“Loop back regularly,” I said. “Don’t get too far away.”
“Got it,” he said.
Evan took flight.
I looked down at Green Eyes, who was looking up at me. Her hand still had a small wound in it.
“You shouldn’t crawl with your hand like that,” I said. “Especially with the salt on the road.”
“It’s mostly healed, and I’m tougher than I look…” she said, trailing off as I offered her a hand. “But, um, sure!”
She smiled a little too wide as I lifted her up, pulling her back to a piggyback position. Her tail encircled my middle, to anchor her in place.
I followed Evan, carrying Green Eyes. I could barely see him in the dark, a white and brown shape against a background of pitch black.
I felt a stab of envy.
“What are you thinking?” Green Eyes asked.
“Right now? I’m wondering if I could make wings out of branches, or if the cost would be too great. Getting the ability to fly would be an awfully nice compromise for losing my motorcycle.”
“Can’t you ride now? Like this?”
I looked down at my hands of wood. “With gloves, clothing covering me head to toe, and a full helmet, maybe. But it wouldn’t be my bike. I know that sounds stupid, but… man, I remember working my ass off for that bike. Skipping meals to put an extra five bucks in the jar.”
“Skipping meals?” she asked, aghast. It took me a second to realize she was joking. Poking fun at herself.
I hadn’t really thought about her having a sense of humor.
“I was homeless for a while, I got used to being hungry. For a while, it felt like my body forgot how to tell if it was hungry or not. Sometimes I’d be ravenous just after I’d finished a meal, and sometimes I’d realize I hadn’t eaten all day.”
“I know what that first bit is like,” she said. She shifted position, and settled her chin on my shoulder. The point of her chin might have dug in a little, but I wasn’t that easy to hurt.
This would be the time to talk, I thought, but nothing came to mind.
“We don’t really know each other that well,” I spoke my thoughts aloud. “Beyond the obvious.”
“Yeah,” she said. Then, impulsively, she shifted her grip and raised her chin off my shoulder. You wish you could fly? I wish I wanted my motorcycle,” she said.
“Huh?”
“I mean, I wish I had something I wanted like you want your motorcycle. But I didn’t. There was nothing left for me to want so I went and I went to the Drains. I had no reason to stay and nobody and nothing wanted me back. I think if I’d even had a dog, that would have been enough to keep me out? Or get me back out when I started to go in there?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“I feel like the biggest loser, when I think about it all like that,” Green Eyes whispered. “Better to think about food and comforts and being useful and company.”
Her arms and tail squeezed me just a little tighter.
Right.
“Well, I’m here,” I said. “So you’ve got me.”
“And there’s food,” she added, as if she’d forgot. “Can’t forget the food. Thinking about food is good.”
“Don’t eat me,” I reminded her.
“Okay. Until you’re dead.”
“Until I’m dead, no eating me.”
“Got it.”
Evan returned. “That whole block is a no. Nothing except some goblins which might be coming this way.”
“Okay,” I said.
“Going thataway,” Evan said. He didn’t even point before he headed off.
I glanced around for the goblins that were apparently headed this way, and didn’t see them. I picked up the pace all the same. My feet were wood, as were my toes, and though the general shape matched the feet I was supposed to have, they had a gnarled texture, branches criss-crossing one another, mingling like roots grown over one another. They bit into snow like the best pair of rugged boots.
Green Eyes grabbed me a little tighter, getting a better grip as I picked up the pace. Her fingers hooked on branches and bones, some even inside my body.
It struck me that I was okay with it.
That I’d been okay with it, even since the revelation that, yes, I was a vestige, or something close to one, but my memories were real. Carl was real.
That was hard to process, and I didn’t like where my thoughts were going, as I dwelt on it.
I spoke my doubts aloud, instead.
“I didn’t miss the implications, when you talked about company,” I said.
She squeezed me just a bit tighter, like it was an involuntary thing.
“I’m not very good with girls,” I said.
“I’m not a girl. I’m a mermaid,” she said.
“Someone once tried to use sex to control me,” I said. “It was one of a few ways he had of getting into my head. Touching other people, even being friends with people, it was hard. It’s hard to untangle the good stuff from the bad memories. I get a hug, and the first place my mind goes is to… him, and the person he wanted me to be, leading the life he wanted me to live. Because back then, I wasn’t sure I’d ever get girls or hugs or friends again, if I didn’t get the ones he and his people offered me.”
“Was he more family?”
“No,” I said. “But I think he wanted to be.”
“Do you want me to let you go? I can crawl. My hand is better.”
“It’s fine,” I said. “I’m… I thought it wasn’t real, but recent events have opened my eyes. It’s hard to reconcile it all.”
Snow crunched under my feet as I tried to keep up with Evan.
Green Eyes’ head turned about a second before I heard more crunching.
And there were the goblins.
Bigger than the others I’d seen around Jacob’s Bell. Almost human in size, but with monstrous features.
A fat one had rings in his nose, with chains reaching over and to either side of his head, making an already large nose into almost a pig snout, his hair looked like it had been shaved off with a rusty knife, and his upper row of teeth were exposed by the way the nose was pulled up and stretched. Both upper and lower rows of teeth had double-edged razor blades or box cutter blades stuck between each tooth.
The female goblin in the group was swaddled, a scarf or two wrapped around her head. Her eyes glowed like red dots in the shadows where her eyes were, while a long, narrow tongue lolled out of a gap between wrappings. Her hair was long and tangled.
Two more, of matching height and build, were muscular, and far too hairy to be real people. Thick sideburns and bristly hair on their heads was normal enough, but their necks were hairy as well. Their teeth were pointed. They were built like bodybuilders.
Unlike so many of the small ones I’d seen, these ones were fully clothed, and they were armed. Winter coats, scuffed leather jackets, pants, and general accessories. Fatty had two large butcher’s cleavers that looked like they could take a head clean off. The woman goblin had a pole or a pipe, and the men had smaller weapons in each hand – knife, bottle, knife and hatchet.
“When I said I wanted company, I meant it,” Green Eyes said, her voice low. “I’ve been awfully alone for a very long time. Even before I fell into the water.”
“Yeah.” We’re talking about this while we’re about to be attacked? I would have said something, but… Green Eyes had been helpful. Unquestionably helpful. If she was untrustworthy at all, it seemed like a fairly predictable sort of untrustworthiness.