The Other Normals (13 page)

“
Agh!
” Ada yells. A batracian guard grins as he digs a spear into her shoulder.

“No! Get her!” I kick Gamary like he’s any old horse, which he probably doesn’t appreciate, and he surges forward, smashing through the remaining guards and the door that leads to the corridor to the thakerak chamber. The wood explodes around us as he grabs Ada and runs down the hall.

“Are you okay?” I ask her.

“It’s nothing—Tendrile and the celates will be here any second—let’s do this!”

“Off!” Gamary says. We’re at the door to his chamber. Other business owners stare at us in wonder.

I slide off him, streaking against wet patches on his hide. “You’re hurt!”

“Don’t worry. Just get in there and go home. You never should’ve been caught up in this.”

I enter Gamary’s thakerak chamber, noticing that my ankle still hurts. I laugh—it’s nothing now, a pittance, the concern of a lesser person.

Inside, blue-haired Ryu sits reading.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?” HE ASKS. He drops his book. It’s handwritten in that odd language from the sacks of hepatodes and it has pencil illustrations instead of glossy photos, but I see what it is: a New York City guidebook.

“What do you care?” Gamary locks the door behind us. Ada grabs a strip of burlap and wraps it around her injured shoulder. Her blood is red, like mine.

“You two should be in jail! Or dead! I’ll call the authorities—”

Someone pounds on the door. It buckles, but Gamary puts his bulk against it and it holds. “They’re here, but they’re not getting in, and you’re not getting out.”

“What’s wrong with you? You got paid.”

“I’ve given it back.”

“An attack of conscience from a thaklord? Will wonders never cease.”

“Step aside, Ryu. We have business to take care of.”

“No,
I
have business to take care of, and you should already
be
taken care of!”

“What have you been doing all this time?” Ada asks.

“I know.” I approach Ryu. The thakerak in the dirt buzzes and clicks like it recognizes me. “You’ve been sitting here getting ready to go to Earth, reading that guidebook to make sure you’ve got everything straight.”

“That’s not—”

“Don’t lie. You’re scared. You’re trying to prepare for the unknown. So you read the book. You sit here, testing yourself, sweating, doubting, unable to make the final leap. I know. It’s a hard leap to make. I couldn’t have done it myself if weren’t for the wolf.”

“Wolf?” Ada asks. Gamary shrugs.

“But now you’ve waited too long. Now you’re not gonna get to New York and be a movie-making rock star. It’s sad but it happens. People fail. You failed.”

“Shut up!” Ryu says. He whips out a knife, a curved blade that reflects an electrical pop of the thakerak.

“Open this door!” someone yells outside. More banging, and then a metallic squeal. They’re trying to pick the lock.

Ryu charges at me. The knife is his focus and mine. I see the arc it will tear through the air and through my body. I edge to the side. He stumbles and hits the wall. I have nothing else to throw at him so I use the princess figure. I miss, badly; the silver clatters on the floor.

“Hey!” Ada yells.

“Sorry!”

Ryu comes at me again. I pick up Ada’s notebook, still
on the ground, and hold it out blindly. The knife stutter-steps off the cover, and I feel the zinging recoil travel up Ryu’s arm.

“Hey
again
!”

“Well! Do you want to help me?”

“You’ve got it under control.”

Ryu slashes at me; I block with the book. The time-slowing power of adrenaline lets me see all his muscles and tattoos and … his lip ring! Right there at the end of his sneering face—

I grab it and pull. Down and to the left.

Ryu screams as he jerks like a hooked fish. I jump back—I didn’t mean to do that. I mean, I
did
, but I didn’t anticipate the blood, or the tearing sound, or the inhuman rancorous gurgle that comes from him as he throws his knife at me, desperate to do something to me—
me,
who would want to stab
me
? All of a sudden everyone does.

The knife flies past my ear. I feel my temple and realize a critical portion of my bowl haircut is gone. A thin cut brings to mind the trickle of blood I left on the other Ryu, today, at camp, hours ago, centuries ago.

