Page 84 of Tidal Creatures

Artemis smiles before she flees for the kitchen with the dog at her heels, running away from the relative complexity of ordinary people trapped in extraordinary circumstances, returning to the comforting familiarity of the divine. Erin watches her go and sighs. It must be nice to be able to move between two worlds as easily as breathing, to slide from one into the other when either becomes too difficult to withstand. She’s never had that option. None of the people living in this semi-coherent, unreasonably malleable house have. Even Smita, who could technically still return to the world of the living if she wanted to put in the time and effort, has slipped too far into the alchemical mire to go back to what she was.

Turning, Erin wanders down the hall toward the guest room she half-identified, half-conjured for their unwilling houseguests. The door is open; from inside, she hears Isabella trying to explain to Luis that his father isn’t coming to join them. The boy doesn’t understand yet, based on the querulous noises he’s making. He will, and Erin doesn’t want to be here for that. She keeps walking, heading for the door with the PLEASE, NO sign advising her to stay away.

She can’t read all the languages on the sign, but she knows what they say, and she figures that’s close enough for government work. Raising one hand, she knocks briskly.

There’s a pause before Roger calls, “Is the house on fire?”

“If the house were on fire, Dodger would be in your head demanding you tell it to stop,” says Erin reasonably. “It’s me.”

The door opens, and Roger is there, hair slightly mussed in the way that means he’s been running his hands through it. It’s strangely appealing. She hasn’t seen him looking like that in a while—not since he became the living Doctrine and stopped being strictly human. It’s a nervous habit that comes out when he’s confronted with an interesting linguistic problem, something he has to think about, not just snap his fingers and solve. Manifesting as the living incarnation of language has made it harder for him to find things that intellectually excite him.

Erin’s always been a little sorry about that, although not sorry enough to recommend they try another reset and pass the Doctrine to Kim and Tim. There’s a reality where they survive and one where they don’t, and she prefers to stay in the one where they do.

“What?” he asks, eyes bright and cheeks flushed with what could be irritation—or arousal. He used to look at her like that.

Doctrine’s gonna bag a moon goddess, she thinks, and it’s a sufficiently amusing concept to take the sting out of the idea. “Isabella’s back. She brought her kid.”

“She told us she was going to.” He moves to shut the door.

Erin grabs hold of it before he can. “She didn’t bring her husband, and she’s not going to. The alchemists found her before we could get her back here.”

“What?” He lets go of the door and stares at her. Behind him, Erin hears someone moving around. Judy, coming to listen.

“They made an auf—a sort of flesh-puppet thing that replaces a real person, like splitting the difference between a construct and a clone; they’re fast and dirty work, starting with coring out the person you want to replace—and sent it to track Kelpie’s steps. It found Isabella, and it killed her husband. Artemis got there before it could kill her and the kid, and she brought them back here for safety’s sake.”

“And now we have houseguests,” concludes Roger grimly. “You get them situated?”

“Yeah. They’re sharing a room downstairs. Kid’s as normal as normal comes. I’m not sure he’ll notice anything weird the whole time he’s here.”

“Oh, he’ll notice plenty that’s weird,” says Roger. “It’ll just be all the normal sort of weird, like Kim making breakfast-cereal sandwiches, or Dodger doing differential equations on the window in Sharpie. Still, it’s good to know we’ll need to pull back around him.”

“Unless you want to make his future therapy bills even higher,” says Erin.

Roger, who has more experience with traumatized teens than he ever expected he would, sighs. “And they’ll already be high enough.”

Erin nods. “They will, and this isn’t over yet. We have some additional tasks to complete.”

“Make sure Isabella isn’t being held responsible for her husband’s murder, get rid of the alchemists that attacked her, find her that house we promised, get her out of our guest room,” says Roger, rapid-fire.

Erin nods again. “And deal with the infestation of moon gods we seem to have developed.”

“I don’t know,” says Roger. “I like a few of them.”

“Mm-hmm. I can see that. You two have fun. We’ve got about an hour before we’ll need to head for campus.” Erin grins, sudden and sharp. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

She turns and walks away before Roger can answer her. Some statements don’t need replies.

Mare Undarum

TIMELINE: AUGUST 18, 2017. THREE DAYS TO THE ECLIPSE.

Máni and Kelpie are exploring the blackberry maze. Kelpie’s hands are filled with fruit, the orange skin around her mouth stained with streaks of purple like delicate bruises. Máni is more familiar with blackberries; he’s clearly been picking them as well, but more carefully, and his hands are nearly clean. Both of them look around as Artemis comes clattering down the porch steps, Máni relaxing at the sight of her, while Kelpie tenses.

Artemis hopes the other woman will eventually be able to look at her without seeing a loss of autonomy and an unasked-for future full of gods and monsters. Desired or not, that future is coming for them both, and this will be easier if they can accept it. Máni waves.

“Artemis!” he calls. “Any trouble?”

“The man was dead when I got there, but I saved Isabella and the boy.” Bobby sees Kelpie and bounds across the yard to greet her, tail wagging wildly.