Page 29 of Imaginary Numbers

“Thanks for that, by the way,” said Kevin.

“No worries,” I said, leaning closer to the cuckoo. The distant, faintly acidic scent of cuckoo blood tickled my nose and made me want to sneeze. There was a film of blue-tinged blood crusted around her ears as well as above her mouth. She’d bled out fast and catastrophically. Given the damage to her eyes, I was willing to bet that if we’d taken swabs, we would have found more blood in the soft tissues around them. Her death had probably been relatively painless, because it hadn’t given her time for anything else.

“According to our mother, the physical signs of injury included bleeding from the eyes and nose, hypoxia, and temporary clouding of the irises,” Evie continued.

I snapped around, staring at my sister. “What?” Mom had never told me about the damage to my irises. My eyes had always looked perfectly normal to me.

But that wasn’t entirely true, was it? During the first few months, when I’d walked in a cloud of hazy disorientation, the whole world had been cloudy around the edges. I’d attributed it to my bruised brain. What if some of it had been due to other physical causes?

How many things about my own health had my parents concealed for my own good?

“Mom thought they might be cataracts at first, until she realized they were receding as you got better,” said Evie, apologetic discomfort rolling off her in waves. “The damage to the eyes seems to be tied to excessive telepathic ‘pushing.’”

“You’re saying this cuckoo hurt herself the same way Sarah did, by pushing things into Artie’s brain?” demanded Jane.

“No,” I said numbly. “No, she’s saying this cuckoo killed herself that way. I just don’t understand . . . I don’t understand why hurting us would have been worth dying.”

“I don’t think it was about hurting Artie at all,” said Evie. “We’ve dealt with ordinary cuckoos before. They don’t consider humans or Lilu worth their time. She killed herself to hurt you.”

“But all I did was hit her with my backpack,” I objected. “That’s not worth dying over.”

Evie shrugged. “Doesn’t change the fact that she did.”

No. It didn’t.

Something was going on—something bigger than one dead cuckoo. I just wished I knew what it was.

While I was still trying to put my feelings into words, Kevin said, almost apologetically, “We don’t get access to many dead cuckoos.”

“I’ll get the dissection kit,” said Jane.

“I’m going to go find Artie,” I said, and turned and fled before the autopsy could begin.

My family is my family. I wouldn’t have them any other way. But sometimes they can be a little much to deal with. Especially when the knives come out.

Nine

“Nobody gets to pick where they’re born or who they’re born to, but everybody gets to pick their family. Make good choices with yours.”

—Alice Healy

Roving through the family compound, trying not to think about what’s about to happen in the barn

DISSECTION IS A FACT of life—and death—when your whole family is involved with the biological sciences. Evie needs to understand cryptids if she’s going to help heal them. Kevin needs to understand them so he can document them as accurately as possible, an activity that matters both now and in the future. We wouldn’t even know that there used to be two types of wadjet if not for some of the old family notebooks, which meticulously documented the differences between the Egyptian and Indian branches of the species before the Egyptian wadjet disappeared, probably forever.

But that doesn’t mean I have to like it, and it didn’t mean I had to be happy knowing they were about to take a member of my species apart, piece by piece, like she was some sort of puzzle to be solved. People aren’t puzzles. At least, they shouldn’t be.

I found Annie and the others in the kitchen. Both James and Sam had become the sort of blank spot that I associated with anti-telepathy charms, although Annie was as bright and visible as ever. Elsie was sitting on the couch, sullenly drinking a glass of orange juice. It was amazing how much resentment she could direct toward citrus.

“Hi,” I said, offering a small wave to James and Sam. “Now that you have your telepathy blockers, I won’t be able to read your minds. That’s for the best, for all of us, but you should be aware that my brain doesn’t process facial input very well.”

“Meaning?” asked Sam.

“Meaning that if you didn’t have a tail, the two of you would be essentially identical to me.”

Sam and James exchanged a look. “I can’t decide whether that’s racist or just insulting,” said Sam.

“Technically, I think it’s speciesist,” I said. “All humans look basically the same when I can’t read their minds.”