Milo felt as if someone had dumped him into a blender full of eyes, smiles, fancy-printed fabrics, glass beads and flowers, and then hit “ice crush.” It was somewhat more manageable because none of the eyes or smiles were coming at him, but he also hadn’t picked up any glass beads or flowers. The rest of the household had been robbed of their suitcases by a multitude of hands, but he was still clutching his, with no help in sight.
These people, the whole confused, beaming mass of them, did not want him there.
At first glance, despite the fact that he had stepped off the boat with Maggie’s arm around him mere moments ago, he looked like a tourist. Zanzamin was not interested in mere tourists, they had enough going on without catering to those.
The map/brochure-thingy had warned them Zanji culture could seem “cold” to strangers. Maggie had been a lot more honest about it: “They don’t want to give you any reason to come back.”
Looking more like family had been an option — the shop on the boat was loaded with fancy-printed Zanji cloth, which they didn’t mind exporting because the stupid tourists always labelled themselves by wearing it wrong. Hyacinth and Erik had accepted a quick makeover, and the General had to put up with one, but Milo and Maggie thought that family-level attention would kill him, so he’d arrived in Zanzamin in his plain grey suit, with nothing but proximity to suggest he belonged to Maggie.
And Maggie’s fakey, local “family,” whom she had to put up with, had promptly hip-checked him to the side and enveloped everyone else in a group hug, so now he didn’t know what the hell he was supposed to do.
Everyone was saying “hello,” in various languages, only two of which Milo understood, and he only understood “hujambo” because Maggie told him on the boat. Some people were banging drums and shaking rattles, some were singing, and many were outright sobbing. Some were crying so hard they were practically screaming — but there were always some refugees from some horrible situation on every boat, so Milo got why, it was just very loud and scary on top of everything else.
A dark blue gentleman with close-cropped white curls inflicted an involuntary handshake on him with a grin, patting his unadorned grey wool shoulder. “Jambo, bwana!”
Milo reacted with utter bafflement, eyes downcast and examining the complicated folds and print of the fabric wrapped around the man’s waist. Maggie had told all of them, especially Hyacinth, that this was the correct response, but he didn’t have to fake it.
On the boat, Hyacinth had responded with a scowl, and a sputtered protest, which Mordecai overrode with a hand over her mouth, “Why in every god’s name did you tell her it’s an insult? If you’d kept that to yourself, she never would’ve known!”
“Because she might’ve got it from context,” Maggie snapped at him. She put hands on Hyacinth’s shoulders and offered a deferent smile. “I get it. But if anyone says that, they’re trying to get a rise out of you. That’s an excuse to do it more. You grew up with David and Barnaby, you know how that works.”
She stepped back and addressed the police-style lineup of her white friends and family, especially Hyacinth, “They expect you to act entitled, so don’t. If you knock on the door like they’re supposed to let you in, you’ll be outside in the cold the whole time.”
“Not literally,” the General added, for the others. “They will simply ignore you.”
Milo brightened and Maggie shushed him with a finger, though he hadn’t even lifted a hand. “No, it’s a pain in the ass. It’ll be like when you moved into Hyacinth’s house and nobody bothered to tell you how it worked or where anything was — only Uncle Em won’t get a clue and rescue you, ever. You want them to like you, but you’re not going to have a problem. The way you stand around outside all pathetic and wait for someone to let you in is just perfect. No notes. Cin,” she added, pointing, “just copy him.”
But he wasn’t near enough to see Hyacinth, so it would be rather difficult for her to do that now. He hoped she wasn’t getting herself locked out in the metaphorical snow… Like that Farsian couple over there. They’d bought themselves kangas at the shop, too, but he could already tell they were folded and tied wrong, even without Maggie telling him. They looked sloppy in comparison to the others, like wet birds with fluffed feathers. They were standing apart from the chaos, as if in a fairy circle. No flowers, no beads, no directions, and only an occasional sarcastic handshake or salute. The lady seemed inclined to ask someone where they ought to go, or if they ought to stay where they were, but everyone just walked past them without stopping.
The gentleman lifted a camera and — rather petulantly, Milo thought — took a photo of one of the guys with the drums. That got a response. Someone took it from him and opened up the back to expose the film. “Please respect our traditions. No photos.”
“Buh,” said the man with the silly-looking kanga. He flung a gesture towards a nearby family who were holding up a near-identical camera and squeezing together to get a photo with their long-lost relative from the boat, who may or may not have ever met them in person before. “Smile!” they said. “Smile, Cousin Sandra!”
