Meeting

by Nina Hoffman

  Sibyl lowered her eyebrows and the corners of her mouth into a ferocious frown and faced forward again.

  “So is she the enemy now?” Maya whispered to Benjamin.

  “She moved here around the same time you did,” Benjamin whispered back. “Rowan thinks there’s something strange about her. But also, you’re not supposed to act up in public.”

  “It wasn’t me,” Maya said.

  Benjamin lifted one eyebrow. Maya hated that. She couldn’t do it, and she really wanted to. “It might not be you,” he whispered, “but it’s your responsibility.”

  “You’re such a jerk sometimes,” Maya said.

  Benjamin flinched.

  “Well, so am I,” Maya said. “Like right now. Don’t go all Rowan on me.”

  “Sorry,” Benjamin whispered. He looked away. Then he turned back. “She’s been watching us since she moved here. I feel like we need to be careful around her. You don’t know our history yet. We’ve had break-ins before.”

  “Break-ins?” Maya repeated.

  “People who break into our lives, find out stuff they shouldn’t, and want to do something bad with that knowledge. All through our history, which stretches back pretty far, we’ve had break-ins. Once in a while it works out. Sometimes security takes action that’s too drastic, and we have to leave and start over somewhere else. We do it if we have to, but we’d much rather not. It’s a lot of work! Trust me when I tell you, everything works better when we keep our secrets secret.”

  “Okay, I get it,” Maya muttered. Rimi?

  She felt a sort of stretch through her connection to Rimi, as though her shadow were taffy being dragged out between two fists. I want to play.

  I understand, Maya thought. We’ll go to the woods after school. No, we have to go for training. Well, you can play at Janus House.

  Rimi did a mental shimmy, her equivalent of a shrug with prejudice. They’re scared of me there.

  Really? Maya hadn’t noticed anybody at Janus House running in fear. Usually she felt so overwhelmed with that jangling feeling of my-whole-world-is-upside-down in the presence of people who used magic on a regular basis that she never noticed if they were scared of her. I wonder what we can do to—

  Tall, blond, long-haired Travis Finnegan edged into class and made his way to his usual seat to her right. He wasn’t being loud about it, but it was hard to ignore the biggest kid in the class, and the only one on his feet. “Third tardy this week,” Mr. Ferrell said, marking his attendance sheet. “That’s detention, Travis.”

  Travis groaned. “I can’t do detention,” he muttered. “What about my training?” Travis was training at Janus House, too, only he was training as a human helper. He didn’t go to singing class or principles of magic.

  “Why were you late?” Maya whispered.

  “Oma needed extra help in the bathroom this morning after Dad left. That keeps happening. The day care woman, Ms. Ringo, she gets there just before I leave, and Oma needs help sooner than that.”

  Maya touched his hand. His grandmother had been hurt in the car crash that killed his grandfather a little more than a year ago, and since that time, Travis and his father had lived with Travis’s grandmother. Travis was an important part of his grandmother’s care team. Some things were more important than school. Which was why Travis had flunked seventh grade last year.

  Travis smiled tiredly, got his social studies textbook out of his pack, and opened it to a historic map of the United States. “Harrison’s going to give us another quiz disguised as a game today, isn’t he?” Travis said.

  “That’s the rumor,” said Maya.

  I could find out, Rimi thought.

  How? asked Maya.

  I could stretch. Rimi flexed, which Maya felt more than saw, and then a faint, faint shadow raced across the floor, one end still anchored under Maya’s feet, the other zipping up the aisle between desks and under the door, with no one else noticing.

  Maya felt Rimi’s stretch the same way she sometimes tasted what Rimi tasted; she sensed the scuffed surface of the hallway linoleum as Rimi stretched and stretched, an almost invisible finger of self, to dive under the door in the social studies classroom where Mr. Harrison was talking to his homeroom class. Rimi felt the vibration of voices in the air above, but didn’t shape herself into the kind of surface that could decode the sounds; hearing was a sense she employed often, but not always. The shadow arrowed across the floor and climbed up the teacher’s desk’s leg, then slid across the top of the desk to the stack of papers under Mr. Harrison’s hand.

