The Changeling Game, Chapter 52

52.
Without Saying Good-Night

“He’s doing it again,” Izil said, beginning to laugh.

“Shh! He’ll stop if he realizes you’re laughing at him,” Tafrara scolded. “Everyone. Keep going.”

Ewan was struggling to keep a straight face as he lowered his body toward the ground, bending his right leg back and straightening his left leg out in front of him, right arm lifted and curved behind him while his left arm extended toward his ankle. Jack and Kyra tried to focus on replicating his pose… while Sebby did too.

“Dear God, I can’t believe I’m not allowed to record this…” Izil gasped.

Three of Sebby’s back left legs were bending back, their right mates stretched forward. His remaining legs were held out for balance as he positioned his pincers—and antennae—in a mirror-image mimicry of Ewan’s arms. Although he wobbled a little, he was holding the pose.

The little crustacean had apparently decided that he wanted to learn Tai Chi, too.

“This is the cutest thing ever,” Kyra whispered.

Jack felt like she was going to burst with emotion. Pride and love warred with the urge to laugh for hours at how adorably silly Sebby looked… and with a powerful ache at the knowledge that, as with Ewan, this was probably her last evening-day with him for years, possibly ever.

“It is very cute,” Tafrara agreed. “Now keep your focus on Zdan and let Sebby focus on him, too.”

Word was spreading. Izil had stopped for a moment to send out a message on his comm. Some members of the family had emerged onto their balconies to observe the session, and after a moment, Jack could see Lalla and Safiyya watching from the dining room doorway.

“We won’t be doing any more of the moves where you have to lift a leg off of the ground,” Ewan murmured as he shifted to another position. “I don’t want him to fall over.”

“Agreed,” Tafrara said as she corrected the way Jack was holding her right arm.

Ewan was gazing directly at Sebby as he changed positions, moving extra-slowly and carefully to make sure the cat-sized crustacean could follow along comfortably. His suppressed laughter had given way to even more powerful emotion, and Jack could tell that he was going to treasure this experience for the rest of his life.

“Sebby really is quite intelligent, isn’t he?” Tafrara murmured by Jack after a while.

“He is, yeah. I swear, he understands everything we say,” Jack answered as she tried to mirror Ewan’s latest movement. “Sometimes I think I understand what he’s saying, too.”

“Much more than a pet, to be sure.” Tafrara nodded, a sad smile on her face. “We will miss him. The house is going to feel so empty without the three of you.”

“Just the three of them?” Ewan asked, bringing his hands into a new position that Sebby promptly imitated with his pincers.

“You call us all the time,” Tafrara laughed.

“See if I will now,” he mock-grumbled at her, straightening up to stand, fully balanced, on both legs, bringing his hands together and bowing at all of them… and especially at Sebby, who bowed back with his pincers touching.

It was their last Tai Chi session with Ewan. In another hour, once they had all showered and changed, it would be time to leave for the send-off party. The day had flown by faster than Jack liked.

Her fire bush was planted, Ewan helping her get it properly situated in its special location while, all around them, his family worked on redesigning the rooftop area to make the bush into the centerpiece of a new, magical garden. It had been loud and chaotic enough that any hope of continuing her narrative, telling the story of the capture and escape from the Kublai Khan, had been lost. She might manage to tell Kyra that part before they parted ways, but Ewan wouldn’t hear it unless—until—she returned in several years’ time.

Her last hours with him were slipping away. Soon there would be a throng of well-wishers wanting to spend time with him, people who knew him far better than she did. They might not get to spend any more time with each other at all once they arrived at the party.

Somehow she was simultaneously dreading their good-bye and fearing she was going to be cheated out of it.

“There’s no way he wouldn’t say a proper good-bye to you,” Kyra told her as they prepared to shower, Sebby eagerly bouncing as he watched them change into their bathrobes. “You’re worrying way too much.”

Jack sighed and nodded. “I know. I just… hate that time’s running out like this. I know we didn’t plan to stay much longer than this anyway, but…”

“Now it’s real,” Kyra said, belting her robe. “And it sucks. When I was little and visited my mom’s family, I always hated it when the visits ended. I always was afraid I’d never see any of them again. Eventually, I was right.”

