I handed it to Anjali. As soon as she touched it, she looked startled. “This is from your coat?” she said. “Where did you get your coat?”
“Hand-me-down from my stepsister. But I lost the original top button. Dr. Rust gave me this one when I passed the sorting test.”
“Oh! Should I sew on an ordinary button, then? I think I can find one that would fit.” She handed it back.
Holding it up to my face, I knew at once it was no ordinary button: I caught a faint whiff of smell that reminded me of the Grimm Collection. Where had Dr. Rust gotten it? What do magic buttons do?
“No, let’s use this one. Dr. Rust must have meant it for my coat—it matches the rest of my buttons,” I said.
Anjali pulled the head of her gooseneck reading lamp closer and threaded a needle.
As I watched, something caught at the edge of my vision, something out the window. How many floors up were we? Fourteen? A noise came from my throat, half gasp, half scream.
“What? What is it?”
I pointed to the window.
Anjali jumped out of her chair and snapped down the shade. She pulled the silk curtains shut. “What did you see?” she asked.
“I’m not sure. I think it was the gigantic bird again. Was Marc right—is it following you?”
“There’s nothing there now.”
“You’re right. I could be imagining it. We’re both jumpy.”
From behind the door I heard a little shuffle. I gasped again. Anjali spun around. “Jaya!” she cried.
She leapt across the room to slam the door shut, but it was too late. There was a foot in the way—a biggish, sneakered foot on a skinny leg. Anjali seemed to grow bigger, like a great, glaring, black-feathered hawk herself. “Out!” she shrilled.
The sneaker didn’t move.
“Jaya! I said
“Anjali!” wailed the voice behind the sneaker. “What’s following you?”
“You are, obviously. Get out of my room.”
“I’m not in your room.”
“Your foot is.” Anjali kicked at it.
“Don’t stomp! I’ll tell Mom!”
“Go on, tell her. Run along and tell her and get your foot out of my door.”
The foot didn’t budge. “Come on, Anj, let me in. I want to meet your friend. I promise I’ll sit very quietly in the corner; you won’t even know I’m there. If something scary is following you around, I have a right to know. I could help. Or I might even be the one it’s after.”
“Yeah, right. It’s a pest eater.”
“Come on, Anjali! Please?”
“Oh, let her in,” I said. “What’s the harm?”
Anjali paused and looked pained. “This is a mistake,” she said, slowly opening the door. A bundle of knees and elbows, topped with eyebrows, liquid black eyes, and a spiky dark cloud of hair flounced in and threw itself on the bed.
“Jaya! Get your sneakers off my quilt!”
Jaya shifted slightly so that the sneakered part of her legs was sticking out over the edge of the bed. She turned the eyebrows my way. “You’re Elizabeth, right? You go to the school with the good basketball games. Can I come too?”
“No,” said Anjali.
“But I want to see Merritt play!”
“Jaya! You disgusting little spy!”
“Oh, don’t worry, I won’t tell Mom and Dad. Who’s Merritt, anyway? Your boyfriend?”
“Get off my bed! I mean it, get off!” Anjali lunged. I was amused to see she was so bad at sister-wrangling. Was this the poised, unflappable Anjali I’d been admiring ever since I started work at the repository?
“Anji has a boyfriend! Anji has a boyfriend!” Jaya singsonged, kicking her feet in the air. Anjali looked ready to tear her to pieces.
I stepped in hastily. “Do you play basketball, Jaya? You look like you’d be good at it,” I said.
“Really?” She sat up and looked at me. “Why?”
“You’re tall for your age, and you have those long arms and legs. Get up, let me see you.”
Jaya jumped up, leaving the quilt crumpled behind her.
“Catch!” I tossed a little lace pillow from the sofa. She snatched it out of the air and threw it back.
“Gently,” I said, throwing it again. “You want to go for precision and control. Yeah, you’d definitely be good. You’re not just tall for your age, you’re quick too.”
“How do you know I’m tall for my age? Do you know how old I am?”
“Ten,” I said.
She looked disappointed. “Did Anjali tell you?”
“No, you look like a ten-year-old.”
“If I look like a ten-year-old and I
“You look like a tall ten-year-old.”
Anjali was starting to look impatient. Still, at least Jaya wasn’t talking about Marc anymore.
Now that she was no longer lying on Anjali’s bed, Jaya threw herself around the room pretending to shoot baskets with the pillow. “Put that down, you’re going to break something,” said Anjali.
“Here,” I said. I held my arms in a circle. Jaya made the layup, and I kept the pillow. I kicked off my shoes, stretched out on the sofa, and tucked the pillow under my cheek. Jaya pouted, then walked around the room, picking things up.
“Put that down, Jaya! It’s fragile.”
Jaya was holding a sandalwood fan. “Is this the fan from Auntie Shanti?” She inspected both sides. It was elaborately carved with what looked like stylized feathers.
“Yes. Put it down.”
Jaya flounced carelessly over to the sofa where I was lying and fanned me. The air coming off the fan had a faint, disturbing, familiar smell. Sandalwood, yes, but what else? That fresh smell in the air after a thunderstorm? Vinyl? Toast? “Can I see that a sec?” I held out my hand.
Jaya looked at me suspiciously. “Why?”
“I want to check something out.”
“Promise you’ll give it back.”
“We’ll see.” I kept my hand out.
Curiosity won over contrariness. She handed it over. I fanned my face and sniffed; I sniffed at the back, the front, the handle. Definitely magic. I looked at Anjali. “What is it?” I asked.
She shrugged. “Sandalwood?” Was she just being discreet in front of her sister, or did she really not know? I handed the fan back to Jaya. “Put it back on the shelf,” I said. “Carefully.”
A little to my surprise, Jaya obeyed, sniffing it herself on the way over. She reached for an inlaid box next to it on the shelf, but Anjali said, “No!” in a new, quiet voice.
It was clear she meant it; even Jaya paused. “Leave that,” Anjali said.
“But I just want to see inside,” said Jaya.
“Leave it alone. I mean it. Auntie Shanti said it’s bottomless, and so will you be if you touch it.”
Was she kidding, or did she mean it literally? And what was Anjali’s family doing with these magical objects?
In a way, I thought, it wasn’t any weirder for Anjali’s family to have magic than for magic to exist at all. And after all, they had lots of things most families didn’t have, like carved tables and inlaid chests and fancy flower arrangements. I wondered again what magical properties the fan had.
Jaya shrugged and threw herself on the sofa next to me. “So, what’s the scary thing that’s after you?” she asked conversationally.
