Page 47 of Imaginary Numbers

“Bad dreams.” I crossed to the fridge. “You?”

“Same. I don’t remember what they were, just that they were bad.” She gave her soup another stir, kicking more chunks to the surface. The mice cheered again, but softly. Mom has opinions about appropriate volume after midnight, and even the mice don’t usually cross her. She’s scary when she’s angry. “Hey, Artie. You awake enough to play dictionary?”

A sudden wash of cold dread swept across my skin. I forced myself to open the fridge and take out a can of orange soda before I turned to face her, keeping my motions smooth and easy, like this was perfectly normal. Like I wasn’t direly afraid I knew what she was about to ask me.

“Do you know what ‘instar’ means?”

Sometimes I hate being right. I walked over and sat down across from her at the table, deciding to skip my toast for now. Toast is for people who don’t feel like they’re about to throw up. “It’s a biology thing. It means the growth stage insects go through between molts. It’s metamorphic—they tend to change shapes and stuff—but I don’t really understand it. Why?”

“Because it was in my dreams,” she said, and gave me a worried look. “Artie, why was it in my dreams?”

“I don’t know.” I glanced at the clock above the stove. Less than five minutes had passed since I’d entered the kitchen. It was still too early to call anyone. Sarah was asleep. That was all. “It’s a weird word.”

“It’s a weird word for you to know.”

“I looked it up.” I took a deep breath as I looked at her. “I wanted to know what it meant, since it was in my dreams, too.”

Elsie’s eyes widened slowly, until they were practically bulging in their sockets. She pushed back her seat, standing, and glanced to the mice. “The rest of the soup is yours,” she said. “Please don’t try to put the bowl in the sink. You know what happens.”

The mice mumbled muted agreement. They could get the cutlery to the sink—could even get it into the dishwasher if they were feeling motivated—but when they tried to move plates or bowls, things inevitably wound up getting broken. Mom hates losing dishes.

“Where are you going?” I asked.

“To get my keys.”

“Why?”

Elsie paused long enough to give me an absolutely withering look. “Our telepathic cousin comes home from Ohio for the first time in years. You finally figure out how to get over yourselves and hook up. And that same night, you and I both have a weird dream that ends with a new word being planted in our brains? Yeah, that’s not normal. Even for us, that’s not normal. So we’re going back to the compound to make sure Sarah’s okay.”

“Couldn’t we just call?”

“At two o’clock in the morning? If we call and she says nothing’s wrong, we won’t believe her, and we’ll go over there anyway. If we call and she says something’s very wrong, we’ll be too far away to help. No, getting in the car is the right decision. We can stop and pick up donuts or something in case someone has a problem with us rolling in before the sun comes up.”

There was an urgency in her tone that made me stop, blink, and look at her more closely. “You’re really freaked out.”

“We come from a family of biologists. One way or another, we’ve been exposed to more science lessons than those poor kids on the Magic School Bus. But you know what I’ve never studied voluntarily? Bugs.” Elsie shook her head. “I don’t like bugs. They’re weird and they’re creepy and they have too many legs. They skitter. I am not a skittery person.”

“Okay . . .” I said, not sure where she was going with this.

“I know, without a doubt, that I’ve never heard the word ‘instar’ before. It’s a whole new word. And somehow, it’s in my head, which tells me someone put it there. Hopefully, it was Sarah. I’m not sure why she’d be putting words in our heads, and we’re going to have a talk about privacy and boundaries if she did, but that’s the good option. That’s the option where no one’s violating what should absolutely be a safe space. If it wasn’t Sarah, she’s in trouble. So we go. You, and me, and right now.”

“Mom and Dad—”

“Are still at the compound.”

That explained some of her urgency. We were alone in the house. If someone was playing with our heads, that wasn’t good.

“I’ll get my shoes,” I said.

She nodded tightly. “Meet me at the car.”

I turned and walked back toward my room, speeding up as I went, until I was practically running down the stairs.

Being a Price means spending your life preparing for an emergency you hope won’t ever come. Elsie and I aren’t as physical as our cousins—we can’t be, not when our blood tends to make people fall in love with us—but that doesn’t mean we got out of the basic training. I grabbed clothes and yanked them on before picking up the bug-out bag that leaned against my desk and slinging it over my shoulder. Inside I had medical supplies, rope, a flashlight, batteries, water, a compass—all the low-tech answers to low-tech problems. Well, most of the low-tech answers.

The handgun I took out of my desk and clipped to my belt would provide the rest of them.

I’m a pretty good shot, and my parents have always been careful to make sure Elsie and I are comfortable with firearms. Verity prefers knives and Antimony prefers anything that keeps the fight at a comfortable distance, but Alex and I bonded over shooting when we were in elementary school, and I’m good enough at it that even Grandma Alice says I have potential. From her, that’s the next best thing to being given an actual medal.