Jack winced. Kyra’s mom seemed like she’d originally come from some pretty normal people, before she’d decided her gifts were satanic and had followed her husband into… not to put too fine a point on it, but into a cult. If she and Kyra had stayed on Earth instead of setting out across the stars…

…Jack would never have found her way here, not at this time, maybe not at all. And, if Kyra had never left Earth later, in one of the Star Jumpers that came out in ensuing decades, would she have managed to find a happy life there? Most of the textbooks at Jack’s schools had claimed that there was no happiness to be found on Earth by then, although her father had told her that things hadn’t been that simple. But Kyra might never have seen a green world…

She had a sudden memory of her overnoon dreams, of hiking and hiding in a huge forest, sometimes with Kyra and sometimes as Kyra… with Riddick beside her…

Had those even been her dreams?

Weird. She’d also visited with the Apeiros, who had lots of questions about the story she’d been telling and the world she had described. That “dream” was as vivid as waking memory. But hiking with Riddick…

The images were impressionistic. He always wore the same thing, the clothes she’d shown him wearing on the crash planet. Sometimes she’d felt as if she was playing his role, walking beside Kyra and mimicking the way he’d said things, speaking with his voice and wearing his form. Other times, she’d seen everything from Kyra’s perspective as they explored the forest together. At times, he had rescued Kyra from her oppressive life at the Enclave. But sometimes, the massacre had taken place, Riddick had rescued her from the aftermath, and they were hunting the men who had hurt her and murdered her mother, together, as a team. Sometimes he killed Red Roger for her, sometimes they killed him together…

Jack hadn’t “driven” any of the dreams. She’d been an observer, a passenger, as a dreaming Kyra spun out scenarios in which her time in the wilds of Canaan Mountain had not been spent alone, but in the company of a deadly partner.

But, Jack told herself, at least Kyra hadn’t ended up mired in any nightmares. That was good… wasn’t it?

Sebby danced in the shower with each of them as they washed up for the party. When they emerged from the bathroom, fresh clothes were waiting for them on the bed, along with two of Lalla’s wigs. Tonight, they wouldn’t be “Dihya” and “Tislilel,” who were allegedly still too ill to attend. They would pose as two college friends of Ewan’s.

The dresses were beautiful, colorful beaded kaftans belted at the waist. They were obviously expensive, and Jack had almost protested when Takama had shown them the garments earlier.

“None of that,” Takama had said before she could draw in a breath. “You know that we hoped to adopt both of you somehow. Let us at least have one occasion where we bought our ‘daughters’ something lovely to wear.”

In spite of her earlier claims, that had visibly touched Kyra even more deeply than Jack; Kyra, after all, was the genuine orphan of the two of them.

Kyra’s wig was curly and auburn; Jack’s was dark blonde, shoulder-length, with bangs. When she settled it on her head, she felt a weird sense of predestination. This was a look she could see herself wearing in reality… and suddenly wanted to.

Especially, she thought, if Ewan liked it.

“What are our names again?” Kyra asked as she belted her brilliant maroon kaftan.

“You’re Gwen, and I’m Mercia,” Jack told her as she secured the wig’s clips into her hair the way Lalla had shown her. “Tafrara had two college friends who visited a lot, who had those names and hair like we’re wearing, so it’ll be easy for them to remember our names.”

Ewan, she knew, wouldn’t have any trouble keeping his facts straight.

“Is anyone gonna buy that we’re Ewan’s age?” Kyra was attaching her wig’s clips to her own braided-back hair.

“Maybe with you. I’m supposed to have started right when he was graduating. That’s the cover story, anyway. They’re not gonna say much, though. Hopefully nobody will ask or care. It’s just in case.”

Lalla and Takama arrived with a small banquet for Sebby just as they finished getting ready.

“You two look perfect,” Takama said with a smile. “Almost like the real Gwen and Mercia. This will be easy to remember.”

As Sebby settled into what might be his final dinner at the ait Meziane house, Jack and Kyra followed Takama and Lalla down to the garage.

