Othermoon (11 page)

I laughed and twirled her around in turn, kicking up snow. November grabbed a clueless-looking
Amaris around the waist to dance with us. A second later, Amaris was howling with
us, “Ah-woooo!”

General mayhem ensued as Siku swept up both November and Amaris in his arms at the
same time, lost his balance, and all three fell into a snowdrift. Arnaldo sang the
next verse, perfectly in key, and London pulled me down into the powder with the others.
Caleb lobbed a snowball at the back of Arnaldo’s head, which put an abrupt stop to
the singing and led to a mad scramble for cover and wet handfuls of snow. It quickly
became boys versus girls, and with Amaris on our side, we rushed the boys and pounded
them mercilessly till they threw their hands in front of their faces, laughing and
crying uncle.

Siku rolled over and made the biggest snow angel I’d ever seen, and Amaris lay down
next to him to make one that looked like it was holding his angel’s hand. We lined
up then, creating a linked line of blurry winged shapes in the snow. I rolled onto
Caleb as he finished his angel and kissed him with cold lips, clumps of snow falling
from the back of my head onto his cheek to melt into tiny streams.

“Morfael just told me I have a meeting with the regional Council tomorrow morning,”
I whispered, my heart beating fast against his chest. “Will you be there with me?”

“I’ll follow you anywhere,” he said, his arms tightening around me. “Don’t worry.
Together we can make it through anything.”

I nodded and laid my head on his shoulder, knowing he meant what he said. Maybe everything
would be okay between us. Maybe the Council would embrace me and Caleb would forgive
Lazar. I opened my mouth to tell Caleb that I loved him, and that we’d work everything
out. Then I remembered how he’d said he wanted Lazar dead, and no words would come.

CHAPTER 9

After dinner I tried to avoid the nauseating mix of guilt and anxiety threatening
to boil my brain by going to the library to do some research. Morfael was standing
there expectantly, as if he’d been waiting. He held out one pale hand. In it lay a
plain leather scabbard attached to a wide silk belt with a tortoiseshell clasp.

“The Shadow Blade,” I said, and grasped the carved winged creature on the hilt to
unsheathe the dagger. A bone-deep contentment washed over me as I held up the pitch-black
knife. As before, its cutting edge was amorphous rather than sharp, as if trailing
smoke.

“I have found a way to make it keep its form,” said Morfael. “Unless you wish me to
reverse the process, it will now always remain a dagger, scabbard, and belt.”

“So we don’t have to tote my old back brace around everywhere for Caleb to call the
blade forth.” I nodded. The Shadow Blade had been the shadow form of my back brace,
its power sensed and brought forth by Caleb when we raided Ximon’s compound. After
that, as long as I held it or wore it, it remained a blade. But once I took it off,
it reverted to its humdrum form, the brace. Now that shifting had so magically cured
my scoliosis and my spine was straight, I didn’t need to wear the brace anymore. Having
it permanently in knife form would make it much easier to deal with.

As before, when I held the Blade, it felt exactly right, as if it had been made for
me. The smoky edge of the dagger cut only through nonliving material. It may have
been my imagination, but it seemed to me to hunger for metal or plastic to sink into.
I looked around the room for something innocuous and not living to slice into, but
the bookshelves were made of wood, the books of paper, the chairs upholstered in leather
or wool. Morfael, too, appeared to be alive, though November might have quibbled with
me on that. So I slid the blade back into its scabbard reluctantly.

“I want to use it on something,” I said. “It’s like an itch.”

Morfael nodded. “Remember what I said about the effects of thin-space. Many thoughts
and feelings will be amplified where the veil is weak. Here.”

He drew forth from some pocket in his robes a thin, silver band. A ring. I didn’t
wear any jewelry because it just popped off when I shifted, and I particularly avoided
silver because I had a very rare allergy to it. But Morfael took my left hand and
slid the ring onto my index finger.

Immediately, the skin there began to itch horribly. I jerked my hand away and rubbed
the finger against my leg. “Why . . . ?”

“Use the Blade,” he said.

“Oh. Right.” I lifted the Blade in my right hand and lowered the smoky dark edge toward
the ring. Even though I knew that the knife would only cut the metal and not my skin,
it sure looked dangerous, and I had to force myself to press it down. The murky Blade
sharpened to a razor’s edge as it sliced right through the silver like a cheese cutter
through cheddar, only to stop when it hit my skin. It didn’t even scratch me, but
felt cool, almost soft. And the itching stopped as if a spell had been cast.

“It doesn’t just cut through metal,” I said. “It’s like it also guards me against
it.”

He took the ring back, nodding, and slipped it back into his pocket.

