“No. Times are changing. The littles must become socialized.” Chastity took three calming breaths and walked into the kitchen.
Alison shrugged. “Now what?”
“Samples. We need to get samples.” Chastity stared at the paper, reread it for the third time, and then tossed it on the table.
“Of?”
“Any and all building material visible to those in the community.” Chastity closed her eyes and began counting very slowly in her mind. One... two.. three... I can do this... four... five... mainstreaming is good for the littles... six...
Alison snorted. “Damek is to be here two days. The builder I said was coming? I think you’ll like him.”
“We don’t have the money, and I don’t have time to like anyone, Ali.” Chastity pulled open the fridge and got out several cardboard boxes. There were fresh bloodworms, a partially eaten chickadee, and at least half a squirrel left over.
“So you keep saying. The littles and I are not enough need for you. You do not want a Bori mate, so you should select a human for a while. He is striking if you like males.”
Pointedly ignoring her sister, Chastity returned to the fridge. “Did you want to go out for dinner or have leftovers?” She rummaged around and found an opened jar of red sauce. “I could do a casserole.”
“Please, gods, no.” Alison sniffed the air. “I smell you. If you expect to sneak up on both of us, you need to bathe more often, Remus.”
A low growl came from the living room.
“And not react to every barb, sweetie,” Chastity added. “Ali has a much better nose, so I wouldn’t have known she was right if not for the growl.”
The growling boy in question made a noise that sounded like a chuff.
The sisters exchanged a look, and while Alison’s head was turned a black blur came at her from the other doorway. Chastity started, “Al—” but before the second syllable, the blur in question had toppled Alison and the chair she was in.
Perched on Alison’s chest was a feral girl with almost solid black eyes and dark snarled hair. The girl tilted her head at an inhuman angle and stared at Chastity. She snapped her mouth in a self-satisfied way.
“Human words, Rave.” Alison reached up to ruffle the girl’s hair—and got a sharp snap on the wrist for it. “Clever thing, aren’t you?”
Raven preened a little.
Chastity shook her head. “He agreed to being the decoy?”
For a moment, Raven pulled her stare from Alison to Chastity. Then she opened and closed her mouth. In a scratchy voice, the child said, “Bigger share of dinner.”
“Clever,” Alison repeated.
***
With a happy yip, Remus charged into the kitchen. Chastity’s edict against shapeshifting was helping the children learn to appear human, but their behavior was still more animal than human. Alison was grateful that she was the younger sister, though; she wasn’t entirely sure she had the confidence to make some of the family decisions. Chastity’s choices were akin to laws, so it made for a family without conflict. Luckily, their eldest sister was also realistic.
Remus leaned his body against Chastity and butted her hand with his head. His skin was smudged with dirt, but his hair was damp and leaf-free. She suspected Raven had groomed his hair again. Gently, Chastity murmured, “You will bathe in water later.”
“Hate water.” Remus looked at her beseechingly. “Used words. No water?”
“Maybe,” she said. For all of her attempts at mainstreaming, Chastity still remembered that they weren’t human. She lectured, and she reminded, but she didn’t expect them to change entirely. If Alison were more curious, she might ask her sister if there was a master chart or spreadsheet where the number of admonishments and praise was measured out.
Alison watched her sister and the littles with a sort of peace that they hadn’t always known—the sort of peace they were going to ensure for the family. Not all nests are created equal. This particular nest was one she would fight to protect.
“So, about Damek,” Alison started.
The littles were unconcerned. Raven remained perched atop Alison, and Remus sat beside Chastity with his eyes closed contentedly. Chastity herself was suspicious. She leveled her gaze at Alison. “I’ll talk to him, but the fence is the first priority.”
“Sure, but the unfinished rooms downstairs—”
“Ali, we’ve talked about this. The money has to go to the fence first. Iwill get it approved. Getting the fence in, then spelled, and”—Chastity had stopped petting Remus, and he whined plaintively—“the inside is not the priority this year. Maybe next year if money is available.”
