Blameless

CHAPTER SIXTEEN


On a Bridge over the Arno and Other Romantic Misnomers
Late! Of course I’m late. You do realize, wife, I’ve been hunting all over Italy for you? You havna been exactly easy to find.”
“Well, of course you wouldn’t find me if you took that tactic. I haven’t been all over Italy. I have been stuck in Florence the entire time. I was even trapped in some horrible Roman catacombs, thanks to you.”
“Thanks to me? How could that possibly have been my fault, woman?” Lord Maccon came forward and loomed over his wife, both of them having entirely forgotten about their companions, who formed a semicircle of rapt interest about them. Their voices carried far over the water and through the vacant streets of Florence—no doubt providing entertainment for many.
“You rejected me!” Even as she said it, Alexia experienced once more that glorious sense of profound relief. Although this time, thankfully, it was not coupled with the need to break down and cry. Conall had come after her! Of course, she was still mad at him.
Floote bravely interjected at this juncture. “Please, madam, lower your voice. We are not yet out of danger.”
“You sent me away!” Alexia hissed, low and fierce.
“No, I didna—that is, not really. I didna intend it that way. You should have known I didna mean it. You should have realized I needed time to recover from being an idiot.”
“Oh, really? How was I to know idiocy was only a temporary condition, especially in your case? It never has been before! Besides which, vampires were trying to kill me.”
“And they didna try to kill you here as well as back home? ’Tis a good thing I had enough sobriety left to send Channing after you.”
“Oh, I like that… Wait, what did you say? Sobriety? You mean while I’ve been running across Europe pregnant, escaping ladybugs, flying in ornithopters, landing in mud, and drinking coffee, you have been inebriated?”
“I was depressed.”
“You were depressed? You!” Alexia actually started to sputter, she was so angry. She looked up at her husband, which was always a strange experience, for she was a tall woman used to looking down on people. Lord Maccon could loom all he liked; so far as she was concerned, she was not impressed.
She poked him in the center of his chest with two fingers to punctuate her words. “You are an unfeeling”—poke—“traitorous”—poke—“mistrusting”—poke—“rude”—poke—“booby!” Every poke turned him mortal, but Lord Maccon didn’t seem to mind it in the least.
Instead he grabbed the hand that poked him and brought it to his lips. “You put it very well, my love.”
“Oh, don’t get smarmy with me, husband. I am nowhere near finished with you yet.” She started poking him with the other hand. Lord Maccon grinned hugely, probably, Alexia realized, because she had slipped up and called him “husband.”
“You kicked me out without a fair trial. Do stop kissing me. And you didn’t even consider that the child might be yours. Stop that! Oh, no, you had to leap to the worst possible assumption. You know my character. I could never betray you like that. Just because history says it is not possible doesn’t mean there aren’t exceptions. There are always exceptions. Look at Lord Akeldama—he is practically an exception to everything. Why, it took only a little research in the Templar records and I figured it out. Stop kissing my neck, Conall, I mean it. Templars should have practiced more of the scholarly arts and stopped whacking about at everything willy-nilly.” She reached into her cleavage and produced the small, now-garlic-scented Roman curse tablet, which she waved at her husband. “Look right here! Evidence. But not you, oh no. You had to act first. And I was stuck running around without a pack.”
Lord Maccon managed to get a word in at this point, but only because Lady Maccon had run out of breath. “It looks like you managed to build your own pack, anyway, my dear. A parasol protectorate, perhaps one might say.”
“Oh, ha-ha, very funny.”
Lord Maccon leaned forward and, before she could resume her tirade, kissed her full on the mouth. It was one of his deep, possessive kisses. It was the kind of embrace that made Alexia feel that somewhere in there, even though her touch had stolen all the werewolf out of him, he might still want to gobble her right up. She continued poking him absently even as she curled into his embrace.
Just as swiftly as he had started, he stopped. “Ew!”
“Ew? You kiss me when I haven’t even finished yelling at you and then you say ‘ew’!” Alexia jerked out of her husband’s grasp.
Conall stopped her with a question. “Alexia, darling, have you been eating pesto recently?” He started rubbing at his nose as though it were itching. His eyes began to water.
Alexia laughed. “That’s right—werewolves are allergic to basil. You see the full force of my revenge?” She could touch him and the allergic reaction would probably stop immediately, but she stood back and watched him suffer. Funny that even as a mortal, he had reacted badly to the taste of her supper. She resigned herself to a life without pesto, and with that thought realized she was going to forgive her husband.
