Chapter 6
Chapter Six
Margaret
It’s such a beautiful day. This really is turning into a nice vacation. Avery and Mitry begged me to come for Halloween, and here I am, picking out pumpkins on the planet Tarvos.
I love my job back home on Salo. Being able to work on an independent audiocast, telling my stories exactly how I want them told, is wonderful.
But maybe I have been working too hard? I must admit, it’s nice to take a break and not think about work at all.
There’s even a built-in mystery happening here, for me to help privately solve, having to do with a Hyrrokin legend.
But for once, I’m not going to turn this into content for my show.
That’s a breath of fresh air.
I’m dressed in a customary Hyrrokin tube top again, exposing my thick arms like never before.
I’ve always considered my waist too thick for something like this but today I’m wearing it proudly.
And I also have on a cute pair of white shorts and flip flops.
All of this is borrowed from Avery, who is thrilled to lend me outfits she considers “trendy.” She thinks I have good legs, despite my weight, and that I should be showing them off.
I have to admit I feel unexpectedly…pretty?
The weather is just so nice, it feels good to expose my skin to the sunlight and the perfumed breeze.
I turn and see Vidar talking to an employee.
That Hyrrokin is gloriously handsome. Those reading glasses are the frosting on the cake.
He has no idea what he does to me. I’m turned on simply standing in his presence.
All he has to do is work nearby, sorting pumpkins and I want him to take me to the nearest wall and fuck me blind.
Crazy but true.
After spending last night on that stake out with him and getting to know Vidar better, I’m even entertaining crazy thoughts such as…would this Hyrrokin be a good father? Apparently, I’m starting to consider him for more than an affair while on Tarvos, but as someone I’d consider marrying?
Wow. That was quick. This nice weather is really doing something to my head. One interesting stake out and I’m acting like he’s my new fiancé. Well, I was always known as someone who loved a good stake out…
But all of this is moot considering Vidar Coalstone has taken a freaking vow of celibacy.
The guy can’t even masturbate in the privacy of his own room.
And he’s doing this so he can finally retire a legend he feels is dangerous to other beings.
I love learning about this side of him, that he’s a being who feels protective of others, so of course I’m going to help him keep this vow.
Even though he’s admitted to me that he finds me as attractive as I find him. And last night, I could literally see the tent of his erection in his pants. He was staring at my ass like it was his job.
And I wanted to scoot close and kiss those sexy lips.
That’s what makes this so difficult. I need to pretend that neither of us feel this off-the-hook sexual attraction for each other.
He needs to keep up the pretense that he isn’t attracted to me so that no one can think he ever broke his vow.
And also, he needs to be seen as doing this investigation alone, so the research isn’t tainted by my civilian presence.
But we want each other.
I glance over at his ass. I’m willing to wait this out until he’s done with his vow. Although ten more months of this denial sounds like the worst form of torture.
Maybe I’ll luck out and he can get out of it early?
My brow furrows. Wait, am I thinking I need to move to Tarvos? How is that possible?
And then I look over and notice that Hogen Emberstone is watching me. He’s a nice guy so I smile in return. His features brighten. He looks like he’s about to walk over to speak with me.
“Aunt Margaret?”
I blink.
Dagr has appeared beside me, out of nowhere. “Can we talk, alone?” he questions.
“Sure.” I’m already moving. “Lead the way.”
Dagr Hellstone walks me past the pallets and all the way to the far end of the yard, where there’s nothing but a fence and a strip of shade. This is an entirely private location.
Skylo comes along with us.
Dagr sits down on a crate. I sit down on the one across from him. And then he doesn’t say anything at first, just stares at his hands. So I don’t say anything either, just waiting for him to start.
Behind me, Skylo turns around and sits down facing the yard, with his back to both of us. All three heads up, watching the pallets.
“I saw it too,” Dagr finally offers.
“Saw what?”
“I saw that creature the little kids around here are talking about. I just haven’t told anyone yet what happened, but I want to tell you, Aunt Margaret. You’ll listen and take me seriously.”
“Aaah. That makes sense, because I will listen.” I beam at him and cross my legs. “So, you saw this creature too. When did this sighting happen?”
“Three weeks ago.”
“Do you know the exact date?”
“The fourteenth.” He says it immediately, without hesitation. “It was the same day Mitry broke the dispenser trying to make her own traq, so I know.”
That’s good. Beings who make things up are vague about dates, but beings who saw something tie it to whatever else happened that day. “Where were you when this sighting happened?”
“Well, I was outside of the wall, after dark. By myself on the preserve side, in the trees.”
My eyes widen. Even I know this type of behavior is strictly off limits. “Alone? You were out there without Skylo, or your parents or any other adult?”
He lifts his chin. “I snuck out at night because I wanted to see if I could find this creature myself. And I did.”
I exhale. “How far inside the preserve did this sighting happen?”
“Not far into the jungle. I followed the walking path to the first turn. And it didn’t try to attack me or anything. I think I scared it and it ran away. I didn’t feel like it was dangerous.”
“What did it look like?”
