Mamma handed me the secret album, and I flipped to the centerpiece. Jodi sucked in her breath. The things in the picture could be faked by modern technology, but the picture was clearly from twenty, thirty years ago. The thin-looking legs and arms attached to the more massive body were very like Baum’s Nomes, while at a distance the head with its mass of crystals atop and fluted tube below could look like something with a head of hair and pointed beard. The crystalline “eyes” were located about where a human’s would be, so overall the effect was very bizarrely humanoid, in a creepy way. The thing had a braided crystalline harness around its body, holding what looked like a sword sheath and some other crystal-and-stone accoutrements.
Next to it was a low-slung thing, apparently of the same general order of living creatures by its gray-rock luster, but otherwise unrelated. It was much more reminiscent of centipedes in general construction, but the head glittered with points and tubes and glints of grinding structures. It was a clearly alien thing with an even more alien purpose.
“I took that shot,” Mamma said proudly. “Second time down, first time seeing them, never let out a peep.”
“Developed it herself too,” Father said. “Mamma Bea insisted we get pictures.”
“Oy!” Jodi shook her head. “So, these things are real. I believe you. So what did you mean ‘something like that,’ when I asked you that question?”
“The Nomes lost track of Winston when he ran away, and for a while nothing happened. Winston found he could sneak around and spy on them, sometimes, without them noticing. For the next few years Winston didn’t go down much, though, because there were the New Madrid Quakes which made anyone going underground awfully nervous. About 1816 he started regular trips again, this time focused on scouting out the Nome territory. Either he got clumsy or they got lucky, but this time they followed him to the exit. They don’t seem particularly inclined to violence, but they seemed to want something from him and made a nuisance of themselves for a few days, though they never seemed able to actually approach the homestead.”
“After the second time Winston got himself some diamonds, though,” Helen continued, “they changed their approach. Even tried to get into the house, though they clearly were almost blind here. Winston found he could bash them senseless with an iron bar and they were almost unable to hit back.”
Jodi glanced at me. She’d finally made the connection between my habit of carrying a crowbar and the family history. “So, you’ve been dropping in on these poor people every few years and stealing their diamonds, and then you have the chutzpah to beat them over the head when they object? Have I got this straight, now?”
The family stared at her open-mouthed. While, upon reflection, I agreed with her assessment, I don’t think anyone else had ever put it that way before.
Father got his voice back first. “Point,” he admitted.
“I’m impressed,” she said sarcastically. “And here I’d thought all the eminent domain conquests and oppression of the native population had been finished years ago.”
“It wasn’t as if they were doing anything with the stones, girl!” Grandpa objected. “Just leavin’ them sit in pools o’ water. We had better use for ’em.”
“And if someone decided you weren’t making use of your furniture, what, you think they could just come in and take it?”
“Hold on, let’s not get in a big argument here,” I said, to head off an explosion by Grandpa. “For what it’s worth, Jodi, I agree with you. I didn’t think it through before. So what do you think we should do?”
“Have you geniuses ever thought of talking to them?”
“Not recently,” I admitted. “But several times people have tried to communicate. They don’t seem to be able to see writing the way we do, and admittedly both sides are either mad or scared whenever they meet, which doesn’t dispose them towards expending lots of effort to understand us. On our side, well, if they’ve got a language we haven’t noticed it yet. They carry some things that look like tools, but darned if anyone’s ever seen them making one, so we don’t even know how they do things in their civilization.”