Ewan, garbed in his military uniform and devastatingly handsome, waited by one of the large, elegant transports that the tribe seemed to have several of. The four olive trees were still resting in the all-terrain vehicle’s bed, and no one had gathered near it. As they approached him, Jack found herself feeling very glad that she already knew how much Ewan cared about her, or she might not have found the nerve to talk to him. He looked light-years out of her league.

The expression on his face, however, was admiring. “Don’t you look lovely, ‘Mercia,’” he murmured. “‘Gwen.’ I hope you two will be riding with me?”

“Of course they will,” said Takama. “We wouldn’t dream of depriving you of a moment of their company.”

Ouch. The subtext, that it would be his last chance to see either of them for a long time, was barely below the surface.

The shadows were growing long and the sun was nearing the horizon as they drove down toward the shore, heading south as they went, away from the spaceport. For a moment, Jack was surprised.

“Oh,” she realized aloud. “Of course you didn’t land at the spaceport. Not with what had just happened there.”

“No, non-emergency traffic was extremely limited, but I was able to get special permission to land at Menara Field.” Ewan told her with a smile. “The field is run by friends of the family.”

“It’s not the one where that airshow was held at, is it?” That would be crazy.

Ewan laughed. “No, that was in New Fes. Fortunately.”

“He means,” Tafrara snickered from the front seat, “he’d never have gotten to the Tomcat if he’d had to get past locals who knew him.”

“I still have no regrets,” Ewan laughed.

“And the send-off party’s at the field?” Kyra asked.

“They have a lovely facility, yes,” Tafrara replied. “We wanted to be able to say, if anyone inquired, that we couldn’t accommodate anyone past those we had already invited. In case a certain person was still trying to get a look at the two of you.”

The airfield, larger than Jack expected given her own visits to air shows on Deckard’s World, was home to a variety of aircraft, and had a few landing pads for the occasional small spacecraft. As they walked toward the main building, Ewan pointed out at one of the pads. A small fighter, elegantly designed for both air and space, was poised on it, being fueled.

“That’s my bird. I’ve been training in her for the last six months.”

“It’s beautiful,” Jack said, wishing she could go for a ride in it.

Ewan must have heard it in her voice. “Perhaps one day, I can take you flying,” he whispered, just barely audibly… and in Arabic. Words calculated for her alone. No one else but Kyra was close enough to hear, and she couldn’t understand Arabic.

It was as close to a promise as either of them dared make. She met his eyes and saw a wistfulness in them that mirrored what she was feeling.

“Okay, you two. Don’t make me play chaperone here,” Kyra muttered.

“Sorry.” Ewan gave her a rueful look.

“I forgive you.” Kyra favored him with an arch smile. “This time.”

Ewan put his arm around Jack’s sister and gave her a hug, kissing the top of her head. “Thank you, ‘Gwen.’”

She snickered. “You realize you just kissed Lalla’s wig, right?”

He was, Jack reflected, one of the only men in the universe whom Kyra would allow to do that. She trusted him absolutely. And, because she felt an equally absolute lack of attraction to him, their relationship had genuinely fallen into a sibling-like domain. He made a far better older brother for her than the one she’d been born with.

Jack hoped Kyra wouldn’t have to wait too long to return to him and the rest of the family.

An elderly man greeted them at the building’s entry, clapping Ewan on the back as he welcomed them inside. A corridor with ordinary office doors stretched out in front of them, but through another door to the side…

…there was definitely a party in full swing.

The large room was full of people, who cheered and shouted welcomes the moment they spotted Ewan. Most of the men and women were his age or slightly older, people he had gone to school with or worked with, in all likelihood. Jack spotted General Toal and a few of the officers from the garden party mingling among the revelers. Robie was in the crowd, looking just one eyepatch and parrot away from an ancient Disney pirate captain. Most guests wore colorful Moroccan garb, but only a few of the women wore hijabs or shaylas, and Jack spotted just one woman in a full chador.

Within moments, Ewan had been swallowed up by the crowd. Everyone wanted a chance to talk to him before he left for Qamar. Jack could hear him switching flawlessly between Arabic, French, and Spanish as he went, favoring each conversation partner’s first language. Tafrara showed up a moment later to lead Jack and Kyra to the food tables, where a fascinating array of options made Jack resolve to try a small amount of everything at least once over the course of the night. Kyra gave her a wide-eyed look when she caught that thought.

