Firestorm

I pulled myself away from that, pressed my hand to my aching head, and asked, "Where are you heading?"

"Maine?…"

David had set her on the road to Seacasket, at least. And apparently global positioning was one of the things that she'd inherited from him.

I nodded and tried stretching. It didn't feel great. "What about the accident? Was everybody all right?"

"Accident?" She was either playing dumb, or all that carnage and twisted metal had meant little to her.

"There was a wreck—there was a—" A little girl. Wandering, bloodied, scared. I'd been trying to save her, hadn't I? My memory was fuzzy, tied up with images that didn't make any sense of opalescent swirls and burning and falling…

"I don't know," she confessed, and chewed her lip. I knew that gesture. It had taken me dedication to get over the same one. She was my kid, all right. "I didn't know it was important or I would have paid more attention."

"Not important?" I let that out, accusation-flavored, before I could stop myself. Imara turned her attention back to the road. Not to focus on her driving, just to avoid my censure.

And then she deliberately turned back, eyes level and completely alien. "I should have paid more attention, but you should leave that behind you now. What Father's asking you to do is more important, and you can't be distracted by individual lives now." She shook her head. "It's also very, very dangerous, what he's asking of you. I don't like it."

"I just got my synapses fried in a lightning strike, and then I fell out of the sky. Dangerous is sort of a sliding scale with me."

"Mom!" She sounded distressed. Angry. "Please understand: Whatever you've faced before, this is different, and you need to stay focused on the goal. I know that's hard for you, but if you worry about saving every individual, you'll lose them all. Let other people do their part. This is Dji

By my very nature, I wasn't good at taking in the big picture; for me, the whole world was that lost, scared little girl wandering in a field. Those college boys trapped in their wrecked truck. The world revealed itself to me one person at a time.

But I took in a deep breath and nodded. "Right. I'm focused. How much longer—?"

"About seven more hours," Imara said. "I'll stay with you. There are things you can't do on your own. You'll need help. Father said—" She shut up, fast. Father. I wondered if David was as frightened by that as I was by the Mom thing. Or as delighted. Or both. "Is this still strange for you?"

"What?"

"Me," she said softly, and turned her attention back to the road. "Human mothers carry their children inside them. They hold them as infants; they teach and guide them. I was born as I am. That's strange, isn't it?"

She sounded wistful, even sad. I'd been so busy thinking of myself and my reactions to her that I hadn't considered how odd this might be for her, too. That maybe she felt lost in a maze of human feelings she didn't understand. Wasn't even supposed to have, perhaps.

"Imara," I said. "Pull over."

"What?"

"Please."

She coasted the car to a stop on the gravel shoulder, not far from a sign that warned of curves up ahead, and twisted around to face me. It was like looking in a faerie mirror—so similar that it made me shiver somewhere deep inside. There was an indefinable co

"You look so much like me," I murmured, and took her hands in mine. They felt warm, real, and solidly familiar.

"I am you," she said. "Most of me. I'm not so much your child as your clone—Dji

I shivered a little. How was I supposed to feel about that? And what was I supposed to say? "I—"

"I'm not really Dji

"Mothers protect children. Not the other way around."

She tilted her head a little to the side, regarding me with a tiny little frown. "How can you protect me?"

Great question. "I won't know until I get there," I said, and impulsively reached up to touch her cheek. "Sweetheart, I'm not going to pretend that you're not stronger than I am, or faster, or smarter, or—anything else that the Dji

The frown grooved deeper. "That's not what Father said to do."

"Then your dad and I need to have a talk." What she'd said was making me curious. "When you say you're not fully Dji

"What are my limits, do you mean?" she asked. I nodded. "Where you're strong—in weather and fire, particularly—I'm strong. I can move the way the Dji

"But," she continued when I didn't jump in, "even so, I am one of the Dji

I stayed quiet, thinking. She might not have been able to read my mind, but she could easily read my expressions—something I couldn't do to her.

"You're worried that if you keep me with you, they could trace you through me. A weak link."

"A little. With the Dji

She inclined her head, just once. A Dji

"And go where?" I asked.

"Anywhere. I only just arrived. I haven't even begun to learn about the world for myself." She smiled, but it felt like bravado to me. My kid was trying to make me feel better about rejecting her.

"Imara—"

"No, please don't. I want to help you, but I understand if you can't trust me—you only just met me. You'd be crazy not to be concerned."

I wasn't about to break my daughter's heart. Not yet. "Let's take it slow on the assumption of mistrust, okay? I just don't—know you."

"But I know you," she replied quietly. "And I can see that it makes you… uncomfortable."

I let that one pass. "If David can always locate you, I'm guessing you can always locate me, no matter where you are. Right? So it really doesn't matter if you're here, or learning how to spin prayer wheels in Tibet. And I'd rather have you here. Getting to know you."

She smiled again. "What if you don't like me?"

It was a sad, self-mocking smile, and suddenly I wasn't seeing the metallic Dji