  Mr. Harrison was focused on his attendance sheet, vibrating the air with his voice. Maya wasn’t sure how she knew what he was doing or where he was focused; they weren’t looking with eyes as Maya understood them.

  Rimi’s edge of self spread across the surfaces of the papers under Mr. Harrison’s hands and the attendance sheet. Maya felt the flicker of something printing against Rimi’s surface, then another flicker of confused impressions as Rimi shifted to another page, then another. Rimi’s shadow self could slip from page to page without lifting a corner.

  Moments later the shadow withdrew as swiftly and silently as it had gone out, snapping back to its central core under Maya’s feet.

  “What did we learn?” Maya muttered.

  Wait, Rimi thought. A growling in Maya’s stomach echoed some inner processing Rimi was doing, and then Maya was seeing what the pages looked like, including the quiz Mr. Harrison had written for today’s class, along with his lecture notes, a couple of visuals he was going to use with the day’s lectures, and a letter to his girlfriend in Hawaii.

  FIVE

  “Oh, no,” she said. “No, Rimi.”

  “What’s she doing now?” Benjamin asked.

  Maya swallowed and closed her eyes. She could still see the pages on the insides of her eyelids. “Make them go away,” she said, but she couldn’t help skimming.

  Rimi whisked the images away. Maya rubbed her eyes. The usual explosion of purple stars splashed the darkness inside her eyelids, and she let out a breath she hadn’t known she was holding.

  We can know, Rimi thought.

  But we shouldn’t, Maya thought.

  Benjamin poked her. “What?” he asked.

  Maya opened her eyes and glanced at him. She was supposed to tell him, or one of the Janus House kids, everything that happened between her and Rimi. Gwenda and Benjamin were the ones she trusted most, but she knew they answered to a lot of other people in the house, some of whom she didn’t trust.

  Rimi was a sissimi, a species alien to Earth. Janus House people ran into species alien to Earth every day in the course of running their portal. Still, they hadn’t had much experience with sissimi.

  Sissimi could bond with any known species, and their bonds were different with every match.

  Maya and Rimi were closer to each other than family—Rimi called their bond Second Family, First Family being Maya’s parents and siblings (because they were Maya’s family first), and Third Family being the Janus House folk who had adopted Maya and Rimi after Rimi hatched.

  Rimi and Maya were part of each other, and Maya figured they might need to keep some of their own secrets.

  On the other hand, dangerous secrets needed to be shared. Janus House people could help with things no one in Maya’s own family would understand. She could get into trouble she couldn’t even anticipate....

  Benjamin nudged her again. “Maya? Are you all right?”

  “Yeah,” she said, and then the bell rang and they rose to go to their next class. “Tell you later.”

  Outside the classroom, Maya and Travis headed one direction, and Benjamin and Gwenda another.

  Travis walked down the corridor in a fog, and kids moved out of his way. Maya had never seen him hurt anyone, but people seemed to respect or fear him. He was a good buddy to have in a crowded hallway.

  They crossed the yard between buildings and made it to Ms. Caras’s language arts just before second bell. It was one of th
e classes Travis and Maya had without any Janus House kids in it, and they sat toward the front in this one, though still next to each other.

  It was Maya’s first year at Hoover, and she was still finding her way. She looked around at the other students. They’d all done essays about their summers during the first week of Ms. Caras’s class, so she knew a little about them. Helen, the one who used her cell phone as a watch, sat to Maya’s left. Maya thought she might make a good friend. Even though Maya now had Rimi, Travis, Benjamin, Gwenda, and a host of other people living in Janus House as friends, she could use someone normal.

  Helen returned her glance and half a smile.

  “Do you know what you’re going to be for Halloween?” Maya whispered to her.

  Helen frowned. “My mom says I’m too old.”

  “Harsh.”

