“Most of the capybara have managed to evade the crushing coils of the green anaconda, but not all are so fortunate. This is the price the non-dominant males pay as the sentinels of the group.”

Nature shows weren’t really my thing, but Elle generally liked them, and I wasn’t feeling up to going out. Hadn’t been in some time. I idly watched the group of herbivores make their way through the muddy waters to safety while I made some coins lazily float just over the floor in a gentle loop. Fingers were carding through my hair and gently running along my scalp, and I was losing myself in them. Just as you could hand Elle a toothbrush with toothpaste on it and she would brush her teeth, I had plopped my head in her lap, and she had started in on my dark locks.

I didn’t think we had said anything all day, but that was how things had been since our disastrous ‘patrol.’ Elle had continued her downward slide, and it had been the same for me in a way.

“Girls, we’re going out,” Melanie said from somewhere behind us, speaking up over the narrator as the mother capybara tended to their kids.

“‘Kay,” I distantly replied. My scalp felt so nice. “Have fun.”

“No, June. I mean we, the three of us, are going out.”

I frowned, the orbit of my coins slowing to a crawl as I tried to process that. “Huh?”

“You heard me. Up. Get dressed and help Elle do the same.”

“Don’t feel like going,” I replied as my coins began to rotate a bit faster again. After all, that was that. I didn’t feel like going, and so no going. That made sense.

Something was still off though. Melanie moved to block my view of the TV, and the screen went dark. Goodbye, capybaras. May you live a long, snake free life.

“June, are you feeling okay?”

“I’m upset,” I answered, and I was. She knew that, didn’t she? I felt a little groggy, like I was waking up from a nap. The conversation helped ground me. “Do we have to go on a walk? I’d rather not.”

Melanie tapped the TV remote against her arm as she looked down at me, and I wasn’t sure what to make of her expression. “This isn’t optional. Elle needs to take a walk, and you need to stop moping about the place.”

I blinked in confusion. “Needs to…?” I looked around and winced when I realized I hadn’t noticed the walls had shifted into stone at some point. “Oh.”

“‘Oh’ indeed,” Melanie drawled. “You, meanwhile, have been more or less living on this couch for days.”

I fished around for a moment, looking for a suitable reply that would get her to leave me alone at the very least. Then I could get back to watching capybaras. Or whatever. “Can’t we do this… um, Saturday, maybe?” It’s Thursday, right? That should buy me a few days.

“It is Saturday,” she immediately replied, looking very unimpressed. “Thank you for making evident exactly why you need to get out. Now get up, or I will break that couch into pieces.”

“No it isn’t?” I half heartedly argued, not even sounding convincing to myself. I used my power to grab my phone from where it had fallen into the couch cushions and unlocked it to find…

[Saturday, October 30, 2010 12:12 P.M.]

Well shit. I debated for a moment whether she would actually damage the furniture over this, but in the end, I had to admit it was obvious she wouldn’t take no for an answer. I sluggishly pulled myself up into a seated position, grumbling the whole way.

“We leave in ten minutes,” Melanie warned as she turned towards the exit, a heavy metal door that nearly reached the ceiling. How had I not noticed any of Elle’s changes happening? “I’m dragging you along at that point in whatever you’re wearing. I suggest it be something other than the clothes you’ve worn the past three days.”

I lifted my arm and took a quick sniff, confirming yes, I most definitely had been wearing these clothes too long. Frankly I needed a shower too, but I didn’t doubt for a second that Melanie would make good on her threat, and ten minutes was barely enough time for the two of us to get dressed, much less do that and take a shower.

“C’mon, Elle,” I murmured as I took her hand and tugged her to her feet. “Gotta go.”

As we trudged down the hallway towards our room, I noticed I felt detached, for a lack of a better word. I vaguely felt like I should be concerned, but I couldn’t piece together why. Clothes, I reminded myself, focusing on what made sense. Change clothes.

Our safe house wasn’t a dump, but it certainly wasn’t homey. The Bay had no shortage of abandoned buildings thanks to the economic crash brought about by the birth of the Boat Graveyard, or so I was told. We were in an old factory whose ground floor offices had been refurbished with some second hand furniture to make it livable. The doors on the ground floor had all been sealed shut after the furniture was put in place, and though the building was tall enough for a second and even a third floor, there weren’t any entrances or windows higher up. The only way to get in was through the sewer, but the building didn’t have a manhole like the one in the loading bay at Palanquin. Instead there was a literal hole carved from the ground floor of the building down and over to the sewer, courtesy of acid from Gregor. A ladder served for helping those among us who couldn’t fly or cling to walls get out, and some sort of tarp was draped over the hole that kept the odor at bay when people weren’t needing to pass through.

