He’s lanky and thin, with thick dark glasses and brown hair that falls over his eyes. He has a stubbly chin. He pulls the baby from the car in some kind of basket-car seat thing, swinging it over his arm. I can’t see her, but I want to so badly. I don’t even understand the emotions I feel when I run to meet them—slowing at the last minute.
“Imogene?”
“Mr. Taylor?”
“Call me Artie!” He extends his hand and shakes mine heartily. “I’m so sorry I’m so late. I had to get gas, and Laurel woke up and needed a diaper change. I think she’s finally fallen back to sleep again.”
I try to peer into the carrier, but the baby is bundled up and hidden under blankets.
“Uh. Well. Maybe we should get this out of the way now.” Artie’s tone is grim as he lowers the baby blanket and reveals a tiny pink face.
With horns among her little curls.
I stagger a little, knees buckling.
This is a cosmic joke. A sick one.
Or a kind act of fate. I don’t know which.
“If you can’t handle the way she looks—”
I drop the scarf and hood I’ve worn all day, sweating and smothered in layers, and look at Mr. Taylor in silence.
IMOGENE—IS PINK. SHE’Spink like Laurel. On her head are tiny growths, mostly hidden in her hairstyle, but I spot them. Horns.
This is a sick joke. The universe must be seeing if I’ll crack.
Or maybe... Maybe it’s something nice, like finding Laurel, and a house I could afford, and the car eking out a few extra miles on the highway when I know I probably needed more gas than I had money.
For a little bit, no one talks. Laurel just stays asleep. Imogene looks at me like she’s daring me to say something.
“Well. You won’t be mistreating her based on her appearance. You could be—” I stop.You could be her birth mother.
Maybe Imogene knows what this condition is called.
“She looks like I would have looked—if I hadn’t been butchered,” Imiogene’s voice is low in the cold night. “Does she have a tail?”
“Sh-she does. And it’s perfect and curly, and she wraps it around my wrist when I read her stories or give her a bottle,” I say, chest thrust out. “Do you have hooves?”
Imogene looks startled, like I sucker punched her. “I guess that’s what I was meant to have,” she whispers. “They cut them off. Or down. I have something like a flat callous. Not that you’ll have to see it.”
“It’s okay! I don’t mind. But you see why I can’t just let anyone babysit Laurel. Someone hurt you. They didn’t understand you were meant to look like this.”
Imogene shifts uncomfortably. “I was not, according to my step-father and his wife.”
“Well, Laurel is healthy and happy. I don’t want her to have anything cut off that she wants to keep. She’s beautiful.” I look at her, and I know I sound like a sap.
Imogene bends down and peers at my daughter, and my heart skips a beat.
Holy crap, Imogene is beautiful. A whole different kind of beautiful, like something out of a fairytale.
“Maybe Laurel will be as beautiful as you when she grows up if we can keep her safe,” I murmur, afraid that my compliment is misplaced or will be misunderstood.
But Imogene nods firmly and shimmies out of her thick coat, revealing a denim jacket and flared leg jeans underneath. “I’ll help you.”
“Thank you. Shall we go home?”
HOME.
