Free Thresholds by Nina Kiriki Hoffman

does.”
    “Does it say how I can get it off?” She pressed the egg to her cheek, felt the thrum against her face and in her arm. Warm. Soothing. Nice. Maybe she didn’t want to get it off.
    “I don’t think it comes off now until it hatches,” said Benjamin.
    “How long does that take?”
    He shook his head. “The book doesn’t say. We need more information.”
    “Listen to this,” Gwenda said. “‘The sissimi bond is so pleasant that unsuitable people seek it out. Sissimi nurseries are heavily guarded. Only special people are allowed to bond.’”
    “How special am I?” Maya asked.
    “Well, you’re not somebody they picked,” Benjamin said. “But you’re special because you saved it from dying.”
    “There are nurseries for things like this,” Maya muttered. “Nurseries. Where?” She stroked the lump. Color rippled in response to her touch. “How come you guys have even heard of this? Is it something everybody knows about but me?”
    “No,” Benjamin said. “Very few people know. But we do. It’s our job to know.”
    “Where are these sissimi nurseries?” Maya asked.
    Gwenda bit her lip, ran her finger over a block of symbols in her book. “Not on Earth,” she said.

TEN
    Okay . Breathe, Maya. Okay. She could deal with this.
    Maybe.
    “What is it?” She touched her egg. Warm as a muffin just out of the oven, soft, with a little give to it, but firm underneath—not rock hard, but solid, like an unripe plum. Colors pulsed over its surface, waves of them shining up through the thin pink membrane of her skin: aquamarine, emerald, rose, turquoise, citrine.
    “What does it hatch into?” she asked. “What does it look like?”
    Gwenda flipped the pages back and forth. “The book doesn’t say. There’s no picture.”
    “Is it an animal? Is it a plant? Is it—is it a fairy?” She stroked her finger over the waves of colors. The egg thrummed.
    Gwenda searched the book’s pages again. “It says it turns into something different with every species it encounters. No specifics.”
    “Did Chikuvny Boy tell you anything else?” Benjamin asked.
    Maya closed her right hand gently around the egg. It radiated warmth and purred against her palm, against the bones of her left wrist. She felt sleepy. Her stomach was full of pound cake and strange, satisfying soup. She could still taste the sour on her tongue, but she liked it. She felt as though she was wrapped in a warm blanket of good health.
    What had the boy said to her? “He said she was a seer. I don’t know what that is. Companion. Collector. Protector. He said . . . he said I had to teach her.”
    “Teach her what?” asked Benjamin.
    Maya shook her head. “I don’t know.”
    “Teach her how to be local,” Gwenda said slowly. “That’s why Chikuvny Boy picked Maya.”
    “That, and I was wearing chikuvny ,” she said.
    They both stared at her.
    “He said I could take care of her until she was big enough, then take her to a portal,” she said. “Portals are connected to chikuvny , right?”
    They didn’t answer.
    “And you guys know where the portals are. All this time, Chikuvny Boy was looking for you guys. I smelled right; that’s why he found me. I smelled like fairy dust. But the fairy came from your house, right?”
    Neither of them said anything.
    “You saw my drawing. You know I’ve seen her, Benjamin.”
    “Yes,” he finally admitted.
    She knew it. “She got out because Gwenda left the door open?”
    Gwenda sighed. “Dumb Rowan. Talking about our business on the street. Next time he tries to get me in trouble, I’m going to use that one.”
    “You left the door open,” Maya said slowly to Gwenda. “The portal?”
    “No, not that door,” said Benjamin.
    “Chikuvny Boy said I had to find a portal,” she said, “that she’ll need it. She can go home and they’ll—whoever they are, wherever they are—they’ll know what to do. Is that right?”
    “We really can’t talk about this. Not without