A Box of Gargoyles (17 page)

“Ice cream,” said Maya. “Maybe we'll have ice cream.”

“In November!” said her mother. She was settling back into her chair now, resigned. Maybe even—unless Maya's eyes were playing tricks on her—just the slightest bit relieved. It was probably pretty awful for a mother, too, having to have this kind of conversation with her own oldest child. “Well, dress warmly, then.”

“It's just—they want to make him go back to horrible Bulgaria,” said Maya, all of a sudden remembering. She wasn't being fair to Bulgaria, probably, but then again, Bulgaria wasn't being very fair to her, either, was it?

“Oh, Maya,” said her mother. “Really? Not in the middle of the year.”

She did look very distressed on Maya's behalf. It just made Maya feel worse about the panic in her ears and her head and her feet. A better daughter would not run away from her sick mother and from the truth. But here she was, already grabbing her jacket. She was saying good-bye. She was rushing out the door.

She walked around a couple of blocks' worth of Paris, shaking the tears out of her eyes and trying not to run into bundled-up little children and their errand-running parents on the rue Cler. The displays of lettuces and squashes and leeks in the market on the corner looked as jewel-like as ever. The women of the charcuterie were already grilling sandwich fillings outside their store and trading jokes with each other, and the outside tables of the corner café were all occupied, despite the chilliness of the air. It all looked so cheerful and normal.

But Maya didn't feel cheerful
or
normal.

One thing at a time
, she told herself. That was the phrase she used to use to get through the bad days, back when her mother had first gotten sick.
One thing at a time
.

Only here, which
one thing
was she even supposed to tackle? They were all so huge and so shapeless; there weren't any helpful little angles to grab on to.

Her mother was sick again.

Valko was maybe being sent away.

Strangeness was warping the universe (at least the little corner of the universe near the Bulgarian embassy).

A shadow that had once been the purple-eyed Fourcroy wanted Maya to bring him back to life.

In fact, she might be caught up already in his instructions' clockwork spell.

She might. It was hard to know.

She was trying not to be clockwork, but how could she know for sure?

Because for one thing, she was certainly walking in circles. She had passed by the charcuterie three times by now. One of the women there actually gave her a sympathetic smile and tilt of the head on the third loop by—that was embarrassing. Maya turned around in some haste and went the other way, back to the sidewalk outside the ice-cream shop on the rue de Grenelle.

Where someone gave her a friendly tug on the elbow.

“Hey,” said Valko. “Your mother said I'd probably find you here.”

She was so surprised to see him there that for a moment she forgot how miserable she was.

“But I just made up that bit about ice cream!” she said.

“I figured,” said Valko. “But here you are. And me, too. Let's pretend it's summer and get ice-cream cones anyway. Then we'll both have been telling the truth all along.”

Valko chose the mint that had real little shreds of mint leaf sprinkled through it, and Maya went for a flavor she had passed by and wondered about a million times, but never tried: rosemary and honey.

“‘There's rosemary; that's for remembrance,'” said the ice-cream woman with a smile as she dipped her scoop into the bin. “That's your Shakespeare,
mademoiselle
. Rosemary for remembrance, and rosemary also for staying true. But the honey makes it sweet,
non
?”

It was so different from the usual vanilla or strawberry or chocolate! A powerful combination, herb and blossom: it tasted like summer, maybe even like magic.

She found herself, despite everything, feeling the tiniest bit encouraged.

Of course, it helped having Valko there, discussing the fruits of his latest research. (That's what he said, with one eyebrow raised:
the fruits of his research
.)

“Two important things,” he said. “No, three. First of all, remember how I cleverly paused, despite those awful, crazy women kind of being after us, to leave a mark at the edge of the strangeness yesterday?”

Maya tried, but failed, to remember that particular detail, but she made a noncommittal sound from behind her ice cream, and Valko took that as a yes.