“
Die!
” Ryu snarls as Gamary and Ada restrain him.

“I thought I had it under control,” I tell her.

“Not anymore!”

I note the symmetry: Ryu’s friends at camp grabbed me, and now my friends are grabbing Ryu. I cut Ryu with Pekker Cland, and now Ryu has cut me in the same place. Ryu
knocked me out, so I know what I have to do. It’s almost like I’m not in control of myself, like I’m a different person, and not necessarily a better one, as I swing Ada’s notebook at him. He crumples to the ground.

“ALL RIGHT,” ADA SAYS, “I WANT YOU TO listen very carefully.” She moves around the room with the confidence of an ER doctor, opening panels on the walls, setting dials. The thakerak hums and purrs.

“Whoa!” Gamary yells as a sword jabs through the door.

“Open up!” a voice orders. The sword jerks up and down but, lodged in the wood, it can’t get far. From the size of it I know it’s Officer Tendrile’s.

“Hurry up!” Gamary pleads.

“Peregrine.” Ada takes my hand. “You have to go back to camp and kiss Anna Margolis, do you understand? We’ll find Mortin in Granger Prison.”

“How? You’re trapped here.”

“I have a service exit,” Gamary says, “if you two don’t get us killed by dawdling.”

“If you don’t kiss her, you won’t free the princess, and the dark shroud of violence that you see will continue to befall us.” She holds up the silver figure. I look into the princess’s eyes. The thakerak sparks, and I swear, for a second, the princess winks at me.

“Why can’t we free her here?”

“Excuse me?”

“Open up!”

“Ophisa—he’s in the Badlands, right? We’ll get an adventuring party together and defeat him. Me, you, Gamary … plus we can rescue Mortin and bring him. I’ve demonstrated my worth as a warrior, right? We’ll kill the monster, free the princess, and all live happily ever after.”

“You’re saying you would rather travel to the Badlands, infiltrate Ophisa’s lair, try to avoid the poison that he spits from his unblinking eyes, run under him with a sword, and plunge it into his dark and distended heart …
than kiss a girl in your summer camp?
”

“Yes! That’s exactly what I’m saying!”

The door splinters and bends. “Hurry!” Gamary says.

“You have bowels, Peregrine, I’ll give you that, but—”

“Excuse me?”

“You’re brave. Bowels.”

“Oh. Uh …” I’m embarrassed to correct her, and we
are
in a time-sensitive situation, but I remember what Mortin said: you should always correct a friend who mispronounces something.

“You’re thinking of a different term, Ada. It’s
balls
.”

“Like
male human testicles
?”

“Yes. Well. Yes.”

“That’s not fair. What do you say for a woman, then?”

“I never thought about it.”

“Open this door!”

“Remember, for Anna,” Ada says, “
don’t
talk about Creatures and Caverns. Instead, compliment her. Don’t think of her as a magical, unattainable creature. Think of her as a
person
, like you, like me. After you’ve talked to her for a maximum of three minutes, propose that you meet in a romantic location to continue your conversation. Once there, go for the kiss. Okay?”

“What if I don’t want to kiss Anna? What if I want to kiss you?”

“What did I tell you about asking that? I’m not even human.”

“Are you a magical, unattainable creature?”

She blushes.

“Hurry!”

“One final thing:
don’t
think about the tree and car battery where you first traveled to our world. Can you do that?”

“What?” As soon as she says it, of course, I picture the scene: the mushroom patch, the Logo Spermatikoi battery, the woods....

Ada shoves me into the center of the room. I trip and land on the thakerak. It pops happily around me. The halos shoot out of my feet. Gamary pushes a shelf aside, and a second door rotates out of the wall. The main door bursts open in a shower of wooden shrapnel as Officer Tendrile and his guards plunge in. Ada and Gamary hustle away (Ada clutching the princess figure). My bodyless head meets Officer Tendrile’s fierce glare as I transit back to

I MATERIALIZE NEXT TO THE CAR BATTERY and clump of mushrooms, exactly where I’d left, just as I pictured. The trees shoot out at me in bleached high contrast and settle into their normal positions. Before I even have my whole body back, I’m running.

