Chapter 17: Daniel’s Story
He happened to glance to starboard, and there, standing on his wing, he saw a little man, scarcely more than six inches high, with a large round face and a little pair of horns growing out his head.
--Roald Dahl, The Gremlins
“Pee-eww,” O put down her tea, but did not rise from her seat. “Didn’t expect that giant skunk to break in. If that was your fault, note I’ll be sending you a cleaning bill.” She was roundly ignored.
The companions were covered in soil, sweat, sap, broken twigs, skunk spray, and their own blood. None gave a thought to their beyond-disheveled appearance, however. Only with making sure Diana was okay.
“Hospital!” Schrodinger cried. “Is there one nearby?”
Waking from the noise, Bennu took stock of Diana lying beside him. “What happened?”
“Skunk.” Fox spoke without inflection.
“Oh dear.” He shuddered. “Then we truly need medical attention.”
“You need only ask.” O stood. “Dojo does the rest.” She snapped her purple claws.
“A’course by ‘you,’ I mean ‘me.’” Iron bars sprung to life, hopping backwards to make room for a sick bay that seemed to grow organically from the earth. It featured a line of beds, each with a personal water fountain and chamber pot. An ajar closet of medical supplies stood at the end.
Flexing shoulders, Goldtalon dropped Diana onto the nearest bed. She wailed loudly, as if to compensate for the previous lack of acoustics in the Silent Forest. From the fountain, Fox scooped water into her hands, which she splashed on Diana’s still-smoking eyes. Schrodinger and Bennu rummaged through the closet.
Grace led Goldtalon to O. He jealously clutched his crystal, compressed from an old star born and dead before the solar system even formed. In transitioning to a solid state, the light became heavier that just about anything. Grace dropped it as soon as she coaxed it from his paws. The floor now featured a crater easily the size of her head. This vandalism to the Dojo hardly seemed to bother its ruler.
O clapped and squealed. “You did it! Without dying, too! I love it already.” Her pink face turned red. She had regained most of her human features since last time. But up close her eyes lacked whites and her hair shined like feathers.
Grace asked—as politely as she could muster despite her anxiety and exhaustion—for the sword of Paracelsus.
“That can wait!” O clopped about in her tall wooden sandals. “You also desired that your little crow friend should go free. I’m so happy, I think I’ll set all my baby birds free! They have to leave mommy’s nest eventually, right?” She clapped twice. The cages holding the menagerie of corvids vanished.
To say the prisoners did not expect this does little justice to the fact that several nearly fell to their deaths. Being cooped up so long atrophied many of their legs and wings. Only moving paper screens saved them, then scuttled low enough they could hop to the ground. Waif’s siblings supported him.
Those still capable of flight produced a mighty mess. Stray feathers drifted down gradually, but a hail of droppings splattered with the impact of bullets. O reached in a floor compartment and pulled out a paper umbrella with a blinking eye. Voluminous green curtains shielded the companions in the sick bay. But Grace and Goldtalon had to duck to escape the white rain.
In the cacophony of cries, laughs, screams, insults, greetings, goodbyes, and sighs of relief, Waif mumbled “Thanks, Gracie.”
Space between the bars of the pagoda roof widened for even the largest magpie to squeeze through. The front door also swung open. Departures happened in a mad rush, with many arguing O could change her mind at any moment. The Murder stayed, however, congregating around Grace.
O peered down at the girl. “Grace, was it?” She clapped, but slowly this time. “I’ve decided, an augur’s such a magnificent specimen, it’d be a tragedy for you to perish in some altruistic quest. How about I adopt you, instead? Yes, I can see it: you’d be my beloved daughter, whom I’d train in divination. We would rule Yokai-Town, and eventually all birdkind! We’ll have to shorten your name, though. How about G? Good solid letter of the alphabet.”
The crows hissed. Grace steeled herself and faced down the crow-woman. “I already have a mom, and a dad, and a Grandmam. Can I please have my sword? My friend needs it.”
