Mara blinked up at the house. It was unlike anything she had come across in her travels among the Moon and Martian colonies. The colonies were similar after all, steel-spined and concrete, with air that made your teeth dry. She had readied herself for shock. Prepared for her lungs for the new air, watched videos of grass and trees, scanned images of the ancient houses. It had been generations since her family returned to their estate, and she had been certain she understood the changes caused by time. And yet the house had not been done justice by the pixies she’d absorbed. The crunch of grass under her boots made her shiver. The air was so thick with scent she felt she ought to swallow it. The house looked like it could breathe.
Mara stepped away from her bike, letting her hands drop from the smooth plastic as though it was poison. She let a breeze drag across her sweaty palms, and tilted her chin up as a gnat tumbled clumsily across her cheek. The plastic and polyester of her clothes felt smothering at the slightest brush of grass. She walked slowly to the house, unbalanced from the tiny pits and trenches of the earth. She ran her fingers along the rough brick, and revelled in the sensation of grit under her nails. She dug her family’s key out of her pocket. When she plucked it from its plush case it had been a stolid thing, and she had rubbed it shiny on the journey. Now that the steel walls were gone and warm air encircled her, she could smell the metal on her fingers.
She stepped up to the door, stumbling when her boots were reluctant to vacate a patch of damp dirt. Her hand slammed into the door, and she laughed when paint chips burst sporelike from the contact. She wiggled the key, noting each scratch and catch of the manual lock and letting the memory seep into her fingers. The key stuck halfway, grinding like old bones.
Mara reached for her multitool, planning to slice through the lock with her laser, but her hand stilled at her hip, fingers brushing the harsh smoothness of her jumpsuit. She turned to the nearby shrubs and plunged her hand in. Twigs snapped and caught at her, leaves hissed at the disruption. Her palm met with jagged stone, and her fingers closed about the rock. She lifted it from the brush, leaves and sticks that clung desperately slid from her plastic sleeve. A triumphant burr tangled with her skin. She examined it in the sun before plucking it free, and dropping it reverently into the bushes. She turned to the house once more, tossing from her mind the scolding of parents and teachers, as she drove the rock into a windowpane. The flash of pain, and prickling blood on her knuckles was nearly enough to make her regret her decision, but the grit of the rock and the jagged crash and tumble of glass flattened the pain.
Mara reached through the broken pane, her exhausted sleeve finally giving up and tearing at the behest of the glass shards. She groped around inside, catching spiderwebs about her fingers and gathering the carcasses of bugs under her nails. Mara grinned at the grinding of the rusty window lock, and she shoved the window open, dust and paint-flecks snowing down around her. The crunch of glass under her stiff rubber boots sent thrills up her ribs as she slid into the house.
She had entered the dust-laden kitchen. Rusty spoons dripped from their hooks. A tower of metal bowls bowed to her as she entered, crashing about the floor like kneeling men. She ran her hand along a line of ladles, laughing as they pummeled each other, a cacophony of dust and grit. She swept her arm along the counter, gathering dust in the polyester of her sleeve and turning the stagnant white fabric grey.
In a sudden desperate windmill of emotion Mara tore off her boots. She yanked away the laces and let her bare feet slam into musty wood. She tossed the stiff rubber aside. The boots crashed into the sink, adding a spider web of cracks to the grimy pocaline. She leaped onto the countertop, curling her toes into the dust. She threw up her arms, knocking the chandelier and sending it spinning like a lady at the ball.
Her clothes resisted her, the polyester bodysuit tightening cobra-like about her ribs. She shouted wordlessly, an emotion that had no sound bouncing around the kitchen, rattling the spiderwebs and catching in the ladles. She tore at the sullen solemnity of her silver white suit. The zipper gave way and the seams followed. She screamed her laugh to the gritty ceiling. Her tattered bodysuit dropped lifeless to the floor. Mara did not follow it. Instead she spun on the countertop, her feet casting patterns in the dust. She danced formless in the breeze from the shattered windowpane. The pollen of spring and the dust of the house gathered about her, a new dress, fitted to her skin.
Mara spun, her teeth tingling from laughter as she gulped down the dust.