Trusted Bond

little hand into mine.
    134

    Mary Calmes

    ―How old are you?‖ I asked as I rose over her.
    ―Seven, but I‘ll be eight in March. Do you know when March is?‖
    ―You‘ve got awhile.‖ I sympathized, since it was summer.
    ―I know.‖ She sighed deeply.
    ―Hello.‖
    I looked up, and Ebere El Masry was standing before me hand in
    hand with her other, older, daughter.
    ―You‘re the reah.‖
    ―Yes.‖
    ―You need to bow before me, reah; I‘m mistress here, not you.‖
    It was really annoying that I brought such bitchiness out of every
    yareah I ever met. But it was the whole reah-trumps-yareah thing, and
    even as I understood, it was tiring. It was like they were all afraid for a
    second, afraid that I was actually their semel‘s true-mate, and then the
    second the danger passed, the minute they knew I wasn‘t a threat, I got
    paid back for making them worry in the first place. I wondered vaguely
    how she and Amirah had done. Ammon had said that he and Amirah had
    been strolling when she found her true-mate, not him and Amirah and
    Ebere. I was betting I was about to be paid back for Amirah‘s sins as well.
    I went down on one knee and bent my head.
    ―We‘re gonna walk to the museum together, Mama.‖
    There was a long silence.
    ―Rise, reah.‖
    I stood up and realized that the little girl was still holding my hand.
    ―My husband says you are dangerous, reah. Are you?‖
    I shook my head.
    ―Walk by me,‖ she ordered as she took the long piece of beautiful
    maroon silk from one of the serving women. She wrapped it intricately
    around her head and face until she was just as covered as the rest of us.
    The child, Femi, was a blessing. Her sister, Catava, was a pain. She
    was as cold as her mother and just as humorless. But Femi was cute and
    funny and so unlike either of her parents. I wondered vaguely who had
    raised her.
    ―I was living with my grandmother in Cairo until last month, but
    now Mama says that I have to come here and learn about being a panther.‖
    It all became clear. Obviously this little girl‘s grandmother and mine
    had been cut from the same cloth. As we walked, she chatted, telling me
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    135

    absolutely every thought that came into her head. I was very thankful for
    the distraction.
    The museum was bigger than I expected and reminded me of every
    natural history museum I had ever been in. There were lots of dead
    animals stuffed in uncharacteristic ―attack‖ poses, armor, pottery, statues,
    and paintings. The exhibits were extensive: history of the railway,
    irrigation, and life along the Nile. The gem room was pretty, the
    mummification room creepy, and the history of werepanthers, shown in
    large, detailed frescoes, enough to bore me right out of my mind. I wasn‘t
    surprised to see Femi‘s eyes rolling back in her head. She would be in a
    coma in no time.
    ―What‘s that?‖ Femi pointed, dragging me across the room to an
    enormous mural on the far wall.
    As I had seen the same scene presented a million different times in a
    million different ways over the course of my life, I knew what I was
    looking at. ―Sweetheart, that‘s the history of how werepanthers came to
    be.‖ I smiled down at her.
    ―Tell me.‖
    ―You know this,‖ I assured her. ―You tell me instead.‖
    ―I promise I don‘t.‖
    I groaned under my breath.
    ―C‘mon,‖ she insisted, squeezing my hand.
    ―Fine.‖ I pointed at the reliefs. ―Thousands of years ago, there were
    wild panthers in Egypt‖—I gestured toward the group of cats toward the
    middle of the wall picture—―that eventually bred with African wildcats to
    create you and me and every werepanther that lives today.‖
    ―Why did they want to be together, the panthers and the wildcats?‖
    ―Well, a lot of old books tell us that the panthers were being hunted
    and killed, and the wildcats, which were self-domesticating—‖
    ―What is self… whatever you said?‖
    I liked her. She wasn‘t afraid to speak up and ask questions, and that
    was normally missing in kids I met. She had her own mind, fostered, I was
    certain, by her grandmother.
    ―Jin?‖
    ―Sorry,‖ I said, smiling at her. ―It‘s like the wildcats chose to live
    with people.‖
    ―How come?‖
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    Mary Calmes

    ―Probably because the people fed them.‖
    ―Oh, okay.‖
    ―All right, so the cats, this new panther-wildcat mix, they found that
    not only did they want to live with people, they wanted to be people,‖