“So I went back last night on my way home and did some measuring. I mean, only approximate measuring, because I don't have one of those wheels they use to measure distance. Have you seen those?”

Maya shook her head.

“Well, they're pretty cool, but I never thought I would actually need to own one. Anyway, here's the thing: the first time we saw that shadow, the strangeness spread about a hundred meters out from, let's say, the hole in the wall. I think that's the center. I made a lot of marks that first time, so I'm pretty sure about that. But yesterday the radius was twice that. Two hundred meters.”

Maya tried to remember how far they had run, to get to the place where the air was normal again. (She still wasn't very good at meters; a meter's a little bit more than a yard.)

“So that means it's either moving or growing,” said Valko.

“You think it's going to happen again?”

“That's the second thing!” said Valko. He sounded oddly cheerful for someone talking about the world warping. “It was eight a.m. yesterday, right? Well, I started messing around with the calendar a little. The time before was four p.m. on Friday the twenty-sixth of October. And then I remembered that crazy Saturday night after that uncle of yours really crashed and burned—that was the night the transformer blew a hole in our wall. And you know when that was?
Eleven p.m
.”

He paused and gave Maya the sort of look that meant there was something significant in all of these numbers, and couldn't she see it?

“Go ahead and tell me,” said Maya. “About once a week something goes seriously wrong around here. Is that it?”

“Almost!” said Valko. “You know how many hours there are between eleven p.m. Saturday and four p.m. Friday? One hundred thirty-seven. Okay. Now guess how many hours there are between four p.m. Friday and eight a.m. Thursday—if you remember that Daylight Savings Time ended that Sunday, which I did finally remember?”

“You're kidding,” said Maya.

“No, not kidding: one hundred thirty-seven exactly,” said Valko.

She looked at him.

“That's really random,” she said.

Valko grinned.

“What's really random about it is that it's not random at all,” he said. “Or maybe it isn't. We can test it, right? If it's every one hundred thirty-seven hours, then the next one will be—”

“Is it Wednesday?” said Maya.

“Wednesday at one a.m. Last day of vacation. I'm waiting up for it.”

Maya took the last bite of her cone and frowned.

“It's such an unspecial number,” she said. “Why would anything happen every
one hundred thirty-seven
hours?”

Valko shrugged.

“Would you prefer something else?”

“I'd prefer
never
,” said Maya. “But that's not a number at all. What was your third thing?”

Valko looked puzzled for only a moment, and then smiled.

“It's the crazy women,” he said. “I did some research. You know how they said they were
samodeeeeev
?”

Maya laughed. He mimicked their accent very well.

“Well, I looked into it. . . .”

He gave Maya a sly glance.

“That means I asked my mother. And
she
said that
samodivi
are, ahem, a key part of Bulgarian mythology.”

“What do they do?” said Maya.

“Oh, the usual: they sing, they dance, they tear people apart. Like the whatsits in Greece. The ones who hung around Dionysus. Anyway, they're very dangerous, but especially to men.”

“Didn't hear them hissing
your
name,” said Maya.

“True. Anyway, I told her you had been asking, and she was very impressed.”

“I didn't, though.”

“Did so: they were coming after us, and they said they were
samodeeeeeev
, and you said, and I approximately quote, ‘What's that?' So that counts as asking, and now my mother's even more looking forward to meeting you, whenever that is. November twelfth. Just ask lots and lots of mythology questions, and everything will go smooth as silk.”

Or I could come down with the flu
, thought Maya,
and get out of the fancy embassy banquet altogether
. She filed that away under “Seriously Possible Options.”

“So now can I ask you what's worrying you?” said Valko.

She told him. How a better daughter would have bravely stuck around to hear the truth. But not Maya!

“You can handle this,” said Valko, after he'd heard a good chunk of her story. “Look at all the other things you've handled. Things are always worse when you don't know.”

Maya looked at him with skepticism. She couldn't help wondering how much experience he'd had with really bad news. Because she wasn't sure, anymore, whether knowing everything was really the best way to go. She had been so hopeful, just a week or so ago!

