“Yes, can I help you?” the woman asked. There was the faintest of frowns on her face as she studied the two of them intently. She dusted her hands on her apron and smoothed her hair, already pulled up into a bun, in some half familiar nervous gesture. Gina watched her in mute silence, trying to put a name to the face. Was it her aunt that had done that? Or some distant cousin?

“Were you trying to find the museum? Because if so, you missed a turn. This is private property.”

“Mom, ask how they got on the grounds!” a boy yelled from somewhere inside the house. His actual words were a little muffled, almost too soft to make out, but his uncertainty came across loud and clear. Well, that made two of them.

Gina smiled at the woman in front of her, hoping to reassure her. It didn’t look like this family got many visitors so far off the road. “We came in the main gate,” she called out, hopefully loud enough for her voice to carry.

The woman’s frown deepened. “That doesn’t make much sense, unless…Georgina, is that you?” She peered over Gina’s shoulder, seemingly only now noticing that Gina was not alone. The frown was gone in a flash, replaced by a radiant grin. “Oh my goodness, it’s Maria. I should have recognized you immediately.”

“You’re my Aunt Claudia, aren’t you?” Gina asked. The last pieces were falling into place. It was funny how people could change so little and look so different.

Her Aunt Claudia grinned even wider, if that was possible, and waved them in. “Of course. Please, come in. We were just about to have lunch.” As Gina edged her way past her, Claudia stopped her just long enough to whisper in her ear, “Sorry about the alarm. It was my son’s idea. I had no idea it was going to be this loud.”

Gina gave her aunt a sharp look, but her aunt just closed the door behind them and walked briskly down the hall. They followed her past a rickety staircase and a series of tiny rooms until it opened up into what was clearly the kitchen. The two of them were ushered to the edge of a large table standing in the center of the room. There was a man already seated at one end, presumably her uncle, and four boys seated to one side against the wall. The oldest, clearly twins, looked to be about her age or a little older, but she’d be hard pressed to guess at the ages of the other two. The youngest was studying her intently, and something told her that this was the boy that had called out to her just a few moments before.

“Boys, this is your cousin Georgina and her mother, your Aunt Maria.” She clapped her hands together. “Oh, I know just the thing. Just wait until I tell your grandparents the good news. They’ll be so pleased.” Without another word, she pulled her apron over her head and dropped it in a pile on the kitchen counter. She disappeared back the way they’d come, and there came a creak and a slam as she ran out the front door. The force of it made the glasses on the table shake.

The man sighed and turned to the boy sitting to his right, the youngest. “You might as well pull up some more chairs, Daniel. That’s two for your grandparents and two for our visitors.” Daniel leapt into action, and the man turned back to face the two of them. “Sorry about the fuss, Maria,” he told Gina’s mother. “You know how Claudia is when she gets an idea in her head.”

“It’s not a problem, Charles. I see that some things, at least, never change. I’m glad to see that you’re still looking after her.”

“Claudia means well, but she just doesn’t put a lot of thought into things,” her uncle explained to Gina.

“She’s got a big heart,” Gina’s mother reassured him, “and I remember the way she used to dote on your boys.”

“Gina, this is your Uncle Charles and your cousins. The two oldest are Jason and Terry, and the boy to their right is Tristan. The youngest is apparently Daniel.” She turned to Charles and flashed him a smile. “Did I miss anyone?”

Gina’s uncle smiled and leaned back in his chair. “Well done,” he said. “No, after Daniel was born, we decided four boys was more than enough to keep us busy for years to come.”

By then, Daniel had brought two more chairs, so Gina and her mother were able to sit down and try to relax.

“So, what brings you out this way?” he asked. “Is Georgina eighteen already? I could have sworn it was another year coming, at the least.”

The question was innocuous enough, but Gina’s mother turned bright red and looked away.

“It’s not that. I’m afraid it’s something far more serious,” her mother said by way of reply. Her voice was pitched low, so as not to carry to Gina’s cousins. “Two days ago, two armed men broke into my apartment and held me hostage, waiting for Gina to come home from school.” She glanced back at Charles, her eyes bright. “They claimed they had already killed Gregory years before. I knew he was dead, of course, but it was the first time I’d heard a hint of foul play. The solicitor for the estate had assured me that his death was merely a tragic accident, and a stupid, pointless accident at that.”

“Wait. Describe these men to me first,” Charles said.

If her mother was bothered that he was interrupting her so soon, she gave no sign. “One was tall and thin, with blond hair. I think his eyes were blue. The other man was shorter, not much taller than me, with black hair and green eyes. I remember him more clearly since he was the one on the couch with me, holding a knife to my throat. They had some sort of accent, but I couldn’t place it at the time, and a few times, when they remembered to, I think I heard them slip into what sounded like another language. For the most part, they kept silent.”

Gina looked at her mother in surprise. That didn’t match what she remembered at all. She bit back the urge to correct her. Maybe her mother had it right after all, or maybe she was misleading her uncle deliberately for reasons of her own. She saw her uncle’s eyes flick her way just in time to avoid meeting them. No point in giving away her misgivings just yet.

“And you’ve never seen them before, maybe in your neighborhood, or near where you work.”

“No, I’m positive,” her mother said.

“Has anyone been following you or asking about you recently?”

“Not that I know about, no.”

“I’ve never seen them before either, before you ask,” Gina added a moment later with a frown. “You don’t have to interrogate her over it. If she didn’t see them, fine, whatever. Maybe they were really good at keeping out of sight.”

Her uncle’s eyes came back to rest on Gina and he smiled at her frowning face. “Let me guess. You have a different version of events,” he said.

Gina eyed her uncle in confusion. She glanced at her mother, but it didn’t look like she was giving any signals. “Well, I don’t see how I could be so mistaken, but…” Gina looked down at her hands and shook her head. “No, my mother must be right. What I saw doesn’t make sense.” She glanced over at her mother. “She spent more time in their company than I did anyway,” she said. She could feel the heat rising in her face as she spoke, but she didn’t care what anyone thought. Let them think it was embarrassment if they wanted to, but she was not about to forget the terror that had been in her mother’s eyes, not this soon. If those men ever tried anything like that again, she wouldn’t hesitate to do something about it.

“Tell me about it anyway,” her uncle suggested with a wave of his hand. She glanced over at her cousins, especially the youngest two, and hesitated. She doubted her mother would have let her overhear such things at their age, but apparently her uncle was more lenient.

“The men I saw could have been twins. They both had the same clothes, same height, same build, and most importantly, the same hair and eye color. White blond, with yellow eyes, maybe green. I can’t be sure of that part, at least. They seemed to be making a serious effort to avoid making direct eye contact with me. Like I said, it makes no sense. I mean, who has yellow eyes, anyway?”

“Did you kill the dragons?” one of the boys spoke up. It was Daniel. Gina turned to look at him in surprise. He was standing frozen at the entrance to the kitchen, one folding chair held under each arm. Her cousins had been so quiet that she’d forgotten they were even there. “Dragons” was a funny thing to call the men that had attacked them, but she brushed the

She hesitated, but since her uncle didn’t seem inclined to intervene, she decided to answer him truthfully. “Maybe one,” she said. “I think I hurt him pretty bad, but he managed to escape just the same.”

“Guns don’t work. Did you stab him through the heart?” Daniel asked.

“Did you keep his sword? Can I see it?” one of the other boys piped up. It wasn’t one of the twins. Tristan, maybe?

“Wait, what makes you think he had a sword?” Gina asked in surprise. She’d been sure her mother hadn’t mentioned anything about swords just yet.

Her uncle intervened, motioning his boys to silence. “Daniel, stop bothering our guests. My ears are still ringing from your attempt to make a door alarm and you’re trying my patience.” When they’d subsided again, he continued. “You fought back, good,” her uncle told her. “Now, tell me what happened after the fight. I’m not about to critique your performance, but I have an interest in what happened to the men that attacked you.”

“Well, it’s true. They did have swords, and I did fight back. I got the sword away from one, stabbed him in the chest and watched him fall, but when I turned to face down the other man, he just laughed in my face, made his farewells, and vanished. Once I got over my shock, I noticed the other man had disappeared too.”

Her uncle leaned back in his chair and folded his hands behind his head. “Well, I very much doubt you killed that man. His friend wouldn’t have bothered wasting his energy to move a dead body. Was there anything else? Anything they said? Were either of you hurt?”

Gina couldn’t help but think that the questions she wasn’t being asked spoke louder than anything else her uncle could have thrown her way. Her mind instantly skipped ahead to her mother’s near death encounter, but she kept her mouth shut and shook her head. Her uncle frowned, and started to say something, but her Aunt Claudia took that moment to burst into the kitchen. Right behind her were Gina’s grandparents.

There was a flurry of exchanged greetings and hugs before everyone sat back down again around the table. It was a tight fit, but they managed somehow. Aunt Claudia monopolized the lunch time talk with questions for Gina about school and future college plans. If she noticed that her husband and sons weren’t keeping up their end of the conversation, she showed no sign of it. It wasn’t until after lunch, when everyone had finished eating and the food had been cleared away, that the talk returned to more serious matters.

“So what brings you here?” her grandmother asked Gina with a smile. “I never even asked you why you came all this way.” Gina drew a deep breath and prepared to launch into their story once more, but her Uncle cut in smoothly and saved her the trouble.

“Two Seekers caught up to them in New York,” he said.

Gina’s grandmother looked at her husband in shock. “So they found her after all. Gregory had such high hopes that it wouldn’t come to that.”

