“Runyon?” I said, or squeaked.
“There’s no reason Maggie shouldn’t go to Runyon next year, is there?” Mom said. That wasn’t what I was thinking about, but I didn’t say anything.
He shook his head. “But it is odd. I do not like odd in these circumstances.”
I didn’t mean to say it. “I met someone tonight who—who is here to study with someone at Runyon. It’s why he’s here.”
“What does he wish to study?” said Val.
“Physwiz,” I said reluctantly, wishing I’d had the sense to keep my big mouth shut. “The physics of the worlds. Not magic. You can’t study practical magic at any university here. Just history and stuff.”
“I do not yet understand how it is here,” said Val. “In Orzaskan you would not study what you call the physics of the worlds unless you were to be taught magic. The one balances the other, to the extent that balance is possible. Some of my students here have the most extraordinary lacunae in their education.”
“You can get a degree in physwiz here,” I said. “But only a loophead would, and everyone who does is swallowed up by the government. But there aren’t that many of them—graduates with degrees. Most people stress out by their second year and switch majors.” Or go crazy, I thought. “There are a bunch of required—short—seminars in your senior year of high school about it. But it’s all history and safety and how Genecor was right.” Mom, whose grandmother had taken her children to the Genecor guys, shifted in her chair. I’d noticed years ago that she did this little automatic pro-Genecor sales pitch any time they were mentioned. She didn’t this time. I went on: “And there are still a lot of kids who bring notes from their doctors that they don’t have to take the physwiz one. I won’t have to because silverbugs make me sick, but lots of people who could step on silverbugs forever and never notice anything still manage to get out of physwiz. Worst-attended class ever, year after year. That’s how scared most people are of the whole subject.”
Mongo stirred, and I let go of him. I’d probably been hanging onto him too hard. But he didn’t get off the sofa to do his usual burglar patrol, checking all the windows he could reach, and all the doors (including cupboard doors. Okay, mouse patrol. Also cupboard-door-not-quite-shut-that-clever-dog-could-open-that-might-have-FOOD-in-it patrol). He just lay down and hung his head over the edge of the sofa. I looked down and went “eeeee.”
One of Val’s shadows had detached itself from the wriggly pool around his feet and slithered, or whatevered, over to the sofa. Mongo was—ewwww—doing something like touching noses—noses?—with it. If you can touch noses (or any other body parts) with a shadow. If it was a shadow thing, with a head—then it had too many legs. One of my big problems with Val’s shadows all along: they all had too many things like legs. Eeeee. But Mongo’s ears were half-back in the meeting-friend position, and his tail gave a flop, and then another flop.
“Maggie,” said my mother, and I realized she’d said it a couple of times already. I must have said “eeeee” out loud.
I felt like if I moved or said anything (okay, any words) it would notice me . . . maybe it had only noticed Mongo? I stared at it. If this end was its head, the head was kind of spade-shaped—like a snake’s head. Except it was all blurry and spiky around the edges. Your eyes couldn’t actually handle what they were seeing. You kept checking that the shadow was there at all by the fact that you couldn’t see through it. At the same time that it was scaring you into a pile of rusty bolts.
My pulse was hammering in my ears and I felt like I might throw up. Mongo put his front paws on the floor and began to sniff along the thing’s side—like he might do another dog—in spite of all the legs. In spite of it being a shadow thing. Against Mongo’s black and white side I lost track of where all of the shadow was. I could still see too much tail (and too many legs) but the front end had kind of vanished. Maybe it was sniffing him back.
“Hix,” said Val softly, and the part of the shadow I could see twitched—very much like a dog hearing the recall and deciding to ignore it.
I didn’t mean to say its name—if I meant to say anything I meant to say “go away” or “help” (or possibly even “Mommy”). But what I said was, “Hix.” And then its head reappeared from where it had been invisible against Mongo, and turned toward me. The head wavered a little, and then rose up higher—higher—two little spots of shadow like feet appeared on the sofa cushions barely an inch from my knees, where I was sitting with my legs bent under me. The head floated toward me . . . I was going to throw up. . . .
I think it was the smell. I want to say it was a sweet smell, or something dreeping like that, and maybe “sweet” is almost what it was. Nice. Friendly. Almost soothing. Definitely anti-throwing-up.
The smell reminded me, suddenly and hard, the way smells can, of the first time we went to visit Aunt Gwenda. The old family house where she and Mom and Rhonwyn and Blanchefleur grew up (Darnel was with his dad most of the time) had sat empty for several years after Grandmom died while the sisters argued about what to do with it. Gwenda lost. She moved her law practice to Highmoor and herself into the old house and started doing renovations. (I really didn’t want to go there because Mom had said there was a mangle in the cellar. It was a long time before I found out it was about laundry.) Mom was obviously tense about the trip, which made me tense (I told you I was that kind of kid. Plus the mangle). It was going to be awful. We were staying for a couple of weeks and I didn’t know anybody in Highmoor; my friends were all in Station.
We were in the car all day, going there. We finally got to the mountains about sunset. I’d never been in mountains before either; Station is flat. When we drove through Highmoor it was totally the sort of place where there’d be mangles in the cellars. It was after midnight when we arrived and Ran, who was still a baby, had been asleep for hours. Dad carried him indoors and Mom tried to rouse me enough to walk. All I wanted was to be at home in my own bed.
But as Mom levered me out of the car the smell woke me up. It was a nice smell. I wouldn’t find out till the next day that it was pine trees. But it completely changed my attitude toward everything in one breath, standing there wobbling and clinging to Mom. (The house was still scary though, even when I found out what the mangle was.)
I hadn’t noticed that Val’s shadows had a smell, but then I don’t think I’d ever been this close to one before. (Thinking about the one—this one?—who had maybe been following me around was still too creepo, so I didn’t think about it.) This close she no longer really looked like a shadow, although I couldn’t say that she looked like anything else either. Flat black only has two dimensions, you know? You can’t see around flat black. You can’t see if it has an around. And I still couldn’t see her. And her edges were still blurry. I didn’t want to throw up any more but whatever was happening was still pretty disturbing. If I didn’t have a name (and a gender) for her I’d be wondering if she was some relative of a cobey. But Mongo liked her. That should mean something. Would he like something that could open a door that our world could fall through and shatter into infinite chaos?
Mongo? Yeah. Probably.
For a moment—just a moment—I thought I saw the flash and sparkle of what I guessed were eyes in the gentle weaving shadow in front of me. They looked a little like silverbugs. And there were three of them.