Chapter Four
Pommits


Two A.M.  Nothing but air.

Eva reached into her purse and flicked open her telephone.  She fingered it tensely while staring over the the treeline, beyond which the highway lay.  Quiet.

She didn’t want to call her brother, but she really didn’t like waiting.  Not in the middle of the night, in a secluded green space she probably wasn’t supposed to be in.  Not for something that scared her to the point that it was a comfort just to look at the glowing green screen of her telephone.  Should she call him?  Would it do any good?  What would he say?

A presence was there in her ear as if someone had opened a window.  Eva stood stiff at attention.  Moments later a voice spoke.

“HellO.  Are you there, creature?”  It was whispering, and doing a poor job of it.  As always, like a child.

“I’m here.”

“I do not See You.”

Eva sighed.  The wind was getting cold, and even though she was wearing one more layer than she’d expected to need in the summertime, she’d expected wrong.  She was shivering.

“Would you like me to turn on my flashlight?”

“What is a—yes, please do so.”

Eva did so.  She angled her flashlight furtively toward the sky, turning her wrist in nervous motions.  She felt like one of her brother’s friends, staking something out.  Or a police officer.  Or someone being pursued by one.

“Are you flashing your Light, Silly?  I do not See you.”

“Yes, I’m flashing it!  What should I be looking for?  A spaceship?”

There was a rumble of something moving across a room.  Some confusion followed.  For the first time, Eva could hear multiple voices in her ear.  She held her finger over her brother’s preprogrammed number on her phone.

“Are you still there Now, Creature?”

“Would you stop calling me ‘creature,’ please!  Yes, I’m here.  Where are you?”

The voice, Jemmiut, read out a series of coordinates.   “That is where we are.”

Eva graimaced, accessed a record in her cell phone, and made an exasperated noice.  “That is not where you should be.”

A pause.  “Is that not where you did TELL us to Be??”

“No!  You have two digits reversed.”  And she gave them the coordinates she had originally given.

After some muted hubbub, Jemmiut replied.  “All right then.  Thank you.  We will be there soon then.”  Then there was no more reception.

Eva felt, surprisingly enough, a little relaxed.  She had come to truly believe that she was speaking with extraterrestrials, and while that decision had provided some solidity to her emotional state, that solidity had quite a bit of fear cast in it.  Now she was no longer so afraid.  The aliens had made a stupid mistake.  She had something on them.  She would not be defenseless.

She was still wearing a small smile when the ship arrived.  Startled, she replaced it with a cool intake of breath.  An instant later, the smile was back again.

The ship was a giant cube.  Maybe sixty feet on a side.  It was silent, and its thrusters were only barely visible, and it seemed to move smoothly, but still.

A giant cube.

And it was blatantly visible for anyone to see.  It’s true that it was made of a dark metal, and there weren’t many cars on the interstate at this hour, and it wasn’t all that close to the road...but still.

Eva couldn’t help but look nervously about until the ship finally came down nearly to rest.  She wasn’t sure what she was expecting, but she was a little startled to see a rope ladder tumble through a hole in the bottom.  Her shoulders slumped in what must have been indignity.  Still, she gave a little chuckle.  What kind of entrance was this supposed to be?

It had been a long time since she climbed anything like a rope ladder.  Eva stretched her body vertically, disdaining the chance to stretch herself fully, as she would normally have wanted to, because she felt a sort of responsibility for the poorly hidden alien spaceship should it be discovered, and wanted to take off again as soon as possible.  She walked over to the ladder and took hold.  Her right leg went up, tilting the ladder, and with a graceful jerk, her left leg went up as well.  This threw her completely off balance.  The ladder tilted in the direction of her feet and the rest of it tilted the other way to compensate.  She squealed slightly, wondering if she was gong to receive any help.  At least she was wearing her walking shoes, and not a dress pair.

She tightened her muscles and her resolve and brought down her chin to face forward.  This exercise would be a suitable distraction from whatever lurked above her.  For whatever reason, Eva did not look forward to seeing what form the aliens who had contacted her looked like.  She was only just reconciling herself with the fact that she was there at all.  She had decided to come because she did not know whether the messages had been genuine...and she needed to know.  But when it became clear that this was real—that she, Eva Durrant, was really in the contact of beings from beyond the Earth—she began fervidly worrying about whether she ought to have done something else.  The xenologists would have known what to do—provided they weren’t speculatively educated poseurs, which they probably were, but still better than nothing.  There must have been people to contact.  There must have been further precautions she could have taken.  And, oh God, why was she on a rope ladder?