We quickly slipped into our room, and I fished some clothes out of our bags. Passing Elle hers, I said, “Gotta change.” Once she began pulling them on, I started tugging mine on as well. I got confused for a moment when I couldn’t get my head through the hole in my shirt, until I realized I had been trying to pull my pants over my head instead of my shirt.

I should sleep, I thought for the umpteenth time that week. I had been trying, and to be fair, I did succeed a bit—just not enough. Maybe an hour or two a night, and never all at once. Every time I tried, I was restless and caught up in my thoughts about everything that had happened. Masuyo had nearly been made into a glass sculpture, Rune had been on the cusp of choking me into unconsciousness, Victor would have certainly have crippled me if not outright killed me but for my power reflexively saving me, and Aisha…

She had betrayed me, and I had betrayed her in turn. She brought the heat by killing an unmasked Victor and Othala, and I left her behind to take the heat alone. An eye for an eye—technically equivalent but not in any way that mattered. Melanie and Gregor had reassured me multiple times that I had made the right decision, but I still felt hollow when I thought about it. How could something I regretted so much be the right choice?

“June.”

I languidly blinked. When had Melanie gotten in here? “Melanie,” I replied in kind. “Hello.”

“June, are you controlling some metal at the moment?”

“Mhm,” I affirmed. I had left my coins in the other room, not thinking to bring them along. They were still looping around and around and around. The TV was off, but they looped all the same. “What’s wrong?” Oh, I had been upset… Aisha…

She sighed. “You need some more sleep when we get back from our walk, but for now, let’s get you properly dressed.”

“I am dressed?” I asked, confused. “Is something wrong?” I shook my head. “I feel like something’s wrong.”

“Hn... Perhaps you should get that sleep now. I can take you out later instead.”

She started to steer me towards the bed, but I twisted away. “No.”

“June, you need to sleep.”

“I can’t!” I was angry. Why was I angry? Aisha? Yes, but no. Yes, but not this anger, not this moment. What…? Oh right. “Sleep, I can’t—” Wait, that didn’t work English? Again. “Can’t sleep.”

Melanie’s jaw was set, and the corners by her lips were creased from an upside down smile. I stared at them, trying to find the right word, but it wouldn’t come. “Juniper…”

Oh, that wasn’t good. Right? Yes. Full names meant things. Very upside down smile things. Compromise. “Can’t sleep, can walk. Right foot then other right foot—left is all that’s left.”

She sighed and pinched her nose. What was wrong with that? Hadn’t she wanted me to put one foot in front of the other? My feet, not Elle’s. We’d get tangled and fall, and ouch.

“Very well. But you must listen to what I say. Is that understood?”

I hit my eye trying to salute. That was also ouch.

Another sigh. She was leaking air at an alarming rate. “Let’s get you two properly dressed first.”

“Are,” I reminded her. I gestured at Elle. “I helped.”

“Yes, I gathered as much,” she cryptically replied.

I started towards the door. See, Melanie? I can do the two foot dance. “Then we’re off!”

“June, come back here and let me help you change.”

I stopped, but my coins didn’t. They kept looping and looping and looping. “Why?”

“Didn’t you agree to listen to what I say?”

“Yes,” I acknowledged. My sore eye confirmed this had happened.

“Then come here. You look like you got changed in the dark. It’s not appropriate to go out like that."

I blinked and looked at the light switch. It was up. Oh, and the ceiling light was on. Could have started there. “The lights are on,” I pointed out, feeling quite reasonable.

“Yes,” she agreed.

“Enigmatic.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Enigmatic,” I repeated with a grin, feeling pleased with myself. “I said, then you said, and it was enigmatic.”

Melanie sighed, and I looked to Elle. She was playing with a capybara in her arms, giggling as it nuzzled her chin. She got it. I could tell.

It felt good holding hands with Elle, but holding hands with Melanie was okay. I felt a bit silly, but she had insisted. And she was holding Elle’s hand with her other hand, which was good. I held Melanie, she held Elle, so I held Elle. Kind of.

“Where we going?” I asked, swinging Melanie’s arm back and forth a bit. I giggled. Mom had scolded me for that when I was a kid.