“You are definitely getting ready to grow another two or three inches,” her older sister whispered to her. “Possibly on the spot.”

As always, Jack noticed, the alcoholic beverages that would have been ubiquitous on Deckard’s World were entirely absent. Instead, Maghrebi mint tea dominated, along with glasses of orange and pomegranate juice, avocado “juice” that Jack already knew from experience was more of a smoothie, raib, and even a few cups of nous nous despite the hour. Small tables dotted the room—there didn’t appear to be an area for dancing—and many of the guests had already filled plates and congregated around most of them.

With a filled plate of her own, Jack settled in to people-watch, trying not to think about how few hours were left until Ewan’s launch window opened and he left Tangiers Prime. Many of the men and women his age seemed to be using the party as an impromptu reunion, chatting in Arabic about what each of them had been doing in the last few years. Most seemed to be pursuing graduate studies of some kind. Several of the women—all distressingly beautiful—were staying close to Ewan and hanging on his every word. His warmth encompassed all of them.

Any of them, she thought heavily, might be his future wife. Any of them would be a more appropriate choice than a thirteen-year-old girl with a massive crush and four and a half years to go before she was even legal on Tangiers Prime. She’d been deluding herself, reading too much into Ewan’s kindness and brotherly affection. When she came back, she would have to be prepared to just be his little sister or young cousin, and to accept whoever he’d married as family, too…

“You seem to be lost in some sad thoughts,” a deep voice rumbled beside her. General Toal sat down next to her.

Jack nodded, swallowing. “Yeah, saying goodbye is hard.”

“You can return one day, ‘Mercia,’” he told her, his voice gentle. “Goodbye does not have to be forever. I know that there will always be a welcome for you here.”

It suddenly occurred to Jack to wonder if Riddick had ever planned to return to Helion Prime, and what he would think if he did and she was gone. But then, no promises of any kind had been made there, and neither he nor Imam had ever particularly cared to ask if she had plans that conflicted with the ones they apparently had contrived for her. Hopefully, if he did come back one day to find her long gone, he’d accept it as an inevitable outcome of their choice to exclude her from decisions about her own fate.

Just as she, she told the ache lodged in her chest, would have to accept whatever she found when she returned to Tangiers Prime one day. Nobody here could put their lives on hold just so she could go off and grow up first.

Full dark had fallen, and some of the guests were already departing. Ewan made sure to speak to each of them one more time as they left.

“Is it almost time already?” she asked General Toal, suddenly feeling stricken.

“No, child. Not yet. But part of the event is something that most of the traditionalists among the Muslim contingent would be uncomfortable with.” He nodded at the departing guests, all of whom, Jack realized, were dressed in more conservative Muslim attire.

“What part is that?” she asked as Kyra sat down next to her.

“A bit of Scottish traditionalism,” Cedric said, joining them. “Which all are welcome to partake in, if their faith allows them to. The Ceilidh.”

Kyra looked startled for a second. “The Kaylee?”

A friend of hers, Jack remembered, had worn that name, and had died a terrible death.

“Ceilidh… C-E-I-L-I-D-H,” Cedric explained. It did sound like he was saying Kaylee, though. “It’s a traditional Scottish dance. We haven’t had a chance to hold one for a while, and I think Ewan’s looking forward to it. So we let all of the guests know that it would be one of the final events of the evening.”

“Most strict observers of Islam follow a prohibition against men and women dancing together,” General Toal added. “For many of them, even watching that take place would be deeply uncomfortable. American square dancing has many of its roots in the Ceilidh, I’m told.”

Kyra, of course, had been born in America, and Jack had been born on a world that fetishized all things American.

Jack grinned. “My grade school taught us how to square dance. I don’t know how similar it really is, but I’m in.”

“My parents always said dancing was sinful,” Kyra said after a moment, a mischievous smile spreading over her face. “I wanna try it.”

“Good,” Tafrara said from behind them. “We can show you the steps. It’s really not hard at all.”

More than half of the guests had departed, and the tables were being moved to the edges of the room. Once anyone who might object had left, Tafrara and Izil began showing Jack and Kyra various steps and telling them their names.

