Chapter 27 #2
Agatha tugs me down beside a fallen tree, where I have just enough space between limbs to see the people in the courtyard, but not enough to really tell what’s going on in the corners.
“There,” she murmurs, directing me with a motion toward the stairs.
I have to move a little bit, but when I can finally see clearly, I find Cairo at the top of the stairs, leaning against the empty doorframe as he surveys the others in the courtyard.
There’s something different about him here. Something unapproachable and cold as he stands at the top of the stairs just watching. The others must all be cursed as well. They look human, or nearly. Many of them aren’t wearing anything at all, and some of them snarl or sneer at each other.
“They look so…” I don’t know how to phrase it. “They aren’t like Cairo, or you, or Tyler.”
“It happens like that sometimes. Some might change. Some might stay like this. They’re not unhappy, and many of them weren’t exactly pillars of society while they were alive.” I see the flash of her grin from the corner of my eye. “Cairo was never like this.”
“Were you?”
“No.” Her tone is flat and doesn’t really invite argument or further curiosity into her origins, even though I’m incredibly curious.
“Tyler was.” I don’t have to ask. Somehow I know that with his impatience and his aggression, he’s closer to them than he is to Cairo or Agatha, whatever that might mean.
“Tyler was,” Agatha agrees. “It’s why some of them prefer him to Cairo.”
I watch for another few minutes, seeing a few of those that remind me more of Agatha and Cairo walking around to break up petty squabbles or just maintain some sense of calm.
“Why aren’t you down there?” Quickly I realize it sounds a bit like an accusation, and I glance sidelong at Agatha.
But she only meets my gaze in the near-dark, though thankfully the moon is out enough now for me to see by.
“I just mean…If they respect Cairo and Tyler, and both of them are afraid of you. Wouldn’t you be able to make them do whatever you wanted? ”
A smile ghosts across her lips. “And where’s the fun in that, Fern?”
I don’t know what to say in response to such an answer.
What is there to say, when she could rip me apart and eat me like popcorn if she wanted to while watching whatever’s going on down there.
But thankfully a snarl breaks through the din, and when I look up again, Cairo’s stepped down from the top of the stairs though he’s still standing above the others.
One who reminds me of him sits on the steps below him, arms draped across her knees. She doesn’t look up at Cairo, but something in her face makes it seem like she’s just waiting for the others to make a move to shove them back into their place.
I can’t hear all that Cairo says, though it’s not like he gives some massive speech. I hear Tyler’s name a few times, and a few questions that snap out like growls from the gathered creatures in front of him. But none of them try him.
“Then go,” he finally says to one, stepping down until he’s in her face.
“If you want him instead of what you have, if you think his promises will really take you that far—” The cursed lunges for him, but Cairo is effortlessly faster.
It’s not like his fight with Tyler, but then again, it’s not a fight at all.
Within seconds, the woman is on her back on the ground, throat bared to him, and Cairo just looks down coldly into her face with his lips peeled back from his fangs.
“Go,” he repeats, stepping back. When she gets up, I can see her waver.
I can tell that she doesn’t know what to do.
But instead of leaving, she slinks back to the others, hiding among them.
“I’m tired of his games,” Cairo says, and now that he’s closer to me, I can actually understand what he says. The wind picks up and he pauses, glancing toward my hiding spot, but he looks away a second later.
“Does he know we’re here?” I ask, but Agatha doesn’t answer.
“Involving humans off the mountain is too far. She made that rule, and we’ve all lived with it since before most of you were born.
” He snarls at another cursed who growls a little at him, sending that one trembling backward as well.
“If you don’t like me, that’s fine. I’ve left you all alone for the most part. But do not go down into town?—”
“Like you?” The voice comes from a guy who appears to be in his late forties. He stands far back from the others, arms crossed, and stares flatly at Cairo instead of looking down. “You’ve been down in Whippoorwill most nights for weeks.”
“And I can control myself,” Cairo hisses in reply, turning on him. “You can as well, and you don’t involve humans in your games. My warning is for those who can’t.” At the almost praise, the man seems mollified, and he drops his shoulders.
“What about Tyler?” The question comes from somewhere in the group, but I don’t know from where.
“Tyler has had his warnings. And now you have too. I’m done with his games, and anyone else who wants to play them can either go to him, or face me right now for the privilege of playing them for another night.
” His challenge and the warning in it echo through the silent courtyard, but none of them say a word.
As if an unspoken dismissal was given, the cursed start disappearing.
A few at first, wander out of the courtyard, before more and more until finally it’s only Cairo and two of those who look the most human.
I can’t hear their conversation, though one of them is the man who half-challenged him before.
The older man smiles suddenly, a dry grin on his lips, and claps him on the shoulder with a soft laugh.
“That’s Elijah,” Agatha murmurs in my ear, her voice almost inaudible. “He’s a little older than Cairo, but he prefers to stay by himself most of the time. They’re talking about you,” she adds, sounding amused.
“Me?” I jerk back in surprise to look at her, trying to meet her eyes in the dark. “What about me?”
“Well…” She looks back at them and stands up, holding her hand out to me.