“Friends? Family? What about what I have to offer?” O crossed her arms across her breast and huffed. “My daughter deserves the best education, the richest meals, the most beautiful dresses!” Without looking, she waved her hand. Another closet appeared, opening on its own. On a hanger was a green dress, beautiful but in a style more western than the tengu’s Japanese robe.
Grace’s clothes were practically destroyed in the Silent Forest, but even at home she rarely cared for dresses. She marched to the case of weapons where Ridil lay behind glass. There was no latch, or any clear way to open it beyond “breaking.”
“You should know,” O stuck a hand straight through the glass like it was mist, “Ridil can’t heal lost body parts. If the skunk spray’s worse than it smells second-hand, your friend’s eyes should be melted.”
“I’ll still try.” Grace gritted her teeth. Lugging the magic sword proved easier than its size would indicate. Even with a gold-plated sheath, it felt light.
Syringes, sponges, pills, blankets, Schrodinger and Bennu finally located bandages. Goldtalon had no idea his feathers cured blindness, but he volunteered to supply enough for the poultice Fox was making. Diana moaned, at least proving she was still alive.
While no longer scorching, Diana’s regular squonk ugliness was deformed by burns. The puffy area around her bloody eyes looked particularly scarred. Grace focused not on how bad the situation looked, but on what she felt needed to be accomplished. As O demonstrated, she waved the sword before Diana’s wounds.
The dull, previously unremarkable blade suddenly glowed red. There was energy inside, though it was cool to Grace’s touch. It built up in the pommel, then flowed to the tip, where the balm could jump to the one who most needed help.
The healing itself was not as dramatic as the glow, but each time it passed over Diana’s face, her wounds looked a bit less traumatic. Scars lightened. The whites of her eyes were back to being that. Her irises and pupils also appeared normal, but when asked if she could see, her wordless blubbering suddenly dropped off.
Grace held her breath. A few moments of eerie silence passed. Offal speculated Diana had died, but the new noises she began making were quickly determined to be snoring, not death rattles. Diana was sleeping with her eyes open, until Fox put them in darkness with her feather poultice.
Grace agreed sleep was a good idea, so she took a spare bed among the row. It was narrow and uncomfortable, but at that point she was too tired to care, any more than her dirty wardrobe bothered her.
“Remember, spud, it’s visitor’s day. Ain’t you happy?”
Grace at first took this for a dream. She was being pulled down a hallway by the bald Ambrosius Institute orderly. He gripped her arm tight enough to leave marks, except it was not actually hers. This must be what Grace’s cloud clone was experiencing in the present. Half of her was groggy, the other half became calm. In this purely vicarious state, nothing physical could hurt her.
Her clone was yanked into the visitor’s center, unceremoniously dropped into a chair. On the other side of the table sat Grace’s father. The last time she shared her clone’s experiences, the Director promised more visitations. The rule about only one visitor at a time must still be in place. Her mother was absent.
At Fort Stone, her friends lost themselves in pleasantness so reliable it became boring, but Grace had taken pains to hold on to memories of home. Even minute details of how her parents spoke, acted, or looked merited hoarding. Back then, anxiety gnawed at her that those details—unimportant individually but crucial when added up—had slipped away.
So, I didn’t forget.
Daniel Grey looked pretty much as she remembered. He had the same orange hair, though his beard, always a lighter shade than what was on top, seemed a tad scruffier. He looked at her (or what he took to be her) with the same blue-gray eyes. Now, however, there were dark bags underneath. Grace tried attributing this to the room’s poor lighting. How, then, to explain the rest of his aged appearance? It was not that her father looked older, exactly, with extra wrinkles. It was more the way he conducted himself.
“Hi Gracie,” he began. A fault entered his voice that never existed before. He tried a bit of small talk (which he always hated), informing her about what was going on at home. Her Grandmam’s illness had improved.
This not only relieved Grace, she was overjoyed. She could not convey that, however. Schrodinger explained cloud clones follow routines, but never show emotions. Grace wanted to greet her father, say how much she loved him, but the clone was also mute. The real her was limited to observing.
