25. A New Kind of Wrong
A New Kind of Wrong
The cough rattled Pearl’s chest.
Driz scowled. “You are unwell.”
“I’m fine,” Pearl protested, which shook loose another cough. Her skin burned with fire, but she refused to acknowledge it.
“You said you would be better tonight.”
“Yeah, well. My sleep doesn’t instantly heal me. It just usually helps.”
She had slept the rest of the night, and all day, and now the dusk was fading to night once more.
She fumbled with the buttons on her waistcoat, far too hot and suffocating, her hands not functioning properly.
“What can I do?” Driz demanded.
“Nothing. I’m fine. Just need some food.”
Her throat itched and stung. Her mother always made her honeyed water when she was sick.
Pearl missed her mother.
No, she didn’t. The longing melted into anger and resentment as she remembered the last time she had seen her.
Pearl pushed herself up to stand, reaching for her boots, and suddenly she was lurching, the hard ground approaching. A strong hand caught her face a breath from the stone.
“Rest. I will hunt.”
Pearl nodded reluctantly, allowing Driz to guide her to lie back down. She coughed again.
“I will be back as soon as I can,” Driz promised, her voice far away as Pearl slipped into the darkness.
Driz had meant to go hunting, but as soon as Pearl closed her eyes, Driz knew something was truly wrong.
“Pearl?” Driz brushed the hair back from her face. Her cheeks and neck were flushed and too hot to the touch.
When Pearl didn’t respond or open her eyes, Driz’s wings flared in alarm, the gust guttering the fire.
“Please wake up,” Driz said, shaking her gently.
Driz had never been unable to wake her before. Pearl didn’t just need food. She needed help. But Driz knew nothing about human sickness. Panic filled her.
The other humans would know what to do.
She tried to finish pulling on the boot for Pearl, but Driz’s hands were clumsy in her distress, her claws puncturing the leather. Useless.
Driz tucked the boots into Pearl’s saddlebags instead, wearing them around her neck, and gathered Pearl up into her arms. She was limp and still far too hot.
“I am taking you home,” Driz promised, not certain if Pearl could hear her. Pearl might be angry when she woke. But Driz didn’t know what else to do. She was terrified of doing the wrong thing, and she had no one to ask.
She would not take the risk. Not with Pearl.
The night was too cold, and Pearl burned too hot as Driz flew as fast as she could back toward Salt Bluff. Since they had traveled mostly on foot, it thankfully wasn’t far, and Driz pushed her wings, uncaring of the strain in them.
She landed in the street in front of Pearl’s home. A woman shrieked, standing on the porch by the bright, noisy saloon.
Driz spoke to the wide-eyed young woman. “Help. Please, help her.”
The woman looked from Driz to Pearl and dashed inside.
The landing must have woken Pearl, because she stirred in Driz’s arms. “What’re you doing?” Pearl mumbled, her voice thin and weak.
“Getting you help.”
The doors banged open and several people spilled out toward them. In the front was Oak.
“Pearl.”
“Ma?” Pearl turned her head.
Oak strode right up to Driz, shoving the barrel of the gun into her cheek as she wrapped her other arm around Pearl’s shoulders, trying to take her from Driz’s grasp. “Let her go,” Oak growled.
Driz’s arms resisted, but she knew she needed to let Pearl go so they could help her. So they could heal her.
Pearl grabbed Driz’s hand as she slipped away. But Oak hauled her back, breaking their fragile hold. The sheriff dropped her gun so she could support Pearl with both arms, but clicks sounded as at least five more were trained on Driz from three porches.
“What’ve you done to her?” Oak asked, and the words bit at Driz’s flesh. “Fucking vulture.”
“Please help her,” Driz said, curling her twitching wings to make herself smaller. “I did not know what to do. I do not know what is wrong.” Shame and fear burned through her, her arms cold and empty. Pearl had to be alright.
Pearl struggled in her mother’s hold, almost managing to stand as she pushed away. “Get off me,” she said, her voice and movements weak.
“Hush,” Oak said, half-carrying her toward the door. “Let’s get you inside.”
Pearl looked at Driz, her flushed face frantic. “Don’t leave.”
“I will not.” Driz started to follow, but two new firearms pressed her back. Driz considered ignoring them and following anyway, but then what? They needed to focus on Pearl.
“Oh, she’s leaving,” Oak said, pausing at the door to draw her second revolver.
Pearl glared at her mother. “Stop it. I mean it.”
But Oak didn’t stop, so Pearl slammed herself into her, awkwardly wrestling the gun from her hand. Lurching into the support of the porch, Pearl swung it at one of the men aiming at Driz.
“Drop it, Steve.” Pearl trembled, but the weapon was surprisingly steady.
