“It’s a curse,” Calliope told the gape-mouthed woman at the front desk, as the Ramones played merrily above her. “Grandpa pissed off an old lady with a record store…”

“Cylinder store,” Hyacinth corrected her, aware of the generation gap.

“…My whole family’s like this,” Calliope concluded.

“I believe hereditary curses are covered by the Marselline Disabilities Act,” the General said. Stone-faced, she exchanged, “I Wanna Be Sedated” for “Love Will Keep Us Together,” the next in the stack. She withheld all criticism or even a wince.

“I-I don’t know…” said the woman behind the desk.

“Fortunately, I do know,” the General said.

“Joshua jumped-up Christopher on a pogo stick!” Calliope said. She kicked the desk.

Several of the nurses who were approaching to be of assistance crossed themselves. The one bringing a wheelchair ran it into the wall, which did not increase Hyacinth’s confidence in the licensed practitioners of modern medicine. “Calliope, if this gets out of hand… Can you make yourself enough of a pest to get them to tell me?” She didn’t like the idea of being tucked away in a waiting room with the civilians while her patient suffered.

“Yeah, Cin. I’ll tell ‘em you’re the only one who knows how to fix the record player.” She sat readily in the proffered wheelchair, despite the demonstrated incompetence of the driver.

Hyacinth nodded. It was not wise, reasonable or kind to put an exhausted, pain-wracked person in charge of their own standard of care, but this decision had been made days ago. (Fuck you and your mental health, Mordecai, she thought.) She leaned down and hugged Calliope. “It’ll be okay. It’s not forever. We all love you and we’re here pulling for you.”

“I think I’m supposed to push,” Calliope said.

Hyacinth smiled and nodded and waved when they took Calliope away. The sound of music faded behind double doors. If she dies, I will kill every last one of them, she thought. They’ll have to snipe me from a window across the street to get me to quit.

“The waiting room is down the hall and to the left,” the woman behind the desk said.

Milo, Mordecai and the kids got a considerably less deferent reception forty-five minutes later. (They had taken the bus.)

The woman behind the front desk stood up, “We do not have coloured facilities here.”

“I’m here for a friend,” said Mordecai.

“We do not have coloured facilities here!”

“A… A… A white friend!” said Mordecai. His sarcastic ability had been severely dented by the circumstances. He wasn’t even processing that he ought to be offended.

Milo, likewise, was craning his head around and staring at the walls and ceiling like they were touring an aquarium. With sharks in it. He wasn’t even hearing words. The red figure in front of him had stopped walking, so he also stopped walking.

White walls. The place had white walls. And ceiling. And tile.

I can’t… I don’t want to… I can’t…

He was afraid of the ceiling. He didn’t want there to be things on it, but he had to keep looking to check. Ann might’ve still been trying to tell him he didn’t have to, and there was time to go home and change, but he couldn’t hear. It didn’t matter, anyway. Calliope asked him to come.

It smelled like disinfectant. He wanted to throw up, but he didn’t think he ate any food yet today. Also, maybe he threw up already. Maggie said. Was that today?

He felt a tug on the edge of his shirt and looked down. There was something green down there, like a shrubbery. Like the potted plants at the Black Orchid.

“Milo, do you like the dress on the lady?” Erik said softly.

What lady? thought Milo. Why does the potted plant have shoes?

Magnificent stepped forward to be the adult in the room, “Ma’am, we are here for Calliope Marshmallow Otis. My mother and her friend Miss Hyacinth are already here. Would you please direct us to the waiting area?”

“Your mother?” said the woman behind the desk. She eyed the little brown girl up and down. She smiled tightly, “You must be mistaken.”

“Oh, boy, are you gonna have a bad day,” Maggie said. She cupped a gloved hand to her mouth, “Mommy! The lady doesn’t want to let us in because it looks like we’re gonna do magic! And she doesn’t believe you’re my mom because we’re not the same colour!”

◈◈◈

“…This is the maternity waiting room, General D’Iver,” the man in the dark suit said. He opened the door on a snug space with chairs, end tables, magazines, and a cloud of blue haze around the ceiling lamps, due to a scattering of nervously-smoking gentlemen.

