Speaking of Grandma, she was taking dinner out of the oven when Grandpa and I walked into the kitchen. She raised her head and smiled. “Alex! You’re home early.”
I glanced at the clock. “It’s almost six. I need to work on my definition of ‘early.’”
“But you can’t argue with me, now, can you?” She handed the covered casserole dish to my grandfather, who didn’t need oven mitts to transport it safely to the table. “Give me a hug and wash your hands before you put your nametag on. We’re having shepherd’s pie for dinner.”
“I love your shepherd’s pie.” I obligingly hugged her before moving to the sink. I couldn’t stop myself from glancing toward the dining room door as I turned the water on. “How is she?”
Grandma sighed. “It’s not her best day,” she admitted. “She’s still having trouble remembering who I am. But she’s up and moving around under her own power, and she picked her own clothes out this morning. So that’s a good sign.”
“Grandma . . .”
“I know, I know. But it’s not like there’s a manual for this, all right, Alex? There’s no one I can ask. Sarah will get better at her own pace.”
“Or she won’t.” I tried to keep my words gentle. I didn’t quite succeed.
My cousin Sarah is a cuckoo, like Grandma, even though they’re probably not biologically related. Like all cuckoos, she manipulates the memories of the people around her as a sort of natural defense, making them feel like she belongs. Well, a few months ago, the Covenant of St. George managed to corner my sister, Verity. If they’d been able to take her back to Europe with them, they could have learned everything there is to know about our family, starting with the part where we still exist, despite being officially wiped out after the Covenant branded us as traitors to humanity. (The Covenant of St. George: assholes with a cause. They want to wipe out all the “monsters” in the world, and the definition they use encompasses most of my family. Oh, and that thing about us being traitors to humanity? That’s because we used to be members of the Covenant. Hell hath no fury like a centuries-old organization of zealots scorned.)
Verity couldn’t let that happen. Sarah couldn’t let that happen, and so she stepped in and used what’s supposed to be a passive defense in an active fashion, revising the Covenant’s memories of what they’d seen in New York. The result was a bunch of brain-blasted operatives . . . and one brain-burnt cousin.
Grandma went to New York to bring Sarah home. I moved in with them three days later.
My grandmother looked at me silently for a moment, processing my contradiction. Then she nodded, very slightly, and commanded, “Dry your hands, put on your nametag, and bring the biscuits.”
“Yes, ma’am.” I’ve always found it best to do as I was told when dealing with my grandmother. Both my grandmothers, really. Dad’s mom isn’t any less terrifying when crossed.
The nametag was preprinted, large block letters on a white background. ALEX. Without her telepathy, Sarah—whose species didn’t evolve with the need to recognize faces, thanks to their habit of reading minds—couldn’t tell one person from another. That included her family. She could normally have told us apart by voice, but as bad as she’d been lately, that was by no means a guarantee. Nametags made things a little easier on her, and hence a lot easier on the rest of us.
Grandpa had already dished out the shepherd’s pie when we got to the dining room. I put down the biscuits at the center of the table and took my seat across from Sarah, pulling my plate closer to me. Her plate was conspicuously empty. That meant this wasn’t one of the days when she could be trusted with a fork. This was going to be a fun dinner.
“Hi, Sarah,” I said.
She kept her eyes fixed on the table as she mumbled something I couldn’t understand. A brief pressure at my temples informed me that she was trying to make contact. I was once again grateful for the anti-telepathy charm Grandma insisted I keep on me until Sarah’s recovery was finished. Sarah no longer remembered enough about her own strength to watch her volume, and I didn’t need another migraine from her screaming inside my head.
“Here you go, sweetheart,” said Grandma, placing a biscuit on Sarah’s plate. It was liberally smeared with ketchup. Sarah didn’t react. Sighing, Grandma kissed the top of her head. “Just eat when you feel like it, Sarah. That’s all we need from you right now.” She took her own seat, shoulders slightly slumped.
I know Sarah did what she did of her own free will. I know Verity didn’t ask to be captured by the Covenant. But sometimes, when I saw my grandmother looking so defeated, I just wanted to scream at both of them for having been so careless.
Instead, I stuck my fork in my shepherd’s pie, and asked, “Have either of you heard anything about lindworms in Ohio?”
“Not in a long time,” said Grandpa. “Why?”
I smiled, trying to make the expression seem sincere. Maybe I couldn’t make Sarah better or figure out how to balance my duties and my social life, but I could do this. I could be there for my family, and I could help them remember that they weren’t alone, no matter how bad things got. “Dee and I went out into the swamp to gather fricken samples today . . .” I began.
This was dinner with my family. Everything else could wait a little while.
Three
“Our relationship with the mice is . . . complicated. Just remember that being a god doesn’t actually give you any authority and you’ll be fine.”
—Kevin Price
A nice, if borrowed, bedroom in an only moderately creepy suburban home in Columbus, Ohio
A MADDENED CHORUS OF exultations greeted me when I opened the bedroom door. It increased in volume when the congregation caught sight of the tray I was balancing on my left arm. “HAIL! HAIL! HAIL THE ARRIVAL OF THE DINNER!” Crow, who was curled up in the cat bed on top of the wardrobe, croaked his amusement at the scene. At least, I hoped it was amusement. The last thing I wanted was a war between my resident griffin and my splinter colony of Aeslin mice.
Yes, mice: talking, intelligent mice that worship the Price men as gods—which is a very long story that no one seems to fully understand, not even those of us in the pantheon. There’s a reason Crow is the closest thing to a cat that anyone in my family has ever had.
The rodent rejoicing continued as I stepped into the room and closed the door behind myself, and they reached a fever pitch when I raised my right hand to signal that I was about to speak. There were only thirty mice in my splinter of the family colony, but thirty mice can make a hell of a lot of noise when they feel so inclined, and Aeslin mice anticipating their dinner are always so inclined.
“Quiet, please,” I requested.
The mice quieted down, ever obedient to the dictates of their gods. They sat back on their haunches and wrapped their tails around their hind legs, fixing their glittering black eyes firmly on me as they waited for me to proclaim some pearls of godly wisdom. That, or feed them. To the Aeslin mice, those concepts were basically one and the same.
“I will need three assistants to help me sort feathers tonight, and three more to help articulate fricken skeletons this coming weekend,” I said. “The colony will be paid for the labor in cheese and cake. Is this acceptable?”
Judging by the wild cheering that overtook the Aeslin, it was acceptable. I waited for them to calm down before I said, “This is for science. Science rules will be in effect during the work.”