15. The Rest of the Story #2
The sheriff stared another moment. Then she stood abruptly, knocking her chair over. She didn’t acknowledge Spencer as he approached with two steaming bowls. She just walked out the doors.
Pearl jumped up, muttering a quick apology to Spencer, and chased her mother out into the early evening.
She hadn’t needed to rush. She knew where she was going.
At the end of town, the shooting range was dimly lit by the glow of the orange sunset.
Sheriff Oak swung the rifle off her back as she walked. She didn’t stop, taking down the row of ten tin targets by the time she reached the range. She kept walking, resetting them with a quick jerk of the pedals by the rickety, battered target stand.
Pearl waited as Sheriff Oak prowled back. She didn’t meet Pearl’s eye, and Pearl didn’t attempt to talk to her.
The targets fell again without pause.
“I’ll get it,” Pearl said, darting forward to work the pedals as her mother reloaded.
It took three resets before Sheriff Oak finally spoke. “Tell me where.”
“Someone gave it to me.”
“Who?”
“Someone not from here. I dunno where she found it. Why? What’s wrong with it?”
Two more targets fell before Sheriff Oak paused, resting her rifle and looking at Pearl. “Lemme see it again.”
Pearl unclasped the chain. “You gonna give it back?”
“Lemme see it.”
Pearl handed it over, and Sheriff Oak held it close to her face in the dusk. She ran her thumb along the edge of the pendant and flipped it over.
“A light,” she ordered.
Pearl struck a match, bringing it close to illuminate the back briefly until it burned down to her fingers and she dropped it, snuffing it with her toe. “What’re you looking for?”
Sheriff Oak swung her rifle back up and finished the line of targets before turning abruptly and stalking home, still clutching the necklace.
Pearl followed.
She lit the lamps in the cramped kitchen and put on the kettle.
Grabbing a tin of hard biscuits that would be their meal tonight instead of the delicious-smelling stew across the street, she watched her mother.
Sheriff Oak dropped the necklace on the table and it rested there, the dented brass and angled cut of glass catching the light amongst the tinny silver.
“You gonna tell me, or what?” Pearl asked, taking the seat opposite and propping her elbows on the table.
“That used to be mine. Long time ago.”
Pearl sat up a bit straighter. “Did you lose it?”
An expression that wasn’t a smile twisted Sheriff Oak’s mouth. “Not exactly. I told you there’s more to that story.”
The hairs on Pearl’s neck rose again. “About the goyle?”
Sheriff Oak nodded. “The one we…found, well. I didn’t realize until afterward that it wasn’t alone. She had a kid.”
Pearl’s breath left her, and the sheriff nodded.
“I needed a little space from the scene. I wandered off and threw up in the brush. And that’s where I found it.
Found her. I don’t think she saw, which I’m glad of, or was too young to understand.
She couldn’t have been born long before, so tiny, and scrawny, and ugly.
And she reached for me. Like any other child.
” Sheriff Oak covered her eyes with a hand as if hiding from the memory as much as from Pearl.
“I took her into the next canyon over so the others wouldn’t find her.
She was so much lighter than I expected, with crinkled wings that couldn’t work yet.
She grabbed my necklace and wouldn’t let go, so I took it off. And I left. I just left her there.”
Silence hung heavy in the air, punctuated by the whistle of the kettle.
Neither of them stood to get it. Pearl’s mind spun.
Had that tiny goyle child been Driz? But Driz said her mother was still alive.
Had another goyle given the necklace to her?
Or had Driz simply found it while wandering, the original owner long gone?
But the circumstances of that didn’t matter the most right now. Pearl reached out and took her mother’s clenched hand.
Sheriff Oak gripped her back. “I never told anyone. I’ve gone back countless times, but I’ve never found any trace of the child or the necklace. Sometimes I wonder if I imagined it. I hope I did.”
“You said you made two mistakes that night. What else would you’ve done? You were just a kid too, Ma.”
Sheriff Oak pulled away. “One who just helped slaughter a mother. I wasn’t innocent. I regret not having the guts to kill it. Instead, I just left it to the wilds.”
Pearl didn’t know what words would help, so she made some tea. She brought a bottle of bourbon back to the table too. Sheriff Oak hadn’t moved, her gaze unfocused on the pendant.
“It’s messing with my head, Pea,” she whispered. “This goyle acting strange, hanging around, the trouble with Faltsprings, now this showing back up after all this time.” She finally looked at Pearl. “Who gave it to you?”
Pearl shook her head. “I already told you.”
“No, you didn’t. And I wanna know why.”
“What’re you afraid of? That this kid survived, remembered, and is back now for revenge? That sounds ridiculous. You know that, right?”
“It seems like more than a coincidence. And I don’t like that you’re keeping secrets.”
Pearl studied the dust on her boots as she drank her strong tea.
“I can feel you pulling away from me,” her mother breathed. “I don’t wanna lose you too.”
Pain lanced through Pearl’s chest at the unexpected admission.
“I’m right here. And not going anywhere.
” Pearl stood. “Do you wanna keep it?” She gestured toward the necklace but Sheriff Oak shook her head.
So Pearl pocketed it. After a moment of hesitation, she leaned down and gave her mother a quick, tight hug. “See you in the morning.”