“You can collect this from the lost and found,” said the smiling individual with the stolen camera, “for your convenience,” and they just walked off.
“WHAT lost and found?” shrieked the Farsian tourist, with a notable Elban accent.
A strong arm wrapped around Milo and dragged him into a knot of people, before he could see whether anyone bothered to help the poor tourists (he bet not). He pulled back, panicked, until he saw Maggie’s grimly smiling face.
“And this is Cousin Milo,” she said firmly.
Milo agreed with a rapid nod.
Zanzamin operated on a clan system, kinda like the ILV, but way less restrictive. No relations or genealogy necessary, not even for show. “Family” worked like a snowball, picking up new “cousins” by application, association, and, of course, birth. Anyone old enough to deserve some parental respect would be promoted to “auntie” or “uncle.” They kept track of real relations in an offhand way, for the sake of marriages, but they had little social value. In Zanzamin, the home insulation that kept out the cold was made of people.
Maggie had been adopted by her “family” as a condition of citizenship, and as a courtesy. Zanzamin picked up a lot of new citizens who didn’t have any family left at all, or did, but had to abandon them to escape.
Maggie did not feel she required any more family, especially an assigned family who barely acknowledged her mom and wouldn’t like Ann, but Zanzamin expected her to arrive in the company of people who “recognized” her, and she was supposed to stay at their house. “We’re not doing that,” she had assured her family-of-choice, multiple times. “They’re going to act like we are, but we’re not. If they hear ‘no’ three times, they’ll quit asking. It’s the same in Farsia, but don’t mention that part.”
Nevertheless, Maggie and her magic passport had the power to assert that anyone travelling with her also ought to be allowed in from the cold, on a temporary basis.
“…He didn’t want to screw up a kanga and insult your traditions,” she added, with dull venom.
Several family members were re-folding and tying Hyacinth and the General’s shawled fabric even as she spoke, as if buttoning coats for a pair of toddlers. Maggie had tied both of those herself, she knew how to do it.
She explained it to Milo, because he adored that sort of thing and it would distract him from how terrified he was. There were four basic configurations — five, really, but the fifth was some kinda culty-religious deal that most people, herself included, never bothered with. You could have a “basket,” a “sword,” a “shield,” or a “wave,” like an ocean-type wave. These could be gathered and pinned around the waist or shoulders, according to taste, but you shouldn’t just pick one; everyone except the stupid tourists was displaying their take on at least two styles, or maybe even three. Combined with fabric patterns and print slogans in various languages, this offered a convenient shorthand about your origins, intentions and personality, so you didn’t have to keep telling your story over and over. Most everyone in Zanzamin had a sad or scary story that brought them there, and they wanted to commiserate, but it was no fun to talk about that stuff.
Milo thought this was a brilliant idea. He had happily sketched Maggie’s shield-with-sword-and-basket-highlights, Erik’s simpler wave-over-basket, and Hyacinth’s sword-basket-with-shield. He didn’t want to be staring at the General that closely for that long, but she had something shield-related, which was being rearranged in much the same way, just a little bit to the left.
Nobody had bothered to fix Erik’s kanga. The knot and the pin were right where Maggie had put them. He was also clutching a bunch of flowers and had picked up three bead necklaces.
The General didn’t have any beads or flowers, but every time someone got near with some, she glared at them and they veered off, so that was the deal with that.
Mordecai didn’t seem to have any beads or flowers either, but Milo saw why. He was in the process of handing another necklace to Hyacinth, who had several, and two flower crowns and a bouquet wrapped with ribbons.
Maggie grabbed Mordecai by his suit jacket’s collar and hissed in his ear, near enough for Milo to catch it, “Stop that! Put the next one on! They think you’re being polite, but it’s starting to look like you think their gifts are cheap. They are, but you shouldn’t act like it!”
Mordecai flushed a bit darker — being red already, he had a subtle blush — and hurriedly accepted the nearest necklace.
Erik offered Milo a bunch of flowers with a similarly sheepish expression. “Here. I got three of ‘em. I can’t carry…” and multiple voices drowned out his next words.
“Oh, of course we have something for Cousin Milo!” “Here!” “What’s your favourite colour?” “We can carry that! No…?” “It’s okay! We’re strong!” “We don’t mind!” “Okay, okay…” “You know, you don’t look a thing like her!” “He frowns like her!” “Smile, Cousin Milo!” “My gods, that’s red! Would you like a red one?” “Is that your real hair?” And someone reached out to pet him.