Eventually.
The werewolf in question approached her cautiously once more, as if he was afraid if he moved too fast she would panic and bolt. “It’s been a long time since I tasted that flavor, and I never liked it, even as a human. I’ll put up with it, though, if you really like it.”
“Will you put up with the child, too?”
He pulled her into his arms again. “If you really like it.”
“Don’t be difficult. You are going to have to like it, too, you realize.”
Nuzzling against her neck, he let out a sigh of satisfaction. “Mine,” he said happily.
Alexia was resigned to her fate. “Unfortunately, both of us are.”
“Well, that’s all right, then.”
“So you think.” She pulled away, punching him in the arm, just to make her position perfectly clear. “The fact remains that you also belong to me! And you had the temerity to behave as though you didn’t.”
Lord Maccon nodded. It was true. “I shall make it up to you.” Adding unguardedly, “What can I do?”
Alexia thought. “I want my own aethographic transmitter. One of the new ones that doesn’t require crystalline valves.”
He nodded.
“And a set of ladybugs from Monsieur Trouvé.”
“A what?”
She glared at him.
He nodded again. Meekly.
“And a new gun for Floote. A good-quality revolver or some such that shoots more than one bullet.”
“For Floote? Why?”
His wife crossed her arms.
“Whatever you say, dear.”
Alexia considered asking for a Nordenfelt but thought that might be pushing it a bit, so she downgraded. “And I want you to teach me how to shoot.”
“Now, Alexia, do you think that’s quite the best thing for a woman in your condition?”
Another glare.
He sighed. “Verra well. Anything else?”
Alexia frowned in thought. “That will do for now, but I might still come up with something.”
He tucked her in close against him once more, running his hands over her back in wide circular motions and burying his nose in her hair.
“So, what do you think, my dear, will it be a girl or a boy?”
“It will be a soul-stealer, apparently.”
“What!” The earl reared away from his wife and looked down at her suspiciously.
Channing interrupted them. “Best be getting a move on, I’m afraid.” He head was cocked to one side, as though he were still in wolf form, ears alert for signs of pursuit.
Lord Maccon turned instantly from indulgent husband to Alpha werewolf. “We’ll split up. Channing, you, Madame Lefoux, and Floote act as decoy. Madame, I’m afraid you may have to don female dress.”
“Sometimes these things are necessary.”
Alexia grinned, both at Madame Lefoux’s discomfort and the very idea someone might confuse the two of them. “I recommend padding as well,” she suggested, puffing out her chest slightly, “and a hair fall.”
The inventor gave her a dour look. “I am aware of our differences of appearance, I assure you.”
Alexia hid a grin and turned back to her husband. “You’ll send them over land?”
Lord Maccon nodded. Then he looked to the clockmaker. “Monsieur?”
“Trouvé,” interjected his wife helpfully.
The clockmaker twinkled at them both. “I shall head home, I think. Perhaps the others would care to accompany me in that general direction?”
Channing and Madame Lefoux nodded. Floote, as ever, had very little reaction to this turn of events. But Alexia thought she detected a gleam of pleasure in his eyes.
Monsieur Trouvé turned back to Alexia, took her hand, and kissed the back of it gallantly. His whiskers tickled. “It has been a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Lady Maccon. Most enjoyable, indeed.”
Lord Maccon looked on in shock. “You are referring to my wife, are you not?”
The Frenchman ignored him, which only endeared him further to Alexia.
“And you as well, Monsieur Trouvé. We must continue our acquaintance sometime in the not too distant future.”
“I wholeheartedly agree.”
Alexia turned back to her faintly sputtering husband. “And we shall go by sea?”
He nodded again.
“Good.” His wife grinned. “I will have you all to myself. I still have a lot to yell at you about.”
“And here I thought we were due for a honeymoon.”
“Does that mean quite the same thing to werewolves?”
“Very droll, wife.”
It wasn’t until much later that Lord and Lady Maccon returned to the topic of a certain infant-inconvenience. They had had to make their formal good-byes and escape out of Florence first. Morning found them secluded in the safety of an abandoned old barn of the large and drafty variety, at which point things had settled enough for them to undertake what passed, for Lord and Lady Maccon, as serious conversation.