“A walk down to the park, at least. If you’re on your best behavior, then we might go by the Market as well.”

“I got my beret there,” I pointed out, touching it with my free hand. I could feel the pin with my head feelers, and the fabric with my hand feelers.

“Yes, you mentioned.”

Had I? Oh right, I had. She’d said it would look nice with my skirt, and I’d said… Um… “What did I say?”

“Hm?”

“‘Nice with your skirt,’ you said, and I said…?”

“You said it would ‘not warm’ outside.”

It was. “It is,” I confirmed.

I looked up at her expectantly. Her lips twitched. “And I pointed out you would have your leggings and a jacket to keep you warm.”

I nodded. That made sense.

I resumed swinging her arm a bit, giggling again and playing with the coins in my backpack a bit too. It was fun, but Melanie reminded me I needed to keep them quiet, which was a bit silly because coins couldn’t talk.

I felt a bit better by the time we reached the park, and I quietly followed as Melanie led us to a relatively secluded bench. Elle watched the birds, and I watched the people—her especially. The walk over hadn’t been far, but the breeze was a bit brisk, so her cheeks had taken on a nice rosy tint. Her hair was pulled back in a low ponytail for the moment to help keep the wind from getting it everywhere, but it was nevertheless slightly disheveled. On good days, she would have been talkative even while watching the birds. Pointing them out while we chatted idly. Today was different, of course, but that didn’t mean it was a bad thing—just different.

Even with the fog lifted, it was a bit tough to recall what we had been doing. Still, I remembered enough. “Something’s wrong with me right now, yeah?” I quietly asked, squeezing Melanie’s hand.

“Feeling better?” she said, a non-answer but an answer all the same.

“Sorta. Everything’s still kinda… hazy.”

“You have been using your power, yes?” she quietly murmured. The closest people were maybe fifteen to twenty yards away, but it was still a sensible precaution.

“Yeah. Yes.” I frowned. If she was asking that... “Altered?”

“Very. I frankly had not wanted to bring you along in such a state, but with everyone else out, the lesser of two evils was to have you supervised in public than left to your own devices at the safe house.”

“Makes sense.”

Neither of us said anything for a bit. I would have thought the park would be busier on a Saturday afternoon, but there were only a few groups of people other than us scattered about. Was the park normally this empty? We typically went to the one by Palanquin, so I couldn’t be sure. The busiest area was the playground, where a small handful of children were using the equipment while their parents watched from the nearby benches. The kids were obviously having a good time, laughing and running around, and as I watched them, a flash of jealousy hit me. It was ridiculous, but I couldn’t help it. If Mom had ever taken me to a park, then I certainly didn’t remember it.

Melanie finally broke the silence hanging between us. “How much have you been sleeping?”

“I keep thinking of her fighting me,” I quietly said. “Trying to save herself. To come back to us. Whatever she was thinking, I dunno.”

“That’s not precisely an answer to my question.”

“Isn’t it though?”

“I can extrapolate, yes, but if you have exact numbers…”

“No. I mean, I don’t really know.” I paused before admitting, “Not enough.”

“I suppose I’ll have to add sleep deprivation to our power testing, should we get any other recruits in the future,” she remarked. I glanced her way and saw some amusement slipping through the cracks of her usual, serious expression. I saw worry too, and that worried me in kind. “When we get home, you need to sleep.”

“Gonna be a bit until we’re back at Palanquin.”

“I’m choosing to let that one slide, since you’re not feeling well, but you know what I mean.”

I sighed, my shoulders hunched. I did know, but what could I do? How could I sleep when I knew Aisha was probably sleeping in a cell because of me?

She let go of my hand and pulled me into a one-armed hug. I was so caught off guard by the unusual show of affection that I wasn’t sure how to respond. “I said it before, but I’ll say it again: You did the right thing.”

It certainly didn’t feel like it, but I kept my objections to myself. She was warm, and I found myself sinking into that heat. It was weird, feeling myself begin to drift again. When we had done my power testing, I hadn’t really noticed it when I lost my lucidity, but I did feel it at that moment. I was just too detached to be interested in fighting it. I had never learned to swim, so I had never been able to enjoy the beach the way others did. When I’d been younger and wanted a taste of what I couldn’t have, I had gone down to the beach and stood at the precipice of the water. The broken remnants of the waves would wash up over the sands, over my bare feet, and as they pulled away, I would sink deeper and deeper. My last night in New York, I had watched the sunset while the waves embraced my feet. Illuminated in the deep, red hues, I stood rooted in the sands of New York with dreams of coming back—of returning home.

