Mulberry Wands (29 page)

Shaluun had ended up in front of her. “There
are those among them who know cat, because some Sunwards are cats.
Not many, but some. If they have reason to learn it, they will. Our
people are skilled with languages.”

“No doubt,” she said.

“How many languages do you know?” Shaluun
asked.

“English, high school French, and just enough
Spanish to sing along with Sublime songs and order my favorite
burrito,” Susan replied.

“We’re here,” Tuusit said.

Sure enough, they were.

The motion-sensing spotlight had fallen down,
but the neighbors on either side had put up Christmas lights, and
she was able to see the yard in flashes of green and red.
Christmas. That’s right, it was already mid-December. She’d been
ill for a month, and spent the past two weeks waiting for the
results from her trial. She smelled woodsmoke, and wondered if it
was coming from their chimney.

Zoë had already dug up the flower beds, and
re-planted them with potted nursery pansies. The dead shrubs had
been cut down and put into a pile in the center of the yard, as
though awaiting a bonfire. Shaluun pointed at it, and the other
warriors nodded in understanding, then climbed down from the wall
and made a beeline towards the pile. Scout was right after them,
followed by Susan.

The dead branches protected them from the
breeze, though once she stopped moving she started to shiver. She
also felt like she had to pee. Why did that always happen when you
got cold? It must have been in the low forties, she estimated.

“If this cat has the sight, she may have
other powers not obvious, like psychic ability,” Shaluun said. “I
heard from Garaant’s partner that the beast appeared out of
nowhere, like a graebnor.”

“No,” Susan said. “Sphinx is just a cat. The
only thing unusual about her is that she’s part Siamese and part
black.”

“Many cats are part gnosti. I have studied
these beasts,” Shaluun said. “It is obvious that this cat, or one
of her line, has been altered. She’s either been crossbred with a
cat-shaped gnosti, or a mage tinkered with her granddam’s genes to
make her a killing machine. My grandfather said that mages keep
them to prevent our people from coming unto their lands. Except the
beasts don’t stop at the border of the mages’ lands. We found one a
few years earlier and managed to kill it, but we lost five strong
warriors in the process.”

“We just found Sphinx. I didn’t make her. I
certainly didn’t alter her to kill translators. Before I saw
Garaant, I had no idea your people existed,” Susan said. She was
trying to peer out of the branches to see what Runook and Scout
were looking at, but she couldn’t see over their shoulders. “You
make it sound like human mages are all evil. I’m not like
that.”

“Tuusit speaks highly of your character,”
Shaluun admitted. “And I heard that you healed Felia, though she
was a stranger, but in my experience, most huge-man mages are not
as kind as you.”

“She’s also more … elsuulat,” Noruu said,
using one of their words. He seemed to be directing the comment at
Tuusit. Everyone laughed except Tuusit, who scowled.

Then they fell silent, and Tuusit moved aside
so she could see. Susan crept forward, grateful that the branches
didn’t have thorns. She peered out into the darkness. In the
flashing red and green light, a cat slunk by. It was the adolescent
tom from before, its marmalade coat turned gray in the dim light.
His tuxedoed sister followed, trying to stalk, but distracted by a
dead leaf that fluttered in the breeze. After her came another
black and white cat, then their mother.

“We don’t have enough spears to subdue them
all,” Tuusit said.

“We don’t have to subdue them, just get past
them long enough to get in the house,” Susan said.

“In the house?” whispered Scout. He sounded
horrified, as though going into a human house was even more
frightening than trying to stab three kittens and their mother.
“You want to go in there?”

“How do you plan on getting in?” Shaluun
asked.

“The cat door was locked last time, probably
because of the strays getting in. We can climb and reach the
doorbell, but it’s painted wood and might be hard to climb.”

“I don’t like that idea,” Noruu said. “Keep
the humans out of it.”

“They’re my friends,” Susan said. “They’re
not going to hurt us.”

“How about up there?” Scout pointed to the
second story, where Darius’ window had been left open a crack. He
swallowed and cleared his throat, like his mouth had gone dry, but
he continued with forced enthusiasm, “I could climb it and cut
through the screen.”

“Take your packs off, except for a knife.
You’ll move quicker,” Tuusit said.

