“How’s this,” Jen said. “You told me mass is more important than distance. How about if I ask Bird or Doris if they’re willing to go from one side of the garden to the other with me? And if it works, I can take the girls, one at a time?”
“I’ve used the Gate along with a knight several times,” Joey said, clearly having heard the silent as well as the spoken conversation. “Try it with me.”
Jen put her hand on Joey’s shoulder and pictured her gazebo spot—and the two of them stumbled forward, nearly crashing into a potted hydrangea inside the gazebo. Just as when she’d transferred with Nikos, she got that weird sense of being shoved by an invisible hand. So having another person along really did make the difference.
“Now let’s try it with somewhere I haven’t seen first,” Jen said.
Joey took out his cell phone. “Just today one of my students forwarded a picture of a meditation garden she designed, maybe five miles from here. I know she’s at class right now. The location is secluded, the last house in a cul-de-sac.”
He handed her the phone. Jen bent over the photo, studying every detail. She fixed on a cracked tile in front of a big ceramic vase, gave a little hop as she thought herself there . . .
And there she was, a little dizzy for a moment as she breathed in the fragrance of herbs growing in neat rows behind a carving of a smiling Buddha.
I can do this, she thought in wonder. Then she realized she was standing in someone’s private yard uninvited, transferred herself back to the gazebo, and met the waiting faces. She felt Nikos’s relief, and saw Joey’s in his sudden smile.
When the girls emerged after their night’s sleep, Joey explained that they had to leave as soon as they’d eaten breakfast. Jen would take them home—where they were to bring the other hetairoi up to date.
Cleo’s eyes widened. Petra said softly, “Keraunos will come to the island once he knows we’re gone, won’t he.”
Jen was leaning against Nikos’s powerful shoulder. “Nikos wants to remind you that that’s home ground. As for your clothes and things, I promise I’ll bring them later. I’m also le
aving my own stuff for a second trip. We don’t want to risk extra mass while I transfer two people at once.”
Still, the girls were uncharacteristically quiet during breakfast. Afterward they said their thanks very properly and formally, then joined Jen on the terrace. While they ate, she had been studying a snapshot Nikos had on his cell.
Petra volunteered to go first. After all the tension and buildup, the actual transfer was the opposite of dramatic: one moment they were in California, the next in a climate more or less the same, but the scents of the countryside were far different. Jen got an impression of white stone throwing back late afternoon sunlight, then she transferred back.
Cleo was next. Though she was a bit smaller than Petra, this time when Jen returned, though she was alone, she felt that invisible fist a third time—and she sneezed, waving her hand before her face. The smell coming off her clothes threw her back to the days when she’d done all the ironing for her family: scorched cotton.
Mikhail had returned from patrolling his. “You now know the limits on your Transfer power,” Mikhail said calmly, when she reported the scorch smell. “Give it at least an hour. Longer, if you are at all tired or weakened.”
“I don’t feel bad, just . . . like I sat too long next to a fire,” Jen said.
“The qi needs to settle,” Joey replied. “But Nikos can’t transfer in unicorn form anyway. He’s too large.”
Jen said, “It will have to be right at sunset. I did it by accident last time. This time I know what I’m doing.”
Joey agreed.
Everyone dispersed to various tasks. Jen told Nikos she had something to do, and found her purse where Doris had left it when she and Bird had arrived following Jen’s first transfer.
Her phone still had half a charge. She hated lying to anyone important to her, even a small lie, and so she went to the side of the house, and called Master Reynaldo.
“Jen! How are you feeling?”
“I’m fine, but I called to say that I’m going to take a leave of absence. I can try to make it short, rather than leave you in the lurch . . .” She stopped there, realizing she didn’t want to lie, but she couldn’t tell the truth if he asked.
But after a few seconds, he said only, “I take it this involves the tall martial artist who’s the legal guardian of those two teens? Don’t answer if you don’t want to,” he added hastily.
“It’s okay. And it does.”
“Good.” Master Reynaldo’s voice warmed. “I know it’s none of my business, but the way he watched you the other day . . . well, let’s just say you deserve that kind of a break. We’ll miss you around here, but on the other hand, my wife told me this morning she hadn’t realized how much she misses teaching. You’re covered.”
They chatted a little more about the students and classes, then rang off, Jen feeling a whole lot better about leaving the studio. She wondered what Doris and Bird would say to Godiva about Jen’s vanishing—then decided it was better to let them handle it. They were right. It hurt, not telling old friends the truth.
But the secret—all these secrets—were not hers to share.
She got back to discover that Doris had arrived from her volunteer work at her synagogue. She, Bird, and Joey sat around as Joey began setting up the barbeque.