Maggie intercepted. “Cousin Milo needs space! And he doesn’t smile or talk — that’s not you, that’s him. I told Tía Mariamu already! Tía!” She pulled a short, vast woman out of the crowd. Her dimpled arms looked like leg of mutton sleeves, and she didn’t even have any sleeves. She was wearing a tall, complicated headscarf. “Will you please keep the kids away from Milo? They think he’s a zoo animal!”
The woman had a deep laugh that seemed to originate somewhere around her heels and vibrate everything else on the way up. “Oh, it’s just because of his hair…”
“I see that… ¡Ay!” She swatted away another curious hand. “¡No lo tu moleste!”
“Nada-nada,” a young voice said.
“¡Algo-algo!” she replied. “¡Te digo si no e’ nada!”
“Maggie, no tu le pegue,” a brief, purple, smiling man said in passing.
She wheeled in his general direction and snapped, “No e’ mí… ¿Che?”
“Maggie,” another short, dark woman scolded. She was somewhat younger, thinner, and with a less-elaborate twist to the scarf covering her hair. “You didn’t have to buy one for yourself.” She held up a pink, somehow more feminine-looking kanga, with a short phrase printed on it. “Or Mrs. Sadiq!”
Maggie narrowed her eyes, as did her mother. “¿Cómo acaba de tu llama mi madre?”
“Brigadier General Glorious D’Iver,” Mordecai announced suddenly. “Would you like this?” He offered the necklace he had only just put on. “I’ve just now decided I don’t like the colour of it.”
Milo paled — but subtly, being pale already. That couldn’t possibly be a nice thing to do!
Maggie confirmed it with a smirk, and a sign, one-handed and almost indiscernible, ASSHOLE.
Mordecai signed back, though he might’ve just been brushing back his hair, THEY UNDERSTAND.
There were quite a few coloured faces in the crowd, and it seemed like they did. At least, they had quieted down and were paying attention.
The General had also noticed this. She considered for a moment, then accepted the necklace. “Thank you, Mr. Eidel.”
A green gentleman with braids offered a slight bow. “What colour do you like, Brigadier General Glorious D’Iver?”
She bowed too. “General D’Iver will do. The blue one is lovely.”
The General accepted a few more presents from people who addressed her by her rank and name, and nobody offered Mordecai anything else.
“Can you read it, Maggie?” the woman with dimpled arms asked gently. She was holding up the pink kanga.
“Upendo,” Maggie replied, after a moment. She smiled, but it was a bit strained. “Love?”
“We love you, Maggie!” several voices replied, on top of each other.
“Heh. Yeah. Asante.” She allowed a few assorted aunties and uncles to change her kanga for the pink one. The one she’d picked out from the shop had a Zanji proverb, which she’d translated as, “one who only looks at the sea is not a sailor” or “actions speak louder than words.” It would do in place of the one she usually wore there in the springtime, which she didn’t have with her. That one was a custom print, like Hyacinth’s T-shirt. It said, “Equality,” but, she had assured them with a sigh, no one ever got how she meant it.
This time, with her careful, complex folds, she had been trying to say, “Give me space (respectfully), or I’ll bite you. I’m busy taking care of my friend/s.” Her Zanji family fixed that for her, arranging the new one in a totally different way. Milo guessed maybe, “I like hugs!” or “Yay, family!” judging from her expression and their reaction.
He covered a smile with his hand. That wasn’t a nice thing to smile about. Anyway, she’d just told them he couldn’t smile, with no nuance. He didn’t want to make her look like a liar.
Maggie endured a few moments of further adulation, and a photo, before prodding them gently towards the next ceremony, “Please, can we go in now? We’re not on vacation and it’s been a long trip.”
The crowd at the docks had thinned somewhat, and the tourists had gone off somewhere, but there were still a few clots of people hanging around, and one man had collapsed to the ground in tears.
The smiling faces around them quieted and turned towards the short woman with dimpled arms.
She clapped her hands above her head. “Let’s go home and eat!”
Maggie found Milo’s hand and gave it a squeeze. When the others were paying more attention to walking back than to her specifically, she leaned in and whispered in his ear, “Don’t worry, Tía Mariamu knows you don’t like to eat in front of strangers and nobody else matters. She gets it.”
Milo thought Maggie’s new kanga said otherwise, no matter what the folds meant, but he didn’t want to mention it.