  During the pumpkin carving the day before, Mom and Dad had asked Candra if she was going to trick-or-treat this year, and Candra had said, “Nobody I know at school is doing it. They say if you’re old enough to drive, you’re too old to trick-or-treat. I wish I could go, though.”

  “You could escort Maya and Peter,” Mom said.

  “Oh, Mom,” Peter moaned.

  “Think of it as doing your big sister a favor,” Mom told Peter. “She wants to go, and you’re giving her a good reason.”

  “I think I should stay home and hand out the candy this year,” Candra had said. She stabbed the knife into her pumpkin’s mouth-line.

  “Tell us how you really feel,” said Dad, half teasing.

  They had finished carving with Candra still not sure what she was going to do on Halloween.

  Maya was going trick-or-treating no matter what Candra did. She wasn’t sure what costume to wear yet, though. It had been a very confusing year; she didn’t know what secret self she wanted to manifest this year.

  What am I going as? Rimi asked.

  Maya sat back, startled. She hadn’t even thought about Rimi and Halloween. Maybe I should go as you, she thought.

  What would that look like?

  Let’s think about it!

  “What are you going as?” Helen whispered to Maya.

  “I’m kind of vague on the details, but I just got an idea. If you could go, what would you be?”

  “Last year I was a robot,” muttered Helen. “I loved making that costume! And I could make a much better one this year.”

  Ms. Caras rapped on her desk with a yardstick. Today she was wearing her green cat’s-eye glasses and a green dress with white dots, and she had her dark curls tied up but not completely subdued at the back of her neck.

  “Okay, kids,” she said. “This week we’re going to write ghost stories! I want you to think about and practice generating suspense, so we’ll start with a few exercises about that today, and I’ll give you a list of vocabulary words to include in your story. Keep in mind that you’re going to put together a ghost story by the end of this week. The first thing you need to figure out is who’s dead and why they would come back to haunt someone, and the second thing is who’s going to run into your ghost and why?”

  Ghosts, thought Maya. Gwenda had talked about the wall between the worlds being thin on Halloween.

  Ghosts, Rimi said. I want to know more about ghosts.

  Maya raised her hand.

  “Maya?” Ms. Caras said, surprised.

  “Can you tell us more about ghosts? I mean, I’ve seen them on TV and in movies and books, but there are a lot of different kinds, and it seems like they can do different things. What are the ghost rules?”

  “This is fiction, Maya, so you can make your own rules. There are lots of resources in the library and online if you want to learn more. I don’t think there’s one set of ghost rules. If you find one, could you bring it in to share with the class?”

  Maya sat back, frustrated.

  “So. Suspense. It’s all about the details. . . .”

  SIX

  “Field trip after school today,” Benjamin told the kids at the Janus House table during lunch.

  Maya had started out school sitting with the Janus House kids for lunch, and she still did, since they were most of the people she saw every day. She looked over at Helen’s table. Helen was sitting with two other girls Maya had seen but didn’t know. No, one of them was that girl Sibyl from homeroom. Sibyl had some kind of diet drink she was sipping, and she didn’t seem to be talking much. Once in a while she looked over at Maya and narrowed her eyes. What was that about?

  Travis sat with the Janus House kids some of the time, but today he was over with his eighth-grade buddies. He had flunked seventh grade, but they still liked him.

  “Where are we going this time?” Benjamin’s older sister Twyla asked.

  “Sviv,” said Benjamin.

  “Again?” Twyla made a face. “The air tastes terrible there. It gives me a sore throat.”

  “Uncle Dylan arranged for medical tutors to meet us,” Benjamin said.

  “Are you guys going through the portal?” Maya asked. She had seen the portal operate a number of times, but she hadn’t seen any of the kids go through it. Mostly she’d seen otherworld travelers come and go. She liked watching them when she had a sketchbook and pencils in hand. Those were the sketchbooks she had to leave at Janus House.

