Five Odd Honors (22 page)

Honey Dream rubbed at her eyes with the heels of her hands. “Then I would go, as you would. But with each day that passes, I believe less this will be the case. I think we face a siege of our patience rather than a drastic emergency.”

Pearl had to agree. Des had kept true to his promise to report, but as he had feared, direct magical communication was impossible.

When the scouts changed their orientation toward Center, they learned that the worst chaos was near the borders. However, this did not mean they were treading familiar terrain, only that up and down seemed willing to remain basically constant, and the most violent violations of sanity had ceased.

The scouts had met few occupants in these altered Lands, and those they did meet were largely so confused that even carrying on a conversation with them was a challenge. All those they had met had been spirits tied in one way or another to some physical feature—elemental spirits or the genus of a particular mountain or waterway.

No wonder they’re confused, given that chaos has undermined the very bedrock in which they had taken root.

Even though Des’s reports held little useful information, those who had remained at home all waited anxiously for them. When the Double Hour of the Tiger came, Pearl would go to her house hold shrine and humbly beg Pai Hu to relate if he had heard anything from the scouts.

Between scheduled reports, they felt an even greater sense of tension, for communication out of order would mean something had gone horribly wrong.

Although this uncomfortable sense of expectancy was as an extra tenant, Pearl could not believe how empty her house seemed. Nissa and Lani still provided company, thank heavens, but after the noisy group who had gathered around the long table in the family room, sharing meals, playing games when other duties permitted, there were times when those who remained seemed to rattle about.

After a week, Pearl made a decision.

“Nissa, where’s Lani?”

“Wang just got here. Lani is out ‘helping’ him with some pruning.”

“I was wondering . . .” Pearl realized she was more nervous than she had been when she went to accept Thundering Heaven’s challenge. “That is . . . Please, sit down. There’s something I’d like to talk to you about.”

Nissa looked both astonished and somewhat uncomfortable, but nodded. “Here,” she said, gesturing around the kitchen family room area, “or in your office?”

“Here’s fine,” Pearl said, sinking into her favorite easy chair.

Almost immediately, Amala, one of her two cats, leapt up into her lap. When Nissa took the matching chair, grey Bonaventure claimed her lap for his own.

“Nissa, I have a proposal for you,” Pearl said. “I realize you’ve been gone from home for a while, and must be, like the others, considering how much longer you should stay.”

Nissa’s gaze dropped, and Pearl knew she was right.

“I had been—” Nissa began, but Pearl interrupted.

“I have a proposal for you,” she repeated. “Would you consider permanent relocation to San Jose?”

Nissa blinked. Pearl raced on, eager to get her arguments in before Nissa could decline. The Nita family was clannish in the extreme, the daughters of Nikki Nita living together on a sprawling piece of land in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia.

Pearl wasn’t certain Nissa could pull herself away from that clan, and felt somewhat selfish for even attempting to persuade her to do so. During the three months that Nissa had been in California, the young woman had called one or the other of her sisters pretty much daily, and Pearl suspected that e-mail added details and had kept the ties that bound pretty tight.

“I’ve enjoyed having company in the house,” Pearl said. “Real company, not just interns who stay for a few months and then move on. Oh, many of them stay in touch, but it’s not the same as what I’ve felt since all of you came piling in last May. My brothers have children, and I suppose I could try to guilt one of them to come and stay with old auntie—especially if I hinted that inheritance might come their way—but I’d never know if a smile was for real or just in the hope of keeping the old bitch sweet.”

Nissa was looking pole-axed, but Pearl surged on.

“There’s one other thing. With you and Lani here, I could relax. I’ve had to hide the part of my life that’s tied up with magic, with the affairs of the Orphans. You want Lani to know her heritage, so there would be nothing to hide.”

Nissa started to say something, but Pearl held up one hand.

“Please. I know I’m being imperious, but I want you to know that I do have things to offer you in exchange for your giving up living with your family. For one, we’ve all said a lot about how the Dragon and the Snake—members of the House of Mystery—are very magical signs. Less has been said about the Rabbit, but in Chinese tradition the Rabbit is the creature who pounds out the potions of immortality up there on the Moon. The Rabbit is actually a very magical sign, and I could teach you—”

This time Nissa managed to interrupt.

“Pearl! Listen.”

Pearl stopped with some difficulty. She’d rehearsed her proposal as she would have a part in a play, and she hadn’t even gotten to the financial and educational incentives, but there was something in Nissa’s expression—part amused, part alarmed—that made Pearl stop.

“Pearl, I’m really grateful that you brought this up. Nancy and Nina have both been after me to come back in time for Lani to adjust before I need to start classes in the fall.”

Pearl nodded. Nissa was studying to become a pharmacist, and had, in fact, given up the chance to take a course during the summer term to attend to the Orphans’ business.

“I’ve been uncomfortable with how reluctant I’ve been to go back,” Nissa went on. “I mean, I’ve changed over these last three months. I know that magic works. I’ve been places. . . . You’ve been out to the family land. You know what it’s like. My sisters are good people—none better—but they’re into all that back-to-earth stuff : organic foods, home schooling kids, natural medicines. I’ve never been quite as into that.”

Again, Pearl nodded. Now she didn’t have any trouble keeping her mouth shut. This was going far better than she had dared hope.