Her grandfather turned to glare at Gina’s mother. “We never should have let you leave with her, Maria. She would have been safe here.”

“Why hello to you too, Harold. How’s life been treating you and Diane here in merry old England?” Gina’s mother muttered aloud. “Oh, I’ve been fine, thanks for asking.”

Gina’s grandmother was too busy glaring at her husband to pay much mind to what Maria had to say. “You’d prefer it, wouldn’t you Harold, if she’d turned out like Gregory?” her grandmother protested. “Another martyr for the cause? No, I don’t think so. There’s no safety for her anywhere, not anymore.”

“I’m not exactly happy about the fact that you all knew my life and my daughter’s life was in danger this entire time and did nothing,” Maria shouted. “How about a warning next time?”

Gina rolled her eyes. If they kept on like this, they’d be sleeping in the car tonight for sure. She stood up and raised her hand for silence. Amazingly enough, everyone stopped and turned to look at her.

“Well, that was easier than I expected,” she said. “Now, tell me. What happened to my father?”

“Stabbed through the heart by a dragon, those bastards,” her grandmother muttered.

There was that word again. Some sort of slang? A gang name? She made a note to ask about it later. “So, when I was told it was a heart attack, that was a lie?” Gina asked the room.

This time it was Maria’s turn to flinch. “Alright, so I fudged it a bit. There was no way I was going to tell my daughter that her father died in a sword fight, not when she was still so young. Besides, did I really want his rash behavior to set an example for her?”

“How dare you,” Diane sputtered. “Gregory was murdered in cold blood. They set the manor on fire, waited for him to come out, and stabbed him in the back. He was unarmed. No, that was no sword fight.”

“As the new head of the bloodline, she had the right to confront her father’s murderer and decide his fate,” Harold said. “You should not have withheld the truth from her.”

“What truth? I’m not a mind reader. When the solicitor told me he died in a sword fight, I assumed it was a fencing accident. Gregory never was very good about wearing protective gear when he sparred with family or friends.”

“Wait, back up. I’m the head of the bloodline?” Gina asked.

“Did you tell her anything at all? Or were you going to make it a kind of surprise?” Uncle Charles asked mildly.

“I was going to tell her when she turned eighteen,” Maria said. “Then she wouldn’t have been a minor anymore and she could take possession of the estate if she wanted it. Telling her ahead of time wouldn’t have accomplished anything.”

“That was not something for you to decide,” Harold said with a sigh. He glanced over at his wife and reached out to take her hand. “Her Uncle Charles was left as the trustee with no guidance on what actions to take. The manor’s been left to rot where it fell and the grounds have fallen into disarray in her absence.”

Aunt Claudia rolled her eyes. “Oh, please. Even if the house were completely rebuilt from scratch, there’s no way that anyone here is ready to move back there, not after the events of that horrible night. The boys had nightmares for months.”

“She has a point, Harold,” Charles told her grandfather. “This isn’t about the estate, anyway,” he explained. “As head of the bloodline, there are certain traditional duties and responsibilities that she has to perform.”

“Why didn’t it pass to you? You’re his brother, aren’t you?” Gina asked him. She gestured to her grandparents, “And why didn’t it pass to them?”

“It is believed that you have the three gifts, making you the most eligible member of the family in the direct line,” her uncle said. “Considerations such as age or gender come second. It probably would have been useful to have been able to test you further before you left the country, but there wasn’t a good way of getting to you without stirring up more trouble with your mother.”

“Umm, what gifts are we talking about here?” Gina asked.

The adults in the room exchanged hurried glances, but it was her uncle that continued on.

“Sight, Heart, and Will,” he said. When he saw her confusion, he elaborated further. “Here, I’ll explain. Sight grants you the ability to see through illusions and lies. Heart gives you the ability to heal yourself and others. Will grants you fighting abilities. That’s simplifying it somewhat, and there are some other abilities that spring up from time to time, but that’s the gist of it.”

Her mother’s hand flew to her neck, her fingertips resting there for a moment before she composed herself and crossed her arms against her chest. When her eyes met Gina’s, Gina shook her head ever so slightly, hoping that her mother would get the hint. “How would you know if she had such gifts?” her mother asked.

“All the children in this family are put under close watch from the moment they’re born. Georgina showed all the right signs, but she was still too young for us to be sure.”

Gina looked at her cousins for confirmation, but they only shrugged and looked away again to better listen to their father. She doubted she would have been able to keep her mouth shut as long as they had if their positions had been swapped. Was it part of growing up in the UK or was it something more?

“So you’re not really sure at all, then,” her mother said, snapping Gina back into focus.

“Are you trying to say that I have super powers?” Gina asked. “And that you’ve known others that had them too?”

“I guess you could call them that, but the gifts are complicated things to understand. They can be gained or lost in an instant, and I don’t think anyone alive in our family today understands exactly how they work or why some have them and others don’t. It’s obvious from the way you saw through the Seekers’ illusion that you have the gift of Sight.”

Her grandmother snorted. “I’d have been more surprised if she didn’t have it, since just about everyone in the family has it to some degree.”

“The others are harder to detect,” her uncle added. “It’s hard to say where the boundary lies between natural talent and the gifts of Will and Heart. After all, someone could be naturally good at fighting or recover quickly from their injuries, all by chance. Your unusual grace and composure for a child so young made your father think you might have the gift of Will. He’d know after all. Gregory probably was one of those rare few in my lifetime that had or will have the gift of Will. It’s why they killed him, after all.”

“And the gift of Heart?” Gina persisted. “You think I have that one too?”

“I don’t know how well you remember your childhood here, but when you were three, you had a bad fall from the hay loft in the barn while playing with your cousins. They ran to the house screaming that you’d fallen and snapped your neck, but by the time your mother was fetched from the house to your side, you were already sitting up on your own and laughing about it. There wasn’t a scratch on you, not even a bruise.”

“How old could they possibly have been? I wouldn’t have thought children would be counted as reliable witnesses.” As an afterthought, she smiled over at her cousins. “No offense, guys.”

“Jason and Terry were six at the time. You used to tag along with them everywhere they went. Of course, we questioned them thoroughly about the incident. They remained stubbornly certain of what they’d seen, but since we never let you have another chance to demonstrate any such talent again, who knows? Looking back now, since you say you haven’t seen any such signs yourself, that was probably more wishful thinking than anything else. After all, that particular gift hasn’t been seen for at least a century now, maybe more.”

“And if I had all these gifts, what would I do with them? Fight crime? Save the world? Seek out evildoers?”

“The same thing your father and I used to do.”

“And what’s that?”

“Slay dragons, of course.”

Gina had been sipping absentmindedly at some tea her aunt had provided. Her uncle’s bald statement of fact, that he and her father had actually killed people, sent her tea spurting over the table in a fine spray.

“You can’t be serious,” she protested once she’d recovered. She grabbed her napkin and started dabbing up the mess she’d created. If her hands shook as she did so, no one seemed to notice.

“What, because dragons don’t exist?” Charles asked.

Gina looked up from her task in relief. This was the sort of crazy she could handle. Her mother had warned her as much, hadn’t she? “Do you mean lizards?” She asked hopefully. “I actually thought you were talking about a gang or something. You know, like the two intruders that attacked me in America.”

“The dragons I’ve killed frequently did assume the guise of men,” her uncle said.

Strike that. This was most certainly not what she had in mind. Gina crumpled up her napkin and rolled it between her hands. Some tiny corner of her brain was frantically calculating the distance to the front door and the likelihood that anyone would stop her if she made a run for it. She knew she didn’t dare try it, though, lest she leave her mother behind. Unless…unless she took out her uncle first. She eyed him carefully, sizing him up as she did so.

“What was that just now?” her uncle asked her.

Gina shook her head ever so slightly. “I don’t understand. What was what?”

“That look you just gave me. Your father got that way sometimes, but he would never tell me what it was.”

“She thinks you’re crazy, Charles,” her aunt piped in unexpectedly. “Why don’t you start from the beginning before she tries to brain you with the teapot?”

Their lead on their pursuers held strong. They breezed through customs and rented a small car in no time at all. They didn’t have to travel far outside of London before they turned off the highway onto a country road, and from there, onto a dusty lane that ended in a spray of gravel and the beginnings of a small forest. They pulled a little ways off the lane before coming to a stop.

“We have to walk from here, and make sure that the way is clear,” her mother explained. “Otherwise, we’d be stuck backing up the entire way. There’s no room to turn around up ahead.” The two of them set out on foot to follow where the gravel led. After a few bends through the trees, the end of the path came to rest against the foot of a massive gate set into an equally impressive wall.

Her mother tugged at the gate while Gina tried to get a closer look at the two gargoyles that stood watch above their heads. Both were apparently oriental dragons, but their features had been buried under a lifetime or erosion. She guessed that they dated back to Britain’s early days as an industrial giant. They looked familiar somehow, and she realized that she must have seen them before.

“It’s no good,” her mother complained. “It’s locked tight. We’ll have to find another way.” She frowned at the lock in her hands. “It was never locked when I was here.”

Gina turned back to look at the gate and gave it and the lock an appraising glance. “Could be rust,” she said. “Let me have a shot at it.”

Her mother stepped aside so that Gina could get a closer look at the lock. Gina reached out and pulled it toward her. It was a simple padlock, no matter how ornamental its outward appearance.

“You say this was the main gate?” she asked.

“Yes. There’s a side gate that leads to a cottage and some outbuildings, but this was the way you went if you wanted to get to the manor first.”

