Meeting (2 page)

Maya’s mother stood beside the piano, smiling at the company. She was short, pleasantly plump, and dark-haired, and she wore a light jacket over her clothes. Since fall had fallen, the nights were cool, but they had to keep all the windows open. When it froze, they might have to rethink the set-up. Dad had built up a fire in the fireplace, but the heat only went so far. People bundled up. “Welcome back, everyone,” Mom said. “What’s your pleasure tonight?”

Benjamin’s mother, Dr. Porta, said, from the far side of the room, “Can we start off with ‘Pretty Polly’?”

“Sure,” said Mom. “What key?”

“A.”

“And you want to do Polly’s lines, right?”

Dr. Porta just smiled.

Mom sat at the piano. People with instruments put them into playable positions, and they all started the song on a downbeat from Maya’s tall, blond father, who leaned against the wall near the piano.

Everybody sang about the evil Willy, who stabbed his girlfriend Pretty Polly through the heart, and her heart’s blood did flow. Dr. Porta sang Pretty Polly’s lines alone. “Willy, oh Willy, I’m afraid of your ways,” Polly cried, as well she should be, since Willy’s idea of a fun tour was to lead pretty Polly over the mountains and valleys to a grave he’d spent the night digging. Fear didn’t save Pretty Polly, and begging didn’t either. Willy stabbed her, threw her in the grave, and dropped a little dirt on her.

The Janus House people could harmonize like nobody’s business. Maya wasn’t sure whether to sing or listen. Maya’s alien shadow, Rimi, was alive with delight; Maya felt her dancing, slight changes in air currents against Maya’s face, and her joy was like warm water.

In the shuffle of the song’s ending, Maya whispered to Benjamin, “Your mother.”

He smiled. “My mother,” he whispered.

I like his mother
, Rimi thought.

Me, too,
Maya thought.

Peter, Maya’s younger brother, asked if they could sing “The Fox” next. Everybody got to pick at least one song on Music Night, which led to some very long nights. Janus House people seemed to know most of the folk songs the Andersens knew, and the ones they didn’t know they learned after hearing them once or twice. The Andersens were still trying to learn Janus House people’s favorite songs. The ones in English, anyway.

Sometimes the visitors sang songs in their own language, Kerlinqua, and then strange things happened. Winds blew only in the house. Little lights appeared in shadowed nooks and in spirals on the ceiling. Maya sometimes felt the brush of invisible wings, and sometimes she heard the whispers of people from otherwhere or otherwhen.

Sometimes the songs just made you feel different. Longing, sadness, or inexplicable happiness. Other songs could do that too, though.

Mom and Dad didn’t seem to notice the magic sneaking in. Maya wondered if Peter did. He usually sat across the room from her on Music Night. Their seventeen-year-old sister Candra was off at her high school working on the school newspaper most Saturday nights. She had started resenting Music Night even before the family had moved from Idaho to Oregon.

“Let’s never get that old,” Maya and Peter had whispered to each other once, after Candra stomped off before the singing began.

Maya had always thought singing was magic. Her family used to have Music Night in Idaho and she loved the way songs could knit people together.

Candra was stupid to miss Music Night, Maya thought, as they went on to sing “The Springhill Mine Disaster.” Candra was interested in journalism, and wildly curious about everything that happened next door, always trying to get Maya to talk about what she was learning, or what she saw and heard while she visited Janus House. Maya couldn’t tell Candra anything. Silence lay on her tongue, put there by the leader of the Janus House people, Great-uncle Harper Janus.

If only Candra were here, she might notice strange things. Maybe she’d bug somebody besides Maya about it.

 

 

 

Halfway through the evening, when they broke for refreshments, Maya’s wish came true. She had just loaded a plate with pumpkin bread from Benjamin’s mother’s kitchen when Candra came in the front door. Her pale hair haloed her head. Her black and gray school messenger bag hung against her hip. She stood on the threshold and looked at all the neighbors. Her green eyes lit. “Hey,” she said. “Hey, y’all.”

“You must be Candra. I’m Dr. Porta,” said Benjamin’s mother, from the chair closest to the door. “Would you like some cake?”