Susan shucked off her pack, loosening the
straps that had held it to her back and upper thighs. Noruu asked
something quietly in their language, and Shaluun answered. It
sounded like they were talking about whether it was safe enough for
Susan to go. Tuusit apparently had doubts too, because he grabbed
her forearm. She turned back, but he didn’t say anything, just met
her eyes and squeezed gently before letting her go.

Susan and Scout slipped out of the branches
and dashed across the dry grass to the drain spout. They flung
their arms around it and shimmied up, like those Polynesians did to
get coconuts out of the top of a palm tree. It used muscles she
wasn’t used to using, and by the time she got to the top of the
porch roof she felt bruised and aching. Her arms were numb from the
cold metal, and covered with a fine layer of dust.

The top of the porch roof was shingled with
fiberglass-coated asphalt, which wasn’t any fun to walk on, or
touch. She and Scout rested in the leaf-filled bottom of the gutter
for a few moments, but neither one of them felt safe exposed like
that.

“Ready?” he asked.

Susan nodded, and they dashed across the
porch roof to the wall. They began to climb. The paint was chipped
and peeling, coming off in long strips when she tried to grab it,
so she had to cling to the edges of the facing boards, once again
shimmying up using her own strength and friction. The inside of her
legs and arms got splinters, but she had to keep going. By the time
she got to the top, and was able to sit on the dirty aluminum
frame, she was shaking from exhaustion.

If Scout was just as tired, he didn’t show
it. When he reached the top, he pulled out his knife (a flake of
obsidian with cured lizard skin providing the handle) and sliced a
hole in the screen big enough for them to slip through.

Darius was sitting at his desk, surfing and
listening to music. He had his headphones on and his back to them,
so he couldn’t see them. She’d missed him so badly that it was all
she could do not to rush over to him, but Scout pulled Susan away,
as though Darius were as dangerous as a cat.

“It’s not safe here,” he whispered.

She reluctantly nodded and led him down the
hall to her room. The carpet had been ripped out, and the air
smelled of sawdust and new paint. New floorboards peeked out from
under the bedrooms at the end of the hall, one of them hers. Even
with the new maple flooring, there was still enough space under the
door for her and Scout to slip into the room.

Zoë had redone her bedroom. The walls were a
beautiful vibrant blue, the exact same shade as in the old house,
and even with the same sponging texturing on two walls. The floor
was finished, and the baseboards had been put up and caulked, and
she had new curtains in a lacy, shabby-chic white. Everything else
was exactly as she left it, down to the angle of the bed and the
stack of books on the nightstand. It was perfect. Zoë must have
photographed it and used it as a reference. She was so touched that
she almost cried.

Scout muttered a translator curse word. He
plucked at her arm and pointed.

Sphinx was on her bed.

Scout froze, panting shallowly. She wasn’t as
afraid of the cat as Scout was, even though she’d been attacked,
because frankly, Sphinx was cute. Her eyes were closed, and she was
half curled on her side, purring as though she were dreaming of
something pleasant.

“Think we can slip in there and not wake
her?” she whispered, but it was clear the answer was no.

Susan slipped back under the door and went to
Darius’ room.

She walked under the desk and pulled his leg
hairs. She had to jump, because Darius reflexively slapped at his
ankle. She pulled them again. This time, Darius leaned under the
desk, muttering. He didn’t appear to see her. Was she partly
invisible? Maybe Darius’ second sight wasn’t as good as he let
on.

She climbed his clothes and took a seat on
his math textbook. He still ignored her. She sat on his
spacebar.

“What the hell?” he muttered. He stopped, his
eyes unfocused. They focused on her.

“Susan!” he shouted, really loudly.

She put her hands on her ears.

“Susan! No way! It’s you!” Darius took his
headphones off and set them down. Music blared out of them. He ran
to the door and flung it wide open. “Hey Zoë!”

He ran back, still shouting. “What happened?
Why are you small? Where have you been? What’s going on?”

Zoë came into the room. Sphinx followed her,
tail up curiously, and she meowed once as though asking what all
the fuss was.

“Get the cat!” Susan shouted. “She’ll eat
me!”