Well, the way to climb this was probably to let go with one hand and take hold of the next rung up.  Yes, on reflection, that was the way to go.  This was what Eva did.  She found herself swinging clockwise when she changed her pull on the ladder by letting go, but she did not feel in any danger of slipping.  Her feet had a good grip on the rope below her, thanks to the traction of her shoes.  She wondered fleetingly if the creatures in the ship above had prehensile feet, making such an instrument as this ladder practical for frequent use.

Feeling a little bit like she did on her first night in the spotlight for any new production, Eva managed to swing and twist her way up the ladder, her purse swinging recklessly by her side.  The challenge felt utterly alien from her surroundings.  Already, faced with nothing more mundane than a few lengths of rope, she was beginning to wonder whether her experiences were real.

She was only two rungs from the top when suddenly a head poked down from the hatch.  It was large.  Dark brown.  Cat-like.  No, bear-like.  Eva lost her senses, including her sense of balance.  If she hadn’t had a tight grip on the rope, she would have fallen.  As she hung, scared, with all her limbs on the rope but no semblance of control, the creature opened its mouth.  “Why are you taking so long, lazyhead?  Come on up!”

It was the familiar tempo, slurring and dulcet tone of voice.  It was a different voice, though.  In a situation where she normally would snap with anger, Eva found herself contrite.  She peered up at the jovial creature like a cringing animal.  “I...I’m sorry,” she mumbled, trying to get her throat clear and failing.  “I think you’ll need to pull me up.  If you please.  I’m cold.”

The creature’s fanned ears—she assumed they were ears—flexed toward its skull and back again.  “Okay then,” it said, and disappeared again.  Eva clung to the rung she was on, using her energy for sheer wonder and banishing the cold, with none left for climbing.  In a moment, she found herself being pulled up.  Her head came into a warm chamber furnished with ...not furnished.  That was the wrong word.  As she got her bearings, put her elbows and then her knees over the edge, and caught her breath, she saw how chaotic the room was.  Things were everywhere, even though she lacked the time to see what things.  Before her stretched the impressively pliable body of the one who had greeted her: crouched with a deep arch in its back, forelimbs flat against the floor and yanking on the ladder.

Unlike before, she now got a good look at it: a four-legged creature (aside from the fact that its forelegs seemed to have a good hold on the rope), with a not unearthly build.  Its head was neither cat-like or bear-like, or in fact like any animal Eva could name, although it certainly suggested numerous resemblances.  It had its face in the standard Terran arrangment, with a flattish nose that flowed fluidly into what seemed a natural overbite, a thick upper lip with an upward curve in the middle overshadowing a sturdy lower jaw that recessed quickly to blend with the creature’s remarkably large cheeks.  Its eyes were medium-set, protrudant within their sockets and bright.  Eva wasn’t sure if it had any irises, but she did get a hint of orange coming from the eyes.  The creature’s ears were the most unusual feature of its face—broad, with many vertically-oriented joints ending a little points on top.  She had seen the ears decline forward toward the skull; she assumed that they were also collapsible in the horizontal direction.  The neck was thick and strong.

As Eva crawled forward, she took quick stock of more of the creature’s body.  It was large, probably as large as an average tiger.  It seemed to have no hair, in contradiction of her first impressions.  Its body was dark brown throughout, with reddish hints.  The surface did not somehow seem smooth, but was certainly not fur-covered.  Its shoulders seemed to have a joint even more universal than the human equivalent: when it had been hauling up the ladder, its front extremities had been turned completely upward, seemingly without discomfort.  Their extremities, now that Eva could look at them, could undoubtedly be called hands.  There were only three thick, clawed digits, but with one in the middle and the others to the sides, they were all opposable and afforded a versatile grip.

Eva picked up her purse, stood up, and walked partway around the being, it watching her all the while.  She was startled to discover that a paired feature she had identified as a strange texture of the flank was really mobile; she saw these large, membranous arcs shift slightly against the underlying skin.  “You have wings?” Eva inquired, a little offended by how wrong it seemed.

“Yes I do,” replied the creature unthinkingly.  It was still examining Eva and perhaps did not want to be disrupted.

