family tree where she would have gone through molts. But I tried not to think about that too hard, because it was weird to dream about kissing a girl and think “the girl is secretly a giant wasp” in the same sentence.)
Still feeling a little awkward and out of sorts, I got up, grabbed a shirt from the floor that didn’t have any visible stains on it, and pulled it over my head as I started up the stairs toward the kitchen. When all else fails, orange soda and toast. Even at two in the morning, orange soda and toast. They can cure many ills, and if they can’t fix the problem, at least you won’t be hungry and groggy anymore. Elsie likes caffeine, but I say sugar does basically the same thing, without the nasty crash at the other metabolic end.
Elsie was sitting in the kitchen when I got there, sharing a bowl of chicken noodle soup with several members of the family Aeslin colony. They offered me a somewhat dismissive cheer, their attention way more focused on mining her soup for chunks of chicken and celery—the former to eat, the latter to ritually place in the compost bin. Aeslin mice are weird.
“Same. I don’t remember what they were, just that they were bad.” She gave her soup another stir, kicking more chunks to the surface. The mice cheered again, but softly. Mom has opinions about appropriate volume after midnight, and even the mice don’t usually cross her. She’s scary when she’s angry. “Hey, Artie. You awake enough to play dictionary?”
A sudden wash of cold dread swept across my skin. I forced myself to open the fridge and take out a can of orange soda before I turned to face her, keeping my motions smooth and easy, like this was perfectly normal. Like I wasn’t direly afraid I knew what she was about to ask me.
“Do you know what ‘instar’ means?”
Sometimes I hate being right. I walked over and sat down across from her at the table, deciding to skip my toast for now. Toast is for people who don’t feel like they’re about to throw up. “It’s a biology thing. It means the growth stage insects go through between molts. It’s metamorphic—they tend to change shapes and stuff—but I don’t really understand it. Why?”
“Because it was in my dreams,” she said, and gave me a worried look. “Artie, why was it in my dreams?”
“I don’t know.” I glanced at the clock above the stove. Less than five minutes had passed since I’d entered the kitchen. It was still too early to call anyone. Sarah was asleep. That was all. “It’s a weird word.”
“It’s a weird word for you to know.”
“I looked it up.” I took a deep breath as I looked at her. “I wanted to know what it meant, since it was in my dreams, too.”
Elsie’s eyes widened slowly, until they were practically bulging in their sockets. She pushed back her seat, standing, and glanced to the mice. “The rest of the soup is yours,” she said. “Please don’t try to put the bowl in the sink. You know what happens.”
The mice mumbled muted agreement. They could get the cutlery to the sink—could even get it into the dishwasher if they were feeling motivated—but when they tried to move plates or bowls, things inevitably wound up getting broken. Mom hates losing dishes.
“Where are you going?” I asked.
“To get my keys.”
“Why?”
Elsie paused long enough to give me an absolutely withering look. “Our telepathic cousin comes home from Ohio for the first time in years. You finally figure out how to get over yourselves and hook up. And that same night, you and I both have a weird dream that ends with a new word being planted in our brains? Yeah, that’s not normal. Even for us, that’s not normal. So we’re going back to the compound to make sure Sarah’s okay.”
“Couldn’t we just call?”
“At two o’clock in the morning? If we call and she says nothing’s wrong, we won’t believe her, and we’ll go over there anyway. If we call and she says something’s very wrong, we’ll be too far away to help. No, getting in the car is the right decision. We can stop and pick up donuts or something in case someone has a problem with us rolling in before the sun comes up.”