“Calm down, Pea,” Oak said, her voice soothing in the tense silence that was broken by Pearl’s rattling, horrifying cough that scraped along Driz’s insides and carved her hollow.
“If anyone hurts a hair on her, you’ll have me to deal with,” Pearl panted, barely clinging to the post, her face shining with sweat. “You hear me?”
“We hear. Give me the gun,” Oak said, slowly reaching up and gripping the barrel.
Pearl stared at her mother, and finally released the weapon.
Driz watched Pearl until she disappeared behind the closing door, footsteps climbing up to the second floor where Pearl’s room was. Muffled voices murmured as the healing man entered.
“What’d you do, vulture?” the man name Steve asked her.
Driz ignored him, eyes on the building, and after a while, she sensed him leave.
The street grew quiet. Many eyes watched her, but she didn’t meet any of them. She remained standing there, face upturned toward where Pearl was just beyond her vision.
The curtains in the upper window twitched, but no one appeared.
The other humans didn’t seem to know what to do with Driz, so they also eventually left.
When the farthest part of the sky started to brighten, uneven feet returned down the stairs. After a long pause, the door creaked open.
“How is she?” Driz asked at once.
Oak’s tired, hard face watched her. “Dawn’s coming. You’ll put Pearl in danger if you stay.”
Driz looked down. “I will leave.” She swallowed. “But I will be back tonight. Please tell Pearl—”
“No.”
Driz met Oak’s eyes. “I will be back tonight.”
Pearl angrily elbowed her way to the surface of her hazy sleep.
She was lying in her bed, her sheets damp and a blessedly cool cloth on her forehead. When she started to sit up, a hand pressed her back down. “Easy, Pea.”
“Where is she?” Pearl asked even as her brain registered the dim sunlight filtering through the window.
“Gone.”
Pearl swung her gaze to her mother. They were alone in Pearl’s room. “She left?” Pearl clarified, her heart spiking.
“Yes.”
Pearl nodded, flopping back onto her damp pillow. It made sense. Still, a flash of unreasonable hurt and panic rushed through her. “She’ll be back,” Pearl mumbled, as much to herself as to her mother.
“She said as much.” Sheriff Oak didn’t sound pleased by that.
Pearl’s chest filled with warmth, but the pleasant kind, not the sticky, sweaty stuff on her skin. She coughed.
And she refocused. Anger mixed with a giddy happiness at seeing her mother. She’d missed her. Even if she tried to deny it.
“Where’ve you been, Pea?” Her mother’s voice was unusually quiet. She didn’t look angry, more just…tired. Sad. Like she’d looked when she thought no one could see, after Pa had left them.
“With her.” There wasn’t any point to deny it anymore.
Her mother’s eye twitched. “Why?”
“‘Cause I like her.”
Sheriff Oak stood, pacing to Pearl’s window and looking out. “Why’d you lie?”
“Why d’you think? I knew you’d shoot her. You did shoot her.”
Pearl pressed herself upright, another hacking cough shaking her body. Her mother pushed her back down, but Pearl shoved her away.
“She’s the one,” Sheriff Oak gritted out. “The one I told you about.”
“Yeah, I figured.”
“What’s she want with you?”
Pearl smirked. “What any woman would.”
“She isn’t a woman!”
Pearl’s anger resurfaced. “I don’t fucking care.”
“She’s a gargoyle. A creature. A monster.”
“Then I guess I’m a monster-fucker.”
“Pearl.” Her mother glared.
And Pearl glared right back. “Is that the truth you requested?”
“No.”
“What d’you want me to say?”
“That you won’t see her again. That you’ve decided to act rationally.”
“Since when’ve I done that?”
Sheriff Oak let out a frustrated snarl, pacing across the room, her wooden foot loud. “She’s dangerous.”
“So am I.”
“When did you meet?”
Pearl swallowed through her sore throat. “When I went to the gorge for that wood.”
“You neglected to mention a goyle that day.”
“And also the blinkboars.” Pearl studied her blanket instead of her mother.
“Boars?”
“Two of them. Driz saved me from them.”
“Driz?”
Pearl met her eyes. “Yes. Her name is Driz.”
Sheriff Oak stood motionless for a while, staring out the window again at the rise of the bluffs.
“She’s got no idea who you are. Or what you did.”
“You don’t know that.”
Pearl sighed. Her mother wasn’t listening. And it would do no good to argue now. Her head throbbed and she coughed again, slumping back onto the bed, entirely drained.
Cool hands replaced the cloth on her forehead.
“You don’t have to understand,” Pearl whispered, keeping her eyes closed. “But if you hurt her again, I’ll never forgive you. And I mean it.”