That made her have to look away again.

“Go home and tell her you're sorry and you can handle absolutely anything the world throws at you. Tell her Valko told you so, and he's
always right
.”

He had put his arm around her shoulders: a very comforting arm. It would have been pretty okay to stay exactly like that for a year or two, but time doesn't seem to work that way. A few minutes later she was heading back up the stairs to her own apartment, taking the steps steadily and with pretend courage.

Maya's mother came looking for her as soon as Maya was in through the doorway.

“Oh, Maya,” said her mother. “I'm so sorry! It must have seemed like I was pouncing on you earlier. I'm so sorry.”

“I'm the one who's sorry,” said Maya. “I was awful. I don't even know why I bolted like that. I'm not a baby anymore. You can tell me any news you want. Go ahead.”

Her mother looked at her a long time, and then smiled that private, sad, lovely smile of hers.

“Come here—come sit next to me on the couch—we'll be comfy together, even without the Blanket.”

At home in California they had the coziest, fluffiest throw folded up on the couch in the living room: the Fuzzy Blanket. Snuggling up under it in times of trouble was traditional for the Davidsons.

For a few minutes Maya just enjoyed the old comfort of leaning against her mother, feeling her mother's kind hand smoothing her hair, that sense of being cared for, of not being the one who has to make everything all right. It was like glimpsing that wonderful just-next-door universe for a second, where mothers are never sick and bad things never happen. And that was that, of course: as soon as you start
thinking
again, the window into elsewhere whistles shut.

Maya couldn't help herself: she sighed.

“Oh, sweetie,” said her mother, giving her a one-armed squeeze. “I try every trick in the book, just to get you not to worry. But it never works, does it?”

“First bad stuff has to stop happening,” said Maya. “Then I wouldn't have to worry.”

“Hmm,” said her mother. “Well, let's try this. You know I haven't been feeling the greatest, not for a while.”

“Yeah,” said Maya. Actually, she whispered it:
yeah
.

“Remember when I had what I thought was the flu and ended up in the hospital, back in October?”

“Yeah,” said Maya, or at any rate her lips moved the way they would move to say it.
Yeah
.

“And they ran all those tests, just to see what was up. Well”—her mother paused—“it wasn't exactly what we thought.”

All right
, thought Maya.
I can handle this. Whatever it is: step by step
.

“The thing is: I'm having a baby.”

It was exactly like being clonked over the head with a saucepan.

“WHAT?” said Maya, her spine snapping straight again. “What? What did you say?”

“I'm pregnant,” said her mother. “I know, it's a big surprise.

“You
can't
be!” said Maya. Maybe it was more like being clonked over the head with an enormous, very cold icicle. Alarm was still zigzagging all through her, and her stomach was doing something funny with itself. “I thought the medicines—I thought that was something they did to you! You can't be
pregnant
!”

“It was unlikely,” said Maya's mother. “But it was never impossible.”

“And you didn't tell me!”

“Because you would just worry. And it was so early. There was no telling, you know, whether it would even stick around, the little bean. But it seems to be hanging in there, so far, and in a few days we'll be at three months, and—”

“It's not safe!” said Maya. “It can't be safe! You've been so sick. What if this—what if it—”

It couldn't be safe. All those cells growing and dividing. You didn't want that happening, if you'd had cancer. Did you? Maya felt the horror of it spreading through her. It wasn't
safe
.

“Oh, Maya!” said her mother, and her eyes were stubborn and full of sympathy, both at the same time. “Nothing is safe! Nothing in life is safe! But I thought about it, and I thought about it, and I have to go back to living, to moving forward. I can't just hide away somewhere, half alive, half not.”

“I can't believe you did this,” said Maya. It took her aback a little, how angry she suddenly felt. “I can't believe it. What about James? He needs you to be okay! I need you to be okay! How could you do this?”