Page 13 of Imaginary Numbers

Slowly, Artie blinked. “You mean you came here on your own?”

I nodded.

“How?”

“I flew.” Bit by bit, I explained the day I’d had, starting with saying goodbye to Mom outside of security. I mentioned my suspicion that a cuckoo had been hunting in the Cleveland Airport, but I didn’t mention the cuckoo I’d actually seen here in Portland. That needed to wait until I saw Evie. She’d know what to do, and her resistance to Johrlac influence was almost as good as a born Price’s, thanks to growing up in a house with Mom. Long exposure leads to increased resistance to the negative aspects of cuckoo influence, along with the easier telepathy. I guess it’s a balance thing. Otherwise, cuckoos would just keep their favorite humans with them always, malleable and obedient and open books.

By the time I finished, Annie and Elsie had given up on giving us space and drifted over to join us, forming a rough little circle between the bleachers and the doors. Annie looked at Artie, looked pointedly at the open space between us, and rolled her eyes.

“All right, since it looks like the big reunion is over, we should probably go tell the rest of the family that it’s time to throw a welcome home party for Sarah,” she said. “Elsie, you have room in your car for one more?”

“I can give Sarah a ride,” said Artie.

“Did you offer?” asked Annie. “Because dude, if I were you and this were Sam, I would already have been in the car and driving away as fast as I could.”

“You don’t know how to drive,” said Elsie.

“My point stands,” said Annie.

“Sarah and I aren’t . . . like that,” objected Artie, cheeks flushing. His thoughts turned into a tangled mess before shutting off entirely once again, blocked by the defensive action of his own empathic abilities. Full incubi can not only sense the emotions of the people around them, they can influence them, making direct changes to other people’s moods and hence minds.

I can’t change minds. I can’t even directly change thoughts. I can manipulate memory and insert myself into someone’s emotional landscape, but it’s a lot less of a precision job than Uncle Ted or even Artie can manage. Artie’s empathy had always been mostly receptive and defensive, allowing him to pick up on feelings or block out other psychics, including me. It might even have improved since I’d seen him last. The walls between us certainly felt sturdier.

“No, of course you’re not,” said Annie, with withering sarcasm. “Sarah, you’re coming back to the compound tonight?”

“Yeah,” I said, not looking at Artie. “I’m still not stable enough to sleep just anywhere. The room Mom and I set up is going to be best for me.” It had triple-strength anti-telepathy charms worked into the walls, creating a psychic null space that never moved, never varied, and would last as long as the house was standing. I could sleep peacefully there, without worrying about picking up on any dreams I shouldn’t be part of.

“If she’s going home with you, I want to drive her.” Artie squared his shoulders. His thoughts were still too sealed off to let me understand his expression; it could have meant virtually anything. “I need to come over anyway. Sam borrowed a bunch of my comic books, and I want them back.”

“Sarah?” asked Elsie. “That okay with you?”

“Sure,” I said, not looking at Artie. “I’ll see you both at the house.” I turned and walked to the bleachers to retrieve my backpack, waiting for some crack in the shell around Artie to open up and let me know what he was thinking.

It didn’t happen.

Evie and Uncle Kevin understood the importance and necessity of privacy. In their line of work, having neighbors could mean way too many visits from the police, and they’d always known they wanted to be a safe space for the kind of people they were likely to associate with. Not just family members: other cryptozoologists and researchers, cryptids like me or Artie, and bounty hunters like Grandma Alice. All kinds of folks could be found in the living room on any given day, and that meant having the space and the distance to host them.

Artie kept his hands on the wheel and his eyes fixed on the road as he drove past the Portland city limits, heading into the deep, dark woods outside. The trees pushed down on us from all sides, swallowing the ambient light, leaving us dependent on the headlights’ glare.

According to my Aunt Rose, a lot of people die on that road. She ought to know. She died on a similar road more than sixty years ago, and when we’re talking about death, we know to treat her as the expert that she is.

“This is going to be a long drive if you don’t talk to me,” I said.

Artie didn’t reply. The shell around his thoughts was like a wall, built solely to keep me out.

Vexed, I shot a quick arrow of thought at his ramparts. You say you missed me, but this doesn’t feel like missing me.

“Oh, come on, Sarah,” he snapped. “You know that’s not fair.”

“So you can hear me.”

“I can’t help hearing you.” He kept his eyes on the road. I guess it seemed easier than looking at me. “I hear you even when you’re not around. I hear you having opinions on things I’m reading, and I hear you complaining when people talk during movies, since it’s not like you can read the actors’ minds and know what they were trying to say, and I hear you making nasty gagging noises every time I choose chocolate over strawberry. I hear you all the time. But you weren’t hearing me, or you would have called.”

“I called as much as I could,” I said in a small voice.

“Then you didn’t hear me, because I needed you to call a lot more than you did.”

I closed my eyes, sagging in the seat. “Phones are hard. I can hear what you’re saying, but I can’t hear what you mean, and it makes my brain itch. I like text more. Text is always flat. It doesn’t have tone or nuance; it just has what the person on the other side of the keyboard said. I texted you all the time.”