A stiff wind suddenly blew their way, but none of the men let their bodies shiver. Doing so would only bring the contempt of their leader.

  They were a group of four trainees going out in the brim of the Rujad desert for an endurance test, led by the leader of the training program and one of his most trusted men. All of them had already experienced this sort of thing, used to spending weeks without end in the middle of barren wilderness, carrying only the most essential of supplies and creating the rest out of thin air.

  Fighting the cold wind, the men crossed the ravines and canyons that made the northeast end of the desert they called home, with no camels or dunes, but rocks, dry riverbeds and venomous creatures hiding under every shadow. The sun had already set, and its dying light guided their last steps towards a ledge their leader was familiar with, where they would have a light meal before heading out again. It’s best to cross the desert during night-time, and although they had woken up a few hours before the sun had set, none of them had eaten and needed the energy to march against the harsher winds the moon would beckon.

  They had no particular destination – their leader guided them to wherever he felt like going until he got bored or remembered he had something better to do, then they would return to their base.

  At the ledge, the men put down their packs and, leaving one of them standing guard, scattered to forage for food and water. Of course, the leader also left the camp to search for something for himself, but he knew exactly where to look and what he would find. He also knew it would taste like moldy strawberries and smell even worse. Only his already qualified graduate was allowed to join him, but that didn’t mean others didn’t try.

  “If I turn around and I see anything that might indicate that I am being followed, all of you are going to crawl under the mid-day sun tomorrow,” warned the leader as he heard the smallest disturbance. When he did turn around, there was nothing to be seen.

  “I’m sending that Germano back home,” he said turning back around to the path and walking ahead. His graduate followed suit. “He’s too spoiled for this.”

  “But, boss, I thought his parents-“

  “What about his parents? The will has to come from him. I don’t give two shits about what they want, I won’t waste my time on someone who wants the easy way out.” the leader sighed. “Being a Summoner is more than just killing a couple of idiots and being famous. It’s about being a survivor. You know that, those guys know that, and if he doesn’t want to know that, he doesn’t belong in this family.”

  After a couple of moments, listening to the echo of their footsteps on the canyons around them, the leader spoke once more. “Yeah. Let’s do that.”

  “Do what, boss?”

  But the answer was cut short by a sound, a much different sound than a cracking pebble or shadows on your neck.

  “Do you hear that?”

  His graduate joined in the silence and, focusing on the disruption as well, managed to isolate and identify it.

  “Is that a jibwa?” he asked in a low voice. His leader suddenly marched on towards the sound, almost running, and he quickly followed. As it grew stronger, they slowed down until the beast was just around a jagged tall rock, barking as if it intended to draw someone’s attention. They had had the care of approaching against the wind, so they remained unnoticed until they dared to look around the rock.

  The small white jibwa froze as soon as it saw the two men emerging from behind the rock, staring at them as it decided what to do with them. Behind it laid a young boy, fainted and in the raw, holding a dark scythe with a crescent moon shaped blade in one of his small hands.

  As soon as the men tried approaching the boy the jibwa began barking once more, but it did not interfere as they crouched beside him, and the leader checked for a pulse.

  “He’s still alive,” he said letting a tone of relief come out of his voice. “Take his weapon, we’re going back to camp.”

  “Yes, boss.”

  With the jibwa trotting alongside them, barking furiously but doing nothing to stop them, the leader marched on holding the boy, light as a feather, with his graduate close by. Meanwhile, he arranged a mental list of what needed to be done once they reached the camp - call Sauti, tell him to bring the jeep, go back to headquarters, make a nice cup of coffee, and find out how that kid had gotten himself lost out there.

Me, Myself and I

  “Man, when are they thinking of arriving? These people sure take their time...”

  “Take their time.”

  “Shut up, Kasu… welcome! Sorry, but we’ll have to wait for more people to arrive before I can start my story. Is that a problem, ma’am?”

  “Oh, no, not at all.”

  “Not at all.”

  So here I am, with an increasingly annoying parrot, acting like a storyteller. I mean, why did the Unknown come to me, of all people, and ask me to tell their story? This is more like Yana, Jack and Sofia’s story than theirs, anyway. Grandma got really excited with the idea of going to the end of the world. “The Storyteller Festival! I’m so proud of you. You’re going to be celebrated someday...” There’s nothing to celebrate if no one even shows up. And I still have to share that cramped up room with Susan and Kevin for the whole week… This is going to be great, that’s for sure...

  “Brrr, Brrr!”

  “I’m sorry, I have to take this... Hello?”

  “Dandelion, you’re sick!”

  “Hi, sis.”

  “What’s your idea of letting Kasu crap in our room?”

  “Sis, he’s a hi-”

  “You know how I hate you sneaking into my room all the time! You just mess everything up.”

  You know it’s three of us sharing the same room, right?

  “You’re the one who wanted to come with us, you might as well get used to it.”

  “But I won’t. It’s like a hurricane came to this place.”

  “I feel so sorry for you...”

  “You should be. I mean, look at this mess! Your stuff is everywhere! This room’s good enough for a record or something.”

