Kelley Eskridge (34 page)

The wet wind turned into light rain on her
uncovered head. Perfect. She pulled up her collar; it didn't help much.
Time to go back to her apartment before she was soaked through. But
wait—there was a flicker at the edge of her vision, and she thought it
was Estar come to open the door at last, to let her in to the warm,
colorful heart of a place that was someone's home, to drink wine or
coffee in front of a fire while it rained on other people, people who
had nowhere to go. The vision was so clear in her head that she was
already smiling as she turned. But no one was there. She frowned, and
the flash came again, and she said, “oh, no,” and reached for the bell,
but it was too late: the world pulled itself inside-out in the gray
negative tones of aftershock.

18

SHE WOKE IN A SURGE OF LIGHT
THE
DOOR
, A RUSH OF energy that
propelled her from VC into the waking world between one eyeblink and
the next,
the door I
, and Scully
was leaning over her, saying, “What? What is it?” She wanted to exult,
to open her mouth and let out the vast blue sky, the sea, the wheeling
birds inside her. Home. Ko. Lost and found again. She wanted to shout,
but she was so weak and she could only whisper, “…found the door, I
found the door—”

Then she came fully awake and shut her
mouth hard. She squinted up at him. “Nothing. I don't know. Oh, my head
hurts.”

Someone else was helping her sit up:
Estar. The two of them propped her up on some pillows. She must be in
Estar's house: the walls were covered with dozens of overlapping quilts
and tapes-tries and printed cloth hangings, and a cello cantata
thrummed from hidden speakers, clashing only slightly with the faint
sound of thrash rock from the next room.

“How are you feeling?” Scully asked. He
looked genuinely worried, and she was touched, and sorry that she'd
been grumpy with him earlier.

“I'm all right.”

“If you wished so badly to see me again,
you could simply have called,” Estar said lightly. “These dramatics on
my doorstep are not necessary.”

“I don't have your number, that's why I
rang the bell,” Jackal said. “Ow, careful, I think I landed on that
arm. Thank you for letting me in.”

“I didn't,” Estar replied. “Jane found you
unconscious on the street and, being a sensible young woman, brought
you immediately inside.”

“Jane? Oh, you mean…”

“Yes, you've met her, the one who is so
competent with knives.”

“Oh.” She tried to work out why Jane was
letting herself into Estar's house.

“She lives here,” Scully said, exchanging
a look with Estar that Jackal could not interpret.

Now Jackal was thoroughly confused. She
blurted, “Isn't she a little young for you?” before she thought about
what she was saying and who she was talking to. Scully bit his lip.
Estar, thankfully, only laughed.

“Don't be jealous,

chacalita
.
That is her wing of the house,” Estar waved an arm vaguely off to the
right. “She is an employee of sorts.”

“A kind of bodyguard,” Scully added. It
took Jackal a moment to work out that he meant protecting other people
from Estar.

“I didn't realize…I've never seen her with
you.”

“Sometimes I don't tell her I am leaving
the house. It is very wicked of me,” Estar said complacently. “Now, can
you stand?”

“Oh, sure, if you need me to go I can—”

“Don't be so ready to slink away.” I
wasn't slinking, Jackal thought, I was just being polite, but Estar had
already continued, “You are clearly in no shape to leap up and run from
my house. You should demand that I show you to a hot bath and then feed
you, which is in fact what I am intending to do. Scully will help you
into the bathroom while I find something that is passable for a late
breakfast.” Estar looked at them, her head cocked to one side, and
added in a curious voice, “You are both entirely too nice.”

“What did that mean?” Jackal asked Scully
when she was sure that Estar was out of earshot.

“Oh, you know what she's like.” No, Jackal
didn't, but she was all ears. “She thinks if you haven't sent someone
to the clinic in the last three months, you must not be trying hard
enough to assert yourself.”

The bath was the best she'd had in years,
in a soaking tub with just the right slant at the back. She would get
herself a bath just like this the next time she was in VC.

