All the Birds in the sky - Charlie Jane Anders Page 0,77
another “standing on the edge of the abyss” feeling. Total heedless terror. He shrugged, and it passed. “Sure,” he said. “I remember.”
“I need you to owe me something,” Patricia said, “or this won’t work. I’m really sorry. I tried to do it every other way, and none of them succeeded. In the end, the most powerful magic is often transactional in some way. I’ll explain more some other time.”
“Okay, sure,” Laurence said. “Whatever you want. Name it.”
“If I bring your friend back,” Patricia said. She chewed her lip and seemed to be trying one last time to think of an alternative. “If I bring your friend back, you have to give me the smallest thing you own.”
“That’s it?” Laurence laughed with relief. “Done.” He grabbed her hand with both hands and shook.
Laurence couldn’t stop laughing, because he’d gotten himself all worked up and it turned out to be nothing. He owned so many tiny items—the smallest thing he owned was probably some ridiculous gadget he’d paid too much for. He laughed until he croaked, and his eyes clouded, and when he wiped his eyes clear, Patricia and he were no longer alone.
Priya stood on the white platform for a moment, gaping at the two faces below. She raised her elegant hands to her face, as if astonished to see that she still had hands. She tried to form words and just made a fish mouth instead. She started to wobble off the platform, and Laurence guided her to sit down.
“She’s seen some things that eyes weren’t built for,” Patricia said. “Like I said. Vodka, and lots of it. And loud music. I recommend Benders. I’ll even come and have a drink or two.”
Laurence steered Priya onto a beanbag, where she was hugging herself and making low guttural sounds. He texted the others to come back up, then turned back to Patricia.
“Oh my god, thank you,” Laurence said. “Am I allowed to say thank you? Or is that bad?”
“You’re allowed to say thank you.” Patricia laughed.
He ran over and hugged her so tight, he nearly squeezed the life out of her, and he felt her bare shoulders against his chest and her face against his neck. She made a slight protesting “squick” noise and Laurence slackened a tiny bit but kept hugging her.
“Thank you thank you thank you.” Laurence’s eyes felt splashy. His senses filled with clementines and softness and warmth. He blessed the day his parents decided he should be outdoorsy.
The others had come back, and Sougata was life-preservering Priya with tears rushing down his face. “I thought I’d lost you forever, I couldn’t have lived with myself, I never want to let go of you,” he said.
“There were colors outside the visual spectrum,” Priya managed to say. “But I could still see them. I can’t stop seeing them now.”
“Vodka and loud music,” Patricia called out from Laurence’s death grip. “Stat. It’s an essential part of her recovery process.”
They rushed Priya to Benders Bar & Grill. There was some talk of going to the ER instead, but Patricia nixed it, and nobody wanted to argue with the person who’d saved all their asses.
“But how did you do it?” Anya kept asking. “What did you do?”
“I used my sonic screwdriver.”
“No, really. What did you do?”
“I reversed the polarity of the neutron flow.”
“Stop giving Doctor Who answers! Tell me the truth!”
“It was sort of a wibbly wobbly,” Patricia said, fully teasing Anya now.
Booze really was medicinal, after a near-death experience. Holding a drink in both hands and letting it corrode the topmost layer of his mouth and throat, Laurence felt a spiritual relationship with Bushmills.
Priya, too, seemed to be pretty much back to normal as soon as she had a couple swigs of vodka and heard the sound system blasting “Cum On Feel The Noize.” She started dancing on her stool and making jokes about heavy-metal hair and body shots. Laurence made sure the liquor kept coming, so Priya would get her recommended dosage. Whatever she’d experienced during her time outside of our universe, she seemed to be rinsing it out of her mind, and maybe if they were lucky, the whole evening would feel like a weird blur to her when she woke with a hangover. As a strategy for scrambling someone’s short-term memories, it didn’t seem bad.
Everybody kept toasting Patricia and buying her drinks and laughing at her dumb jokes, as if they were ultraconscious that she’d pulled their fat out of the fire. When Patricia went to the ladies’,