“Almost glad it’s just us.” Grace’s father glared at the supervising orderly, then leaned in closer. “There’s something I feel I have to tell you,” he whispered. “It happened before you were born. I never shared this with your mother. She’d think I was crazy. I felt at one point I could tell your Uncle Horatio. But he never even hinted at going through the same experience, even though we both flew. Mam was right out, since she’d probably just gloat. You’re the first to hear this.”
Grace’s father paused, gulped, and like a dripping faucet becoming a river, launched into his story:
“When I was over in Europe, British pilots had this…story. More a joke than anything, about a goblin called the ‘gremlin.’ They said Hitler’s stooge, Himmler, dug them out of a mine in the Black Forest, and hired them to sabotage Allied planes. Anything malfunctioned, the lads would laugh and say ‘Oh, that’s the gremlins playing pranks again.’ Usually minor stuff.
“Even though I knew we were fighting the same side, I didn’t trust the English. It’s the way Mam raised me. Marry a black woman? Sure! Anyone except a British girl. Whenever we weren’t flying, I kept to myself. It’s true sometimes men in the air got dizzy from lack of oxygen. They’d see weird things. A trick of light might make a pilot see balls of fire servicemen called ‘Foo Fighters.’ Scarier things, too. Of course, whatever they saw only exist in their minds. It’s not like it could hurt them…
“But the day I crashed, well, it wasn’t because I was a bad pilot, or drunk—no matter what those lime…Englishmen say. Gracie, I saw one. A gremlin, in clear daylight, right on the left wing of my plane. I’m sure everyone who sees impossible things says this, but it wasn’t a mirage or hallucination. I was never good with flights of fancy. Yet, here was this thing, with no wings but flaps of skin between its legs and armpits it sort of glided on. Years after, I still remember every detail of how it looked. The ugly goblin smiled when it noticed I’d seen it. Face almost split in two, with all these toothpick-thin teeth.”
Grace’s father took her hand. She wanted so badly to squeeze it.
“The gremlin started ripping rivets out with these fingers so nimble and skinny, but still impossibly strong. Must’ve known how every part of the plane worked, because it was doing it deliberate, methodically. Drawing things out as loooooong as it could. These retractable claws come out of his toes, and he does this dance across the side, defacing the nose art. The whole time it’s staring me dead in the eyes.
“I didn’t have time to think I was going insane. That came later. Moments like those, you only think to survive. I set the plane down on my terms, because waiting for the gremlin to finish its game would be suicide. I tried to land gently as I could…but, honestly, I crashed. Plane wasn’t worth scrap metal afterwards. The machine was dead. I probably should have been, too.
“But I don’t think that’s what it wanted. The monster preferred to frighten someone, leaving them to live with utter humiliation. It got what it wanted. By the time other pilots find me, the gremlin had long vanished. Just me with my broken hands. Before shipping me back home, there were those same jokes ‘Oh, a gremlin did it, har-har.’ It wasn’t a joke for me. Piloting was the career I always dreamed of. I even lied about my age to join the army early…and then, Pearl Harbor. There’s still no experience as wild as flying.”
Grace thought of riding Goldtalon, and what it might be like to do without being in immediate danger. To fly leisurely, for once.
“I never told the Brits how right they were. I knew dam…dang well if I mentioned the gremlin, they wouldn’t be any more charitable. Besides, that’s the kind of thing you get Section Eight for. They probably thought I was stuck up for not drinking with them. Once they had something to mock me for, they did so relentlessly. Really, I think the superiors shipped me back more for being a distraction to the real pilots. Once I recovered, the war had already ended.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
“You’ve heard the next part a hundred times. Your mom had just become a nurse. She and her little brother split from their dad years before. Heard the old man went the opposite way, to California, trying to find work. She practically raised Horatio after, you know. What happened to him struck her twice as hard.
