Chaos Choreography
Page 13
THE REST OF THE HOUSE WAS AWAKE by the time we made it out of the room. There was no single thing that made it apparent that sleep time was over—nobody ran a flag up a pole or played the bugle—but there was a soft, almost indefinable difference in the air between a wakeful house and a sleeping one.
We descended the stairs to the living room, me in front, Dominic a step behind. Antimony was curled up in the corner of the couch, laptop balanced on her knees, noise-blocking headphones covering her ears, and eyes glued to a roller derby video. I stepped into her peripheral vision and waved. She glanced at me and jerked her chin upward in the briefest of possible motions. I mimed removing headphones. She frowned and shook her head “no.” I mimed removing headphones again, this time more forcefully. Antimony heaved a sigh so heavy that it seemed to come all the way from her toes and pressed “pause” on her video before pulling the headphones down to hang around her neck.
“What?” she demanded.
“Family meeting,” I said.
“Is this about the Nessie you had Dad move last night? Because he sent me video. Pretty thing. Wish I’d been there. Meeting over, nice talking to you, have a wonderful day.” She started to turn back to her laptop.
“No, it’s not about the plesiosaur,” I said, before she could put her headphones back on. “But it is about a project that might get me and Dominic out of the house for two months or so.”
Antimony perked up. “Really? Aw, but I like Dominic.” She put her laptop on the cushion next to her, unplugging the headphones and leaving them around her neck like an odd fashion statement. “Family meeting it is. Mom and Dad are in the kitchen making waffles for the mice.”
“Are they also making waffles for the humans?” asked Dominic hopefully.
I gave him an amused look. “Didn’t you just inhale an egg and toaster waffle sandwich like, four hours ago?”
“Yes, but if I’m not permitted sufficient sleep, I’ll have to bolster myself with additional meals. It’s the only way to keep me functional until you allow me a full night’s rest.” Dominic managed to make this sound reasonable, like he wasn’t asking for anything more than he deserved.
Antimony rolled her eyes. “Um, ew, all right? Keep it in your bedroom.” She turned and stalked off toward the kitchen.
Dominic blinked. “What did she think I meant? I was talking about how late we were out last night dealing with the plesiosaur. She shouldn’t have expected to see us before noon.”
“I know, honey,” I said, giving him an affectionate pat on the arm. “Let’s go get you some waffles.”
This seems like a good time to take a second to explain the Price family.
See, up until five generations ago, we were good, obedient members of the Covenant of St. George, an organization I’ve mentioned a few times, dedicated to wiping out all “unnatural” life on the planet. The Covenant defines “unnatural” as “not appearing on the Ark,” which is both narrow and arbitrary, since no one’s ever heard of an actual list of what may or may not have been on a boat that may or may not have existed. My great-great-grandparents, Enid and Alexander Healy, quit the Covenant and moved from England to Michigan when they realized how arbitrary it was. Since they had a lot of guns, the Covenant mostly left them alone after that.
Note the word “mostly.” My grandfather, Thomas Price, was sent to Michigan to check on the Healys several decades later, where he promptly met and fell in love with Enid and Alexander’s granddaughter, Alice. They got married and had two kids, he got sucked into a hole in the fabric of reality, and she dove in after him. Just your ordinary love story, right?
Alice and Thomas’ daughter, Jane, married Theodore Harrington, a nice incubus with surprisingly pure intentions. They have two kids, Elsinore and Arthur—my cousins Elsie and Artie. We get along, mostly.
Alice and Thomas’ son, Kevin, married Evelyn Baker, my mother, who’s sweet, friendly, and was raised by her adoptive parents in Columbus, Ohio. Her mother, Angela, is a cuckoo, the same sort of telepathic cryptid as Sarah. Her father, Martin, is a Revenant, a sort of amalgam of resurrected people parts. Or, as I like to call them, Grandma and Grandpa. Since cuckoos and Revenants can’t have children—something about cuckoos being giant telepathic wasps who just look like humans, and Revenants being, y’know, partially dead—they adopted all three of their kids. Mom came from a human orphanage; Uncle Drew had been orphaned by a gas leak in the bogeyman community where his parents lived. Cousin Sarah joined the family much later, when Grandma found her in a storm drain. Totally normal, right?
