Page 24 of Mislaid in Parts Half-Known

Then they were charging into the dimness under the first level of the jungle canopy, and a ghost was dropping down from the branches to meet them.

Antsy was pale, the kind of white that looked like paper next to most people; all her color was in her freckles, and it had been that way for as long as she could remember. Cora was a few shades darker, with a greenish tan that was still technically within the human range of skin tones, although it was pushing the absolute limits of what that term could mean. Sumi, Kade, and Christopher were varying shades ofpale to medium brown, while Emily was the darkest of the group, with deep brown skin that seemed almost the polar opposite of Antsy’s… at least until the ghost appeared.

Thisgirl—for it was a girl, about Kade’s age, tall and slender and delicate, as long as one didn’t focus on the visible muscles of her thighs or shoulders, which were sharply defined and spoke to a life of constant physical effort—was so pale that she seemed to glow in the shadows, too white to be real. If Emily was anyone’s opposite, it was hers. It didn’t help that the girl’s hair was the same color: platinum blonde, short and ragged, as if she had been cutting it with the wicked-looking bone knife that hung at her belt.

She was dressed in a tunic of sorts, made from what looked like pebbled alligator hide, red with bands of gold. The sides were held together with sinew knots, and her belt was braided strips of shed reptile skin. Her feet were bare.

“Emily!” she squealed, and the two girls crashed into one another in a tight embrace.

“Holy what the hell is going on here?” asked Kade.

“Emily whistled and called a ghost out of the trees and the ghost is really pretty and doesn’t need to share a dorm with me anymore and I’m going to seduce her,” said Sumi.

Kade gave her a sidelong look. She shrugged.

“What? It’s better to be upfront about these things when you can. Makes it more surprising when you can’t.”

Emily and the ghost had let each other go, and the ghost was turning to Cora, beaming. “Hi, Cora,” she said.

“Hi, Steph,” said Cora. “This is your dinosaur world, huh?”

“Uh-huh. I don’t know if it has a name—the locals aren’t big on naming things just yet—so I call it Rodinia, after the supercontinent before Pangaea. Maybe they’ll call it something else someday, when my bones are in one of their museums, frightening children, or maybe they’ll never get that far. Maybe the comet comes tomorrow, and my bones are used by Creationists to try to sell the idea of some all-powerful god. I’m dead either way, so I don’t much care.”

“Dead here?” asked Emily.

Stephanie nodded, pale blue eyes solemn. “Yes, dead here. I’m sure. I was sure when Sumi found me that door on Confection—hi, Sumi, we’ll talk about that seduction comment in a little bit, after you tell me what you’re all doing here—and I’ve stayed sure ever since. I was only unsure the first time because I hadn’t said goodbye to my parents. Well, they packed me off to Whitethorn, so now I’m sure I don’t owe them anything. Try to conversion-therapy me into someone I’m not, see if I ever do anything nice for you ever again.”

“So you’re staying,” said Cora. “Won’t you get lonely?”

“What? Why would I get— Oh. You think just because there’s no mammals here, I’m all by myself. Well, that’s not true at all.” Stephanie turned around, put her fingers in her mouth, and whistled, a different tone than the one she’d used to answer Emily.

Something in the jungle answered her, a high, inquisitive trill.

“Everyone be very, very still, and stay quiet,” she said, just as the first tall figure emerged from the brush and started toward them.

“I am going to punch Michael Crichton in the mouth so hard,” said Sumi, voice awed.

“He’s dead,” said Cora.

“Just means he won’t fight back.”

The creatures approaching through the foliage shared a shape with Crichton’s velociraptors, being tall, long-tailedraptor-type dinosaurs. That was where the resemblance stopped.

Their bodies were covered in iridescent feathers as filled with rainbows as the skies of Prism or the oil-slick sheen of Cora’s hair, deep jewel tones shifting with every motion of their bodies. They moved like birds did, heads remaining steady even as they bobbed at the end of long, sinuous necks. Their lower legs, upper arms, and lips were bare and scaled, exposing teeth and talons, but there was a bright intelligence in their amber eyes. They knew and understood the world around them.

The largest moved to stand next to Stephanie, bumping her shoulder with the tip of its snout and making an inquisitive warbling sound. Stephanie warbled back, then rubbed the top of the dinosaur’s feathered head, looking back to the cluster of humans.

“This is my family now,” she said. “They don’t care that I don’t have feathers, or that I make weird noises and smell strange. I’ve learned enough of their language for us to communicate, and they’re glad I’m here with them. They’re my family, and they love me.”

The dinosaur bumped her shoulder again.

“They’re afraid I’ll go with you, since I vanished once before, and I think that forthisworld, I’m the start of stories about children falling through doors.” She laughed. “I get to be the foundation of a myth! How sick is that?”

“Pretty cool,” agreed Kade, sounding bewildered.

Emily, who had been Stephanie’s roommate longer than either Cora or Sumi, who had been there during the desperate flight from Whitethorn, looked at her gravely. “You’re sure, then. This is still what you want?”

“As if I didn’t seem sure enough when I left you all in Candyland so I could go home to my family, where I belonged?” Stephanie spread her arms. “There’s no electricity here. No running water, no modern medicine, no internet. No grocery store or coffee. And I have never been happier. This is where Ibelong.”

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