Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
It was clear he didn’t entirely trust her. Which was fair since she didn’t entirely trust him either, even though he’d saved her life twice. And she was curious about the other room, but not enough to get up and go look. Promise aside, she was just worn out.
He didn’t need to be worried; she wasn’t going anywhere. Until she’d sat down, she hadn’t realized how frazzled she was from the terrifying race through the woods. It was all catching up with her now and she realized she was trembling. It was probably the last of the adrenaline surging through her.
The warmth of the fire helped a little. She leaned in and held her hands out, because unlike her ass… they were cold.
There was something cheerful about the crackle and pop of the flames.
The way they moved was almost hypnotic and she started to zone out as she watched the flickering.
She lost track of time for a while, but eventually he came back, and there was a clatter as he thumped the new oil lamp down on the table.
“I knew I had one somewhere. It was tucked up in the storage loft.”
She drew away from the fire slowly, yawning as she shifted to look at him. “With your eyesight I’m surprised you need a lamp at all. It’s crazy how you could see out there in the dark.”
“Not all that crazy. We have good night vision. It comes in handy sometimes, but there are things I can’t do without light.” He jerked his chin towards the sketches on the wall.
Her eyebrows went up. “You did those? You’re pretty good. So, are you nocturnal?”
He shrugged as he rifled around in the kitchen area and came up with a bottle of oil. He took the lamp apart and filled it. “We don’t have to be, but most of us tend to gravitate that way. Night is easier. It hides mistakes better.” He lit a match and touched it to the wick, as he added, “Usually.”
“Mistakes?”
“I told you about the camouflage. It’s how we can go out into the world. We have a kind of coming-of-age thing where we disperse to live among the human types. For a year or two we explore and learn, and then most of us come back.”
“Most?” For the moment, she decided to entertain the idea that it was all true. If she asked enough questions, the story would probably fall apart.
“Most of the ones who don’t look strictly human come back. The human world is… a lot. It’s too loud. Too bright. There are so many people, and they are constantly recording everything. The last thing we want is to get caught on video.”
She sat back and frowned. “But you have your uh, camouflage.”
“It fails sometimes. When people get excited their adrenaline surges and that can lead to a hyper-awareness that, well, breaks through it. And it doesn’t work as well on cameras anyway.
Sometimes there’s just an empty spot where we are.
Sometimes we’re a distorted blob. Luckily, they rarely catch a decent shot of us, but sticking to the night gives a little added insurance. ”
“But how does it work?”
He put the glass top back on and raised the wick until the shadows retreated. “Ellie, I think before we go any further, we need to settle your mind on the truth. I think deep down you believe me, but you’re fighting it. It will be easier for us to talk if you stop.”
She opened her mouth, closed it, and then finally nodded. “Okay… so you’re going to prove it’s all true?”
“Yes, I’m going to drop my camouflage. I know you’ve seen hints, little slips, but you’ve been able to deny them or explain them away. When I show you the real me, you’ll be convinced.”
The real him. Mothman. She almost laughed, but then she remembered those glowing red eyes.
And she had been up in the sky, not above the tree canopy, but high enough that she could feel branches brushing against her arms and legs.
It couldn’t be real, but she didn’t have an explanation for it. “Go ahead then.”
He hesitated, moving a little closer to her, so she could see his eyes.
The room was bright enough now to see the deep blue.
They were perfectly human. Pretty but normal, and definitely not glowing red.
“Stay seated and don’t panic, Ellie. I promise that I will never harm you, no matter how I look. ”
Ellie snorted. “I’m not going to panic. Just show me so we can get on with things. You promised to bring me home and I’m tired.” She folded her arms across her chest and waited.
His lips quirked up at one corner, almost a smirk before it vanished. “If you say so.”
The next few moments were chaotic, and later she wasn’t quite able to pin down the exact order of how it had all happened.
She watched, waiting, and suddenly the sexy guy in front of her vanished.
In his place was a larger creature made of shadow, humanoid, but not human.