Conall, being supernatural and mostly inured against the cold, spread his cloak gallantly upon a mound of moldy straw and lounged back upon it entirely bare and looking expectantly up at his wife.
“Very romantic, my dear,” was Alexia’s unhelpful comment.
His face fell slightly at that, but Lady Maccon was not so immune to her husband’s charms that she could resist the tempting combination of big-muscled nudity and bashful expression.
She divested herself of her overdress and skirts.
He made the most delicious huffing noise when she cast herself, swanlike, on top of him. Well, perhaps more beached-sea-mammal-like than swanlike, but it had the desirous upshot of plastering most of the length of her body against most of the length of his. It took him a moment to recover from several stone of wife suddenly settled atop him, but only a moment, for then he began a diligent quest to rid her of all her remaining layers of clothing in as little time as possible. He unlaced the back and popped open the front of her corset, and stripped off her chemise with all the consummate skill of a lady’s maid.
“Steady on there,” protested Alexia mildly, though she was flattered by his haste.
As though influenced by her comment, which she highly doubted, he suddenly switched tactics and jerked her against him tightly. Burying his face in the side of her neck, he took a deep, shuddering breath. The movement lifted her upward as his wide chest expanded. She felt almost as though she were floating.
Then he rolled her slightly off him and, incredibly gently, pulled off her bloomers and began stroking over her slightly rounded belly.
“So, a soul-stealer, is that what we’re getting?”
Alexia wriggled slightly, trying to get him back into his customary, rather more forceful handling. She would never admit it out loud, of course, but she enjoyed it when he became enthusiastically rough. “One of the Roman tablets called it a Stalker of Skins.”
He paused, glowering thoughtfully. “Na, still never heard of it. But, then, I’m na all that old.”
“It certainly has the vampires in a tizzy.”
“Following in its mother’s footsteps already, the little pup. How verra charming.” His big hands began moving optimistically in a northward direction.
“Now what are you about?” wondered his wife.
“I have some further reacquainting to do. Must evaluate size differentials,” he insisted.
“I hardly see how you could tell the difference,” pointed out his wife, “considering their oversubstantial nature to start with.”
“Oh, I believe I am more than equal to the task.”
“We all must have goals in life,” agreed his wife, a slight tremor in her voice.
“And to determine all the new particulars, I must apply all the available tools in my repertoire.” This comment apparently indicated Conall intended to switch and use his mouth rather than his hands.
Alexia, it must be admitted, was running out of both token protests and the ability to breathe regularly. And since her husband’s mouth was occupied, and even a werewolf shouldn’t talk with his mouth full, she determined that was the end of their conversation.
So it proved to be the case, for some time at least.
Look out for HEARTLESS,
The Parasol Protectorate:
Book the Fourth,
coming in July 2011.





extras


meet the author
Ms. Carriger began writing in order to cope with being raised in obscurity by an expatriate Brit and an incurable curmudgeon. She escaped small-town life and inadvertently acquired several degrees in higher learning. Ms. Carriger then traveled the historic cities of Europe, subsisting entirely on biscuits secreted in her handbag. She now resides in the Colonies, surrounded by fantastic shoes, where she insists on tea imported directly from London. She is fond of teeny-tiny hats and tropical fruit. Find out more about Ms. Carriger at www.gailcarriger.com.



introducing
If you enjoyed BLAMELESS,
look out for
TEMPEST RISING
Book One of the Jane True series
by Nicole Peeler
Jane True, small-town Maine bookstore clerk, always knew she didn’t quite fit in with so-called normal society—but she didn’t realize she had a supernatural heritage.
I woke up to the sensation of something warm and wet lapping at my face, and I was overwhelmed by the smell of fresh toothpaste. My eyes weren’t quite functioning and all I could see was a large, fuzzy shape looming above my head. As my pupils slowly started to focus, I figured out that something was licking my cut clean. It felt incredibly soothing, until my brain restarted and I realized that the tongue in question was attached to the fanged mouth of the black hound of hell that had just been chasing me through my woods. I moaned with fear, trying to sit up and scramble backward at the same time. All I succeeded in doing was to bring my face closer to the dog’s enormous teeth and to make my head bleed again.
Good strategy, Jane, I thought as my world spun and I collapsed back down with a thump.