Eva wondered whether the texture she had noticed could be feathers, or something like them.  Even with the possibility in mind she couldn’t be sure.  She observed that it had no tail, a mild surprise but nothing compared to the wings.  Its hefty back legs had similarly equipped extremities, except that they were a little wider and the toes a bit more forward-facing.

She took a short glance around and saw that there was another one in the room.  It had said nothing and made no sound, and it was watching her and the other with apparently moderate interest.  Eva noticed that it was wearing a strap around its back securing something at its chest, but her eyes latched onto it for the reason that it had its wings held slightly apart.  Vaguely striped surfaces caught the shadow of its body within.  The wings were neither thick nor thin and had no surprises in their build, but Eva still stared.  Fortunately it did not seem to mind.

“Why do you wear clothes on you all the time?” shyly asked the one who had startled Eva and hauled up her ladder.  Its manner seemed to have changed a bit since it had called her “lazyhead.”  She looked toward it and opened her mouth, and had trouble knowing what to say.

“I wear clothes...to keep me warm...and to maintain dignity,” she answered.  “I would think you’d know that already.  Haven’t you been observing...our world?”

“A little bit.  Jemmiut does the most of the observing.  He has of course given us peeks now and then, but that is not enough to know why you do things.”  The speaker ended its observation by relaxing on its half-reclined forelimbs and watching Eva with its round eyes, a hint of orange now clearly visible just above the pupils.

“Do you know my name?” asked Eva, still too amazed by everything to give a diplomatic response.

“Yes I know your name.  Your name is Eva Durrant.”  It lowered its great head somewhat between its legs, breaking eye contact, and murmured abashedly, “I do not know your middle name.”

Eva’s voice cracked in the beginning of a laugh cut short.  “It’s Geraldine,” she said, smiling.

“Well then,” said the creature, still looking down.

“And yours??”  Eva felt fairly comfortable now, if for no reason other than that she seemed to be in charge of the conversation.

“Balallip.”

“Balallip?”

“That is right.”

Eva turned a little self-consciously to the silent one.  “And you?”

This one readjusted its wings a little before folding them.  The movement made no noise.

“My name is Gomeo.  But that does not matter.  You should come with me now.  Balallip you should also come.”

Gomeo led the way out of the room through an undecorated square door frame under which she had to duck slightly.  Eva expected to find herself in a corridor, but instead found herself in another room.  Both rooms were of the same large, rectangular size and shape, but the room she had entered into had been mostly barren but for piles of junk, wooden and papery and shiny, in unidentifiable shapes against the walls.  This new room was lined with tall metallic shelves on which a wide variety of objects had been placed.  It was not easy to tell what these objects were, but they were unmistakably in better repair.  Eva identified what she thought might be a telescope, a sleeping bag, a jar of mechanical parts, a sheet of aluminum or some other light metal, an oddly built welding torch.  She didn’t have time to look for long.  The creature leading her took her around a corner of shelves into another room of the same dimensions.  It was filled with boxes of sundry items.  Pictures, bags tied at the top, L-shapes made out of wood, balls covered with bristles.  There was a series of long white poles around which rolls of some kind of tape were hung.  Eva longed to stay and look at things, but her reception was awaiting.  She willingly let herself be ushered onward.  Eva wondered whether the entire ship was partitioned into these rectangular rooms.

She was led up a ramp, a metal ramp in the form of a half-pipe with a wide floor and a rubbery black surface.  There were ridges here and there along the floor, giving the alien creatures no trouble with it, but it was steep.  Eva was already tired from the rope ladder and had to take her time climbing.

At the top her hypothesis was strengthened with another rectangular room.  This room, however, was filled with more of the aliens.  Eva’s eyes swam.  She got her footing at the top of the ramp and stepped hazily forward.  Eight pairs of eyes were focused on her.  Eight pairs of wings folded hastily against their owners’ sides, if they weren’t folded already.  They looked a little like children caught playing with toys after bedtime.  Attentive, all of them had their ears fanned out.  They varied in color from black to maroon.  Their sizes differed a fair bit; the largest was probably a couple of feet longer than the smallest.  Some of them had on body belts like the one Gomeo was wearing, which she could see held tools for them.  Three of them were wearing open-toed shoes on their back feet.  One had a pair of binoculars or the like over its eyes.  One had a small brown object that looked like a fruit; it was under the alien’s foot where it stood, gripped absently.

