia caught Brenna. Having Nadia listen and agree with her was better than food. At home, everything Big Sister Amy said was gold, and everything Brenna said was ignored. Nadia let Brenna be a shadow when Brenna wanted, but let her step into the light, too.
“Try bending,” said Nadia. “I want to make sure you can move.”
Brenna bent and touched her toes. “It’s fine.”
Still, she felt strange, as though she were losing herself under the bandages. She felt more naked than she had expected, even though every inch of her but hands and head was covered. The tight layers of gauze showed her real shape. She couldn’t disguise the little bulge of her stomach, or hide her breasts the way she’d been doing since they appeared suddenly last summer. What would Jason think now that he could see what she really looked like?
She’d be in costume. Maybe he wouldn’t recognize her. Maybe that was best: she’d just be the mummy and forget she was Brenna. But Jason had told her he’d meet her tonight, that she was supposed to save him a dance. He’d never said anything remotely like that before: she’d always thought he was another guy who just talked to her because she was with Nadia.
Well, wait and see what he thought of the costume, and if he seemed to like it, then let him know she was the one inside.
“Ta-da,” said Nadia as she pinned the last end of gauze. “You have gloves and a mask, right? You can put them on before we leave. Just let me pin your hair.” Nadia led Brenna to the vanity and seated her. Brenna stared at her white-gauze self as Nadia brushed her hair into a ponytail and bobby-pinned it to the top of her head. Nadia could do that and the pins would stay. When Brenna tried it, the pins always slipped out.
“Wow. Thanks, Nadia. I never could have done it so neat. So come on and tell me. What’s your costume?”
Nadia smiled. “Close your eyes, Bren.”
Brenna closed her eyes. She wanted to peek, but she wouldn’t. Her ears sharpened: she listened to rustling, the slide of fabric on fabric, and then other sounds, fainter and harder to identify: ripping? A little slurpy noise? A sizzle, a hiss.
“You can look now,” Nadia said.
Brenna opened her eyes.
Nadia’s body glowed with ripples of red and orange. Her face looked like shaped glass with flame inside it. Her hair was a fiery halo, and her hands dripped flame that spiraled upward into smoke and vanished.
“Nadia,” Brenna whispered.
“Yes? What do you think?”
“Nadia.”
“I had this dream about Halloween. I was thinking I could finally be myself.”
“Nadia.”
“Bren, you’re repeating yourself.”
“But, Nadia—”
The flaming face leaned near to stare into Brenna’s eyes. Or maybe not; since the firething’s eyes were plain yellow-white, Brenna couldn’t really tell where it was looking. Brenna blinked. Heat poured off the face. Was this really her best friend?
“Nadia?”
“Brenna?”
“Are you really there?”
“More than I’ve ever been. Too much?” Nadia paced, leaving black footprints on the red carpet. The smell of burning rose on the air. She glanced at the trail she had left. “Oh. I guess so.”
Nadia strode to the bed and picked up some flat pink things. She sat on the bed and slid them onto her feet. Afterward, she had normal feet again, narrow and long-toed, the same feet Brenna had seen when they walked barefoot on the beach or dressed for gym together. Brenna held her nose against the scent of singeing silk. Nadia got up and looked at the smoking quilt. “There are some things about this dimension I really hate.” She pulled more flattened pink things up over her legs to her belly. The bottom half of her looked normal again. She pulled on pink gloves. “Everything burns so easily.”
This dimension, Brenna thought. Everything burns. She gulped a large, smoke-tinted breath and held it for a long moment.
Nadia had chosen Brenna for a friend, whatever she was. Something that could burn with a touch.
Something that watched movies with Brenna, let Brenna help her with her homework, watched boys, laughed at Brenna’s jokes, grabbed her hand and dragged her along to places Brenna would never have gone by herself, made her talk to people she was afraid would ignore her. How many times had Brenna slept over in Nadia’s big puffy bed? How many times had they talked long after they turned out the light? Too many to count. Nadia knew most of Brenna’s secret fears and longings. Brenna knew what Nadia had said about her own desires.
Had Nadia ever told her the truth?
