The trunk touched it. Burgess sucked in the powder. “Now we wait,” Amos said. “If he has an adverse reaction, we’ll give him the other, quickly, because that’s likely to be the right one. With more of the right one, he should be better able to handle the wrong one.”
“Yeah.”
“A penny for your thoughts, Colene.”
“I’m married. I really am married. To Darius.”
“You really are, Colene. I realize that it doesn’t seem like it at the moment, considering what you were doing during the ceremony. But that will pass. I wish you a long and happy relationship, wherever you may be. You deserve it.”
“No, I don’t. I’m depressive. I’m unclean.”
“Damn it, Colene, you aren’t! You’re thinking of that rape, and it’s just not so. It was those boys who—you know, something strange happened yesterday. It was in the paper this morning. Four boys turned themselves in for rape. Was that you?”
“Darius and Seqiro did it.” She smiled. “Not the rape. The mind. They made the boys confess. They’d done it to other girls, so it will be one of those other cases that comes to court. But we’re responsible.”
“I’m glad to hear it. So any lingering problem you had with that can be ameliorated. You were a victim, and despite the attitude of too many ignoramuses, it is not a crime to be a victim. So enjoy your marriage, Colene; you have earned it.”
“Yeah, maybe,” she said, cheering.
“And there was something else. Very strange.”
“The Sin Eater,” she agreed. “Darius and Seqiro gave everyone in that slum the same feelings Raff has. To show them what it’s like.”
His mouth pursed appreciatively. “That should teach them manners!”
“We wanted to make Raff happy, but there was no way. So we made it even. And Darius even got back at the punks who beat him up, by setting them against the Chain Gang.”
“Your friends are amazing!”
“Yeah,” she agreed, pleased. “They’re great. All of them. Including Burgess, here.”
Amos got up. “I have other business to attend to. But do let me know how this works out.”
“The wedding night?”
“The medication, you little tease! I want to know that this most remarkable of creatures is well again. It has been the experience of my life, knowing him. Knowing all of you.”
“Don’t you want to be the first to kiss the bride?”
“Colene, you sneak-kissed me twice, and I’m a married man. The school will think I’m putting a move on—” He broke off. “That’s all of the ceremony you can have, isn’t it? You sacrificed the rest. Yes, I’ll kiss you, Colene. But don’t tell. Others would never understand.”
“Others don’t matter.”
He got down beside her and kissed her lightly on the mouth. She felt the tenderness in his mind. He understood so well, and he was genuinely happy for her. It was wonderful.
“Thanks, Amos,” she said faintly.
“You’re welcome, Mrs. Darius.”
She laughed. The universe was looking brighter. She could make it as Mrs. Darius. She would succeed in marriage—or die trying. Ha-ha.
“You will be reconsidering your status, in much the way paleontologists reconsidered the Burgess Shale, and perhaps coming to similarly momentous revelations. I wish you the best on the Virtual Mode, Colene.”
“I think I have the best already, Amos. I’m glad we stopped by here. It was good to see you, and to get other things settled.” That was the understatement of the month.
Then Burgess stirred.
“Oops—it’s a seizure,” Amos said.
Colene clapped both hands on contact points. “No it isn’t!” she cried gladly. “He’s recovering! I can feel the strength surging through.”
Yes, that was what he needed. They had found the elixir of his health.
“That was Burgess talking,” she said. She squeezed the points. “Oh, airfoot, it was worth it! You’re cured!”
Burgess sucked in air, smoothly. Colene let go, and he blasted air out below, lifting smoothly from the ground for the first time since coming to Earth. Then he settled, tired.
He needed more magnesium.
They put more out for him, not too much, lest he overdose. He took it in, and rested, waiting for it to be digested.
“It was worth it,” Amos echoed, watching. “There should be enough magnesium in that jar to hold him for years. If you ever stop by here again, be sure to look me up.” Then he left Colene to her reconsideration of her status.
CHAPTER 14—PROBLEMS
NONA had to admit that the odd Earth customs had their points. The ritual of the wedding, with the fancy gown, and music, and cake, and dancing—that was nice. It had been a genuinely moving occasion, despite the fact that she was only playing a part. She had been standing in for Colene, the real bride. It was too bad that Colene had had to miss her own ceremony, but at least she now had her heart’s desire: marriage to Darius.
Now they were riding back to Colene’s kingdom of Oklahoma, from the neighboring kingdom of Texas, where proxy marriages were permitted to girls of fourteen. Colene’s parents had been very nice about both the wedding and the proxy aspect, thanks in part to Seqiro’s influence. But it was also because the parents had had serious difficulties in their own marriage, and felt guilty because Colene had suffered thereby, and were trying to make it up to her. This wedding was the symbol of their makeup. In this, at least, they could give their daughter the best. Then forever after they could remember that beautiful occasion, and believe that everything had worked out for the best. Nona had lost her own parents, as a result of the strife entailed in the changing of the animus to anima on Oria. Actually they had not been her birth parents, because of a ruse intended to conceal Nona’s nature as the ninth of the ninth. But they had been the ones she had known for all of her life, and she loved them, and only magic grief-healing had enabled her to carry through in the first days after the news of their deaths. Gradually she was eliminating the magic and assuming more of the grief herself; only when she could handle the whole of it would she be emotionally stable in her natural state. Here on Earth, substituting for Colene, she found herself warming to these parents, who were truly hurting, if in a different way. So while Nona was a mere proxy for the wedding, there were aspects of it that were meaningful for her personally.
She had to admit, privately, that it had been fun kissing and dancing with Darius. He was the kind of man she would like to have, at such time as she was ready to have a man. So was Amos, Colene’s science teacher. Neither was muscular or physically prepossessing, but both had knowledge and special abilities, and a keen sense of right and wrong. It was intellect and conscience that most truly distinguished one man from another.
They reached the thicket where Seqiro snoozed. The horse’s mind remained attuned to the two of them, so that they could converse and understand Colene’s parents, but he was otherwise at rest. Darius was about to get out to ride the horse back, but Nona stopped him. “You have a wife to return to. I will go with Seqiro tonight.”
He looked surprised. Then he nodded. Colene was now Old Enough, by the standard of her culture.
So Nona got out and joined the horse, and Darius remained in the car with the parents. Nona watched the vehicle depart, then floated up to land on Seqiro’s broad back. She had been careful not to use her magic during the wedding; though the people had been placed there by the caterer, they would have noticed something that did not follow the normal rules of science. She had been similarly discreet with Colene’s parents. Only with Amos, at Colene’s direction, had she demonstrated her powers. And during the ceremony, using illusion to make herself resemble Colene. Seqiro had sent the scene back to Colene without the illusion, because Colene understood. But now, alone with Seqiro, she had no need for concealment.