Free Thresholds by Nina Kiriki Hoffman Page B

Maya. It’ll be okay.”
    “I’ve heard that already today, and it wasn’t true.”
    “Come anyway,” Benjamin said. “You have to.”
    Maya stood and studied Rowan. His hair had fallen over half his face. His mouth was in a straight line.
    She glanced past him, toward the outside. She could run, but they knew where she lived. Besides, they knew something about her egg. She didn’t know who else to ask.
    “My pack,” she said. She pointed to her pack, still on Travis’s shoulders. Whatever happened, she’d feel better if she could sketch it.
    Benjamin eased her pack off Travis’s back and slipped the straps over his own shoulders. Travis’s gentle snores hitched, then continued.
    Gwenda tugged her hand, and Maya followed her and Rowan into the hall.

TWELVE
    Rowan led them left, away from the front doors, past the wide staircase, and down the corridor toward the center of the building. They passed a pair of glass doors etched with delicate spirals and filigree curlicues. Smoked sunlight shone from the other side, and beyond were dimly visible shapes.
    Farther down the hallway, Rowan stopped at a door on the left and knocked.
    “Enter,” said a voice beyond the door.
    Rowan opened the door and stepped through.
    The room had a curved, frosted glass ceiling that led to a glass wall at the back. Maya could see blue sky, green lawn, and distant buildings through it, planes of color and shadow, no details discernible.
    Maya realized she’d seen the outside of this bubble-like room from her window.
    Large, jungly potted plants lined the walls. In the center of the room, three people sat on tufted cushions. The person in the middle was old and tiny, with bushy white hair, black eyebrows, tan skin, and many wrinkles. Maya couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman, only that it liked orange. It was wrapped in a shimmering orange robe.
    On either side of Orange Person rested a person in more subdued colors.
    “Come in and be seated,” Orange Person said. The voice was light as a floating feather.
    They entered and thumped down beside each other on the carpet, Benjamin to Maya’s left, Gwenda to her right. Rowan closed the door and sat near Gwenda.
    “Rowan?” said Orange Person.
    Rowan bowed his head. “Great-Uncle Harper.”
    “Who is your visitor? Why have you called this meeting?”
    Maya tugged at her pack. Benjamin eased it off his shoulders and handed it to her.
    “This is a neighbor, Maya Andersen, Uncle,” Rowan said, “and something portalwise has happened to her.”
    Maya slid out her pencil and sketchbook. She flipped to a blank page.
    “Please be more specific,” Harper said.
    Harper had drawn her gaze as soon as she entered the room. When someone or something was so eyecatching she had trouble looking away from it, she always wondered what else was near it that people normally wouldn’t notice.
    She checked the other people hiding in Harper’s light.
    On either side of Harper sat a tall, caramel-skinned woman. The two could have been sisters. They wore dark velvet dresses, green melting into brown melting into black. Their gray hair hung in gentle waves around their shoulders. They sat so still birds might land on them, mistaking them for trees.
    As she waited for Rowan to answer Harper’s question, she quick-sketched the Tree Sisters. Drawing soothed the flutters in her stomach. She didn’t know what was going to happen to her, but whatever it was, she could make pictures of it.
    “Stranger?” said Harper.
    The sisters had widow’s peaks. Their light-colored eyes tilted up at the outer edges. Maya drew their faces side by side. One’s nose was a little longer. She wore a pendant with a moon that had small, shiny metal triangles dangling from it. The other wore silver star earrings.
    Rowan leaned past Gwenda. “What are you doing?” he whispered. Maya glanced at him. He looked even madder than usual.
    “What I always do,” Maya whispered back.
    “Well, stop it! No pictures!”
    Maya