“Torp tid tima tam—time be fluid and free. Torp tid timatime—guide thevodand thevodvodaway from me.”
The sound of the sirens quieted, and they had a moment to breathe.
Rissa whispered, “Are you stopping time?”
“No, child,” Abigail said. “No one can stop time, or even slow it down, but I can muddy it. I can whip it up into whirls and eddies that seem to lead somewhere, but don’t.”
Rissa seemed confused, and in that moment, Abigail was struck with how much she looked like Frannie, and how muchthe both of them looked like Sage, Paisley’s mother. An idea popped into her mind.
“Here’s what we’re going to do,” she said.
She knelt at Frannie’s head and lifted it gently, then grasped at the air with her hand open, pullingvvystfrom nothing, winding it around Frannie’s eyes and mouth like invisible tape, speaking soft words of containment and fortification. Once finished, Abigail tapped on Frannie’s forehead, and the girl’s features liquidly changed, until she looked even more like Sage. Rissa gasped and put a hand to her mouth, her eyes big. Abigail tapped again on Frannie’s sternum, and this time her breasts and hips filled out, and her legs lengthened two inches. Rissa and Mina both watched with identical looks of horrified disbelief on their faces.
“When thevodget here,” Abigail said, addressing Mina, “You tell them this is the girl’s mother, and she collapsed from the strain. They’ll call an ambulance and take her to the hospital… and we’ll figure it out from there. We’ll switch Rissa and Frannie, or we’ll—”
“Me?” Mina interrupted. “I have to talk to thevod?”
“Yes you, of course you,” Abigail snapped. “It happened in your yard, and you’re the one who says—” Abigail imitated Mina’s voice, ‘Frannie was right to call thevod, you know.’
Mina and Rissa gave her identical scandalized expressions. Abigail stared them down.
“You’re talking to them and that’s that. I’ll prepare you.” She pointed at the house. “Now go get your emergency drink.”
Mina only stared while the sound of the sirens swelled closer again.
“What’s the matter with you, girl? Go get it.”
Rissa jumped up and ran for the house saying, “I’ve got some in my purse.” She was back in no time with a small glass bottle. The label on it said, ‘liquid multivitamin’, but it was fullof a special concoction Abigail made and distributed once a year and would make anyfoxenscent like a human for a full 24 hours.
“Take a full dose, both of you.”
“Me?” Rissa said, dropping the bottle in the grass and clutching her throat. “Not me.”
Abigail’s hands itched to slap the girl. Stupid—all of them.
“You’ll do what you’re told,” she hissed.
Rissa stared with hooded eyes, but she didn’t protest anymore.
“Later, if we need it, you’ll pretend you’re Sage,” Abigail told her, jabbing her pointer finger at Rissa.
Rissa clutched her throat. “Deardeae, I’ve never talked to avodbefore.”
“If we’re lucky, you won’t have to today either.Now drink.”
Rissa opened the bottle, then tipped her head back and dropped the dose into her mouth.Vvystpuffed up in the outline of her body for just a moment, then dissipated. She handed it to Mina and Mina did the same, with the same result. Abigail didn’t need to give any to Frannie, because she, like Paisley and Sage, scented human already.
“What’s the closest ‘safe place’ to the hospital?”
“Marnes Mansion,” Rissa and Mina said together.
Abigail pointed at Rissa. “You go there now and stay available.”
Rissa backed away, nodding.
“Thevodwill come up GailAnne Circle,” Abigail told her. “You take the dirt road or the riverbed and make sure nobody sees you. If you have to abandon your car, do it. There’s bikes stashed on—”
“I know where they are, and where all the cars are too.”
