"Je suis ici!" Amy called out upon entering her house. She scooped up the black cat gazing up at her and getting under her feet. "This is Hermes. Hermes-Apollo. Don't you dare call him Hermey. Everyone else does. I also call him Darkling, but he doesn't answer to that." Amy set him down. Raloz nodded politely. "None of the human members of this house other than me believe in such thing as fifth dimensions, instantaneous transportation, levitation, pyrokinesis, or talking about death."
"It must be a lonely existence," he commented.
"I think so." Amy raised her voice. "Maman? J'ai un ami?."
"You speak French around the house?" he asked.
"Sometimes. I was sure Mom was home on Thursdays. And the door was unlocked. I think she knows enough French to understand what I said. 'Je suis ici.' Comprennez-le-vous?"
"'I am here,' 'Mom, I have a friend,' and 'Do you understand it?'" Raloz translated.
"You'll have to teach me elven," Amy said. "Do you understand Russian? Follow me." She walked to the back room, ignoring the closed den door. Her sister had a considerable group of friends over. She poked her head in the study. No one was there. Amy sighed, closing her eyes, then turned to Raloz and made a tiny bow. "I'm sorry for the inconvenience, but I'm going to have to introduce you to my sister and her friends. We're not allowed to have males over without a chaperon or chaperone, and you're unknown to my parents, so Mom won't trust you."
"I understand," he said, but Amy wondered if he did. There were all these little complexities of human life, and she had only recently discovered that Mom would not let her go on a date with someone she did not know. She knew because she had asked, expecting a yes answer, at the time her sister was arguing with their mother over whether she could go on a date to the movies.
"I wish you'd explain it to me, then," Amy said as they headed back to the den. "Don't take that literally," she added quickly.
"I wasn't about to," Raloz retorted with liveliness as she opened the glass door.
"Aah!" shouted Adam. "It's the witch!"
"Amy, what did you do to your hair?" asked Jackie. As far as Amy knew, her hair was perfectly normal for her, but it did have a tendency of curling rather too much for modern fashion. Also, she frequently forgot to brush it.
"Hi, Amy!" said Jessica and Timmy, Adam's younger siblings, and Ivan and Diana. Ivan and Diana were the most decent of Jenny's friends, Amy thought. Jessica and Timothy had a mild case of slightly competitive hero worship for her, and were not Jenny's friends.
"Jackie's right," said Amelia.
"Don't hurt me!" said Phil. Amy was surprised to see him over. He had been Jenny's first boyfriend, and so far the only one, but Amy liked to sometimes take credit for breaking them up. Both categorically denied it. Jackie was sitting in his lap.
"It's the lizard queen!" said Adam. She do not know how he connected her with lizards.
"Amy, go away," said Jenny.
Another girl, new enough to be very confused by all the commotion Amy's appearance caused, her name Amy did not know.
Amy sighed. "Hi, Jenny, shut up Adam, shut up Phil. Hi, Timmy, hi, Jessica, hi, Ivan, hi, Diana. Jenny, meet Raloz. Raloz, meet Jenny."
"Amy's got a boyfriend!" shouted Jackie.
"No, he's going to fall in love with Jenny, just like Brian!" said Diana.
"How long can you burp for?" Ivan asked Raloz, who looked faintly bewildered.
"I have a headache," Amy muttered.
"That's nice, Amy, go away," said Jenny. Amy grimaced at the lot of them and backed out of the den, sliding the door closed.
"I survived," said Raloz. "Did you?"
"Oh, they went fairly light on me today. Don't mind their boyfriend speel. They take it seriously, which means it's ridiculous. Now for the computer."
They went back to the study, and Amy went through the motions of turning the computer on while Raloz studied the bookshelves. They lined one wall from ceiling to floor, and there were four of them, with seven shelves each. The first one contained Amy's mother's and father's old chemistry and economics college textbooks; the second held novels, either classic or on economics or politics; the third supported magazines: National Geographic and Consumer Reports; and the fourth groaned under romantic or suspenseful novels and books on the Christian doctrine. They also had trinkets, figurines, and souvenirs on them.
Amy finished and waited for Raloz to notice, gnawing on the inside of her cheek. She wondered if she could write something about these events to make things turn out more satisfactorily to her than might be likely.
"How long will it take?" Raloz asked, turning around.
"I'm done," Amy said.
Raloz looked surprised. "Why didn't you say something sooner?"
"I don't like talking," Amy said shortly.
Raloz looked amazed. "Really!" Amy did not know what that tone of voice meant, and so judged it best to remain silent on the subject, instead moving from her chair so he could take a seat. He looked uncertain, but sat, then looked up at her. "I don't know how to use a computer."