She had found the door. She had been in
aftershock for almost four virtual days, and on the second day she had
opened a door from her cell into Ko. It was as if she had developed
some muscle during her confinement that had been easily rediscovered
once it was needed. Just like riding a bike: she laughed and splashed
some water around. She would know exactly what to do next time: there
would be no moments wasted in that terrible gray box they had tried to
lock her into. She had not lost Ko after all. It was inside her.

A knock on the door. “Breakfast in ten
minutes,” Estar said.

“On my way.” She closed her eyes and took
a deep breath, pushed herself underwater so that, for an instant, she
floated free. Then she sat up warm and relaxed. And hungry; she
sniffed, smelled ham and something baking which, when she got to the
kitchen, turned out to be biscuits, along with an amazing gravy and
slices of ripe cantaloupe.

“This is great,” she said around a
mouthful of buttered biscuit and gravy. “I've never had anything like
it.”

“It is called redeye gravy, a recipe from
old-style United States Southern cooking. There are coffee grounds in
it, if you believe such a thing.”

“If you say so. How'd you find the recipe?”

“My nanny was from that area, the recipe
is from her grandmother.”

“Is that how you grew up bilingual?” She
saw Scully's face. “I beg your pardon, Estar,” she said. “I'm certainly
not trying to pry into your private life. I just…you're such an
interesting person. Please feel free to tell me it's none of my
business.”

Estar smiled. “And why should I take
offense at interest so charmingly expressed? Eat your biscuits, Scully,
and relax. We are three comrades having a lovely breakfast, and our
Jackal may ask anything she likes.” She bit a chunk of melon in half,
and a trickle of juice ran down the side of her mouth to her chin; she
wiped it away and licked her finger clean. On someone else it might
have been simply poor manners, but Jackal recognized it as performance
and was charmed in turn. She enjoyed the other woman's precise
flamboyance, her assurance, her gusto; Estar was so definitely herself.
She remembered watching Jordie and Jeremy and the others the first day
of the workshop and wondering how they knew what they wanted to be, and
now she understood: you knew what you wanted to be when you saw someone
else being it.

“I speak five languages,” Estar said
matter-of-factly. “I learned my Spanish in Spain and English from my
mother, and French and German and Italian at school. My mother believed
that children should learn languages and so we did. Between us my
brother and sisters and I spoke fourteen of them. My mother got these
notions from reading too many fantastical novels. We all had names that
she found in books. It was a great difficulty when we moved to Spain,
the children laughed at my name.

Tu nombre es
un verbo
! But my mother had read a story in which Estar was
a word for soul, so Estar I must be. In Spain I made them call me Ana.
Now, of course, they called me
La
Carnicera
.”
She kept her eyes fixed on Jackal, and very slowly cut a slice of ham
and put it into her mouth, closed her lips and chewed. jackal didn't
know whether to be flattered or appalled.

Estar swallowed and smiled, said
confidingly, “The long knife is a wonderful tool, you know, especially
with the good steel one gets in Spain. Of course, they took mine away.
I had to get another one. It was very inconvenient. Tell me, why aren't
you acting like a solo who just came out of a long and difficult
aftershock?” She said it with no change in tone; but her smile had left
her eyes. Jackal put down her fork with the last bite of biscuit still
impaled.

“I'm sorry if I'm acting strangely,” she
said carefully. “I do feel shocky, but I'm enjoying being with you, and
having the bath and this nice meal and your company really helps.”

“When I come out of my cell, I come out
screaming,” Estar said flatly. “Scully whimpers. Duja fights. You eat
ham and biscuits and flirt with me at my own table. I have met no other
solo like you,

Chacalita
. Why are
you different?”

“You know what, Estar? That was a terrific
breakfast,” Scully said, wiping his hands on his napkin. “Why don't we
help you clean up and then I'll walk Jackal home so she can get some
rest.”

“I would prefer to talk.”

“And I think it would be better if we all
took a break.”

“

Buenos días
,”
Jane said from the kitchen door. “Chacal, Scully, good morning. Are you
feeling better?”

“Yes, thank you,” Jackal said
automatically, although she was feeling alternately numb and on alert.
“And thank you for bringing me inside.”