Gina turned the padlock over once more and gave it a cautious tug. It sprung open in her hands, surprising them both.

Her mother stared as the gates swung open wide at a push of Gina’s hands. “I could have sworn,” she said, shaking her head. “Never mind, I’ll get the car.” Her mother turned back and a few short moments later, she came crunching down the lane in their tiny rental. Once the car had cleared the gate, her mother popped open the passenger door and Gina hopped in.

The gate had opened up into a dense corridor of trees that opened up again into a wide open field. Gina pointed straight ahead at some buildings a ways off, but her mother shook her head. “That’s the cottage,” she explained, “and that over there are the stables and the barn. The manor is up on the left. You’ll see.”

They followed the wall and came around one last bend. There in front of them was the largest house that Gina had ever seen. At first glance, it was something out of some Victorian novel, an elegant affair of brick and local stone, but then her mother slammed on the breaks and Gina knew something was wrong. Upon closer inspection, it became clear that the house had been the victim of a bad fire, and it hadn’t been recent. The roof was gone or caving in, you could see daylight through what remained of the windows, and one whole wing had burned to the ground.

Her mother sat back in the driver’s seat and stared straight ahead. She looked completely lost. Gina waited to see what her mother would do, but when it became clear that she wasn’t budging, Gina decided that it was time to take action.

She popped the door open and jumped out. Her mother turned, her eyes drawn more by the sudden movement than with any sort of actual comprehension on what she was seeing. Gina started walking toward the house, taking her time.”

“What are you doing?” her mother cried. “Get back in the car.”

“Well, you’re just sitting there, so I thought I’d take a look around,” Gina called back over her shoulder.

Apparently that was enough to prod her mother into action, because her mother turned off the car and climbed out to join her, hurrying to catch up. “You’re not doing any exploring on your own, at least. You’d bring the whole place down on your head.”

They walked up to the front steps together and circled the house, peering into the windows. There wasn’t much to look at. Anything of value that had survived must have been removed right after the fire, because most of the rooms were empty. What did remain was covered in a thick layer of dirt, dust, and ash. When they’d come back around to the front door, Gina plopped down on the steps and looked up at her mother, shading her eyes against the sun.

“So why’d you and dad get divorced? And why don’t you ever bring him up?”

“He wasn’t right in the head,” her mother said, “and the rest of the family wasn’t much better. When you were born, I got a short round of congratulations on your birth while the arrival of your Aunt Claudia’s twin boys apparently merited a full scale celebration. At first I thought it was just some slight against me, perhaps as a foreigner, but I later realized that it was because you’d been born a girl, not a boy. I marked it down as old fashioned values and did my best to let it go, but a few short months later, everyone’s behavior took a dramatic turn in the opposite direction. Those same relatives that had barely acknowledged your arrival began singing your praises and enumerating your many virtues. Stranger yet, they kept marveling aloud that you’d been born a girl, as if you’d achieved some accomplishment never before seen.”

“How odd,” Gina remarked aloud. “Did you ever uncover the secret?”

“Maybe they would have let me in on it if I’d stayed longer. I was still an outsider to them, even after ten years, but I could feel them starting to warm up to me.”

“That sounds lonely,” Gina said.

“It was, but I had you, and when I could tear him away from his work, I had your father, too. It would have been enough, until I lost him to the same madness that everyone else in that family seemed to have. That’s when he started making all sorts of plans for your training. I couldn’t shake the feeling that he was trying to turn you into a little soldier for some sort of war. There were lessons in military strategy, training in multiple sorts of weapons, mostly archaic, and an intense regimen of physical exercise.”

Gina tried to think back and remember what her mother described, but most of it was too hazy to recall. “I remember horse back riding,” she said, “and I can remember playing at sword fighting with my cousins. Those weren’t actually real swords, were they?”

Her mother nodded. “Yes, they were real.”

Gina’s eyes widened. “That’s crazy. I couldn’t have been older than eight at the time. Who gives an eight-year-old a real blade to play with?”

Her mother only shrugged and looked away.

“The fire must have happened years ago, judging by its appearance, so the real question is, where did everyone go? It just doesn’t make sense that they’d completely abandon the place to rot,” Gina mused aloud. She glanced past her mother, her eyes falling first on her car, then on the outbuildings past the car. “You don’t suppose they’re still living on the grounds in one of those cottages, do you?” Gina asked.

Her mother twisted around to look in the direction that Gina was. “You’re right. I should have thought of that. It’d be a tight fit for all of them, but there are actually several cottages on the grounds. If your Aunt Claudia and Uncle Charles took the boys to live in the largest of them, your grandparents and the occasional cousin that stayed on would still have a place to stay.”

“Well, what are we waiting for? If they saw us come in, then surely they must be wondering who we are and what we’re doing here.”

Soon they were back in the car, continuing along the way they’d come. The drive that had brought them to the house continued on past it to the stables and into the trees again. When they came out on the other side, there was a barn to their left and three small workman’s cottages to their right, each separated by large gardens and low fences. The one in the center was larger than the other two, and there was a laundry line out back with clothes attached. Someone was living there. They sat there in silence with the car idling, scanning the house for any signs of activity.

“They must be home. I didn’t see anyone outside, did you?”

“No, I guess not.” Her mother turned off the car and pulled the keys from the ignition. She reached for the car door handle and stopped halfway through the motion. She compromised instead, resting her hand atop the steering wheel. “This is harder than I thought it would be,” she admitted.

“So, what was your plan? Do we just walk up and knock?” Gina asked. “Say, ‘Here we are, your long lost relatives?’”

“I guess. I didn’t really think ahead very far on this one.” Her mother turned to meet Gina’s eyes and tried to force a smile that came out more like a grimace. “I doubt these people will welcome me with open arms. They’re your relatives, not mine. To tell you the truth, I’m only here because of something your father said to me, right before I left.”

“And what was that?”

Her mother opened her mouth to reply, but she clamped it shut again just as fast. She shook her head firmly and turned it so that she was staring straight ahead again at the drive in front of them.

“Fine, I’ll do it,” Gina muttered. She hopped out of the car, squared her shoulders, and marched straight up the walk to the front gate. To her credit, she only hesitated a moment before bending down to unlatch it and push it open, but no sooner had she taken a step past the fence than the air filled with an ear piercing ring. Gina’s hands flew to cover her ears, but it was no use. The sound seemed to penetrate directly to her brain. She was still standing like that when she felt a tap on her shoulder. She spun around to find her mother standing there, apparently unaffected by the look on her face. Her mother was mouthing something at her and Gina realized that she was trying to talk to her, but she couldn’t make it out over the noise.

“What?” she yelled.

Her mother reached out and held Gina’s hands away from her head. At the same moment, the noise stopped.

“I said, why are you covering your ears?”

“You didn’t hear that?” Gina asked.

“Hear what?”

Gina tugged her hands free and let them drop to her side. Her mother clearly had no idea what Gina was talking about. Before Gina had a chance to explain, she heard the gentle creak of a set of rusty hinges coming from behind her. She glanced back over her shoulder just in time to see the front door open the rest of the way. There was a woman standing there, not much older than her mother and almost certainly some relative, but no name sprung readily to mind. Still, there was something there, some glimmer of recognition that had hit her when she saw the woman’s face. Well, whoever the woman was, she wasn’t smiling now.

“I can’t believe you kept my passport this long,” Gina complained. “I don’t even look remotely the same. What was I, eight?”

“Nine, actually,” her mother corrected her gently.

“And I’m seventeen now. There’s no way they’re letting me on that plane with this. Isn’t it expired?” She glanced down at the passport photo again in disgust. In the photo, she was actually wearing pink ruffles. Pink. And unless she was very much mistaken, those were ribbons in her younger self’s hair.

“Well, I didn’t have time to wait for them to make up a new one,” Gina’s mother said. “Even if I expedited it, we’d still be waiting around for a week or more. We’ll just have to take our chances.”

Almost as soon as Gina had come to after her face plant into the apartment’s carpet, Gina’s mother had surprised her by demanding that they flee the country at once. It seemed a little extreme, but something in her mother’s stance had made it clear that the matter wasn’t up for discussion. The best Gina had been able to do was to delay it until the next morning. They had to pack, after all, and plan where they were going to go. Somehow, in the confusion, they hadn’t really talked about what had happened, either, not the fight and certainly not what had come after. Gina couldn’t understand how her mother was still alive or what had happened to the gash that should have ended her life, but if her mother wasn’t up for discussing it, she wouldn’t push it. She wasn’t entirely ready herself to accept that she might have killed a man. Without a body, none of it felt real. She might as well have skewered a ghost.

The very next day, in the early hours of the morning, they found themselves standing in line at the local airport. They’d already made it past the ticket counter and stowed the few measly pieces of luggage that they’d bothered to pack, but the security checkpoint had been backed up for well over an hour now. Some new security regulation that was catching people off guard, no doubt. Gina had thought her mother was crazy to suggest they arrive at the airport so early in the day, not when their flight was scheduled so late in the afternoon, but she’d shut her mouth as soon as she’d seen the size of the line that snaked around the ticketing counters. There were other more fundamental things to complain about, in any case.

“I still don’t see why we have to go to England anyway. We should have reported it to the police and stayed put,” Gina protested. Wasn’t that what the police were for?

“To report a pair of intruders that can vanish into thin air with a snap of the fingers? A knife wound that never happened? No, we’re better off seeking help from other sources. Besides, I’ve seen their type before.”