“Chas?”
“It’s not like I don’t want them to have a better—”
“Chastity!”
“What?” Her sister resumed petting Remus, who had become unsettled by the tension in the sisters.
“I have the money.” Alison held up a hand to forestall any questions. “Damek will be here to assess the site in two days. All you need to concentrate on is the fence. I have this.”
For a strange moment, Alison felt the weight of all three of her nestmates’ stares. Raven and Remus were experts in nonverbal communication, and Alison’s studied lack of expression was obviously fascinating to the littles in a way that words or gestures rarely were. Remus prowled closer and sniffed her; Raven tilted her head from one side to the other. The littles exchanged a look, then studied Chastity. Remus chuffed at his sister, and she released a screech that only Remus could understand. Then, the littles gave both sisters their renditions of assuring affection. Remus licked their hands, and Raven rubbed her forehead against their shoulders. With no signal that Alison and Chastity would recognize, the littles vanished into whatever dens then had elsewhere in the house.
Once they were gone, Chastity sighed. “They’re still sleeping in the rafters in the attic.”
“They’ll be fine.” Alison reached up and laced her fingers with her sister’s. “We weren’t that verbal so young.”
“I know.” Chastity looked at her. “Do you miss the not-words?”
“Sometimes, but what I really miss are the tufts of fur you’d drag home from whatever you’d killed. We had a fabulous nest.” Alison thought longingly of the way they’d lived before Chastity decided they had to mainstream. The nest was a true nest then. They’d had a cave with shiny bits of stones that she’d found, and the warm-soft pelts that Chastity brought.
It was so much easier.
Quietly, Alison said, “But we made the right choice.”
“We?”
Alison laughed. “Yes, we. If you think I didn’t choose it, too, you’re spending too much time around humans. I’m here. That means I chose it.”
“Thank you.” Chastity squeezed her hand. “Do I need to ask where the money came from for the repairs?”
Alison shrugged. “I brought a few of those shiny rocks from the old nest. Humans make them into body ornaments. I gave them to Mr. Vaduva.”
“You used some of your gems for payment?” Chastity’s mouth hung open oddly on the last word. When she realized it, she closed her mouth with an audible smack.
“Go find your samples. The ARB meeting is in two days.” Alison paused and rubbed her forehead on her sister’s shoulder as she had when they hadn’t learned words yet.
***
On the day of the meeting—the same day that Damek Vaduva would arrive at their nest—Chastity stood examining a white brick, a small bucket of some sort of masonry compound, and a three-inch sample of the metal rods that would reinforce the brick. She thought they had pretty good odds—and then the doorbell rang.
She looked through the peephole in the door to the thin, perfectly made-up woman, and she knew without a doubt that this had to be the ARB chair. The artifice that was conveyed in every detail of the woman’s outfit was proof enough that no matter what form they filled out, no matter how innocuous—or logical—the request, it wouldn’t matter. This was a woman who cared
for appearance. Her clothes were the sort of poorly chosen frocks that admitted that the wearer didn’t dress for her personal style, but for the society-approved idea of fashion. If Chastity knew anything about designers, she would be able to be falsely impressed, but the idea of being concerned with brand over style made no sense to Chastity.
“You have got to be joking.” She sighed, affixed a smile, and opened the door.
“Miss Faolchu?”
“Yes. I’m Chastity Faolchu.” She stepped aside. “Please come in.”
Behind her, Chastity heard the littles. She glanced over her shoulder as Raven and Remus crept down the stairs. They perched on the edge of the landing midway down the staircase. Neither spoke. They stared at Justine.
Justine had stepped into the house. The expression on her face was polite, but the tone of her voice was chilly. “I didn’t know you had children. Do they go to a private school?”
“No.”
At that, Justine’s polite demeanor slipped a little. “Oh, I haven’t noticed the bus stopping here.”
“It doesn’t.”