“It was raining,” Jane shrugged. “You were
getting wet. But I see you're leaving. You've had a hard night, or
whatever. I find it hard to talk with solos about time anymore.” She
shook her head. “Is that cantaloupe?” She had moved to the table and
now inserted herself into the sight line between Estar and Jackal.

“Let's go,” Scully said privately. “Bye,
Estar, Jane. Thanks. See you later.”

Outside the gate, Jackal said, “It's okay.
I can get home on my own.”

“I'd be happy to walk with you. Really.
It'll help me clear my head.” He sighed. “I just sat up all night with
you. Humor me.”

It was still raining. They walked in
silence up to Perdue Street and turned the corner into a cold wind that
pushed icy drops into Jackal's eyes and made her face ache.

Scully pulled his jacket tighter around
him and said, “Look, Jackal, I'm sorry for hustling you out like that,
but she was starting to get into one of her places and it's just better
not to be around when that happens.”

“I appreciate it, but I've dealt with
weirder people than Estar.”

“You've never seen her when she's like…You
need to know, especially since you're getting close to her. She—”

She really didn't want to talk about this
right now. She interrupted him: “Scully, I know that Estar is—” she
took a breath “—I know she's damaged. But I've told you I can handle
her. I'm not going to do anything to frighten or confuse her. I know
how to manage egos and paranoia and abrasive communication styles,
okay? It's what I was trained for.”

“I'm sure you are, but that's not the
point. She's fascinating, I know, especially when she turns on the
charm like she's been doing with you, but she's

dangerous
and—”

Jackal put an edge into her voice. “If I
was good enough to run EarthGov projects, I imagine I'm good enough to
cope with Estar or Duja or anyone else in our little club. I like her,
I am not fascinated by her. And I know that solos are unpredictable.
Give me some credit.”

Scully raised his hands in the universal
don't-shoot-the-messenger gesture. “I'm just trying to make sure you
have information.”

Jackal raised a hand in a mirror of his
move. “Okay. Fair enough. I'm sorry, I guess I'm still wound up. Say
what you need to say, and then I'm going to sleep for a week.”

He opened his mouth, and perhaps he even
spoke, but she no longer heard him: she was looking up the street to
Shangri-La on the next block, where the sausage vendor leaned on her
cart, speaking to someone resting on the building stairs. The morning
traffic faded, and she did not feel people pushing past, cursing as
they threaded their way around the obstacle that she'd made of herself
by stopping in the middle of the sidewalk. Scully caught himself a few
steps beyond her and backed up: faintly, she heard him saying, “Jackal,
what's wrong? Jackal?” but she paid no attention. She stood absolutely
still, and she felt as if her head had become hollow in the immensity
of the moment:

wait, I'm not ready
.
But this was how it happened: the big things never announced
themselves, you just turned a corner and there they were, before you'd
had time to order your life to meet them. Choose right, she seemed to
tell herself, choose well. Everything now depends on this moment. And
then in a heartbeat her choice was made, and it was just like the old
days: a path cleared in front of her and she walked it straight into
Snow's arms.

It was like drawing a breath that came in
and in and in, stretching her, filling her with Snow, etching Snow back
into the space that Jackal had rubbed smooth. This is what she looks
like; this is her smell; this is the feel of her shoulder blade under
my right hand; this is how tight she holds me when she has no words,
when the body must speak for itself. I remember it all. I remember Snow.

“Snow.”

Holding on. Holding on. Hard to breathe,
the brain stumbling over itself, caught in this moment of contact that
felt like a homecoming. She felt Snow tremble through the thick cloth
of her quilted jacket, heard the deep breath that she took before she
spoke, her voice shaking even though the words wanted to be casual:
“Someone sent me an unbelievably stupid message with your name on it,
so I thought I'd better find out for myself what was going on.” Then
Snow clutched her even more tightly and said, with a hopeless stubborn
resolve that tore at Jackal's heart, “You can't send me away, Jackal.
Please. I don't know what you think you're doing here, but you have to
talk to me. Don't send me away.”

They stood for another moment: over Snow's
shoulder, the sausage vendor stared in frank curiosity. Scully had
disappeared.