“Your face, pal. Your face is wrong.”
“Oh, yeah, I know. I look like crime scene photos.”
Valentina was still giving him that look. It was painfully hard to keep his eyes off the ceiling.
“Nope. Now you look like a mascot for paper towels or maybe an oat-based cereal.”
“I don’t follow.”
“Are you one of those rare diurnal werewolves?” Dancer continued. “You have to tell me if you are, otherwise it’s entrapment.”
Valentina swiveled in her chair and pulled an antique silver hand mirror from a drawer.
Green took it and studied his face. His eyes were no longer rimmed with bruises. His nose looked healed, but noticeably less symmetrical than before. And he had to assume that the cut on his chin had scarred over. He had to assume because he had a thick two-inch beard that hadn’t been there the day before.
“Um,” Green said. “That’s new.”
“Mr. Green was working on a project for me last night. It looks like it had some unforeseen side effects,” Valentina said.
Dancer muttered to herself.
“Two of you. There are going to be two of you now. S’posed to be a quiet place. Easy on my nerves.”
Valentina pointed to a camp chair in the corner.
“Join us, Mr. Green. Ms. Dancer came to check on you. I was just confirming that you had not fabricated the story of our new arrangement.”
He glanced up at the thing stuck to the ceiling. It had sprouted several thin tendrils that ended in feathery structures that waved and curled in the air.
“Is it…safe to join you?”
“Yes, yes, come.”
Green pulled over a chair, positioning it as far away from the thing on the ceiling as he could without seeming impolite. The sagging canvas left him a head shorter than Valentina and several shorter than Dancer. He spared a scowl for the blob as he sat. Dancer followed his gaze, apparently saw nothing, and shrugged.
He tugged at his new beard. It wasn’t that he hadn’t noticed it. He just hadn’t thought it was new or unusual until Dancer mentioned it.
“How? My face, I mean.”
Valentina shook her head.
“We will discuss theories later. Ms. Dancer doesn’t want to hear us talk about business.”
She punctuated the statement with a glance toward the ceiling.
Dancer nodded.
“I don’t. I really don’t. With infinite warmth, I have talked over these sorts of things with Val here in the past and it’s a little like listening to somebody talk about a dream they had. Everything about it sounds interesting, except it slips off my brain like butter down a waterslide.”
Green smirked. Dancer was still Dancer.
“Thanks for checking on me. I’m alright. Relative to yesterday, anyway.”
He poked and pulled at his new whiskers as he spoke. He couldn’t help it.
“Not to worry. Like I said when you arrived, neighbors look after neighbors out here. Of course, I never would have guessed you and Valentina would hit it off so hard.”
“And why is that, Ms. Dancer?”