Nissa nervously twisted a lock of fair hair around one finger as she continued. “Nancy’s beau is seriously into New Age stuff —crystals especially. He can get really pushy. I could just see myself getting fed up and telling him off, telling him he doesn’t know anything, or worse, that I know better.”

A wry grin lit Nissa’s face. “I’m not always prudent. You may not believe it, but I’ve always realized that at some point I’d probably have to move. I mean, our town supports one pharmacist already, and that’s all we need. The rest can be done by assistants like me. If I finish—when I finish—my degree, I would either have to continue as an assistant and hope Bob retired early, which he’s not likely to do, or move.

“Then there’s Lani. Right now it doesn’t matter to her that she doesn’t have a dad around, but she’s not stupid, and some of the older kids, well, they’ve been saying a few things that aren’t exactly kind.”

Pearl could imagine. Lani was probably the result of a one-night stand—an accident that had occurred even though Nissa had been on the pill. “Pill Virgin” might be an affectionate nickname between adults, but children would make cruel comments.

“I’d like to explain to Lani in my own time, in my own way, that just because I was dumb doesn’t mean I didn’t want her, that I don’t love her as much—maybe more—than I could any ‘planned’ child. She’s my gift-of-God baby, and I don’t want anyone to sour that. So that was another reason I’d been thinking about moving.”

Pearl said hesitantly, “So you’d consider moving here? I could help with arrangements. I’ve done a little research into schools, and there are plenty of places where you could continue your degree. Dr. Andersen would be of help when you are ready to find a job. I have no desire to cut your feet out from under you and make you my dependent.”

“Thanks. . . .” Nissa grinned, suddenly relaxed. “That’s good. I wouldn’t want to find myself in the place of that hypothetical niece or nephew. If Lani and I could take over the whole suite we’re sharing with Brenda now—eventually, I mean—then I think we’d be very comfortable. I could use my room as a bedroom and office of sorts, and Lani would have a nice play area.”

Pearl nodded. “And I was thinking that . . .”

That easily, the matter was settled between them. Pearl flat-out refused to let Nissa pay rent, pointing out that the house had been paid for long ago and that maintenance would have to be dealt with in any case.

Nissa agreed, but insisted that she would chip in for groceries and house hold supplies.

Pearl agreed, although she didn’t feel this was at all necessary. She was quite well off, rich even, and despite her Chinese upbringing and her fondness for her brothers and their children, felt no requirement to refrain from spending what she had earned in order to leave them a considerable inheritance.

Besides,
Pearl thought.
Nissa is family in a way, too. Our ancestors may have thought of themselves as Orphans, but they were very odd Orphans, with very strong bonds.

Pearl smiled as Lani came barreling in through the back door, her hands full of newly cut roses. As she accepted her makeshift bouquet, Pearl realized she was happy, happier than she had been in a long, long time—maybe almost forever.

Just over
two weeks had passed since Gaheris Morris had laid down the law regarding his daughter’s continued participation in matters related to the Thirteen Orphans.

Brenda had hardly spoken to her father the entire flight back to South Carolina, but when her mom met them at the Greenville/Spartanburg Airport, Brenda couldn’t keep up her sulk. Keely McAnally was so clearly pleased to see her only daughter that Brenda would have felt like a complete heel to shun her.

Mother and daughter had spent a great week together, shopping to get Brenda what she’d need for her return to college, visiting the various grandparents, watching the boys play soccer and baseball, talking about everything under the sun—although Brenda had been forced to be a bit inventive about exactly what her internship with Pearl Bright had involved.

Brenda’s younger brothers, Dylan and Thomas, had eventually decided they could show their big sister they were glad to see her. The water balloon fight in the backyard one hot sticky night was just about perfect.

Gaheris was often off at work. Dutifully, he reported to Brenda about the progress the scouts were making in the Lands. The news was always the same. No significant change.

She called Nissa a couple of times, but the three-hour time difference made connecting hard. Even when they could talk, there was so much they weren’t allowed to talk about except in the most circumlocutious manner. Increasingly, the summer of magic and weird wonder began to feel rather unreal.

Other than wishing she knew more about what was going on in the Lands, Brenda enjoyed her time at home. She honestly regretted when she had to go downstate and resume her life as a resident student at USC. She might have asked to transfer somewhere closer to home, but she knew it was too late in the school year, and that her parents would never agree.

Despite Gaheris’s notorious penny-pinching, he had agreed with Keely that there was one place where cutting corners was not in order. Although USC’s upstate campus at Greenville/Spartanburg would have been close enough to home for Brenda to commute, both her parents had wanted Brenda to have the whole college experience. That included sharing dorm rooms with strangers and not having her parents quite near enough to solve all her problems for her.

Gaheris did complain that cell phones made it far easier than it had been in his day for a college student to run to Mom or Dad for help. He probably would have cut Brenda’s cell phone contract if he hadn’t gotten a better deal on it than he could have gotten for a land line in her room.

Teaching me to be in dependent,
Brenda thought a trace ruefully as she strapped tape onto the boxes she was taking with her.
Dad couldn’t have had the least idea just how much this summer was going to force me to learn to think for myself.

Despite being a bit sad when they unloaded the last box, took her out to an early dinner, then hopped in the van for the drive home without her, Brenda couldn’t help but feel a sense of anticipation at being back at USC.