“But during my long hospital stay, where Dezzie happened to be working, my mind itched more than the casts. I had figured the world worked one way, and the fairy tales Mam told were nonsense. She passed them on to you, instead. Doctor says it made you too gullible, but that’s ridiculous! You’re smart, Gracie, even if you haven’t gone to school yet.”
Grace remembered this was meant to be her last year free with Mrs. Tatters, Ol’ Hoary, and the rest of her friends. She would already be older than other kids in First Grade. That used to be the only thing she had to worry about.
“Couldn’t stop thinking ‘was that real?’” Grace’s father continued. “It was a pretty dark place, but your mom helped me past it, without even knowing. I’d forgotten, myself. Then, this Christmas mess happened, and it all came back. But this isn’t really about me. The point is, if you’ve ever seen things—impossible stuff—well, you’re not the only one.”
Grace never heard her father speak so much in one sitting. Usually, they appreciated the quiet together. He squeezed both her clone’s hands, and she desperately wanted to feel his warmth.
“If you’re crazy like the Director says, I’m crazy too. Thing is, I’m not. Whatever caused the church fire, you’re not responsible, or dangerous to anyone. Your mom and I explain this over and over! But the Institute won’t let you come home. I’ve spoken my piece, so now it’s my time to listen. Gracie, tell me what you’ve seen. I won’t judge, okay?”
He tried to smile. Grace felt she had never seen something so wretched.
“Baby, tell me everything, something, anything.”
In escaping the Fall of Fort Stone, then immediately having to brave the Silent Forest, Grace was exhausted. But now, she tried calling on whatever energy she might have left, to will her proxy to stand up and embrace her father. To say she loved him no matter what, and how sharing his story meant so much. To provide just one token to indicate she understood!
No sounds came out. The clone refused to move. All Grace could do was watch her father, who always seemed solid, crumble apart.
“Sorry to interrupt, but time’s up.” The orderly tapped Grace’s father on the shoulder. He did not sound sorry at all.
“What are you doing to my girl?” Grace’s father yelled. “What drugs are you forcing on her? Is this any sort of treatment? How can you expect to make people better by turning them into…into zombies! Where’s Ambrosius now?”
The orderly shrugged. “Left. Headed west for something. Unrelated to your little tyke, so…” A struggle began, with Grace’s father still reaching for her, and the orderly calling for backup.
Grace’s vision turned indistinct. Her clone lurched forward, coming to stare at its own navel. The robe the Institute forced it to wear was soaked through. This quickly evaporated. Schrodinger had said the spell would not last forever, and strong emotions made it unravel sooner. That must be happening now!
The last thing Grace saw before her clone fully dissolved was her weeping father’s mouth suddenly gaping wide in surprise, and finally horror. He tried to embrace what he thought was his daughter, but came away with handfuls of water. Then, that was beyond his touch, too. Just mist.
Pink hands with long claws shook Grace’s shoulders. She was back in a narrow, uncomfortable bed. O looked down. Something like concern played across her expression. That can’t be right.
“If you’re having nightmares, someone in town can eat them. Regardless, you should get rid of your terrible new scent! There might still be a dress in it for you.”
Grace mechanically wiped sap off herself. As often happens when waking, she forgot the specifics of her clone experience, only a general air of misery. An unprompted thought came. “Schrodinger. Didn’t the gold scroll mention something about a tree that eats meat?”
The grimalkin sat at Diana’s bedside, where Fox also rested. Diana snored. Bennu chatted with the reunited Murder on the pagoda roof. Their conversations were almost nonstop, but every now and then, solemn “seconds of silence” were held for Chiaroscuro. Goldtalon’s head rested at Grace’s feet, his huge body curled in a ball on the floor.
“Why yes, Grace Grey,” responded Schrodinger, “I recall the exact line was ‘Want flows through flesh-hungry branches bearing no fruit (72 drams. Avoid being seized)’”
“That must be talking about the Silent Forest!” Grace shouted loud enough Goldtalon cracked open an orange eye.