“Oh, hell,” said Mordecai, very softly. He coughed into his sleeve.

The man in the dark suit regarded him with disapproval, but dared not mention it. “Coffee is complimentary. There is a vending machine down the hall with candy bars and other sundries…”

“I am aware, Mr. Daniels,” said the General. “I have been waiting in here for nearly an hour.”

The man bowed again. “I do apologize. There is not much we can do to speed up the… the…” He fluttered an embarrassed little gesture.

“No, Mr. Daniels,” the General said. “My criticism of the criminal inefficiency with which your institution is run had nothing to do with your inability to ‘speed up’ an immutable biological process, more with the obstinate behaviour of your staff. I will fill out a comment card if you require further clarification.”

“Of course.” He bowed yet again. “Thank you very much for your continued patronage.” He waited until he was on the opposite side of the door, and he did not run, but he walked away very fast, his immaculate shoes clacking on the tile floor.

“For my continued patience,” the General muttered aside. She turned to address her daughter, “Magnificent, it is rude to shout in hospitals. I believe your social skill is refined enough that you could have convinced them to reveal my location without disturbing any local patients.”

“Sorry, sir,” Maggie said. “I thought she might listen a little better to you than a brown kid.”

“That is fair, but you will have to get yourself across on your own when you grow up, it is best to practice now.” She acknowledged Mordecai with a wave. (Everyone else from the house had gotten quite past acknowledging him. Hyacinth was frantically fanning a magazine in front of his face.) “Now is also a good time to practice your atmospheric effects.”

“Mom, he’s dying over here,” Maggie said. She knew her mother could clear out the smoke with a gesture.

“…A good time to practice your atmospheric effects under pressure,” the General said. She once again availed herself of a chair and returned to the news magazine she had been reading.

◈◈◈

As they rounded the first hour in the waiting room (second hour for Hyacinth and the General) Magnificent had managed to pull together a serviceable “no smoking” area for Mordecai, about three seats wide and labelled with a cigarette ad torn from a magazine, crossed out and stuck to the wall. Mordecai was also serviceably conscious, although nursing a headache.

A previous attempt had resulted in an all-oxygen environment, and apparently caused him to pass out, although all he could recall was waking up on the floor with Hyacinth screaming at everyone not to light any matches.

Urgent brainstorming managed to turn up “nitrogen” as something else that was in air (Erik knew that one, it was something to do with the sky being blue) and, after involving some of the expectant fathers as if it were a pub quiz, “carbon,” “hydrogen” and “argon, they just found argon!” all of which Hyacinth had rejected as potentially deadly… although it wasn’t like screwing around with the atmosphere was safe. The “no smoking section” had a bit of a stale smell, but Mordecai was no longer coughing, and he was very much hopeful he wasn’t slowly being gassed to death.

Milo was having a go at pacing back and forth with the other gentlemen in the “smoking OK, atmosphere normal” section. It was possible he had some kind of imitation function programmed into him at a very basic level to keep him socially acceptable when his brain was on fire.

He had both hands jammed in his pockets, but if someone had offered him a lit cigarette he probably would’ve stuck it in his mouth like everybody else just to have something to do. It was a fifty-fifty shot at whether he would’ve gotten the lit end or the filter end in there and in either case he would’ve chewed it up and eaten it.

He had a rolled-up card clenched between his back teeth at the moment because Ann had finally managed to get through to him that he was hurting himself, biting the inside of his mouth.

Hyacinth had discovered a small rack of trifolded religious pamphlets and was sitting beside it, reading avidly and snorting unashamed laughter. Occasionally she offered one to Mordecai. He was gripping a magazine about recreational kayaking and had yet to accept. He had been reading page seven for about twenty minutes. He thought it was something to do with electric socks.

After some uncomfortable staring, Erik had self-segregated to the no-smoking section next to his uncle, but he had just about given up on the magazines. It was all about boring stuff, sports and outdoors, not even war stories or movie news. There was a newspaper, but he’d already gone through the comics with Maggie three times and he was sick of them.

They were the weekday comics in all black and white with no motion too. He touched every picture looking for Pascha eggs, and there weren’t any of those either. He only found dull pop up logos and distribution notices: Copyright Jester Syndicate 1376!