“How did you make the Blade stay a knife?” I asked. “I didn’t know you could make
an object from Othersphere stay permanently in this world.”

“The knife is connected to you,” he said. “I used that bond to secure it in whatever
world you are in.”

That made a kind of sense, but as usual with Morfael, it was a pretty vague explanation.
“Why is something from Othersphere connected to me?” I asked. “Did my biological parents
do it? It can’t just be some random thing.”

“There is no way to be certain,” he said.

Ambiguouser and ambiguouser.

“Do you think the Council knows about the Blade?” I asked. “Or any of the other weird
stuff about me?” Even worse . . . I flashed on last night’s conversation with Lazar.
Oh, God, if they find out about that, they’ll kill me for sure
. Morfael was looking at me. I stuttered nervously. “I-it might make them more nervous
if they knew I could also shift into a cat, you know. That kind of thing.”

“You’ve done very well for yourself so far,” Morfael said. “Trust that. Now, I require
you to describe again exactly what happened to your mother at the lightning tree.”

So I swallowed down that set of anxieties and focused on others as I told him everything
that had happened with Mom the other night. He listened with his usual watchful lack
of expression. A little silence fall after I was done. I resisted the urge to ask
questions and just told him the facts while his narrow lips pursed slightly, and his
nearly lashless eyelids made slow, deliberate blinks.

“Has anything like this happened to your mother before?” he finally asked.

“No. I mean, wait, yes.” Memory sparked an image of my mother rubbing her stomach
just before her transformation, and of the discussion she, Richard, and I had had
later. “Just before it happened, she said she felt like that sometimes in dreams.
And later on, she said she’d had dreams where there was a whirlpool inside her that
felt wrong, and a voice telling her it had a ‘message of importance.’ ” I shook my
head. “I can’t believe I forgot about that.”

Morfael nodded once, then began pacing up and down alongside the library’s crammed
bookshelves, tapping his cane lightly with every other step. I couldn’t remember seeing
him pace before. He must be quite concerned. “What do you think this message of importance
is?” he asked.

“I’m not sure,” I said. “But maybe it’s about who I really am? That seemed to be what
whatever-it-was inside Mom was trying to tell me. But the storm all around her made
it difficult.”

“Yet it was the storm that allowed it to get through in the first place,” he said.
“The lightning tree is a very old, very powerful connection to Othersphere. The veil
there is thin. I have never heard of a humdrum being used in this way, but the presence
of the tree might make it possible. How is your mother now?”

“She seemed okay after some rest, and no other incidents since then.” Something in
the set of Morfael’s mouth, and his half-lidded eyes, made me uneasy. “Why? Do you
think she’s still in danger?”

His bony shoulders rose in a small shrug. “Now that she has been used as a conduit
to Othersphere, some of that connection may remain. She may be vulnerable to other
incidents, even away from the lightning tree. Please tell her that if she has another
dream like those others, or if anything else strange occurs, she should come here.
I may be able to help. Or I may not.”

“Okay, I’ll let her know, thanks,” I said. It was a relief to think there might be
some help here for Mom if something happened again.
Hopefully, it just won’t.

Morfael turned to go, heading toward the door, when I realized the other part of what
he was saying. “Wait!”

He paused, his cloaked back to me, but did not turn around.

“You’re saying then that this message definitely came from Othersphere—not from somewhere
else in this world? It wasn’t some Tribunal trick?”

He didn’t say anything, so I stomped around to look him in the eye. I was nearly as
tall as he was, and I kept staring until he met my gaze. “Why is some . . . thing
from Othersphere trying to tell me who I really am? I’m a tiger-shifter from Siberia,
maybe the last one of my kind, right? Morfael?”

One side of his mouth was turning up, creasing his hollow cheek. I couldn’t tell if
he was amused or simply smug.

Fear clutched at my throat then. I didn’t want to ask it, yet I had to. The words
came of their own accord: “
Who am I
?”

The corner of his mouth deepened, and he shouldered past me, no longer pausing to
tap his wooden staff, but taking long strides down the hall, toward the front door.
I took a few running steps after him, then forced myself to stop as he stepped out
into the moonlight. An anxious fury threatened to rise up from my heart and overtake
me, and I forced myself to take deep breaths to quell it. The old caller of shadow
was still hiding things from me. From past experience, I knew he thought this was
for the best. And maybe he was right.

 

About nine p.m., when most of us were done with homework, we all ended up in the girls’
room. All except for Caleb and Amaris, who were having some kind of private lesson
with Morfael. I kept glancing at the door, mostly because I couldn’t wait to see Caleb
again. The meeting with the Council in the morning loomed, and nothing calmed me like
being with him. But also wiggling in the corner of my brain was the idea that maybe
we could slip away somehow, find a place alone, and see if we could find our way back
to those heated moments in the back of the car last night.