Nadia looked eerie, naked from the waist down, her normal-looking hands floating at the ends of flaming red arms, upper torso and her features aglow with fire, her eyes too bright to look into. Brenna crossed her wickerwork white arms over her chest and hugged her mummified self. A touch from Nadia could set her on fire.
“What are you?” Brenna whispered.
“A visitor. A student.”
“The Woods—”
“My host family. They’re lovely to me. I was lucky to find them.”
“Do they know what you are?”
“They know I’m from somewhere else,” Nadia said. “They don’t know what I really look like, but now you do.”
“What you really look like,” Brenna whispered.
Nadia’s normal-looking hand scratched her fiery nose, came away unburned. Nadia sighed, an exhalation of flame. “It isn’t going to work, Bren,” she said at last. “I can’t be myself here.” Tiny flames leaked from the inner corners of her eyes.
“Oh, Nadia. I’m sorry,” Brenna said.
Nadia picked up the rest of the flat pink things on the bed. She pulled them on until she had covered herself. The last thing she pulled on was the head, with hair attached. The hair looked dull and brown until she tugged the head down to connect with her neck. Then the hair took on a red glow. She opened her eyes. Amber again, with only a hint of flame behind. She sat slumped on the bed, head hanging.
“Oh, Nadia.” Brenna hugged her.
Nadia rubbed her eyes. “Well, I was stupid,” she said. “I should have known that wouldn’t work. What am I going to wear now?”
She stood, flung open the closet door. “Help me, Bren. I can’t decide.”
Is this what we do next, now that she’s told me she’s a creature from another dimension? Pick a costume? Don’t I scream and run away now, or something? Brenna wondered.
Questions could wait.
Feeling strange and ghostly in her white wrappings, Brenna went into the closet and slid clothes hangers sideways. She loved Nadia’s clothes. Sometimes Nadia let Brenna borrow something, but Brenna was too shy to wear the really wild outfits. Brenna pulled out a midnight-blue floor-length evening dress in shiny satin, sprinkled with rhinestones like tiny stars. “What about this one?” She handed it to Nadia and shifted clothes until she found something else she remembered: a fringed silvery shawl, crocheted spiderwebs. “And this. And—could you, uh, just take off your head? Maybe with that part showing, you won’t burn anything, and everybody will think it’s some kind of costume.”
Nadia smiled.
NINA KIRIKI HOFFMANis the author of a number of acclaimed novels, including A Stir of Bones (a Locus Recommended Reading Selection, a Bram Stoker Award Finalist, and an Endeavour Award Finalist) and its two sequels: A Red Heart of Memories (a World Fantasy Award Finalist) and Past the Size of Dreaming. Her first book, The Thread That Binds the Bones, won the Bram Stoker Award for First Novel. She has also written and sold over two hundred short stories, which have appeared in both anthologies and magazines.
Nina Kiriki Hoffman lives in Eugene, Oregon, with cats, friends, and many creepy toys.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
“Unwrapping” started out as a Halloween story for my Tuesday-night writers’ workshop, the Eugene Wordos. We have a practice of writing theme stories for Halloween and Christmas/winter holidays, and t
hen getting together to read them aloud and share holiday treats. I wrote “Unwrapping” on the theme of costumes.
I have a wall of masks in my office where I write, and when I’m stalled, I look at those strangers’ faces. I love thinking about the masks we wear, both around holidays and in everyday life. I wonder who’s hiding behind your mask. Sometimes I wonder about my own.
Alison Goodman
THE REAL THING
The mind experiment had seemed like a good idea an hour ago. Now I wasn’t so sure; Mavkel and I barely had the basics of telepathy covered, let alone this kind of thing.
“Are you prepared, Joss-partner?” Mav sang, the tips of his double-jointed ears quivering with excitement. He was Chorian, a mainly telepathic race, but when he did speak he used his two mouths to harmonise the words.
He flicked back his second eyelids. I stared into the dark, pupilless eyes of my time-jumping partner and nodded. Maybe this time the mind connection wouldn’t hurt so much.
“Then execute the experiment,” he sang.