  “I’ll be forever remembered as the messiest person in the world. I’m so proud of myself...”

  “Sigh... Did you get there on time?”

  “Well, I did get a bit late, but since almost no one has come to this tent yet...”

  “Figures.”

  “If it makes you feel any better, Kasu is starting to mimic people.”

  “Oh, really? Who is he mimicking, you?”

  “Is there anybody else he’d mimic around here?”

  “I still think you should have called him ‘Skybreaker.’ It’s so much cooler than that African… symbolism, thing.”

  “Everyone would call me a copycat.”

  “So what? It’s your parrot, you should be able to do what you want with it.”

  “Yeah, well, I like ‘Kasu’, so I’m going to do what I want with it.”

  “Whatever, got to go. Kevin is going to take me downtown.”

  “Bye, Susan, tell him not to spend our entire budget on food.”

  Or clothes for you. Why did she choose to come anyway? Shopping in Lisbon? Please! Why won’t she just confess she wanted to make my life living hell? This was going to be a cool bros hangout and she just uses her status as little sister to make everything miserable for me. Why does Kevin go through with her every whim anyway? And it’s not like I needed him to come and watch over me, I’m not sixteen anymore…

  “Your sister... She’s a bit loud, isn’t she?”

  “... Yeah, I’m sorry about-”

  “Sorry!”

  “Sush. Oh, we have more guests! Please, do come in...”

  Huh. A lot of them just dropped by all of a sudden. The other tents must be all filled up.

  “All right, I think I may begin. Well, my name is Dandelion...”

  “Dandelion?”

  “Dandelion, dandelion!”

  Shut up, asshole.

  “It’s just a nickname. Is that ok with you?”

  “Yes, I suppose it is.”

  “So, what’s the story you’re going to tell us, Dandelion?”

  “Well, I bet all of you are eager to know a little bit more about the mystery surrounding the strange person humbly named... ‘Shady Guy.’”

  “So, who is this shady guy?”

  “Who can say for sure? I’ve heard he saved the world, once. I’ve heard he just saved a girl. I’ve heard he hasn’t done much of anything, other than trying to survive. He’s not a hero, not does he want to be treated as one, and a heavy burden looms over his shadow. But I know he’s an honest and brave man with an interesting story that I’m sure he’d love for you to hear.”

  That last bit may not be true.

  “Sure. Tell us your story, Dandelion.”

  “Oh, I’m not the shady guy. No, no, no. I’m just here to tell his story on… my employer’s request.”

  “Be careful you don’t make yourself sound more interesting than the story you’re here to tell us.”

  Fat chance.

  “Well, I’ll start with Yana, then.”

  “Yana, squawk!”

  “If you open that beak again, I’ll muzzle it. Capisce?”

All Mighty

  “I’m going to do this like real chapters, and I even named them, so...”

  “Why didn’t you just write a book then? Wouldn’t it be easier?”

  Waiting for her phone to give her an answer, Yana groaned out of boredom and looked up to the conveyer belt. As it kept stubbornly stationary, she turned her attention back to her phone, hoping someone told her something in the next few seconds.

  Not that she was impatient – Yana fully believed she could wait for as long as it was needed for things that actually mattered. The problem lied with waiting for things she couldn’t care less for, like the huge, sturdy and very pink trolley her mother had brought for their Cantarian Holidays* at the tail of Europe.

  Like anyone in their right mind, Yana loved to be on holiday, so long as she could stay strapped to a computer and sometimes a good movie, leaving only to hang out with her girlfriends at a nearby mall to try clothes and talk about boys. Going to Portugal, of all places, and all of a sudden, had not been included in her plans for the following weeks at all. Never mind the fact that she knew no one in that small country, she didn’t find any particular interest in going to the beach (and she was sure it would rain most of the time), imagined their food would be lacking compared to anything her family could cook, and didn’t even have the time to learn the basics of the language, that ended up sounding like a prolonged Spanish anyway. To top it all off, the place where they would be staying housed no one of her age, only a couple of kids. According to her mother, the oldest was a twelve-year-old girl, who couldn’t possibly have reached the refined maturity of a fourteen-year-old, already capable of giving wise and sound advice to her best friends. The other one was a ten-year-old boy, whom she could turn into a pretend little brother if he was cute enough for it.

  They were the children of a couple of friends her mother made during a journey of self-discovery, over 10 years before all that, that she decided to take once the divorce with her husband, and Yana’s father, was consummated. All she knew was that he came clean one day to her mother, told her he had been cheating on her, and wanted the divorce so he could marry his mistress. Left with no other choice she agreed to sign the papers, and after a brief discussion, he let his ex-wife keep their daughter. Then he left and none of them saw him again.

  As you’d expect, this left the women broken, but with a chance of repair. A couple of days after this tragedy, Yana’s mother sent her to her grandparents’ home in Oxford, along with what little they owned, and told them she would follow when she could. This only happened when Yana was already in elementary school, and her grandparents ready to give up on the wait. The woman that turned up at their doorstep was much plumper than the one they had always known, carried two heavy trunks with trinkets of all kinds and from all over the world, and was as radiant as a boy who returns home with his clothes splattered with mud, presenting a lost puppy in his hands.

