“Is this all of us?” Abraham said.
Dotty answered, “Except Robert and Foster.”
As if on cue, the door opened and Foster First lumbered into the room. He was just as tall and colorless as when I’d met him on the street, his long black coat lined with yellow that matched the yellow stitches over almost every inch of his skin and scars.
The room went silent.
And then Bede came through the other door. “Foster!” she squealed. “You’re here!” She jogged across the room and threw herself into his arms, hugging him tight.
“Bede,” he breathed in a voice made of gravel and thunder.
“I am so happy to see you.” She leaned back a bit to look up into his red eyes. “Are you happy to see me?”
His mouth pulled up in a crooked smile. “Yes.” He patted her back fondly, and she let go of him.
Then each person in the room took turns walking up to him and greeting him.
It was like watching an elder or a holy man come to visit.
I was the last to say hello. Abraham walked with me.
“Foster First,” he said. “This is Matilda Case. She is the thirteenth.”
Foster searched my face, his own expression blank and unreadable. “Matilda Thirteenth,” he intoned. “I have known you as a child.”
“Are you sure?” I asked.
But he only bowed to me, then paced over to the couch they’d left open for him, his footsteps heavy despite the lush carpet and padding.
Dotty handed me a glass of water. “Don’t worry about Foster,” she said. “Words aren’t easy for him. He didn’t mean any slight by it.”
“Do you know what he meant? How he knew me?”
She glanced over at the big man who was accepting a glass of lemonade from Loy. “Maybe you remind him of a girl from his first life. It’s difficult to say. Out of all of us, he has suffered the most.”
Even though Dotty didn’t say it, I thought I knew why Foster recognized me. I was alive, or at least this body of mine was alive, all those years ago. I wondered whom she had been before she fell asleep, never to wake, until I was stitched into her body and mind.
The conversation geared back up to friendly levels, and just shortly after, there was a knock on the door.
A woman opened it and cheerfully announced that the stage was set and if everyone was ready, it was time to attend. Dotty thanked her and shut the door.
“What about Robert?” Vance asked. “Has anyone heard from him?”
I glanced at Abraham, who shook his head, his hands tucked into loose fists. “I haven’t.”
Buck pushed up off the couch. “Well, Slater Orange keeps a damn tight leash. He’ll be here when he can, I’m sure.”
Everyone exited the room through the private hallway. At the end of that hall was another hall, which eventually emptied out into the back of a stage.
There were maybe half a dozen civilians here who looked organized, helpful, and excited at being surrounded by almost all the world’s galvanized.
I stayed off to one side, as far away from the entrance to the actual stage as possible while one of the people went over the call-out schedule, which apparently would count down from Helen Eleventh to Foster First.
“Hey,” a spiky-haired man shouted at me. “What are you doing here? Galvanized only.” He started my way, but Abraham overtook him in four strides and placed his hand on his shoulder.
“She is here at my request,” he said.
The man stilled like a rodent in the grip of a hawk.
