The following is a sample from the novel.

Chapter One

The Client

Adrift in a basket on an ocean of sky, Coriander eyes the fire spewing from a hole in their table and tries to choose between two undesirable endings: burning to death in a hot air balloon or falling a thousand feet onto sharp rocks and cacti. Their balloon flies at the center of a jewel-toned armada whose bright colors flash across the salt-white clouds. For a last meal this feast for the eyes would be sumptuous beyond belief—if any of it were real. In truth, there are no balloons, gas burners, or snow-caked Saguaros here; just a sentient cafe that loves to hijack patrons’ eyesight to serve up Arizona Airfield alongside the brioche French toast and spicy potatoes.

Like the toast, Coriander is real. They add sugar to an espresso blacker than their hair as a girl walks toward them through open air. Clouds seem to congeal around her legs because the cafe knows children cannot fly, but is itself too young and immature to invent a better lampshade. The girl comes right up to Coriander’s basket, folds her brown arms on the wicker, and asks, “Do you have more than one person in your head?”

Their stomach plummets to the desert floor to land wetly on a cactus.

“Don’t be scared,” the girl says, “my mom is plural and she always gets two drinks because one of her headmates is a Coffee Person and the other is a Tea Person. I’m a Milkshake Person. What are you?”

Two cups—she spotted them because they have two cups.

Equal parts relieved and amused, they answer candidly: “Two of us are Coffee People and Mouse loves all things sweet.” The comment ignites an internal argument between the headmates.

MOUSE: Not true. I hate honey.

HAM: Dutch, have you forgotten puking baklava?

DUTCH: I raised a child, Ham. That’s one puke among legions.

Unaware of the conversation unfolding in Coriander’s head, the girl announces, “When I grow up I’m going to be plural, too, with my best friends as my headmates and we’ll live in my body because I’m the best at cartwheels. Watch me.” Shells in her hair clatter musically as she performs a midair cartwheel that flies in the face of physics. The cafe throws up its hands and affixes Cumulous pompoms to hers, as if that makes things more real.

The shell clattering sound attracts attention from a woman in another balloon. She hurries over on tennis shoes that quickly become eagles. “Forgive our daughter,” the woman says, as the eagles flap uselessly beneath her feet. “She thinks everybody is her friend.”

Coriander tells her, “We don’t mind,” and when she clocks their pronoun, she radiates the warmth plurals feel when encountering others of their kind in the wild. Still smiling, the plural mother wraps her hands around her kid’s shoulders and steers her away. Coriander watches them go and reaches for a sugar cube.

HAM: Another one, Mouse?

MOUSE: I blame your taste buds.

DUTCH: There’s nothing wrong with Ham’s taste buds.

MOUSE: You’re biased, Dutch. You got spice tolerance.

Pooling their willpower, Ham and Dutch retract Coriander’s hand before it reaches the bowl.

MOUSE: Aw, come on.

HAM: We got you apple cider.

DUTCH: In Mouse’s defense, drinking it first did make the espresso bitter.

Dutch switches teams, and the second cube lands atop the first so that its crenelated surface protrudes from their coffee like an island. Coriander gently swirls the cup, coaxing Sugar Island to sink into the roasted ocean the way the artificial sun is sinking into desert sand.

In this part of the world, the real sun sank hours ago, but Cafe Arizona shares a timezone with its namesake. Just shy of 7PM local, the cafe is only now dressing itself for dinner, swapping the blue caftan of afternoon for an evening robe of gray and purple velvet lightly embellished with stars. Ribbons of pink light unfurl at the horizon, followed by more stars, thrown like confetti. 

Every sunset is a production at Cafe Arizona.

When the virtual sky is choked with glitter, Coriander finishes their remaining espresso, pulls on a dramatic coat, and follows a red star to the EXIT because it is time to go to therapy.

Darkness blankets the real outdoors. Despite this being a major city, there is no artificial light. Coriander has to dial up their light sensitivity to navigate the unpaved greenways. If the moon is out on this frigid November night, the brick buildings that flank the greenway are blocking every bit of its light. More than once, Coriander flinches at a shape made sinister by shadows.

HAM: I know you’re scared of the dark, Mouse, but that’s a potted plant.

MOUSE: I’m not scared! I’m just adjusting.

DUTCH: How long is this adjustment going to take? You’ve been here four years.

Children of the Twenty-Fourth Century, Ham and Dutch are accustomed to a world without light pollution, but Mouse, who was born two hundred years before them, is not. Absolute blackness takes getting used to, as does eating things that come out of animals, stuff like what bees throw up in the privacy of their waxy hives. Coriander shoves their hands into their pockets and chides themself for not wearing gloves; after just ten minutes in the cold, the electric prickle in their fingers is strong enough to reanimate a corpse, specifically the corpse of a dead debate about hot air balloons. 

If you find yourself in a doomed one, what do you do?

HAM: Can you imagine needles pricking us everywhere?

MOUSE: Yes and I’d still jump.

HAM: You can’t be serious.

DUTCH: Ham, consider the source.

Ham does, and when he realizes his oversight he cringes so hard that Coriander—the body he now shares with two headmates—cringes with him.

MOUSE: I’m lucky not to remember being burned alive. I’d like to keep it that way.

HAM: Of course. I’m sorry, Mouse.

Coriander says aloud, “Apology accepted,” startling a dog-walker who nearly wipes out on the ice. To save him from falling, they grab the man’s sleeve, but he wrenches free of their grasp and scurries away, pulling his unmoving dog like a sled over the dark snow. It is the kind of interaction they expect when they visit Dutch’s family, not something that belongs on greenway in downtown. They sigh, and move on.

DUTCH: Have you picked a fragment to discuss tonight?

MOUSE: Are you talking to me?

DUTCH: Yes.

MOUSE: It’s Ham’s turn.

HAM: No, we did my sweater last week. How about the kitchen sink, Mouse?

They shake their head.

HAM: Why not?

MOUSE: No lie could make that fragment happy.

HAM: It’s not about making it happy, Mouse; it’s about making it whole.

When he was little, Mouse experienced a trauma involving a kitchen sink. Now twenty-seven, he cannot recall the details of what happened, not because the memory is repressed but because it is decaying with his beautiful remains in an unmarked grave.

On the day that Coriander was made, a Painter copied a third each of Mouse’s and Dutch’s consciousnesses into Ham’s body, erasing two thirds of Ham in the process. All three headmates were left with fragmented memories. Ham, for instance, remembers setting a sweater on fire but not whose sweater it was or what they did to deserve arson. Coriander’s therapist helped him invent a story to explain his rage, and that enabled him to let it go. Hoping she can do the same for Mouse and his fear, they buzz into her building and take the lift to eight.

Here ends the first chapter.