  No one knew exactly where she had gone to – she told of a different place every time they asked. Eventually people just assumed she had gone everywhere and asked her how she had been able to fund such a journey, to which she laughed and claimed human companionship had been the only thing that had propelled her forward. Both Yana and her grandparents interpreted different things from this statement, none of them pleasant. Or even true, for that matter.

  What they did know was that she had gotten to know quite a lot of people during her journey. Whenever she could squeeze a vacation in-between her busy city hall job, she would pack up and leave for a random country, claiming she would spend the time at her friends’ place. Sometimes she would ask Yana if she wanted to go with her, but more frequently she simply barged in her room, interrupting whatever she was presently doing, and ask her why didn’t she pack yet, because the plane leaves in two hours and they can’t be late.

  That was one such case. And the chat was being important too, Jessie was close to-

  “Close to what?”

  “Nothing.”

  I can’t believe they put this here. It’s so goddam embarrassing, I’m not going to tell them she asked me for a date and I said no…

  A sound made Yana look back up from her phone and find her mother approaching her with a cart for the trunk and the smaller suitcases they had brought on the cargo hold. Both were almost the same height, but only because the older woman was shorter than average. She wore her wavy red hair in a ponytail, hopping behind her head as she stopped the cart and fixed her coat. Polina hadn’t bothered to lose her extra pounds, and her cheeks had become a bit more filled to compliment the rest of her body, which went nicely with her brim face and the unconditional kindness she showed to every stranger they came across. Which annoyed Yana even more, as her mother was incapable of showing that same kindness to herself– if she had done so, she had never even noticed it.

  “Well, this will make it easier for us to carry our bags,” sighed her mother. Then she turned to her daughter and, seeing her with her grey eyes glued to her phone, she tapped her foot. “Yana, I don’t want to see you around that thing all the time, you hear me?”

  “If you had let me stay home you wouldn’t have to see me at all,” she answered bitterly.

  “But we are going to have fun here too! We’re going to see Lisbon, they say it’s beautiful this time of year, and we are going to see the sea-“

  “I’ve already seen the sea, it’s whatever.”

  Her mother crossed her arms, looking at Yana with concern. “What’s the matter, dear? Don’t you like to go out with your mom?”

  “I do, but I don’t like being dragged from home like this! I had plans with Jessie, and Tasha, and Krissi, you know? I-“

  “Well, it was a bit sudden, but you’ll see you’ll love it. It’ll keep you away from your computer, it’s always healthy to stay away from the computer, and when we get back you can do all of your plans.”

  “School’s gonna start when we get back!”

  “Then you’ll be with your friends everyday, right? Come on, let them enjoy their holiday, and we’ll enjoy ours.”

  I wanted to enjoy my holiday with them, not with you…

  A shaking in her hands made Yana look back down, with big hopes for the message that had just gone through the imaginary borders of the network and into her phone.

      “he said no : ( your in portugal? thats so cool! hope you enjoy they say the suns awesome there ^^ talk when you get back, bye”

  With just a moment to get mad at the classmate who had rejected her friend yeah, I remember how that went, another sound disrupted Yana’s fury and made her slip her phone back inside her handbag. The conveyer belt was finally moving.

  Their trunk was one of the first to be dispatched, and as soon as it was on the trolley with the rest of their possessions, they pushed it along the large collecting hall. It narrowed as they passed through customs and an automatic door with smoked glass opened at the end to reveal the arrivals gate. None of the people there were familiar to Yana, but that didn’t surprise her. On the other hand, her mother was already waving with a joyful smile to two heads in the middle of the pool of strangers that awaited relatives and friends in a cool night of April. The Portuguese couple waved back and pointed to their left, and both mother and daughter walked down the ramp, towards a coffee shop where they met with the couple.

  “Helena!”

  “Polina! It’s been so long!” answered the Portuguese woman welcoming Yana mother’s bear hug, her eyes gleaming with memories from whatever experiences she shared with the Belarussian. Her husband simply watched with a smile.

  “Oh, I can see he’s all grown up now,” Polina said letting go of her friend and pointing with her head at the youngest of the kids that accompanied the couple, a dirty-blond boy who looked up from his Shooting Star to check why he was being addressed to.

  “Yes, that’s Ricardo. Anda cá, filho, anda dizer olá à Polina,” his mother said, beckoning him to come next to her.

  “Oh my, they grow up so fast, don’t they?” Polina said while the kid obliged to his mother with a bored sigh. “Ten years ago he was still in your tummy, and now look at him, a little man!”

  Smiling, the woman agreed with everything Polina said while Yana put her phone back on her handbag, losing hope of getting any more answers from her friends, and observed the daughter of the couple playing and yanking her own hair. Only when her mother said something else in Portuguese did she wake up from her daydream and greeted Polina.

  “Look at you, a woman in the making!” she said making the girl blush and giggle. Her dishevelled dark hair that should’ve had something resembling curls and traces of acne caused Yana to mentally disagree. “You and Yana are going to get along very well, you’ll see.”