“…It’s all for show. You’re just gonna sit there and let them dance around you for an hour. They are trying to load us up with more than we can eat, there will be plenty of leftovers for you later. …After we get to the hotel, we are not staying with them.”
He nodded and signed at her, ILIO [SPEAK, ASK]?
She shook her head, then shrugged. “Kinda. That was Zanji, at the end. They know I’m still learning, but that’s okay. They speak Santi, most of them.” She fingerspelled it for him, S-A-N-T-I and offered an abbreviation, the letter S tapped on her opposite hand, if he wanted it. “It’s a dialect. Sounds like Ilio, but we drop the last letter, unless it’s a vowel, and some other stuff.” She gave a weak laugh. “There’s only about two families here who speak it, and they gave me one of ‘em. They’re trying, but…”
Mordecai had come up on the other side of her and touched her arm. “Did I get away with that?” he muttered.
“No,” Maggie replied. She grinned. “Maybe. I was going to say, before you interrupted me…” She signed it, ASSHOLE [ME, SAME/ALIKE]. “Now you’re an asshole like me. Touchy. Standoffish. But they think everyone from Marsellia is like that, a little.”
“Hey.” Erik leaned in from behind. “Marsellia is loud and obnoxious!” He indicated his floral shorts. “Tacky. Moche!”
“Nope, that’s in Prokovia,” Maggie said. “Here, we’re too quiet and we don’t smile enough, or cry enough.” She nodded. “But we’re still easy to annoy, they notice that. How in the heck did you straighten them all out about my mom?” she asked Mordecai. “I’ve been trying to do that for years!”
He shrugged. “I can’t promise for all of them, but coloured is a culture. It’s not always the same, but it rhymes.”
“We don’t get mad,” Erik said, “we get disappointed.”
“It’s worse,” said Mordecai.
Erik nodded. “It’s way worse.”
“Pardon me.” Hyacinth ducked under Mordecai’s arm and shoved him aside. “Is this a prank?” She held up a postcard, one of a few they’d purchased on the boat. A huge white building with vaulted windows sat beneath a stylized sky, with an orange and yellow mosaic sun beaming its rays across a sparkling, dark blue background. The streets were paved with intricate patterns of brick and tile. A lacy kinetic sculpture sent its topmost branches grasping past the top of the frame, as if to pull down the stars. Gem-bright crystal birds on invisible wires wheeled around it.
Maggie took the postcard and flipped it over automatically, the label on the back said it was New Tanga City, but she already knew that. It was otherwise blank. “A prank like how?”
Hyacinth flung a gesture into the distance, now visible between the heads and shoulders of Maggie’s Zanji family. The landscape consisted of dusty grey hills and low shrubbery for as far as the eye could see. The tallest things out there were a few lonely radio towers, with blinking red lights to prevent airships from skewering themselves. There was a single, solitary platform allowing for air passengers and mail delivery, with a staircase to nowhere leading down a hillside like a surrealist painting. The only building was behind them, a low shack with a tin roof by the docks. “Where the heck is it?”
Maggie staggered to a halt and Erik banged into her. “Oh my gods, Cin!”
Erik was likewise stunned. “Are you kidding?”
“Maggie talks about this place nonstop when she’s home!” cried Mordecai, gesturing. “We were on that boat for four days! Don’t you listen?”
“No,” said Hyacinth, irritated.
“Don’t you read?” said the General.
“No!” said Hyacinth, even more irritated.
“Oh, my gods!” Maggie repeated. She began to explain to her nearest cousin, in Santi. He cackled, delighted, and passed the information along.
Erik put up both hands. “Don’t tell her! Please don’t tell her! I wanna see the look on her face!”
Milo nodded and kept nodding. He definitely wanted to see the sapphires, but he’d take a quick peek at Hyacinth first. For fun.
At the moment, she was scowling at all of them. “What? Is this a hallucination we’re going to be having? Are we all going to do peyote out there? Will the sky actually look like this?”
Erik grinned at her. “Maaaybe.”
The hill they were approaching had an eave, and a door in it.
The crowd from the docks had split up along the branching, brickwork path. It seemed like some of the other hills out there might also have eaves and doors, but it was hard, no, impossible to see from where they were. Hyacinth experimentally rocked back and forth, looking for the shimmer of optical magic. She could detect none on the nearest door, but there might have been some on the distant hills, it was difficult to say.
“This is our door, it was meant for us,” Erik said spookily.
