“Do you think the oni dragon did something more to me that just draw magic through me?”
He considered for a few minutes, and then shook his head. “I do not know, domi.”
“How do we check?” She asked.
He and Stormsong exchanged looks.
“Let’s go to the hospice,” Stormsong said. “And have them check you.”
The hospice people poked and prodded and did various spells on her and shook their heads and sent her home feeling even more unbalanced. Her beholden fended off Windwolf’s household, else she probably would have been doused again with saigin and put to bed. Ironically, the only place she had to retreat to was her bedroom which didn’t feel like home.
“There’s no me in this room!” She paced on the bed just to get as tall as the sekasha. “This is not a room I live in. I need a computer. And a television. Internet connection! Is it any wonder that I feel like I’m going nuts when the most mechanical item in this suite is the toilet? Hell, I don’t know even where to find my stuff! Where is my datapad? Where’s — where’s — shit, I don’t even own anything anymore!”
The sekasha nodded, wisely saying nothing, probably thinking she was insane.
“I mean, how am I suppose to do anything? I know I have stuff. I had you put stuff in the car to bring home. Where did it go?”
“I will find it.” Stormsong said and went off to search. She returned while Tinker was still pacing the bed with the mp3 player Riki left for her at Turtle Creek, the Dufae codex, her grandfather’s files on the flux spells and Esme, and a bottle of ouzo. Of course everything cleaned and given lovely linen binders tied with silk ribbons. Elves!
Tinker settled down with the file and a glass of ouzo. Smart female Stormsong. Must keep her. She tossed the player onto the nightstand where she might remember to take it to Oilcan, dropped the codex and the flux folder onto the floor, and opened up Esme’s file. As she noticed earlier, the file contained general public information. NASA bios. Newspaper clippings. Interspersed into it, though, was detailed personal information. One paper was a genealogy chart of Esme’s parents going back a dozen generations on both sides. Another set of papers chronicled out medical histories for family members. Another sheet claimed to be account numbers for a Swiss bank account. Tinker weeded these unique papers out, wondering how and why her grandfather had such information on Lain’s sister. Lain herself, she could understand. But Esme?
Last item in the file was an unlabeled manila envelope. She opened it up to find a photo of her father and Black wrapped in each other arms, looking blissfully happy.
“Who the hell?” Tinker flipped picture but the back was blank.
“What is it?”
“This is Black.” Without her blindfold or hands covering her face, Black was clearly a tengu. She had the black hair, the blue eyes, and the prominent nose that in the males was very beak-like.
“This is Oilcan?” Stormsong pointed to Leo.
“No, my father.” Tinker looked in the envelope to see what else was inside.
There was a handwritten note stating:
Two can play this silence game. I’m not going to let you pressure me into leaving her just so you can have grandkids. I’ve made a deposit at a sperm bank, just in case things change. I don’t know what else I can do to make you happy. The next step is yours. If you don’t call, this is the last you’ll hear of me.
The attached form noted that Leonardo Da Vinci Dufae had deposited sperm to be held in cryo-storage for his personal use.
The last sheet of paper in the file was a form from fertility clinic on Earth. Tinker read over it three times before its full import hit her. It was a record of her conception.
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.”