  “Hi,” Yana said to the girl with a smile, getting one right back at her. Even if she was upset, and rightfully so, she couldn’t be rude to the people who were going to let them sleep under their own roof for two whole weeks.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  She was properly introduced to the couple, and before the women could start sharing all the fascinating facts about their children and their achievements, Paulo reminded them they had a dinner table appointed for eight o’clock and wouldn’t be nice to start the vacation being served by a frustrated waiter.

  As he pushed the trolley through the spacious parking lot with his son silently by his side, and the women got ten years of their lives up to speed, Yana strolled behind the group next to the dishevelled girl, who seemed to be thinking about anything but what was in front of her. For a while Yana had to wonder how she wouldn’t walk straight into a wall.

  “I don’t think I’ve caught your name,” she ended up saying, without being sure she would be heard at all. However, the girl turned towards her and smiled.

  “I’m Sofia. You’re Yana, right? That’s an interesting name.”

  “Oh, you think so?”

  She nodded back. “It sounds like Ana, but I like it more. Are you from Russia?”

  “No, we’re Belarussian. I’ve lived in Oxford since I was four, though.” It was common for people to believe that anyone with a Slavic name had to come from Russia – after all, its size robs all other countries from the attention they’re entitled to – and Yana was already used to explaining that there were others in its vicinity.

  “Where’s Belarus? I’ve never heard about it before,” asked Sofia tilting her head.

  “It’s north of Ukraine.”

  Yana watched for a while as the girl tried to visualize the country on her mental map of Europe, but after France and Italy the continent turned into a giant blur that she ended up labelling as Russia anyway, with something in the middle saved for Germany. Before she could try to place the other countries inside the rest of the blur, another much more interesting question popped on her head.

  “You said you lived in Oxford? Isn’t that the place where there’s this big… university, where people go to study when they grow up?”

  “Yeah, I’ll probably go there someday too…” It wasn’t the first time people had prompted that question either, and when they did so Yana merely thought she’d like to go there with her friends and find a nice boyfriend. The degree that she would be taking there would be a decision for later.

  “How’s it like?”

  “I don’t know, I’ve never been there before.”

  The answer made Sofia stare back at Yana as if she had just told her the impossible. “But you live there.”

  “I’ve never gone inside the college grounds. I’ve never needed to.”

  “Oh.”

  Keeping the rest of the questions to herself, Sofia silenced as their parents chose who would be going in which car. Eventually it was decided that the women would take one of them, and the men, or the man and the kid, would take the other one. They put the trunks inside their silver van, left the trolley where it stood, and drove outside the airport’s parking lot, soon giving place to another family coming to pick up their relatives or friends.

***

  He was calmly finishing a very interesting book on the most strange and rare creatures on the planet when his sister barged in, no warning nor apology.

  “David” she called. He was finishing a sentence and pretended not to notice. She called him in a louder and angrier voice. “David!”

  He finished reading the sentence and peeked over the book cover to face his sister. “What?”

  “Pack up. We're leaving in thirty minutes.”

  Closing the book, David stood up from his desk. He was used to those whims. “Where to?”

  “Portugal.” And she left just as fast as she had arrived.

  Portugal? Why- Oh, right, she needs a new album...

  With a heavy sigh, David got up from his bed and started sorting out his clothes for the trip. Being the younger brother of a fickle creature like Christine Lonergan, wildly known as the most recent pop culture reference O’Claire, had its ups and downs. He wasn’t her manager, as no one in their right mind would assign a thirteen-year-old to such a monumental task, but he was level-headed and smart enough to give her actual manager a few tips on how to do her job more efficiently, and his sister knew his value. So, wherever she went, he had to join her.

  However, Christine was also proud to a fault. When she was young and had just started singing lessons to enrol in a children talent show, she and the family had gone to holiday in Portugal and met Sara, another girl her age who also enjoyed singing. They became like nail and flesh in those holidays, and never lost touch. Sara didn’t pursue a career in music or didn’t seem to want to do it anytime soon, although she took guitar lessons and was very good at it, but Christine had always considered her a rival of sorts, one of the few people in the world who she actually had respect for. Whenever she needed inspiration, she’d hop on a plane and meet the Portuguese friend to brainstorm very early drafts, and then take all the credit to herself.

  Another likely possibility was that Christine was bored out of her mind and that was the best plan she had come up with to entertain herself while someone else didn’t remind her she had more important things to do.

***

  Making a rugged sucking noise, a watery surface scavenging for something over her face slowly made Yana open her eyes. The thing interested in her had a dark, wet nose, orange fur, big pointy ears and a couple of shiny beads that stared into her eyes while it decided whether it would eat them as well or not.

  With the greatest jump of her life, Yana leaned on the wall behind her makeshift bed and barely held a scream when she realized she was being laughed at and the thing was no longer there. By one of the legs of Sofia’s bed stood a curious fox that trotted away as soon as Yana made eye contact with it, no longer interested in the newcomer. Looking towards the sound, Yana found Sofia sitting on her bed and laughing her ass off.