The features were indistinct at first, blurred and confusing, as if her mind was having trouble making sense of what she was seeing.
Features started to firm, becoming distinct, but then the shape shifted and grew outward, as large wings appeared and filled the room.
They unfurled slowly, carefully, in the enclosed space, but even so, the things hanging from the ceiling were set to swinging as the tips brushed against them.
She’d never had occasion to describe someone as looming before, but there was no other word for it.
He loomed over her, casting a shadow across her, even as she shrunk down against the cushions. She was pretty sure she’d screamed. Her throat felt raw and scraped, but now her mouth was just working soundlessly as she huddled there.
“It’s still me, Ellie. You’re still safe. You’re always safe with me.” It was Lium’s voice, but… it wasn’t. It sounded deeper now, and there was a low burr that she felt more than heard.
“What are you?” She breathed the words so softly that she didn’t even realize she’d spoken out loud, until he answered.
“I’m Galium. Lium. My people are the Muinntir leòmainn. As you can see, we look a bit different. At least some of us do.”
She felt lightheaded. Her ears were ringing, and she couldn’t take her eyes off him. “You really are Mothman.”
“Actually, I’m not. That was Uncle Steve, and he still gets teased about his slip-up. He should have known better than to be where teenagers park. Once those heart rates skyrocket… you never know what they’ll see.”
She swallowed hard. “Uncle… Steve? Mothman is named Steve?”
“Well, Steaphan—Steve for short, and he’s more of a third cousin really. But he’s an elder so we call him Uncle. I told you I’m not much older than you, so I wasn’t around when the legend of ‘Mothman’ was exposed to the world.”
“Oh.” She wasn’t sure what to say to that, was having trouble forming any kind of words at all.
“It’s caused us a lot of trouble as you can imagine. Between people stomping around looking for Mothman, Bigfoot, and occasionally even the Flatwood Monster we have way more tourists around here than we’d like.”
“Lium, I—”
“Of course, we’re lucky that we can blend in. But our homes can’t, and sometimes people stumble over them. So it—”
“Lium!” she snapped his name louder this time.
He stopped short. “Yes?”
“Can-can you switch back to the other you?” There was a desperate plea in her voice. Looking at him was making her queasy. It was something about the way he kept blurring.
“Fuck. Sorry, Ellie. I forgot. Don’t worry, the nausea will go away once you’ve gotten used to it. Your mind just has to adjust to seeing past the filter. It can take a few times before you get the hang of it.”
She wasn’t at all sure she wanted to get the hang of it.
Ellie hadn’t felt so confused and disoriented since the time she’d tried acid in college.
Her head was spinning and her stomach kept lurching in an unpleasant way.
“Why do I feel sick?” she whined. Closing her eyes helped almost immediately, and she kept them shut.
“Part of it is just the concealment trying to work. The rest is… well, humans work really hard at not seeing anything preternatural. Anything that’s out of the normal realm, you just refuse to see it. So, when you’re confronted head-on, it does a number on you.”
She heard him moving closer to her as he talked, but she kept her eyes shut. “You keep saying ‘human’ as if you aren’t. But you looked…” She trailed off and shook her head.
“That’s my disguise, but Ellie… you need to understand that I’m not human. At least not entirely. Here… feel.” He was directly in front of her now, and he leaned down to take her hand and guide it toward him.
Her palm pressed against something supple and warm, and when she stroked her fingers over it, she was reminded of an old suede jacket she used to love. It wasn’t his chest, it lacked the musculature for that, but she was afraid to open her eyes and look. “What am I touching?”
“My wing.”
She didn’t even question it. “It’s so soft…” Ellie’s science side pushed her to look. She cracked one eye, waiting for the vertigo to attack again, when it didn’t, she risked opening a little more, but continued to focus on the wing. He was easier to take in small pieces.
At first, the wing hung in heavy folds in front of her, and looked a bit like black leather, but it was softer than that.
He stretched it out, and she startled, but relaxed as soon as she realized he was just letting her get a better look.
What she’d thought was a solid black, turned out to be a gradient.