We descended the stairs to the living room, me in front, Dominic a step behind. Antimony was curled up in the corner of the couch, laptop balanced on her knees, noise-blocking headphones covering her ears, and eyes glued to a roller derby video. I stepped into her peripheral vision and waved. She glanced at me and jerked her chin upward in the briefest of possible motions. I mimed removing headphones. She frowned and shook her head “no.” I mimed removing headphones again, this time more forcefully. Antimony heaved a sigh so heavy that it seemed to come all the way from her toes and pressed “pause” on her video before pulling the headphones down to hang around her neck.
“What?” she demanded.
“Family meeting,” I said.
“Is this about the Nessie you had Dad move last night? Because he sent me video. Pretty thing. Wish I’d been there. Meeting over, nice talking to you, have a wonderful day.” She started to turn back to her laptop.
“No, it’s not about the plesiosaur,” I said, before she could put her headphones back on. “But it is about a project that might get me and Dominic out of the house for two months or so.”
Antimony perked up. “Really? Aw, but I like Dominic.” She put her laptop on the cushion next to her, unplugging the headphones and leaving them around her neck like an odd fashion statement. “Family meeting it is. Mom and Dad are in the kitchen making waffles for the mice.”
“Are they also making waffles for the humans?” asked Dominic hopefully.
I gave him an amused look. “Didn’t you just inhale an egg and toaster waffle sandwich like, four hours ago?”
“Yes, but if I’m not permitted sufficient sleep, I’ll have to bolster myself with additional meals. It’s the only way to keep me functional until you allow me a full night’s rest.” Dominic managed to make this sound reasonable, like he wasn’t asking for anything more than he deserved.
Antimony rolled her eyes. “Um, ew, all right? Keep it in your bedroom.” She turned and stalked off toward the kitchen.
Dominic blinked. “What did she think I meant? I was talking about how late we were out last night dealing with the plesiosaur. She shouldn’t have expected to see us before noon.”
“I know, honey,” I said, giving him an affectionate pat on the arm. “Let’s go get you some waffles.”
This seems like a good time to take a second to explain the Price family.
See, up until five generations ago, we were good, obedient members of the Covenant of St. George, an organization I’ve mentioned a few times, dedicated to wiping out all “unnatural” life on the planet. The Covenant defines “unnatural” as “not appearing on the Ark,” which is both narrow and arbitrary, since no one’s ever heard of an actual list of what may or may not have been on a boat that may or may not have existed. My great-great-grandparents, Enid and Alexander Healy, quit the Covenant and moved from England to Michigan when they realized how arbitrary it was. Since they had a lot of guns, the Covenant mostly left them alone after that.
Note the word “mostly.” My grandfather, Thomas Price, was sent to Michigan to check on the Healys several decades later, where he promptly met and fell in love with Enid and Alexander’s granddaughter, Alice. They got married and had two kids, he got sucked into a hole in the fabric of reality, and she dove in after him. Just your ordinary love story, right?
Alice and Thomas’ daughter, Jane, married Theodore Harrington, a nice incubus with surprisingly pure intentions. They have two kids, Elsinore and Arthur—my cousins Elsie and Artie. We get along, mostly.
Alice and Thomas’ son, Kevin, married Evelyn Baker, my mother, who’s sweet, friendly, and was raised by her adoptive parents in Columbus, Ohio. Her mother, Angela, is a cuckoo, the same sort of telepathic cryptid as Sarah. Her father, Martin, is a Revenant, a sort of amalgam of resurrected people parts. Or, as I like to call them, Grandma and Grandpa. Since cuckoos and Revenants can’t have children—something about cuckoos being giant telepathic wasps who just look like humans, and Revenants being, y’know, partially dead—they adopted all three of their kids. Mom came from a human orphanage; Uncle Drew had been orphaned by a gas leak in the bogeyman community where his parents lived. Cousin Sarah joined the family much later, when Grandma found her in a storm drain. Totally normal, right?
