Chapter 19 Drew #2
Tess said: "She has been working on it. She is six and a half months now. She is. Drew. Her first word might not be mama or dada. Her first word might be Drew. I am not going to argue."
I said: "Tess."
"Yes."
"That is. Tess. That is a giving."
"It is."
"From Auriel."
"From Auriel."
"To me."
"To you."
"I am going to."
"You are going to take it."
"Yes."
"Good."
I held the lunch.
I looked at Cora.
Cora was smiling.
I said: "Cora."
"Yes."
"I am at the inside of the camp."
"You are."
"I am going to be at Brecca's medical tent every morning at oh-six-hundred for the next year."
"You are."
"I am going to be Sylvia's third."
"You are."
"I am going to be Rael's mentee on the Veron-integration."
"You are."
"I am going to be the model for the next Veron-equivalent person who walks into the camp."
"You are."
"Cora."
"Yes."
"That is a lot."
"It is."
"I am okay with it."
"Yes."
"I am. Cora. I have spent eleven years at the southern edge. I am ready for the center."
"Yes."
We ate lunch.
After lunch I went back to the medical tent.
Veron came in at fifteen-hundred. Veron was holding the small canvas roll he had been carrying for six years.
His integration-papers, hand-written, the cohort-handshake records and the post-Tyvor cohort-signatures and the small recorded statement Rael had drafted for him at oh-eight-hundred this morning.
Veron was apprehensive. Veron was polite.
Veron was doing the not-cost-anyone-anything thing.
He stopped at the door.
He did not come in until Brecca said: "Veron. Come in."
Then he came in.
He stood at the door for another moment.
He looked at me. He looked at Brecca. He looked at Sebastian on the small cot at the south wall.
He looked at the wash basin. He looked at the medicine cabinet.
He looked at the long table. He looked at the instrument tray.
The looking took maybe forty seconds. The looking was the Lucian-thing where Veron's eyes did the inventory of the room before Veron let his body cross the threshold of the room.
I had watched Rael do the same thing at the Mojave kitchen tent on his first dinner.
When Veron finished the looking, he came in.
He sat on the long table.
Brecca did the physical.
I assisted.
I assisted by holding the small instrument tray, by handing Brecca the next thing she needed before she had to ask, by being the second-pair-of-hands the way Sylvia had been the second-pair-of-hands for two years before Sylvia had become the redundancy. I assisted by being in the room.
Veron noticed.
Veron looked at me twice during the physical.
The first look was at the instrument tray.
The tray had three Lucian-relevant instruments Brecca had developed over the last year working with Rael: a thinner-than-standard auscultation cone for Lucian-heart-rate, the resting fourteen-beat rhythm requiring a quieter stethoscope; a small temperature probe calibrated for the lower-than-human Lucian body temperature; and a needle Brecca had ground down to a finer-than-surgical point for Lucian skin, which was tougher than human and required a sharper instrument to pierce cleanly.
Veron looked at the three instruments. Veron did not say anything.
Veron's bioluminescence did the small shift at the inner wrist where Lucian-emotion came up under the skin.
The shift was a small warm. The shift was a Lucian register of somebody has thought about my body before I arrived.
The second look was the one I had been waiting for.
The second look was the look Veron had given me when the small carving — Brecca had a small carving on her instrument tray, a wooden practice-suture-board that Rael had whittled for her last year, with a small Lucian-script word burned into the corner that meant practice — when Veron had noticed the carving and had said in his doubled-tonal voice, that is the practice-board script, who carved that, and Brecca had said, Rael, and Veron had looked at the carving and then at me, and the look had been the look of a Lucian who had just realized he was inside a camp where the medical tent had a Lucian-script practice-board and a half-Vampyren intern and a Lucian-half-blood baby and was going to be his home.
Veron's second look at me.
Veron's small bow at the throat.
I returned the bow.
The physical took an hour.
Veron passed. Veron was cleared for camp integration. Veron was to begin Rael's cohort-mentorship tomorrow.
Veron stood up.
He said to me, in his doubled-tonal voice: "Thank you."
I said: "You are welcome."
He went out.
Brecca looked at me.
Brecca said: "You are the model."
I said: "I am the model."
Brecca said: "Good."
She put the instrument tray away.
I helped her clean.
We worked together until the medical tent was the way she liked it.
She said: "Tomorrow oh-six-hundred."
I said: "Tomorrow oh-six-hundred."
I went out.
I went to the family tent. Our tent, the new one, between Crystal's and Tess's.
