Although right at the moment I wished one of us was.
CHAPTER 11
THERE WAS NO REASON FOR OUR HOUSE NOT TO be quiet on a weekday evening but I didn’t like it. I was sure it was the wrong kind of quiet. Val’s last student should have just left. Mom should have just got home—and her car was in the driveway. Ran was maybe home or maybe not yet. But it was always quiet when I came home after school. I only felt so funny because the armydar was scrambling my brains. Or Takahiro was scrambling my . . . whatever.
The gruuaa mobbed me the moment I slid out of the car. Me and Takahiro, but especially me. Something wrong. Something awfully, horribly wrong. Val. Of course. It had to be Vaclass="underline" Val who had brought them here, or who had brought him here. And there still weren’t as many gruuaa as there had been last night, when Val sent most of them with Takahiro—they’d left us at the shelter, and they weren’t here either.
“Maybe you’d better stay with the car,” I said.
“No can do, white girl,” said Jill. I knew that voice. It meant her f-word was telling her stuff, and she wasn’t going to tell me what. “I’ll just roll the windows down a little for our friends.” It was pretty chilly; the Family would be fine. And I was shivering just because of the weather. Just because of the weather. Takahiro held my hand. I had a cape and a hood of gruuaa, and more of them were winding around my feet like cats: they were so urgent and insistent I was almost tripping over them, although there was nothing there to trip over. I waded down the path and opened the front door—and was promptly knocked into Taks, behind me, by a frantic Mongo. He didn’t behave like this: he did enthusiasm, not panic. Nor was he the least bit interested in the car, and he adored other dogs. Majid, I realized, was with us too, and Mongo was even ignoring a cat the size of a wolverine coming into his house.
Mom was sitting curled up at the far end of the sofa, in the dark. The streetlights were coming on outdoors, the curtains were drawn, but she hadn’t turned any lights on. “Mom?” I said. I turned the overhead light on, and she turned her head toward me. Her face was wet with tears. “Mom?”
“They’ve taken him,” she said. “Val. They came and took him away.” Jill slipped past me and went into the kitchen. I heard the kettle banged down on the stove and the little whoosh of the gas lighting. I went and sat by my mother, and took her hands. Several gruuaa climbed up the front of the sofa and pooled in her lap. Mongo pressed up against my leg from the other side and put his nose against her knee.
“Who?” I said. “Where? Where were they taking him?”
She shook her head, but her voice sounded a little stronger when she answered. “The major who was here yesterday—when you were here,” and she nodded at Takahiro, who was sitting beside her on the floor, also wrapped in gruuaa. “Donnelly. He came back with a warrant. He said that Val is . . .” Her voice broke, and the tears began again.
“Mom,” I said. I hated seeing my mother cry. I’d seen her cry after Dad died—but not like this. She’d been shattered by Dad’s death—but she’d also been angry, and full of a blazing energy, determined to protect Ran and me, and keep our crippled family a family. But now she was crying helplessly, exhaustedly, despairingly. It made me feel five years old, and more scared than I’d ever been in my life.
“The warrant says he’s a magician and a spy,” she said softly. “That they know who he really is, and that he only got into this country by some—some trick. They said they were sorry for me, for having been—” She stopped talking, pulled her hands away from mine and put them over her face. I put my arms around her and she laid her head on my shoulder and wept like a little girl.
Jill arrived with a tray. “Coffee with extra sugar,” she said. “And a ham sandwich. Shocky people should eat.” Mom sat up and was beginning to shake her head. “My mom says,” added Jill, although it was exactly what my own mom would say if it had been happening to someone else. Jill picked up the plate and offered it. It was three against one (four, counting Mongo. Five, counting Majid. Even if they were staring at the sandwich rather than Mom). Mom reluctantly took a half, looked at it, and bit into it doubtfully.
Jill’s mom was right (of course). You could see my mom settling down a little. She got through nearly half of her half sandwich before she laid it down. “We’re going to my sister upstate,” she said in what was almost her normal voice. “They’ve taken my husband, why shouldn’t I want to go to my sister for a while?” Even if she is notorious for pro bono work for people accused of magic, I added silently. “There are a lot of people leaving town till they get this cobey rift shut down thoroughly—and turn the armydar off. They’re starting to call it a rift—there’s a rumor that another cobey opened at the north end of town.” The park—and us—were near the southwest end. So it was a series, and it was getting longer. A lot had happened while we were lying low at the shelter. “Tennel & Zeet is closing, and they’ve canceled school for the rest of the week—Val’s last tutorial didn’t bother to show up—the army has decided they want the sheltered buildings for military use.
“I’ve already called Gwenda—her groundline crashed after about a minute, but she’s expecting us. I was just thinking about what we need to take with us when . . . when it all kind of caught up with me.” She took a deep breath. “Takahiro, you should come with us. We can go past your place on our way out of town for whatever you want to bring with you. I’ll talk to Kay. . . . Electric angels, what is that,” she added, having just caught sight of Majid.
“That’s Majid,” I said. “We—er—there are a few more in Jill’s car.”
“Cats?” said Mom, baffled.
“Well, dogs, actually,” I said. “But the gruuaa all left while we were at the shelter—when they took Val, I guess. And Taks said the animals—our ordinary animals help. There are a few gruuaa here, although most of them must have gone with Val. . . . How are you?” I said to Takahiro.
“I’m okay,” he said. He smiled at me. “Don’t worry.”
Mom, who has Mom Instinct and knows me way too well, was distracted from everything—even Val—by Takahiro’s smile. Taks wasn’t a big smiler, ordinarily, and the situation wasn’t exactly a big-smiley one. She turned to look at me pretty hard. “Hmm,” she said. “Jill, your mom called and wanted to know if I knew where you were—the armydar was interfering with the signal for your pocket phone and she couldn’t get hold of you. I’m sorry, I should have told you at once. She called before . . . before . . .” Mom’s voice wavered briefly. “She sounded pretty upset. We’ve got a groundphone in the kitchen.”