and wet and cold and miserable, the girl sniffled, hard, and nodded.
“All right,” repeated Angela. “What’s your name?”
“Sarah,” said the girl, and the world was different, and everything began.
One
“There’s no such thing as ‘normal.’ Whoever came up with that idea was probably selling something nobody wanted to buy.”
—Jane Harrington-Price
Cleveland Hopkins International Airport, outside security
Now
YOU DON’T HAVE TO do this.” Angela held me by the shoulders, keeping her eyes locked on mine, like she could somehow overcome her own inability to receive projected thoughts and understand exactly what I was thinking. “No one’s going to think less of you if you need more time to heal. You know that.”
“Mom, I’m fine.” I put my left hand over hers, squeezing firmly, hoping the skin-on-skin connection would let her at least pick up some of my certainty. She might get my anxiety in the bargain, but she knew I was anxious. Everyone knew I was anxious. “I’ve had years. I need to do this. I can’t hide in my room forever.”
“You’re still recovering. What happened to you—”
“Is part of why I need to get back out there. You don’t know what happened to me. I don’t know what happened to me. Evie has a better chance of helping me find a doctor who understands my situation than anyone we’ve got in Ohio.”
Uncertainty rolled off her in a wave. I forced myself not to flinch.
Evie is my oldest sibling, adopted by Mom and Dad when she was just a baby. She’s also my only human sibling, which sort of makes her the white sheep of the family. Mom and I are both Johrlac, colloquially known as cuckoos: telepathic ambush predators who ruin lives for fun. Dad’s a Revenant, assembled from somewhere between four and six human corpses—we’re honestly not sure. And my brother Drew is a bogeyman. Our family reunions are awesome.
Being the only human in a cryptid family got Evie interested in cryptid biology and medicine long before I entered the picture. She’s not a doctor, more of a combat medic and herbalist, but it seems like she always knows a guy who knows a guy. None of her assorted guys had been able to help me when I got hurt. That didn’t mean she might not be able to find someone who understood the theory, and who could help make sure it would never happen again.
Mom took her right hand off my shoulder, running her thumb across my cheek. “I wish you’d let me come with you to Oregon. Or at least let me tell Evie you’re coming so she can meet you at the airport.”
“Both of those things sort of go against the point of what I’m trying to do here.” I mustered up a wavering smile. Mom’s better at reading facial expressions than I am. She has to be. Without telepathy to lean on, she’d had no choice but to learn. “I promise that I will call you as soon as I touch down in Portland. I have to do this. If I can’t, if I start to panic, I’ll come right home.”
“Try not to do it by diverting an entire plane, all right? People notice that sort of thing.”
My smile strengthened. I took a step back, reaching up to adjust the strap of my backpack. “I promise that I won’t bring an entire plane home with me.”
“All right. All right.” Impulsively, she reached out and placed her hands against the sides of my face, pulling me closer in order to kiss my forehead. “You are my beloved girl, and I am so proud of you. You know that, right?”
“You never let me forget.” I hugged her, quick as I could, and turned away, heading for the security line. I could feel her watching me go, the sweet, familiar edge of her anxiety, of her hope for me. It used to be more bitter than it is now, tinged with the unwanted belief that I was never going to be anything but a cuckoo, never anything but a parasitic predator waiting for the chance to break free of all these silly morals and rules that she worked so hard to teach me. But I fought the world and my nature both, and I won, and now when she looks at me, it’s only fear for me, never fear of me.
I didn’t realize how much it ached to have my mother—adoptive or not—living in fear of me until the day it stopped. The day when I realized I could