  Allowing herself to take a few deep breaths, Yana managed to calm down, spout a couple of Russian profanities, and get up. Sofia lay back down on her mattress, still laughing.

  Dinner on the previous day had been lively for the two women, less so for the Portuguese husband, who worked as a translator whenever some expression too complicated for his wife to understand was required. Even Yana had managed to have some fun. Sofia was an airhead of the worst kind, and quite shy, but with a couple of key questions she told Yana that her favourite hobbies often included animals, that most of her friends were boys, for her great astonishment, and, with a big blush and staggering expressions, that the person she had a crush on was a British actor. To make communication over such delicate matter easier, Yana told her the little story of her own crush, a couple of years older than her, with a sculped face and the eyes of an angel, that had come to her aid when she had nearly broken her leg during a miss long jump in P.E. class. Claiming he had time to spare, he was but a passer-by that kept her company while her friends were forced by the teacher to finish the class. Yana had gone to great lengths not to lose touch with Eric from that day forth and planned to go out with him at some point in the future.

  “When are you going?” Sofia asked, her eyes agleam with the chance her newfound friend had in her hands.

  “When I’m older,” she’d answered, blushing. “I want to be sure.”

  Everywhere she looked, girls her age were starting to go out on adventures on the arms of the boys, but Yana believed they were all wrong on a fundamental level. They had to older to be sure of themselves before they could begin to trust someone else, and men were overall incredibly hard to be trusted. Even Eric, in his maturity and indulgence, made a tingle on a Yana’s mind, protesting her feelings, claiming he was the same as everyone else. Therefore, she advised Sofia to be wary of her boyfriends – even if they were only twelve, they would grow and start to see her in a sort of light that would made her uneasy - and try to find more girls to hang out with.

  “But I don’t like the sort of things most girls like…” Sofia had said. “I don’t really care about fashion, or anything.”

  “It’s not about fashion. My friend Tasha doesn’t care about that either, but she hangs out with us anyway,” Yana answered. “Don’t worry, I’ll teach you a thing or two while I’m here. How does that sound?”

  After pondering for a while, Sofia ended up nodding with a smile in all indicating that was not what she had had in mind for her holiday. Yana wisely chose to ignore it. She had even lain down on the camping mattress the family had prepared for her with a feeling close to satisfaction. If she could teach a fellow growing woman how to stand up for herself, the trip to the tail of Europe would not have been as useless as she had thought. She could even have some fun there.

  Listening to Sofia’s laugh as she staggered down the hallway, Yana almost forgot about the whole plan she had created for the two of them, until the intelligent part of her brain switched on, stretched out, yawned loudly, and told her that would be stupid.

  Polina and the Portuguese couple were already in the kitchen when Yana looked inside. The balding man was leaning against a granite counter with the cutlery and a couple of drawers, and the two women were at the table, the wife at the head and Polina on a chair on her right. They were all dressed up and ready to go somewhere. Yana quickly scanned the room, looking for a clock – the one next to the fridge showed almost nine.

  Sid, it's early...

  “Good morning!” said her mother cheerfully when she went inside the kitchen.

  “Huh, hi,” she answered cleaning the last traces of Sandman with her hand.

  “I believe you’ve already met Foxy,” asked Mr. Fonseca with a very amused smile. “Did she scare you?”

  “Yeah, I wasn’t expecting her.”

  The women laughed a bit and the man nodded as Yana sat in the chair closer to the fridge, cursing them in the back of her mind. There was a small plate and an empty mug in front of her seat, and an equal set next to her. There was also bread, butter, milk, powdered cocoa, honey and a tin biscuit box spread across the table.

  “Yana, I’m going out with Helena and Paulo. We're just waiting for a relative and then we'll be off. We’re going to visit Cascais, do you want to come?”

  She was scavenging for the best biscuit inside the tin while her mother talked. She yawned deeply, finding nothing that she liked, and laid back on the chair.

  “I'll pass. I'm still tired.”

  “Are you sure?”

  She nodded and closed her eyes for a while. While that was mostly true, she already had new plans for her holiday, and this time they would not be spoiled, nor by her mother, nor by anyone else.

  “But they are going to be spoiled. It’s a universal rule.”

  “Couldn’t hide even if I wanted to. It’s a question of how they are going to be spoiled.”

  The doorbell rang and the three adults got up and left the kitchen. When Yana was sure there was no one there, she opened her eyes and helped herself to a buttered slice of bread and a bit of milk. It was a simple breakfast compared to what she was used to having back home, with scrambled eggs and orange juice, sometimes bacon if she was craving some fat, but she didn’t particularly dislike it.

  There was a big fuss at the end of the corridor. Already dressed in jeans and a navy-blue t-shirt, Sofia hurried by the kitchen door and continued down the hallway. She came back bringing another girl, older than the two of them, but Yana couldn't exactly say how old she was. Her cute looks and short size made Yana almost believe there was no way she was older than her, and she was just seeing things, but another look at her breasts made her forget about it. She had to be older, it would be unfair otherwise. She was holding an expensive looking cell phone in her right hand and had a green shoulder bag hanging from her arm.