Another face swam into my vision. This wasn’t the dog, or the kindly old lady with the bun. This face had mud-brown eyes and thick tendrils of green hair, like seaweed. Her skin—for I thought it was a her—was a luminous pearl gray and she had a strange, flat nose that barely rose off the surface of her face.
Whatever she was, she wasn’t human.
But she was talking.
“Let him heal your wound,” she said, in an oily, unpleasant voice that did little to quell my fears.
The sound made me freeze, even if I didn’t really want to follow her instructions, and I again felt the rough tongue of the big black dog lapping at my eyebrow.
I lay there, feeling as uncomfortable and on edge as I’ve ever felt, while the dog gently continued to lick. The gray-faced being was making a strange, leering expression at me, and then she reached out and patted my hand.
That isn’t a leer, I realized. That is a smile. The strange woman was trying to comfort me, which was about as effective as a bear hug from the steely arms of an iron maiden.
The dog had stopped licking my brow, which, I had to admit, felt much better. But it was now licking off the blood that had streamed down my face, and then it leaned in to lick the blood that had dripped over my neck and into the top of my shirt.
“Okay,” I said, in what I hoped was a commanding voice. “Off.”
I raised my arms and pushed weakly. The big dog did back away slightly, wagging its tail in what I assumed was hellhound for “Don’t worry, I’m satiated by your delicious blood and therefore won’t eat you… tonight.”
The gray girl took a firm hold of one of my upraised hands and helped me to sit up. Hel-lo Dolly, I thought, as I got a gander of her. She was very naked, and very obviously female. And that strange gray skin continued the whole way down to her webbed feet with their thick black toenails.
She definitely wasn’t human.
“Can you sit up?” came that oily voice, again; she didn’t release her grip.
“Yes, I think so.” I’d say anything to get my hand back.
She leered—no, smiled at me again—and trotted over to the little old lady’s stool. Where, with no modesty whatsoever, she plopped down Indian-style, airing her bits for the world to see.
She has seaweed pubes, observed my brain, unhelpfully, as I blinked and looked around at my little cove.
My secret strip of beach that had once been as familiar as my own childhood bedroom had become an alien realm. If the enormous devil-dog, the eensy cartoon grandmother, and old barnacle crotch weren’t enough, there was a large globe of light suspended about eight feet above the old lady’s head. There were no wires that I could see, but it hung like a chandelier, bathing my little cove in an eerie luminescence.
I felt a chill run down my spine, and I looked at the plump old woman sitting on the stool.
She smiled beatifically, which didn’t make me feel one bit better.
“It’s so nice finally to meet you, Jane,” she said. “Anyan has told us so much about you.”
The dog whined and lay down uncomfortably close to me while the old lady kept on smiling, clearly waiting for a response.
“It’s nice to meet you, too?” I queried, not really sure of my role here. Were we going to have tea and chicken salad sandwiches like ladies who lunch or were they going to sacrifice me to their dark god of chaos? If they’d been banking on me being a virgin, they were plumb out of luck…
“I realize you are at a disadvantage here, and that you are unsure of what is happening, but you are perfectly safe. I am Nell and this”—she gestured toward the gray girl—“is Trill.” Trill gave me that horrible grin again, but now that the grin had a name, it wasn’t quite as scarifying.
“You’ve already met Anyan,” she said, indicating the giant dog.
She again seemed to be waiting for some sort of response. “He’s got very fresh breath,” I said, the first thing that popped into my mind. “For a dog,” I clarified.
“Yes.” She smiled even wider, if that were possible. “He’s very hygienic. And he’s done a good job on your head.”
I raised my hand to my brow and felt absolutely nothing. There was no cut at all, and only the slightest tenderness when I pressed down on where my hurt had been. What the f*ck? I thought, shooting a sharp glance at the canine. In response, Anyan wagged his tail and stretched his back paws out behind him so he was lying with his stomach embedded in the sand. It was such a doggy thing to do, for a hellhound, that I nearly smiled. He looked over at me and for a second I could have sworn he winked. But I guess I just hit my head harder than I thought. Speaking of which…
“Why did he chase me?” I said, remembering the awful run through the woods. If they were so friendly, why scare the shit out of me and make me nearly brain myself in the process?
“We’re sorry about that,” came Trill’s slippery voice. “It’s just that first contact is always difficult, even when it doesn’t have to be rushed like this. We couldn’t wait; we had to get you here tonight. And there were all sorts wandering the woods today, so we had to meet you under a glamour.”
