I’m not blood family. I’m also not a mammal, strictly speaking; his pheromones don’t work on me, and never have. Even Uncle Ted’s pheromones don’t work on me, and Uncle Ted’s a full incubus, with none of that pesky humanity to get in the way and weaken the effects of his natural weaponry. And Lilu pheromones are a weapon. Incubus, succubus, it doesn’t matter. They attract mates to make breeding easier and less dangerous, and make it possible for them to get in and out without getting hurt. But they evolved in this dimension, not in mine, and their biology doesn’t know how to deal with a Johrlac. We’re a mystery to them.
Not that this matters to Artie, who figured out fast that touching non-family girls was not okay and filed me in the “not family” bucket shortly thereafter.
Artie took a big step backward. That still left us in arm’s reach, so he took another one before he lifted his chin and looked at me. That was all. He just . . . looked at me, searching my face like he was trying to memorize it, like something must have changed while I’d been in Ohio. Finally, he took a deep breath.
“You didn’t call,” he said.
“I did,” I objected.
“You didn’t call enough.”
“I’m sorry.” I worried the hem of my sweatshirt between my thumb and forefinger, resisting the urge to look away. Eye contact doesn’t make telepathy easier the way skin contact does. It just makes me faintly uncomfortable. “I was . . . for a long time, I wasn’t myself. And then I was scared I still wasn’t myself, but that I’d lost so much I couldn’t actually tell anymore. I’m sorry, I really am. I didn’t mean to worry you.”
“Didn’t mean to—Sarah, I thought you were never coming back.” Frustration and fear rolled off him in a wave: wordless, formless, and oppressively strong. “I thought I’d lost you forever. You’re my best friend. Do you know how scary that was?”
“I thought I’d lost me, too.” My voice came out in a whisper. “I know about scary, Artie, because I’ve been scared since the day I got hurt. I thought I was never going to be okay again. I thought I’d broken my own brain so badly that I’d never be able to control myself around people who weren’t wearing anti-telepathy charms. It’s still . . . I’m still not like I was. I pick up more things from people I’m not attuned to. The world is loud, and when I sleep, I wind up walking in dreams that aren’t mine if I don’t set up barriers in the room to keep my thoughts from getting out. I thought I was never going to see any of you again because Mom wouldn’t let you into the house in Ohio unless I told her it was okay, and I wasn’t going to say it was okay until the thought of you feeling sorry for me wasn’t so terrifying that it put me back in my bed for a week. So yes, I know how scary it was. I know how scary all of this was. I’m sorry I didn’t call. Getting myself to Portland without freaking out or hurting myself was the last big test of whether or not I was recovered.”
Slowly, Artie blinked. “You mean you came here on your own?”
I nodded.
“How?”
“I flew.” Bit by bit, I explained the day I’d had, starting with saying goodbye to Mom outside of security. I mentioned my suspicion that a cuckoo had been hunting in the Cleveland Airport, but I didn’t mention the cuckoo I’d actually seen here in Portland. That needed to wait until I saw Evie. She’d know what to do, and her resistance to Johrlac influence was almost as good as a born Price’s, thanks to growing up in a house with Mom. Long exposure leads to increased resistance to the negative aspects of cuckoo influence, along with the easier telepathy. I guess it’s a balance thing. Otherwise, cuckoos would just keep their favorite humans with them always, malleable and obedient and open books.
By the time I finished, Annie and Elsie had given up on giving us space and drifted over to join us, forming a rough little circle between the bleachers and the doors. Annie looked at Artie, looked pointedly at the open space between us, and rolled her eyes.
“All right, since it looks like the big reunion is over, we should probably go tell the rest of the family that it’s time to throw a welcome home party for Sarah,” she said. “Elsie, you have room in your car for one more?”
“I can give Sarah a ride,” said Artie.
“Did you offer?” asked Annie. “Because dude, if I were you and this were Sam, I would already have been in the car and driving away as fast as I could.”
“You don’t know how to drive,” said Elsie.
“My point stands,” said Annie.
“Sarah and I aren’t . . . like that,” objected Artie, cheeks flushing. His thoughts turned into a tangled mess before shutting off entirely once again, blocked by the defensive action of his own empathic abilities. Full incubi can not only sense the emotions of the people around them, they can influence them, making direct changes to other people’s moods and hence minds.
I can’t change minds. I can’t even directly change thoughts. I can manipulate memory and insert myself into someone’s emotional landscape, but it’s a lot less of a precision job than Uncle Ted or even Artie can manage. Artie’s empathy had always been mostly receptive and defensive, allowing him to pick up on feelings or block out other psychics, including me. It might even have improved since I’d seen him last. The walls between us certainly felt sturdier.
“No, of course you’re not,” said Annie, with withering sarcasm. “Sarah, you’re coming back to the compound tonight?”
“Yeah,” I said, not looking at Artie. “I’m still not stable enough to sleep just anywhere. The room Mom and I set up is going to be best for me.” It had triple-strength anti-telepathy charms worked into the walls, creating a psychic null space that never moved, never varied, and would last as long as the house was standing. I could sleep peacefully there, without worrying about picking up on any dreams I shouldn’t be part of.
“If she’s going home with you, I want to drive her.” Artie squared his shoulders. His thoughts were still too sealed off to let me understand his expression; it could have meant virtually anything. “I need to come over anyway. Sam borrowed a bunch of my comic books, and I want them back.”
“Sarah?” asked Elsie. “That okay with you?”
“Sure,” I said, not looking at Artie. “I’ll see you both at the house.” I turned and walked to the bleachers to retrieve my backpack, waiting for some crack in the shell around Artie to open up and let me know what he was thinking.
It didn’t happen.
* * *
Evie and Uncle Kevin understood the importance and necessity of privacy. In their line of work, having neighbors could mean way too many visits from the police, and they’d always known they wanted to be a safe space for the kind of people they were likely to associate with. Not just family members: other cryptozoologists and researchers, cryptids like me or Artie, and bounty hunters like Grandma Alice. All kinds of folks could be found in the living room on any given day, and that meant having the space and the distance to host them.