Lydia was quite exhausted. She stared at the nurse, or tried to. Her eyes kept going to the right again. Mrs. Only put the pill in Lydia’s hand and gave her the water. Lydia swallowed the pill resentfully, and went on with her own thoughts, lost in them; but as the medicine took effect everything became blearier.

She dozed. Once the weirdest thing happened. She felt as though she was slipping sideways out of herself; then her body shook and jumped as if she’d fallen back into it, but from above. “Doped up,” she thought irritably. “The pills. Next time I won’t take them.”

Then she saw the birthday party, but from a great distance; and felt motion so fast that she couldn’t follow what was happening. Briefly it stopped, and she thought that she saw herself sitting in the wheelchair. Instantly the motion started up again. It was accompanied by odd sounds, rustlings, as if tissue paper was being crumpled right next to her ears, and static. She glimpsed a body in a casket—hers? Then a young girl appeared, about twelve years old. She said something like, “Lydia, I’m Tweety. Tweety.” And she almost felt as if she knew who the girl was. Then the motion and the noises came once more.

The next thing Lydia knew it was dinnertime, and she kept dropping her head into the mashed potatoes.

“We can cut down on her dosage, I guess,” Mrs. Only said to the new nurse. “It takes a few days before we can figure out just how much they need. I don’t think she’ll turn violent again, anyway. She’s been with us a week now.”

A week? Lydia thought. She tried to focus her eyes. When was the birthday party?

Chapter Sixteen

Ma-ah’s Signature in Stone and Sumpter’s Surprise (and Aspect Three)

While Oversoul Seven was perceiving the tile in two of its many Aspects, and Lydia was slipping back and forth in time, Ma-ah stood in the courtyard of the Speakers. “Who called me?” she asked again, and again she received no reply. She shrugged, and looked up to see Sumpter walking purposefully toward her. Coming close, he smiled and pointed at the tree drawing on the wall nearby.

“Mamunsha,” he said. He squatted down easily beside her, a habit he’d recently taken to, to minimize the difference in their sizes.

“I thought sanoraja was the word for tree,” Ma-ah said, in her new language.

He grinned. “Sometimes it is. Sometimes tree is arumba—that’s a tree at night, when there’s no moon. Lidata—that’s a tree splashed with sun. Kadita—that’s a tree with leaves dancing.” He was laughing now, but serious. His laughter disconcerted her. It reminded her that he had feelings. “Look at that drawing, and make up a word that fits it,” he said.

Ma-ah stared at him uneasily.

“Go on,” Sumpter said.

“Brambeda.”