  “Sara, this is Yana. Yana, this is my cousin Sara,” said Sofia pointing at the two of them with her hand.

  “Hi,” she said with a smile and a wave, and Yana nodded back with a mouthful. She pushed it down with a gulp of milk and gave her a proper greeting. Then, as Sara knelt to pet Foxy, who looked very happy to see her, Sofia shoved the empty plate and mug in a cabinet and pulled out a cereal bowl. She chewed the cereal quickly while her cousin leaned against the counter and gazed about, either at them, the kitchen, or her phone when it vibrated in her hand. The place had suddenly gone very quiet. The people in the hall had probably left the apartment. And what had happened to other kid? Ricardo? Yana hadn't seen him at all.

  A couple of silent minutes passed by before the chime above the door to the street sang again. A short middle-aged African woman walked rapidly into the kitchen, as if she was late for some important appointment with the house. She stopped to look at Yana for a moment, turned to Sofia and said something in Portuguese. Both girls answered her and the three of them engaged in a lively conversation that the foreigner wasn't allowed to be a part of. She did manage to understand that the woman was the housekeeper when she put down her worn bag on an empty chair and cleared the dirty dishes off the table while blabbing to the girls.

  “Oh, right. Yana, this is Tania, our... cleaner,” said Sofia turning to Yana. “She doesn't know English so...”

  “’S alright.”

  Sofia shoved the last spoonful of chocolate cereal down her throat and got up. “We'll be downstairs,” she said to Yana, before telling something to her cousin and hauling her out of the kitchen.

  Yana sighed and yawned again while hearing their footsteps on a wooden staircase. She gulped the rest of her milk and got up from the table while Tania cleared after her. Back in the bedroom she tied up her hair in a perfectly straight red ponytail and dug her suitcase for a pair of shorts and a loose tunic much like the one Sara had brought, but cream instead of white and with no zebra. It was the most comfortable outfit she had brought along, and it wasn't like she was planning to leave the house for the time being. She didn't even find the need to put on a bra.

  Down the stairs she found Sofia and her cousin holding a pair of black controllers, staring at a large television with competitive smiles on their faces. Their living room was huge, half empty and half crammed with furniture: two armchairs, a big withy sofa with dashing orange pillows craving unwanted attention, a big wooden cabinet with glass doors holding lost and precious treasure that appealed to a minute number of people, and a large coffee table in the middle of everything. Everything in the room except for the LCD hanging on the wall seemed so ancient and distasteful it almost made Yana want to walk back to Oxford. However, the crashes and flashes of the television, the black NightStar humming gently below the striped coffee table, the chuckles of the girls and the way they hammered the devices in their hands made Yana curious enough to bear with it and sit down on the closest armchair to see what the fuss was all about.

  It was a racing video game where Specter's characters were given small stature and stuffed in coloured karts, where they could throw all sorts of inconceivable items at each other. When one of them surpassed some unlucky spinning victim flinging their arms in discontent they would point and laugh like the little devils they were. It was chaotic, noisy, flashy and also very attractive.

  “What's that?” asked Yana pointing at the screen with her head.

  “Grim's Night Kart,” answered Sofia mechanically, without moving her eyes.

  “Oh não, oh não, oh naaaaãão!” one of the karts the TV focused on was caught in a blast and the little pig in a suit was bombarded out of the vehicle engulfed in a smoke cloud. Sara leaned forward and laughed a lot.

  “Temos pena. Ganhas pa’ próxima,” said Sofia. Shortly afterward she raised her hand and celebrated her obvious victory.

  “You wanna try?” asked Sara handing her controller to Yana.

  “Oh, no, I don't know how to play that,” she quickly answered shaking her head and raising a hand.

  “It's easy, it’s very easy, I have another controller, we can all play,” answered Sofia jumping from her seat on the sofa. She opened one of the cabinet doors and pulled out another black controller from it. Meanwhile, Sara explained to Yana how to play. For that game all she had to do was press the green button to accelerate and use the big joystick to steer. It was fairly simple, just like they said, until she actually started playing. Then she had to use another button to break, another one to throw items and she could swear she heard Sofia talking about "drifting", but was too busy dodging a giant bullet with a mean grimace to hear her properly.

  Before she knew it, the chaos was sewn into Yana's mind, and she was fully awake. The game helped to open the door between her and Sara as well, and she found out Sofia's cousin was eighteen, as she imagined she’d be, about to finish reading the Code of Peace, and loved horse riding and playing the guitar. She was very impressed when she found out Yana was a karate blue belt, claiming she would never have the body or the mind to do anything of the sort. Sara also seemed interested in Yana’s cell phone, a silver Grand with a sliding screen, claiming that was the same model she owned before she was given the Fitzgerald dancing in her hands.

  “Who gave it to you?” asked Yana as she held onto it for a while. Sara chuckled and shook her head.

  “You would never believe it even if I told you.”