He was currently investigating a magazine with fish in it. At least the water moved, and some of the fish.

Maggie was sitting cross-legged in the chair next to him. She had availed herself of an issue of Rugged Man’s Life, hoping for some “Polar Bears Chewed Off My Legs!”-style reporting. It was incredibly disappointing. Stuff like reviews of canned gravy and how to make a tent out of raincoats.

“Hey, look, Erik. These guys jump off buildings.” She folded the magazine in half and touched the full-page picture, resetting the animation. A distant figure in silhouette ran to the edge of a cliff and threw itself off.

“With magic?” Erik asked, not terribly interested. He already knew people who jumped off buildings. He was waiting for the figure to turn into a bird. Instead, a parachute blossomed.

“Just parachutes, looks like,” Maggie said. She turned the magazine back around and skimmed a few lines. “And ‘wingsuits.’” She tipped up her nose and put on a pompous accent for the next bit, “‘Magic and other artificial means of propulsion are antithetical to the BASE jumping aesthetic.’” She snickered. “Which is a lot of words for saying they don’t know how, I think.”

Erik took the magazine and reset the photo again. “It looks easier.” You just had to pull on that little cord there. No math. No missing fingers. “Uncle…”

“No BASE jumping, Erik,” Mordecai said. Having utterly failed to absorb page 7, he decided to have a look at page 8.

“You doin’ okay over there, Uncle Mordecai?” Maggie said. “Still breathing?”

“Every time you ask me that, Magnificent, I doubt it a little more.”

“Hey, Mordecai, get a load of this one.” Hyacinth showed a cheaply printed flyer on yellow paper, “‘Life! What a beautiful choice!’”

A cartoon baby with wings, a halo, and an enormous safety pin in its diaper was emblazoned on the front. Calliope would’ve recognized a bad transfer and cut-and-paste editing of a stock image, probably apographed, but in any case copied from a copy of a copy until the lines degraded into little dots. Hyacinth just thought it looked hilarious.

She flipped open the front page and read aloud, “‘Contraceptive charms are murder!’” She ripped open the flier the rest of the way so fast that a corner came off in her fingers. “Like hell they are!” She continued to read, but silently. This was a level beyond “Hell is Real” or “The Wages of Sin are Death.” This was medical advice! Really stupid medical advice!

The General set aside her news magazine (she read them methodically, from front to back, and this was her third) and approached. “Excuse me, Hyacinth. Was that first exclamation of yours actually written on the pamphlet?”

Hyacinth waved an absent gesture at the rack of pamphlets. “Take one. There’s a bunch. It’s the yellow one.”

“I believe I will take all of them,” the General said. She crumpled the stack of yellow papers into her fist. “What is this purple one with the monkey holding a skull?”

“Evolution isn’t real, and the Earth is six-thousand years old.”

She crumpled those too. “And ‘Heavenly Plan for Married Life?’”

“People like you and me are going straight to hell.”

Skrrnch.

“‘Deadly Perversions?’”

“People like me specifically are going straight to hell. And probably Milo.” She snickered. “And David. Definitely David. Wrapped in foil and roasting over coals like a baked potato even as we speak.” When the General hesitated to crumple these up, Hyacinth did so herself and stuffed them into her purse.

“We are liable to run out of space,” the General said. Her hands were clenched and full. “I do not wish to throw them in the wastebasket as they may be rescued and replaced. Does your experience with this institution and others like it suggest that if I begin setting these on fire I will trigger any kind of alarm?”

“Possibly,” said Hyacinth. She stood and examined the dingy walls for anything that looked sigil-like. Obviously there wasn’t a smoke detector, but a “large open flame” detector wasn’t out of the question. “I don’t think they would’ve installed anything after the war, but the building has been here…” She grinned. “But I bet if I ask her that lovely woman at the front desk will give me a bag.”

“Do be sure to ask her if there are any other waiting rooms in the near vicinity as well,” the General said, smiling grimly.

◈◈◈

In the middle of hour two-slash-three, Hyacinth and the General had already visited a nearby drugstore and decided to go into the printmaking business. Hyacinth had a lined tablet and was writing firm words in black ink, and the General was sorting a pack of thin pastel stationary by colour. “Magnificent, come here and learn about apography, please.”

