“You’ll need to sit.”
He slumped onto the snow. Ugh he’d freeze. One of the kids raced up with two folding chairs and a battery operated heater. There were no rules when it came to explaining the beast inside you to a human.
“I’m not like you. None of us is.”
He chuckled. “Oh really? I never would have guessed.” He rubbed a hand over his head. “Nope. No antlers. You’re definitely not like me.”
FIVE
REED
I sat cross legged in the chair and shivered despite the small heater while my brain caught up with what I'd witnessed. But what had I seen?
Antlers had emerged from Roscoe’s head? The events of the past few weeks and months had taken their toll and I was hallucinating. I guffawed because it reminded me of the ones sales assistants and wait staff wore during the Christmas season. But his weren’t multi-colored with bells or tinsel.
And now all eyes were on me as my giggles subsided.
Roscoe’s antlers seemed so real. I couldn’t make sense of it.
“Okay.” I was shaking and I was glad I was sitting. “Not like me. That’s what you said. How ‘not like me’ are we talking?”
“Reed, I understand how this must look?—”
I cut him offbecause I doubted he did understand. “Antlers blossomed from your head like plants in slow motion at the beginning ofspring.” My words made sort of sense in my head.
“Are you a-afraid?” His voice wobbled.
Huh. He was asking me if I was scared and yet of the two of us, he was the one exhibiting fear as his mouth tightened.
“No. I'm overwhelmed and everything in my head, the knowledge and experience, are blending together like play dough and melting. But I’m not afraid of you because you’re you.” I took a deep breath because if ever I needed more oxygen in my lungs, this was it.
Roscoe sent Zelda a glance but she shrugged. Yeah, this was on him but he wasn’t talking.
“Are you going to reveal all or is this similar to twenty questions where I guess?”
“It’s unusual.”
It sounded like a disease and I worried that he was deathly ill. It reminded me of the books my aunt used to read where someone put a curse on another person.
“How unusual?” I needed a scale of one to infinity.
Roscoe didn’t respond and the seconds or minutespassed.
“A lot.”
Gosh it was hard dragging the details out of this guy.
“Okay. Will it make me question everything I thought I knew?”
“Yes.”
Leaning over, I raked my nails over the hard soil beneath the snow—it wasn’t sensible because I tore my nails—but I needed to feel grounded before Roscoe upended my world view. But he wasn’t helping and I had to get this started because he looked as though he wanted to be anywhere but here. I longed to whisper that it would be all right.Maybe stick my tongue in his ear while I was at it.
“Why don't you start from the beginning.”
“I don't know where that is.”
Zelda rolled her eyes and I figured she’d explain but it had to come from Roscoe. Whatever it was, he needed to pluck up the courage and tell me.