“What Aisha did—it was wrong,” Melanie interrupted my reverie. “We don’t kill, and we don’t break the rules. Even worse, she did that in a way that looked like you did it. She invited disaster on you and us in turn, so she could get what she wanted. I know giving her up to the PRT was hard on you, and I’m… You did the right thing.”

“The Bay has sand.”

“June?” Her confusion was palpable. I understood exactly what she meant, all in one word. I said four, she said one, and I was the misunderstood.

I could do better. Like her. “Beach. Sunset.”

She nodded, understanding. “I think that can be arranged.”

Two words then and understood. Much better.

I snuggled a little deeper into the warmth.

When we arrived at the Market, it was full of people, unlike the park. The areas between the stalls were very packed, and I could easily see myself getting lost. That wouldn’t be a problem any other day, nor would it be this moment, reinvigorated as I was by our walk over here. In five minutes though? Who knew.

“Okay,” Melanie started to say. “You both need to—”

My hand slipped into hers before she finished, and I looked at the ground, embarrassed. I felt like a little kid doing it, but I’d be more embarrassed if something happened when she wasn’t there.

“—hold hands with me at all times,” she continued, not missing a beat. “I’ll try to find things you two might like, but if you can, squeeze my hand to let me know we should stop. Is that acceptable?”

Elle said nothing, and when I glanced her way, I saw she was looking out over the sea of people and stalls, but she was looking at something else no one but her could see. I wondered what world it was. The Bay as it would have been without humans? Maybe a jungle filled with birds she could watch. Or a castle to match the stone walls from earlier. In any case, she wouldn’t be signaling Melanie, so I resolved to try and keep an eye out for things for her. I was doubtful of how successful I would be, but I could at least try.

Melanie took our silence as agreement, and before long, we joined the hustle and bustle.

Unprompted by me, we stopped at a stall selling clothing and jackets, and when I looked to her questioningly, she explained, “It will be winter soon, and you don’t have much if any attire suited for the snow that I’m aware of.”

It was true, so I didn’t complain as we proceeded to spend a couple hours looking through cold weather attire. I likewise didn’t raise a fuss about how much stuff Melanie picked out for me. I had been thinking about how I had more money than I knew what to do with when the Empire had attacked. When Aisha had killed—

I fervently shook my head, trying to dispel those thoughts, but they dug in like ticks, and I couldn’t dislodge them.

“You don’t like it?”

I blinked and tried to reorient myself. Melanie was holding up a light blue winter jacket with pale pink accents. “No. Yes.” I struggled for a moment then looked to Elle for help before remembering she was worse off than me right now. I turned back to Melanie and, unsure how to articulate what I was feeling, an unbidden whine escaped me.

“Is everything okay, ma’am?” someone nearby asked with a hint of confusion. Owner? Maybe. Wasn’t sure.

“Yes, of course. She’s disabled,” she smoothly lied. The maybe owner nodded sagely. Not the color or the plant—the person action. They were satisfied.

Melanie returned her attention to me and said nothing for a moment. Puzzle pieces. Turn them, and they fit just so. “Do you like the colors?”

That was true, and I nodded. The accents matched my beret. Had she intended that? She must have. Melanie noticed things, the little things. Details. I nodded again. It was a nice jacket.

Her expression shifted. Comprehension. “You were here with Aisha on a Saturday too.”

I had needed winter clothes, but my body changed. They were gone. She gave me a beret. That stayed. I clutched at it on my head with both hands and nodded.

“We can go home and come another day when you’re feeling better,” she concluded. “You should have enough to tide you over until we can come back.”

We had to leave? That was okay. I was feeling out of sorts. Yes, she had just said that. It was true.

I found myself next to Elle hugging her, my face in her shoulder. It made me feel better, especially when she hugged me back. She gave good hugs.

“Your daughters are precious,” the maybe keeper of shop remarked as Melanie pulled bills out of her wallet. “A friend of mine’s boy is the same. It’s always good to see patient parents. Some folks can’t even manage that much with their normal kids, coming in here acting like monsters and hooligans.”

“You mean non-disabled.”

I hugged Elle tighter. I wanted to go home. Wait, no. Home, but not home home. First home, then home home.

“I beg your pardon?”