“Apography is the magical process of making copies without ink or plates,” Maggie replied obediently. “It is similar to photography, in that the paper is specially treated and light-sensitive, but it does not require development. When Emile Cloquette blew up the National News in 1219 and went underground, he was able to continue printing papers using apography and repurposed industrial laundry rollers. He called these illegal publications The Dirty Rag.”

“Please come here and learn about apography in a practical rather than a historical context,” the General amended. “I will show you how to enchant the paper.”

“Oh, hey, cool,” Maggie said. “Come on, Erik.”

The General sighed. She doubted Erik would show a talent for enchantment… or even sitting still and listening. But if she sent him away, there would be arguing and no learning at all.

“Apographic paper is both light and pressure-sensitive,” she said. “Exposure is not an issue unless pressure is applied. An antigraph, preferably on thin paper or a transparency, is required to make copies. The apographs will be pressed beneath it, and the writing and images will be reversed.

“The easiest way to make an antigraph is to make an apograph of a master image, reversing it once, and then make apographs of the apograph. Though this results in a loss of resolution, the printing usually remains legible. Hyacinth is creating master images,” the General nodded to her. “I am preparing the apographic paper. You will note that apographic paper will also accept hand and fingerprints.” She handed a sheet to Erik so that he could amuse himself.

Erik obligingly made a few handprints. They came out flat black, not with whorls and creases like when you did that with ink.

“Although not well,” the General added. “For a detailed print to be achieved, a lighted or transparent source of pressure must be used, along with an antigraph. For the sake of expediency, I have purchased a glass paperweight.”

She removed it from the shopping bag. It was engraved with a single word, “Serenity,” but this would not affect the quality of the prints.

“However, there are multiple objects in this room that would also serve the purpose.” She could see windows and glass ashtrays without even getting up. “Take some of these sheets and see if you can find them.”

Erik regarded the papers and this new activity with suspicion. Somehow he doubted Maggie’s mom was giving them toys to have fun.

“Learning can be fun,” the General said gravely, causing Erik to clap both hands over his silent mouth.

Maggie took the papers. This was funner than most lessons, and an excuse to run around. “It’ll be easy,” she assured Erik.

“Do not use magic, Magnificent,” the General said. “It is not required. This is a logic puzzle.”

“Aw,” Maggie said, but not too sincerely.

“You may experiment with making your own antigraphs. Hyacinth is busy.”

“Hyacinth is flailing,” Hyacinth muttered. “I wish like hell we had Calliope for the illustrations.” Her drawing of a happy baby who got plenty of food and attention because its parents were responsible and used charms had come out looking like a monkey in a diaper. “Or Milo.” She sighed and glanced over at Milo. “I wish we had Milo, period.”

Milo was curled up under a table with the bag of pilfered pamphlets and continuing his religious education after a long hiatus. His attention had been attracted by a friendly looking illustration of a life-preserver, on paper in bright safety orange. “Eternal Life Can Be Yours!” it promised. He wasn’t too interested in that for himself right now, but it seemed like an excellent idea for Calliope. It was something about dunking people in water and getting the sins off, like laundry stains, and this also appealed to him.

(The particular species of nun that Milo had been acquainted with at the workhouse had believed in doing this at birth and then never again, so Milo did not recollect.)

The orange pamphlet was frustratingly light on the specifics (Do you have to put the whole person in? Can’t I just throw water on them? What about soap?) so he was scanning the others for usable information.

“Hey,” said a young man in a white shirt with muddied trousers. He sat down under the table too.

Milo nodded at him. Is Calliope gonna be mad at me if I make her immortal and I don’t ask first?

“It kinda feels safer under here,” the young man said. He laughed weakly. “Did you walk into something?” He touched his brow, mirroring where Milo had the bandage.

Milo nodded. Maybe I could give her the pamphlet and then throw water on her…

“I walked into a fishpond,” the man said. He plucked at his trouser leg, which was still damp. His shoes were blackened with mud. “We live in this brownstone on South Hollister… There’s a fishpond. I don’t know why there’s a fishpond. I mean, you can’t eat ‘em.” He laughed again and rubbed the back of his neck. “You want a cigarette?”

