“Remember how I said Alyssa would like to see you?” Mouth said. “She keeps asking after you. She misses you.” Sophie hesitated a moment longer, then bobbed her head.
Upstairs, Alyssa took one look at the two of them, and barked a string of Argelan curses. She didn’t need her cane much anymore, but she leaned on it as she gathered coffee and dark water and greasy fried things. Sophie fell into the big rattan chair, where Martindale had sat. Mouth slouched opposite.
Sophie’s face had always shown her feelings, thanks to her wide hazel eyes and the way her cheeks dimpled whenever she smiled. But now she had just shut down. She wasn’t even scowling, like when she’d followed Mouth around back in Xiosphant. She just stared ahead, with her mouth slightly open.
Some time passed, maybe a lot of time, before Mouth could get words out again.
“I’m out there in total nothing, feeling the shadows creep over me, and then this creature is showing me a million things at once. Felt like I was falling into that canyon at the end of the world. My mind keeps vomiting up crocodile memories.” Mouth let the steam from the coffee burn her sore eyes. “I don’t know how you handle it.”
“I don’t know. Maybe I just let it overwhelm me. The first time it happened, I was desperate to leave my own body.”
Mouth didn’t know what to say to make this any better. Mouth had been hoping for some kind of Answer, the kind of truth she couldn’t get from Barney, or from the Invention. But it was worse for Sophie—she’d strung way too many hopes onto this one thing, and they’d all broken at once.
This was just too much death at once, without a clean way to mourn.
Alyssa was still piecing together what had happened, and her stream of Argelan curses and sayings still hadn’t slowed down.
Sophie looked up at her. “What did you say? That last thing. What was that?”
“Oh,” Alyssa said. “I was saying, it’s like Mouth is your jinx.”
“Wow, thanks,” Mouth said. “I already feel bad enough.”
This distracted Sophie, so she stopped torturing herself for a moment. “I’ve been trying to understand that phrase ever since I got here. I thought maybe it meant a troubled friendship, or a love that can’t ever become real.”
Sophie pronounced “jinx” all wrong, like “an-kur-ban-tir.”
Alyssa laughed, scaring Sophie and Mouth, who were both still in shock. “No, not exactly.” She explained slowly, in Xiosphanti: “This word just means bad luck. I’m oversimplifying. But your jinx is the person who always shows up and ruins everything for you, just by being there. You can’t get rid of them, whatever you do. Like your fate is intertwined with theirs, and you can’t escape until you figure out why you’re connected. Or if you can learn to live with your jinx, then sometimes the two of you can cooperate to wreck things for everyone else.”
“It’s more sentimental Argelan shit.” Mouth barely had enough energy to be insulted. “And that’s not really what it means. It can be a good thing, if you make peace with it.”
“That’s what I just said,” Alyssa said. “Everybody has their own explanation. But mine is the right one. Your jinx could be someone you hate, or a friend, or even a stranger. But you can’t ignore them, whoever they are.”
Even though Alyssa had just accused Mouth of being an indelible curse on Sophie’s life, all this chatter somehow restored a feeling of normality. Like, they were alive and life had continuity, and they were at home, with oily food and bad drinks. You don’t come back from the night and start dancing and cracking jokes—let alone a trip where you touched an unthinkable consciousness, and everyone else died. Mouth kept almost shaking and gasping, but she tried to control her tremors, because Sophie needed comfort more.
Sophie kept quiet, except that a few times she blurted out that she had no place to go. She couldn’t even stand to be with herself. She couldn’t face Ahmad, or Bianca. And she was worried about having to make nice with Dash, who was sort of Bianca’s boyfriend now.
“You’re staying here,” Alyssa said, not like an invitation, but an order. “We never even use that bed, because we’re so used to sleeping in a confined space. If Mouth bothers you, I’ll kick her out.”
Mouth felt weird having Sophie crash in their tiny apartment. She was sure Sophie would never forgive her for almost getting Bianca killed back in Xiosphant, and, probably, Mouth didn’t deserve forgiveness. Sophie also seemed to hesitate about staying under their roof after, well, everything. But then Alyssa told her, “Trust me. If Mouth is your jinx, you ought to get used to her garbage. Or if she isn’t, then no harm done. Right?”
Alyssa wouldn’t hear any more argument, and started wrapping the bed for Sophie, Argelan style.
When Alyssa was out of earshot, Sophie leaned over and said to Mouth: “This idea that you’re my ‘jinx.’ I guess Alyssa is really eager to find a reason why nothing is your fault.”
Mouth cringed. “I’m sure you’re right. At the same time, though, she also truly does believe in this stuff.”
“Alyssa still trusts you. You’d better not ever betray her.” Sophie’s tone was somewhere between a threat and friendly advice.
That feeling Mouth had gotten when that crocodile first touched her, of toppling into formless shadow, came back for a moment, along with the old familiar pain in that tight spot right behind her brow.
But Mouth just said, “I won’t.” She couldn’t help thinking about the worst part of the crocodile’s memories. “I have to ask you something. When the crocodiles—I mean the Gelet—spoke to you before… I know it’s not speaking, not really, but when they put things in your head… Did they show you something about flowers inside a volcano?”
Sophie thought for a moment. “Flowers, no. They did show me how they used lava, deep underground, for power. And they had some huge projects where they created living organisms, deep underground, to try and control the climate. But it went wrong. A lot of their children died from toxic rainfall.”
They sat for a long time. Alyssa was in the raised washroom, filling a basin with hot water for Sophie. And for Mouth, who felt less and less like a person who deserved kindness.
“I think I’m having a spiritual crisis,” Mouth told Barney, who was basting a large sheep carcass with a two-handed brush and something that looked like tree sap.
“Well, damn,” Barney said. “You’ve been trying to have a spiritual crisis ever since you came to town. I’m glad you finally succeeded.”
“That’s not fair,” Mouth said.
Mouth had stopped asking Barney about the Citizens, because she couldn’t think of any new questions or summon the energy to keep asking the old ones. Mouth just wanted to watch Barney at work, to try to see the saint in him. Maybe the way he seemed to remember all his regulars, and asked them solicitous questions. Or the way he hovered nearby while two young mothers sat, half awake, next to three babbling, kicking toddlers. Barney stood, innocuous as furniture, in case these women needed anything or the children broke something. Mouth watched Barney tend to his three small tables and felt a longing so powerful it choked off some of the flow of blood to her head.
“I know you think I ought to have something to tell you,” Barney said, in midstroke of his brush. “That I owe you something, because I walked away before the end.”
Mouth didn’t react, except to unknot her hands a bit. She didn’t know what she wanted anymore.
“I don’t know why they didn’t give you a name.” Barney turned the sheep on its axis. “I think maybe you just weren’t impulsive enough for them. They wanted people who would act without stopping to think, to follow their hearts instead of their heads. Sometimes on the road you have to react quickly. But they also didn’t want you to think when you ought to be feeling. I don’t know if that makes sense.”