The Cabinet of Earths Read Online Free PDF Page A

keeping her eyes well away while her stomach did that odd, embarrassed flop. She knows what she’s like.
    When Cousin Louise had finally said au revoir —which means, unfortunately, not just “good-bye” but “until we meet again”—when she had disappeared, neither smiling nor frowning, into the rattly old elevator and gone off and away, Maya’s father leaned back against the apartment door for a moment in mock exhaustion.
    â€œNo more,” he said. “I don’t care who it is; I don’t care what Society they run; I don’t care whose long-lost cousin they may be—that’s it. We don’t open the door.”
    â€œWell, I was glad to meet her,” said Maya’s mother, relaxing a little into her chair. “And now Maya will have help with her French.”
    A wave of frustration sloshed over Maya’s edges at that. And she was so tired, too! Your edges always get sloshier when you’re tired.
    â€œBut, Mom,” she said. “Don’t you see what a crazy idea that is? You don’t know anything about her. For all you know, she could be an ax murderer !”
    Maya’s mother looked distinctly taken aback.
    â€œGood grief, Maya,” she said. “Louise is our cousin. She’s not an ax murderer.”
    â€œEven ax murderers are somebody ’s cousins,” said Maya. “She’s a little strange, couldn’t you tell? She’s, like, blurry or something. Didn’t you notice how strange she is? I can’t go wandering around Paris with Cousin Louise. She’s practically invisible.”
    Maya’s father laughed out loud.
    â€œSlow down!” he said. “Just because a person’s not, um, especially memorable—”
    â€œNot that,” said Maya—to her mother, not her father, because if anyone was going to understand about statues on buildings that looked like you, and brass salamanders that came alive when you walked by, and cousins that were surrounded somehow by a blurry, numbing cloud, it would be her mother. “I mean really, like, invisible . Couldn’t you see that?”
    For a moment Maya thought she saw a spark of recognition lighting her mother’s eyes— “You, too?” said those eyes for a millisecond—and then the millisecond was over, and her mother blinked, and whatever that light had been was forgotten and gone.
    â€œMaya,” said her mother kindly. “Calm down. Think of it this way: It will be good for Louise, having some contact with her cousins.”
    Maya was just opening her mouth to say—something!—when her mother stopped her with the tiniest shake of the head.
    â€œLook,” said her mother. “Brains are very delicate things. You know that. Do you think her life has been easy? An injury like that can change someone’s entire personality.”
    Maya’s mouth stayed open for another moment, and then she gulped it shut.
    â€œInjury?” she said. “You mean, she was hurt?”
    â€œMaya!” said her mother. “A whole church fell on her!”
    (“With a great big CRASH,” said James, from somewhere under the table.)
    â€œBut,” said Maya. “You didn’t tell us she got hurt .”
    She was beginning to feel pretty foolish. Of course, it made sense. All that rock tumbling down! And then never to be the same as you were before that happened! It was an awful thought, to tell the truth.
    Though something naggled at her about it all. She remembered the picture. It was in the album back home, a clipping from the newspaper, as old as could be. The smiling child in the arms of her rescuers. Grainy smile, grainy ruins, big headline shouting something in Italian underneath, because they had all been tourists in Italy, Cousin Louise’s family, when the church fell on them.
    Just the slightest flutter of a thought— smiling!— and then it winked out again and was