The ARB chairperson pursed her lips and blinked, as if forcing clarity to come to her. “Do you drive them? They don’t look old enough to drive themselves yet.”
“No.” Chastity moved to the side so she could see the littles.
“So...,” Justine prompted.
“We homeschool.” Chastity gave her a tight smile.
The temptation to ask for more information vied with the natural discomfort most people experienced when they were confronted by the littles. Justine’s gaze darted to them, and then back to Chastity. “Why did you say you moved here again?”
Chastity’s dislike for Justine boiled inside her, but she wasn’t ready to completely give in to it. She kept that anger out of her voice and said, “Children need yards. Fenced yards. In the city, we didn’t have enough space for their growth.”
“They seem a bit old for you to worry about fences,” Justine said.
Charity briefly imagined telling Justine exactly how much trouble a pair of young Bori would inflict on their area. Her tiny sweater-clad dog is lucky to be alive still. Bird feeders all look like buffets. She forced her tone to remain level. “Nonetheless, we need a fence.”
“I see.”
The littles exchanged a look that conveyed how truly they believed that Justine did not see.
“Would you like to have a seat?” Chastity belatedly remembered that keeping a guest standing in the foyer was not friendly.
No matter how much I study humans, I still slip up.
She gestured for Justine to precede her into the small living room to the left of the foyer. It was more conservatory than living room, but such a thing wasn’t terribly peculiar; a lot of people had greenery-filled homes, maybe not to the degree that they did, but humans brought nature into their homes, too.
Chastity tensed as Justine took a seat in the settee, but aside from pursed lips, the ARB chairperson made no note of the thick plastic that covered the furniture. It crinkled noisily as she shifted on it.
“I was getting ready to water the plants,” Chastity lied. And the littles have released several squirrels in the house again, she added silently.
“Oh.”
“I didn’t want the furniture to get damaged,” Chastity continued. By the children disemboweling squirrels. There was something oddly disconcerting about trying to make small talk, but the habit of adding silent truths typically made it more palatable. Today, it wasn’t helping.
After as friendly a smile as she could muster, Chastity broached the subject of the fence. “I have the materials to bring to the meeting. I’m hopeful that we can resolve this and—”
“I doubt it, Miss Faolchu. I simply don’t see that a privacy fence is conducive to fostering a healthy community.” Justine folded her hands in her lap. “I don’t think we need to start walling ourselves into little territories.”
“Really?” Chastity’s temper slipped a bit. She felt the pressure in her eyes, but she held on to the human shape of them. It wasn’t that she had a short fuse, but the nitwittery of the ARB had frayed her nerves.
Justine waved a hand. “We don’t control who buys the houses here, but Ido have a measure of control over this community. It is my privilege to protect it from threats.”
The rustle of leaves behind Justine revealed the hiding place where the littles waited. Their presence went far to remind Chastity why she was doing this—both controlling her temper and mainstreaming.
They deserve a home.
“There you are, Chas.” Alison walked into the room. “I wanted to tell you that Damek arrived while you were out and discuss the schedule for the next step, but here you are . . . and with a guest.”
Alison smiled in such a disturbingly friendly way that Chastity realized that they were not going to resolve this politely.
At all.
Before Alison turned her attention to Justine, she walked over to stand beside Chastity, put one hand on her hip and the other on Chastity’s shoulder, and said, “Rave? Remy? I see you.”
The littles came out from behind a cluster of leafy potted plants; their movements were in perfect synchronicity. Raven tilted her head, and Remus stared fixedly at Alison. They didn’t move away, though.
“Why don’t you go find us something interesting to eat?” Alison said softly.
The littles zipped toward the door too quickly to be mistaken for anything remotely human. Chastity pursed her lips, but said nothing.
Justine’s eyes widened. “They’re... quick.”
***
With her temper barely hidden, Alison turned to face the human who had caused such turmoil in the nest. “Oh, you have no idea.”
