Free Thresholds by Nina Kiriki Hoffman Page A

permission.” Benjamin’s face was blank.
    “You can’t even tell me whether the fairy is safe? She slept on me last night.”
    “That’s wild,” Gwenda said. “She was very skittery. She had never used a portal before, and it totally spooked her. But yeah, she moved on okay.”
    “Gwenda!” Benjamin cried.
    “She needs to know, Benjamin, you know she does.” Gwenda turned to her. “We’re not supposed to talk to anybody . So we don’t make friends with other kids. We don’t talk to strangers. We spend all our time together. Like a religious cult.”
    “But you let me sit with you.”
    Benjamin said, “You smelled right. We thought maybe you were family from out of town. Although even the youngest of us knows to get rid of that scent before leaving the house.”
    She touched her egg to her cheek. It purred silently, comforting her.
    All day long, people had mistaken her for something she wasn’t. Fairy dust and mistaken identity.
    “I told you right away I didn’t know what chikuvny was,” she said to Benjamin.
    “You’re supposed to pretend you don’t know. I should never have said that word to you. Even if you understood it, you would be right to pretend you didn’t.”
    She shook her head. “That’s crazy!”
    He smiled. “Yeah.”
    “We can’t keep pretending we don’t know, any of us.” Gwenda closed the book, put her hands on top of it, and rested her chin on her hands. “Maya has a real problem, and it might relate to our other problems. We have to tell the Elders. We need help.”
    The front door opened in the other room. Someone called, “Benjamin? Are you home? Why aren’t you at energy class? Have you seen Gwenda?”
    Rowan walked into the kitchen.
    Maya’s heart pounded, and she had a hard time catching her breath.
    Rowan brushed the hair out of his face and glared at her.

ELEVEN
    “What’s going on here?” Rowan asked in a voice so cold Maya’s skin prickled.
    Benjamin straightened. “We have a situation.”
    “Obviously.”
    Gwenda touched Maya’s right hand. “Maya, show him,” she said.
    Maya hugged the egg to her chest.
    “Once begun, must go on,” Gwenda said. “Maya, show him.”
    Maya felt strangely tender about her egg. It purred and comforted her, and it was so beautiful, all soft colored lights. It felt warm against her wrist, against her cheek. What if Rowan wanted to hurt it?
    Gwenda had said there was no way to break the bond between them. Like it or not, her egg was on her to stay until it hatched.
    She lowered her wrist and showed it to Rowan.
    “What!” he gasped. He came to her and leaned over the egg, then stared at Gwenda.
    “It’s called a sissimi .”
    “ Sissimi ?” said Rowan. “The alert messages—!” His eyes narrowed.
    “Here’s the entry,” Gwenda said, and handed him the book open to the right page.
    He read it, frowning the whole time. Then he gave Maya a glare. “How did this happen?”
    “We better explain it to everyone at once,” Benjamin said.
    Maya had seen a lot of different people come and go from Janus House. Did she have to talk to all of them? “Who’s ‘everyone’? ” she asked.
    “Really, just the Elders. Rowan can find out when they do,” said Benjamin.
    Rowan walked to a picture on the wall and touched a painted cat. The eyes glowed. “This is Rowan. There’s been a development. We need an emergency meeting with the Elders,” Rowan told the cat.
    “Five minutes, in the solar room,” the cat said. Or something said it from the picture. The voice was midrange and could have belonged to a man or a woman. The cat’s eyes stopped glowing. Rowan dropped his hand from the painting. “How long is Travis out for?” he asked.
    “At least another hour,” said Gwenda. “Probably an hour and a half.”
    “Let’s go.” He turned, then paused in the doorway to the living room, a frown furrowing his forehead.
    Gwenda grabbed the battered book and took Maya’s hand. No spark this time. “Come on,