Thirteen Orphans (38 page)
Pearl stared at her. “What do you mean? What nightmare?”
Brenda blinked, then dragged the tips of her fingers across her face in exhausted anguish. “That’s right. You don’t know.”
She told Pearl about her nightmare as they made both coffee and tea, then retired into Pearl’s office. Pearl stroked Bonaventure and listened, a dozen speculations rising into her mind, but she kept quiet until Brenda had finished.
“You asked me if I thought you were an idiot for feeling scared,” Pearl smiled. “Not in the least, my dear. In fact, I think being scared may be a very sensible reaction indeed.”
Brenda thought she’d be tired by the time the others woke up, but her nerves were still singing with the experiences of the night before. This wasn’t like the struggle against the Three-Legged Toad. After that she’d been physically and magically exhausted—as well as overwhelmed by having her worldview revamped to include monsters.
This time none of those things applied. The magic she had used had been stored in advance, and she’d pulled more than one all-nighter in school. Sitting up as dark grew into day, talking and drinking seemingly infinite cups of coffee, wasn’t at all unfamiliar.
Riprap was the first member of the household downstairs, although the sounds of Nissa and Lani moving around had started earlier. Pearl did not stop the Dog when he headed outside for his usual morning run.
“Riprap should be safe,” she said. “And better he fall into his usual routine since I don’t want to start telling the others about last night until after Wong has arrived and we can ask him to babysit Lani.”
“You’re not going to ask Foster to watch her?” Brenda asked hesitantly.
“I think not,” Pearl replied. “He may still be a target, and I would not put Lani in danger.”
Brenda remembered the Snake’s arrogant claims on “her beloved,” and gritted her teeth together. When Foster came down, she found it hard to look at him, to meet his friendly smile, to answer his cheerful “Good morning, Brenda,” spoken proudly in not too heavily accented English. She kept seeing him holding the Snake’s sinuous body, perhaps running his hands over the curves that dress had shown off so effectively. She wondered if he had kissed the Snake, if he had done more.
Fortunately for Brenda’s peace of mind, Nissa and Lani came down soon after, the two-and-a-half-year-old holding the bobble-headed penguins, one in each hand. Brenda forced herself to think about something even more unpleasant than Foster entwined with the Snake.
What had her father been doing in San Jose? California was on his beat, sure, but he usually restricted his visits to a few a year. Had their enemies used some magical influence to draw him back? What other influences might they be able to exert? Pearl had extracted an oath that their enemies would not harm those she defined as “friends and allies,” but did “harm” extend to manipulation?
Was that why Dad hadn’t called to tell her he was in town?
Her cell phone rang almost as soon as Brenda shaped that thought.
“Hi, Breni. Guess who’s back in San Jose?”
“Hi, Dad.” Brenda tried to sound enthusiastic, but she couldn’t. “Back so soon?”
“You don’t sound thrilled.” He chuckled. “Yeah. I’ve got a deal ready to go for some of those bobble-headed mandarin dolls that Des didn’t like. Turns out one shop with branches both here and in San Francisco …”
Brenda listened as Dad babbled about suppliers and sales. It sounded good, plausible, even. Still, she wondered if it had all been planted in his mind to make his coming to San Jose work for him. Was it a rationalization like those she’d heard both Dad and Albert Yu make to cover gaps in their memories?
“Want to come out for breakfast?”
Brenda started. “Oh, Dad. I can’t. Pearl has something she needs me to do early.”
“Will you be free by lunch?”
Brenda relayed the question to Pearl, who nodded.
“Auntie Pearl says I should be. Want me to meet you?”
“I’ll swing by and get you. I want to show you some wonderful gardens a client took me to last time. I’ll be by at or around noon.”
Brenda rang off, wondering if she could learn anything from Dad while they were out—wondering if they’d be safe. She’d get Riprap to loan her a couple of his protective bracelets. They wouldn’t be quite as good as the ones tailored to her personal elements, but they’d be better than the dusty scraps of polymer clay she’d swept up from her bedroom floor that morning.