“What?” Darius asked. He looked like he’d
grown even taller in the past six weeks, and he had the faintest
line of a mustache. Still as oblivious as ever.

Zoë was a little quicker. She picked Sphinx
up and rubbed her behind the ears. Another guy came down the
hallway, the new roommate she had seen in the scrying. He was kinda
cute, muscular, but short, with a black hoodie and a piebald rat on
his shoulder.

“Susan? Is that you?” Zoë asked. She came
closer, which was unfortunate as she was still holding the cat.
“Why are you small?”

“Why are you naked?” Darius asked.

She’d been naked for six weeks, but now she
suddenly really felt it, because she was the only person in the
room without clothes on. Darius handed her a tissue and she wrapped
herself in it.

She thought it would be hard to explain what
had happened, but they all sat and listened carefully. They didn’t
even disbelieve her. Not that she’d expected them too, seeing as
how many strange things had happened to her since she first came to
this magical reality, but in the hundred times she’d replayed this
scene in her mind, that was one of the things that had happened the
most often.

She’d also practiced what she was going to
tell Zoë about the sentencing. It was awkward to explain that she
was only back long enough to figure out a way to disable Zoë’s pet.
Zoë clenched Sphinx tighter, like a child clutching a toy, but when
Susan reiterated that she wasn’t going to have to kill the cat, she
relaxed.

“I’m just going to figure out a way of making
her not hurt them any more,” Susan promised.

Zoë nodded and rubbed Sphinx’s neck. “I guess
I can make her wear a bell. I didn’t know she was killing
people.”

“So I guess you want to look at your
computer?” Darius said. He reached out his hand for her. “I’ll take
you there.”

“I can walk.” Susan climbed down off the bed
and walked down the hallway. Sphinx watched her intently, but Susan
ignored the cat. Zoë wouldn’t let her get eaten.

Like most things, doing work on the computer
was harder when you were small. She had to use both hands on the
mouse wheel, and she didn’t have as much control pushing it around
with her whole body as she did moving it with her hand. She tried
to flip it over and just use her hand, but that didn’t work as well
on the light-sensing mice as well as it did over the mouse
ball.

Darius pestered her with more questions about
where she’d been and what she’d been doing, and he tried to help
her look for things on her computer, but even if you’re small it’s
easier to do it yourself than to direct someone else to do it. Her
files were organized in a way that didn’t make sense to anyone but
herself. After fifteen minutes or so, with Susan trying not to act
as frustrated as she felt, Darius gave up.

“Guess I’d better go finish my homework if I
don’t want the teacher giving me shit tomorrow. I’m glad you’re
back, Sue. Don’t ever freak us out like that again.”

“I won’t,” she said. As soon as she finished
the spell, they were going to make her big again and she’d come
home for good. “It’s good to see you too, Darius. I missed you
guys.”

She found a spell to make someone blind, with
directions so that you could make the blindness last a few seconds
or a few days or up to a week. She’d have to work to adapt it so
that it was permanent, but so that it was only the second sight
that got blinded. Hmm. That might be difficult, and if it failed,
the cat would be permanently blind, which wasn’t nice at all.

She found a lot of spells, some of which she
should have been using all along (the offensive pain spell that
Tuusit had implied she should know) and some of which she couldn’t
remember why she’d developed (a spell to make strawberry soda taste
like tonic water). This was what made her a powerful mage, the
variety. A junkyard with only one car wasn’t much use at all.

Okay, there was that weird spell that would
make a cat uninterested in sex, the feline saltpeter. Why had Susie
ever developed that spell? Was someone too poor to get their cat
spayed? Like most spells, it wasn’t permanent, though this one
would last several years with re-applications. Susan had to
continually refresh the spells she wanted to keep intact, mostly
wards, though she hadn’t lived in the new house long enough to put
any in.

She looked around the room again. Her room.
It didn’t smell like home, but it looked like home. And best of
all, her friends were here. Living with the translators was
interesting, and they were all nice to her (and the food was great)
but she wanted to sleep in a real bed and take hot showers again.
She sighed, rotated her neck to get the kinks out, and went back to
her computer. The sooner she could get this done, the sooner she
could get big and come home for good.