I lean back on my hands, confused, since the whole point of us being here was to hide, or so I’d thought.
“Ever since the wind changed, a few of them have known we were here. Come on.” She takes my nervous hand, pulls me to my feet, and subsequently helps me over the log before we make it down to the courtyard.
Elijah snorts when he looks at me, then glances back at Cairo. His eyes are dark, and in the moonlight, they look almost black. “Well, that’s definitely your problem, then. She’s too curious for you to keep in the dark, Cai.”
Cairo rolls his eyes at the man, and the woman beside him just gives me a look and a nod, before turning and leaving without another word.
“I’m Fern,” I introduce, trying to sound confident as I hop the broken back wall into the courtyard, though I nearly hit the dirt when my feet slip on some stones. Thankfully, no one laughs, but I’m feeling a lot less sure of anything.
Cairo sighs, and when I glance up at him, I see him roll his eyes up toward the moonlit sky over Bluebone Ridge. “Why can’t you do what I say, even once?” he asks, and then drops his chin to look at Agatha. “And do you have to be so helpful?”
“When she wants to be,” Elijah puts in. He raises his hands in surrender when Agatha glances his way, though I don’t see anything cruel or threatening in her look.
“All right, all right. I’m gone. Just…” He turns back to Cairo, a look of concern etched into his features.
“Be careful, you hear me? You’re too soft, and he knows it.
Otherwise, she wouldn’t be here.” He nods at me. “And she wouldn’t be here like that.”
“Like…” I trail off, as the answer to my unfinished question hits me in the face.
I wouldn’t be here as a human.
Elijah disappears just as quietly and quickly as Cairo can, which leaves me with the two of them, feeling like a child caught staying up past their bedtime as Cairo gives me the look from his narrowed eyes.
“I can’t even be surprised,” he admits, rolling his shoulders wearily. “Not when you’re so interested in making this your business. Both of you,” he amends. Though his next words are all for Agatha as he adds, “I don’t suppose you’d like to step in to solve this problem?”
“Not at all,” she assures him. “I’m tired of playing babysitter. It’s someone else’s turn for a while.” Again I wonder just how long Agatha has been around, but I file the question away to ask Cairo later.
“What are you going to do?” I ask, striding the rest of the way to Cairo, who reaches up to cup my face in his hands. His claws brush my skin, and he leans forward with a soft purr to brush his lips against mine affectionately and easily.
“I’m going to end Tyler’s game. It’s gone on long enough.”
“Too long,” Agatha remarks. “You’ve let him get away with too much.” There’s a note of something in her voice that might be concern, but if it is, then Cairo ignores it. He just shrugs, barely looking at her before giving me his full attention once again.
“I’m going right now, and I’ll be home by morning. Okay?” His purr meets my ears, and when he kisses me again, I clutch the front of his shirt to drag him against me.
“Do you promise?” I murmur, feeling dread coil in the first signs of a knot in my stomach. This doesn’t feel right. It feels like it won’t be okay, though I don’t know why.
“Yeah, little bird.” Cairo chuckles, nipping softly at my lower lip. “I promise. I just need you to stay home, where I know you’re safe. Wait for me, all right? Twelve hours. That’s all I need.”
“Twelve hours,” I repeat, letting him step away. It still doesn’t feel right. I want to stay with him. “Wait, no—Cairo. Can I stay, please? Let me go with you?—”
“And do what?” he cuts me off, his voice sharp. “What can you do to help me, Fern?” The plaintive meaning in his words makes me flinch, and he looks away. “You’re human. He would rip you apart just to spite me.”
Some part of me has the audacity to think that maybe he’s wrong.
Maybe I could help him, if only he’d let me.
But he must see that on my face, because Cairo’s quick to reach out, and he tips my chin up so I meet his gaze.
“I’m fine, okay?” he murmurs, and his eyes find mine in the moonlight, in the courtyard of the mental hospital where all of this began.
“I’ll be home tomorrow. Wait for me.” He gives Agatha a look as well, like he’s trying to warn her off more of her help, and without another look, he disappears into Bluebone Ridge, fading into the shadows with an unnatural amount of stealth.
“He’s right, you know,” Agatha remarks, once he’s gone and the moon is back behind the clouds, no longer out now that the show is over.
It’s stupid to think that the moon is its own kind of audience, but as the breeze in the courtyard blows my hair around my face and I shiver, it’s the only thing I can think of with the timing of it.
Agatha tucks my hair behind my ear companionably, jerking her head toward the side of the building. “You wouldn’t be able to help him as you are. You’d just get in his way, and he’d probably die having to protect you.” The matter of fact nature of her words isn’t helpful, and I flinch from them.
“But he’ll be okay, right?” I ask, footsteps crunching on gravel. “Tyler can’t really hurt him?”
She doesn’t answer until we’re at the front parking lot, and she stops to stare upward at the clouded sky while I dig my phone out of my pocket, figuring now it doesn’t matter if the others know I’m here.
“Go home, little bird,” Agatha tells me, and her voice is a mixture of so many others, yet nothing at all. “Go home to your safe, warm bed, and try not to think about problems that can’t be solved by humans.”