Meeting Read Free Page B

“Huh.”
    “We’re here to see Gwenda’s closet,” Maya said.
    “That’s peculiar,” said Fiona. “Gwenda!”
    Gwenda joined her sister at the door. She was wearing jeans, too, and a yellow embroidered blouse. “Oh, hi! Peter, too?”
    “I wanted to see. Is that okay?” Peter asked.
    “Sure. I cleaned my room, so what the heck.”
    “Why are these people visiting your closet, Gwenda?” Fiona asked.
    “I don’t know. It was Candra’s idea.”
    “ Aren’t you in my botany class?” Candra asked Fiona again.
    “I suppose I am,” Fiona said. “Fiona Janus.” She held out a hand and Candra shook it.
    “I didn’t realize you lived here.”
    Fiona shrugged and wandered off.
    “Come in,” said Gwenda. “Mama? Here are my guests.”
    Vivian Janus rose from a couch in the living room. Her coloring was like Gwenda’s—dark hair and blue eyes—and she had the same high cheekbones and clean beauty. She wore a complicated green dress made of panels of overlapping material, with a gold sash tied at the waist. She set down something she had been knitting. It looked long and tubular, like a sleeve, only it was bigger than any Earth arm. “So nice to see you,” she said, smiling at all of them. “Welcome to our home, Maya, Peter. This is your sister?”
    “Yes. This is Candra Andersen, Mama,” Gwenda said. “Candra, my mother, Vivian Janus.”
    Maya looked past Gwenda’s mother. This living room looked different from the others she had seen in Janus House Apartments. The furniture looked elegant and mostly had spindly legs, with fringed pillows covered in blue and white material arranged on off-white upholstered couches and chairs. A glass-topped table with curly ironwork legs stood on layers of fancy carpets. The apartment smelled like incense. Most Janus House residents seemed to burn things that changed the way the air smelled.
    “Nice to meet you, Ms. Janus. What a nice place you have,” Candra said.
    “Thank you,” said Ms. Janus. Her smiled showed a dimple in her right cheek. “I try.”
    “Candra wanted to see my clothes, Mama,” Gwenda said.
    “Anyone would. Please come in.” Ms. Janus stood aside for them to enter. “Would you like some tea?”
    Candra glanced in all directions. Maya looked, too, trying to see what Candra was seeing, or at least figure out what she was searching for. Candra had made remarks at supper a few times about the possibility of Janus House people belonging to weird religious cults and sacrificing babies, until Dad told her to stop that. “Andersens do not indulge in bad-mouthing people we don’t know,” he had said. “Or those we do.”
    There were no obvious clues to the magical nature of the people who lived here, Maya thought. It wasn’t like they had pentacles or brooms or bloody axes hanging from the wall.
    “Tea?” Candra said to Gwenda’s mother. “What kinds do you have?”
    Peter nudged her. “Tea would be nice, Ms. Janus. Thanks for the offer.”
    Wild that Peter had better manners than Candra, thought Maya. Especially when Candra had started out so uncharacteristically polite. Maybe she had forgotten she was on a fact-finding mission and acted like her true self by mistake.
    Maya also wondered what kind of tea they had. Janus House specialized in peculiar beverages, some of which had strange side effects.
    “We have many sorts,” Ms. Janus said. “I’ll make you some chamomile.”
    Candra hated chamomile. She opened her mouth, and Peter kicked her in the shin. “Uh, thanks,” she said, glaring at Peter.
    He smiled up at her. It was not a nice smile.
    The picture of power is over the couch , Rimi thought.
    Maya looked at the framed artwork over the couch. Every Janus House apartment she’d been in had some picture or knickknack that the inhabitants could touch to contact each other. They seemed to work like walkie-talkies. Maybe phones didn’t work in Janus House. She already knew that her cell phone didn’t, but she’d seen people