The room was dominated by a large window, plastic by the look of it.  Eva could still see the trees and narrow strip of grassland abutting the freeway that she had encountered on the way in.  A few headlights moved along the freeway.  She wondered whether anyone could see them.  Along the window was laid a black shelf of some smooth substance on which were laid various tools, including three more of the binocular devices.  Under the shelf was a large, gray box with an open front panel and small tools scattered at its base.  Gomeo strode over to this box, stuck his head inside it as if using it to peer through the window, and came out again.  He looked at one of his companions.

Gomeo spoke a few words in his own language, and one of the larger aliens answered back.  It was a chirpy, melodic, high-pitched language with obvious heavy cadences and accents.  Often a vowel sound would be extended and modulated in what sounded a precise and sometimes comical way.  Eva thought the sound quality was nasal, but she couldn’t be sure that was the right way to describe it.  Once the conversation had finished, the large one stepped forward toward Eva.

“Welcome to the FriendShip!  That is this ship we are on.  I am named Brogoii and I am pleased to speak to you.”

Eva raised her eyebrows in spite of herself.  “The Friend...Ship?”

Brogoii glanced back at a maroon companion, flexing an ear inward and confirming that they did, indeed, move that way.  “Yes,” he said proudly.  “That is an idea Jemmiut did have.  It is a Ship because it carries us between places and it is called FriendShip because it is for making friends.  He says that friendship is a word that you use.”

So these creatures had pun-capability, Eva reflected.  How wonderful.

Eva bowed slightly.  “I am honored to be invited aboard the FriendShip.”

“There are some things you will need to know,” continued Brogoii.  “First, we are all pommits.  We are all Living Things like you and we are proud of it.  Second, we would like you to reMain a living thing while you are here and to be Happy and Healthy.  Therefore if we have made a mistake and you are not healthy and happy, please let us know.  Third, if you see anything that you like on the ship you may probably take it.  We do not need all of our supplies.  We have not even Sorted them all.  You see we have been given new supplies because we are a new crew on the FriendShip because the old crew is all being asked questions at Home.”  Suddenly Brogoii became bashful and drew in his head slightly.

“They’re being questioned?  For what?” asked Eva sharply.

Another pommit with a higher voice piped up.  “They are being questioned because they did invite some aliens onto the ship who Died.  That is basically why you are here.”

“I don’t understand.”

“What part do you not underStand, silly?  Tell us and we will explain it to you.”

Eva took a deep breath and eyed the high-pitched one shiftily.  “I don’t understand a lot of things.  First off, why you haven’t taken off for someplace less visible.  You’re still within sight of the interstate.”

She could not have predicted the scramble that took place to reach the window and viewing implements beneath it.  The pommits bustled against each other and stepped occasionally on each others’ feet, but did not scuffle.  One small, brownish one announced something in its own language and, fending its way through the crowd, hurried off and out the door.  The others continued watching through the window.

Balallip came up beside Eva and looked up sidewise at her.  She said nothing.

“Am I to take it,” Eva annouced in a theatrical voice, “that your kind is not always so disorganized as this company is presently?”

Several of the pommits looked at her over their shoulders.  Some of their wings unfolded a few inches, and they were not all as silent as Gomeo.  Eva found herself wondering why she had been so bold as to criticize them like that.

Brogoii spoke.  “Sometimes we are more organized.”

“I see,” said Eva.  She did not want to press and offend her...hosts.  “I’d like to know a few more things, if it’s all right with you.”

“Yes, of course,” said Brogoii.  Several of the others echoed their assent in various terms.

“Well then, I’d like to know how it is that you spoke to me.  And knew things about me.  And knew when I had the hearing aid in.”  She brought her finger to her ear.

“Well,” said the maroon pommit, “we did basically just Look at you directly!  We have got very nice telescopes to look through.”

“Do you know how to drive a car?” asked the high-pitched pommit.

“Yes,” said Eva.

“Then do you have a license to drive one?”

“Yes!”

“Than That is how we did Know your Name!!!  And that you are fifty-nine years old!”

“You—you checked the license registry for people turning fifty-nine...for some reason?”

“Only if they had also signed up to buy a Hearing Aid with a Gold Telecoil!” announced the high-pitched one.

“Ojiann is good with comPuters,” said the maroon pommit.