Milo nodded.

The man pulled a pack out of his shirt pocket. It was empty. “Oh. I’m out. I didn’t want to go to the drugstore… I didn’t want to leave…” He tucked the empty pack back in his pocket, in case he wanted it again. “I think I’m supposed to buy cigars, I don’t know… You want a piece of gum?”

Milo nodded.

“There’s gum in the vending machine… But no cigarettes. Here.”

Milo accepted a piece of gum in a foil wrapper.

“No, wait, man… Unwrap it first!”

Milo blinked and belatedly realized he was chewing something sweet and springy. Oh, that was much better than a card! He removed the rolled card, which was soggy from being masticated for over an hour but still firm.

“Uh,” said the man with the white shirt and no cigarettes. This behaviour was weird enough to start pinging some alarm bells, even in his distracted state. “I’m, uh… I’m just gonna…” He got up and left. If he really needed to be under a table, there was another one over there without a guy who was eating paper.

Milo dropped the soggy card in the big paper bag and returned to his pamphlet. The devil put dinosaur bones in the ground? Oh, that was nice of him. I always heard he was kind of mean…

“We do have a bit of a logistical problem, Hyacinth,” the General said, as Erik and Maggie busied themselves trying to copy the comics out of the newspaper. “We require our flyers to be removable for the purposes of education, but it is possible the hospital staff will disingenuously remove all of them at once, as we have done.”

Hyacinth paused in the middle of an attempt at a strong, independent woman in business dress. “Damn it.”

◈◈◈

“Okay, Mordecai, what part of ‘I need you to come into the ladies’ restroom and be the voice of an angry god’ do you not understand?”

“I think everything after ‘I need you to’!” cried Mordecai. Though, honestly, everything since “Hi, I’m Hyacinth. I pulled you out of a snowbank and fixed your lungs,” had been varying degrees of surreal.

“Look, we’re leaving these flyers out, but we don’t want the hospital to get rid of ‘em. They’re religious here. Just say some stuff like ‘I’m watching you!’ and ‘You’d better not throw that away!’ We’re going to record it so it plays whenever someone takes more than one.”

“Why in the ladies’ room?” said Mordecai.

“Acoustics,” said the General.

◈◈◈

Milo regarded the vending machine with an absent frown. He had eaten his chewing gum. He forgot he wasn’t eating it and he ate it. He thought he remembered something about gum in the vending machine.

There was gum in the vending machine, behind the glass. Two kinds. Orange Rage and Mint Mania. He didn’t care which one, but he had to get them out of there somehow.

Do I have… Money?

He removed his wallet. There was a sinq in there. He approached the machine with the sinq. The slot for the money appeared too short. He tried folding the sinq, but then the slot was too narrow.

This machine is defective, Milo thought. He stood examining the gum with one hand on the glass like a sad puppy in a store window, and chewed his lower lip.

…Perhaps it wants coins?

He pocketed his wallet automatically and looked for coins. These, he attempted to feed into the slot one by one with shaking hands. They fell and clinked on the floor.

This machine is definitely defective, Milo thought. He swept up the coins (most of them, some of them were hiding under the machine) and made a second attempt. This time he managed to get a few pennies in there and the machine registered sufficient credit to allow him access to chewing gum. It was waiting for him under A6 and A7. Milo referenced this several times at close distance while striving to enter the proper code into the keypad.

Milo’s brain went, A7. Milo’s fingers went, B5. The machine dispensed garlic-flavoured potato chips.

Milo made another attempt with the coins. This time he got a candy bar with nuts in it. Then a blueberry muffin. Then he didn’t have any more coins.

Defective machine, Milo thought. He scowled at it and put his whole hand on the keypad. There was a groan of protest from within the machine, and a ratcheting sound. The chewing gum and every item from A1 to F9 marched forward and fell suicidally into the dispenser slot, one after the other, until the revolving metal coils were empty, and the machine had nothing left to give.

Milo triumphantly pushed his hand past the silver flap to achieve chewing gum and found the cavity within so crammed with chips and candy and other sundries that it no longer really dispensed.

