Fledgling(53)

“Who are they? Do you have any idea?”

“We don’t know who they are, but we killed some of them when they attacked us.” And I repeated, “We’ll tell you all we can.”

“How did you survive?”

I sighed. “Call your brothers and your fathers from the shadows, and let’s go into your house and talk.”

His fathers and brothers had gathered around us in near silence and just far enough away to prevent my symbionts from seeing them. They were listening and sampling our scents and looking us over. I didn’t see that it would do them any harm to examine us in comfort and with courtesy.

Perhaps Daniel thought so, too. He turned, opened his door, switched on a light, and stood aside. “Come in, Shori,” he said. “Be welcome.”

We went up the steps into the house, into a large room of dark wood and deep green wallpaper. A large flat-screen television set covered much of one end wall. Beneath it on shelves was a large collection of tapes and DVDs. At the opposite end of the room was a massive stone fireplace. Along one side wall there were three windows, each as big as the front door, and between them and alongside them, there were tall bookcases filled with books. On the other side wall there were photographs, dozens of them, some in black and white, some in color, most of them of outdoor scenes—woods, rivers, huge trees, rock cliffs, waterfalls. They would have been beautiful if they had not been so crowded together.

There were a great many chairs and little tables around the room. We and the brothers and fathers who came in after us found places to sit. Wright, Celia, Brook, and I sat together on a pair of two-person seats at the fireplace end of the room. The fathers and brothers Gordon sat around us, surrounding us on three sides, crowding us. Our world was suddenly filled with tall, pale, vaguely menacing, spidery men, and I was annoyed with them for being even vaguely menacing and scaring my symbionts. I watched them, wondering why I was not afraid. They seemed to want me to be afraid. They stared at the four of us in silence that was as close to hostile as silence could be. Or maybe they only wanted my symbionts to be afraid.

My symbionts were afraid. Even Wright was afraid, although he tried to hide it. He couldn’t hide his scent, though. Celia and Brook didn’t try to hide their fear at all.

I looked at Daniel who sat nearest to me. “Do you believe that I or my people murdered my families?”

He stared back at me. “We don’t know what happened.”

“I didn’t ask you what you knew. I asked whether you believe that I or my people murdered my families?”

He glanced back at his fathers and brothers. “I don’t. I don’t even believe you could have.”

“Then stop scaring my symbionts. If you have questions, ask them.”

“You’re a child,” one of the older men said. “And the two women with you are not your symbionts.”

I looked at him with disgust. He had already heard me answer this. I repeated the answer exactly: “They were my father’s and my brother Stefan’s. They’re with me now.”

“You don’t have to keep them,” he said. “They can have a home here … if you took them only out of duty.”

“They’re with me now,” I repeated.

The older man took a deep breath. “All right,” he said. “Tell us what you know, Shori.” And the pressure on us eased somehow, as it had when the guns were lowered outside. I felt it, even though I hadn’t been afraid. I looked at my symbionts and saw that they felt it, too. They were relaxing a little.

I turned back to face the Gordons and sighed. After a moment of gathering my thoughts, I summarized the things that had happened to me. I talked about awakening amnesiac in the cave, about Hugh Tang, finding the ruin, finding Wright, and later finding my father, who told me that the ruin had been the community of my mothers, then losing my father and all of his community except Celia and Brook, going to the Arlington house and almost dying there, discovering that our attackers were all human …

One of the Gordons interrupted to ask, “Were you able to question any of them?”

I shook my head. “We killed several of them. The rest escaped. We only just escaped ourselves. The fire had attracted attention, and I didn’t want to have to deal with firemen or the police.”

“You weren’t seen,” Daniel said. “Or if you were, it’s being kept very secret. There’s been nothing in the media about cars escaping the scene, and none of the sources my fathers created have phoned to tell us about anyone escaping. The police seem very frustrated.”

“Good,” I said. “I mean I didn’t know whether or not we were seen. We spent the next night in our cars in the woods. Then, because Brook had been here once, I thought I could get her to bring us back here.”

A Gordon who looked about fifty and who was, almost certainly, one of the two oldest people present spoke with quiet courtesy: “May we question your symbionts?” He had a British accent. I had heard BBC reporters on Wright’s radio back at the cabin talking the way this man did.

I looked at Celia and Brook, then at Wright. “It’s all right,” I said. “Tell them whatever they want to know.” They looked alert but not afraid or even uncomfortable. I nodded to the older man. “All right,” I said. “By the way, what’s your name?”