Page 60 of Imaginary Numbers

“Damn, Harrington,” he said. “You’re cold.”

“I’m terrified,” I corrected.

“You’re right to be,” said Mark. “Look. When Sarah was a child, her adoptive parents were killed. It was a tragedy, absolutely. When a cuckoo child is in sufficient distress, they can sometimes unlock a level of telepathic strength they shouldn’t have been able to access for literally years. She called for help. Your family replied. Specifically, Angela Baker replied.”

“Be careful what you say about her,” said Aunt Evie pleasantly. “She’s my mother.”

“She’s not a receptive telepath,” said Mark.

Aunt Evie blinked. “You didn’t call her broken. Usually, cuckoos call her broken, or a freak, or something even nastier.”

“She’s not broken. She’s perfectly normal. There are one or two like her born every generation, and most of the time we’re not preparing to force a Queen, so they’re killed. But they keep cropping up in the populace, and sometimes they’re allowed to live, because sometimes we know we’re going to need them.” Mark managed to sound apologetic as he said, “Once she acquired Sarah, and it was clear that she was going to keep and properly prepare her, everyone else pulled out of the region. Angela was to be left alone to cultivate our Queen.”

“Talk faster,” said Antimony, in a voice that was suddenly devoid of emotion. I glanced at her. She had gone pale and was looking at Mark like she couldn’t decide whether to slit his throat or run for the hills.

Mark looked placidly back. “You’re finally catching on,” he said. “A non-receptive cuckoo never receives the histories. They don’t go through the first traumatic morph, and they don’t understand why the rest of us are the way we are. They call us cruel, call us evil . . . and when one of them somehow acquires custody of a normal cuckoo child, their first instinct will always be to crack the child’s mind open and scoop the offending pieces out. They still get instincts, those non-receivers. They have room for them. They don’t understand that normal cuckoos don’t have that. They take out every scrap of the history, of the law, and they leave a void behind. A void that heals so slowly. But it does heal. It comes together the tiniest bit at a time. Puberty happens, but the metamorphosis doesn’t. The larval stage stretches on and on, years past when it should have ended.

“Sometimes that’s the end of it. Those stunted cuckoos live their whole lives in a suspended larval state, never quite becoming full adults, no longer children, and they try to be good, and they hate themselves, and they never learn what they’re capable of, and eventually they die.” Mark shook his head. “It’s a terrible, self-loathing way to live, but it’s part of our life cycle, and it can’t always be avoided. Sometimes, though—sometimes they don’t stay stuck that way. Sometimes they either trigger their own metamorphosis or have it triggered for them, and when that happens, something wonderful can follow. The metamorphosis continues past its normal limits. They become adults and, when their brains can’t find the missing information, they enter their second instar and metamorphosize again almost immediately, entering a third instar.”

“Sarah never metamorphosized at all,” I said. “I’d notice if she grew wings or an ovipositor or something.”

“Our metamorphosis is internal,” said Mark. “Cuckoo children don’t turn into giant wasps when they hit puberty. They simply . . . well, change their minds.”

Slow-growing horror filled the pit of my stomach. “When she hurt herself in New York,” I said. “That’s what made it happen, isn’t it?”

Mark nodded. “She pushed so hard that her mind, which had healed up completely around the missing pieces, finally understood that it was supposed to transform. It contracted, losing most of its ability to form coherent thought, and then it expanded, growing in potential, growing in strength. She entered her first instar years later than most of her kin and entered her second instar inside of the week. She was well on her way to becoming the strongest of us. Becoming something we only know exists because of the information in our heads, the information passed down from our ancestors. She was becoming a Queen.”

A life lived around Aeslin mice can make capital letters pretty easy to hear. “What’s a Queen? Are you saying that Sarah’s going to become your leader or something?”

“No. We don’t have ‘leaders,’ as such. We’re too solitary. We can’t stand each other long enough to give or receive orders. I think maybe we did have leaders, back on Johrlar. That feels right, somehow. It feels like an evolutionary inevitability. But here, in exile, we prefer to stick to ourselves. Queens don’t lead. Queens are powerful. They have the kind of strength someone like me can only dream of. They—”

Mark stopped mid-sentence, eyes going gray, like they had frosted over. He began to shake.

I knew, immediately, what had to be happening. I whirled, and there was Heloise, still cuffed to the table where we’d left her, eyes now open and solid, blazing white, staring at us with the kind of hatred that starts wars.

There wasn’t time to think about what I was going to do next. I ran across the barn to the cabinet where we kept the actual gardening and yard supplies, jerking it open and grabbing the big can of Raid. Then I ran to Heloise’s side, shaking the can with every step. I aimed it right between her eyes.

She shrank back, the glow in her eyes dying, replaced by blue irises and utter terror. Behind me, I heard Mark gasp for air.

“You’re a big bug,” I said flatly. “I don’t judge—I’m in love with a big bug—but you’re a big bug, and this is bug spray. What happens if I squirt this in your eyes? Nothing good, I bet. Nothing you’d be too excited about experiencing. Want to find out?”

“You wouldn’t dare,” she whispered.

“What’s that? Oh, sorry, it may be hard to talk for a while, since my cousin’s boyfriend crushed your trachea and all. Which you totally deserved, and I hope it hurts like hell.”

“Here, bud.” Dad took the can of Raid from my hand. “I’ll keep her busy while you hear the rest of what our other prisoner has to say. And then we’ll figure out whether or not we’re taking one of them apart.”

Heloise sneered at him.

“I vote this one,” I said, before walking back over to Mark. “Talk faster.”

“Everything is math,” he blurted.

I blinked. So did everyone else.

“That’s what my mother always says,” said Aunt Evie. “She says the universe is numerical in nature, so the better a mathematician someone is, the closer they draw to the divine. It’s why she became an accountant. For her, that was like joining the priesthood.”

“Only without the celibacy,” said Uncle Kevin, and snickered as Evie elbowed him in the side.