He did not swear. He did not growl. He did not spontaneously combust. He banged a hand on the side of the machine and then knelt down and began yanking out individual packages, crushing most of them, and tossing them aside on the floor. There was gum in there somewhere, damn it!

◈◈◈

The population of the maternity waiting room ebbed and swelled like the tide. Dazed-looking men staggered in. Dazed-looking men had their names called by a nurse and staggered out.

“Mr. Travers…? Mr. Lopez…? Mr. Beranger…? Mr. Hewitt…? Mr. Kumar…? Mr. Paquet…? It’s a boy! It’s a girl! It’s a girl! It’s a boy! It’s a girl! It’s a boy! Your wife is doing fine. Your wife is doing fine. Your wife is doing fine. Your wife is doing fine. Your wife is doing fine. Your wife is doing fine…”

A few unfortunate gentlemen were addressed in softer tones and taken into the hall. One was led away audibly demanding, “Is the baby okay? Is the baby okay? Is the baby okay?” until a door closed behind him.

Pacing and cigarettes, magazines and awkward laughter provided hours of occupation. Only a couple of men came back with the traditional cigars — it was a charity hospital. Mordecai’s no smoking section held up admirably.

Some of the men had children with them, or older men and women — grandparents-to-be or aunts and uncles, presumably — but there was always a husband involved. There were shelters for young ladies “in trouble” like Calliope, several steps below a charity hospital in funding and respectability. No cigars at all there, and no more than a shrug if the baby wasn’t okay.

Calliope’s un-family, involved as they were with doing magic and being coloured or ethnic and hiding under tables, made no tentative friendships and invited no conversation.

The kids were unfamiliar and scared of Erik, so Maggie ignored them too. There was plenty of extra paper to make apographs, anyway. The windows had become too dim to use, but Erik had a glass ashtray (his uncle insisted on washing it out in the bathroom sink) and Maggie had stolen a water glass from the staff break room.

About ten minutes after the “is the baby okay?” incident, with Erik showing distracted dissatisfaction even with designing his own antigraphs, Mordecai stood up and braved the smoke-filled room again. “Dear one, what if…” He drew out a tissue and coughed into it. “What if we go for a walk?” he finished and then smiled.

“I like walks!” Maggie said, upstarting.

“No, you don’t,” Mordecai replied.

In the hallway, Hyacinth and the General had a nurse trapped up against the wall.

“…I am offering to help you!” Hyacinth said.

“Our doctors have been through at least eight years of medical school, Miss… Miss… I’m sorry, what is your name?”

“Hyacinth,” said Hyacinth. “Do they have pill habits, then, is that what it is?”

“I… I…”

“What is the infant mortality rate of this hospital?” the General said. “The national average is fifteen percent.”

“I… I don’t know…”

“Then look it up,” the General said.

Mordecai put his hand on Erik’s back and swiftly guided him past.

The woman at the front desk was also engaged in an emotional dispute.

“The Man Joshua screamed at me!” cried a female refugee from another waiting room.

“It… It is some kind of a prank, ma’am,” said the woman at the front desk. “We… we are almost certain…” But not certain enough to have removed all the fliers.

Erik snickered. That lady at the front desk really is having a bad day…

Mordecai shook his head and sighed. Nobody needs this kind of thing, they’ve already got family in the hospital…

Then they were outside and there were some cement benches and flowerpots. It was colder and darker but much quieter, with only cars and carts going past and no shouting. There was a woman nearby selling flowers.

“No, thank you,” Mordecai said. He intended to purchase dinner at the drugstore down the street, and he wasn’t sure how far a pocketful of change would go. However, even if they only ended up with a bag of chips, it would give them some time out of the hospital and some space to talk.

“You’re… worried,” Erik said, before Mordecai could come up with a good way to broach the subject.

The red man sighed. He guessed there was no point in asking, no. He paused under a streetlamp so he could gauge Erik’s expression. “Yes, but I can handle it. I want to talk about you being worried.”

Erik frowned and looked up at him. “I can… handle it.”

“Have they been bothering you?” Mordecai asked, regardless.

Now Erik sighed. He laced his fingers together behind his head and swung back and forth. “A little. It wasn’t a lot when Maggie and me were making copies on the windows… Now it’s more.” He shook his head. “Still… not… a lot.”