Gina’s eyes flew open. This was the first she’d heard of it. “Where? When?”

“Back when I was still married to your father, they would show up at odd hours of the night and demand to see him. I never understood why he put up with them, but if I complained, he’d just sigh and tell me it was something I wouldn’t understand.” Her mother licked her lips and hesitated. “Though, there was this one time, shortly after you were born, when I walked into your father’s office to ask him something and I thought I saw someone out of the corner of my eye. I turned to look, but there was no one there. He told me I was imagining things, and I believed him at the time, but now I’m not so sure.”

To Gina’s mind, that was a little sketchy, but there must have been something to it, or her mother wouldn’t have remembered it all these years later. “So you don’t know really anything about them, then. Great. Is there anything you can tell me for certain?”

Her mother just shrugged. “Your father had a lot of secrets, and he never gave me a reason for anything he did. He’d insist on ‘training’ you in swordsmanship one day and gymnastics the next. Shortly before I asked for a divorce, he was talking about pulling you out of the local school and hiring a tutor instead, and for some reason, he seemed to think it was essential that you start immediately in on learning Latin and Greek.” Gina’s mother glanced down at her daughter and smiled. “Maybe he knew what he was doing after all. You never did fit in at school, did you? I’ve had the principal call me in three times already this year for fighting and it’s not even Thanksgiving yet.”

“It’s not your fault that the teachers are boring,” Gina reassured her mother. “Or that I seem to be the only one that stands up to those bullies.”

Her mother sighed and shifted her bag to her other shoulder. “I just wish you’d look after yourself too, you know. You’re bright and you clearly care about others, but part of me wants to scream at you to stop messing around and I don’t know why.”

Gina had felt that frustration, that lack of purpose, for years now, but it was strange to hear her mother voice it aloud. On an impulse, she reached out and squeezed her mother’s hand. “I’m sorry I’m being such an ass. I’m scared, cranky, and my feet hurt.”

The line was finally moving now, and Gina couldn’t help but smile when she heard a few cheers from behind them. The airport had finally caved in and opened a few more “lanes” for the TSA. As they neared the front of one of the lines, she spotted the cause of the hold up. The officials were doing full bag searches for everyone.

“Either someone phoned in a tip, or there’s an inspection today,” she overheard one man mutter to his wife.

“Oh my God,” Gina breathed. “They have a picture of us.”

“How can you tell?” her mother demanded. She peered around the people in front of them, trying to catch a glimpse of the officials up front.

“They’re passing a bulletin around. I saw it dangling out of one man’s hands. Wait, he’s holding it up again.” She frowned. “Ugh, that picture’s even older than my passport photo. There’s three people in it. You, me, and someone else. Hey, is that dad in the photo with us? Funny, I thought he’d look different that that. You never told me you had a picture of him around.”

“I don’t. No wonder it’s so out of date; they must have gotten it from the manor. But seriously, how can you see all that from this distance? Are you sure they’re really pictures of us?”

Gina just shrugged. “We’re not that far back. Besides, my eyesight’s always been good.” She looked her mother up and down. “We’re going to have to split up. They’re looking for two people, not one, and you don’t look enough like the photo that they’ll recognize you if you’re on your own.”

Gina half expected her mother to protest, but her mother only nodded and waited for her chance. When the opportunity came, her mother quickly stepped to the end of a newly formed line. Nobody else seemed to notice. Before they knew it, they were safely through the checkpoint, but now there was a plane to catch, and they didn’t have much time. Fortunately, no one seemed to have passed the word along to the staff in the boarding area, and they got on board their plane without further incident. They didn’t try to speak, either, until well after the plane was in the air, lest they draw any undue attention from the crew on board.

“We still have to get through customs on the other side,” Gina said in a low voice.

“We’ll deal with that when we get to it,” her mother assured her.

“So what happened yesterday?” Gina asked. “Are you ready to talk about that now?”

Gina’s mother glanced carefully at the man on her other side, but his headphones were already on and his eyes were closed. “That wasn’t my doing. I think it was something you did.”

“But I didn’t do anything, I’m sure of it,” Gina hissed.

“You passed out for six hours, and when you woke up, you could barely keep your eyes open. That didn’t look like shock to me,” Gina’s mother said. “Your father might be dead, but he’s only one of a very large extended family. I’m sure someone over there can tell us what’s going on.”

“So that’s the real reason why we’re going there. Instead of back to your folks. You think I’m a freak or something?” Gina asked a little too loudly. Some of the nearby passengers turned to stare.

Gina’s mother hurriedly shushed her daughter. Gina leaned back in her seat, stared at the ceiling, and counted to ten. When her mother was sure she wasn’t going to create another outburst, she continued in an even quieter whisper. “Look, somebody is after you. Maybe what you did is part of the reason why. Or it could be something else. Either way, let’s talk about this again once we’re safe and sound in England. All right?”

“All right,” Gina promised.

“Now try to rest. It’s going to be early morning when we get there. They’re ahead of us.”

Gina sighed and slouched further into her seat. “Fine.” She watched as her mother pulled down a pillow and leaned back in her chair. Once her mother had closed her eyes, she turned back and looked out the window. They’d broken above the cloud cover, but here and there, she could see through it to the ground below. She could barely recall the last time she’d been on a plane. It must have been shortly after her parents’ divorce. Most of her memories from before that time were cloudy, and her mother had always been careful not to talk about her father in her presence. She’d had an accent when she started at her new school in the States, but it had faded quickly along with most of the pain and soon she was as American as anyone else in her class. She doubted that most of her current classmates even knew she hadn’t been born in the United States. Then again, with the large immigrant population at her school, chances were good that she wasn’t the only one that had traveled so far from home.

The next time Gina had heard a thing about her dad was when she came home from school one afternoon to see her mother crying over a letter. Her father had apparently died from heart failure. By then she’d already begun to forget about him. It’d already been several years since she’d seen him last at that point, and she hadn’t really expected that she’d ever see him again. He’d been tall, with the same brown hair and blue eyes that she’d then possessed. His face was a bit of a blur to her now, and her eyes had since lightened to a steel blue gray. Looking back now, she realized he must have been very distant to her for her to forget him so easily. There were others that she remembered much more strongly, like her Aunt Charlotte and her children. She and her cousins had played often in the forest on her father’s estate. Her Uncle Charles had even helped them build a tree house. It startled her to realize that she’d never really attempted to keep in touch. She wondered if they remembered her. In two days, she’d know for sure.

“Sir, I don’t understand. Are you just going to let her go?”

“It’s a little late for that, don’t you think, John?”

The two men were alone in the study, standing by a high window. Through the glass, in the courtyard below, they watched a woman playing with a young girl and two small boys.

“But sir, she’s taking your daughter with her,” John continued.

“Would you prefer I kidnap her? Hold them both against Maria’s wishes? The courts ruled against me. Georgina will go to live with her mother, and her mother will be returning to her parents in the States. No unsupervised contact of any kind until her eighteenth birthday.” The man laughed bitterly. “I wouldn’t be surprised if Maria claims I’m dead or worse.”

“You’re seriously going to let her gifts go to waste,” John persisted.

“Sight, Heart, and Will, the Drachbene family crest and the family curse. Maybe she’s better off this way. Maybe the gifts will fade and she’ll have a chance to live a new life.” The man’s eyes never strayed from the figures down below. When the girl turned her head to one side, laughing as she ran across the yard, the resemblance between him and her was clear. Tomorrow morning, just after dawn, Gregory Malcolm Drachbene would say goodbye to his only child for the very last time. Her mother might have thought that she was only delaying their reunion by another ten years, but he knew better. In ten years, he’d be dead for certain, just another casualty of the war brewing in their midst.

“You can’t really mean that, sir.”

Gregory looked up, startled out of his contemplation. “Why not? Claudia’s got those two boys of hers down there, and a third on the way.”

“Your sister’s boys aren’t gifted as strongly as Georgina.”

“Perhaps not, but they’re young yet. They have time to grow, and their training will take care of the rest.”

“And if Georgina’s gifts don’t fade?” John asked. “Their seekers could find her, you know. They have allies in the States.”

“Then I hope Maria has the good sense to come to me for help.”

“I told you to leave him alone,” Gina yelled. The two boys just looked her way and snickered. Their target, one of the little kids that lived in her apartment building, took his opportunity to flee past her as fast as his legs would carry him. She waited until she heard the sound of his feet on the building’s stairs before walking forward. These two jerks obviously hadn’t heard of her.

“You try anything like that again, and you’ll be sorry,” she warned them.

“What, you’re going to stop us?” the taller of the two bullies asked in disbelief. “Little punk had it coming to him, didn’t he Jamie?”

“Yeah,” the smaller boy agreed. “He wouldn’t do what he was told.”

Gina clenched her fists and tried again to reason with them. “He’s half your size and half your age. Last week, he came home with bruises up and down his sides. Was that you?”

“Maybe it was. So what?” The two bullies started snickering again, no at the memory.

Gina didn’t waste any more time with words. She punched the first bully hard in the stomach and watched while he crumpled to the ground in pain, tears in his eyes. When the second bully tried to retaliate, she kneed him in the groin.

“Don’t let me hear that you’ve been bullying him or any of the other kids on this block, or you’ll get worse next time,” she told them.

“You’re that crazy bitch, Georgina Mallory,” the first bully blurted out.

The second one managed to elbow him hard in the side before he said any more. “Shut up,” he hissed. “You want to get the crap beaten out of you like she did to Mark Rendal?”