She was looking at me like I was supposed to understand what she’d said. So I just stared right back, beginning to tire of this game.
“Look, I have no idea what you’re talking about. You’ve gotta throw me a bone, here. What’s first contact? And I assume you’re not talking about a fashion magazine when you say glamour.” Now that I was asking questions, the most obvious one popped into my head. “And what the hell are you people, anyway?”
Nell and Trill exchanged looks, and Nell said, “How much did your mother tell you about her… family?”
I was taken aback. The last direction I thought this conversation would go was toward my mystery mother and her unknown origins.
“Her family? Nothing at all. She was apparently too busy planning her abandonment of me to bother filling in a family tree.” Okay, fine, I’m bitter.
Nell sighed. “This always makes it harder.” She got that same look of concentration on her face that my college professors had when we couldn’t grasp a particularly difficult concept and they knew they were going to have to reduce it down all the way to idiot speak.
“Your mother, like us, wasn’t really… human,” Nell said, finally. “She was… more like Trill here.”
I made a face. I’d been six when my mother disappeared, but I could remember she wasn’t gray and clammy and seaweedy. She’d been beautiful. And what did they mean, not human? Fine, Trill was obviously not human, but my mom was obviously not like her, ergo my mom was not not human. Yes, I minored in rhetoric.
“Well, not really,” Trill interrupted. “I’m a kelpie. Your mom’s a selkie. We’re pretty different.”
Oh, I thought, frustrated to the point of screaming. Of course! I finally met people who claimed to know something about my mother and they insisted on speaking in riddles.
“From the beginning, please,” I said through gritted teeth.
Nell took over, the voice of reason. “Kelpies,” she explained, in her professorial manner, “are two-formed, as are selkies. They have a human, or in the case of kelpies, a humanoid form and an animal form. Trill, here, changes into a sort of sea-pony. Your mother was a selkie; her other form is that of a seal.”
Oh shit, I thought. I’d seen The Secret of Roan Inish. If what this little person is saying is true, so much would be explained…
The thought that I’d finally have my mother’s desertion made understandable pulled at my heart, but then the weight of reality crushed my hopes. How could I have been such an idiot to get sucked into this shit?
“Okay, that’s enough,” I said. “I’m sure that Linda, or Stuart, or whoever, paid you good money to come down here and make me look like an idiot. I’m sure they gave you a great excuse for hurting me by telling you what a monster I am, and how I deserve this sort of treatment. And they’re right. But I can’t be hurt anymore. I’ve been hurt as bad as I’m gonna get, and nothing you or they can do will ever be as painful to me as losing Jason. So, just take your fake fangs off your dog, wash off the makeup, and go back to your circus. And don’t forget your big light. I’d like my cove put back the way it was, not that I’ll ever use it again.”
I started to get up, my already-cramping legs wobbly, but I registered with more than a little pride the stunned expressions that “Trill” and “Nell” were exchanging.
My momma may have walked out on us, but she didn’t nearly halfway raise no fools, I thought smugly.
But that thought, along with my very slow upward momentum, was cut short as the air around Trill began to shimmer. An iridescent bubble the same color as her skin but more transparent encircled her. It looked like it was made of energy and it pulsated slightly, just like the light above Nell’s head. Underneath the surface of the ball something was happening that looked like the shadowy development of a fetus played in fast-forward.
When the bubble popped, there stood a weird gray pony, with a seaweed mane and tail. Its small black hooves were the same color as Trill’s toenails, and Trill’s muddy brown eyes were staring out at me from the pony’s face. I could see the faintest hint of gills ribbing the beast’s short neck.
I’d never fainted before today, but I had the distinct impression I was going to make it a two-for-one deal here in the hysterical woman department.
Anyan had crept closer, maybe to keep me from running if I had actually made it upright or maybe to break my fall if I fainted again. Whatever the reason, I was grateful when the hand I put out to steady myself met with a solidly muscled, very furry, and surprisingly high shoulder. The dog’s broad back came up to well over my waist. I was only five foot one, but that was still a whole lotta dog.
I sat back down, heavily, and Anyan parked himself next to me, propping me up. I watched, deliriously, as the bubble once more extended out from Trill and, with another pop, she was humanish again.
