Truthfully, I’m not sure I’ve ever known what love is, but if I had to guess, I’d hope it’s something like this.
Chapter 31
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Huh. I think I may have broken the angry geese.
“This is…unexpected,” Castor says while I’m very busy playing with three tiny feral redcaps in the woods. Their red eyes trace the piece of cantaloupe peel I’m holding above their drooling sharp mouths while they squirm in my lap.
I break the piece up for each of them, and they delight in gnawing it apart.
For creepy little monsters with sickly-toned skin, they’re really kind of cute.
Standing beside me, Castor divvies up the rest of the bucket of scraps for the small horde around him. Hats clasped in claw-tipped hands, they wait with a tense patience for their treat, some bowing before they scamper off with their quarry.
In my lap, one of the redcaps finishes, flops against my stomach, and snuggles in.
“Aw,” I coo, tapping its egregiously beakish nose.
“Those are children,” Castor tells me.
“Can we keep them?” I ask.
Breath escapes him, then he says, “Mm, no.”
I pout.
“They’re violent, malevolent creatures.”
“Those are my favorite kind of creature,” I murmur. Also, at least as far as I can tell, they’re beingverypolite and respectful of Castor. They’re even queuing up. And these ones? These ones are so snuggly. “Just one?” I ask.
“Ha ha, still no.”
With a sigh, I cradle my sleepy little redcaps, rocking them soundly until their eyelids go heavy. A gentle warmth builds in my chest, lingering like a flicker of lapping fire. “I shall nameyou…Maurice, and you can be Monty, and you are…Melvin. Yes.” I kiss Melvin’s forehead and cuddle the sleepy little redcap child. “Melly for short.”
Melly’s body jerks, and his red eyes snap open. A terrible cry exits him as he tumbles off my lap. Monty and Maurice follow, rolling in the forest brush in front of me, wailing. From the mob petitioning Castor for food, several bigger redcaps lunge forward toward the children. One hisses at me before grabbing Monty by his make-shift pants and shaking him.
I scooch away until my back hits a darkwood tree. “Castor? What’s going on? Are they okay?”
Castor, stone still, whispers an awe-filled swear.
“Castor?” I croak.
My eyes widen as sickly yellow flesh warps, stretches, then mouths full of sharp teeth chatter.
“Mama,” Maurice whispers, gasping for breath. His broken child-like voice makes every muscle in my body go limp. “Mama, wha—” Big breaths fill his scrawny chest—still yellow, still oddly proportioned, but larger, larger now than the redcap I assume must be his mother.
Panic fills that redcap’s eyes as she frames her child’s face in her claws.
Castor snaps out of whatever shock he’s been thrown into when the mob around us goes ballistic—chattering, screeching, waving their caps in the air, and jumping on one another. I’m uncertain completely if they’re furious…or celebrating.
“Danielle,” Castor says, a thread of urgency in his tone as he lowers himself at my side and takes my hand. “Name her next.”
“What?” I croak.
“Name her,” he repeats, grabbing the nearest mother’s arm and yanking her in front of me. Her teeth gnash at his wrist, but Castor doesn’t let her go.
I stare at the feral thing desperate to return to her confused child. “Uh. Um. Ro…Rosetta?”