Gina just let them argue amongst themselves. She didn’t care what the guys thought of her at school. She was a senior anyway, and with any luck, she’d be landing that scholarship and getting out of this place. When she was sure that they weren’t going to try again, she turned her back on them, picked up her book bag from where she’d dropped it, and headed up the stairs into her building. She found the little boy standing there, just inside the entrance. She had to fight to remember his name. David, that was it. The faces of the tenants here blurred together sometimes, and before this little boy had moved in, there had been another family just like his in the same apartment.

“You were great, Gina,” David said happily.

“Just remember what I said. If they bother you again, you come and tell me, all right?”

David nodded and ran up the stairs to his floor. Gina followed him at a more leisurely pace. She had a bitter taste left in her mouth from her encounter out front, and she wanted a few minutes to collect herself in peace and quiet.

She found her floor and unlocked the door to the apartment she shared with her mother. She headed back to the kitchen, flipping on the lights as she went. What she really wanted was a cup of tea to soothe her nerves. The kettle was where it always was, sitting on the stove top. She filled it with water from the sink and put it back on the stove to boil. While she waited, she passed the time by sorting through the contents of her mother’s tea stash. Most of it was just that oddball herbal junk her mother favored, but she found a heavy canister of Earl Gray in the back of the pantry. She opened it and sniffed at the contents. The weight of it had deceived her. There was only just enough to make a pot. She’d have to bug her mother to pick some more up later.

“Georgina?” her mother’s voice called out suddenly. Gina nearly dropped the canister in surprise.

“I thought you were still at work. What are you doing home so early?” Gina called back. She walked past the dining table and turned to face the living room, canister still in hand. She froze in place when she discovered that her mother was not alone. There were two men in suits sitting on either side of her mother on the couch, and the man on the right had a knife to her mother’s throat. “Who are you people?” she blurted out.

“Now, now, Georgina,” the man on the left admonished. “That’s no way to talk to your guests.”

“What’s this about?” Gina demanded. “What do you want?”

“We’re…friends of your father,” he said.

“Acquaintances, rather,” the other man corrected him.

“Oh let’s be honest, now. We never did get along with the man,” the first one said. He turned back to Gina and gave her a pointed smile. “You might as well know, Georgina, that we killed your father. I thought we should get that bit of unpleasantness out of the way before we go any further.”

It took a moment for the importance of that statement to sink in, but Gina wasn’t about to let it show that the news bothered her. Besides, she found it hard to believe. Hadn’t he died of a heart attack? “My father died five years ago,” Gina said. “If that was you, why are you here now? Is this about my mother?”

“Ah yes, your mother. Your mother was clever. She changed your last name when she left him. We were looking for a Georgina Drachbene, not a Georgina Mallory. Of course, she should have changed your first name too, since there aren’t many Georgina’s left at all anymore.” The man walked to the nearest window, covered with a set of wooden blinds, and lifted one of the slats to peer out at the street below. Outside it was still a bright, beautiful fall day. The sun’s rays glanced off something shiny and metallic in the man’s belt. At first she thought it was a gun, but when he turned back to face her, his jacket shifted slightly and she realized it was the hilt of a sword.

Gina spoke up quickly, to cover her surprise. “You were looking for me? Why? I haven’t seen or spoken to him since my parents’ divorce. I don’t even remember what he looked like.”

“It doesn’t matter. You’re in the bloodline,” the man on the couch said. He ran a hand through her mother’s hair, tucking a loose strand behind her ear. “It’s funny, but you don’t look a bit like her now,” he told Gina. “In the picture we took from your father’s desk, you were the spitting image of her.”

With a slow creeping horror, she realized that the two men weren’t just dressed the same, they were identical in every aspect. Both had the same white blond hair and yellow eyes, strange enough features on their own, but even their voices sounded alike. If she got turned about somehow, she wasn’t certain that she’d ever be able to tell them apart again. It shouldn’t have bothered her as much as it did, but it felt oddly disconcerting. These men were clearly nuts, but it wasn’t clear what she should do. Did she dare scream for help? Should she try to take the men unawares in a fight? She glanced over at her mother, trying to decide. Her mother was sitting so still, Gina couldn’t even tell if she was still alive. That ugly thought was enough to startle her into action. “Mum, say something,” Gina called out. “I need to know you’re all right.”

Her mother’s eyes met hers from across the room. “Sweetie, run!” her mother yelled. “They want you dead.”

Before Gina could react, the man with the knife managed to free his hand long enough to smack Gina’s mother full across the face. “Shut up, woman,” he told her. He turned to his partner and asked “Do we kill the girl now or take her back to Mother?”

“I think Mother wanted her alive, for now. Kill the woman, though,” the man on the left said. “We won’t need her anymore, now that we’ve got the girl.” He pushed himself off the wall casually and walked toward Georgina. He drew his sword and pointed it at her. Some panicked corner of her brain fixated on it in terror. It wasn’t some dainty rapier after all. It was a broadsword, and if the stains along its blade were anything to judge it by, it had seen plenty of use. “If you play nice and come back with us to England, I’ll make sure your death is a clean one.”

Gina’s eyes flicked back and forth from her mother to the man in front of her, trying to decide what to do, but the man on the couch didn’t waste much time. He drew his knife across her mother’s throat, sending out a spray of blood that covered the carpet in front of her. Gina watched in horror as her mother slumped forward onto the ground. Without even thinking about it, she dodged around the sword pointed at her throat, brained the man in front of her with the tea canister, and wrested the sword from his grasp. She faltered for a moment as she realized what she had done, but she recovered in time to stop his charge with a sword thrust through the chest. She pulled out the blade in one clean motion and watched as he fell to the ground. A noise to her side made her whirl around to face the remaining man, still on the couch. He hadn’t budged an inch.

“Nice work, but don’t think that this is over,” the man retorted. “You’ll be hearing from the likes of us again.” He wiped his knife clean on a handkerchief he’d produced from some inner pocket and put both away in his suit jacket. He stood up slowly, executed a small bow, and snapped his fingers. Just like that, he vanished before her eyes. Gina wheeled around at a sudden thought, but the man on the ground by her feet had disappeared too. Rather than wait to see if they’d reappear, she rushed to her mother’s side and felt for a pulse. There wasn’t one.

Gina rolled her mother over and started pounding on her chest, frantically trying to recall the CPR lessons she’d learned last summer. The minutes passed quickly with no result, and she was eventually forced to admit defeat. The ambulance would never get there in time. A sob escaped her then, and she drew her mother into her arms, rocking her back and forth. She bottled her anger up until it hurt. There must be something she could do, something she had missed. She closed her eyes and pictured her mother alive and well, as she’d been that morning when Gina had left for school. The tears came more freely. She would make those bastards pay for what they did.

She was so busy making her plans that she didn’t notice her mother was moving on her own, and it wasn’t until her mother called her name that she realized it wasn’t just wishful thinking. Her mother disentangled herself from her arms and leaned back against the couch.

“Why are you crying?” her mother asked. Gina stared at her, too surprised to say anything. She’d been so sure. She glanced at her mother’s neck and got another shock. The gash was gone.

“You were dead,” Gina said flatly. “One of those strangers had a knife. He slashed your throat, and you died.”

Her mother’s eyes widened and her hand flew to the place where she’d been wounded. “I remember now. It felt like a dream.” She pulled her hand away, now sticky with blood, and stared at it. “How is this possible?”

Gina rose to her feet and began to stretch her arms in front of her as a sudden wave of dizziness hit her. “I’m not feeling that great right now,” she admitted. “Must be the shock.” She waited a moment for the feeling to pass, but when she bent down to help her mother to her feet, she lost her balance and fell forward. She blacked out before she hit the carpet.

I caught up to where I left off with Seeds for NaNoWriMo 2007 a few weeks back, and I haven’t posted any updates since. I have two differing views on how to end that particular sequence. Novelette or something a little more epic? I’ve been knocking out some other stuff in the meantime, rewriting old stuff, playing around with plot elements for Joshua (I have to figure out how to pull it all together, and I need to rewrite a lot of the older, crappier chapters. Too much of it reads like an outline, not even a rough draft!), and taking some time out to get some of my other hobbies in. I do a lot of crafts, for example, and I tend to work wonky hours.

I have another take on my Mao story to share next week, and if I’m feeling generous, I may try to post a quick touchup on a character sketch that I’ve been molding into an actual story, a girl by the name of Georgina Mallory.

The instant Jaron finished translating the Ambassador’s words, there was an explosion of sound. The next few minutes were lost in an uproar as everyone began to talk or shout at once. The din was unbelievably deafening, and it got so bad that Rachael actually had to cover her ears.

“This is completely insane,” Rachael yelled to Michael.

“What did you expect?” he yelled back. “From the looks of it, the entire city turned out for this.”

Meanwhile, the Ambassador had raised his hands for silence. It took a while, but things finally quieted back down to normal.

Jaron walked back to stand with them. “From here on out, the proceedings are going to continue in Russian only. I’ll translate when necessary, though I may have to give you the condensed version in order to allow me to keep up with the flow. The standard procedure, since the Ambassador is the guest speaker, is to let the Ambassador direct the talk. He’ll take questions and comments from the council. The rest of the audience won’t be able to ask questions directly, but there are representatives that will be running notes back and forth. I took the liberty of having some chairs fetched for us, since we’ll probably be here for a while.” Even as he finished, two aides came up with a stack of chairs between them. At Jaron’s direction, they set them out in a row on the stage just behind the podium and Rachael and Michael helped themselves to a seat.