Cora was inside. She had the route map from the trip spread on the floor and was annotating it for the supply-cache-update report she would deliver to Loren tomorrow.
The annotations were in stacks of seven.
I did not comment on the sevens. The sevens were Cora's.
The sevens would always be Cora's. The sevens were a feature, not a bug.
I sat next to her.
I said: "Cora."
"Yes."
"Auriel said D-eh."
"I heard."
"You heard."
"The whole kitchen tent heard. The whole camp heard by sundown. The camp has been gossiping."
"Cora."
"Yes."
"What did Tess say."
"Tess said Auriel's first word is going to be Drew and I am not going to argue. Tess told Kal an hour ago. Kal cried for ten minutes. Kal is fine now. Kal is at the kitchen tent washing dishes because Kal needed something to do with his hands."
"Kal."
"Kal."
"Kal cried."
"Yes."
"For ten minutes."
"For ten minutes."
I sat with that.
After a while I said: "Cora."
"Yes."
"That is the giving."
"It is."
"Auriel."
"Yes."
"To me."
"Yes."
"Auriel does not know what she is giving."
"No. But the gift is the gift. Auriel does not need to know. Tess knows. Kal knows. The camp knows. You know. The gift is the giving. The giving is the count. The count is the people."
"Cora."
"Yes."
"I count three now. Auriel. Deedee. Cora. And Talia. Who I never met. Cora's seventh. The one she gave me to hold."
She went very still.
She said: "Drew."
"Yes."
"That is."
"Yes."
"You said Talia."
"I did."
"You said her name."
"Yes."
She put her hand on my hand on the route map.
She said: "Thank you."
"You are welcome."
She did not say anything else for a moment. The annotations on the map sat where they were. The sevens were the sevens. The four-name count was the four-name count. Auriel and Deedee and Cora were the three Drew counted. Talia was the fourth that Drew had been given.
I leaned my head against her shoulder.
She kept annotating.
The sevens on the map were the sevens.
The count was holding.
Outside, the camp went about its evening.
Tomorrow would be Veron's first day inside the camp.
Tomorrow would be my second day at the medical tent.
Tomorrow would be the day Patrick became the next operation; Loren had told me at lunch that the council would meet at oh-eight-hundred about the Patrick rescue.
Tomorrow would be the day Deedee started the schoolhouse.
Six years old, three years out, but Cora had been working with her in the family tent and Deedee had been ready, and Cora had told Crystal at lunch that she would be Deedee's teacher. Tomorrow.
Today was the today.
Today Auriel said D-eh.
Today was enough.
I sat with Cora.
The light through the canvas was the gold-and-rust late-afternoon light the Mojave produced.
The light was the same light that had been on Cora's face the morning we had left the camp twenty-five days ago.
The light was the same light.
The light was not the same light.
I was different. The light was different. The same was different. The not-same was different. The two things were both true.
I closed my eyes.
I leaned against Cora.
I rested.
* * *
Cora
He fell asleep against my shoulder for forty minutes.
He had been holding the leaning the way Drew held everything — careful, not weight-shifted, like he had not yet decided whether his head being on my shoulder was something he was allowed to do beyond a count of three.
After two minutes his breathing slowed to the eight-per-minute half-Vampyren rate.
After five his shoulders dropped. After ten the careful was gone and the leaning was just the leaning.
He was asleep. He had done nine hours at the medical tent and had assisted Veron's integration physical and had been the model and had held Sebastian and had heard Auriel say D-eh and had told me, on the route map, that the count was four. The body had spent itself.
I let him sleep.
I kept annotating. The seven-folded fuel-cache columns moved across the page in small precise increments. The pencil was the pencil. The map was the map. The shoulder under his head was the shoulder.
At sundown the canvas went the gold-and-rust the Mojave produced.
The light moved across the tent floor and onto the shelf.
The two Steinbecks caught it. The chipped diner mug caught it.
The Polaroid caught it. The seven-burn-mark on the carving caught it.
The light moved across Drew's hand where it rested on the route map next to mine.
He woke at the light's shift. The shift was a small thing. He woke anyway. He had been training himself for nine years to wake at light-shifts. The training did not turn off because the light-shift was the light-shift inside a tent he was now allowed to sleep in.
He sat up.
He said: "Cora."
I said: "Drew."
"I slept on you."
"You did."
"I did not mean to."
"I know."
"I am not sorry."
"You are not allowed to be sorry. That is the rule of the tent. The tent does not have sorry inside it."
He smiled.