Esme Shenske was her mother.
She was still shaking when she found Lain at Reinholds'. The xenobiologist was dressed in winter clothing and running the slim willowy limbs through a machine. She glanced up as Tinker stormed into the big freezer.
"What is it, dear?" Lain paused to pluck something off the limb and place it in a jar.
"Look at this! Look!" Tinker thrust the form into Lain's hands.
Lain took the paper, scanned it, and said quietly. "Oh."
"Oh? Oh? That's all you have to say?"
"I'm not sure what to say."
Something about Lain's tone, the lack of surprise, her uneasiness got through, and after a stunned moment, Tinker cried, "You knew!"
"Yes, I knew."
"You've known all along!"
"Yes."
"How could you lie to me all this time? I thought you…" She swallowed down the word "loved", terrified to have to hear it denied. "…cared for me."
"I love you. I have wanted to tell you about Esme for so very long, but you have to understand, I couldn't."
"Couldn't?"
Lain sighed and her breath misted in the freezing cold. "You don't know everything. There's so much that I had to keep from you."
"What the hell does that mean?"
"It means what it means." Lain busied herself labeling the jar; the contents wriggled like worms. "Don't come storming in here all hurt and emotional about something that can't be changed."
"You could have told me!"
"No, I couldn't have," Lain said.
" Tinker, my sister is your mother. See how easy!" And then cause and effect kicked in. "Oh my gods, you're my aunt."
"Yes, I am."
"But what about those tests you did to show Oilcan and I were still related? You used your own DNA as a comparison."
"I didn't use my own. I used a stored test result. I wanted to make it clear that you and Oilcan are still cousins."
Tinker could only stare, feeling betrayed.
"Oh put the hurt eyes away. I have been here for you, loving you as much as humanly possible. What does it matter you called me Lain instead of Aunt Lain? I have always given you the care I would give my niece, no matter what you or anyone else might know." Lain snorted with disgust. "I always thought that Esme was a result of lavish parenting until you came along - daily I've been stunned to realize it was all actually genetic."
"That hurts." Tinker snapped.
"What does?"
"That you could look at me and see my mother and never share that with me."
"Nothing about your birth and life has been cut and dried. I suppose that was one reason I wasn't that surprised when - out of the blue - you changed species."
A sound of hurt forced itself out of Tinker, and Lain came to fold her into a hug.
"Oh ladybug, I'm sorry, but I did my best."
"Can we get out of here and talk? It's very creepy and cold."
"Oh, love." Lain sighed, rubbing Tinker on her back. "This is the only time I'm actually going to be able to do this."
Tinker pulled out of her hold. "What are you doing that's so damn important?"
"I'm justifying all your hard work at preserving this." Lain gave her a hard look that meant that she thought Tinker was acting spoiled. "I'm scanning the structure of living limbs before this thing wakes up."
"What are these?" Tinker picked one of the jars. Inside, small reddish-brown capsules had broken open, spilling out tiny, hairy green seed-like things, all wriggling like worms.
"Those are its seeds," Lain said. "It's possible that the Ghostlands somehow drained the tree of magic and made it inactive. It hasn't accumulated enough to wake, but the seeds need less magic."
"Seeds - are - fruit, aren't they?"
"Yes, dear." Lain focused on the limbs.
Okay, I have the fruit. Now what? Tinker eyed the seeds as they wriggled about. "I think -"
"Yes?"
"I think - Esme is trying to drive me nuts."
"Ah, that means you're family."
Tinker shoved the jar at Pony to keep while she continued her argument. "Why didn't you tell me? Why did you and Grandpa keep it a secret? Why Esme? Was she in love with my father?"
"I never knew why Esme did any of the things she did. She certainly never explained herself. I don't think she ever knew your father. I didn't think she knew your grandfather and yet - somehow - they managed to create you. She called me from a roadside pay phone right before she left Earth. She told that she'd hidden clues to her greatest treasure in my house the last time she had visited but wouldn't say anything more. She kept repeating, 'the evil empire might be listening, and I don't want them to have it' like she was some type of rebel spy."
"Huh?" Tinker felt as if the conversation just veered around a blind corner. "What evil empire?"
"That's what we called our family; the empire of evil. Our stepfather was Ming the Merciless, his son was Crown Prince Kiss Butt and our half brothers were Flying Monkeys Four and Five."
Tinker fought to ignore the sudden intrusion of Wizard of Oz into the conversation. "I was her greatest treasure?"
"Yes." Lain went back to examining the limbs. "Although I'm stunned that she had the maturity to recognize that. I was expecting something more trivial like her diary, or bearer bonds she'd stolen off our stepfather. But no, it was a copy of that form, and your grandfather's address, and a note saying 'Watch over my child. Don't tell the empire of evil - or a world away won't be far enough.' No please, no thank you, no why she had done it."
"So you're not happy that I was born?"