down the street, watching the houses around me for signs that someone was home and moving around. Waking people up can be useful, but only if I want to get something done quick and clean and without actually making them get dressed. I usually only do it when I need a Wi-Fi password.
I’d gone about a block and a half before I saw a house that fit my needs. There was a big dog chained in the yard. He whined at the sight of me, retreating to the corner and growling softly, like he hoped he could frighten me off without getting anywhere near me. I offered him a sheepish smile, hoping he could read the expression better than I could, and climbed the somewhat rickety steps to the front porch. I rang the bell.
Five minutes later, I was comfortably buckled into the passenger seat of a late-model sedan, the woman behind the wheel chattering merrily on about her plans for the weekend, which included a trip to Costco and some really inventive couponing. She drove with the casual disregard for speed limits that only comes from living in a neighborhood for a long, long time, and while she was definitely aware that we weren’t old friends or anything, the relationship she had constructed for us was warm and comfortable enough to fill the car with contentment. I was a cousin’s girlfriend’s sister’s niece, or something like that, and it was good enough for her.
It’s nice, how quickly some people find their way from “strangers” to “family.” Nice, and maybe a little dangerous, but I wasn’t complaining. There was nothing to connect me to her. I’d be forgotten as soon as I got out of her car, and the cuckoo from the airport would never be able to track her down. She was safe, or as safe as anyone living in a city with a normal, hunting, hungry cuckoo could be.
“Now, are you sure this is where you want me to drop you?” The woman pulled to a stop in front of an old warehouse, a brief stab of disapproval shooting through her general air of contentment. “I could take you someplace much nicer. Or you could come back to the house and wait for your friends to meet you there. I don’t mind.”
“Duke might.” Duke was the dog. He had been almost pathetically grateful when I left, even as he’d warred with his fear of me and his desire to protect his human. He was going to be clingy and paranoid for days. His human wouldn’t understand why, and there was no way I could tell her, and I was sorry for that.
“Duke loves you.”
That was a lie. I dug the last of the cuckoo’s money out of my pocket and offered it to the woman. “Here. For the ride.”
She started to object. Then her own self-interest kicked in, and she took the money from my hand, saying, “It’s great of Carol to pay back what she owes me. Sometimes people surprise you.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “Sometimes people do.” I got out of the car before she could make another attempt to convince me not to. As soon as she was clear of my immediate presence, she drove away, faster than was strictly necessary. Some part of her knew that she’d just had an encounter with a predator bigger than she was, and she wanted to get the hell out of the way.
I touched my upper lip. Dry. Then I turned toward the warehouse, noting the lights in the windows with relieved satisfaction, and started walking.
* * *
My family tree can get confusing sometimes. I get that. When you’re dealing with multiple generations, including some people whose lifespans aren’t limited to the human norm, the names and connections and complications pile up fast. So here’s the short and simple, or as simple as it’s possible for me to make things:
My adoptive mother, Angela, was born somewhere in New England and raised by a family in Maine who had been chosen without their consent by her biological mother. Cuckoos pick the nests where they abandon their children carefully, according to a set of standards I don’t fully understand, and never will, unless I decide to have children of my own. Infants are abandoned in homes that have the space and resources to raise them properly, and where there are no other children to get in the way of dedicating those resources to the new cuckoo-child. Her husband, Martin Baker, was originally