Since Devi didn’t come through the portal speaking Zyuni anymore, because the cabinet was in an apartment whose residents only spoke Stasari, Nidlaya had loaned her a language talisman, a gold necklace with a ruby pendant, which enabled her to speak and understand Zyuni.

The Mural and the Cabinet

part 21 of 21

by Trismegistus Shandy

Thanks to Lucario and Maplestrip for feedback on story ideas, and to Yuki Kitsune for beta reading the manuscript.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Epilogue

Devi woke and rubbed the sleep out of her eyes, yawning for a few moments before she remembered where she was and what day it was. Then she jumped out of bed and ran to knock on her Grandma’s door. No, Grandpa’s — he wanted her to call him that now, because some of his new friends were confused when they heard his little grandchildren call him “Grandma.”

“Grandpa! Ami! Wake up, we need to get ready!”

It was Zindla and Myanda’s wedding day, and Devi didn’t want to be late. She and Ami had taken a few days off school and come over here to stay with Grandpa so they could go to the wedding. Mom and Dad were here, too, but staying in a nearby hotel, since Grandpa didn’t have that many guest rooms in his apartment. Karsan had stayed home; he had a new job and didn’t want to try to take vacation so soon after starting, or miss basketball practice. And he still didn’t like changing into a girl.

“I’m awake,” Grandpa called out. “I’ll be there directly.”

Devi wasted no more time, running back to her guest room and getting dressed. (She’d bathed the night before.) By the time she was ready, Grandpa and Ami were up and Grandpa was fixing breakfast. They got dressed after eating, and a few minutes later they were on their way.

Mom and Dad would join them in the vestibule of Zindla’s church, but by then, Devi had already gone in the back to meet up with Zindla, Syuna, Pasyala, and Zindla’s girl cousins who would make up the bridal party. Devi’s role was kind of like the flower girl or ringbearer in a wedding back home, something traditionally assigned to one of the bride or groom’s youngest relatives, except that the Zyuneban didn’t actually use wedding rings or scatter flowers in the aisle. Instead, Devi was assigned to carry an intricately carved ivory box that contained some of the ashes of Pasyala’s mother and grandmothers for several generations back, and set it on a pedestal on the dais just before Myanda’s little cousin Ksunya brought in a box with Myanda’s ancestors' ashes and set it on another pedestal. Then the rest of the bride and groom’s attendants filed in, more or less like a wedding back home, and then Myanda, and finally Zindla, looking resplendent in a long blue-green gown with white lacy trim at the collar, sleeves, and hem, and a high headdress.

Since Devi didn’t come through the portal speaking Zyuni anymore, because the cabinet was in an apartment whose residents only spoke Stasari, Nidlaya had loaned her a language talisman, a gold necklace with a ruby pendant, which enabled her to speak and understand Zyuni. What’s more, it let her understand the special church language they used for part of the service, too. Nidlaya didn’t have enough of them for Devi’s entire family, though, so Grandpa, Ami, and Devi’s mom were in the dark for most of the wedding; Nidlaya had given the only other Zyuni-language talisman he had to spare to Devi’s dad. Devi was pretty sure that she and Devi’s other relatives were passing the talisman around so they could all understand part of the ceremony. They all wanted to see Devi act as ashes-bearer in the wedding, although none were as close to Zindla’s family as Devi herself.

The ceremony went off beautifully, and soon everyone was eating, drinking, and dancing in the hall adjoining the sanctuary. Devi danced with Myanda’s ashes-bearer, Ksunya, a boy a couple of years older than her age while she was in this world, and with Myanda himself, as did all of Zindla’s attendants. With Zindla having so many people to dance with and to greet, though, Devi didn’t get to hang out with her much. She understood. They’d have time for that next time Devi came to visit.

Hours later, Devi and her family returned to Grandpa’s apartment, exhausted but happy. She and Dad had given their language talismans back to Nidlaya before they left the dance.

“You all are going home tomorrow?” Grandpa confirmed as they sat around in his living room, having changed out of their formal clothes.

“Yes,” Mom said. “We’ll swing by to pick up Ami and Devi right after breakfast, and do some sightseeing for a few hours. Getting to Kashpur’s penthouse at the third hour after noon should get us home in the early evening back home. The kids need to be back in school the next day.”

“I’ll look forward to when it’s summer back home and you can stay longer.”

“So do we,” Dad said, and Mom squeezed her hand. Devi was old enough now to know what that was about, though still young enough to be a little squicked out by it, as well as fascinated.

“Have you got any more retirees lined up to come through soon?”

“We’ve got two referrals that are thinking about it. At least one of them seems to be seriously winding up her affairs and getting ready to move; she says she’ll talk to us again after she manages to sell her house. They’re both friends of Karul Stinsun, who came through a couple of months ago, and they were at our house to watch her go through along with her daughters.”

“And witness that you weren’t scamming her,” Grandpa said with a laugh. “Karul got used to being a man pretty quickly, by the way — he brought a local Stasa woman as his date to our last American exiles meetup. A co-worker at his new job.”

“Good for him,” Mom said. “I wonder what his daughter and son-in-law will think of that when they come to visit him at Christmas?”

“So your cousins claim that their mother retired to a commune out west somewhere,” Detective Paul Blair said to the man across the desk from him, “but you’re not convinced?”

“They won’t tell me exactly where she went or how to contact her. They said she made a short list of people who were allowed to write to her or visit her, and I wasn’t on it, and the commune doesn’t have Internet or phone.”

“Hmm. You think it might be a cult of some kind?”

“It sounds like it, but... it doesn’t seem in character for Aunt Carol. She’s always been a staunch atheist, ever since she was a teenager; my mom and her argued about it as far back as I could remember, until Mom died a couple of years ago. And if anything, she ridiculed cults like that even more than she did Mom’s and Grandma and Grandpa’s Methodist beliefs, which she mostly kept quiet about except when they were provoking her... anyway. It just doesn’t seem like her. I didn’t even find out she was going until after she was gone. I had a pretty friendly visit with her the last time I was in Georgia, back in August, and then a few months later I noticed that her Facebook account had been deleted. I tried to call her and found out her phone had been disconnected. I asked my cousin Candace about it and that’s when I heard about this business. So I asked more questions, and wasn’t satisfied with the answers... Candace says she sold her house and some of her more valuable but not particularly sentimental possessions, and gave her and Nicole — that’s my other cousin, Aunt Carol’s younger daughter — a lot of stuff, and gave whatever her daughters didn’t want and she couldn’t sell to Goodwill. She apparently kept only a few personal belongings, family photos and things like that, to take with her to the commune. Again, that doesn’t sound like Aunt Carol.”

“You think your cousin is lying?”

“I don’t want to, but... it just doesn’t sound right. I guess it’s okay if Aunt Carol doesn’t want to see me or hear from me; I just want to know she’s okay, and that she hasn’t been scammed out of her life savings or worse.”

“All right. We’ll look into it, and let you know what we find out... if she really is okay and doesn’t want to be contacted, though, we won’t tell you where she is, just that she’s okay. Understand?”

“Of course.”

“I’ll need your cousins' contact information, and... let’s see... where did your aunt live before she sold the house? Do you know of any other friends who might be on this alleged short list of people allowed to contact her, or who might have had contact with her shortly before she left?”

The man started talking, and Detective Blair took notes.

Thanks for reading. Whether and how soon I write the tentatively-planned sequel depends on how much feedback I get for this story. So leave comments if you'd like to see more.

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