Incarnate

Perhaps this was like my birth. Everyone already knew one another. They’d cheated, revealing identities beneath disguises, and I was the only one they didn’t know. The only new person.

 

A peacock tracked my progress from a light pole, but didn’t approach. Familiarity surrounded an owl and praying mantis who kept up with me, but I couldn’t peg who they were.

 

Sam had probably asked his friends to watch me. The thought had irritated me at the market, but after seeing Li again, I was sort of glad. Maybe I should have come with him. I shouldn’t have let my feelings get so bruised earlier. It wasn’t like I’d expected him to say he’d have chosen me over Ciana, even before I knew they’d been lovers.

 

A gray and white shrike turned away as I sensed a gaze from that direction, toward the Councilhouse. Ahead, a hunting hound stared.

 

I angled toward the southwestern edge of the field. Everything was beautiful, and the thousands of dancing people—that was wonderful. I was alone, though, with just a few of Sam’s friends staring from afar.

 

Or maybe Li. No telling if she was here or what she might be wearing. Suddenly, every tall, slender figure was suspect.

 

A ferret touched my arm. “Dance?”

 

I jumped, but I knew that voice. Armande.

 

He grinned beneath the whiskers and a mask of a mask, then drew me into the dance, allowing me to use the steps Stef had taught me. We went through the end of a galliard before he escorted me to a buffet I hadn’t seen before, filled with tiny sandwiches and pastries, upside-down paper cups next to urns of coffee and hot cider. Lace covered the table, along with dozens of portraits of a couple I assumed was Tera and Ash, though they wore different faces in each image.

 

“They must really love each other,” I breathed, before remembering I was in costume. I glanced at Armande to see if he noticed, but he just smiled.

 

“Your secret is safe with me. But you’re pretty identifiable, even in disguise.” He gave a one-shouldered shrug.

 

“Oh.” I blushed beneath my mask and took the coffee he offered. “How many lifetimes?”

 

“Fifty,” he said, and sipped his own drink. “Almost since the beginning. We don’t get many parties like this, but Tera and Ash are always good for one. Every generation.”

 

If they lived to be about seventy-five every life, that was 3,500 years together. I couldn’t imagine that kind of love.

 

“For the first few generations, they couldn’t stand being different ages or the same gender, so they used to kill each other in order to be reborn about the same time. No one could talk them out of it.”

 

I thought loving someone shouldn’t involve so much death. Not that I had any experience with that. “They’re both women now.”

 

He nodded. “They decided that dying all the time was too painful, and if they loved each other, it shouldn’t matter. Still”—he leaned closer—“when one dies now, the other does, too. I imagine it’s hard to be physically very old while your greatest love is learning to walk again.”

 

“I bet.” I finished my coffee and dropped the cup in a recycle bin.

 

Armande and I had a few more dances before he released me to a crow, all shiny black feathers on his mask and clothes. I didn’t know him, but he said something nice about my costume before passing me to a woman dressed as an elk.

 

I recognized some of my partners—Stef and Whit made appearances as a jewel-toned dragonfly and a lion—but plenty were strangers, as far as I could tell. We had fun. I found myself laughing and asking other people to dance with me, rather than wait to be acknowledged.

 

Maybe anonymity didn’t matter as much as I’d thought.

 

I found Sarit, a crest of gray feathers protruding from her black hair, and a bright mask covering the top half of her face. Sharp orange cheeks stood against the yellow silk. Long folds of gray cloth draped across her arms made wings—much better than mine.

 

“What are you?” I hadn’t seen that kind of bird in Range.

 

“Cockatiel.” She grinned beneath the wide, hooked beak. “They’re from the other side of the planet.”

 

Even just southern Range felt far away. I’d have to remember to ask her about the birds, but for now, she took my hand and dragged me toward the Councilhouse steps, where a series of archways had been placed, though not in a straight line. They were everywhere, random. “What’s this?”

 

“The arch march!” She giggled. “No, don’t actually call it that in front of anyone who does the rededication. They get mad because it sounds silly.”

 

“I bet you started it.”

 

“Ma-a-aybe.” She drew the word out into several syllables. “The idea is really sweet, though. They start at the first arch at the base of the stairs, then find their way through the others until they reach the top. The whole time, they’re blindfolded.”

 

“Blindfolded? The arches aren’t even in a line. They’re all over!” I stared at her. “You’re making this up.”

 

“Nope. It’s to symbolize the uncertainty of the future. They get to hold hands and offer each other suggestions which way to go. They’ll have seen the layout while they’re dancing, anyway.”

 

Jodi Meadows's books