CHAPTER 5
“Where is she now?” Madam Hag wondered, eyes full of sad wonder after he’d told her story.
“Sleeping soundly. She thinks she’s healed but I know better. She could hardly speak to me about what happened, but when I mentioned her having to talk to you, she confessed enough to make me need to murder in cold blood.” Again.
“What a poor child. What do you plan to do with her?” Madam Hag’s many bracelets clinked as she readied his favorite tea while he paced in her kitchen at three in the morning. He’d woken to Tully clinging to every inch of him and after thirty minutes of extracting himself without waking her, he needed to see Madam Hag.
“I want to find her parents. She was separated from them during one of the hurricanes when she was thirteen then picked up by Dark Ones and has been being sexually used since. She thinks they’re good people who are helping her save money to find her parents.” He nodded in furious agreement with the look that came over Madam Hag’s face.
“You said the Holy Man saw you saving her?”
He nodded, making himself sit at his spot near the fire.
“I need to meet this one. Have heard many things about him and never had the pleasure.”
“You will, I’m sure. He’s got a woman now. She was the reason we went to New Orleans where I found Tully.”
“And now you,” she said, amazed.
“Me what?”
“Have a woman,” she cried like he were dense.
“She’s not my woman, she’s…a woman who I’m helping.”
“Well, she can be,” she said, the many layers of her mossy green robe flaring as she went about.
He looked over his shoulder at her, dumbfounded. “You were just dead set against me marrying!”
“A stranger,” she said, pointing at him.
“She is a stranger!”
“But this is divine intervention, Lee, don’t you recognize that?”
“I recognize a woman who needs something I can’t give her.”
“Like what?” she cried
“Who in the world have you talked to since I’ve been gone?”
“Nobody,” she cried, guilt in her innocent gray eyes.
“Was it the Belle Eveque? She’s got some kind of witching power over people.”
“Have you even met her?” she challenged.
“So it was her?”
“She met me,” she corrected with a defensive finger in the air.
He stared at her. “And?” he demanded.
“And we talked,” she cried, as if she weren’t a hermit that never talked to anybody but him.
“Wow,” he muttered. “How quickly you fell.”
“Not quick at all, we spoke a good hour.”
“A swamp hour or a literal hour?”
“Quite literal,” she assured.
“Why don’t I believe you?”
“You’re a mud bug, that’s why. And when do I get to meet this angel of yours.”
“She’s not my anything and please don’t mention that to her.”
Her brows rose. “Why not?”
He sagged at seeing her unhelpful position in all this. “Because she…she’s sensitive to that.”
She handed him his cup of tea, her gaze curious and waiting as she settled in the chair next to his.
He brought the cup to his lips while his brain struggled for the correct words.
“Does she like you?” she asked, her tone innocent.
“I saved her, of course she likes me.”
“Ohhhhh, savior syndrome.”
“Very much so.”
“How much so?” she wondered, her eagerness on full display.
“You’re worse than her with all these questions.”
“Oh? She’s inquisitive? That’s a good thing?”
He laughed at that understatement. “Ten questions to your five, at least.”
“Oh dear. You hate chatty people.”
“I do, but she’s…a different kind of chatty. She’s not like most people. And I intend to reunite with her parents. I don’t plan to keep her like some...pet.”
Madam Hag giggled. “She reminds you of one of your pet creatures? Only a girl that you don’t know how to keep,” she said, making him realize the utter truth of that.
“It’s not like I’ve ever found a human butterfly in the swamp.”
She gasped. “Is that how you see her?”
His head dropped back with a groan.
“Well, I can help you,” she said, bringing his head forward. “At least till you dump her off wherever.”
“I’m not dumping her anywhere unless it’s with her parents and yes, I want to know everything that needs knowing until I do that. Particularly, how do I get her to see me as…a friend or brother?”
Madam Hag covered her smile with her cup. “You’re very funny.”
“Why is that funny? Surely there’s an herb?”
Full on laughter now.
“These are all chemically related,” Lesion reminded. “There has to be something to help curb it. Like you did with that one fellow?”
“She must really like you! I’ve never seen you this desperate.”
“I don’t want her hurt more than she’s been, Madam. That’s all. I am a healer,” he reminded her.
“Yes,” she said lightly. “Tell me why you think she likes you this much.”
“She has no filter,” he said. “She told me straight out that she wants me in a way that a wife wants a husband.” The delight in her eyes annoyed him.
“Tell me how she said it.”
“I can’t remember the exact words.” He did but he surely wasn’t about to recite what he couldn’t get out of his head.
“Well, I’ll take the gist, Lee.”
“She wants to touch me. With more than her heart. All I need to do is ask.”
Madam Hag covered her smile with her slim fingers, light dancing in her eyes. “That is plain speak.”
He sipped his tea, shaking his head at the humor in her tone.
“So… how did this kind of talk make you feel?”
He eyed her. “Like I needed a concoction.”
“For her?”
“Yes, for her. I’d take one too if I thought it’d help.”
Madam Hag gave a shrug, crossing her legs. “Maybe once she sees you’re not interested in those things, she will accept that? Or perhaps you can introduce her to your beloved Twelve and see which would take her off your hands.”
“Madam,” he warned, eying her innocent expression. “Tully’s mind is…too vibrant for the normal world.”
“And you think nobody will want that?”
“I think…they won’t understand it and may…hurt her. Why are you smiling like that?”
She added laughter. “Because you care so much about her.”
“Well, I sure didn’t save her to see her back in another bad situation.”
“Not one of those men in The Twelve would hurt her,” she admonished. “Bacon is very empathetic, as is Patches. Is this girl pretty?”
“She’s a human angel in every sense of the term.”
“Well…Patches is very handsome. Maybe if she were to meet him…”
Lesion stood and brought his cup to the sink. “Right.” Only, not. None of The Twelve would know what to do with her any more than he knew. She didn’t need to meet any of them until he had time to… prepare her. Somehow tone down her blinding innocence and purity. And yet, the idea of doing that felt wrong. She was the most beautiful thing the world would probably ever see and to tone it down seemed blasphemous. The world needed her shine. “I may not be qualified, or the man for her, but fate seemed fine to have me save her. And until it shows me where she’s supposed to go or what she’s supposed to do, I’m her protector. No darkness will come near her and nothing will hinder her light.”
He turned, not surprised to find Madam Hag’s smile. “Well, if you must,” she said, sipping her tea. “Then you have my vote and any help you may need to accomplish that noble task.”
“I need to go check on her. She may wake and follow the fireflies thinking they’re calling her on a journey. And who knows, maybe they would. She’s different.”
Madam Hag followed him to the door, rubbing his shoulder. “I can’t wait to meet her. Let us plan to have dinner tonight.”
“I’ll try and wear her out.”
“Do no such thing. I know how to appreciate vibrantly colored humans. I appreciate you, don’t I?”
“Hmm. You do.”
“Maybe you two are more alike than you realize?”
He paused, wondering. “Do you think you have anything she could wear besides my clothes? She had nothing on when I found her.” He shut the door in his brain when it produced photographic images.
“Hold on!”
He waited while she rummaged through drawers and stuffed a pillowcase full of things. “That should do for a week.”
He leaned and kissed her cheek. “Thank you, Madam. We’ll see you this evening.”