but the disappointed look on his face spoke volumes. “We can only lie for you so many times,” he told me. “We can’t protect you if you defy their laws.”
Sorry tripped to my tongue, but seemed inadequate. It didn’t matter. Erik hadn’t finished. “It’s not just the Weavers, either. What about those little brats? Don’t you think they might tell their parents they’ve found an echo? People talk.”
I knew what he was really afraid of: hunters. That they might find out about me. Only I guess the kids didn’t talk, or Erik stopped word from getting out, because nothing has happened since. There has been no witch hunt, no flaming torches at our door. No quiet attacks in the dark.
I check the mail, littered under the slot in the front door. There are two bills for Mina Ma and a blank postcard for me. I know it’s from Sean, the youngest of my guardians. No one else sends me anything in the mail. He knows that, and he lives less than an hour away from us, but he still sends me postcards once a month. I’ve got them tucked between Oliver Twist and These Old Shades on my bookshelf, tied together with ribbon.
At the time, Sean made it clear he didn’t think fighting was a clever thing to do either. His tone annoyed me enough to say, quite unjustly, “Well, if it had been you, I bet they’d have battered you.”
“I don’t batter so easily, thanks very much,” he replied. “And if you’ll notice, I’m the one who can still eat without having to aim for an uninjured bit of my mouth.”
It was difficult to argue with logic like that.
I watch telly until Mina Ma wakes up and bustles out of her room. We make breakfast. Eggs and bacon. I don’t like eggs. It’s the yolk. The way it squidges out makes me feel ill. I try not to touch it when we wash the plates afterward.
Mina Ma laughs. “Don’t be so insufferably idiotic, child. It’s not infected.”
It’s like her to laugh and scold me in the same breath. I love her more than anything in the whole world. She left India close to fifteen years ago, when the Weavers offered her a job as my caretaker. We live here together. She raised me. Ever since she took me from the Weavers’ Loom as a baby, she has loved me. And ever since she chased a doctor out of the house with a rolling pin, after he referred to me as “it,” I have loved her.
Once we’ve put away the breakfast dishes, it’s time for my lessons. I put together a neat pile of textbooks and notes.
I have a routine that doesn’t change much. I study a girl far away. She’s the original to my copy. She haunts me. Everything I do depends on her. And on her parents, my familiars, the two people who asked the Weavers to make me.
I learn what she learns. I eat what she eats. I sleep. Mina Ma teaches me small things every day. How to make rice in a pressure cooker. How to pronounce Indian names and words properly. She tells me about Bangalore, where my other lives. I could find my way around that city blindfolded by now. On Tuesdays and Fridays, Ophelia comes to the house to check me over. She asks me questions, examines me, takes blood. No one would call her medically qualified. She struggles to do subtraction in her head, fumbles with her instruments and notes, and I often hear her saying rude things under her breath about “stupid big words.” But she’s learned enough about echoes to keep me healthy. All I care about, though, is that she’s friendly and funny and I can trust her. I don’t think I’d let a real doctor anywhere near me.
On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, my lessons are with Erik. He homeschools me in things like English and math, from big textbooks and lesson plans that my familiars have gotten from her school. He gives me information about my other, helps me learn it. He also tells me about my world. About the centuries-old Loom in London and the Weavers who stitch echoes there.
And on alternate weekends, Sean turns up for a couple days. His job is to help me understand what life is like among regular people our age. I need to be prepared if I’m ever sent off to live her life.