Arnaldo hooked his iPod up to a set of portable speakers and blasted songs from a
new rock band with classical influences he wanted us all to hear. November bounced
on and off Siku’s lap in time to the beat until he shoved her away irritably. London
sat at my feet and leaned against my legs as I French-braided her hair.

“So what did you do during our little break from school?” I asked her. “Anything fun?”

“Not unless you think chopping wood’s a party,” she said. “My mom lectured me nearly
every day on how I’d endangered everyone in our tribe by helping rescue Siku from
the Tribunal, so I went on a lot of very long walks just to get out of the house.”

“Meet any cute park rangers while you were rambling around?” I wiggled my knee near
her shoulder teasingly. “Or maybe a lumberjack?”

“What?” London’s voice swooped up, sounding almost scared. “No! Of course not.”

“Why of course not?” I asked. “If your parents ever let anyone outside their little
circle meet you, you’d get tons of attention.”

London looked down, disturbing my braid-making, tracing the grain of the wood floor
with a finger. “You think I’m pretty?”

“More than pretty,” I said. “Try striking, gorgeous, beautiful. Please!”

“I don’t feel pretty.” Her voice was so low, I barely heard it. “Except maybe when
you’re around.”

The door clicked open and Caleb walked in with Amaris. London stood up abruptly, mumbling
something about how she’d changed her mind about the French braid, ran into the bathroom,
and slammed the door.

“That was weird,” I said as Caleb walked up to me.

Nobody said anything for a second, and the quiet got a little odd. Amaris wouldn’t
look at me while Caleb and November exchanged looks. “What?” I said. “What’s going
on with London?”

“Ssh,” said Amaris. “She’ll hear you.”

I looked from her to the bathroom door. Did she mean London?

“Yeah, keep it down, Cat-girl,” November said in a low voice I could barely hear above
the music. She swatted Siku, and then came closer. “You are such an idiot. London’s
got a huge crush on you.”

“She . . .” I blinked. “She does?”

November shook her head at me, like I was the slowest marcher in the parade. “Only
since, like, forever. I don’t think she’s got any real hopes you’ll switch teams,
and she likes Caleb and everything, but—”

“She resents me,” Caleb finished for her.

“Holy mackeroly,” I said. I sat down heavily on the bed behind me. “I’m sorry. I didn’t
mean to . . .”

“It’s not you,” said Amaris. She looked over at the bathroom door, her wide brown
eyes flickering with something she wasn’t saying. “People can’t help how they feel.”

“Boy, that’s true,” said November. “The truth is so annoying.”

“Just don’t tell her we talked about this or embarrass her about it or anything,”
said Arnaldo.

“Siku,” I said, turning to him. “Did you know about this?”

He nodded. “She’s got good taste.”

That made me smile, and I relaxed a little.

Caleb sat down next to me. “I thought you knew.”

“No, no, it’s okay,” I said, leaning against him a little.

“It’s really none of our business,” said Amaris, her voice harsh. Then, as if regretting
how forcefully she’d spoken, she cleared her throat. “I mean. She’ll be okay.”

The bathroom door opened, and we all shut our mouths and avoided looking at London
as she slid out, head down, her hair pulled out of the braids to fall in soft waves.
She’d put her nose rings in again, two silver and one gold, glinting against her pale
skin.

Amaris stood up, making small clucking noises. “You can’t just give up on the braid
if it doesn’t work out the first time,” she said. “Come over here and let me do it.”

London shook her head, not meeting anyone’s eyes. I’d seen her that way when I first
met her, like she wanted to disappear. I’d felt like that a lot when I had to wear
the brace.
Ugh. I made her feel that way.

“No, seriously, my mom taught me how to French-braid and it’ll look good on you. Come
on.” Amaris walked over to London and pushed her shoulders down until she sat on a
bed.

Arnaldo cued up another song while I tried not to stare too hard at London. I wanted
her to be okay, for her to know that I cared about her, but how the hell could I do
that without giving her the wrong idea? I leaned in to Caleb and whispered in his
ear, “Why is life so complicated?”

He shook his head. “It’ll pass. Just be normal.”

Amaris started combing London’s hair back, preparing to braid. London was looking
anywhere but at me and Caleb. “So your mom used to braid your hair?” she asked Amaris.
“Where is she now?”

Amaris looked at Caleb over the top of London’s head, then looked down. “She died
when I was ten. Breast cancer.”

For a moment no one knew what to say. Then: “That sucks,” said Siku.