“I’m never going to remember all of this,” Kyra groaned, even as she copied Tafrara’s footwork perfectly.

Jack, who could remember all of the names and the steps that went with them, was privately convinced that, in spite of that, she was going to end up stomping someone’s foot in a moment of pure klutziness.

“Don’t worry about it,” Tafrara laughed. “Go with the movement and let it carry you. We’re not doing competitive performances here.”

“There are competitive performances?” Kyra gasped.

“People will make anything into a competition,” Ewan said, joining them and casting the light of his smile on each of them in turn. “Are we ready? I’ve been waiting for this all night.”

The next thing Jack knew, he had taken her hand and led her out toward the center of the room. Kyra, hand in hand with Izil, followed. Other pairs joined them.

The elderly proprietor who had greeted them stepped up to a microphone, drawing everyone’s attention. He would be their caller, he told them. Many of the remaining guests seemed comfortable just observing as the dance got underway and Jack discovered, for the first time in her life, that bagpipes really could produce gorgeous melodies.

It was hard not to get lost in Ewan’s eyes when he was her partner, and she was always afraid that his would be the foot she tromped on. But he was an expert at the dance, and it never happened. She was whirled from partner to partner, sometimes dancing with Izil, sometimes Usadden, then Cedric, Robie, even General Toal… and then back in Ewan’s arms where time stopped once more. It was a lot like square dancing, although many of the calls were completely different. Whirling through figures felt almost like spinning through the spangled darkness with the Apeiros, but with him alongside her. She wasn’t sure how long it lasted, but she found herself wishing it would never end. Finally, however, the last of the songs ended and both the other dancers and their audience began to clap. She did as well, feeling a mixture of breathless exhilaration and forlorn longing.

Safiyya handed her a glass of something sweet with a hint of a grassy flavor to it, which Jack found herself almost chugging. “Wow, what is this?”

“Aseer kasab,” Safiyya told her. “Sugarcane juice. A good refreshment for after such strenuous exercise.”

Ewan was circulating again, and Jack realized that now he was saying his goodbyes to everyone, sharing hugs and claps on the back as he went. It was almost time.

“On the way back to the ait Meziane house,” General Toal said from beside her, “I have a small present for you and ‘Gwen.’ We spoke of it the other day.”

That reminded her. “Do you know if it could help me stop talking in my sleep? I’m worried about what people might hear me say.”

The General raised his eyebrows. “As a matter of fact, it does help train for that, too. I will show you the settings for that… as well as the settings for what we discussed.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Jack could see Ewan in earnest conversation with Kyra. The moment she dreaded was getting closer and closer.

“Thank you, General,” she said, trying to focus on the moment. “I really appreciate everything you’re doing.”

“It is no more than I would hope anyone in my position would have the honor to do, child.”

Child. The sum total of everything that had gone wrong on her run… no matter where she went, what she did, or how freakin’ tall she got, she was still a child…

People were leaving in droves now. The room was emptying out—

“‘Mercia?’” Ewan asked. He was standing in front of her, holding out his hand. “May I have a moment with you?”

Here we go. Fuck…

Jack nodded, swallowing hard against the constriction suddenly wrapping itself around her throat, and took his hand, standing up.

Ewan led her toward a door to one side of the room. Usadden began to follow them. “We need a moment alone. Please,” Ewan said to his cousin.

Jack was aware of charged glances passing around. Then she saw Cedric nod. Ewan opened the door and drew her through, closing it behind them.

They were in a small office. She suddenly realized that this was the first time they were alone, unchaperoned, since they had returned from Elsewhere.

“I…” Ewan said, stepping close to her, and then faltered for a moment. “I don’t even know your real name.”

“Au—” she started, before his fingertips pressed against her lips.

“And you cannot tell me, not now. I can’t know your name any more than I can know where you’re going. One day… but not now.” Ewan closed his eyes and took a deep breath, taking her hand in his and pressing her palm to his chest above his heart. His eyes opened again and locked with hers, capturing her. “But here’s something I can tell you. Listen carefully, Tizzy.”

He recited a long string of numbers while she gazed up at him in bewilderment.

