Lost in the Moment and Found (Wayward Children #8)(16)

Antsy stared after him. Her eyes were starting to hurt from all the staring she’d been doing. The smell of the flower still hung in the air, luscious and inviting. She hadn’t meant for Hudson to take it away from her the way he had. She’d been intending to keep it for a little while, as a reminder of how ridiculous this whole night was.

She frowned, and kept frowning as she turned back to the door. One more flower couldn’t hurt anything …

The door stuck again, resisting her until she really committed to pulling on the knob, and when it finally did swing open, it was on something completely different, entirely new, although there was again the smell of ozone, again the feeling of serenity. There was no jungle. There was no parking lot, either. Instead, a vast outdoor market stretched in front of her, stalls packed tight together and teeming with people. At least she thought they were people. She’d never seen people with fur before, or people colored blue and purple, a whole spectrum of those two colors. They had ears and tails like cats, but they wore long robes patterned in triangles and sharp lines to contrast with the rosettes on their bodies.

As she watched, a child ran up to one of the larger cat-people, a bundle of what looked like electric pink grapes in its hand-paws. It offered the “grapes” to the adult, who plucked one and ate it before patting the child indulgently on the head.

Antsy began to swing the door shut. A hand from behind her stopped it, and she looked over her shoulder to see Vineta standing there. “No, not right away,” she said. “It’s been some time since we’ve seen a proper market, and I could use a great deal of fruit. Hudson! Do you recognize this one?”

“Mmmm … Dejaniran, I’d say, from the shape of them,” said Hudson. “Generally safe for women and children, not a good idea for me. They’re hunters, and I’m likely to suit their idea of prey.”

“Then it’s your turn to watch the door. Wait here, Antoinette. Don’t live up to your nickname just yet.” Vineta vanished into the rows of shelves. Antsy could tell her general location from the sound of rattling and rustling, right up until Vineta popped back into view, now carrying two large wicker baskets. She offered one to Antsy, who hesitated before taking it, not seeing any way out of the situation that didn’t involve running screaming into the impossible market.

“Good girl,” said Vineta approvingly. “Now, a few ground rules: if this isn’t Dejanira, it’s close enough to Dejanira that the people are probably very like the Dejaniran, meaning you mustn’t run or move too quickly, ever. Movement attracts and excites them, and the young ones especially are inclined to pounce on anything that catches their eyes. The older ones will have learned better manners, but they’ll still be interested if you move too quickly, and we’re about to be uninvited guests. Do you understand?”

“Not even a little bit,” said Antsy.

That appeared to be the correct answer, because Vineta nodded and handed her an envelope filled with coins that clanked against each other in unfamiliar ways. The weight of them was satisfying, even if she couldn’t possibly have guessed how much money she now held.

“We’re going shopping,” said Vineta. “I know what we need; your job is finding what we don’t know we need yet, since you’ll have no preconceptions about what can be bought at a market like this one.”

Antsy blinked slowly. “What do you mean?”

“I mean if something catches your eye, buy it and put it in your basket, and when your basket is full, return to the Door. Hudson will make sure it doesn’t close. Nothing alive, please, sometimes those don’t handle the transition well, as you clearly haven’t. Now come along, we have no idea what the market hours are.” Vineta stepped through the door and started toward the first rank of stalls, not looking back to verify that Antsy was following.

Antsy didn’t want to follow a woman she’d only just met through a mysterious door and into a market filled with cat-people who might chase her if she got excited and moved too fast, both things she was profoundly inclined to do. She also didn’t want to stay behind, alone, with a talking bird when she’d only have to deal with Vineta upon the woman’s return. She stepped cautiously through the doorway.

Putting her first foot through felt the same way it had in the jungle, like she was just taking a step. Putting her second foot through was harder, like she was trying to drag her body through the thickest soap bubble she had ever encountered. But after only a few seconds, she was through, and when she looked back, the open door was still there, with the shop behind it, just … faded somehow, made faint and unobtrusive. Cat-people should have been staring at it, thronging for this impossible thing that had opened in their midst, and instead they were going about their business, ignoring it completely.

Vineta was already gone, swallowed by the crowd, which seemed less like a movie and more like a real thing now that Antsy was actually a part of it. The people had a smell. Not an unpleasant one, but a smell like a cat that had been out in the afternoon sun for hours, baking sunlight into its fur. They smelled hot and vital and alive and real. They weren’t the only smell in the air, either. A cacophony of fruits and flowers tickled her nose, and under them was the sweet, almost-familiar scent of baking bread.

Her mouth watered and her stomach grumbled, and she turned, almost without intending it, to follow the smell of baking deeper into the maze of stalls.