Every hair on his head, including his eyebrows, had turned as snowy white as the peacock had been. The contrast with his vividly green eyes was breathtaking, even shocking, and Tara rather liked it, but Declan himself yowled in dismay and clutched his hands into his hair again. "What happened?!"
"You—this did!" She scrolled back to show him a photograph of the massive white peacock, and watched him go as pale as the bird. Tara breathed, "Holy crap. You didn't know you could do that, did you?"
"No, I…" He squeezed his head again, fingers in his hair and eyes huge with shock. "Oh my God. Am I old?"
"No. No." Tara laughed breathlessly and slung her camera around to her side so she could hug him hard, trying to reassure him. "No, you're just you with white hair. But I think you should shift and see if it goes back to normal before Colette wakes up, because we don't want her to put you together with the pea—oop!"
He shifted as she spoke, which felt odd: his peacock self was much smaller than his human self—at least usually—and he sort of slithered right out of her arms. The peacock standing in front of her was the same one she'd gotten used to: blue and green and beautiful, rather than unspeakably huge and mythic. Then he shifted back, his gaze locked on hers. "My hair?"
"Is black again," she assured him with another breathless laugh. "Wow. Wow. I didn't know you could do that. Any of that."
"I knew about the size thing—" Declan winced, mumbled, "you don't want to know what the bird just said," and went on with, "—but not that I could turn white? That's, I have to sit with that like!"
Tara, unable to stop a sudden giggle, guessed, "It said it knew I'd like a big cock, didn't it?" and at Declan's look of sheer mortified dismay, was certain she was right. Then Colette groaned and both of them crouched beside her as her eyes fluttered open.
Her gaze went beyond them at first, then came back to Tara. "You saw it, didn't you? The peacock god? It was here." She clutched at Declan's arm in a frantic gesture. "Did you see it?"
"I did not," Declan said with great aplomb.
Tara couldn't look at him for fear of bursting into laughter. Technically he was right, after all. "I didn't see any gods, Colette," she said carefully, and the designer's panicked attention came back to her.
"You had to have seen it. It was ten meters tall and white. It saw into mysoul," Colette said in despair. "And it condemned what it saw there, with a scream like thunder. You saw it," she said again. "You had to have seen it."
"There were no gods here," Tara said again, still carefully, then nearly jumped out of her skin as a scream as unholy, and almost as loud as Declan's dinosaur roar had been, sounded from not all that far away. She and Declan both twisted toward it, and Colette sat up with a frantic expression.
Half a dozen peacocks were facing off, tail feathers up, beaks agape as they shrieked at each other again. Tara had no idea when they'd been released from the enclosure, but then, she hadn't heard any children around recently, so maybe they'd been out for a while. And she supposed if anything would conveniently draw them right here, it was that truly horrifying scream Declan had given a few minutes ago.
And then one of the peacocks caught Tara's eye and, she swore to God,winkedat her before screeching again and making all the others start caterwauling too. Tara said, "Oh," and smiled at Colette. "That's probably what you heard."
"No. No, it was a giant peacock," Colette insisted. "Agod. You have to believe me! You have to! I won't ever bother them again," she promised. "I'll work with synthetics. I'll give money to conservation foundations. I'm sorry. Just don't let it ever see me again."
Tara,almostfeeling bad about it, said, "I'm going to keep an eye on you, you know. If you don't keep your promises…"
"I will!" Colette wailed. "I will, I swear it! Please, I just don't want it to ever see me again…!" She climbed to her feet, clumsy with nerves, and fled down a pathway, away from the voices converging on the clearing. The peacocks were still screeching at each other, and by the time the approaching people got closer, most of the panic had faded from their calls. The first person Tara saw, in fact, was an older man in an estate uniform who was chuckling as he reached them.
"I've never heard them go on like that," he called above the cacophony. "I'll tell you the truth, from farther away it sounded like one massive bird!"
"That would be areallybig bird," Tara called back, smiling. "Sorry, I'm afraid it's somehow my fault. I was taking pictures and then there was all this fuss."
"Nah, love, it's all grand. Unless they hurt you?" There were quite a few people joining the employee, their faces filled with mild concern now, instead of the genuine alarm from moments earlier.
Tara shook her head and stood to spread her arms and spin, showing that she was unharmed. "Just surprised at all the noise. Peacocks don'tlooklike they sound like that, you know?"
Several people, including Declan, laughed. "It's true," he said. "They look like they should have incredibly beautiful singing voices, not ungodly screams from the depths of hell. But here now, that wouldn't be fair, would it? For them to get the full package?"
He got the brief distant look that meant his peacock had some commentary, then suppressed a laugh but couldn't quite bring himself to look at Tara. She was willing to bet anything the bird had somehow misinterpreted 'the full package.'
Fortunately, nobody else noticed—why would they?—and people were chatting, starting to leave again, or admiring the peacocks, who had suddenly calmed down. After a while, eventhe birds had left, all except two, who waited patiently for the humans to disperse, then suddenly shifted from brilliantly-colored peacocks into a couple of cheerful-looking white guys. The one who'd winked at Tara said, "Have you got her sorted, then? Sorry we couldn't get here faster. Peacocks are crap fliers, you know."
Declan laughed. "I do know. We have to drive, just like true humans. Seamus, Brian, this is Tara, my fff—" He dragged it out so long Tara was certain he'd been about to say something else instead of finishing with an awkward, "—fffriend. Visiting from America. Friend."
Seamus-who-had-winked gave her a pleasant nod, saying, "Grand to meet you. Hope we'll see more of you," while Brian waved a greeting.
"Nice to meet you too, and I hope so too. Although I don't know." Tara grinned. "I thought Ireland was supposed to be all pastoral farmlands and leprechauns and instead it's greedy fashion designers and shapeshifting peacocks. I've got to adjust my expectations, or flee the country to try to rebuild my illusions."
All three men said, "Adjust," with considerable enthusiasm, which left Declan looking a bit embarrassed and the other two obviously laughing at him. "All right then," Seamus said. "Have ye any more need of us? I think we only swooped in to explain away all the noise, anyway."
Tara and Declan exchanged glances before she said, "I think we're okay, honestly. I think she actually believes a peacock god came to earth to scold her, and she seems to have taken it to heart. I really am going to keep an eye on her design business and if she seems to backslide we'll get the police involved, but it's probably better to not have her trying to convince anyone she saw a fifteen-foot-tall white peacock, huh?"