“About Calliope?” said Mordecai. He didn’t want to ask if Erik wanted to talk about it, that implied a “no” option, and Erik might take it to avoid being worrying.

Erik bobbed his head, not quite a nod. “Baby stuff. Those guys getting called up. That… baby isn’t… okay.”

“That happens sometimes,” Mordecai said, nodding.

“Is fifteen percent a lot?” Erik said.

“It’s less than it was. Calliope has been taking good care of herself, and Hyacinth has been taking care of her too. She has a lot better chance of being okay… and the baby too.”

“Stephen,” Erik said firmly.

“Stephen,” said Mordecai.

“It’s the hospital and not Auntie Hyacinth at home because you’re worried about my mom,” Erik said. He frowned again and he stopped, irritated. “My mom’s… already… dead.”

“I know. But I told Calliope about how I was worried and she decided to come to the hospital so it wouldn’t be so hard for me.”

“That’s… dumb!”

“It was dumb of me,” Mordecai said. “But I couldn’t help it, and I can’t take it back.”

Erik blinked. “But you still want her to be there.”

“Yes.”

They walked quietly for a time.

“If Calliope dies, we don’t get to keep Stephen,” Erik said.

Mordecai stumbled. “Well… no. She wanted her parents to have him. But I really don’t think she’s going to die, dear one, it’s not like your mom…”

“Does she like her parents better than us?” Erik said.

“Well…” He hadn’t been expecting to be fielding this kind of question. “Um, they’re her parents…”

“My mom didn’t pick her parents to have me,” Erik said.

“I don’t think her parents were still alive, dear one.”

Erik considered that. “I like you better,” he said gravely.

“Thank you, dear one.”

“Did… you… like… me…?” Erik held up his hand for more time. He knew his uncle loved him right now. “I… mean… right… away. Before.”

Mordecai drew a long breath and let it out slowly. If he lied, Erik would pick up on it, that was the problem. Cousin Violet would be falling all over herself to tell him the truth, and not kindly.

“I don’t really remember you right away,” he admitted. “I wanted to take care of you… And I remembered about you enough to keep you with me and not lose you anywhere. I thought I’d have to find someone to look after you because I might die… But I had to get better before I could think well enough to like anyone.”

“It’s like when I got hurt and I couldn’t remember you all the time,” Erik said.

Mordecai nodded. “I suppose it was.”

“Were you scared?”

“Constantly.”

“Of me, though?” He remembered… Well, he remembered really hating all those people that kept moving him and hurting him and bothering him, back when he was hurt, and sometimes he cried and he just wanted them to go away. Auntie Hyacinth, mostly, but sometimes his uncle and Maggie too.

“Yes,” his uncle said. “Especially when you were crying and I didn’t know what to do.”

“Yeah,” Erik said. He felt that way about crying he couldn’t fix. It’d be worse with a baby because they couldn’t even talk. He didn’t mind his uncle being scared like that. He paused, not entirely willingly. “Violet… said… I… looked… like… a… mistake. Ugly.”

“Violet thinks you’re ugly because you’re green,” Mordecai said. “And all babies are ugly when they come out, it takes a little while for them to cute up.”

Erik drew a few sharp breaths, like he was trying to cure the hiccups. Come on. I can get around this most of the time… “Will… Stephen… be… ugly?” he managed. “And… And…” He put up both hands. “Calliope get… mad if I’m… scared of him?”

“Oh, gods,” said Mordecai. He snickered and put a hand to his head. He was already shaking it, no. “At the hospital, they clean babies up before they show anyone, even the mom. They wipe them off. It takes a little longer for them to change colour… They start out blue or purple, even babies that aren’t coloured, because they haven’t been breathing. Stephen will be pink and cute when you see him.”

“Okay,” Erik said. They had been standing outside the drugstore for some time. He peeked past his uncle and through the front window. “Can I get a comic book or something so they won’t talk to me so much?” It was lots easier when he had something to do.

“I think that’s an excellent idea.”

Erik picked out a book of match-three puzzles, which could be played multiple times. It was a little expensive, because of the full-motion pictures, but it would be fun for a long time. They also got chips, sodas and sandwiches.

