Fred hadn’t blinked. She stared at me, transfixed…well, at least until Hollace sauntered closer, stuck his hand in front of her face, and snapped.
Her eyes fluttered, and she turned slowly to look at him. “You were a…a…” she stammered.
“A thunderbird, yes,” Hollace replied patiently. “And those”—he gestured to the sky—“are gargoyles.”
“Remember the other day?” Jasper bent to pick up her laptop. “When we shifted forms?”
She swallowed heavily, and the bread previously caught in her lip fell away. She raised her gaze and flicked her eyes back and forth, clearly watching the fliers. In a moment, she’d re-sighted in on Hollace.
He nodded, as if that were good enough, and walked around her. “Jessie, I’m just going to go change, and I’ll go with you. I want to see if I’m any better at reading their body language than you are.”
“Do you want to go for a fly?” Ulric asked Fred gently. “I can take you…”
“That other night, I wondered if I’d been high or something,” Fred said in a wispy voice. “Like, maybe I took an edible but forgot about it. Or, like, maybe you slipped me something, and I wasn’t in my right mind. But I brought the sandwich and bottledwater from the hotel this time. I made that sandwich myself. I’m sober. I haven’t hit the vape, and I didn’t even take an edible to help me sleep the last couple nights. This…” Her gaze went skyward again. “This is…”
“Okay.” I gave the guys a thumbs-up. “I’m going to leave this to you. Niamh should be at her house and changed by now. Mr. Tom…is still training for some reason. Not sure why. Maybe you guys can root through the fridge and get Fred another sandwich before Mr. Tom comes down and yells at you for looking after yourselves.”
“Yup, yup,” Ulric said. “It’ll be okay. She just needs to process, and she’ll be fine.”
I hoped so, because apparently Fred had given Niamh a tiny demonstration of her prowess yesterday in her hotel room, and it had blown Niamh’s mind. Fred was a maestro with the computer, her skill set more art than technological expertise, or so Niamh had said. Niamh was champing at the bit to get working.
I changed and found Hollace by the front door. Surprisingly, Ulric and Jasper met us there, still in their muumuus, with a pale-faced Fred in tow.
“She didn’t want another sandwich,” Jasper said. “She wants weed or alcohol or both, or something harder. Her words.”
“I need a minute, that’s all,” Fred said, her voice shaky and raspier than usual. “I almost want to comb my hair flat right now. My mind isspinning!” We all started walking. “I mean…I’d really wanted to believe the towns around here didn’t have any cameras and that you were your own law, but I assumed you just owned the police and politicians. That’s what the movies always say, right?” She shook her head and looked back over the house. “Oh, wait, the fliers are gone.”
“No, that’s just a spell Ivy House does to keep people from seeing her property,” I told her as we neared Niamh’s place.
Niamh gently rocked in a chair on her porch with her basket of stones on her lap. She slowed as we neared, then stopped altogether when she spied Fred. “What’s thecraic?” she asked in greeting. “How’s things?”
Fred pointed a shaky hand back the way we’d come. “You weren’t kidding.”
“O’course I wasn’t kidding, sure. What do ye think, I go around making stuff like that up? I haven’t got the imagination. Where are yis goin’?” Niamh put a lid on the basket. “Are yis goin’ for a pint?”
“Yeah, doctor’s orders,” Jasper said.
“Might as well, so.” Niamh put her basket on the porch before standing.
“I know we were going to meet up after I checked out the grounds, as you said, but—” Fred started.
“Not at all.” Niamh fell in step. “I see ye’ve got yer computer there. The pub is as good a place as any to get started. Soon as ye have a wee pint to settle yer nerves, that is.”
We walked for a moment in silence. Fred looked over her shoulder again at the house and sky above it.
“Just so that we’re all on the same page…” Ulric looped his arm through Fred’s. “When you twist and move too much in that jacket, you give us a peep show.”
Fred looked at him blankly before glancing down at herself. She shrugged absently. “I’ve never much cared about the construct of nudity. Why should we feel embarrassed in our own skin? And why, please tell me, should women go to extra lengths to hide our breasts when men don’t have to? I’ve seen guys with bigger boobs than mine! But because men have sexualized them—the instrument with which we feed our young—we’re forced to lock them down with uncomfortable bras and always cover them up to stop someone from feeling aroused. How is a man’s arousal a woman’s problem? What if I get turned on by a man’sboobs? Should he then shackle them down like society tries to shackle ours? Nah. I don’t want to sled the slippery slope of logic on that one.”
A crooked smile had worked up Jasper’s face. “Free the breasts! I’m in.”
Fred nodded once, then took a deep breath. “I’m used to being thought of as very odd.”
“Ye are definitely very odd, make no mistake,” Niamh said in a drawl. “It’s not ’cause of yer thinkin’, though. It’s because ye dress like a whacko.”
Ulric spat out a laugh, then patted Fred’s forearm. “The good news is some of us, including the vampire, are also very odd. And dress like whackos. And look, Niamh tells us you make magic on that computer! So, really, you fit right in. You’re just like us—you just don’t shift or zap people or suck blood.”
“When it comes to that last one, be thankful,” Jasper muttered.