“You did good,” Michael told Rachael once they’d made themselves comfortable.

“You mean, ‘you did well,’” Rachael corrected him automatically. When she realized what she’d done, she had to suppress a laugh. “Sorry, old habits die hard. My mom used to do that to me all the time and I hated it.”

“My mother used to do the same thing to my brother and me. Clearly, it didn’t work.”

“Clearly,” Rachael agreed. She glanced over at Jaron. He was staring intently at the Ambassador, mouthing the words to himself. When she caught his eye, he smiled and leaned in close.

“Right now, the Ambassador is describing how his men went and found the crash site. It’s possible that one or more of them may have to give witness to it.” He nodded to himself at something the Ambassador said. “Good, he thought ahead. He got a few independent observers to go along to take pictures. See, they’re bringing out the big screens.”

The men that had brought out the chairs were lowering two large white screens from the ceiling with ropes and pulleys. When they had nearly reached the ground, the men tied them off so that they stayed suspended there, high enough so that everyone in the forum. Two men came out, each wheeling a small device, and positioned them at the base of each screen. Rachael watched as the man nearest them pulled out a long rectangular tube and inserted it into the side of the device. After a moment, a series of images appeared on the screen. The other man did the same. Several of the images were clearly taken at the crash site. Others were of the nearby village.

“Whoa, how’d you do that?” Michael asked.

Jaron gave Michael an odd look. “They’re just slide projectors.”

“That’s so clever,” Rachael exclaimed. “I’ve never seen anything like it.” She glanced at Jaron and gave him a sheepish smile. “I guess even the simplest things on Earth are computerized or digitized now. I have to know, how does it work?”

Jaron shrugged. “It’s not really that complicated. They develop the pictures so that they’re printed on some sort of semi-transparent plastic. Then they put a bunch of them side by side in one of those cartridges and load it into one of those machines. The machine pulls the cartridge through, shining a light through each one so that the image gets projected across the room. See? Simple.” He looked from Rachael to Michael. “You’ve seriously never seen one before?”

Rachael shook her head. “We have projectors, but I’ve never heard of slides.”

“I think they used to be pretty common on Earth,” Jaron explained. He trailed off, his attention back on the Ambassador’s speech. “He’s explaining the contents of the images and describing how you got from the crash site to New Leningrad. He’s probably going to start taking questions soon. Yep, there he goes now.”

The Ambassador called on a man seated nearby. When Rachael looked over to catch the source of the voice, she was surprised to discover that the man that had called out was seated right behind Alesia de Winters. She supposed that the man seated next to her was the General Secretary. She didn’t have time to dwell on that for long, because the man stood up and phrased his question. Before the Ambassador or Jaron could translate, the man did so himself, turning to look at Rachael and Michael. To his credit, his accent wasn’t much worse than anyone else they’d heard from so far.

“Ma’am, Sir, is this part of the plan for the Great Harvest? Obviously, we weren’t able to get word back to Earth in time before we landed on New Earth. Now that you’ve finally found us, how much longer will it take until the reunion takes place?”

Rachael walked forward to the podium. She hadn’t been looking forward to this part. “Uh, yes, well, actually I don’t believe anyone on Earth remembers your people at all. As far as I know, your flight from Earth might as well have never happened. There wasn’t any apocalypse or nuclear war, either. As I said, we were on a routine mission. We weren’t looking for any lost colonies.”

Jaron translated the answer for her. When he’d finished, the man looked stunned. “We’ve been forgotten, just like that?” he cried.

Without waiting for the Ambassador to call on her, Alesia stood up, blocking the man from view. She’d lost some of the complacent calm in her face, and she didn’t look like she was in a mood to flirt with anyone just then. She spoke directly to Jaron, not bothering to phrase her question in Russian first. “I am sorry, but I must ask you again. There was no war? No destruction?” She looked incredulous.

“Yes, that’s correct. I’ve never heard of the so called Cold War, either,” Rachael admitted. “Or any such near catastrophe.”

“There was no third ‘World War,’” Michael chimed in. “I’ve heard of the Cold War, but it ended with the fall of the Soviet Union in the late twentieth century.”

Alesia’s expression hardened immediately. “I refuse to believe that Communism could fail that easily. Is this some sort of joke? Some kind of American propaganda?”

Oops, Rachael thought, bad choice of words. She nudged Michael, hoping that he’d get the point.

“I didn’t mean to imply anything,” Michael said hurriedly. “Communism didn’t disappear entirely, it just transformed itself into something new over time.” He racked his brain for the right term. It had been a while since he’d read his political science textbooks. “It was eventually replaced by democratic socialism. It was far less radical, but it succeeded where Communism had failed because it had more modest goals. Gradual reform, not overnight revolutions.”

Alesia’s expression softened just a tad, but it was clear that she wasn’t that happy at what she had just heard. By the time Jaron had finished translating their words, it was clear that the rest of the council was far more upset at the news. There was an angry buzz in the air from the crowd at large, too.

“Great job there,” Rachael muttered in Michael’s ear. “You just insulted their entire system of government. Now everyone in the room looks like they want to bite your head off.”

Someone in the crowd stood up then and began yelling. Jaron looked uneasy as he translated the man’s words. “He wants to know what proof you have that you’re from Earth and not some other Seed.” More people stood up then and joined in. There weren’t that many happy faces looking back at them. The Ambassador pushed the three of them aside and took his place in front of the podium. He began speaking to them above the noise, and eventually it began to subside little by little.

“He’s essentially telling them to relax and consider how different our upbringings must have been. I don’t like this,” Jaron said.

“You don’t like his choice of words?” Rachael asked.

“No, I don’t like the crowd’s attitude. I wouldn’t be surprised if that man was put up to that by someone in the Flock. Look, I’m getting you out of here.”

“Back to the embassy, then?” Michael asked.

The crowd began to yell louder and this time Jaron turned pale. “How would you like to visit Columbia District a little earlier than we planned?”

“What are they yelling now?” Rachael demanded. When Jaron didn’t answer, she grabbed his shoulders. “Tell me.”

“That man’s calling for your head. He claims that you’re a delusional liar and that the Ambassador and his American cronies are plotting to usurp their government.”

“Shit, this backfired.”

“Grab everything you need from those tables,” Jaron said quietly. “Try to make it look casual.”

Rachael didn’t have to be told twice. She threw all the parts she’d dug out for the radio in her bag with her notes and started sorting through the rest to see what else she might need. “Alright,” she said at last. Michael was already standing nearby with his own bag slung over her shoulders.

“Follow me,” Jaron said, leading them down the steps of the stage and back toward the front entrance. No one paid much attention at first. They were too busy shouting at the Ambassador. By the time they’d gotten to the door, someone must have noticed their absence, because the uproar suddenly got much louder.

“Keep going!” Jaron yelled when they faltered. “We can’t risk hanging around to see if their mood improves, so let’s get a move on!”

He led them through the door and in the opposite direction of the way they’d come.

“We aren’t going back to the embassy?” Rachael asked in surprise.

“We’re leaving New Leningrad tonight. There’s no time. Once we get a few miles past the city limits, there’s a town I know where we can get some supplies.”

“What about the Ambassador?” Rachael protested again.

Jaron looked back and her and stopped for just a moment. “I am the Ambassador. Now, c’mon, no more talk.”

Rachael and Michael were too shocked to protest much further. They hefted their packs and hurried to keep up with the hard pace he’d set for them to follow.

The streets were empty. So far, at least, the man they had thought was the Ambassador was doing a good job keeping anyone from following in their footsteps. At least they hadn’t been in town long enough to really grow soft. Rachael was really regretting her choice of dress for the evening. She wasn’t going to last very long in these high heels. At first she’d thought she’d last until they reached the city limits, but as the night wore on, she could feel the blisters coming out on her heel already. Finally, she stumbled to a halt.

Jaron heard her curse and turned to see what was the matter. “We’re nearly there. Just a few more blocks and we’ll be on the main road going north.”

“It’s these stupid shoes,” Rachael muttered. She wrenched them off her feet and tossed them onto the street. She massaged her sore feet, trying to work some feeling back into them and cursing again when the feeling abruptly returned.

Without a word, Jaron walked to the other side of the road and began pacing along the strip. When he got to a row of shop windows, he smashed one out with a rock and climbed inside. It was too dark to see what it was that he’d gone into, but when he came back out, he was carrying a set of street clothes and a pair of sensible boots. He walked back towards them, holding them out in front of him.

Rachael put her hands out automatically to grab what he’d given her. This night was just full of all sorts of surprises. Shoplifting just seemed so out of character for him. She wriggled her way into the clothes, pulling the dress up and over her head through the opening on the shirt collar. Jaron picked up the dress and the shoes from where she’d dropped them and hid them in a nearby alley. He stood by quietly and waited until she’d yanked on the boots before starting off again in silence.

Rachael and Michael had just enough time to exchange a startled glance before they were off after him. They didn’t speak again until they were outside the city limits. Jaron slowed down and relaxed his pace once they’d hit what was apparently the highway going north.

“Don’t you people have cars?” Rachael joked. To her relief, Jaron laughed. The stranger that had pushed them so hard for the past few hours was gone.

“Cars don’t go without gasoline, right? Well, there’s no gasoline or oil on New Earth.”

Encouraged by his response, Rachael asked “How much longer now?”

“Unfortunately, it’s still another hour to the next village. Bear with me, and it’ll get easier after this. We’ll be able to rent a wagon and horse further on.”

