Page 78 of Backpacking through Bedlam

Well. They’d been hell for both of us. I started scanning the aisles I could see, looking for a sign that might lead me to a public bathroom.

The aisles were a twisting maze of shelves and tables, giving me no clear sight lines on anything. I looked to my companions.

“Any of you been here before?”

“I have,” said Istas, surprising me. “With Ryan.” My surprise must have shown on my face, because her expression turned sour. “I can read. I like books on the history of fashion. And magazines.”

“Big, glossy magazines full of pictures of shoes that make my feet hurt just thinking about them,” said Ryan.

“Great. Then one of you can lead me to the bathroom.” I leaned up to kiss Thomas on the cheek. “Don’t get into any trouble before we get back.”

“Does looking longingly at every book in this entire store count as getting into trouble?”

“Only if you get busted for shoplifting.”

“As if.” Sally rolled her eyes.

“True. You’d never get caught.” I glanced to Dominic, who was watching the store entrance and what he could see of the street outside the window with concern. “Keep an eye on them?”

“Of course,” he agreed.

I still didn’t like letting Thomas out of my sight when I didn’t have to. I wasn’t sure when I’d be comfortable with that. Maybe never, and wouldn’t that be fun? Jane already tried to psychoanalyze me every time I was in the same dimension long enough to come over for family dinner. She said that the fact that I’d gone running off into the unknown the second my husband disappeared proved I was seriously codependent, with possible attachment issues. I had tried suggesting she tell me something I didn’t know, and all that did was kick off another massive family fight. Not my favorite way to spend Thanksgiving, no matter what my history may try to say.

So yeah, stepping away from him for a few minutes was probably a good idea, if only to remind me that I was allowed to step away from him, he’d still be here when I came back, this wasn’t going to be the start of another fifty-year quest. Although, honestly, “I lost him in a bookstore” would be less traumatic for the both of us than what had actually happened.

Istas unwound the ribbons from her pigtails as she led us to the stairs, walking remarkably quickly on her ridiculous heels. “I know I can seem frivolous,” she said, handing me the first of the ribbons. “It is a carefully cultivated impression.”

“I can see where it would be helpful camouflage,” I said. I’d practiced something similar, during the days in Buckley between my grandfather’s death and my marriage, when I’d stopped caring about what any of the human residents of the town thought of me. I had Thomas and I had the ghosts and I had the Galway, and those had been all I needed. Maybe that would have changed as the kids got older, but I didn’t think so. I knew myself pretty well. I’d still had a few illusions about myself in those days, and looking at the woman I was and the woman I’d been, I felt I could comfortably say that she would have been just fine if she’d never started pretending again.

But for those years, when I’d been doing my best to seem like a normal part of the community, I’d worn my hair in curls and my sleeves long, to cover the scars on my arms. I’d been careful to be seen in the right places, doing the right things—volunteering with the Friends of the Library after my shift was over, helping the ladies at the church take meals to the folks who lived at the outskirts of town. Good-girl things. It was easy enough to look at Istas, an apex predator dressed in ribbons and lace, and see her wearing the same mask.

“People are scared of you, huh?” I took the ribbon, wrapping it loosely around my wrist as she began unwinding the other.

Istas stepped onto the stairs. “People who have the sense to recognize me for what I am aren’t scared of me,” she said. “They’re terrified, as well they should be. I am nature’s perfect killing machine.”

“Here I thought that was cats,” said Ryan, in a tone that indicated a frequent joke, something with the edges of it worn smooth between them.

Istas looked at him with polite blankness. “It is also cats. More than one thing can be perfect, it’s not a competition.”

People were passing us on the stairs. None stopped to give us a second look. Our conversation, strange as it was, was really nothing all that unusual for New York City. Istas finished untying the second ribbon and handed it to me.

“I was born in the high tundra, where the wind and the snow own all that they touch, and any brief break in their attention is a trap designed to lure in the unwary,” she said. “My kind eat our own, for nothing else is vast enough to fill our bellies or to satiate our hunger. And we eat others as well, when they come too close to us, or disturb us in our dens. We leave no scent when we pass, for we were made to hunt and haunt and never be seen unless we wish it. Any who know me for what I am should have the sense to quail in fear, and let me pass them by.”

“That’s my girl,” said Ryan.

Istas looked at him fondly. We had reached the first landing, facing a second story as filled with books as the one below. People moved between them, browsing, and paid us no mind. Istas moved forward, and I followed.

“I am strange among my kind in that I can have this conversation without desiring to consume you for knowing too much of my truth, which is personal only to me, and not for anyone else to have,” she said. “And because I wish to move in the warm world, to thaw and see things as they have the potential to be, I make myself over to seem as harmless as I can be. Plus, I enjoy it.” She smiled toothily. “It is a brave and beautiful thing, to act for enjoyment alone in this world of complications and conflicts. Here is the bathroom.”

She stopped, indicating a door. I stopped in turn, blinking at her, second ribbon still tangled through my fingers.

“That was . . . a lot. Thank you, Istas, for sharing something personal, and for answering my questions.” Always be polite to the shapeshifting super predator. It’s a simple rule of life, but a good one all the same.

Istas nodded, apparently pleased with my politeness.

“Abscond with my husband now, and return his clothing to me,” she said, tone utterly mild. She turned to the nearest shelf of books, apparently fascinated with whatever subject they represented. I turned to Ryan, blinking.

He smiled a little as he shrugged. “She’s always like this,” he said.