Hyacinth glanced up at him. He was referencing something, but she didn’t know it. A quick glance towards Maggie and Mordecai revealed absent puzzlement that meant they also didn’t get it, but it faded as they each considered themselves too young and cool, or too old and cool, respectively, to understand.
Erik touched Hyacinth on the shoulder, with a snicker. (Alls I’m sayin’ is, sharks would be way scarier with legs.)
She blinked, and then offered a smile and a nod to acknowledge the message received. She had no idea what he meant and suspected he was screwing with her on purpose, but she couldn’t be sure — he was weird right now. He usually didn’t bother to talk to her that way in the first place, it was too hard to get her attention. Milo, meanwhile, was frowning at Erik like he’d heard something go by, even if it wasn’t directed at him.
“It’s by family,” Maggie said, more sensibly. “There’s a lot more people since the White Cap Line put Zanzamin on its route. It’s not a good idea for everyone to hit the nearest entrance. A couple folks fell — nothing serious, don’t freak out, Milo. Someone caught them. But it’s a long way to fall… Uhuru Rotunda’s five storeys low.”
Well, Hyacinth had thought it was more sensible, up until that last bit, there.
The crowd had broken to either side, like a wave hitting a buoy. An indeterminate uncle who looked vaguely Priyati in ancestry pulled open the door, and Tía Mariamu went through first. Maggie followed, with a bow to the uncle, and waved the rest of her household after her.
But Erik froze up right in the doorway. He leaned in and whispered in Maggie’s ear, not quite soft enough, “Is that… Is that…”
Hyacinth ducked under his arm and peered past him. There was an adobe wall with intricate patterns and a simple message in about fifteen different languages, including Anglais: WELCOME HOME! Erik was pointing, not very subtly, at the feathered half of a broken arrow which surmounted them all.
Maggie snickered and shook her head. “Fool, the real one’s in a museum. This is just to be cute, like we put Lucky the Hippo on everything. C’mon.”
“Do they have both halves?” Erik asked her, mousey-small.
She poked him in the side. “If anyone took a souvenir off Fadi, they’d never admit it, so no. C’mon.” She pulled Erik by the hand this time. He stumbled after her, still gazing back at the Welcome Wall.
There was a tunnel-like hallway leading left, lit by coloured mage lights in various shapes. The walls were also patterned adobe, giving it a funhouse-look. They filed into it, following Maggie, who was following her Tía Mariamu. There was a faint sound of drumming, singing, and cheers, slowly increasing in volume. Wherever they were headed, the welcome celebration was still in progress.
“Both halves of what?” said Hyacinth.
“Yah!” replied Maggie, who hadn’t seen her back there. She coughed and shooed her tía’s concerned look away. “Fine! Auntie Hyacinth banged into me!”
“It’s the Fatal Arrow,” Erik stage-whispered.
“Which is definitely what killed Fadi and don’t you dare imply anything else,” Maggie added, through clenched teeth. “Both of you.”
Erik mimed zipping and locking his mouth. Hyacinth just shrugged.
The tunnel was sloping gently downwards. The coloured glow from the mage lights was getting paler, while the light in general grew brighter. The low thunder of talking, laughter and applause was now discernible, under the sharper slaps of bare feet stamping in unison.
Maggie paused in a somewhat darker alcove, lit by faint green, and looked up to see a glowing purple glass ball affixed to the wall. She flung out her arm like a safety bar engaging and stopped everyone behind her. “¡Espera! ¡Espera! Wait! Erik needs a minute!”
“Huh?” Erik said. He glanced around doubtfully. He didn’t remember needing a minute…
“You doin’ okay, fool?”
“Uh. Yeah…?”
She picked up his hand and showed it to him.
“Ohh.” He flexed the fingers and swiped it through the air, watching the green glow trail from his skin like gauzy fabric. “Aha. No. That’s weird, but it’s not that bad…”
“No, I get why it’s happening, but I didn’t expect it.” Maggie spoke past him, over his shoulder, “Tía, did we have a storm?”
Tía Mariamu nodded, smiling cautiously. “Five days ago. Is he all right?”
Erik answered first. “No, no, yeah. No big deal…” He drew a deep breath and let it out slowly.
Maggie allowed a soft snicker. “Yeah, he’s okay. He lights up easy, but he doesn’t feel it. He just doesn’t like to freak people out. Give him a sec, sometimes he can get on top of it. Are you okay back there, Uncle Em?”