“Promise?” Rachael asked.

“I promise.”

“Isn’t this so much fun?” Rachael bubbled. She was grinning like a mad man at the party going on around her. As the newest arrivals, the two of them were attracting a great deal of attention from the other socialites and dignitaries, and she was enjoying every minute of it. Go figure.

“Uh, sure,” Michael said. “Whatever you say.” He was having a hard time concentrating on what she was saying. She was wearing some sort of strapless number, and he had to admit that she pulled it off beautifully even though he was damn sure that she’d never worn the likes of it before.

“You’ve been staring at me all evening, like you’ve seen a ghost,” Rachael complained. “What is it?”

“I can’t decide what’s more surprising. The fact that you got me into this monkey suit in the first place or the part where a mechanic would ever agree to wear even half that get up you’ve got on.”

Rachael grinned and flipped her hair with a toss of her head. It’d been cropped short so that it hung just above her shoulders. “Admit it, I look pretty hot, don’t I?”

It was Michael’s turn to roll his eyes at her. “You’re spoiling the effect. The boasting ruins it for me.”

Rachael smirked back at him. “Oh really? Well, do try to carry on a conversation, all right? What is everyone going to say when they realize that you only have eyes for me?”

“That I’m your under grown body guard. Go torture some other poor soul with your womanly wiles. It doesn’t look like Jaron brought a date to the party.”

Rachael glanced over her shoulder. Jaron was standing close behind the Ambassador, whispering in his ear from time to time. “That’s because he’s working, stupid. See what he’s doing there? He’s telling the Ambassador who it is that he’s speaking to, who made it to the party and who didn’t, little stuff like that, so that he can be a good host to his guests.”

“Well, I just hope they make the big announcement soon. Then the Flock can come out of hiding and take me out of my misery.”

“Shh, I think it’s almost time now,” Rachael said in a whisper. “Look, the Ambassador is moving toward the podium now.”

There was a small stage set up in the main entranceway, up against the first flight of stairs. Sure enough, the Ambassador was moving there now, followed closely by Jaron and the young secretary that had been in his office the day they first met. Once the Ambassador reached his destination, he waited patiently for silence. It didn’t take long for the crowd to die down. After all, this was the real reason that so many of them had come.

“Ladies, gentlemen, comrades,” the Ambassador began. “Today, I have great tidings for all of us here on New Earth, Russian and American alike. Once I have delivered them to your satisfaction, I will be taking a short sabbatical in order to visit my home town, Columbia District, so that I may spread the word there as well.”

“I didn’t know he was planning anything like that,” Rachael whispered to Michael. Michael just shrugged.

“First, I’d like to ask Rachael Carr and Michael Rhys to join me up on stage.” Instantly, the attention of everyone in the room swiveled to focus on the two of them. At the same time, a space in the crowd appeared around them, leaving them momentarily stranded in the middle of the room.

“I guess that’s our cue,” Michael whispered.

“Yeah, I’d say that’s a pretty good guess,” Rachael whispered back. “Funny how they all knew exactly who he meant.”

Michael executed a small bow, took her arm, and led her to the front of the room. The Ambassador stood to the side and let them continue on to the podium. Jaron remained where he was, to translate for them.

Rachael leaned forward and called out, “Hello everyone! I’m sure some of you have been curious about where it is that Michael and I came from, what we do, why we’re at the Ambassador’s home with you now.” She paused to clear her throat and consider her next words carefully. “Well, you see, I’m from Mars.”

Once Jaron had finished translating her little impromptu speech, there was a light rumbling in the crowd. “Keep going,” Michael whispered. “They probably think Mars is a town name.”

“I mean, I’m from Mars the planet. The one that sits close to Earth. Earth is alive and well to this day, a bustling planet full of all different forms of life. My parents were born on Earth, and so were Michael’s, though he was born on a jump gate.”

Jaron fumbled over the last part, but he got the message across. The room had gone suddenly quiet. Finally, the uproar began. One woman began to laugh hysterically while the others began to shout all at once. It was confusing for Rachael, since it was mostly in Russian, not English.

“Jaron,” she hissed, hoping she’d be heard over the din, “what are they saying?”

“It’s all different. Some are calling you imposters, a few are actually demanding to know what happens next—I guess they think your arrival was an official visit—but the majority just look scared or worried.” Jaron looked worried himself. “I did argue against this, but the Ambassador does like to get his own way,” he told them. “Now some of the higher ups are going to take offense that they weren’t warned about this announcement ahead of time.” He pulled gently on Rachael’s arms and got her and Michael to step to the back of the stage. “Let the Ambassador handle his own mess.”

Ambassador Delamere walked confidently to the podium. “Friends, colleagues, I’m sure you want to hear more on these developments. After this party has been concluded, join me in the Council chambers. There will be proof to be had that will back up my new friends’ story, and you’ll be able to question either or both of them at length. Well, within reason.” He switched to Russian then and repeated the entire thing. There were a few laughs at his poor joke at the end.

As they watched everyone peacefully file out of the crowded hall, Jaron told them “And that is why he’s the ambassador and I’m just his sidekick.”

“But he didn’t say anything very much different from what you or I could have told them,” Rachael protested.

Jaron shrugged. “People trust the guy.”

Rachael turned to Michael. “You’ve been quiet.”

Michael turned bright red. “I’m not really good at public speaking.”

Rachael smiled. “Oh, don’t worry, I do enough talking for two.” Michael relaxed a little, enough to flash her his own weak smile.

Jaron scanned the receding crowd. After a moment, he turned back to them and bowed. “If you’ll allow me, I’ll escort you to the Council chambers. It’s not far from here. The ambassador’s house was strategically placed.”

The streets were strangely quiet. Or rather, they were quieter than Rachael had any right to expect.

“I guess the news hasn’t traveled that far yet,” she said aloud.

“I expect a decent crowd will be waiting for us at the Council chambers. Short of the temple, it’s the largest public gathering space available in New Leningrad,” Jaron explained.

The Council chambers had not been on the list of places that Jaron had taken them to in their tour of the city, so neither Michael nor Rachael had any idea what was in store for them. When they had passed it in the street just the other day, Jaron had pointed it out, but he hadn’t drawn any special attention to it and it really hadn’t stood out in Rachael’s mind. It was only now, standing in front of it, that Rachael finally realized what it was that helped it blend in so well. The building was strangely unornamented on the outside, a far cry from the design that had gone into the American embassy, and when they walked through the front doors, into a small crowd of people, she couldn’t help but notice that the inside was just as plain.

Jaron made a path for them through the main antechamber and into the main forum. It was enormous, easily rivaling the football stadiums on Earth.

“Holy shit, this place is huge!” Rachael exclaimed. The room was huge. No, it was beyond huge. Jaron turned and gave her an odd look, but he didn’t stop walking until they were at the main stage on the lower floor. There were several tables, stacked with gear that the Ambassador’s men had secured from the crash site. Rachael and Michael immediately began checking to see what was there and what was missing. The surveying gear had made it, along with most of the electronics. Rachael grinned across the table at Michael when she found the portable communicators.

“Now I don’t have to worry about stealing any old relic. I can boost these things easy with a better battery and a better antenna.” She started to rummage through the supplies again, setting aside what she thought she’d need. Without even thinking about it, she pulled out a well worn pencil and started jotting notes down in one of her pocket notebooks. When Michael tugged on her sleeve, she just brushed him aside and kept working. It wasn’t until Jaron cleared his throat right in her ear that she stopped and looked up.

“What is it now?” she demanded.

“You’re up,” Jaron said. He nodded his head and gestured at their surroundings with one hand. Rachael looked around her in alarm. In the short amount of time that she’d had to get lost in her work, the place had filled to capacity, and she could see more people standing in the aisles. It was eerie how quiet they were too, even the kids, and they were all staring at her. She walked to the podium in a daze. The ambassador was waiting for her. He’d apparently already introduced her, and she wished she could remember what he’d said. She felt a little self-conscious, considering the outfit she was wearing. In talks like the one she was preparing to give, she preferred to wear something a little more familiar, like a pair of coveralls or a uniform. She took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. I can do this, she told herself. I’ll just handle it like I would any mission briefing.

“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen,” she began. “Just two short weeks ago, my team and I were sent to this solar system as part of a routine mission for the U.S. Army Surveying Team. We collect and catalog data about newly discovered planets in a government database, meant to allow future generations to find planets that might be suitable to harboring life. Some of our colleagues in years gone past have already found signs of life on three planets, but none of it met any criteria that might label it as intelligent. Because of the extensive cloud cover surrounding this planet, previous teams had been unable to acquire as much data as we’d like. Our team was equipped with more sensitive instruments and given permission to attempt a lower orbit around the planet. If all went well, we would be granted ground clearance and allowed to conduct a first run series of surveying exercises. Unfortunately, that same cloud cover had apparently obscured some debris orbiting this planet, and when that debris made contact with our space shuttle, we were forced to make an emergency landing. Out of our original team of five, only Michael and I survived.” She tried to muster up the words to continue, but as the memories came back to her, the shock of it made her speechless. The Ambassador laid his hand gently on her shoulder and continued where she had left off.

“I don’t think I need to explain to anyone here why Rachael and Michael’s arrival, while marked with tragedy, is an auspicious one for those of us here on New Earth. Here at last is the proof we’ve been looking for, that Earth is still alive and well, even after all these years. Let us set aside these age old arguments and reunite with the home of our ancestors.”

