“How can you know all that and still insist Artie isn’t in love with you?” asked Elsie. If I’d had any doubts about her identity, that would have lain them to rest; she and my other cousins had been trying to convince me that Artie had nonfamilial feelings for me basically since we’d all hit puberty. They couldn’t seem to understand that my being a cuckoo made a difference, and so I’d stopped trying to argue with them when the subject came up. There was a hitch in her voice that could have been laughter and could have been the beginning of a sob. Based on the chaotic thoughts sparking in the air around her, as tangled as a ball of yarn, it was probably both. I braced myself. I’d seen that tangle of thoughts before.
Sure enough, she flung herself at me a second later, locking her arms around my torso and pulling me crushingly close, her chin resting on my left shoulder while her entire body shook with sobs. I stood rigidly still, aware that she didn’t need or want anything else from me. She was reassuring herself that I was really here, really real, and that was all that mattered.
The tip of a knife pressed against the back of my neck, positioned so that one quick thrust would slide it into the gap between my vertebrae and sever my spinal column. I may not have a heart, but I’m human-cognate enough that slicing through my spine will incapacitate me permanently, if not kill me outright. I closed my eyes and smiled.
Hi, Annie, I thought. It was better than speaking aloud, since the goal was convincing my cousin I was really myself, and not some other cuckoo playing stupid opportunist. True telepathy—words instead of thoughts and feelings and vague impressions—takes time to come easily. I can do it with someone I’ve just met if I’m willing to push, but there’s a different feel to words that have been shoved through natural resistance. They sound like someone shouting from a long way away. Annie and I had been telepathically attuned to each other for years. To Annie, I should sound like—
“Oh, my God, Sarah.” She pulled the knife away, and suddenly I was in the middle of a cousin sandwich, Elsie in front of me, Antimony behind me, and I was safe, and I was so close to home that I could almost taste it.
I was finally almost there.
Four
“There’s a special sort of egotism that comes with being a member of the human race. We call compassion, kindness, love, all part of ‘showing humanity.’ That’s not what they are at all. They’re part of being a good person. Humanity barely counts.”
—Evelyn Baker
In a semi-abandoned warehouse, sitting on the bleachers, waiting for the last of the derby girls to go home
ANNIE PASSED ME A bag of air-popped popcorn, rich with the scents of butter and tomato powder. I sniffed appreciatively before shoving a greasy handful into my mouth. It tasted better than anything had any right to taste. I barely chewed before shoving another handful in after the first. My stomach grumbled at how slowly I was going. The food in first class had been tolerable, as airline food went, but the portions had been nothing to get excited about, and I’d had a busy, physically taxing day.
“I don’t know how you can eat that stuff,” said Annie, settling beside me and bumping her shoulder against mine. She was back in her street clothes, although she was still wearing a Slasher Chicks T-shirt along with her jeans and flannel overshirt. She was radiating a degree of contentment that I’d never felt from her before. Contentment, and something else, like the faintest hint of ashes in the air.
I gave her a sidelong glance, trying to figure out why she was making the inside of my mind taste like charcoal. “It’s easy,” I said. “I put it in my mouth, then I chew it up, and then I swallow. See?” I shoved more popcorn in my mouth, gave it a few good chomps, and stuck my tongue out at her.
“Ew, gross.” She shoved me, laughing. “Remind me why I missed you?”
“I’d rather she tell us why she carries tomato powder in her backpack,” said Elsie. “That’s weird, Sarah. Grade-A weird.”
“Says the succubus,” I shot back. “I like tomato powder. It tastes the way you feel when you eat chocolate. Since I don’t eat chocolate, I make do.”
The warehouse seemed much larger, and much quieter, without the rest of the derby girls. Every word we spoke rose into the rafters, becoming a distorted echo of itself. It would have been unnerving, if I hadn’t felt so utterly, blissfully safe. I had my cousins back. I was in Oregon again, and I’d made the trip all by myself. I was healing.
Thinking of the trip made my smile fade. I needed to tell Evie and Kevin about the cuckoo in the airport, so they could figure out what to do about her. I needed to not tell Annie and Elsie, because Annie would be all for grabbing a field kit and charging straight at the problem. She was the most level-headed of my cousins in many ways, but not when she felt like she might be able to do something to show up her siblings. Having Verity and Alex in different states had probably helped that tendency somewhat—it’s easier to shine on your own when you don’t have anyone to measure yourself against—but I couldn’t count on that.
Resistant or not, two Price girls wouldn’t be enough to take out a cuckoo, and I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t stand that static again, not so soon on the heels of the first time. Especially not when she was likely to have an active grudge against me for that whole “hitting her” thing.
Annie laughed abruptly. I looked at her again. She had her phone out, attention focused on the screen, radiating smug contentment.
“Something funny?” I asked.
“It’s her boyfriend,” said Elsie, in that familiar, hectoring tone of hers. “Didn’t anyone tell you? Our Annie’s in love. With a person, not a siege engine. I never thought I’d live to see the day.”
I blinked. That didn’t seem like a big enough reaction, and so I blinked again, more slowly, before saying, “What?”
Annie’s cheeks flushed red, a vascular response I’ve sometimes envied. People with visible blood don’t know how lucky they are. “Both of you shut up,” she mumbled.
“Um, no, not going to shut up, don’t tell me to shut up, and what?” I poked her with my elbow. “I have popcorn, which makes this the perfect time for gossip. You have a boyfriend? As in, a person you’re dating, not a boy who happens to be your friend?”
“As in a person I’m dating,” said Annie, cheeks still burning. The taste of char grew stronger at the back of my throat. “It’s been a weird few years while you’ve been off recovering. I’m really glad you’re back.”
“This is so weird,” I said.
“Hey, Alex is the one who’s having a baby,” objected Annie. “I think I’m still in the normal band for the youngest sibling.”