Such thoughts kept Brenda well distracted as she took her turn with getting breakfast on the table, turning bacon, frying or scrambling eggs to order. Des came to help, although he probably would have preferred something like rice congee. Riprap reappeared, smelling freshly showered, and in time to do damage to something like half a pound of bacon and four or five eggs.
Then breakfast was over and cleared away. Lani was sent out to join Wong the gardener. Foster politely went to watch educational television up on the third floor, and Pearl convened a meeting around the long table between the kitchen and family room.
Pearl asked Brenda to begin, and so Brenda told about her dream that wasn’t quite a dream, and what she encountered in the hallway. She carried the tale to where Pearl entered, then Pearl took over, providing a good many vivid details, but doing an admirable job of avoiding inserting anything in the way of interpretation. She finished by passing around copies of the treaty she had made with the Dragon and the Snake. When everyone had been given time to review them, she opened the floor to questions or comments.
The others had listened in nearly complete silence, Nissa and Riprap both taking notes in the spiral binders they used for their lessons with Des. Des sat with his hands folded in front of him, his eyelids drooping, but Brenda didn’t doubt that he heard and comprehended far more than did the other two.
“Des and I seem to keep missing all the fun,” Riprap complained. “First, we’re out at a ball game when the Three-Legged Toad is summoned, then we sleep through an actual attempt to invade.”
Brenda wasn’t completely certain that he was joking. “It wasn’t much fun at all,” she said, turning her gaze on Riprap.
“I’ve been in enough rumbles,” Riprap said, his tone reassuring, “to know that they’re no fun.”
“As have I,” Des added. “Try being a man who wears a dress.” He kicked out against the hem of his long Chinese robe. “Or a Western historical re-creationist who reminds people that those golden days of old weren’t all six-guns and some sort of chivalric code of honor. I’ve been in fights, and while I don’t look for them, I wish I’d had Pearl’s forethought and set up wards to alert me if magic other than our own was used.”
“What could you have done that I did not?” Pearl said, not as a challenge, but in comfort. “The threat the Dragon used to neutralize my hold on the Snake was such that I would have ordered an army to retreat rather than have others harmed.”
“Ever since we realized our enemies were from the Lands,” Nissa said, “I’ve wondered at, well, how gentle they were being. They weren’t the other times they came after members of the Twelve, or did I misunderstand?”
“You did not,” Pearl said. “They physically attacked, took hostages, even, in a few ugly circumstances, resorted to murder. This stealing of memories is so unsettling that I had not thought to term it gentle, but you’re right. By contrast, it is gentle.”
“Gentle, but effective,” Des said, “if their goal is to neutralize us as a unit.”
Silence fell and Brenda knew they were all considering how little they still knew about their opponents’ goals.
“I don’t think,” Brenda said, trying to keep her tone level and reasonable, “that whatever the Snake was doing was meant to advance, well, the memory stealing. She came for Foster. Once she had Foster, maybe she planned to start gathering the last four memories, but she wanted Foster first.”
“I agree,” Pearl said. “The Dragon had clearly decided that their Tiger—Foster—was a failure, and they did not need to retrieve him.”
There was a note in her voice that told Brenda that, for the first time, perhaps, Pearl actually pitied Foster.
Nissa glanced down at her notes. “Pearl said that while the Snake wasn’t exactly forthcoming about why they had come here, she did admit that it was ‘to get something. ’ Then Pearl asked, what, and the Snake said, ‘Something that was taken from our land that should not have been.’ Then Pearl asked her to clarify, and what the Snake said wasn’t a lot of help, but is still interesting: ‘Something you have and know you have, although unknowing that you should not have it.’”
Pearl’s gesture acknowledged the accuracy of Nissa’s transcription, then she sighed. “The Dragon’s arrival was untimely. A few more questions, and I would have learned more.”
