Page 24 of Backpacking through Bedlam

“Why? They’re adorable.”

The tailypo didn’t speak English, so it was entirely my imagination that they looked pleased by Sally’s praise. But it made me think better of her. “The Covenant started out fighting things that were a danger to humans,” I said. “I mean, there’s a good reason to be a dragon slayer when the dragons are trying to burn your village down on the regular, and nobody likes sharing their bay with a bunch of swamp hags. But they did such a good job that they ran out of real threats, and they were so convinced of their own necessity that rather than dissolving or pivoting to being a general public-service organization or something, they started focusing on anything they considered unnatural, or potentially dangerous in ways other than the physical. Why kill a tailypo? Because it’s a silly thing. Evolutionarily, they don’t make a lot of sense, and they make kids want to laugh and play dress-up with long tails of their own, and they can be pests. Better to get rid of them. Better to make sure people stay serious, and focused, and afraid of anything they didn’t recognize. Like a raccoon with a super-long tail. Better to make the world a little simpler, because then it’ll be a little easier to control.”

I stuck my hand out to the largest of the tailypo while Sally was still trying to formulate an answer. “Key, please,” I said.

The tailypo chirped.

“Key,” I repeated, more firmly.

It—he, most likely, since the males tend to be about twice the size of the females—fell backward off the rail, vanishing into the bushes. I stayed where I was, my hand still outstretched, as he rustled around down there, then popped back up and pressed a dirty housekey into my palm. “Thank you.”

“They speak English?”

“No, but they know a few words, like most animals.” I turned to unlock the door. “That whole ‘dude killed his family at the behest of a swamp god who he wasn’t shy about describing to the locals’ thing, followed by ‘weird British dude moves to town, marries daughter of a family whose members have all died under mysterious circumstances, becomes a shut-in, disappears,’ means local kids try to break in all the time, to show each other how brave they are. We’re the least haunted haunted house in the county.”

“Meaning you can’t safely hide keys anywhere outside the house,” said Sally thoughtfully.

“Got it in one,” I agreed, pushing the door open and moving to lever Thomas out of the porch swing. He came accommodatingly enough, leaning on me like a man who no longer fully understood how to use his legs. “Go on in,” I said, to Sally. “Nothing in there’s gonna bite you—although the mice may yell a little, if they don’t hide in the walls when they see a stranger.”

Sally looked dubious, but went inside. No screams followed. Neither did cheers; the local Aeslin had clearly read her for a stranger. That was fine. They’d learn the truth soon enough.

Thomas propped against me and staggering along, I whistled under my breath, and the tailypo poured through the door around my feet as I half-carried him across the threshold.

Home.

Getting Thomas up the stairs in his current state was a no-go, so I helped him to the couch, sweeping aside the nest the tailypo had made of pillows and two of my grandmother’s afghans as I lowered him to the cushions. He made a small sound of protest, then sighed and rolled onto his side, nestling down into the upholstery.

I went back outside to the porch to get my pack and the hamper. Taking another deep breath of the Michigan air, I turned, went inside, and focused on Sally. She was looking around the living room with frank, unshielded curiosity. I didn’t interrupt, trying instead to see it through her eyes.

In many ways, the house was an extremely cluttered, if eclectic, museum, with virtually everything still in the exact place it had been on the night Thomas disappeared. I couldn’t call it “tidy,” because stacks of books dotted the floor and leaned against the wall, far more extensive than the room’s overstuffed bookshelves could accommodate. There was the couch, two armchairs, and a coffee table; the former were softened by knit wool blankets in a rainbow of shades, bristling with tailypo fur, and the coffee table still had magazines and research notes on it from the mid-fifties.

A toybox near the front door provided a primary-color reminder that we were parents once.

There was no dust. There were no cobwebs. If not for the tailypo fur, it would have been easy to believe the place had been cleaned, if not decluttered, only a few days before. The air smelled a little musty, but that made sense, since the only regular occupants were a group of wild animals and a colony of talking mice. Sally blinked, slowly, before she turned to me.

“You have a maid service that comes to the creepy murder house?” she asked.

I almost laughed with relief to have her starting off with such a mundane question. “Something like that,” I said. “You’ve heard me mention Cynthia? She runs the Red Angel, a sort of bar and gathering house for our local humanoid cryptid population. You can find all sorts drinking there. She’s known me since I was a baby—knew my mother before me. She’s a skogsrå, one of the most common types of Huldrafolk, and she always has younger staffers on hand who are willing to come over and keep the place tidy in exchange for a few extra dollars in their paychecks. She’s got a key, of course. She’s who I’ll be calling about groceries as soon as we get settled.”

“Why are you calling someone about groceries? Don’t you want to go to the store?”

“I want us all to go to the store, so we can start getting the locals used to the idea that the Prices are coming home to Buckley. That means waiting for Thomas to be awake enough to come along, and getting our story straight before anyone starts asking questions.”

“What’s to get straight?”

“I know it’s been a while since you had to deal with Earth and its annoying dependency on logic, but. The people in Buckley are used to me coming and going. They think I’m my own granddaughter at this point, which is probably less offensive to my actual children than the period where they thought I was Jane. I’d been pretty visibly pregnant before my disappearance, and she came out looking just like every other woman on my side of the family, so I never minded the confusion. She, on the other hand, minded a lot. Pretty sure she’s never been willing to spend time in Buckley because she couldn’t stand the idea that people already thought they knew Jane Price, and it wasn’t her.”

The thought made me more than a little sorry, and more than a little sad. I’d abandoned both my children. I’d let them both down. But somehow, the rift between me and my daughter had always been infinitely deeper than the rift between me and my son. Maybe it was because Kevin and I had those first few years together; maybe it was because he had more time with Laura before she also disappeared. Maybe it was just something about mothers and daughters. Whatever the reason, she didn’t want to be mistaken for me, or for me to be mistaken for her.

“So if I’m my granddaughter, and I’ve brought my new husband back to occupy the family house with me, probably because I’m too much of a loser to wash up anyplace more urban or sophisticated, what are you?” I looked at her mildly. “You’re pretty obviously not biologically mine, age aside. Thomas doesn’t look old enough to have a daughter your age, and we’d both have needed to be barely out of high school when we adopted you for that to make sense.”

“Cousin,” said Sally, firmly. “I’ll be a cousin. Never tell them whether I’m adopted. Genetics can be bizarre as hell sometimes, and it’ll be a nicely distracting mystery to keep people from focusing on how intensely weird we are.”

I laughed—actually laughed—at that, and kept laughing as a vast cry of “HAIL” rose up from behind the couch, followed by enthusiastic cheering. Sally jumped. I gestured toward the sound. “Remember, I told you we had a whole colony living here? Sally, meet the mice. Mice, meet Sally. She’s your newest priestess.”

The mice poured around the side of the couch in a furry tide, the members of my congregation racing up my legs, the members of Thomas’s running up the arms of the couch and stopping to gaze at him with awe. Others, dressed in the livery of other family members or in novice colors, surrounded Sally and stared worshipfully up at her.

Sally squirmed. “Uh, a little help here?”