Mislaid in Parts Half-Known by Seanan McGuire

Author:Seanan McGuire
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tor Publishing Group

10 FRIENDS OF A FEATHER

“YOU ARE NOT A very nice person,” said Cora, voice firm and angry, before she turned and hurried after Antsy. Christopher was only a step or so behind.

“A cage?” asked Emily, before she ran after the others.

Kade didn’t say anything, just looked at Vineta witheringly and followed the group.

Sumi, left alone with the old woman and the little girl, produced a piece of ribbon from inside her pocket and began winding it through her fingers, creating an intricate loop. Vineta sniffed.

“What? Aren’t you going to judge me too? Don’t you have some cutting comment to make you feel better about coming here, to my home, and judging me by your own standards?”

“Nope,” said Sumi.

“Then why are you still here?”

“Because I figure you were like Antsy once, and like Yulia here. You were a kid who fell through a door trying to get away from something that wanted to hurt her, and you thought you’d stumbled into paradise.” She kept twining and twisting the ribbon between her fingers, looping it joint by joint. “And somewhere along the way, you figured out paradise was pay-to-play, but you’d already paid so much that you couldn’t dream of stopping. There was nothing else for you. Nowhere to go, no one to turn to, no way out. Time to make the best of a bad situation, since there’s no way of making anything else.”

Sumi looked at Vineta with cool, unnerving eyes.

“You’re not wrong,” said the woman. “But that doesn’t give you the right to—”

“People who’ve been hurt often think they have some sort of right to go around hurting other people,” said Sumi. “They think trauma’s a toy to keep handing down forever. But the fact that someone hurt you and tied you up in knots doesn’t give you the right to do it to anybody else. I’m a formerly dead girl made of gingerbread and hope, and even I can see that.” She tugged one end of the looped and knotted ribbon, and it came free of her fingers, untangled, untied. She stepped over and offered it to Yulia, eyes still on Vineta.

“I hope you can figure that out one of these days,” she said. “Or no one’s going to remember you kindly, or care when you’re gone, not really.”

Yulia reached out and tugged the ribbon from Sumi’s hand, looking bewildered.

Sumi flashed her a quick, tight smile. Then she turned and skipped after the others, pigtails bouncing in time with the rest of her.

Vineta scowled and snatched the ribbon out of Yulia’s hand. “They won’t be back,” she said, with calm certainty. “Spoiled children have to learn they can’t have everything they want. You understand that, don’t you, Yulia?”

Yulia nodded, making no attempt to hide her confusion. Vineta sighed.

“Let’s go pick another door,” she said. “It’s time to figure out what we’re doing for lunch.”

Among the shelves, Antsy and her friends moved deeper into the store, Antsy stomping, the others just trying to keep up. Kade kept glancing back, until he saw the top of Sumi’s head appear briefly over a short shelf and relaxed.

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