Household Gods

metal? And that shimmer close to her eyes, so close she had to shorten focus, almost cross her eyes, to see it, was a railing, bright silver — aluminum.

She was dreaming. She drew in another deep breath. And smelled — nothing. No city stink. No reek of shit and garbage and smoke and unwashed humanity. In their place was… not quite nothing, after all. A faint, tingling, half-unpleasant smell. Floor wax and — disinfectant? Yes.

She rolled onto her back again. This was a wonderful dream, realistic to the point of pain. She didn’t want ever to wake up.

She drank in every detail. The mattress under her, with its crinkly plastic cover. The sheets, white and faintly rough on her skin, but smoother than anything she’d known in Carnuntum. The ceiling: no hand-planed boards fitted together unevenly, but acoustic tiles, each one exactly like the one beside it, machine-made, perfect; and a frosted-glass panel over a pair of fluorescent tubes. Their pale, purplish-white glow was the brightest thing she’d seen, except for the sun itself, in well over a year.

Nicole shivered. Part was wonder. Part was chill. She’d got used to being chilly in Carnuntum, where fires and braziers didn’t do nearly enough to fight the cold.

She was in Carnuntum, then. As vivid as the dream was, as real as it felt, the cold was unmistakable.

Or else… it was air-conditioned to a fare-thee-well. She looked down at herself, at her body lying in the bed. Crisp white sheet, industrial strength. On top of it, a baby-blue blanket better dyed than the one she’d had in Carnuntum, but only about half as thick, and not wool, either. On top of the blanket, her arm.

Her arm. She needed a moment to recognize it. She hadn’t seen it in a year and a half. Pale, on the fleshy side, manicured fingers — no, this wasn’t Umma’s work-hardened arm. This one, without question, belonged to Nicole Gunther-Perrin. It had something — probably the lead for an IV — taped to it. There were other discomforts, wires, leads taped here and there, connected to monitors that beeped and whistled when she moved. And one niggle that mounted to annoyance, which felt like the worst bladder infection she’d ever had, and was — had to be — a catheter.

All of which meant, which had to mean -

She lifted the sheet and let out a startled snort of laughter. The white cotton gown, or front of a gown, was even less prepossessing than the grimy wool tunic in which she’d first awakened in Carnuntum. But the body it so halfheartedly concealed was hers, slightly flabby tummy, heavy thighs, and all.

A tall black woman in a nurse’s uniform strode into the room, alerted probably by the changes in the monitors. At sight of Nicole half sitting up, staring at her, she stopped. Her eyes went wide. “You’re awake,” she said.

Nicole swallowed against a sudden and completely involuntary surge of terror. The same terror with which she’d faced every morning in Carnuntum.

Would today be the day? Would she finally, somehow, blow her cover, and let the whole world know that she wasn’t anything like what she seemed?

She took refuge, and warmth, in a small flash of temper at the nurse’s belaboring of the obvious. “Scilicet vigilans sum. Sed ubi sum?’’

The woman’s eyes widened even further. “Say what, honey?” Under her breath, she muttered something that sounded like, Possible brain damage?

Nicole opened her mouth to snap at her: What are you, deaf? Didn’t you hear me? But she stopped. She’d been speaking Latin. It had come out that way automatically, as it had for the past year and more. But the nurse had spoken plain, ordinary, wonderful, familiar English.

Nicole had to kink her brain a bit to remember how the words went. When they came back, the vowels were flavored still, a little, with Latin. “I said, of course I’m awake. But where? I know this is a hospital. Which one?” The last of it came out in the harsh Midwestern accent she’d tried to soften since she moved to California, but it was better than the mock-Italian of the first few words.

“West Hills Regional Medical Center, ma’am,” the nurse answered her. That was the closest hospital to Nicole’s house; she’d taken Kimberley and Justin to the ER there a time or two.

The nurse frowned, wondering, maybe, if she’d really heard gibberish from this patient after all. “Do you know your name, ma’am?” she asked.

“Nicole Gunther-Perrin,” Nicole said — biting down hard on the temptation to answer, Umma. She rattled off her address for good measure, with satisfaction entirely out of proportion to the achievement. Street number. Street name. Zip code. All the lovely architecture of the modern identity.

The nurse glanced at the card at the foot of the bed, then nodded. Nicole had got it right. She hadn’t known she was holding her breath till she let it out. She asked the question she’d been working her way up to, the one that truly mattered: “How long have I been here?”

She held her breath again, consciously this time. She’d been in Carnuntum a year and a half. If she’d been gone so long, Kimberley would hardly know her. Justin — Justin wouldn’t remember her at all. And the bills she would have run up! The law firm’s medical coverage was more than decent, but a year and a half in the hospital? She’d be as broke as if she’d stayed in Carnuntum.

Or — She froze. What if it was even worse? What if she’d been in a coma for five years? Ten? Twenty? What if —?

The nurse cut off her thoughts before they spiraled into hysteria. “Honey,” she said in her warm Southern drawl, “you’ve been here six days.”

Nicole nearly collapsed with relief. She stiffened herself as best she could, and looked down at her hands — her hands. Yes, that was the nail polish she’d put on last, badly grown out and somewhat chipped, but definitely her own.

Six days. Thank God. No — thank gods.

Now the next question, much less painful, but she had to know. “How did I get here?”

But the nurse held up a hand. “You just stay right there, Ms. Gunther-Perrin. I’m going to call Dr. Feldman. She’ll tell you everything you need to know. She’ll want to run some tests on you, too, I bet.”

“Wait!” Nicole cried. “Just let me ask about my childr — “

But the nurse had already whipped about and gone. Fled, Nicole almost thought, except that nurses were often like that. They didn’t want to get involved, and for sure they didn’t want to assume the responsibility of treating the patient like a human being instead of a piece of furniture.

She stayed where she was, drinking in the sight of that bare and sterile room. The other bed in it, nearer the window, was empty. Beyond it, through glass, actual glass without bubble or waver or crack, she saw blue, faintly hazy sky and the sun-baked, brush-covered hills that said, distinctly, California. They had never looked so good in all the years she’d lived there.

A different nurse, Hispanic or maybe Filipina, appeared in the doorway. She stared at Nicole. “Could you bring me this morning’s Times, please?” Nicole asked, taking care to speak English.

The nurse looked more startled than ever, turned and fled. What was wrong with them all? Hadn’t they ever had a person in a coma wake up before?

Probably not sitting up, talking, and demanding the latest news. Nicole lay back on the crackly bed. She couldn’t exactly luxuriate in it, but it was clean. That alone was well worth wallowing in.

She was still not entirely sure she wasn’t dreaming. Pinching herself didn’t help. She could dream that sharp little pain, couldn’t she?

Even the little things were wonderful. The blank face of the TV hung from the ceiling: she couldn’t find the remote, and wasn’t inclined to hunt for it. Just knowing it was there, somewhere, was enough. The IV on its rack, and the different monitors. All that plastic and metal and glass, none of it even imaginable to a mind raised in the second century.

She lay for a long while staring at the clock on the wall. What a marvel it was. Time measured out in hours and minutes and seconds. No need to rely on the sun, or to remember whether it was summer or winter, whether the hours were longer or shorter depending on the length of the day.

Forty-five minutes and sixteen seconds after the black nurse fled, a woman strode briskly into the room. She was short and very thin, the sort of person who crackles with nervous energy. Her hair was brown and wavy and beginning to go gray. She didn’t seem to take much notice of it; it was pulled back in a bun, out of sight and out of