“And how exactly did you have access to our governmental and hospital records?”

The group looked uncertainly from one to another.  A short pommit indistinguishable from black spoke hesitantly.  “Remote networking.”

Eva didn’t find this a very satisfying answer, but discovered that she didn’t really care about the details.  “All right.  And Jemmiut—is that you?” she asked the maroon pommit, who unfolded his ears and nodded—“have been using some sort of wireless broadcast that for some reason only works on gold telephone coils to ask everyone who bought one on their birthday if they’re willing to help?”

“That is correct.”

Eva spread her hands.  “Why fifty-nine?”

“You would not have Wanted us to Wait until you were Sixty, would you?”  Wings rustled, eyes gleamed in different colors.

“I suppose not,” she said.

“Well then.”  Jemmiut turned back to the window.  The scene changed and the sensation of motion seemed to thicken the air.  Eva looked around for a place to sit down.  In a corner she found a crate made from the same smooth, black stuff as the shelf.  Hearing no objections as she did so, she sat down upon it and set her purse beside it.

All the pommits watched as the ship pulled away from Interstate 190 and the suburbs of Boston.  Lights appeared, twinkled as they were hidden from view and replaced by others, and then fused into a great cityscape.  The cubical ship rose higher into the night, passed through a thin layer of clouds which shone gray and misty outside, and then continued to rise until it reached what Eva estimated was the mesosphere.  Aside from the undefinable off-balance feeling off motion, there was no indication of acceleration or heat from atmospheric friction.  Everything about this ship so far seemed perfectly safe—childproof, even.  To Eva this was a relief.

The pommits turned in their own time back to Eva.  She was seated with her hands in her lap, waiting for the attention she knew would come.  Once all those present were watching her, she cleared her throat.  “Now then.  Perhaps the most important question of them all.  What, exactly, have you brought me here for?”

There was a moment’s shuffling silence.  “I had thought that Jemmy did tell you,” piped up the pommit holding the fruit.

“He—“  Eva paused.  “Do...pommits have genders?” she asked, a little embarrassed.

“’Course we do!  I for example have the female gender.”

Other pommits volunteered their own.  Eva clapped her hands sternly to get their attention back.  “Is there any easy way I can tell?”

“Just listen to our names,” said Balallip.  “If the first syllable is stressed that is a male—I mean masculine name.  If the second syllable is stressed it is a fe...feminine name.  My name is feminine because I am female.”

“All right, thank you,” said Eva before the commotion could resume.  “Then...Jemmiut is a male pommit.”  Ears fanned; Eva somehow knew this was a yes.  “Anyhow, Jemmiut told me that you needed me to help...to help understand some other creatures?  I wasn’t listening very carefully at the time.  Would these be the creatures who...died under your care?”

“It was not Our care,” objected a long pommit with scarlet marks.  “It was the care of the Other crew.”

“Yes, yes, all right.  Those beings, though?  That incident is what you want me, is some fashion, to shed light on?”

“Yes, that is correct,” answered Brogoii.

“Well, I should be quite glad to do so.  But you must see that the...the request seems very strange to me.  After all...look at me.”  Eva gestured to her surroundings in an air of confusion.  “Until two days ago I had no idea that your race—or any life outside of the Earth, civilized or not—existed.  I’ve been here, with you, for less than half an hour, and still haven’t had a chance to get my bearings.  Nor am I a psychologist....nor a detective...nor a...a xenobiologist.”  She drew the word up from her brother’s vocabulary as if with tweezers.  “And yet, for some reason, you think that I—better than any or all of yourselves—am qualified to understand whatever unfortunate event led to these creatures’ demise?”

The assembled aliens looked at her in silence, shifting and glancing at one other, one or two pawing at the floor.  Brogoii, once more stepping forward, answered her evenly, looking just to the left of her.  “We did simply think that since you are a cousin of ours and your people do understand unUsual phiLosophy better than we do that you might would be able to Fathom what the CaraPacians were Thinking,” he said.

“Back up,” said Eva.  “A cousin?”

“Surely you are a cousin!” somebody cried.

“You are a Earthling.  Earthling is all our cousin,” said the scarlet-marked pommit.

“Naturally we are reLated to the creatures of Earth,” expounded Jemmiut.  “We are after all Breathing the same Air.  Look and see how Much we do look aLike.  Look and see.”