  “Não foi a Christine que te deu esse telemóvel?” asked Sofia, who was wrapping up a solo race in a harder difficulty level.

  “Ya.”

  “Christine?” asked Yana.

  “She's the one who gave it to me.” Sara tucked a lock of hair behind her ear and pulled in some air. “Christine Lonergan.”

  Yana kept staring at Sara, whose smile widened gradually, while her brain worked. The name did sound familiar, but it was a distant blur in the dark, and she simply wasn't capable of connecting the dots. “I really don't know who that is.”

  The phone shook with a new message to its owner, so Yana returned it to her. Once they got bored of the racing game Sofia put in a new one, but she played by herself most of the time while Sara and Yana watched her and laughed at her mistakes, sparingly sharing their many different interests.

***

  “What is she talking about?” asked Yana pointing at the small television once she recognized a NightStar just like the one Sofia had in the living room on the screen. Joined at the kitchen table, the three girls were finishing fish fillets with tomato rice, cooked by the housekeeper, for lunch.

  “There’s a...” Sofia gulped down the rest of the food in her mouth and spoke more clearly “Spectre factory in China that’s going to shut down. They have a problem in one of the machines.”

  “What sort of problem?”

  Sofia shrugged. “Dunno. Something about a virus.”

  The chime at the door rang and seconds later Sofia's father barged into the kitchen, tailed by an excited Foxy, and dumped a cardboard package next to his daughter. Yana had no idea where he had come from, what he had just said or what was in the package, but Sofia seemed thrilled with all of it.

  While she carefully peeled the tape off the box, Ricardo emerged from behind his father, looking down at his portable device. As the man left the kitchen and went downstairs, the boy eventually looked up to check what his sister was doing, taking a moment to frown cutely before seizing and tearing Sofia's box apart. He pulled out a dark plastic case that Sofia quickly took from his hands. He protested and his sister argued back, but soon both silenced, observing the item in her hands. Sara also seemed interested in it, peering at it from her seat next to Sofia.

  “What's that?” asked Yana.

  “It's a video game for the NightStar, ‘Hidan Battle,’” explained Sofia showing her the cover.

  “They say it's really cool,” completed Ricardo.

  Above the large stone-carved words was a silhouette, a boy or a man, she couldn't tell, facing backwards with a long waving coat on his shoulders and a scythe in his right hand. He was standing in front of an illuminated coliseum, an exact replica of the one in Rome. The background was of a blue sky, shaded by a brown cloud, possibly a sandstorm.

  “And look at this!” Sofia showed her the back of the case. While it also had a short text and some gameplay pictures, what got Yana's attention was another silhouette, a snake with skeletal wings. “It's an unblockable. They say it's a ‘hidan.’”

  “Well, the game is about ‘hidan,’” her brother said.

  With a simple word exchange Sofia forked the rest of her lunch and raced her brother to the living room. Meanwhile, Yana exhaled and scratched her head. That video game had been the thing that had excited Sofia the most since she had gotten there. Not that they had had the opportunity to work on her maturity but, from the looks of it, Yana had her work cut out for her.

  “What?” asked Sara, feeling a bit puzzled with the Belarus’s response to the whole thing.

  “Nothing, just thinking about something,” she quickly answered reaching out for her glass of water.

  “Games aren’t my thing either, to be honest. But I like playing with them every now and then.”

  “Does she play a lot?”

  “Who, Sofia? Oh, yeah, she’s crazy about those things. Ricardo too. Why do you ask?”

  “It’s not something girls should be crazy about, you know? Playing once in a while, sure, but all the time?”

  “Oh, yeah. All of us – her older cousins I mean – we tried to rid her of that addiction, but we couldn’t, you know? She likes those things way too much, she’s always in her own little world that no one can reach. I think she’ll grow out of it someday, though, just not right now.”

  “Hmm.”

  We’ll see about that.

  Sara finished her meal first and, while she waited for Yana, a heated argument flared in the living room. She couldn't understand a thing of what the two kids were yelling until they started calling out to Sara in unison. Yana looked at her for guidance, but she simply shrugged.

  “We should go and see what's going on.”

  Forcing the last piece of fillet down her throat, Yana stood from her seat and both girls climbed down to the basement. The fight was apparently over a single controller for the NightStar, as the siblings were each pulling their own end of it. As soon as Sara reached the last step Sofia yelled at her:

  “Ele vai chamar à personagem principal “Poopy”!”

  “É giro!”

  “É estúpido!”

  And they rambled on in their own hybrid language that they relied on when they didn't want anyone else to understand them, which happened more often than not. Taking a deep breath, Sara entered the argument, keeping her voice loud and controlled. Lana could swear she had heard the bell ring upstairs while they yelled at each other – the kids, mostly – but no one else seemed to take notice of it. Only with a proper shout did Sara finally manage to remind them of who was in charge and forced them to calm down. Ricardo then turned to Yana and asked in English:

  “What do you think is best: ‘Poop’ or ‘Escatológico?’”

  “Huh, “scatter logic”?” she asked leaning forward.