Fox rose from where she lay. “How much is a dram, anyway?”
“A dram can be converted to 1/8th of a fluid ounce.” Schrodinger answered in his instructor’s tone. “Roughly what fits in a teaspoon.”
“Sap is like a tree’s version of blood,” said Fox. “It flows though the branches, right?”
“And our clothes are covered in sap.” said Grace. “Well, except Diana’s, which melted.”
“Our fur, too!” complained Goldtalon. “And feathers.”
“Let’s collect what we have.” Bennu zipped down from the roof to sit atop the medical closet. His tail waved like a fan. “I’m sure we have thirty-two teaspoons between us!”
“We’re half through gathering the ingredients.” Grace realized the same time she said it out loud.
“Good enough, right?” asked Fox. “I say we go to Nefarious-cuckoo-la or wherever and let the birds handle the rest.”
“Actually not a bad idea,” said Schrodinger. “I doubt I’ll be welcome, but stopping whatever Ostara’s planning with her fungi concerns everyone.”
“Not me.” O must have been at least as strong as Goldtalon. She lifted the solid starlight in one hand without any obvious exertion.
While Ridil had mostly cleared up the Aniwye’s sole legacy, a bit of stink still hung about Diana. The acidic spray had eaten through all her garments. She needed replacement clothes for her replacement clothes. At least she regained consciousness.
Diana complained incessantly, which, according to Fox, told you she was back to normal.
The diagnosis, insofar as Schrodinger could make one, was the power of Ridil and Goldtalon’s feathers would eventually heal the trauma she suffered. A few days of rest seemed appropriate. “We stuff a pillowcase with feathers for Diana Hemlock to sleep on.”
“Where will we find rest?” Diana had little idea where she was, since the top half of her face was covered in bandages.
“I suppose I’ll let you stay a while.” O put one hand to her hip. “It’s interesting. I’m no expert in skunks, but an attack from one so huge should have melted your eyes. Even with using Ridil right after.”
“See, Diana.” Grace immediately realized her poor choice of words, but continued. “The spray would have hurt much worse if your eyes weren’t already trained to wash things away with their tears. It saved you!”
“What else might those tears be capable of?” Fox rolled her eyes, which fell on deaf ears.
Goldtalon felt fine with donating feathers, but had to look away as they were being plucked. Otherwise, he got frightened. He distracted himself playing with Ridil. His only complaint was it did not glow for him. It seemed the red lights only appeared when the sword was exposed to injuries.
“I don’t mind if you children continue gracing me with your presence.” O winked a dark eye at Grace, unaware Bennu made the same pun in a previous life. “But respect my Dojo. Clean. Yourselves. Up.”
“No trouble for a cat,” bragged Schrodinger. “What of my companions?”
“Yokai-Town has public bathhouses.” O paid minimal attention. She was busy hanging her crystal in a case of other jewels.
“We don’t have money,” said Fox. “Can’t we just wash ourselves off with the faucet?”
“No.” O gritted her teeth till they merged into a beak. The case of treasures broke under the weight of starlight. Then, she said with sickening sweetness, “If you can’t afford the prices, I’ll gladly pay.”
Is she trying to be nice? Grace thought. Creepy.
O tossed them gold so causally it clearly meant nothing to her. Schrodinger stayed behind with Diana, who was still confined to bed. Grace, Fox, Goldtalon, Bennu, and the Murder trekked to the bathhouse.
Before entering, the crows pulled Grace aside. They hung on a terra-cotta roof, gathered in a way that heralded a mobbing.
“Do you want to get back at O?” Grace looked up. Her stomach was queasy.
“We’re conspiring a beautifully bloodcurdling scheme of vengeance,” said Jackanapes.
“So, yes,” simplified Waif.
“They were,” said Rags.
“Sis’s right,” said Offal. “We talked them out of it.”
“I talked them out of it,” argued Albumen. “Honestly, once I finish sorting you all out, I’m flying off to find a mate.”
