“So this time it worked?” asked Loaf.
“I pretended I was you and yelled at her to shut up and listen,” said Umbo.
“That never works,” said Loaf.
“It worked when I told her that if she didn’t, she’d never see you again. She finally believes me and now she says to get you home, no matter what happened to you.”
“She believed you, then? That it’s really me behind this mask?”
Umbo told him what Leaky had said.
Loaf laughed. “She’s right. I’m still Loaf, but she’s still Leaky, and that means nobody bosses her around. Except, apparently, you.”
“She chopped wood for half an hour till she was calm enough to listen.”
“I bet it only took her five minutes.”
“It felt very long.”
“So do you think you can get me back home the same day we left?”
“Yes,” said Umbo. “Take my hand.”
“Yes, sir,” said Loaf.
“And cover your face.”
“I’ll cover my face when we get out on the road,” said Loaf.
“We’re going to make the jump at the edge of the road so we don’t accidentally materialize in a sapling.”
“If we’re not going to jump till we get to the road, why am I supposed to hold your hand?” demanded Loaf.
“Because it’s dark,” said Umbo, “and I can’t see in the dark the way you can.”
“A practical reason,” said Loaf. “Good thinking. Only… now I have to wonder. Is this really you?”
Leaky heard the loud banging at the front door. “Whoever you are, go away,” she muttered. “My husband and his idiot-child messenger are coming home and I don’t need company here.” She struggled to her feet—she really had exerted herself with the ax, swinging it too hard and moving too quickly. Now she was a little stiff and she was sure there’d be painful muscles tomorrow.
She made her way through the house and the banging at the door just kept on and on, not so loudly as to suggest damage to the door, but relentlessly, as if the person would never go away without being admitted to the house.
And when she thought of a guest that stubborn, she knew who it was before she even got to the door. My darling Loaf, that fool boy got you here almost before he left off talking to me. I didn’t even have time to get back into the house and unlock the door.
Now she did unlock it, and swung it open, and there he was, his face half-hidden in shadow by a cowl that hung low in front. But she could see at once that something was wrong with the face.
Not with anything else, though. Loaf stood at his full height. She knew those hands, knew that posture, and when he spoke, it was his true voice, only younger and stronger than he had sounded in years. “Hello, my love,” said Loaf. “Nice of you to lock folks out of a roadhouse.”
“I’m saving the big room for my husband and his tame time-shifter. I hear he has a head like an elephant now, and the boy has become very bossy.” She reached up to pull away the hood.
His hand lashed out and caught her by the wrist—but so gently she could hardly feel the pressure of his hand. “Not yet,” said Loaf.
“I can bear anything,” said Leaky.
“But I can’t bear the look on your face if you don’t already know it’s me,” said Loaf.
“Come in then,” she said. “But don’t let go of my hand. I like the feel of you. It reminds me of a man I once slept with.”
“Slept with him a whole lot more than once,” said Loaf, “if it’s the man I’m thinking you mean.”
“What I’m trying to figure out is why that damp-headed boy thinks he’s coming in with us,” said Leaky. “He had his say, and now he waits outside like any other river rat. If he wants to be useful he’ll keep other fools from knocking on the door.”
Umbo backed away. “Don’t let the fact that I’m hungry and thirsty and tired change your plans in any way.”
“Me me me, that’s all the boy thinks of,” said Loaf. “And he ate only yesterday, which was about fifteen minutes ago, so he’s just being whiny.”
The door closed behind them.
Umbo leaned against it and surveyed the street. “The problem with time traveling to get here,” he said aloud, “is that nothing has had time to change since we left.” But it also meant he could go across the street to the baker, who was bound to have something edible in stock, even if it was late in the day for fresh morning bread.
Bread in hand, Umbo took his perch outside the roadhouse. When people first came to the door, he tried explaining that Loaf had come home after long absence, but they looked at him like he was crazy. “I saw the two of you set out this very afternoon,” one woman said, “and if that’s long absence I’m young and beautiful.”
“And indeed you are,” said Umbo, using his most sincere voice. Olivenko could have brought it off and won a smile from the woman, but at Umbo’s clumsy effort she only sneered and left, saying, “If they don’t want my business, so be it, but I don’t have to be mocked by a boy who’s also a stranger.”
“I’ve lived here for months,” said Umbo, because that had been true at the time they set out. “I’m strange enough, but not a stranger.”
His wit was wasted on her—she and her husband (or whatever he was) didn’t show any sign that they could hear Umbo’s clever remark. But after that, Umbo didn’t tell anything like the truth. “A feral cat got in there and peed all over the tables and they have to scrub everything down to get the smell out,” he explained. Oddly enough, the lie was believed instantly, while the truth had been treated with such contempt.
Late at night the door opened. It was Loaf, no covering on his face now. “We’re staying closed, but we can’t leave you outside all night.”
“Like a feral cat,” said Umbo, “I think I’ll pee all over everything.”
“You’ll go to your room and have a good night’s sleep. I assume you already found something to eat.”
“Why would you assume that?”
“Because you’re Umbo,” said Loaf. “Now come in.”
Umbo wasn’t quite sure how many hours he had been awake in a row, but he fell asleep before he actually got into bed, as attested by the fact that he woke up only half undressed. But it was light outside, so he put his clothes back on and headed for the privy.
He met Leaky coming back. She gave him a curt, preoccupied nod, but he didn’t read anything into that because her idea of manners included the idea that a man was supposed to pretend that he didn’t know that women pee and poop. So obviously they had to pretend they hadn’t seen each other.
It wasn’t till breakfast—with the roadhouse still closed—that Loaf said, “That worked pretty well. Whatever you said.”
“He was bratty and bossy and rude,” said Leaky.
“You stick with that,” said Loaf to Umbo. “You have a talent for it.”
“I didn’t hear any yelling or anything breaking so I guess you two hit it off like newlyweds?”
“On the contrary, our wedding night was full of yelling and breaking,” said Loaf.
“Your five trips to visit me were time well spent,” said Leaky. “Though Loaf was acting like a man who was five years celibate, while I hadn’t even had time to notice he was away.”
“Meaning she hadn’t even had a chance to stuff a lover in a cupboard,” said Loaf.
“But we’re going to leave at once. Today. Close down the roadhouse. I just need time to get some friends to look in on the place so it doesn’t get taken over by squatters till we come back.”
“Where are you going?” asked Umbo.
“To Vadeshfold,” said Loaf. “Apparently having a facemask made me so virile and vigorous that Leaky wants one, too.”