26. Watchful
Watchful
Driz sat on the stoop in front of Pearl’s home. She’d returned as soon as she woke, but no one would talk to her.
The healer came, and he left again.
“How is she?” Driz asked.
He gave her a startled look and ran away down the street. Her wings drooped.
Somewhere above, Pearl coughed. The only good part of that sound was that it let Driz know Pearl was still up there, with enough energy to cough.
She sensed the humans of the town staring, but when she turned her head, they all scampered away.
Oak’s clunking steps moved about inside. They paced for a while, back and forth. Pearl coughed and they clunked to her room, then left again and resumed their rhythm.
Driz closed her eyes. Pearl was so close, and yet a world away. Driz wanted to go to her. But the sheriff might shoot her again, and that would distress Pearl. Pearl needed to rest. Pearl needed to be well again.
A familiar and wonderful scent, accompanied by an unusual sound, made Driz look up.
A human woman seated in a wheeled chair rolled toward her along the uneven series of connected covered porches, coming to a stop an arm’s length away.
“Shall I move?” Driz asked. Since no one dared come within three wingspans of her, Driz doubted this woman planned to roll behind her.
The woman surprised her by shaking her head. “Nah, you’re good there.”
Driz’s attention dropped to the towel-draped object in her lap. “Are you Molly?”
The woman cracked a lopsided smile. “Sure am. And you’re Pearl’s large mystery lady friend.”
“I am?”
“I now see why she was so secretive.”
Driz ducked her chin. Pearl hadn’t wanted to tell anyone about her. “Do you know how she is?” Molly was the first person who had acknowledged her tonight.
“Doc says she’s improved, but still got a bit of a fever.”
Driz nodded. She didn’t know how bad a fever could be, but she clung to the improved part of what Molly said. “But she will be alright?”
“Seems so.”
For the first time since Pearl had collapsed in that cave, a fraction of Driz’s tension eased.
Molly held out the pie and Driz’s empty stomach cramped. She had not eaten since…she didn’t remember when.
“For me?” Driz asked, to make sure she understood.
“I hear you enjoyed the last one.”
So Pearl had talked about her, at least a little?
Driz carefully accepted the offered pie. “Thank you. My name is Driz.”
“Nice to meet you, Driz.”
She barely held herself back from falling on the dish. “Do you have a spoon?”
Molly grinned at her and held one out.
Driz’s face twitched to smile back, but she repressed it, to not startle Molly. She dug into the delicious pie instead. The spoon was frustratingly small, but perhaps it was for the best, as it slowed her down.
She scraped out the bottom of the pan, her wings sagging as she relaxed with the pleasure of having food in her.
Molly was watching her closely.
“Pearl told me you make the best pie,” Driz said. “I have never had another one to compare it to, but I cannot believe she was wrong.”
Molly winked, pulling out a cigarette and lighting it. “You shouldn’t believe Pearl, doll. She’s a liar.”
Driz frowned.
“She told me you weren’t sweet,” Molly added, blowing smoke from her mouth and nose.
Driz wasn’t sure what that meant or how she should interpret it. But she was incredibly grateful to Molly for the food and for speaking to her. Driz looked down at the empty pan. “What shall I do with this?”
“I’ll wash it later,” Molly waved her hand. “Want one?” She offered a second cigarette.
Driz hesitated. Making sure not to touch Molly’s fingers, she accepted the glowing tube.
She didn’t bring it to her lips, just held it near her face, watching the flickering glow and lightly inhaling the trailing smoke.
It reminded her of Pearl, and of the one she had offered her.
When she had told Driz she desired women.
The night she had first kissed Driz. A kiss that hadn’t counted.
“What’re your intentions with Pearl?” Molly asked.
The stiffness in Driz’s back returned. “Intentions?”
“Yeah. Like what d’you want to happen?”
“I want her to be well again. I want to be with her.”
“And what’s she want with you?”
A heavy weight settled in Driz’s gut, weighing down the pie. “I do not know. But she asked me not to leave. So here I am.”
Molly puffed on her cigarette. Driz gazed at the one she held, slowly being eaten away by the fire within, a glowing red mark in the night.
Behind them, the sound of Oak descending the stairs had Driz’s wings rustling again.
“Evening, Sheriff,” Molly said, leaning back in her chair to look around at her. “Smoke?”
“No. Thanks. Feeding the wildlife, I see.”
Driz clutched the empty pie tin and the sides crumpled, curling under her oversized hands. Shame joined the pie in her stomach as she tucked her wings tighter and hurriedly tried to re-bend the rim.