Amy raised her eyebrows, hoping to express surprise, and gestured to the arrow keys. "These move the cursor, which is the flickering portion of the screen. The pages run downwards. Try not to lose your place when you skip to another page, since there's a large space.
He smiled gently. "You look so childish."
She studiously examined the cloud-like patterns on the ceiling. Then she noticed a series of swirls that reminded her of sea waves and inspired a poem, causing her to forget about Raloz's presence for a time.
"Amarantha!"
Amy blinked and remembered herself, focusing on Raloz with the intention of gazing steadily at one object until she had balanced. "Yes?"
"Are you all right?"
"Perfectly!"
"You looked . . ." She waited while he fumbled with words. "What were you doing?"
"Composing."
"What?" Amy gazed at him steadily, then chose to assume that as a request to identify her composition rather than to repeat the word, which was really the most probable, though less capable of commanding respect.
"Well, you remember the prophecy that had you go to the plains of Ksicamoc."
"Yes." He frowned at her intently. She wondered what he was waiting for, then decided he wanted further explanation.
"I just figured out the sixth verse."
"What, you mean . . ." And he sang;
"A sun rises, a life that falls,
The waves of time tumble over the sand.
Child comes when child calls,
And adults comprehend not the land.
Understanding is running free,
Flying the clouds and swimming the seas.
A child's life is preciously clutched.
Cramped into fear, the ocean is seized."
"Don't sing any more!" Amy said quickly.
"What? Why not? Are you afraid of my singing?"
"Didn't you read any of that!" she demanded, stabbing a finger in the direction of the screen. It was her first book, and Raloz should have been able to tell at least something from the content. According to herself, Amy would have been able to deduce everything just by looking at the title! "Or are you going to be like Mom?" she hissed on a sudden thought. Amy disliked skeptics on principle, was one when the occasion warranted, and took her magics and religions very seriously.
"Er . . . I'm sorry to say I've never met the lady. However . . . I take it you mean to say that this is original."
She glared at him, deliberately tensing and wondering if she could get into a nice physical fight with him to relieve some of her temper. Of course, he would definitely win, but if she broke nothing, then she would have fun. "I do not plagiarize!" Amy snapped.
"Of course."
"I wrote it! If you find what Michael wrote, you might notice that it's in Latin! I don't know Latin! Just English, French, and a smattering of Russian!"
"Amarantha, calm down, I meant no harm. But, since this is original, I can certainly see reasons that Amano might be upset."
Amy made a mental note that Raloz had used 'since' and not 'if.' Cherry did not like what Amy had written about her, so Cherry would have her change it. She saw no reason to tell Raloz what she had foreseen as the consequences of Cherry's first idea.
"But there is very little reason for me to be upset."
Amy relaxed immediately. "Good."
"I suppose you know what Amano intends her revenge to be," he added.
"Actually, no," she said. "I do a lot of writing, but there's a bit of a gap between about five hundred years into the future and our last world war, the time that you . . ." Amy cleared my throat uncomfortably, realizing that she was about to say something which would give him very good excuse to take a certain amount of physical revenge. "When you had two atomic bombs blown up in your face. It took you two years to heal completely?"
"Well, I was walking again in six months. You were responsible for those?"
"I take no credit!" Amy said quickly, thinking of the devastated cities of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. She also seemed to recall having been taught about that disaster long before she had ever started writing, although she realized that she might have changed the past. Actually, she had changed the past, and suddenly felt very bad. "I place full blame on President Truman, since he seemed to have his reasons. As to your presence there . . ." Amy sighed and shrugged. "In Nagasaki, it was because I suddenly realized that the date was the same as Cherry's birthday. In Hiroshima . . ." She shrugged again, refusing to say that it had been because she had wanted to do something mean to him to see what he would do. She did not think his good mood would survive that. Raloz was very good at good moods, but Amy never had figured out just how he got to Nagasaki in three days' time. She did not think he ever lost his temper. She changed the subject so as not to test that. "So why were you following me around today?"
"To better fulfill my orders, I needed to observe you. So I, um, made arrangements before time." Amy refused to ask. Observe her? That sounded strange. A reconnaissance mission. And how had Raloz done it so that she felt eyes on her all day long? It was extremely uncomfortable, and would mean he would have to be on school grounds when he was not a student. Of course, being mostly a vampire, he was likely to be able to deal with proctors asking for I.D. quite easily. That was it. Or perhaps he had changed his shape. Amy suddenly recalled the reason that he could change his shape quickly, when he was mostly vampire, who were slow shape changers, was that he was also significantly faerie.
"Can you change me into an angel?" Amy asked.
"What?"
She looked at his confused face, and realized that it had taken her two seconds to completely switch the subject. "Never mind."