“It was standing up on two legs, like a Hyrrokin.” He glances up at me quickly, to see if I’m going to react to that. I don’t, so he keeps going. “It was taller than my dad.”
“Taller than Hannibal?”
“A lot taller. And its eyes were gold. Hyrrokin eyes go red in the dark. All of us. Skylo’s go red too.” He tips his head back toward the wulver. “These were gold. Like a lamp.”
“How long did you see it for?”
“I don’t know. A while.” He thinks about it. “Maybe a minute? It felt longer.”
“What did it do?”
“Nothing. It didn’t come at me. It didn’t run away either, just looked at me. I wasn’t scared.”
“Anything else?”
And that’s when he tells me the important part. “There was a sound.”
“What kind of sound?”
“It’s hard to explain.”
“Try.”
“It wasn’t loud. It wasn’t like a roar or anything. It was really low. Like, you know how sometimes you can feel the engine of a big transport before you can hear it?”
“Yes.”
“Like that. I felt it in my chest before I heard it.”
“Can you make the sound?”
He looks embarrassed.
“Dagr. Can you make it?”
And he hums it. Low, in the back of his throat, and it pulses, slow, up and down, and goes on for maybe four seconds, and every hair on my arms comes up at once.
He stops. “Like that but way lower. And bigger.”
“Dagr. I need to ask you something, and you can absolutely say no…I want to tell Dr. Coalstone about all of this, including the sound. He’s got audio equipment out at that wall right now, running every night.
” I lean forward. “If something out there makes a noise, there might be a recording of it. He’s the only being on this planet who can actually go and check. ”
Dagr thinks about that. “He won’t believe me.”
“He might not,” I agree, because I’m not going to lie to a kid to get a yes. “He’ll probably tell you there’s another explanation. That’s what he does. That’s literally his whole job, to be skeptical.”
“So why bother?”
“Because that’s not the same as him thinking you’re lying.
There’s a difference between I don’t believe your conclusion, and I don’t believe you saw anything.
He doesn’t think the kids are making it up.
He thinks they saw something but were wrong about what it was.
Dr. Coalstone thinks there isn’t a real Skyggjar and that Hyrrokin have always mistaken it for a different kind of animal. ”
“But, Aunt Margaret, I’ve lived next to the preserve since I was little. I know the types of animals out there and this wasn’t one of them.”
“Then tell Dr. Coalstone that.”
He exhales. “Yes…I want to tell him my story.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah. But you need to be with me when I tell him.”
“No problem.”
Vidar comes around the end of the pallets a few moments later. “Ms. Reyes.” Smoke puffs from his nostrils. He looks at Dagr on the crate, then back at me. “I could not locate you,” he growls.
I smile. “I’m sorry if we worried you, but we’ve been right here. Dagr wanted to talk to me alone and I listened to him. That’s all that happened. This is not me investigating. I’m simply a civilian that Dagr was talking to, his Aunt Margaret who is visiting from Salo.”
His eyes narrow. “Margaret…”
“I know, but Dagr has something important to report. And he has given his permission for you to hear it directly from him. Not from me. From him.”
And then Dr. Vidar Coalstone, Senior Fellow of the Royal Hyrrokin Academy, nods and walks over and sits heavily on a nearby crate. “Dagr Hellstone, please tell me what you saw.”
Dagr proceeds to tell Vidar the exact same story that he told me. And when he’s finished, Vidar asks follow up questions.
“At what hour did this occur?”
“Maybe two hours after full dark.”
“And where were you standing?”
“On the path, near the first turn.”
“Could you show me the exact position?”
“Yeah.”
“And the sound you mentioned, how long did it continue?”
Dagr thinks. “The whole time. It started before I saw the eyes.”
Vidar’s head comes up at that.
“Before?”
“Yeah. I heard it first. That’s why I looked over and saw him. I think he was as surprised to see me as I was to see him. We both froze and then he finally ran away first.”
“Did the pitch change?”
“It went up and down. Slow.”
“Would you make the sound for me?”
And Dagr does it again.
“Once more please,” Vidar has his tablet out. “I am going to record it this time. Do it exactly as you did it before.”
Dagr hums it again into the tablet.
Vidar looks at the readout for a long moment.
“I have audio equipment at that wall. It records across a frequency band that includes what you have just produced, and lower.” He taps the screen. “I have reviewed what I have so far and there is nothing of this description.”
Dagr’s face falls.
“No, this doesn’t mean that you’re wrong about the sound, it just means I haven’t captured it yet.
But when I do get an unusual sound out there, I’ll have yours to measure it against. Your account is the most useful I have received in this consultation,” Vidar tells him.
“It contains a physical characteristic that does not appear in any of the other five reports. It is specific, it is falsifiable, and it gives me something to test.”
He inclines his head. Formally. The way you’d do it to a colleague. “Thank you. But you understand that I must inform your father,” Vidar says.
Dagr’s shoulders come up.
“I would prefer to do it myself, if you permit. It is my finding. It should be my report.”
“I’ll be there for that too,” I tell him.
“Then yes,” Dagr agrees. He meets my gaze. “Dad is going to be mad I went out there alone.”
“Yes, he is,” I agree.