“Perhaps we know enough,” Des said. His eyes were shining, and Brenda remembered that this was a man who did crossword puzzles with an ink brush. “Something we know we have, although unknowing that we should not have it. Okay. The mah-jong sets and various tools like Treaty were made after our arrival here. What else did our ancestors take with them?”
Pearl shut her eyes, her expression composed for thought. “They took a variety of things. Magical artifacts were forbidden, but a wide variety of personal items were brought with them. The Twelve were willing to accept exile rather than resist to the point of devastation. That meant they were permitted to take the means to assure they would be comfortable while they made the transition.”
“Did they take anything living?” Brenda asked.
“Other than the young emperor,” Pearl said, “not that I know. They were not permitted servants or acolytes, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“That,” Brenda admitted, “or some—I don’t know, magical animal or something?”
“Could they have gotten away with some part of the royal regalia?” Nissa asked. “I don’t know … some crown or scepter or sacred jewel?”
“I doubt it,” Pearl said, “but it is possible. What is maddening, is that whatever this thing is, we have it, we know we have it, but we don’t know that we shouldn’t have it. I can’t imagine that if someone walked off with a sanctified item they wouldn’t know it was something they shouldn’t have.”
Des had been drumming on the table with the tips of his fingers, “But the thing is,
we
don’t know. Does that mean that one of the Thirteen Orphans might know, but can’t tell us because of the loss of memory? Or did that ‘we’ apply to all of the Thirteen, and one of us has whatever it is sitting up in the attic, and these invaders are rummaging through memories looking for clues? That would explain why they’re not killing us off. They need something we can only give while alive.”
we
don’t know. Does that mean that one of the Thirteen Orphans might know, but can’t tell us because of the loss of memory? Or did that ‘we’ apply to all of the Thirteen, and one of us has whatever it is sitting up in the attic, and these invaders are rummaging through memories looking for clues? That would explain why they’re not killing us off. They need something we can only give while alive.”
“And it may be something,” Nissa said, bouncing in her chair, “that one of the four of us possess, since if they’d found it, they would certainly have packed up and gone home.”
“Possibly,” Pearl said. “Now, I recall that when I was a child …”
“Whoa!” Riprap said, holding up one broad hand, the pinkish tan of the palm a vivid contrast to the darker skin that covered the rest of him. “Pearl, are you just speculating, or do you have something specific in mind?”
Pearl looked a little surprised at being interrupted, but said courteously, “Just speculating, I suppose.”
“We can speculate,” Riprap went on, “about things we can’t know—like what they’re looking for and why they want our memories all encased in crystal—for a long time, and even if we touch on the right answer, we won’t know. Before we get too far off the events of last night, I’d like to note one thing that really puzzles me.”
“Go ahead,” Pearl prompted. “You’re right. Even speculation would be more productive if we have time to think through possibilities.”
Riprap looked at each of them before going on, as if he could somehow read the answer in their eyes.
“I guess it’s two questions, really. Why did Brenda dream what she did? And why, having dreamed what she did, could she wake up? The rest of us, even Lani, were dead to the world.”
“Let’s start with the dreaming,” Des said, content to shift from one puzzle to another. “Does anyone other than Brenda remember dreaming anything that could be even remotely connected to what happened? Stretch. I’ll accept dreams about real snakes, or dreams about burglars.”
One by one, he looked at the others, and three heads shook “no.”
“Me neither,” Des said, “so Riprap is right to focus in on this. Why did Brenda dream so accurately that she walked right out into the scene she’d dreamed, but none of the rest of us even dreamed a shadow of it?”
“I didn’t know I was dreaming true,” Brenda hastened to clarify. “When I heard someone moving in the hall, I just thought it was Riprap going down for a snack.”
“So you said,” Pearl agreed, her tone comforting, but slightly absent. “I wonder if this is connected to the little rat Brenda manifested when the Three-Legged Toad appeared. She is the first heir apparent I have known ever to do such a thing.”
Nissa nodded. “I was thinking the same thing. I’ve been wondering, could it be something Gaheris Morris did before his memory was taken from him?”
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