“Sure,” said Candra. She shrugged out of her pack and followed Dr. Porta to the dining room table, glancing right and left as she went. People were sitting on chairs, with plates of food perched on their knees. Dr. Porta introduced Candra to other people, including Great-uncle Harper, not Maya’s favorite person. Tonight Great-uncle Harper was wearing an orange suit. It looked like a business suit except for the color. Candra shook his hand enthusiastically, which Maya thought was a little careless; Harper was who knew how old, and he looked frail, like a good grip might break his bones. Deceptive, but how could Candra know that?

Maya took her plate and headed for the couch, wondering what had happened to Candra’s newspaper night. She sat down and watched her sister charming strangers. Candra had the gift of being able to make people like her. Often they answered questions she asked when it would be much smarter if they didn’t.

Gwenda settled next to Maya on the couch. She was watching Candra, too. “She lurks. She looms,” she said. “I see her around Janus House all the time, despite the wards.”

“She wants to find out all about you,” Maya said.

“Oh, dear,” said Gwenda.

“She can be incredibly snoopy and pesky.”

“Oh, dear.” Gwenda fingered the round, engraved stones of her charm bracelet.

She strokes the power in them
, Rimi thought.
Different colors
.

Can you show me?
Maya wondered.

Hmm,
thought Rimi. A shadow dropped over Maya’s eyes, and then something shifted in her vision and she saw that each of the stones on Gwenda’s bracelet looked like a little galaxy, some red, some green, some gold, some blue. Gwenda’s nervous fingers shifting them around made the galaxy lights flare or spread or collapse.

Wow
, Maya thought. She blinked, and the shadow with its power of seeing energy flicked up and away.
Thanks, Rimi.
They were still getting to know each other. Every day brought more discoveries.

Candra made her way over and sat down on the couch next to Maya. “Hi, Gwenda. Nice to see you again,” Candra said.

Gwenda had been Maya’s first visitor in the new house; she had come to dinner soon after the Andersens moved in.

“Hi, Candra,” Gwenda said.

“Last time I met you, I didn’t know how interesting you were.”

“I’m not interesting.”

“Hey, I’ve seen how you dress. You’re interesting.”

“Thanks. I guess.”

“I’d like to get a look in your closet,” said Candra.

Gwenda turned and met Maya’s eyes. No question, Candra was snoopy. They smiled at each other.

“You are so subtle,” Maya told her older sister.

Candra grinned and shrugged. “Come on, what’s so secret about your closet?”

Gwenda cocked her head. Maya noticed that Gwenda’s mean cousin Rowan had drifted closer, and so had Maya’s Janus House teacher Sarutha.

“Well, maybe it’d be all right to show you,” Gwenda said. She glanced at Sarutha, who nodded once. “How interested in clothes are you?”

“I like looking at people who wear a lot of colors. I don’t necessarily want to wear them myself. When can I come?”

“Tomorrow afternoon,” Gwenda said. Sarutha gave one sharp nod again. Gwenda gripped Maya’s hand. “You come, too,” she said, “okay?”

“Sure,” said Maya. She had been in several apartments at Janus House, but she’d never visited Gwenda’s. “Hey, do you guys celebrate Halloween? We’re carving our pumpkins tomorrow.”

“Halloween? That’s a whole other subject,” said Gwenda, and then Maya’s mother said it was time to sing again, and everybody settled down except Candra, who went upstairs to get away from the ultimate dorkiness of group music.

“Come on. She
said it was okay,” Maya told Candra the next afternoon as they approached the steps to Janus House’s front porch.

“I know,” said Candra. “I want to go inside. I’ve wanted to for a long time.” Then she turned around and headed back to the sidewalk, away from the verandah that surrounded the big, complicated, old-fashioned building that held the Janus House Apartments and all sorts of hidden rooms and other secrets.

“Candra,” Maya said. She grabbed her big sister’s hand and dragged her toward the building again.

“This is what
always
happens when I try to come over here,” Candra said. “Keep hanging on, will you?”

“Weird,” said Maya. Candra was trying to pull free.

“Hey.” Peter came up behind them. “If you guys are going to Janus House, I want to go, too.”

Peter’s fists were clenched at his sides, his eyebrows lowered, as he trudged up the path toward them. He got halfway there and suddenly turned around. “Hey.”