◈◈◈

“Milo, come on, you haven’t eaten all day. Milo…” Maggie shook the bag of chips, like she was trying to summon a pet with treats. Here, Hrothgar! Where’s my sweet boy? “Come on, Milo. Basic nourishment!”

Milo appeared to be tracking the motion of the bag, but he had not attached any significance to it. It was distracting him from his pamphlets.

Maggie couldn’t physically drag him out from under the table, and she was worried about scaring him with magic. If he got any more scared his head was going to blow up. She tried opening the chips. “Mmm, cheese and onion. You want some?” She shook the bag again.

Milo managed to put together a vague understanding that if he ate the food, the little girl might go away. He disgorged a truly stupendous amount of mixed chewing gum directly into the large paper bag. He had already removed one pamphlet of each colour and was using the paper bag to store crumpled gum wrappers.

“Oh, my dear gods!” Maggie cried, recoiling. It looked like a tumour!

Milo took the bag of chips and set it in his lap with the pamphlets. He clasped his hands and bowed his head.

Oh, Lord, thank you for these gifts that we are about to receive and, um… He urgently referenced the nearest pamphlet. …Come into my heart and into my life… And thank you for dying on that cross — I hope you’re not mad at me for bringing that up again, but that’s what it says — and, um, all the suffering, and please make me be good. He remembered that last part from the workhouse. Also thank you for Calliope and make her be okay, please. Okay. He ate a chip.

Maggie stumbled away, which was all Milo had wanted, but now he thought if he didn’t eat all the blessèd chips he might make the Lord mad.

“Milo’s getting really weird, Cin,” Maggie confided behind a cupped hand.

Hyacinth sat forward and set her sandwich aside. “What’s he doing now?”

“Praying.”

Hyacinth sat back and resumed the sandwich. “Well, they can’t be bothered about that here.”

◈◈◈

“Mr. Otis?” the nurse said. She pronounced it with a long O, like obedient.

The entire household was so well-trained that they didn’t even look up.

“Otis? Is Calliope Otis’s husband here?”

There was a general shaking of heads among the other husbands. They hadn’t met him.

“It’s Calliope Marshmallow Otis,” Maggie said, rising. She pronounced it with a short O, like obvious.

“O-T-I-S not O-T-T-I-S,” Erik added with a frown.

“We are here with Calliope,” the General said, as the household, even Milo, approached in an immediate and apparently threatening fashion.

The nurse took a single step backwards and then adjusted her clipboard. She did not announce “it’s a boy!” or drag anyone aside for a quieter conference. Instead, she narrowed her eyes and addressed Mordecai, “You need to do something about that record player right now. There are women in the maternity ward who are trying to sleep!”

“Me?” said Mordecai. He started coughing again. It might’ve just been the shock.

The General took another step forward. “I am capable of dealing with the record player.”

The nurse took yet another step back. “Come along, then,” she said. She reached out a hand but thought better of taking the General’s arm. “Please.”

“I’m coming too,” Hyacinth said. She stepped forward and backed the nurse a little further into the hall. “We’re all coming,” she added with a glance in Mordecai’s direction.

“There are too many of you!” said the nurse. “The children are too young! The women are trying to sleep! Perhaps her husband…” She looked for him. The red-haired gentleman seemed the most likely candidate but he wasn’t stepping up to take responsibility.

“We are all coming or I’m going to have Mordecai blow up the record player from here!” said the ragged-looking blonde woman, indicating the coloured man with a finger.

“Yes!” said Mordecai. He held up a hand. “…Because I can do that! Apparently,” he added in a lower voice.

“Me… too!” Erik said.

“I could probably blow you up,” Maggie said.

Milo nodded. He lifted a hand and formed a fireball in it.

The nurse wheeled about like an automaton and walked jerkily down the hall. She did not look back, as if trapped in one of those nightmares where the monster is right behind you and waiting to eat you. “Come along then! Come along!”

Hyacinth and the General and Maggie and Erik and Milo and Mordecai followed after, no exceptions.

“I guess she’s all right, then,” Maggie whispered to Erik. All he could do was shrug.