Rithmetic House, Chapter One

"...not our problem...institution...crazy...in a boarding school?...handle her...Whatever you want, Mister. Her parents don't care. Take her."         Faith pulled away from the door, smiling joylessly. Yup, there I go again. How did one get kicked out of a mentalinstitution? Unless I didn't get kicked out, and this school just wants to take me? Faith's smile broadened. Right. That's likely. She stepped back further as she heard footsteps approach the double doors, and watched as Mrs. Vivian came in with ahuge, harsh-faced black man with a tracing of faded black tattoos flowing around his upper arm. He was impressive-looking, physically, Faith had to admit. The man looked like he could probably lift a truck. Maybe they hope I can't scare him off. For a moment, the man just returned her stare.         "Faith, this is Mr. Greuster." Mrs. Vivian tried finally.         "Thias," the man corrected shortly, voice deep.         Faith just looked at him, not feeling like speaking. The fluttering ward 'mother' seemed at a loss. "He's going to take you to a new school. I think you'll be happier there." Sure. I'm sure it's gonna be great. That's why they sent this monster to pick me up. Faith just kept staring.         "I apologize, Mr. - Thias. Faith is a little shy."         'Thias' snorted lightly. "No she's not," he said bluntly. "She just doesn't like me."         Mrs. Vivian looked like she'd have rathered be anywhere else, but Faith found her estimation of the man rise just a touch. She felt vaguely bad for the flustered woman - Mrs. Vivian really wasn't too bad, as the keepers here went - but she didn't really appreciate people trying to 'explain' her, either. It was nice that this 'Thias' figured things out for himself. He also didn't seem intimidated when she still didn't comment.         "Come, Faith," he told her.         "Yes sir," Faith said neutrally. * * * Akela watched as the huge wolf advanced on him, ears up and teeth bared. He bared his teeth back and crouched low. Bring it. The wolf rushed him, grabbing hold of one of his tender ears in its teeth at it bowled him over. Akela rolled with the movement and snapped back at the wolf's face, teeth closing an inch in front of his brother's muzzle. Ha, almost got you. The wolf still had hold of his ear, though, and Akela yelped as it pulled. The wolf released his ear to grab the thick ruff at the back of his neck, and bowled him over once again. Owowowow hey leggo! Akela whined and the other wolf released his hold, stance and tail triumphant. Hey, you didn't win yet! Akela pounced, going for the wolf's ruff as it had done for him, but his brother was too fast for him, and Akela once again found himself squashed into a soft bed of newly fallen leaves underneath the bigger wolf. Okay, okay, okay, Akela thought, tucking his tail a little. You win. This wolf always won. Just 'cause I'm only half grown.         His brother was once again triumphant, and Akela went to lick under the other wolf's chin in affection. A far-off howl made both of them look up, then run off to rejoin the rest of the pack. * * * The man lead Faith right out the front door of the Institution, not bothering to even make sure she followed him. After a moment, she realized she, too, was being followed.         "Oh," she said quietly. "Rodney." Stopping for a moment, she scooped up the little ball of very sleepy raccoon and tucked him in her backpack. Not wanting the man to realize she'd stopped at all, she hurried to catch up, dragging her small suitcase across the grass.         Apparently hearing her, 'Thias' turned briefly to look at her. "So," he commented. "You were in an insane asylum."         The PC term is 'mental institution', Faith thought sarcastically. "I'm a witch," she said shortly, holding up her hands to show him twelve fingers.         "That doesn't mean you're crazy," Thias said without pause.         Faith gave him a strange look. Where've you been? "It does in this world."         Thias didn't seem concerned. "Then you'll appreciate it that I am taking you to a different one."         Faith snorted lightly. Yeah, in his world, I'm not crazy. Great. "Fantastic." Whatever, man. She fell silent, and the man didn't try again. * * * Akela walked up to the desk, remembering to smile and meet the woman's eyes. Today, he could be neither Wolf, nor Akela. Today he was Mike. A nice, normal kid walking into the library with the same clothes and dirt he wore last month, and a library card. Sure.         But he had his library card, and the books he wanted to take out. They'd have to deal with it. I even have a shirt, he thought sarcastically. Bully for me. No shoes, but they'd have to cope. He looked up and smiled a little to see the woman there. Rose wouldn't mind.         "Hi," he said shyly.         The librarian looked a bit taken aback by his appearance - he was a little beat up, this time, in addition to just dirty - but she smiled at his greeting. "Hello. What've you got this month?"         