She was a perfectly serviceable human. Her hair was a soft brown, and her eyes were a glimmery blue. Like the rocks I can’t ever find. Alison tilted her head and assessed the woman further. She trembled some; fear was such a primal thing.
“I probably should go.” Justine’s voice quivered so slightly that it was almost unnoticeable, but Alison had spent centuries reading the nearly imperceptible cues of humans. Justine continued, “I simply wanted to stop in and let you know that there is no need for you to attend the meeting.”
She stood and then paused.
“Stay. I’d like to discuss the fence.” Alison stepped toward Justine. “My sister is surprisingly . . . normal. She dates males, works in some sort of... What is it you do, Chas?”
“Technical writing.” Chastity obviously heard the dangerous edge in Alison’s voice; she came to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Alison.
“Right. Tedious normal things. I, however, am not quite as civilized.”
“Alison.” Chastity reached out for Alison’s hand and pulled her away from Justine. She smiled reassuringly at the now visibly nervous human and said, “Please forgive my sister. She’s a bit overprotective.”
Justine looked from one to the other. “I don’t think I like your attitude, Miss Faolchu.” She visibly composed herself. Her shoulders straightened, and she smoothed her sleeves down. “I will be going now.”
“No. I don’t think you should, Justine.” Alison glanced at Chastity and said quietly, “Leash me or step back.”
Chastity shot her another quelling look, but she did not order her to stop.
Alison looped an arm around Justine’s waist. The ARB chairperson stiffened and attempted to pull away, but Alison kept her arm where it was. “Did Chastity tell you about the work Mr. Vaduva is doing? Today is his first day here, but we’re very excited about the project.”
At that, Justine paused. “Damek Vaduva? Here?”
“The same.”
“I’ve seen his work in Architectural Digest and Metropolitan Home and.. He’s a genius.”
“Would you like to meet him?” With her free arm, Alison gestured toward the stairway leading to the lower level.
“Justine has a meeting to attend,” Chastity said.
A
lison glanced at her sister. “Of course... the meeting. Chastity is going to that meeting, too. Maybe you could ride over together. She’s hoping to petition the board for approval for the fence, so maybe you could discuss it on the way.”
Justine looked toward the stairwell. “I suppose I could miss one meeting.”
“I don’t think that’s fair,” Chastity said. “If you aren’t even there to hear my petition—”
“You can talk to me while I’m here,” Justine amended. “I was the only one objecting, but I can see now that you have good taste... perhaps, I could reconsider my stance. I mean, if Vaduva is here. Heis really here?”
“Come meet him. Then call your committee. Maybe afterward you can talk to Damek. He’s been nattering on about some architectural trip that he’s leading..”
“Damek. You call him Damek?” Justine whispered.
“We come from the same place.” Alison shrugged. “Not family, mind you, but we have an old connection.”
Alison saw Chastity stiffen at the mention of Damek coming from the same place, but she did not ask the question she so obviously wanted to. She wouldn’t in front of outsiders.
“Come downstairs, Chas.” Alison held out her free hand. “You should meet Damek.”
Silently, Chastity accepted Alison’s hand. She squeezed it briefly, and then she opened the door to the basement. “I’m glad we’re able to work this out, Justine.”
“Of course.” The ARB chair sounded positively friendly now. She smiled as she started down the stairs.
***
At the foot of the stairs, Chastity stood silent as Alison introduced Justine to Damek Vaduva. She wasn’t prepared for the way he looked at her; the familiarity of his assessment made her blush like a far younger Bori. He didn’t speak to her, not yet. Instead he listened as Justine gushed at him, senseless words about his artistry, about how she had tried to get an appointment but was callously rebuffed.
“It’s almost unfortunate,” Chastity said quietly. She caught her sister’s gaze. “You didn’t tell me he was from home. I didn’t know there were any traditional builders here.”
“You can tell me to cease,” Alison reminded her. “You make the final decisions.”