Page 171 of Property of Whiskey

“He hides.”

“Convenient,” I say.

Whiskey catches my eye.

Unfortunately, Wren catches the word.

“He does. All deer do.”

I look down at her. “I believe you.”

Whiskey looks at me again, but I only shrug. Her imaginary deer ain’t the hill I’m dying on tonight, especially after I just crouched in his yard examining a mystery track neither one of us was willing to identify.

Wren points toward the kitchen table. “I drew him.”

“Course you did,” Whiskey mutters. “Glitter him too?”

The page is mostly green and brown crayon trees with a dark creature in the middle that might be a deer or might be an aggressively haunted potato. I bend closer and notice short black marks sticking up from its back.

“No glitter. He’s got spikes.”

“Spines.”

I look at Wren. “Spines?”

“Little ones.”

“Like a porcupine?”

“No.”

“Like a dinosaur?”

“No.”

Whiskey crouches beside her. “Like a deer?”

Wren sighs with the exhausted patience of a child dealing with adults who refuse to understand basic facts. “He is a deer.”

“Okay.”

“With spines.”

“Right.”

She grabs the black crayon and adds several more jagged lines down Prickle’s back with furious concentration. “And he’s skinny.”

“Deer are skinny,” Whiskey says.

“Skinnier.”

Whiskey looks at me.

I suddenly find the kitchen counter fascinating because I’m not admitting that her drawing is getting creepier.

Glamaw pats Wren’s shoulder. “Time for bed.”

“But Daddy just got here.”