He took his prizes and put them on the desk with the books he was returning. He'd made out well, this time, finding a new illustrated field guide to the flora and fauna of North America, a beautiful book called the Color Atlas of Small Animal Anatomy: The Essentials, and Jack London's Call of the Wild. He'd taken out the latter before, but the first two were new to him. Now that it was fall, food was plentiful, and the cubs were big enough to be left with a babysitter. He had a fair amount of down time to dedicate to new books.         "Oh, so you did find the new field guide," Rose said. "Good. It's a nice one, too, isn't it?"         She noticed, Akela realized. He tended to take out a lot of field guides and the like. At this point he already knew most of the information in the new one, but he liked to know what the animals and plants were where he was living, and the pictures were so beautiful he'd been unable to resist. She asked a question, he realized.         He just nodded dumbly, but he guessed Rose was used to it. "All right, let me see your card."         Akela handed it over, and watched as she checked the old books in and the new out. "Do you need a bag, Hun?"         Akela nodded, grateful he didn't have to ask. If he didn't somehow protect the books he took out, they'd get ruined in the rain, and he'd have to either pay for them or stop coming to the library, and it wasn't like he could afford to buy books.         Walking out of the library with his books, Akela sensed one of the Fae among the humans. Huh. It wasn't that uncommon, actually, though it always reminded him of home. Which I don't miss and won't be returning to anytime soon. Let's go.Before he could start moving again, though, a voice stopped him.         "Boy!"         They're not talking to you, genius. He started walking again.         "Hey, boy!" the voice called again.         "Mike!" Rose called.         Mike. Does she mean me? Stopping again, Akela turned around to face the stranger. She was a diminutive, dark, round, pleasant-faced woman with sharply pointed ears partially hidden in her hair.         "What are you doing here?" she asked him. "Where is your family?"         Lips pulling off his teeth in an ugly snarl, Akela growled at her and fled.     * * * "That's the Friendship Gate," Faith said flatly, unimpressed. "It's old, and totally authentic, but Philadelphia Chinatown is hardly a new world."         "Indeed. And everything is always exactly as it seems," Thias said, reacting to her hostility for the first time. "Be quiet, and watch."         She crossed her arms, and cocked her head slightly, waiting.         Laying a hand on the base of the gate, Thias walked forward, trailing his hand along the concrete as he passed through the arch. As soon as he passed the gate, and his hand came off the concrete, he vanished.         Surprised despite herself, Faith walked forward and circled the pillar, looking to see if the man had hidden somewhere. It was just an ordinary pillar, grey concrete supporing the colorfully painted gate above.         For all that, my parents were right, she thought to herself, laying a hand against the cool concrete, I really am crazy.Walking forward, she passed through the gate, trailing her hand as Thias had. It felt completely normal.         "I'm still not impre-" she cut off suddenly as she got a good look at her surroundings. She was still in Chinatown, but it was not the same Chinatown she'd just left. The first thing to hit her was the noise, as the normal sounds of trucks, cars, and passerby gave way to the bray of a donkey and shopkeepers hawking their wares on the street. People were everywhere, yelling and chattering, but there were no cars. People biked or lead donkeys. The paint was peeling on the gate she'd come in through, and on the buildings' signs. There was glass in the windows, and the street was made of the same asphalt, but here the glass was scratched, and the asphalt cracked. If that wasn't strange enough, the smell was different. Philadelphia Chinatown smelled mostly of fish, exhaust, and occasionally food. This one smelled much more powerfully, of fish and food and animals and sewage.         And the people. With her black eyes, thick, wild black hair that she didn't bother to take care of, and twelve fingers, her appearance drew stares even in the institutions where she'd spent the last year, but here she looked positively normal. Here people's hair grew in crests down their back, in beards down to their waist, in bright red curls that looked completely natural against their green-toned skin. People had horns growing out of their hair. She had extra fingers; here she saw people with tails and even sometimes wings. Some people looked normal, but they were by no means the majority in this colorful crowd.I'm dreaming. Or...it's Halloween. Or...some festival or something. Wasn't there some Chinese festival coming up? I don't think this is the Midautumn festival. A masquerade, maybe? That everybody in the area decided to come to, and bring their donkeys? In New Orleans, she'd've believed it, but this was Philly.         "Believe me, now?" Thias asked, suddenly appearing right next to her.         "I'm not sure," she told him, still staring into the crowded street.         "I'm flattered," he told her. "But my illusion skills are not that good. I'm more of a ember witch."         Embers? Like coals? Or fire? But more pertinently, the man had just said he was a witch.         "Witch," she repeated skeptically.         "Just like you," he told her.         Faith bristled. "Not like me," she told him.         "How do you know?"         How do you know she's a witch? she asked herself cynically. She looks like one.         "I'm just crazy," she told him, "and deformed. And a bitch. I'm not a witch."         He looked at her curiously. "And you think you can't be all of those things?"         Faith found herself mildly amused. Most people disagreed with her that she was deformed. Or at least pretended to.Nobody seems to disagree that I'm a crazy bitch, though.         "I think it doesn't matter," she told him finally. "Nobody cares."         "Nobody cares what?" he asked her.         In general, she thought bitterly. "Nobody cares what the fuck I am as long as they don't have to deal with it," she told him shortly.         "That can change," he told her.         Oh, Faith thought. That type. "Back off," Faith told him flatly. "I'll go where you're taking me, but I won't take your crap."         "Why do you think it's crap?" the man asked her.         "Because it always is," she told him. "Now back the fuck off." Once again, she fell silent, determined not to speak to the man. Seeming to sense her mood, he let her be. * * * Akela sniffed the air and whined. One of the People was nearby - less than a mile away. What was she doing this deep in the woods? Female of the Fae didn't usually hunt, and hunters didn't come in this far. This person could be trouble, or in trouble. Either way he should check it out. Both sides of his nature agreeing, Man left a sign for his pack on a tree and took off carefully through the woods, silent on his padded feet.         Ten minutes later, he stood upwind of the woman, picking up her scent more strongly. If she's in trouble, she don't know it, Akela realized as he got close enough to watch her. The woman wasn't scared. She stood calmly, consulting a compass. She was muscular, for a woman, Akela saw. Especially for the woman of the fae. She was definitely fae, though - nobody else shared the Greater fae's jewel-toned hair without having other obvious signs of their origin. This woman's hair was a flaming garnet. Despite the obvious strength in her arms, though, she didn't carry a bow, and as he watched she put away the compass in favor of staring blankly into the distance. Stupid, he thought to himself. Try as you might, you could not see further than twenty feet in this forest, yet the woman stared into the trees as if she could see through them. Suddenly, though, her gaze sharpened, and focused directly on his hiding spot in the brush, and Man realized that he recognized her. Trouble, Man thought, and shifted his weight for flight.         "Do not fear," the woman spoke to him, still staring right at him like she could see him. "I only want to talk to you."         Definitely trouble. But he could lose her easily. Turning on his heels, Akela took off into the forest.         * * * "Gate hub!" someone shouted. "Anyone for the gate hub? Just ten dollars!"         "Come on," Thias told her before heading over to the shouter. She followed him, and soon found herself climbing into the back of one of the numerous donkey carts, headed, apparently, for the 'gate hub'. Gates like the one I just passed? Faith wondered.         A very uncomfortable half an hour later, she realized that she'd probably been about right. The 'gate hub' looked almost exactly like an airport, with different ticketing desks for different locations, and long corridors with large windows. Everything went a lot quicker than in an airport, though. The only delay was for security, which was arranged the same way as in human airports, but worked a bit differently. Thias was explaining briefly that their bags were magically tested for certain illegal substances when an alarm shrilled and one of the uniformed searchers asked Faith to open her bag.         Oh yeah, she remembered. Rodney. This would be interesting. Opening her bag, Faith gently scooped out the little raccoon and showed him to the guard.         The guard, on the other hand, didn't seem in the least surprised. "I'm sorry, Ma'am, but do you have a registration for your familiar?" Faith just stared at him. "And I'd like to see your witch's licence as well, please. Are you aware of the procedures regarding the care of a familiar through a Gate Hub?"         They're all crazy, Faith thought numbly. Somewhere along the line her mind had decided that everybody was just in costume, or something, and the things she was seeing were normal, but a witch's licence? Like they had governmental procedures regarding witchcraft? Ones that didn't involve psychiatrists and mental institutions? The tall, skinny guard seemed to be waiting for a response, but Faith found she had no idea what to say to him. He has elf ears, she realized numbly.         "I apologize, sir," Thias said smoothly. "Faith is my student. She is as yet unregistered, and I was unaware of the familiar. I assure you that we will remedy the situation as early as possible."         "What is your destination?" the guard asked promptly.         "Upstate New York," Thias answered him. "Here are our papers." He handed over a dark green booklet with some sort of fancy seal on the front, and a shief of papers. The guard looked them over carefully before looking up at Thias.         "You're Mathias Gruester?"         "Yes, that's me," Thias said.         "Is there anything special I am supposed to do for you, sir?" He seemed suddenly nervous.         "No, just let us and the familiar through, please. I will take care of everything personally as soon as I get home."         "Of course, sir," the guard said. "Go on through."         And once more they were on their way. When they'd gotten a little distance from the guards, Thias stopped.         "You couldn't have warned me that you had packed your familiar in your backpack?" he sounded annoyed, but Faith just glared right back.         "He's not a familiar, he's just a raccoon. And I'm not getting rid of him," she told him.         He met her eyes, but she didn't back down. Just because I've followed you so far, doesn't mean I'm gonna be a pussy just because you're big.         Finally Thias closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose, rubbing gently as if to stave off a headache. "Nevermind," he said finally. "Come on." * * * Trouble coming, Man told his pack. Single strong Female Man.         Maybe trouble, Alpha Female said.         Maybe food, Fourth Pup put in.         Maybe hunting, Man said. No teeth and claws, but tracking. Good tracking. It was the best he could do. The wolves would never understand that he'd seen the woman before, let alone why that was a problem.         Food, Fourth Pup said again.         But the pack didn't need food, Akela knew. The only time it was worth trying to take down man was in the winter, when food was scarce. Men were unpredictable. And the pack was out hunting, leaving Akela with only Alpha Female and the useless pups.         Trouble, he told the pack again. Strange man. Stay away.         He knew he'd made a mistake when Alpha Female rounded on him, hackles up and teeth bared. Dropping his eyes hastily, he whined and tucked his tail between his legs.         I am Alpha, Alpha Female told him, growling.         You are Alpha, Man agreed, rolling onto his back to let her sniff him and whining again. Alpha Female snuffed at him briefly before turning to her pups.         Come, Alpha Female said, disappearing into the burrow. Only Alpha Male, Alpha Female, and the cubs went into the burrow. Akela changed form and got his books, hiding them in a nearby tree before taking off away from the vulnerable pups.         * * * "The Gate is much like the one you passed in Chinatown," Thias told Faith. "Just drag your hand on one side, and walk right through."         The 'Gate' was just an unremarkable-looking set of square pillars marked 'Hammer Falls,' set in a large room set up for all travelers to the North East, and the passage was no more remarkable than the one into the stranger side of Chinatown had been. Faith just walked through, and found herself facing what was obviously a dilapidated airport arrivals hall, full of beat-up chairs and excited people. Apparently Thias saw someone he recognized, as he told her once again, "come," and set off into the crowd.         Wending her way through a sea of strange-looking...people...Faith threw her shoulders back and followed Thias, ready in case someone in the crowd tried to grab her.         "Mathias!" a woman greeted suddenly, rising from one of the curved plastic chairs to hug the man. He stood stiffly, but put an arm around her shoulders briefly as Faith watched the two. The woman's hair rivalled hers for craziness, not because it was tangled or anything, but purely in the color. She had the most natural-looking purple-red hair that Faith had ever seen.Natural-looking garnet hair. Wow. The woman had the best hairdressers or make-up artists or...magicians ever.         "August, good," he said, pulling back from her to indicate Faith with one arm. "This is Faith. She should be set up with us, and she needs supplies."         "And where will you be?" she inquired, raising an eyebrow.         "Woodbourne," he answered. "I still need to pick up the jailbird."         "All right then," the woman named 'August' said. "I have hope that the wolf will arrive on his own sometime soon, though, and I need to be there when he does. Do try to be quick."         Wolf? Faith wondered. He? " With the bureaucrats?" he questioned her. "Quick?"         "It can't be that hard," she retorted. "You're you. Now go."         To Faith's bewilderment, the man disappeared into the crowd without saying a word, leaving her alone with a stranger.