“What?” Mordecai stumbled his way past the General and, after a moment of squinty confusion, put it together that the green light was coming from Erik. “Dear one, are you okay?”
Erik rolled his eyes, the metal one did the full three-sixty. “Yes, yes. I’ve got a little more gas in the tank, but I don’t need to go. That’s me. Are you feeling it?”
Mordecai shook his head, with a weak laugh. He spread his hands, showing a total lack of glow, and miming a helpless lack of ability. “No. I don’t have much of a tank in the first place. That’s me.”
Maggie was already killing time with a change of subject, “Did the birds work, Tía?”
Tía Mariamu beamed, almost brighter than Erik. “Every time, Maggie. And the fish too!”
“Of course they do,” the General asserted, with a frown. “My daughter’s brilliant design will continue to discharge excess magic no matter how many pointless decorative flourishes you insist upon.”
Maggie applauded softly, nevertheless thrilled.
An unseen cousin spoke up behind them, “It’s springtime in Zanzamin! The flowers are blooming, the sun is shining, and Cousin Maggie’s birds are exploding in the trees!” He cackled, and a few others laughed.
“What?” said Hyacinth.
Erik frowned at her. “Gods, you really don’t listen.” He put a hand over his eyes and drew a few more slow breaths. His glow dimmed a little more.
“They’re on the postcard,” Mordecai scolded.
“We’re supposed to do something to improve the place when we get adopted,” Maggie explained, with the patience of one who already expected to be explaining a lot. “They mean, like, planting a tree, or digging a house, or grouting the sky…”
“What?” said Hyacinth.
Maggie shooed her away. “I’m not telling that part.” She smiled sheepishly and shrugged. “I’m kind of an overachiever. I wound up doing a presentation to the Society of Engineers. Most stressful day of my life,” she muttered aside. “Up until just recently.” She raised her voice to add, “And they’re really Cousin Erik’s birds, Tía. We made those for him, I just explained them.”
“You explained them very well,” Tía Mariamu said. “With pictures!”
Milo covered another smile with his hand. Calliope helped with the pictures, she knew advertising, and she let him help, too, because she liked his drawings. But the design was all Maggie’s. She insisted. It was way more complicated and cool than the decoys they used for the house, or even the ones the General did for the Apparent Cult down the street.
“…Now we hardly have to grout the sky at all! But we’re still cleaning them up,” Maggie’s auntie added, apologetically.
“It’s going to look amazing anyway!” Maggie said. “How’s it goin’, Erik?”
He was rubbing the back of his neck and looking aside, embarrassed, and still glowing. “I think that’s as good as I’m gonna get it, you guys. Sorry. Heh. Kinda excited.”
Maggie patted him. “It’s okay. I betcha no one even notices. There’s way more interesting stuff to look at than you.”
“Is that a challenge?” he said.
They began walking again, but it was only a short distance. There was another wall, requiring a sharp right turn that led to a large viewing platform with a waist-high railing, and a sloping pathway switchbacking its way all the way down to the paved space below. Maggie waved Erik, Milo, Mordecai and the General ahead of her, then pulled Hyacinth with her, so they could all partake of the look on her face.
Hyacinth therefore folded her arms across her chest and tried to keep her frown as neutral as possible as she beheld the gleaming Uhuru Rotunda from a ledge in the sky.
It wasn’t quite the postcard view. They were higher up, and at a somewhat less impressive angle, but the huge white building and intricate brickwork were still visible, behind flying confetti and dancing feet. The towering metal sculptures were tree-shaped, with zig-zags of iron scaffolding instead of solid trunks. The topmost branches were embedded in the sparkling blue sky, curling their way between the gems and tiles like lightning bolts.
The sky was made of glowing blue sapphires, each so closely fixed to its neighbours that one could hardly see the complicated earthen architecture that kept them up there. They blinked on and off in regular patterns, forming shapes and words. It was “HUJAMBO,” mostly, and “HELLO” and “WELCOME” in a dozen other languages. The tile sun remained static at the highest part of the dome, bathed in bluish-white light from the sky itself. There were regular round gaps in the sapphire mosaic to allow the actual trees space to reach the sunlight — the low shrubs Hyacinth had seen from outside were treetops.
A barefoot man was sitting in an iron tree across the way, having climbed up the scaffolding with a bag of crystal birds. He was hanging them on the branches, while several workers in safety-orange were sweeping up the shattered remains of the deceased from the bricks below. Apart from this, and a few other fenced areas of construction, the circular canyon was a teeming mass of people. About two dozen were drumming and dancing on a stage in the centre. Most others were watching and talking.
