The River of No Return

time.
    Julia felt it coming. She locked her knees and forced herself to keep her expression bland and her limbs perfectly still. Thank God they were in a dark kitchen down in a basement. Thank God Miss Blomgren was more concerned with this intruder than with Julia and Bella.
    “Peter, what the hell are you doing?” Miss Blomgren grabbed the young man’s shoulders and shook him. “Can’t you tell they’re Naturals? You can’t wear untimely dress outside of the catacombs. Or jump straight to the kitchens. The transporter—use the transporter!”
    Peter shrugged Miss Blomgren’s hands away. “Chill out. I have some really exciting news.”
    But Miss Blomgren was not to be calmed. “How dare you ask them, to their faces, if they were Ofan? Those poor girls, drowning in this ice-cold era. And I must watch them gasp for breath. While you! With your great gift that lifts you above the dreary flow of time—you flaunt it in front of them? If they were Ofan, Peter, would I have them in here, in the kitchen? No. I would be educating them as I educated you, in the transporter. I would be instructing them in the dangers of being Ofan. In the necessity of being very careful about how and when you reveal yourself.”
    Julia curled her toes in her slippers. Miss Blomgren and this young man were Ofans! These were the Russian’s enemy. She willed them not to look her way; she was sure she was trembling.
    Peter held up his hands, laughing. “I’m sorry, okay? And I have some news. You may have noticed that my hair is much longer?” He stroked his green ridge.
    Miss Blomgren put her hands on her hips. “That’s your news.”
    “No. My point is, I’ve been away for three months, not three days.”
    “Okay, so? Archana will have your hide either way. You abandoned your post.”
    “Archana will forgive me. She always does.” He reached behind his neck and unhooked his chain. “See these?” He laid the necklace with its broken pieces of pottery on the kitchen table, among Alva’s open jars of pickles. “And these.” He fished in his pockets and brought out two wooden sticks, a ragged-looking piece of green paper, and a brightly colored bracelet that looked as if it were woven from embroidery thread. He tossed them on the table beside his necklace. “Voilà!”
    Miss Blomgren was unimpressed. “You’ve already filled my office with your detritus of the ages, Peter. I’m in the middle of pickling and I have two Naturals to deal with. This is not the moment.”
    “It’s to do with the Talisman.”
    Julia stopped breathing, and Miss Blomgren seemed to, as well. She went very still and half raised a hand as if to touch Peter. “That’s nothing to joke about,” she said quietly.
    “No, but really. I’ve learned something about it. Something that might help us figure out what it is.”
    Pretend, Julia screamed to herself inside her own head. Pretend to be a statue.
    “All right then. I’m listening. But tell me quickly, so that I can get rid of these two girls.”
    Something in the way Peter turned his face, and in the way he held his hand as he reached to touch the embroidery-thread bracelet, made Julia realize: Peter was a girl. Younger than Julia. Maybe sixteen years old.
    The girl named Peter held the bracelet out for Miss Blomgren’s inspection. “Do you recognize this? It’s a friendship bracelet. Piper Connelly gave it to me in, like, seventh grade. Piper had the most friendship bracelets so she had the most power.”
    “Like pickled limes,” Miss Blomgren said, holding the colorful thing up and smiling at it.
    Peter cocked her head. “No . . . it’s nothing like pickles. God, Alva, you’re obsessed. You know no one is going to actually eat your beets, right? Just like no one eats your green beans or your pickled pumpkin.”
    Miss Blomgren pointed at Peter’s nose. “Quickly. What does your friendship bracelet have to do with the Talisman?”
    Peter picked up the necklace she had been wearing. “These are like a friendship bracelet,” she said, fingering one of the broken pieces of pottery. “This is a symbolon. It’s half of a clay disc. You break it when you swear friendship to someone. I have five of them. That’s what I’ve been doing for the past three months.”
    “You just left in the middle of guard duty to go make some friends and break clay discs with them.”
    “Well . . .” Peter kicked a table leg with her boot. “To be honest, it wasn’t my idea. It was