A fiery spike stabbed through my temple. I grabbed the edge of the table and held my breath, exhaling as the pain eased into the soft warm weight of Mav in my mind. Concentrating on the fragile connection, I slowly lifted the real-bacon sandwich and took a bite.
“Well?” I said through the mouthful.
Salt? Lipids? Smoke? the pale green of his mind-voice said. Chew more.
I chewed. His primary mouth grimaced.
“You enjoy this food?” he sang out loud.
I winced as our connection broke and his pale green presence vanished from my mind. It had only been a few months since Mav and I first joined during a Rastun, a Chorian mind-weapon, and we weren’t too slick in the connecting and disconnecting department. I still couldn’t initiate proper contact with him—Mav had to set up the link—but considering everyone kept telling us that humans and Chorians aren’t meant to join minds, we were doing okay. It was getting a bit easier each time we tried. According to Mav, my mind-voice was developing into a nice shade of orange, which apparently is about the level of a Chorian toddler.
“A girl needs a bit of real-meat now and again,” I said, taking another bite and rolling the rich bacon and mayo juices around my mouth. “So, you could really taste it?”
“Not for long, but taste some, yes,” he sang, holding up his two-thumbed hand. I slapped it in victory, my palm stinging as it met his squat, immoveable strength.
“Wait till you try a curry,” I said.
“If this can be done with food, then it can be done with other things,” he sang excitedly. “I am interested in experiencing your sex.”
I stared at him, the sandwich halfway to my mouth. “What?”
“Your reproductive act. It involves much sensory input, yes?”
“No way, Mav,” I said, shaking my head. “Forget it. It’s not going to happen.” I dropped the sandwich onto my plate. “You Chorians may like an audience, but I don’t. And anyway, a human needs a partner and I don’t have one.”
I couldn’t help sneaking a look at Kyle Sandrall. He’d just bought a couple of coffee cans at one of the machines and was heading towards the large table of cadets at the far end of the busy mess hall. It was the unwritten code of the University of Australia Centre for Neo-Historical Studies that the back table in the mess was reserved for the comp-kids, the genetically engineered students. A few weeks ago, Kyle had asked me to join them, but I’d said no. Not because I didn’t want to, but because I knew I wasn’t a real comp-kid. My mother had only used one gene donor with minimal engineering. She didn’t want to risk too many donors or gene manips in case I developed CGD—Cascading Gene Defect Syndrome, a nasty collapse of pleiotropic genes. So, I wasn’t a comp-kid, but I wasn’t a real-kid either. And a few months ago I’d discovered I also had a bit of Chorian DNA in my mix, too. I didn’t feel like trying to explain all that to Kyle, the poster boy for tailor-made kids. He’d probably only asked me to sit with him because he thought I was a real comp.
I watched him slide the coffees onto the table and sit down, hooking his long legs under the stool. He passed a can to the girl beside him, a blonde with her hair twisted into a flawless pleat and her chest in the tightest red halter top this side of an X-vid. Tarrah something-or-other; she was in sixth year with Kyle. I touched my own dark scraggly ponytail. It needed a cut again. And I could probably do with a few new tops, something a bit more feminine than my usual black T-shirts. I brushed sandwich crumbs off my chest, chancing another look at Kyle.
He was looking at me.
He smiled.
He nodded.
I smiled back…then realised my hand was still resting on my boob.
“What is wrong, Joss-partner?” Mav sang. “Why do you redden? Are you ill?”
I snatched my hand away. Terrific. Kyle probably thought I was so hot for him I couldn’t control myself in public. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him stand up.
“I’m okay,” I said to Mav. “Want to get out of here?”
“No.” Mav flattened the tops of his ears and leaned across the table. “Something is wrong. What is wrong?”
“Nothing,” I said, waving him back to his seat.
Kyle was definitely heading towards us. I wiped the corners of my mouth with the back of my hand and pushed my hair out of my eyes.
“Have I got mayo on my face?” I whispered.
“No,” Mav whispered back. “Should you?”
Then Kyle was standing beside the table.
“Hey, Joss,” he said. “Hey, Mavkel.”