“The big announcement is tonight, you realize that, right?” Michael asked. After eating breakfast, the cook had shooed them out of the way so that the staff could begin the process of readying the last bit of decoration and preparation for the big dance that night. They’d retreated to Rachael’s suite, which was outfitted with an old fashioned but perfectly serviceable sitting room.

“Sure, sure, I know. Big gala, everyone chit chats, Ambassador Delamere makes a big splash, we get some free publicity.”

“Rachael, this is serious business. You have no idea how most of these people are going to react.”

After a whirlwind week of touring every possible nook and cranny of New Leningrad, Rachael was ready to move on to Columbia District or catch a flight home. This really hadn’t been her thing, not this supposed “vacation” on New Earth. Everyone was so busy, and there were so many people that she was supposed to remember. She didn’t want to tell Michael, but she was still having nightmares about the crash, at least once a night. She’d started to accept that she really had done the best she could. Keeping herself busy had certainly helped, but she couldn’t shake the guilt, not entirely, not this soon.

“I’m really not having a great time right now,” Rachael confessed. “Between the local politicians trying to wrangle with us, Jaron, or the Ambassador himself, trying to find out who we are and where we came from, and all the people pressing in on me in the streets, I don’t know how much more of this I can take, you know?”

“Let’s talk about something else then. Tell me about your childhood,” Michael said gently. “I’m curious. What exactly does a young girl growing up on Mars do, anyway? I’m still trying to figure out how you ended up where you did.”

“You mean, how’d I get in the army surveying team in the first place. Well, I explained that part.”

“Yes, I know. You explained how you couldn’t find a job with anyone else, because of your degree. But I’m wondering why you picked mechanical engineering in the first place. Don’t get me wrong, but considering what your parents did with their lives, what your brother was about to become…”

“I’ll be blunt with you. I’m the screw up. You knew of my parents, yes? Don’t lie to me, I know you must have read some of their papers. They were famous for their work, and I know you’re really into that sort of stuff.”

“Even for such a small field, they really did stand out among the rest,” Michael admitted. “Yes, I knew about their work. A lot of their theories were brilliant, not just in and of themselves, but the small details in how they suggested that they be implemented in real life. It’s no surprise that they had such success on Mars.”

“Without them, Mars still wouldn’t have an atmosphere at all,” Rachael said quietly. “And the base would have never lasted that long or become self sufficient so quickly after being founded.”

“But seriously, what did you do as a kid? I want to hear about you. Not your parents—though I wouldn’t mind an autograph—and not your supposedly genius brother.”

“He’s not actually a genius,” Rachael protested.

“You’re missing the point.”

“Oh, fine,” Rachael said. She glanced down at her hands. She’d unwittingly clenched them into fists until they were white with the strain. It took her a few minutes to force herself to relax and let go. Talking about her parents had that effect on her anymore. “My brother Tom was born on Earth. It wasn’t long after he was born that the Mars colony project really got under way. It was the first time they had ever asked for volunteers to actually live there year round. I mean, in the past, it’d just been teams of scientists sent up in rotation, you know? So my parents definitely wanted in, and since there weren’t many people that had begun to specialize in terraforming just yet, they got accepted right away, even with an infant son. Until I was born a year later, Tom was the first kid to live on Mars. I was the first kid to be conceived and born on Mars.”

“That was you?” Michael asked in shock. “They never mentioned you by name in the textbooks or the news reports.”

“Yeah, my parents got it into their heads that they didn’t want our privacy invaded or anything. It was easy enough to stay out of sight when you’re thousands of miles from Earth, you know? There was a bit of backlash about it at the time. Some parents back on Earth thought it was a cruel thing to do to a kid, leaving them all alone up there, but it wasn’t that bad. I had Tom for company, and later on, more kids were born or brought up on space shuttles. All the adults took turns babysitting us. It was like one big extended family.”

“So how did you end up picking mechanical engineering in the first place? I mean, obviously, by growing up on the colony on Mars, you were surrounded by a slew of scientists and engineers. Why not science? What drew you in to engineering specifically?”

“Hard to say how it started exactly. I had my fair share of hobbies growing up, just like any other kid my age. Painting, playing guitar music, writing bad poetry…”

Michael grinned. “I think everyone goes through a bad poetry stage in life. You either read it or you write it.”

Rachael grinned back. “True enough. Still, I was always the one taking things apart to try and figure out how they worked. I had some mixed success. Sometimes I’d rebuild what I found, or try to fix it. When I did succeed, everyone in the colony would tell my parents how talented I was, how I was sure to go far and accomplish great things. The praise only lasted until my next flop, though I do admit that some of those early failures were pretty spectacular. Either way, I kept myself entertained, and I got a bit of a reputation as a mechanical prodigy.”

Michael cocked one eyebrow at her, but he didn’t try to interrupt. Plenty of time to dig out the dirt on what she’d been up to later.

“As I got older, there was a lot of pressure on me to pick something and go with it. I’m sure it was the same for you, but in today’s world, you only have until high school to land on a field. Obviously, I picked my strongest area, engineering. Not that many careers open for bad poets, you know? At first, my parents were really excited for me. They wanted me to go into some sort of engineering design major. It’s a little bit of an older field, but there’s still lots of jobs that call for it. Of course, you have to specialize in what it is you want to make. Did I want to make scientific instruments? Industrial equipment? Space craft or robotics? I wanted to pick something that I’d be really good at, something that would make my parents proud. It didn’t help that my brother was already well on his way to graduating with honors in his field. The whole experience was nerve wracking, and my eventual decision to go with mechanical engineering was the source of far too many fights with my parents. They thought I was just being lazy. I don’t talk to them much anymore.”

“Wow, forget I brought it up,” Michael said. “I didn’t mean to bring back any bad memories.”

Rachael dismissed his words with a wave of her hand. “Oh, it’s all right,” she said. “It gets easier to deal with just talking about it. I figure I have three options. I can try to prove to my parents that mechanical engineering is actually a worthwhile field in its own right, I can give in and pick another major, or I can just accept the fact that my parents are never going to accept me for who I am.”

“What jerks. Forget I ever asked about getting an autograph, then. I had no idea that it could be that rough. I guess I was lucky. After all, I knew what I wanted to do most of my life. I was fascinated by the videos and pictures I saw of Earth, with rolling green hills and endless acres of trees. The only thing we had growing on the jump gate were the usual hydroponics. I’d love to find a way to create terrariums in space someday, when my tour is up.”

“So that’s what you do with a degree in xenobiology,” Rachael murmured. “You little sneak. You had me thinking that you were in it for the space germs.”

“You ever visit Earth?” Michael asked. “I forget if I asked you that before.”

“No, I did everything long distance. There really wasn’t any reason for me to go there in person. My brother did, though. There’s not much good you can do right now on Mars with a degree in marine bio engineering. Maybe he’ll be back in a few years when there’s a few lakes for him to splash around in.”

“How do you and your brother get along?” Michael asked. “Or is that a sore subject too?”

“Actually, my brother and I get along great. His track record in school intimidated me growing up, but we were pretty close friends. Still are, actually. We’ve made a point of keeping in touch, even after he headed down to Earth.” Suddenly, Rachael’s eyes widened. “Shit, he’s going to freak when he hears that we’ve gone missing.”

“I hadn’t really thought of that, myself,” Michael admitted. “I was kind of hoping that someone would have sent in a search party by now. It’s been two weeks. Maybe the cloud cover is making them extra cautious. After all, before we crashed, there was no telling what the surface was going to be like.”

“Well, we’ve already been planning for the worst all along. We’ll just keep on with that. Let’s just hope that they haven’t completely given up already. I doubt we’ll have enough radio power to get to the first repeater.”

Michael grimaced. “That’s not really what I want to hear right now.”

Rachael just shrugged. “Sorry.” She glanced down at her watch. “Wow, I’ve only got a few hours left to get ready before the first guests arrive.”

“It’s seriously going to take that long just to get dressed?”

“Have you ever been to a dance like this before?” Rachael asked.

“No, have you?” Michael shot back.

“Well, no,” Rachael admitted. “But seriously, I have a hair and makeup appointment, followed by a quick visit to the local tailor to pick up my dress.”

Michael looked at her blankly. “You actually want to do all that?”

“Maybe not all the time, but it could be fun to give it a try just this once. I might not have another opportunity like this for a while yet. Don’t worry about feeling left out. I made sure that Jaron saw to it that you have a nice outfit as well. A three piece suit, imagine that.”

There was a light rap on the door just then, interrupting Michael before he could protest this new and unexpected development.

“Come in,” Rachael sang out.

The door opened a crack and Jaron’s face popped in.

“Ready to go, ma’am?” he asked.

“Wait, I’ve seriously confused. What do I do now?” Michael asked in alarm.

“I’ll be right there, Jaron. Relax, Michael, you’ll figure it out. After all, the only thing you need to do is show up on time, clean and presentable, and wearing your new suit.” She got up out of the armchair she’d been sprawled out in and walked to the door. After one last parting wave, she was gone.

“Great,” Michael muttered. “Just great.” Playing host to a party in full formal dress wasn’t exactly in a xenobiologist’s job description—not that he really had any clue what it should be. Still, if he wasn’t careful, he’d find himself stuck in New Leningrad playing politics for life as the first ambassador from Earth.

Once he was sure that Rachael had left the suite, he got up and made his way out into the corridor and down the hall to his own room. Not much point in putting off the inevitable, not with Rachael to make sure he did what he was told.