Melanie closed her wallet and tucked it into the inner pocket of her jacket. “There is no such thing as ‘normal.’”

Oh wow. Mic dropped. Boom pah-thoom-thoom. A floundering holder of items for purchase left behind. A fish guardian. Ocean container. Sand. Home.

I squeezed, and we turned. No. Not jewels with metals. I squeezed again, then we stopped altogether.

“June?”

“Tick tock, tick tock.” Hm. Time, but not specificity. Need that. How to do?

No need. “Ah, yes. I suppose it is about time to get to the beach. But then we need to go home.”

I ran over to the water. Sink in, rooted. That was key.

“June! Don’t you dare go in that water!”

“Won’t!” Wait. Kind of. “Feet!”

Frigid water washed over my feet, yanking me right out of my headspace back into the moment. Holy hell, it was freezing. Far more important, however, was my aquaphobia decided to kick in hard. I lost control of the coins in my backpack and fell backwards, my arms windmilling as I collapsed butt first into the damp sand as the last of the wave retreated back into the impenetrable waters of the bay. I abandoned my bag and scrambled to my feet, trying to breath as I ran from the drowning, choking, death.

Melanie was sprinting towards me, kicking up sand in her wake, and I ran straight into her, burying my face in her chest as I desperately tried to get myself under control. Safe. Not drowning. Not dying.

“What on earth were you thinking?” she asked, her voice vibrating from her chest into my head. “You better have a good explanation, or else I’m docking your pay.”

The absurdity of such a her statement helped ground me, and I pulled away, a task made easy by her arms not being around me. I didn’t mind. Melanie wasn’t a hugger; she cared in other ways.

“Juniper,” she dangerously intoned when I failed to offer up an appropriate answer.

I couldn’t meet her eyes, but I finally managed to say, “Sorry, it’s tough to explain. Sinking into the sand, I… I did that in New York. It was home, y’know?”

“You wanted to... sink into the sand?” Melanie asked, her tone making it clear she was not yet appeased.

God, it was embarrassing to admit, but she deserved an answer. “The day I left… I promised I would go back home and do it again. And… I am. Um, home, I mean.”

No words came, and eventually I braved a glance her way. She wasn’t smiling—Melanie sometimes smirked, sometimes laughed, but never smiled—but her expression was soft. “I see.”

Elle meandered up just as empty-handed as Melanie, and a quick glance back towards the Market showed all our bags had been dropped alongside my socks and shoes up by the stairs leading to the road.

“The sunset isn’t over yet,” Melanie pointed out as she stepped past me towards the ocean. “We can watch a bit further from the water. Make your backpack light, please.”

I obliged, and a few moments later, she handed it over to me. It badly needed to be washed, but I did too, so at least there was little further damage putting it on my back could do. Melanie held out her hand, and I quietly took it, my face burning from how disastrous this whole excursion to the beach had been.

She led us all back towards our stuff, and when we arrived, she said, “Hold hands with Elle for a moment.”

I looked at her questioningly, but she was already pressing our hands together. She knelt down and started to dig a hole in the sand. It took her a bit, since the sand was dry, and while she worked, I wracked my brain, trying to figure out why she was doing it.

I was still mystified when she finally stopped and looked back at me. “Well?”

“Well what?” I asked, completely lost.

She smirked. “Are you going to get in or not?”

Oh. My chest felt tight as I led Elle over and I stepped into the small hole.

“Would you like to sit or stand?”

“Standing’s fine,” I muttered as I rubbed at my eyes with my free hand. I’d gotten sand in them when I fell earlier, and they were starting to tear up.

Melanie pushed the surrounding sand down into the hole until my feet were buried ankle deep, then she stood and walked behind us, placing a hand on each of our shoulders.

I carefully looked up, and I stared at the ocean, which was burning red with the reflected light of the setting sun behind us. The fear wasn’t gone, not really, but with Faultline at my back and Elle at my side, I was able to focus on the beauty of the sight and the memories it invoked. Eventually, the colors faded away as the sun slipped behind the hills and city behind us, and I had to look down before my anxiety could get too bad.

“It’s time to go,” Melanie said. I pulled my feet out of the sand, and she guided us by our shoulders over to our bags.

I pulled on my socks and shoes and grabbed some of the bags, my eyes leaking the whole time because of that damned sand. It was really stuck in there.

“Thank you,” I mumbled as I retook her hand, my eyes trained on the ground.

She squeezed my hand, and we left.