"No, I can, and I might, but why?"
"I don't know," Amy mumbled. She wanted to fly. She wanted to fly with a passion almost as great as Cherry's desire to die. Amy wanted to be able to spread physical wings and work the air to lift herself above the earth's surface. An angel had wings, so the immediate choice was an angel. Fortunately, she had remembered quickly enough the dangers of being put into debt in certain societies. These vampires and elves and phantoms could get almost as bad as organized crime. Amy quickly exited the computer program. "So, what was going on yesterday?"
"Yesterday?"
"And today."
She waited. Raloz did not seem to want to talk, which meant it was something terrible. Then she thought that it was also something humiliating, and frowned. The more she thought along that line, the more she frowned. Amy tried to dig her way to another path, but that seemed the only possibility. Her curiosity popped.
"Why not try some very, very roundabout way of telling me," Amy said abruptly. "It might be easier on both of us."
"I'm still trying to get around you treating me like and old friend, when there seems to have been only one person you talked to at all today at your school who wasn't a teacher," he said.
That might explain his reticence, but Cherry had a distinctly malicious mind. This would be revenge tailored to fit Amy and her crimes against Cherry, and Amy was becoming increasingly certain that there was only one possibility. And of course, Amy's opinions of Cherry were what dictated everything about her. "I'm in trouble, right?"
"Given my instructions, that's very likely. But I sort of need your cooperation."
"My cooperation!" Amy was suddenly very, very relieved, and at once resolved to avoid looking at his face at all.
"What's wrong? Why, what were you thinking?"
"You know quite well what she considers the worst possible thing! I've been kind enough to arrange rescue or other escape until now."
He looked like he might have paled. The shocked expression on his face reassured Amy immensely. "I am an honorable man!" he exclaimed. What a European expression, she thought. No not European, archaic. Well, it was her own fault, Amy chided herself. Raloz shook his head violently. "Oh, Amano does think of awful things. She was ranting for a time last night, but I don't think she's capable of thinking of rape unless she's in danger of it."
Amy grimaced. "Watch your language."
"I thought you said my English had improved."
"Please don't try to lift the mood yet. I'm not depressed, and it might make me so. I don't like certain concepts."
"Are you quoting?"
"Probably only myself."
"Ah. Well, Amano was able to go a certain degree towards what you feared, although I think it took a lot of thinking to reach it. I'm not sure how she intends for me to manage so that it is still a punishment. I mean, you're an American with a nuclear family, and she was raised by Middle-Ages Englishmen. You're also seemingly more assertive than she was when she was fourteen, which might have something to do with your extra three years."
Fourteen? What had happened to Cherry when she was fourteen? Michael had died, and she was a year from discovering that she was only one quarter elf as well as fractions of nineteen other things, and she had made the acquaintance of her cousin, to the semi-author of the second of Amy's books, and Baslon had married her on her real birthday, twenty days before the legal one. Amy felt her lungs crumple as all air left them.
"Do you have any ideas, Amarantha?" Raloz asked with what seemed like genuine curiosity, catching Amy's attention while she was distracted from her own thoughts by her own thoughts.
"I wasn't listening," she said weakly. "Why should I have ideas on how you can punish me? I don't even understand how Cherry found out."
"She, er . . . wanted me to marry you." He stared at his feet.
"Oh, gods." Amy stared at the ceiling. "You did say you had no intention of taking your orders seriously?"
Raloz mumbled something. Cherry might not leave him much choice. Amy scowled.
"Sometimes I wonder how anyone can love her."
Raloz looked up at Amy, startled.
"Oh, I know I wrote it that way, but she isn't very lovable." She still stared at the ceiling. "Then again, neither am I, and look at the way my family treats me, and my nickname."
"Your nickname? What is your nickname?"
"This one's Amy. Got lots of others."
"The Beloved."
"I think it best that you leave now, Raloz. I do not like the implications of what you have told me."
"Oh. Sure. But Amarantha, Amy . . ."
Amy trembled and gave him a steady glare for that.
"The arrangements that I talked about, you remember?" She nodded warily. "Well, it was rearranging the classes at your school. I'm now enrolled in almost all of them, including Russian. Amano's idea."
"Oh, gods." Amy paused, then decided that she was not capable of much more of any form of politeness. "Get out of the house now."
"Right. There's going to be trouble." Amy growled deep in her throat. She knew that already. She could feel the oppression of to the future crushing her like an aluminum can. "Summer school, too," he added gently, "and all of next year."
"Why don't you just tell me which college I'm going to!" Amy shouted. "Out!"
He calmly walked to the front door.
Desperately breathing slowly, Amy waited until he had left the property, then fetched and lit a black candle and a grey candle.
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