Mav bowed, his ears lifting. “Kyle Sandrell, this pair greets you most cordially.”
Kyle grinned. “Good to see you, too, Mavkel.” He turned to me. “How are you, Joss?”
“Terrific,” I said. “Fantastic. Brilliant. You know, really good.”
I smiled widely, trying to cover my sudden morph from eighteen-year-old college student into babbling idiot.
“Are you two taking Chenowyth’s time dynamics class this semester?” Kyle asked.
I nodded, puzzled. All first years had to take Professor Chenowyth’s class—Kyle would know that. He licked his lips. They were great lips, kind of full, but not pouty. I dragged my eyes off them.
“Yeah, it’s a tough class,” Kyle said. “If you and Mavkel ever need any help, just let me know.”
“Thanks,” I said.
Mav beamed a double-barrelled smile. “You are very kind, Kyle Sandrell.”
There was an awkward silence. Mav looked from me to Kyle, his ears hovering uncertainly.
“Why do you stare at one another?” he sang. “Is this a game?” He started jumping up and down in his chair, attracting stares from nearby tables. “This is a courting ritual, is it not?”
I glared at him. His ears collapsed like windless flags.
“I’m sprung,” Kyle said, laughing. He rubbed the back of his head, scruffing up his dark hair. “I really came over to see if you’d like to go out Friday night.”
“Friday night?” I echoed. Kyle Sandrell—sixth-year demigod and all-round nice guy—was asking me out on a date? I suddenly had an image of kissing him, and ducked my head.
“I thought we could grab something to eat,” he said. “And a friend of mine is throwing a party. We could drop in on that, too.”
“Sure,” I said, trying to sound casual. “Sounds good.” Underneath the table, I dug my fingernails into my palms.
“Great.” He grinned again. “Can you infra me your screen code?” He held out his wrist, a sleek armscreen wrapped around it.
“Sorry, I don’t wear a screen,” I said. “My stand against constant surveillance.”
He laughed. “Not a prob. You’re quartered in P3, aren’t you? How about I come round sevenish?”
“Seven’s good. You’ll have to wait in the security office, though. Just get them to comm me.”
Instead of the usual student housing, Mav and I had a suite in P3, the state-of-the-art security b
uilding. Mav was the first Chorian to study on Earth and he was getting the red-carpet treatment. As his time-travel study partner, I got to go along for the first-class ride.
“See you then.” Kyle gave me one last lingering smile. I watched him walk back to the comp-kid table; his rear view was as fine as his front view. When he sat down next to Tarrah, I saw her say something, an impeccable eyebrow lifted. Was she asking about me? I grinned to myself. Who cared about Tarrah tight-top? Kyle Sandrell had asked me out!
“I have read about this,” Mav sang. “This is a date, is it not? A first date. I read that it is very important that you do not ‘put out’ yet.”
“‘Put out’? Where did you get that from?”
“It is from a late 1900s text. A magazine for young females. It says you must wait until you know it is ‘the real thing.’”
“Wasn’t that an old advertisement for some kind of drink?” I said.
I was sure I’d heard our professor mention it in our Beginnings of Pop Culture class. I was taking it because I wanted to specialise in music history, mainly twentieth-century blues and jazz. I couldn’t wait to time-jump back to the mid-1900s and see some of the big gigs of the golden age.
Mav’s ears flicked. “No, that is not correct. Sparkle says that ‘the real thing’ is a pairing that is fated.”
“Sparkle?” I rolled my eyes. “You can’t take something called Sparkle as an authority on human relationships.”
“It is on the recommended reading list,” Mav sang, crossing his arms.
I looked over at Kyle. He was stretching, the movement hitching his T-shirt up over a flat stomach and cut abs. I didn’t know much about fate, but I wouldn’t mind testing out the idea that Kyle was the real thing.
“Still sticking to your own kind, Aaronson?” a slimy voice asked behind me. “Comp freaks?”
I turned around. Chaney Horain-Donleavy was sitting at the table behind me with his usual posse of losers. He jerked his head toward Kyle. “I heard they made that model sterile.”
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