“I’m looking—I see!” said Eva.  “But what I don’t understand is how!  It’s—I mean it’s astounding enough when a land-bound species crosses over the ocean. How could a creature from Earth have colonized your world—or vice-versa—long enough ago for us to have evolved on our own planets?”

Jemmiut glanced at the pommits behind him and made an inquisitive gesture.  They in turned glanced to each other.  Eva caught an occasional flicking of ears or other gesture which she interpreted as she would a shrug.  At last Brogoii faced her.  “We do not know,” he told her as if their ignorance on the subject were of no great import.

Eva was getting tired.  “Look.  I’ll hear more about these unfortunate guests of yours in the morning—and about our relationship.  For now, would it be uncouth of me to ask for someplace to sleep?  I’m normally in bed long before now.”

Once more the pommits exchanged their glances, this time slightly nervous.  Naturally, they had neglected to prepare a place for their guest to sleep.  Eva resisted the temptation to tap the crate she was sitting on with her fingers.

“Angorim, you have got a whole big Room to sleep in, instead of a Half-sized room.  Perhaps the human being should sleep with You,” suggested Gomeo.

“But I do Like to have a Whole Big Room,” protested Angorim with a whine.  She was a squat, slim pommit with a nearly black coat.

“That does not Matter.  You are the Only one with a large room and you should be Happy that you did have it So far to yourSelf.”

Angorim fluttered her wings and folded them once more.  “All right then very well,” she concurred.  But toMorrow we should rearrange our Rooms so that Everybody has got one of their Own.”

“That does sound wise,” said Brogoii.  And with a few affirmative remarks the matter was settled.

“Are you ready to Sleep?” asked Angorim, whose body Eva now noticed was scored with narrow brown stripes up and down its length.  She came closer and nodded at the far doorway.

“Yes, I believe I am,” said Eva, longing desperately for some time to think.

“All right then.  Follow me!”  The female pommit strutted out of the room, and Eva hastily had to leave her seat, grab her purse, and follow.

The next room was filled with controls.  It was more like what Eva pictured a spacecraft as looking like, although the black and white controls were crafted in simple shapes and patterns, more pleasing to the eye than she might have guessed.  The large pommit that had left earlier was lying on its belly before a little box like the one in the other room.  There was a much smaller window in the wall, and the pommit was manipulating a lever while peeking through the box.  Eva was not allowed time to inquire.

“This way,” said Angorim cheerfully.  Eva followed her into another room, this one filled with what appeared to be wooden boxes, and up another ramp identical to the first.  Angorim did not seem to bear a grudge for having to share her room and was eager to help Eva ascend, but even so, by the time she reached the top she was ready to collapse.  She emerged in a long narrow room, the first she had encountered on the pommit ship, with painted walls in styles Eva couldn’t even begin to name.  There were ovaline objects scattered here and there which Eva soon discovered were pliable and soft, like pillows, although they seemed to be made from plastic rather than textiles.  There was a web of some kind strung between poles at the end of the room, only a foot off the floor.  There were two corner tables built into the walls, one with what looked like closed notepads, or perhaps vertically hinged books, on it.  There was a basket of the brown fruits Eva had seen one of the pommits clutching.

There were twelve doors leading out, six on each long wall.  Unlike the other doorways Eva had passed through, these had actual metal doors on them, ready to close.  Angorim led Eva to the end of the hall, past the webbing on the poles, and through the last door on the right.  They entered a room that eva recognized as a bedroom despite the unfamiliarity of the furniture.  She didn’t care about the shape of the dresser or the unusual features on the armoire.  She didn’t mind that the bed consisted of plastic cushions, great and small, arranged on the metal floor.  She simply pulled a few of them aside and made a second bed for herself, beside Angorim’s.  Upon her request for a blanket, Angorim opened one of the dresser’s drawers and removed a large beige sheet of someone unknown material and handed it to her.  Eva did not mind that the “blanket” was not perfectly flat or that it had deliberate round holes cut in it.  It was heavy and soft, and she contently lay down and arranged it auspiciously over herself .  Angorim turned out the light by use of a button on the wall, a custom which Eva felt comfortingly familiar.  The pommit said “Good night” to her as she shuffled around on her pillows; Eva said “Good night” and meant it.  She closed her eyes and couldn’t believe how quickly she was able to fall asleep.

Chapter 5

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