Unless Stuart’s or Linda’s plot involved slipping me hallucinogens or plugging me into some Matrix-style virtual reality computer program, what was happening before me was real. I felt a chill of fear work its way down my spine as I took more than my fair share of deep breaths.
Okay, Jane, I told myself firmly, get a grip. Whatever these things are, hellhound here could have killed you at any point and he hasn’t, so you have to assume they want you alive. And you may not like what they have to say, but they’re going to tell you about your mother. This thought seemed to fortify me, and so I homed in on it. For the first time in your life, someone is going to tell you the truth about your own mother. I got my breathing under control, and if I didn’t feel fantastic, I did feel like I could face what was happening.
Anyan’s soft tongue grazed my cheek and I couldn’t help but smile at him. It’s funny how sensitive dogs are to people’s moods. You’d think he understood how hard this was for me.
“All right,” I said, looking Nell in the eye and trying to avoid looking at Trill. After her little performance, if I looked at Trill I’d need more than just a few deep breaths. Maybe a few deep breaths alongside of a few shots of Jack Daniels. “You’ve made your point. You’re not… human. And you weren’t sent by anybody to fool me. So what are you, and why are you here? What do you have to do with me and my family?”
My voice sounded strong. I was proud of myself.
Nell, damn her, was still beaming away like the figure on a syrup bottle. “You’re taking this very well, Jane,” she said, and I only just managed to keep from giving her the finger. “As I was saying, your mother is a selkie: a two-formed who can take either the shape of a seal or the shape of a human. But she’s not really human or seal; she is, for want of a better human word, supernatural.”
I grunted. It wasn’t particularly erudite, but it was all I could manage to summarize the maelstrom of emotions flooding through me. On the one hand, I wanted to scream that none of this was true. That my mother wasn’t some monster from legends. Despite that loud, angry voice, there was another whispering echo, more profound for its restraint, that acknowledged that what Nell said made sense.
My memories of my mother—the swimming, her happiness in the water, the way she plunged me into the ocean as if she were taking me home—weren’t normal memories. They weren’t natural, at least not by human standards.
Supernatural, I thought, letting my mind sink into the curves of the word. I was surprised to discover it felt good. Or, maybe it just felt like something where once there had been nothing.
“Supernatural creatures are all around you, and have been throughout history, as you can tell from the impact we’ve had on human myths and legends. You know us, all of us, but not necessarily in our true forms. For example, I’m a gnome. Humans have made us into little clay sculptures that protect their gardens. That’s not entirely false. We gnomes are earthbound and we protect our territories to the death—usually the death of the intruder. Selkies, like your mother, are known in stories throughout the world. But they don’t shed their skin, nor are they the captive of whoever steals their skin. They come of their own free will to mortal men and women, usually with the intention of begetting a child.” Here, Nell paused, and I could see she spoke her next few sentences with some discomfort despite the fact that she never stopped smiling. “We supernaturals find it difficult to… procreate successfully with each other, but we seem to have fewer problems when we liaise with humans. You, Jane, are the result of one such union.”
I was trying not to look too scornful of her words, but this was ridiculous. I was Jane True from Rockabill, Maine. I was not the half-supernatural love child of a seal woman and a mortal man. If I was, surely I’d be taller… more statuesque.
Eyeballing Nell, however, I realized that was an entirely illogical train of thought.
I also thought about how my mother had appeared, out of the middle of nowhere, and how she’d disappeared as mysteriously. I again thought about my swimming, and my tolerance for cold. I shivered, a knot in my throat, as my still-resistant brain slowly started to accept that this woman might be telling the truth.
“We’ve been watching over you since your mother left. She had to return to the sea, and you did not inherit her two-formed nature, so she was forced to leave you behind. If you had been almost entirely human, we would have let you live out your life without revealing ourselves to you. But your power is strong, and we would have come to you when you were more mature. Your actions the other night, however, made our meeting more precipitate.”
My power? I thought, confused. “What did I do?”
Nell’s smile faltered. “The body you found in the sea was a halfling, like yourself. Part supernatural and part human. Peter Jakes was apparently in the service of… of some very powerful beings. His presence here in these parts appears to have been on their orders. His murder needs to be investigated by our community and, as the person who found the body, you must be interviewed as part of that investigation.”
This was far more prosaic a reason for “first contact” than I had expected, and also rather galling.