  “It's the... How do you say it... ‘Elaborate’ word for ‘Poop,’” explained Sofia. “In Portuguese.”

  “It sounds way too fancy.”

  “Mas é estúpido!”

  “Oh, Sofia! Oh, Ricardo! Oh, Socorro!”

  It was the housekeeper's voice calling from upstairs, and she sounded rather uncomfortable. However, it worked as cold water being poured on all of their heads, and before they could work out any sort of response, another voice echoed on the staircase:

  “Yohoo...!”

  It sounded familiar to Yana, but the three Portuguese seemed to recognize it in an instant. It was so important, too, that Sofia and Ricardo tossed the controller on the sofa and sped upstairs with Sara without hesitation. Yana simply watched them for a moment before turning around and sitting on the flashy orange cushion, next to the abandoned controller. They sounded like they were talking in English, but it was probably another cousin or aunt or uncle who had dropped by unexpectedly. It wasn't in her place to go upstairs and disrupt the reunion if it was the case. She picked up the controller and looked at the name selection screen, blue with white letters, waiting for a command. The only thing the kids had been able to write in their scuffle was "Azn". Lana reckoned she should at least clear it so they could think about it later, and decide it was a poor idea to play that dumb game anyway.

***

  “I was so not expecting this! Why are you here?”

  “Oh, I missed you and I thought: ‘Duh? You have your own jet? You can go anywhere!’”

  Both Christine and Sara laughed while Sofia chuckled, and Ricardo and David merely watched. The Lonergans' rental limo was parked outside the building and their bodyguards were keeping watch at the entrance. According to Christine they only had the time for a quick lunch in the pokey airport before turning on the GPS and driving to that house. They did have to ring some doorbells to find the right place, but when you're a superstar everyone’s delighted to assist.

  “So, did you move? I didn’t remember your place being like this” asked Christine, cocking her head to look at the narrow, empty hallway that branched from the door to the other rooms and the staircase.

  “Oh no, I’m still in Charneca. This is their place,” Sara said pointing with her hand to Sofia and Ricardo. Christine's face immediately lightened.

  “Oh, that makes sense.”

  “Don’t be mean, Christine, you haven’t seen the rest of the house yet,” answered Sara crossing her arms. “We were playing video games downstairs, do you want to join us?”

  “Sure. Let’s go, David.”

  Although the basement was a bit tacky, having Christine in there was something her cousins had always asked for. The kart game they owned would surely blow her mind.

  Her reaction to the living room was entirely predictable. She analysed every detail of every family picture on the walls, every teacup in the wooden cabinet and every fibre on the sofa and coffee table, twisted her nose and said with a stuck-up voice.

  “Even my great grandmother had better taste.”

  “It’s pretty big, though,” answered Sara.

  “Who’s that on the floor? Is she dead?” Christine asked, ignoring Sara’s remark. It was only then that she realized Yana was immobile on the rug, fainted sideways with an arm out reaching for the controller. The image left Sara’s brain racing for a reason.

  “Oh, no.”

  “You don't know what happened?”

  “No, she was fine when we left her.”

  David was already checking up on her, followed by Ricardo. Sofia stayed near the two girls while the chubby boy crouched next to her and placed two fingers on her neck.

  “What do you think, David?” asked Christine.

  “She's okay, but I don’t know why she fainted.”

  They fell silent for a moment while Sofia ran to pick up the controller, to stop Ricardo from getting his hands on it. He seemed to be paying more attention to the television than the thing that actually commanded it to do stuff, however.

  “You were going to tell me who she is?” Christine ended up asking.

  “Oh, she’s Yana, from, uh...”

  “Belarus. She's here with her mom to spend the holidays with us,” finished Sofia, getting up with the controller in her hands.

  “Right. David, could you help me?”

  Sara and David managed to lay her on the sofa, while Christine occupied one of the flashy armchairs and watched the TV screen.

  “Is the name ‘Jack’ correct?” she read aloud. Sara, David and Sofia also looked towards it, seeing a blue textbox with white words framed in a black background. Below it was second textbox.

>YES

>NO

  “Why not?”

  While Sofia held the controller, she held the power, and so she exerted it, hitting the green button over the “YES.”

  “Não! Isso não é original!” yelled out Ricardo while both textboxes closed and the console read the CD inside to proceed to the next phase.

  “É sim.’”

  “Não é nada!”

  “What's the fuss all about?” Christine asked Sara pointing at the two of them.

  “They were fighting over the main character’s name before you got here.”

  “Oh. So... Yana, chose the name while you were upstairs.”

  “Yeah, I think so.”

  “What's the game?”

  “Hidan Battle.’”

  “Hmm. Is it any good?”

  “No idea... What’s going on?”

  “Before you move on to the next chapter, Mr. Dandelion.”

  “You don’t have to call me Mr.”

  “Is that the game that caused those problems between Specter and Dr. Swain?”

  “More or less. The game that caused those issues was Hidan Battle, but what we’re going to see here has nothing to do with that game.”

  “Oh, I see. Just a source of inspiration.”

  “Yes, of course.”

  I could get used to lying through my teeth like this.