  “Yep,” Benjamin said. “The Elders want us to meet teachers and get experience on other worlds. This is a short trip, just a few hours. Want to come? You’ve got to come sometime.”

  NO! Rimi thought. No!

  Ow, my head, Maya thought, and aloud she said, “I think Rimi is allergic to portals.”

  “There’d better be some way to get her over that,” Rowan said, scowling as usual. “If you’re going to be one of us, you have to travel.”

  No, no, no! Rimi yelled, softer this time, but still emphatic.

  “Maybe not this time,” Benjamin said. “Twyla’s right. Sviv isn’t the funnest place to go on your first trip through the portal. Talk to Aunt Sarutha. She’ll help you find a good place. Your first time should be great. Maybe she can track the trade missions and send you on one of those; you see the coolest things in the marketplaces.”

  A sketching tour, Maya thought. More pictures she wouldn’t be able to take home, but seeing things and capturing them on paper carried its own reward. It was Maya’s kind of magic.

  No portals, Rimi said.

  What if we could go back to your home planet? The growing house where you were on a vine? Maya had images of Rimi’s home planet from when she had shared Bikos’s memories. The thick, muscular sissimi vines had twisted through a hot, humid, glass-enclosed place, with glowing fruit hanging among the hand-shaped blue and purple leaves. Find your relatives? Wouldn’t you like that?

  Rimi thought of her seedhood in that warm place, where she and the other seeds were thinking together with the conscious parts of the vines and leaves that bore them and fed them. They stretched out under the ground with the rootnet, and reached toward light above them, and they had many, many thoughts. Some shared memories of ancient vines who had lived out under the open skies, those who had made first contact with otherworlders. Some remembered legends and myths, and others held memories of bonds the seeds had made with many offworlders. Rimi knew many things rested in the root minds, to be shared when the time came, and she knew she had left too soon, before she had learned all of them.

  She shifted against Maya’s skin, agitated. I want to go home, she said, but not through a portal.

  I don’t think there’s any other way. You’ve been through Krithi portals. We’ve seen the one at Janus House, and that one looks different. Maybe it feels different, too.

  I’ll think about it, Rimi thought.

  “We’re not going through a portal today,” Maya said.

  Gwenda said, “I think they’re planning something else for you today anyway.”

  “What do you mean?” Benjamin asked her.

  “Aunt Sarutha was talking about inviting a new sissimi pair to visit and talk with
Maya and Rimi.”

  “Oh!” Maya said. Rimi! Someone to see you!

  Good, thought Rimi. They will see how beautiful and perfect I am. She had a smile in her thoughts.

  Yes, they will, Maya thought.

  And I will learn more ways to make you safe. And more ways for me to have fun.

  SEVEN

  “is Travis going on the field trip?” Maya asked when school let out and all the Janus House kids, plus Maya, Rimi, and Travis, headed for the apartment building.

  “I don’t think he’s ready,” said Benjamin.

  Rowan said, “He can go if he can pass the tests.”

  “What field trip?” Travis asked.

  “They’re going on a field trip through the portal,” said Maya. “Today.”

  “We do it about once a month,” Benjamin said. “You should probably come on one soon.”

  “Field trip! To another planet! How cool is that? How long does it take?”

  “It’s a pretty big energy expenditure to open a portal. We try to make every trip worth it,” said Benjamin. “We’ll probably stay on Sviv about five T-hours. We’ll get medical training, and our guardians and the little kids will collect sva nuts.”

  “Five hours,” Travis said in a disappointed voice. “I’ve got maybe an hour and a half, max, before I have to head home. Next time tell me further in advance. Maybe I can arrange some help for Oma and go. Maya, are you going?”

  “No. I’m going to meet someone else with a sissimi bond.”

  “Whoa.” Travis walked in silence. “Whoa,” he said again. “I’d like to see that.”

  Inside the front door of Janus House, Rowan said, “You lot, gear up and head down to the portal. Benjamin, when are we scheduled to leave?”

  “Three fifteen.”

  Maya checked her watch. Ten minutes to three.