My irritation came through in my voice. “So, if I hadn’t been the one to find Peter’s body, you guys would have just let me bumble along for a few more years, not knowing who—or what—I was? I’m twenty-six years old; would you have told me before or after I was retirement age?”
Nell’s smile returned, full blast. “Child, and you are yet a child to me, human years mean nothing to us. Nor will they mean much to you. Your manipulation of the elements is strong; although you are not two-formed, your mother’s powers are as potent in you as if you were. Age will not affect you as it does humans. You have only lived for the briefest moment of the life stretching before you.”
I could tell Nell thought this was supposed to be good news, but my whole being rebelled at what she was saying.
“Look, you’re crazy. I’ve been in the hospital. And I mean I’ve really been in the hospital. I’ve had about every test done to me that can be done, and nothing ever came out saying, ‘Oh, good heart and lungs coupled with seal blood means she’ll live forever.’ This is crazy. I can’t live forever; I don’t want to live forever. My life sucks enough as it is…” In saying these last words the true horror of what Nell had so blithely told me began to descend upon me. Would entire generations of Rockabillians know me as Crazy Jane?
At least you’ll get your chance to dance on Stuart’s and Linda’s graves, my brain chipped in, unhelpfully.
Nell interrupted my malicious fantasies. “Don’t worry, child,” she said. “You won’t live forever. Just a long time. And you’re certainly not immortal; you can be killed. But human concerns—such as years, age, birthdays, and the like—will cease to mean much to you after a few centuries.”
“Oh, great. I’m sure they will,” I said, sarcastically. “Right around the time I go mental with loneliness from living in my recluse shack where no one can find the lady who doesn’t die. That’s going to be a great life. Maybe I should invest in the property market now, while it’s on the downturn? I wonder what a hermit’s cave is going for these days. I’ll obviously only need the one bedroom.”
Nell shook her head. “You won’t be alone, child.” With these words she looked me full in the face, all traces of her smile gone. “Your life has only just begun.”
I didn’t know whether her words were a promise or a warning. Or both.
I watched, mute, as she climbed down from her rocking chair. She wrapped it up inside the quilt and laid her little bundle over Trill’s back. Disconcertingly, the kelpie had turned back into a pony and I hadn’t even noticed.
“Take a swim, Jane,” she said. “You need it. Recharge your batteries. Tomorrow, an investigator will be in touch. Jakes was important, although I don’t know why, and events are moving quickly. I don’t know who they will send, but expect someone. And don’t worry, we will be here to answer your questions. There is no hurry. You are in my territory.”
As Nell said those final words the air crackled around her with energy, and I suspect she had granted me the merest glimpse of the power that lay within her plump little form.
Before I could protest, she was trundling along beside the pearly gray pony as they walked toward the solid face of the rock wall… and disappeared. Nell took her light with her, and it took my eyes a minute to adjust to the soft glimmering of the night sky.
I sat in silence, absently scratching at a furry belly. With a start I realized that at some point during Nell’s Revelation Hour I’d thrown an arm around Anyan and was scratching away at his densely haired hide distractedly. For his part, he didn’t look like he minded.
I couldn’t begin to wrap my head around everything I had learned tonight. It made no sense, yet it made every sense. And Nell’s words, if I was honest, scared the shit out of me. I may have hated the fact that I had been so defined by the events of my life; how I was trapped in a place that never let me be anything but one version of what they wanted to see. But I also knew my role, my place. There were no questions or insecurities about what I’d do, day to day. Suddenly, everything had changed. And I couldn’t begin to understand how.
Part of me, however, was quite certain that I’d wake up tomorrow and realize it had been a dream. But for right now, Nell was right. I needed a swim the way Joel Irving, our town drunk, needed that first shot of vodka in his morning coffee.
I stood up, stretching my still-aching legs. I was going to feel tonight’s run something awful tomorrow morning. I kicked off my shoes and pulled off my jeans and socks. I was just starting to pull my shirt over my head when I realized that Anyan had slipped away. I let my shirt fall and turned around to find him looking back at me as he headed toward the breach in the cove walls.
No teleporting for the pooch, I thought, smiling, as I pulled my shirt over my head. Anyan jerked his head around so quickly he smacked his muzzle against the break’s rough walls. My head throbbed in sympathy.
That is one odd dog, I thought, as I pulled off my bra and panties and ran toward the ocean, plunging in gratefully.
And what exactly had Nell meant when she said he’d told her all about me?