The inside panels were thin enough that she could see the veins underneath, where the light illuminated them. Closer to the joints it thickened, until it was completely opaque and a deeper color.
It was closer to a bat’s wing than an insect’s, but it was shaped differently.
The bone structure didn’t match any winged animal she’d studied, but there were the obvious similarities that could be found in most flying mammals.
She traced one of the long finger bones to the joint, noticing that his breathing grew ragged as she did.
His body was suddenly tense, though he didn’t move away from her touch.
He had said the wings were sensitive, but now she wondered if sensitive was a euphemism for something a little more… stimulating. She dropped her hands with reluctance. “I thought it would feel powdery or something.”
“Like a moth? I know. We have creation stories that involve being a moth/human hybrid, but logically that’s unlikely.
We share some characteristics with moths, but I think it’s probably coincidental.
The more science-minded of us have always felt like we’re an offshoot branch of humanity, who just happened to develop differently.
The fact that we can breed makes that likely. ”
“Oh.” The biologist in her was very interested to know more about that. She wondered if there was a way to test their DNA without raising any red flags in a lab. It would be fascinating to study—
“Ellie?”
She shelved that train of thought for a later time. “Yes?”
“Are you ready to see a little more?”
A shiver rolled down her back, but she found herself nodding anyway.
He sank down on the stool in front of her until she was staring at his chest. What she could see didn’t look out of the ordinary.
Except for the thick fur that covered it, she could have believed he was human, but it was too dense to be chest hair. It was a pelt.
Her fingers itched to stroke the fur, to see if it was as soft as it looked. She reached out, but didn’t quite dare.
“Go ahead. It’s fine.” His voice was gentle, encouraging, so she let her hand sink into the fur.
There was something satisfying about digging her fingers into the silky dense curls. It reminded her vaguely of an angora rabbit she’d held once. She was tempted to press her cheek to him and feel that softness on her face. “You’re not what I expected Mothman to be.”
His chest rumbled under her hand as he laughed.
“Well, ‘Mothman’ is a legend started by four horny teenagers and I’m real.
They were never entirely sure what they saw, and all of them reported something different, which is how the camouflage works.
One of them described him as an angel and I can assure you he isn’t an angel, and neither am I. ”
Even she had to laugh at that. “Wait… can you change how you look? How people see you? That would be a neat superpower.”
“Nope. Unfortunately, no shapeshifting here. I’m just me and I appear the way your mind interprets me. I am told that you could have some control over how you see me. It takes practice.”
Huh. “So I could see you as human all the time if I wanted?”
There was a long moment of silence, and then, “I suppose. If that’s what you prefer.” There was a note of disappointment there, and she didn’t need to ask why.
She wouldn’t like it if people only wanted to see her in costume either. “I’m just asking for science. This whole thing is incredibly interesting.” It wasn’t entirely a scholarly question though. After her reaction to seeing him fully, she wasn’t entirely sure she could handle the real him.
“Well, it will still be me underneath and the disguise is iffy on the other senses, especially touch. So even if you were seeing me as strictly human, it would be hard to maintain the illusion if you’re touching me… like you’re doing right now.”
Her fingers, without her realizing it, had been playing in the fur, sliding through it to massage the muscles underneath. Her face heated and she pulled her hand back. “Sorry.”
“Don’t ever be sorry for touching me, Ellie.” He paused and then asked, “Are you ready to see more? This next part might be harder.”
“Harder?” Her eyes dropped to his crotch, and only after did she realize he was talking about his head.
“Um, my eyes are up here, Ellie.” He sounded more than a little amused. “I thought my face would be the most difficult, so you should probably get used to that before I show you anything more X-rated.”
He was still wearing jeans so from the waist down he did look fairly normal, but his comment had just brought up a big question. If they were able to mate that had to mean his ‘parts’ were pretty close, right? She was suddenly very curious to see what he was wearing under his pants.
But he was right… she should probably see his real face first.
She took a deep breath, and then another, and then with the third she tilted her head back to look directly into Lium’s face.