Folio Two, Page Forty-One (svegra mos droskron tal-itz)

Senet arrived the day the storm broke. He didn’t carry much luggage with him, but the two bags he had were heavy. Kobeis and I took them upstairs while the family gathered to greet him.

We welcomed him in the traditional way, offering milk and fruit from one of the trays in the presence of our ancestors — the only time we would allow him into that room. Everything was scrubbed clean and polished, courtesy of a cleaning organization my aunt had hired to make everything presentable.

He wore a simple tunic and pants, cream-colored like his skin, and spoke softly. His face was lineless like a sculpture, but when he smiled at me laugh lines crinkled around his eyes. Senet had a glow about him like no Karatha I’ve met since. The best part about him was the silence. Unlike everyone else, he never said things just to keep the drone of conversation going, and for the most part he kept his opinions to himself — although once I did see him watch a gunslinger film when everyone else had gone to bed, the volume down so low that I almost didn’t realize anyone was using the entertainment center. How much of this was his real personality slipping through and how much of it was just the collective I never learned.

We had meat in his honor, that and a table piled high with every fruit endemic to the canyons and about seven or eight varieties of bread. It felt like greeting royalty. Senet chose to sit right next to me.

I felt myself warm up to him in spite of the secret glances from one or two of relatives — which I thought meant I shouldn’t speak too much or engage him in pointless discussions about the sky or school. Now that I have grown older, I know they didn’t want me to get hurt.

After the festivities ended, he politely excused himself and locked himself in his room. I heard someone whispering when I tiptoed past it to my own. When I opened my own door, he was standing behind me. I could feel his breath on the back of my neck and smell the strange perfume he wore, all musty and tart like fresh gobahja berries — but when I turned around, I saw no one.

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