“Repeat that back, please,” he said when he was done. She did. “Good. That comm code will reach me, no matter where you are in the Federacy, and no matter where I am. I will always have it. If you find yourself in trouble, if you need my help, regardless of where or when, use that code. You only have to leave the message, ‘Tislilel needs you,’ and I will come to you. I know we’re forbidden to make any promises, but upon my life, I swear this. I will come to you. If I receive your call when I’m on my death bed, I will still rise up and come to you. But I hope you will return to us before then, of course…”

Jack couldn’t speak. There were far too many things she wanted to say to him, most of which she didn’t dare articulate. She was trapped in his eyes.

He pulled her into a hug, wrapping his powerful arms around her and holding her close. She found herself clinging to him, wishing she never had to let go. He murmured something in Tamazight, too fast for her to even try to parse, but she knew she would remember every syllable.

“Come back to us when you can, Tislilel Meziane,” he said in a shaky whisper after another moment. “You will always have a home and family here with us. No matter what happens, that will always be true.”

Even if she could find her voice, she realized that she didn’t dare answer him. No promises were allowed, even if she wanted to promise him everything, to tell him she was his forever—

The door opened. “Zdan?” Robie’s voice was gentle. “It’s time. The window’s opening.”

Ewan released her, took her face in his hands, and brushed aside her bangs before kissing her forehead, much as his brother had the last time she’d seen him. “Until we meet again, taḥbibt-iw.”

She rose up and kissed his cheek before he could pull away. It was a struggle not to begin crying as she forced herself to let go, and not to try to press her lips to his. His eyes, on hers, were intense and shining. She still couldn’t get her voice to work, but she could see—could feel all the way through—that he already knew everything she was unable to say.

“Come,” Robie said, putting his hand on Ewan’s shoulder and steering him out of the room.

Kyra entered a moment later and wrapped Jack in a tight hug.

The family walked outside as a group a few minutes later. Ewan, now dressed in his flight suit and carrying his helmet in one hand and a duffel bag in the other, was striding across the tarmac, Robie and the elderly proprietor on either side of him. As they watched, he reached his fighter and spoke to both men for a moment. Robie put his hand on Ewan’s shoulder, saying something. Ewan shook his head and then donned his helmet, climbing into the cockpit. Robie removed the ladder from the spacecraft’s side, retreating with the old man as the fighter’s engines lit up and it began to roll toward the runway. They watched, as a group, as Ewan took off, no one moving until the light from the engines, a star rising upward into the night sky, finally dwindled and vanished.

“Time to go home,” Cedric said after a moment.

Jack felt strangely weightless and numb as they walked toward the vehicles they’d come in… one family member short. Robie and the proprietor had cut across the tarmac and were talking to each other in Arabic as they approached.

“…known him since he was a little boy,” the old man was saying, “and I know he’ll be fine… but I’d still like to know which of those lovely young women had the audacity to break his heart tonight of all nights…”

Jack felt like she couldn’t breathe.

“That’s none of your concern,” Robie said, his voice suddenly sharp.

“Khara,” muttered Usadden. Shit.

“Let’s get you girls home,” General Toal said, steering Jack and Kyra toward the vehicle he’d used to pick Jack up from the pier. “I have something for the two of you…”

“What is it?” Kyra whispered to Jack as they walked with him. “What’s wrong?”

She still couldn’t speak. Instead, she shared that moment mentally with Kyra… fully translated.

Oh, her sister replied silently. Damn…

They climbed into the back seat of the General’s vehicle, where two wrapped boxes with D. and T. on them waited. Jack felt completely hollow.

“I will show you how to use them once we are back at the house,” the General said as he drove them away from the airfield.

She nodded, still unable to talk, wondering if she’d manage to find her voice ever again. Kyra pulled her into another hug and held her as her tears finally slid free.

An orange glow lit part of the night sky, reflecting against the clouds. They were driving toward it.

“What is that?” Kyra asked as Jack wiped her face with the General’s handkerchief.

The glow was growing larger and larger, illuminating a column of black smoke… which was rising from the Rif.

“It would appear,” the General said, sounding completely unsurprised and unconcerned, “that your old apartment building is burning to the ground.”