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 being very polite 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 name you…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?”
Rosetta’s eyes widen, and she stumbles out of Castor’s hold, falling back when her hands begin to change shape in front of her.
“Margessa is a lovely name, isn’t it?” Castor asks, frantic, snatching another of the mothers and presenting her to me.
“I…uh. I think so? Yes. Margessa is a great name.”
A twinkle sparks in Margessa’s eye as she trips back from Castor and begins her transformation. I stare, bemused, as the five redcaps take in their new bodies and new words and inevitably locate the rest of their cheering pack.
Deeply, Castor laughs and sweeps his arm out to the whooping, riled bunch, announcing, “Who’s next?”
The mob chatters, sharp grins wide, as they launch themselves toward me…and queue.
?
What started as a lovely date feeding not-ducks has turned into absolute chaos.
By the time I don’t think I can come up with another name ever again in my life, every last redcap near us has transformed into something else.
Something, somehow, more. Less…beastly. Closer to…
human. They chatter still, but with words, their red eyes gleaming above smiles that have stayed sharp.
Excitement runs rampant in the clearing of these dark woods with their black trees and their speckling of unassuming white buds.
The excitement brushes over my skin, and I shiver.
“This is…” Castor starts, breathless, wrapping me up in his arms. He hums with elation. “This is incredible.”
This is nonsense is what it is.
“Rebirth,” Castor whispers, and the word sends a spark jolting through my heart. “Crimson gremlins. The redcap’s evolution. I didn’t know your powers could be used like this.”
My powers? Those words cut through the dreary daze overcoming me like a fog made of molasses.
Oh, that makes sense, actually. I’ve been using powers. Which would explain why I am ever so tired.
Before my eyes can fall closed, one of the larger crimson gremlins clears his throat and removes his now much-too-small-for-his-head red-stained cap.
With a bow to the both of us, he speaks in the deepest voice I have ever heard, “Blessings be upon you, fair ones, and much gratitude for the gifts thus bestowed.”
I…blink—possibly out of sync—and try for the life of me to remember his name. Alas, I cannot.
The crimson gremlin extends his hand, clawtips caked with dirt, and looks up to leer a pointy smile in our direction.
“Such clarity…such unequivocal power…” Violent, his beady eyes glint, and he cackles.
“The world is new, and the opportunities are fresh. Life is greater, due to you. As leader of this swarm, I recognize our debt and pledge our allegiance in the wisdom that we remain weak by comparison to the power at your hands. Our lives may persist more fully beneath the banner of your reign.” His attention lands squarely on Castor.
“Though distant in my mind as though beyond a murky swamp, I know you, stone king. You have often come alone to these woods and given us aid in the harshest seasons. Many of us would not be here without your help. And you—” The creature’s…
man’s? sharp eyes flick to me. “—fair one who smells of humanity yet and magic unfathomable…you have given us names.” Bending deeper, he—whose name I still do not actually remember—says, “I swear on the blood of my cap that I shall serve you in the names of my kin until the end of my days.”
I glance at Castor, who is vibrating with a lovely—but unhelpful—giddiness. Then I say, most intelligently, “Oh, um. Okay.”
Castor claps his hands, throws his head back, and booms a laugh.
“Crimson gremlins! It’s beautiful! Beautiful!
” He grips my arm, fingers digging into my bicep.
“We must plan, my darling feather. We must build homes. A town. A kingdom. A—” His smile turns more frightful than all the wicked grins of those around, and his fangs shine in the light stretching through the branches above. “—pandemonium.”
“Marvelous idea, my liege,” the crimson gremlin leader concurs, brilliantly, then he blinks and deflates. “How…do we do that?”
Castor reaches up to grab the man’s shoulder.
“I’ll teach you. Come.” Unsteadily, he gets to his feet, a foot and a half taller than even the tallest in the group before us.
“Come, all of you. Tonight, we feast, and at the crest of the morning renewed, we break ground for the beginning of our home…for the beginning of our pandemonium.”
A shiver rocks me, but it is so good as cheers flood the charcoal woods dappled with red and purple and scattered with splashes of tiny white flowers. In the air, on my skin, fire lingers. And in my heart, heat rises.
In this moment, I witness the start of an age.
The beginning of an era.
The birth of a nation.
I have a feeling the next few weeks aren’t going to be strictly focused on finding a cure for Castor, but…looking up at him now as he clasps hands and laughs among his people…I wonder if we’re closer than he’s ever been.