“Not sure if that’s for me,” admitted Dusky. “But we should leave.”
“This town’s a little too weird,” said Offal.
“Sorry we couldn’t see this quest all the way through,” said Rags. “But we need to find our mom and dad. So they know we’re safe.”
Grace nodded. “I understand.”
“Halfway through’s not so bad, though,” claimed Jackanapes.
“Be safe,” said Waif. “If you need us, we can probably find our way back.”
How the Murder would travel the entire United States just to get home, they said they would leave it to “The will of the Morrigan.”
“As long as you don’t meet any more banshees.” Grace was not sure they heard her in the rush of flying away.
***
Any pool Bennu plopped himself into immediately became a steam bath. Fox led the others to somewhere cooler. Grace lost all sense of modesty during her stay in Vinland, when anyone was free to bathe in the river which came from nowhere and went to same. She was not, however, used to swimming with monsters.
Nearby, a living shadow shaped like an octopus tried washing its two-dimensional surface with eight brushes. Grace recognized some creatures from the market, plus a familiar figure she never expected to meet again.
“Dr. Bezoar!” Grace exclaimed. “How’d you get here?”
“Walked, of course. Took a while.” The satyr-woman pushed the same shopping cart she had under the bridge. Grace introduced her to Goldtalon.
“Oh, but you made such a fetching agate,” bemoaned Dr. Bezoar.
Goldtalon agreed shiny jewels were great, but also argued the merits of precious metals.
It came out the satyr had traveled to Yokai-Town to barter.
“Right now, I’m looking for a fruit called Jinmenju, but I’ve meandered to countless odd places in my time. I’ll tell you, the Astral counterpart to America is a genuine patchwork of dreams. A quilt of hopes and prayers haphazardly stitched together from many materials by many hands. You might have seen maps where each state’s a different color. One is red, the one next to it is blue. Over there purple, another pink.”
“I wondered that,” said Grace. “If maps were colored to match real places, they should mostly be brown and green, with yellow for deserts and white for ice. Maybe there is an entire state where things are pink or purple. I’ve seen plenty of strange things recently.”
“States of Mind are whatever color they’re imagined to be!” proclaimed Dr. Bezoar. “Size varies, too. Denial’s large—can easily get lost there. While there’s a personal dreamscape made by each individual, many places can be shared. The whole Astral’s built, bit-by-bit, from the work and play of many unconscious minds. But even earthly nations are nothing but ideas. When you see the forty-eight states on the map, they’re split by lines called ‘borders.’ But did those boundaries exist before people settled on them?”
“I suppose, not counting things like rivers, canyons, or mountains,” said Grace, “the lines between states are sorta made up.”
“Boundaries between places are drawn by people deciding where one state should end and another begin. ‘Which should be painted pink, which purple?’” Dr. Bezoar bleated. “How humans fight over minor details! Still, the Astral maps onto the physical world quite easily. Where Europe is, a place called Fairyland, or just ‘Faerie’, exists to match it. They share heritage: a jumbled mess of stories imagined, told, written, rewritten, remembered, forgotten, and finally believed. Contradictorily, European myths are unique while also being the same as those from everywhere else. There are only so many ways to dream. Whatever languages, species, or religions, common features exist no matter where kids travel.
“To the far north of Faerie is a dreamland called Hyperborea. To the immediate south and east is a place named Jinnistan, inhabited by creatures Westerners mistakenly call ‘Genies.’ The correct term is ‘Jinn.’ To the east of both Faerie and Jinnistan we find Shamballah. South of that, Australia’s many diverse tribes each have names for their territory of the Astral. One is ‘Alcheringa,’ sometimes translated as ‘Dreamtime.’ Beneath us, much of the Latin world still recalls a place called El Dorado. As for the United States of Mind, the dreams of pioneers are always on the cusp of something, so we have the Frontier. All our legends are based on what we’ve yet to explore. There’s always something further on, even when we finally run out of land…”
Without any transition, Dr. Bezoar asked “You still have my business card, Miss Levinson?”