And a few families, like theirs, were negotiating their way down from the high viewing platforms. Some of them were creeping down the switchback pathways, but most had frozen up to stare, and/or take photos.
“Okay, I get it,” Hyacinth allowed, with a smirk.
Milo gave her only a quick glance, as planned, and wheeled back around to stare at the sky, signing, PIXELS PIXELS PIXELS, with endless glee.
“Somehow,” Mordecai said softly, “I imagined it smaller.”
Maggie shook her head with an indulgent smile. “No point keeping it subtle. There are farms down here, that was why they started draining and digging in the first place, ever since Ikram and Fadi burned down the human resources department. A couple tall buildings and a public space isn’t much when you’re doing acreage. These islands have more holes than a sieve, and more dams than Gundaland. But you can put magic on anything you want, and the strikes won’t get it when it storms!”
“You eat a lot of mushrooms in Zanzamin?” said Hyacinth.
“A normal amount,” Maggie said. “A lot of magically-modified crops grown with artificial lights.” She gestured to the sapphire sky. “The storms charge it up. It’s not the best battery, it leaks like crazy,” she gestured towards Erik, still subtly glowing, “but the storms in spring are enough to keep it lit until fall. It’s kinda like our oven at home, like a brick oven. Takes forever to heat it up, but it stays warm a long time. You still doin’ okay, fool?”
“Mm-hm.” Erik nodded and signed a thumbs up, but his smile was a bit strained. “People,” he managed, and after a few moments of grasping, he signed, LOUD.
Maggie nodded, Milo had both hands over his ears too. Also, another cousin was reaching out to pet his hair. Maggie shooed her away. “Tía, can we head in? I’ll explain to Auntie Hyacinth on the way down.”
With Tía Mariamu’s blessing, they began to file down the path. Hyacinth’s household stuck together in the narrow space, with Maggie and Hyacinth at the front, giving and getting a tour, Mordecai and the General in the middle, subdued and ignoring each other, and Milo and Erik at the rear, stunned and staring.
“So magic storms aren’t a thing here either?” Hyacinth prompted.
Maggie laughed. “No! Magic storms are incredibly a thing. It’s like a carnival. There’s a saying, you can get it on a kanga, ‘No hyena laughs alone.’ We all go crazy together.” She winked. “You know, like at your house.”
Indeed, a woman on another viewing platform had fallen to her hands and knees, overcome with emotion or merely overstimulated. Two people dropped down beside her, held her and rocked with her, making a keening sound that could be heard over the music and laughter.
Erik and Milo both winced.
“So madness does not require a room,” said Hyacinth.
“It’s not madness,” Maggie said. “Not here. People get excited and upset sometimes, they laugh and scream and cry, that’s not supposed to be embarrassing.” She snickered. “Marsellia is known for its refusal to get with the program. It’s like we’re so uptight, we excuse ourselves to the bathroom to sneeze. Drives ‘em nuts.”
“You’re trying, Maggie,” Tía Mariamu called back. “It’s just your culture!”
“Yeah, yours too!” Maggie called back. “But they built all this from scratch,” she told Hyacinth. “You get me? The culture and everything, it’s all a consequence of what used to be here — a reaction. The old city with the gold domes got burned to the ground, and they didn’t want to rebuild it like that. Instead of building towers from human suffering, they dug down to help each other. They didn’t find diamonds or gold, but they’ve got sapphires and magic. And yams the size of a toddler,” she added, with a grin.
“Is that a braid?” cried a female voice. “Cousin Milo, how much hair do you have?”
Milo scurried away and banged into Mordecai and the General. He clutched his open mouth with silent horror. Someone’s curious hand had pulled the whole three-foot length of braid out of the back of his shirt. He grabbed it and tugged it protectively over his shoulder, but he didn’t know what else to do.
Maggie turned and shouted past him. “Hey! That is not okay!”
They were almost at street level. Maggie hopped over the railing and climbed back up, standing on thin air, to lecture her young cousins on their manners. Meanwhile, Hyacinth, Mordecai, Milo, the General and Erik spilled onto the pavement and stumbled out of the way — by necessity, into the crowd who were observing the dance.
“Kid, we gotta get you a hat,” Hyacinth said, as Milo stuffed his braid back into his shirt with shaking hands. Several strangers near them were also commenting on the colour, and the amount of his hair.
Erik tipped his smashed hat off and shoved it wordlessly in Milo’s direction.