I’m convinced that Officer Tendrile and his men are on my tail! I figure they’ll be coming after me at any moment, ready to cut a bloody swath through camp. It’ll be all over the news … but maybe nothing here ever makes the news. Maybe that’s what “No Lawyers Beyond This Point” means.

I stop. I’m naked. No one’s coming after me, but the wolf stands in front of me.

I forgot about the wolf. “Are you kidding me?” I ask out loud. I guess I returned at the same time I left, or maybe the wolf likes to hang out here. It growls, but I hear fear in its growl. I’ve been through way too much to be scared of a wolf. I shoo it away like I would a cat—and the itching starts.

It begins in my feet and spreads up my legs and arms. I collapse on the forest floor. It infests every inch of me. I don’t have any hepatode bags to help; I writhe on the ground and
plunge my nails into myself and scratch at my chest, arms, and legs. I have to do something. What did Ada say? If you can’t get rid of the itching with pleasure, you have to …

I
slam
my hand on a rock next to me.

“Aaaaagh!”

That does it. The pain spreads out and numbs the itching. I lie on the ground as my body settles. I take a deep breath. The sun shines through the leaves at an afternoon angle. A bird calls. The insects start up. Earth. It smells like Earth; it looks like Earth; it’s a North American deciduous forest in summer, and everything’s where it belongs. I need some clothes.

Mortin’s clothes are in the pile where he left them when we traveled together. His lighter too. It’s real. As real as Earth. Could both Earth and the World of the Other Normals be real? I look down my nude body as if the answer is there.

A
hair
!

IT STICKS OUT BETWEEN MY LEGS LIKE an intrepid explorer reaching for the stars. I stare at it and think about the component words of
late bloomer
: the first one is
late
, and that’s bad, but the second is
bloomer
, and the blooming really does happen.

“I did it!”

I skip, trip over a root, and hit the ground hard, but I can’t stop laughing and examining myself. Have my adventures made me hit puberty? Must be! I hop in circles to celebrate, but that only lasts a few seconds, until I check the side of my head—the cut from Ryu’s knife has traveled back to camp with me. The blood is congealing into a bumpy wall against the elements. My ankle’s still tender, too, and my hand still hurts from smashing it on the rock to stop the itching, and my wrists have tentacle sucker marks on them. I have a lot of explaining to do.

I put on Mortin’s clothes. They’re too big but they’re better than nothing—I’m not
that
proud of the hair.

MY NAVIGATION SKILLS HAVE IMPROVED; I might have higher Intelligence now. I use the sun. I remember from the brochure that the nurse’s office is near the southern end of camp, and the sun has crested in the west, so if I keep it to my right, I’ll be fine. I never thought to use the sun before; in New York it’s easier to find a watch than the sun.

I wonder if I did a specific thing in the World of the Other Normals to make myself get the hair, or if my “correspondent” did. Ada said everyone has a correspondent: Who’s mine? Is it
Wizard of Oz
–style? Did mine do something brave to make me level up?

I step on roots and rocks so as not to leave footprints, but I also snap the lowest snappable branch of every tenth tree. It makes a clear path back to the transit point, a path only I would notice.

After ten minutes I reach the edge of the woods. In front of me is the field I ran across with Mortin so many eons before. I step out, holding my pants up. Was I gone for an hour, or a second? Does time work the same way here that it does there? It certainly seems like the same afternoon I left, but what if it’s been
years
? What if the nurse’s office is abandoned? Maybe
mice are nesting in the cabinets, and spiders have taken over the motivational posters....

The nurse who tended to me stands outside, smoking. She looks at the sky as the smoke whiffs away.