Fox stepped from the pool, reaching in her torn-up coat pocket. “Um, yeah. Don’t understand why you gave it to me.”
“I figured at some point you might come to view lithobolia as a skill rather than a curse.” Dr. Bezoar squinted her rectangular eyes. “I see stones aren’t raining down on you. That means you’ve mastered some part of yourself?”
“I went to a place without the usual stupid, distracting noises everyone makes, and…” Fox moved a hand in a circle, the gesture of when someone cannot find the exact words, “…quiet time helped me get ahold of what I’m about.”
“If you ever want a career,” Dr. Bezoar said while chewing a bar of soap, “Interplanetary geology can take you to plenty a’ places where you might learn more. Contact me through the card.”
Fox held it up to the light. “This is just the number ‘Eight.’ Shouldn’t it be a phone number, at least?”
Fox did not realize, but this set Grace thinking. Memories of her clone’s last experiences hit all at once. She felt grateful there was so much water to hide her tears. Goldtalon alone noticed, and preened the back of her hair.
Finally purging themselves of sap and stink, the griffin and Fox headed back to the Dojo while Dr. Bezoar went to haggle with a rubber-necked woman. Grace, however, went her own way.
Her father’s confession must have occurred around noon, but only in their local time zone. He had taught Grace about those. On this other side of the country, it should still be morning.
Diana would need to rest at least a day, and Grace had no intention of squandering that time. She tramped to the other end of Yokai-Town’s road, which stopped without so much as a sign. Telling herself this was only a mirage; she took a step that should be impossible and stumbled into a trashcan. Inside Maneki’s restaurant, she asked “Do you have a telephone? A phonebook?”
“Sure,” answered Maneki. “I always keep it plugged-in, so if the owners call, I can tell them everything’s fine back home.”
Schrodinger was also present. “Bennu’s taken a turn watching over Diana Hemlock so I can enjoy some sushi.”
“I want to call my parents,” said Grace. “Maybe talk to Grandmam if she feels strong enough.”
“I wouldn’t trust the phoneline,” Schrodinger cut her off. “Director Ambrosius and his Institute know your family, and where they live. He probably has the government monitoring everything they do, including what calls they take. The briefest message you send could be traceable. Even from the other side of the nation, I’m certain he’d try to reclaim his changeling test subjects.”
Grace thought the same thing, but wanted confirmation from someone else. She shuddered to think about Agent Grammery coming to her family’s apartment at night in her true, wooden form. That would doubtlessly give Grandmam a heart attack. “But the Director probably hasn’t gotten to all my family members, which is why I want the phonebook.” Some detail her father let slip gave her the germ of an idea.
“What are you planning, Grace Grey?” Schrodinger’s tone was accusatory, but he purred.
“There’s a relative I’ve never actually met. See, before I was born, my mom lost contact with her dad. But he’s supposed to live out here. On this coast, at least. If I help him make contact, he can tell my mom and dad that I’m okay. I don’t know much about him, but I have his name.”
“Most names are rather common,” cautioned Maneki. “What if many people share it?”
Schrodinger leaned in to where Grace stood at the kitchen counter. As if anticipating she would come up with the perfect answer.
Grace nodded. “It’s a real original name. I don’t think there’ll be a lot of Oberon Rosses in the phonebook!” After thumbing through pages with sweaty hands, Grace called a helpful operator, and tracked down the only man in the state by that name. She tried Mr. Ross’s phone directly, but nobody picked up. No matter, she already found his address. He was alive, but several cities distant from the restaurant. Maneki brought out a map, and scratched in some directions. Shortcuts only a grimalkin could know.
“Do you mean to use my shadowbox technique to get there?” asked Schrodinger, “Granted, it’s tricky getting to a place I’ve never been before…”
“That’s okay.” Despite all she suffered, Grace grinned. “I’ve thought up a different way.”
“How?” Maneki’s voice had a mewling concern. “The bus?”