Milo recoiled, shaking his head.
Erik drew three sharp breaths in a row, nearly panting as he tried to collect himself enough to make words.
There were so many people, and the people were loud, but he had failed to specify the nature of the loudness. He didn’t want his family, or Maggie’s family of strangers, to worry. He really didn’t want them to do that, because any more worry might kill him.
It wasn’t the laughter and singing and clapping, or even the crying and screaming. It was the thoughts. It was the existence of this many minds in so small a space — it felt like a very small space to him, he didn’t know what the hell his uncle was talking about — and so many of them were scared, and sad, and hurt. They were holding each other and feeling hurt, missing the people who weren’t there, or scared that it might stop being safe here, or just not knowing what to do, or remembering feeling that way.
There was a dark-haired girl standing at the edge of the crowd, he could look across the room and see her. She had come on a boat just yesterday, and only a week ago, she had been chained to a sewing machine in Priyakadesh. Her parents had sold her at age five. She didn’t know how to deal with any of this. She didn’t know how to walk around and make her own decisions. They were trying to help her, but she was scared and she just wanted to go home, only she didn’t have a home.
She was wearing thick stockings to hide the scar on her leg and it hurt.
“Take it,” Erik hissed. “Just take it and stop freaking out all over the place! I don’t… I’m not… It’s just a hat… I’m broken forever and this is never going to stop hurting so just take the fucking hat!”
“Whoa,” said one of several dozen concerned cousins behind him.
Everything looked green and blurry, as if viewed through a foggy soda bottle, and he guessed that was him, but he didn’t care. He couldn’t feel it. He couldn’t feel any part of himself — but he felt EVERYTHING ELSE.
Milo was backing away from him and still scared. Even more scared!
A hand dropped onto his shoulder and he knew it was his uncle. He felt his uncle. He didn’t need to see. “Dear one…”
Erik recoiled. (Stop it! Don’t touch me! Stop worrying about me, stop THINKING about me! I can’t STAND all thi…)
His eye whirred and adjusted. He clapped his hand over his mouth, muffling a gasp. He didn’t know what to do. He didn’t know any of these people and it was so loud and…
(Oops! Hi there!) (Hello!) (Hujambo!) (Sorry about that!) (Can I get that for you?) (How’s it hanging?) (How do you spin?) (Comment allez-vous? Ha-ha!) (Woo, that’s a lot!) (It always is.) (Yeah, but you’re a real mess, bugaboo! Lookit that…) (Don’t poke him!) (He’s not a bug, he’s just new!) (How else do you expect him to be?) (I’m sorry, but…) (Oh, how soon we forget!) (Be nice!) (Sorry!) (I SAID I was sorry! And this sure as shit isn’t just being new!) (Désolé!) (You okay?)(Hi!) (Is that any better?) (Willkommen, Bienvenue…) (Hello! Welcome to the Web!)
Voices. So many. He looked, but he couldn’t see anyone talking. It felt like they were all around him, like bats whizzing precariously close to his hair, or ghosts in a haunted house. He staggered a vague circle, staring at blurred shapes and colours, and scared faces that stared back, without understanding anything. (I… I…)
(Oh, my spinner, you’re not doing so hot…) (Hang on!) (We’re coming!) (Don’t spin out!) (Drop the sweatshop-survivor this instant and step away from the trauma!) (GET DOWN, MR. PRESIDENT!) (Take it easy!) (I see him! He’s over there!) (Huh. That’s new.) (Yikes!) (It’s okay! We are going to help you! I…)
(I’m losing my mind,) he decided.
(No-no…) (Please, you’re not crazy, we’re just really disorganized. Could the rest of you…) (Quiet down!) (Hi! How’s it… WHOA!) (Shh! Shut up!) (Pick up the thread, Jengo, you moron.) (Bugger.) (Cut it out!) (It’s too much…) (Let go, let go…) (Holy-moley, this kid’s got a grip like a vice!) (Shh-shh-shh, it’s okay…) (Calm down! Calm down, you’re going to…) (You dumb bugs sound like a nervous breakdown…) (Then stop talking! Let me deal with it! Shut up!) (It’s okay!) (You’re safe now!) (No, wait, don’t…)
Erik shrieked and crumpled to the ground in a dead faint, while the green flames blazed around him like a bonfire, high enough to touch the sky.
All things considered, he had met the challenge of being the most interesting thing in the room rather well, but he was in no shape to be smug about it.
