“It was a disguise.”
Bobbie made a sound that was half laugh, half disbelief. “What was she pretending to be? One of those traffic cones humans put on the street when they’re making repairs?”
Simon growled softly, offended on Meg’s behalf. Then he noticed how they were all looking at one another, and he had an idea. “Why don’t you ask some of the Courtyard residents about Meg?”
“She’s known to more than the Business Association?” Jackson Wolfgard asked, sounding startled.
Vlad laughed. “I think everyone in the Lakeside Courtyard can tell you a story about Meg.”
“We’ll meet back in the library in a couple of hours?” Alan said, looking at everyone.
“Might as well leave the clothing there,” Bobbie Beargard said. “Any chance of something to eat when we get back?”
Simon nodded. “Tess said she’ll have coffee and breakfast foods available, and Meat-n-Greens is serving a variety of food throughout the day.”
“Will we have a chance to observe the Courtyard’s other human employees?” Bobbie asked.
“Yes.”
All the guests ambled back to the library to discard their clothes and shift, leaving Simon and Vlad standing behind the Liaison’s Office.
“You have enough to think about,” Vlad said. “You should let Blair explain the ‘no live toys’ rule to Skippy.”
“Let’s hope he didn’t find that toy in the office,” Simon grumbled.
“It could have been worse.”
Simon snorted. “How?”
Vlad grinned. “Skippy could have found a rat.”
The guests returned to the library a couple of hours later. Most gave Simon and Vlad wary looks. Alan looked intrigued, and Charlie was clearly amused, especially when Joe and Jackson returned with their fur encrusted with snow and chunks of ice clinging to their tails.
The Elementals or the ponies must have heard those two expressing an unfavorable opinion about Meg, Simon thought.
“We all have a lot to think about,” Cheryl Hawkgard said. She hesitated. “These blood prophets. They can’t all be like your Meg.”
“No, they can’t,” he replied. “But I don’t think we should blame them for being a weapon when no one is giving them a choice.”
CHAPTER 22
On Watersday, Meg took the broom and dustpan out of the storage area while Merri Lee began cleaning the kitchen area in the office’s back room.
“It was kind of strange this morning,” Merri Lee said. “All these terra indigene leaders filling up the tables at A Little Bite, with Ruth, Theral, Lawrence, and Michael sitting at one table playing the part of human customers. And Lorne coming in to buy coffee and pastry to take back to the Three Ps. And Jenni Crowgard and her sisters sitting at a table, all flustered and giggling.”
Meg stopped sweeping. “Why would Jenni be flustered? She has a high standing with the Crowgard here. Doesn’t she?”
Merri Lee grinned. “I got the impression that Charlie Crowgard is a celebrity among the Crows. I think Jenni … Well, it would be like me sitting near a human film star I had a crush on.”
Meg nodded. She didn’t understand the feeling, but she turned the words into a kind of image that she could recall later.
“Anyway, a couple of things struck me. This was the terra indigene elite who deal with humans, and I don’t think most of them had ever been in a coffee shop or had a meal in a restaurant like Meat-n-Greens.”
Meg frowned but continued sweeping. Merri Lee’s words had layers. She wanted to stop and concentrate, but she had the impression Merri was talking in order to understand, and Meg didn’t want anything to shut off the words.
“For instance, they were all going to take a spoonful of honey and eat it off the spoon instead of drizzling it on the warm scones Tess provided.” Merri Lee went into the bathroom to rinse off the cleaning cloth.
“Would just eating the honey be bad?” Meg asked, raising her voice to be heard over the running water. She felt a tingle in her left arm. Why would mentioning jars of honey start the pins-and-needles feeling?
Merri Lee returned to the back room. “Not bad in itself.” She opened the wave cooker and wiped out the inside. “But it would be something snobs would point to as proof the Others weren’t really equal to humans. After all, they don’t even know how to properly eat honey.” Her voice took on a condescending tone. Then she stopped working and looked at Meg. “I thought it was kind of strange that Mr. Wolfgard was hiring Ruth to teach terra indigene how to do human things—simple things like placing an order in a restaurant or when to use a fork and when to use a spoon. But we learn those things at home, don’t we? And if you don’t know those things, other people think less of you.”
Do they? Meg wondered. Do you think less of me because of all the things I don’t know? She didn’t think that was true of the girls who worked in the Courtyard, but it revealed how vulnerable she would have been outside the compound if she had landed anywhere but here.
“It made me realize how progressive this Courtyard is compared to the other ones that keep watch over human cities.” Merri Lee pushed her hair back, then picked up the electric teakettle. “And it made me wonder how many times a human said, ‘This is how it’s done,’ and misled the terra indigene so they would look foolish in their dealings with other humans. I began to understand how things could have gone wrong in Talulah Falls and other towns. If the Others can’t trust us to be honest about something simple like when to use a fork or a spoon, why would they trust what we say about anything important?” She turned and stared at Meg. “Why are you rubbing your arm? What’s wrong? Should I call Tess?”
“What?” Meg looked down and watched her right hand rub her left forearm, trying to ease the prickling. “No. Don’t call Tess.”
“Meg?” Merri Lee sounded alarmed.
She stared back at her friend. Merri Lee was holding a teakettle. She was holding a broom.
“Teakettle and broom,” she whispered. She had seen a broom and teakettle in the prophecy about sharks and poison.
“Oh, gods,” Merri Lee said. “The last two images we couldn’t place.”
“I don’t want Skippy in the front room by himself.” The prickling under Meg’s skin increased. She set the broom aside and went to the front room.
Skippy was tossing a ball and chasing after it. Since the ball left a wet mark every time it bounced, Meg figured he’d been at it long enough that she wouldn’t want to pick up something with that much slobber on it.
“Skippy, come into the sorting room.” Meg pulled back the slide bolt on the go-through’s wide top, allowing him to come behind the counter and enter the sorting room through the Private door.
Skippy looked at her for a moment before tossing the ball again.
She didn’t know if he was deliberately ignoring her or if this was one of those times when his brain skipped and what she’d said was forgotten so fast it left no impression.
“Want a cookie?”
That made an impression. She stepped out of the way to avoid being knocked down by his rush to find the cookie.
With Skippy safely in the sorting room, Meg closed the go-through, sliding the top bolt into place. Then, gritting her teeth as the prickling in her arm increased, she slid the two hidden bolts into place.
Returning to the back room with Skippy dancing beside her, she opened the container that held the cookies she’d set aside for him. It was tempting to give him a piece of the chamomile, but just reaching for it made her hands buzz. So she gave him a cow cookie and watched him settle on the floor near the small table and chairs.
She didn’t protest when Merri Lee took her arm and led her back into the sorting room.
“What’s going on?” Merri Lee said. “The broom and teakettle were clues. What does that mean?”