An energy reaches out and persuades their bodies they don’t want to come here
, Rimi told Maya.

The wards,
Maya thought. She’d heard her teachers and others mention warding the house against intruders, but she hadn’t seen it work before.

“You guys, wait here. I’ll go get Gwenda,” Maya said. She released Candra, who wandered away. Peter fidgeted on the pathway, frowning as he faced the house.

Maya crossed the porch and opened one of the double front doors. She stepped over the threshold into the foyer of the building.

Inside, the space opened into a broad, three-story entry with a special welcome-to-the-outside-world mat you wiped your feet on as you left the building. Janus House people had to be careful not to take the dust of other worlds where outsiders might sense it. Maya wasn’t sure what her family would make of a doormat on the inside of the door. If anything. Heck. She didn’t have to explain.

Benjamin’s apartment was to the left as she entered. Wide stairs rose before her, and hallways led past the staircase on either side, with different colored apartment doors opening off them. Maya’s teacher Sarutha’s apartment was on the third floor, with its own tiny balcony, where they sat amid Sarutha’s potted plants and drank tea sometimes while Maya was studying. Maya wasn’t sure which door Gwenda lived behind.

She knocked on Benjamin’s green door. A moment later, Benjamin answered, and she smiled at him. He smiled back. “Hi. Are we expecting you?”

“Gwenda said Candra could come over and see her closet today, only I don’t know where Gwenda lives, and anyway, Candra can’t seem to get to the house. How does that work?”

Benjamin frowned. “Oh, yeah. I bet Gwenda forgot about the wards.”

“Peter wants to come, too. Is there a way for them to come in?”

“Sure.” He turned and called toward the kitchen, “Hey, Mom. It’s Maya. I have to go out and let her sister and brother through the wards and take them to Gwenda’s, okay?”

“Did Harper approve that?” Dr. Porta’s voice was a little muffled.

Benjamin raised his eyebrows at Maya.

“Sarutha seemed to think it would be okay,” Maya said.

“I’m going,” Benjamin called to his mother, and then he stepped out of the apartment and closed the door behind him.

When Benjamin and Maya came out on the front porch, Candra and Peter were gone. Maya sighed. Benjamin followed her back to her house, across a carpet of grass. “Hey,” Maya called as she and Benjamin came into the living room, “Peter? Candra?”

Both of them came out of the kitchen.

“What happened?”

“Like I said, what always happens when I try going there,” Candra said. “I end up somewhere else.”

“Let’s try it again. I brought a native guide.”

“Oh, yeah,” Candra said, “the cute one. Hi, there.”

Benjamin blushed.

“Candra, Benjamin. Benjamin, Candra.” Maya was mad at Candra for noticing, for saying “the cute one” aloud, and for making Benjamin uncomfortable.

“Hi, Benjamin,” Peter said.

“Hi, Peter. Hey, you guys.
Hishlah
. Come on over.”

Hishlah,
thought Rimi.
Curious.

This time Maya didn’t have to drag Candra up the front path. She walked on her own, and almost crowded Maya and Benjamin off the path in her eagerness to get inside.

Peter rushed inside, too.

Both Maya’s siblings paused in the front entry to stare. Maya, who had been coming here three days a week for a month and a half, blinked and tried to look at it with fresh eyes. The staircase had wide steps covered in warm red carpet that also covered the floor of the entryway and hallways, and the balusters were hand-carved with images of vines. Capping the newel posts at the bottom of the banisters were honey-colored wooden rings big enough to put your hand through. The hallways looked pretty normal, except the light fixtures were shaped like metal dragons holding balls of light. Light came from a skylight somewhere high above, aimed down by frosted mirrors.

“Wow,” said Candra.

Maya wondered why she had never drawn the entryway. She guessed maybe it was because the first time she’d come in, she’d felt so sick she couldn’t focus, and the next few times she was rushing through to get somewhere else. Now it was too normal for her to notice.

“Gwenda lives upstairs,” said Benjamin. He led them up to the second floor.

Two hallways led past a structure that was an extension of the downstairs central courtyard. Frosted glass let light in from that open space, but you couldn’t see clearly through the windows. Sometimes aliens and strangers from other dimensions met there, so it was just as well.