“Nah, just sharing a smoke and a meal with Driz.” Molly seemed unfazed by the sheriff’s cold tone and glare, and continued to puff on her cigarette.
Oak let out a low grunt.
“How is she?” Driz asked, unable to keep the ever-burning question inside her.
Oak turned the glare on Driz, making her shrink even more. “Sleeping. As humans do at night.”
“I should do that too,” Molly said casually, holding out her hand toward Driz for the pan.
Driz handed it back, the spoon rattling and scraping against the inside. “Thank you for the pie. I am sorry about the rim.”
Molly gave her a crooked smile. “It was already bent. Sheriff.” Molly nodded and pushed back the way she had come, the wheels of her chair rumbling over the wooden planks.
Leaving a very loud silence behind her.
The only lights of town burned under eaves across the way and one down the street. And the cigarette that had reached Driz’s fingers. She crumbled it, snuffing it out and letting the bits catch in the breeze.
Oak leaned against a porch post near where Molly had been, one hand in her pocket, the other casually against her hip. Near her holster. She didn’t need to remind Driz of its presence. Driz was very aware.
“Why’d you approach Pearl?” Oak finally asked. “Why her?”
Driz shook her head, staring down at the smattering of ash on her bare, clawed feet. “Why do you humans always require reasons for every action? I did not want her to die. If that is strange, then the answer is that I am strange.”
“Did you know who she was?”
The question confused Driz. “How would I know her before I met her?”
Oak just stared at her through the dim darkness.
Despite everything and the danger Driz knew this woman was, when Driz looked at her, she saw familiarity. Oak resembled her daughter so much, it was almost comforting. Driz knew that didn’t make any sense, but she couldn’t help the feeling.
When Oak spoke again, her voice rang with a hollow tone that made the fine hairs on Driz’s wings stand on end. “Shall I tell you where she’s buried?”
“Who?”
“Where the river forks in three, two valleys to the south. She had your coloring.”
“Who is buried?” Driz was utterly lost.
But Oak didn’t answer, just pushed off the post and walked back inside, closing the door behind her.
Driz stared at the wood. Then she shoved to her feet. She didn’t understand. She didn’t understand anything. An agitation surfaced that had been building in her the past two nights with nothing to do and being unable to see Pearl.
Who was buried there?
Driz looked up at the silent house. Pearl had said not to leave, yet Pearl also had not asked for Driz to come up to her. What was Driz supposed to do? She was tired of doing the wrong thing. Was she wrong for sitting here, waiting?
She would find out what Oak meant. What she wasn’t saying.
Driz launched into the air, pushing higher than necessary to expend some of her restless energy.
It wasn’t hard to find the place where the river split, or to count the two valleys. Driz touched down in a nondescript basin of shrubs and windswept dirt. Not certain what to look for, she stalked up it until she found a pile of rocks stacked unnaturally.
She unstacked them, but that revealed nothing. So she started to dig. Her claws tore through the earth, churning up rocks and a few roots.
Her nails scraped against something else.
She stilled. More carefully, she brushed away dirt to expose bone.
With a sinking sensation in her gut, Driz uncovered more.
She followed it up until it revealed the skull.
The nubbed cradles where horns once grew were unmistakable, even if Driz had not already recognized the joint of the large wing.
No other creatures had wings like that. The cakey dirt clung to the bone and sunken cheeks like lingering pieces of flesh.
Goyles did not bury one another. They crumbled when they aged.
This goyle had not died of age, but rather, as flesh.
Driz continued to expose the skeleton. It shouldn’t have been covered. It should face the sky and experience the rain when it fell.
She worked until her hands began to ache with the effort of carving away the stubborn, old earth. Until all the stone-smooth bones stared back at her.
Driz ran her fingers over them. Questions, all of them unsettling, spun through her mind. She stumbled back, suddenly needing to be gone, and kicked into the sky and toward Salt Bluff.
As soon as she landed in the street, Oak emerged from the shadow of the porch. She had been waiting for her.
And behind her stood Pearl.
Driz’s whole body tensed. She stepped forward, intending to go to Pearl and hold her, but Oak moved between them and aimed the revolver.
“Ma!” Pearl hissed, gripping her mother’s shoulder, using it to hold herself upright. She coughed, but she grabbed for the gun.
Oak let it go easily. “Go back to bed, Pea,” she said, her voice echoing strangely. “You shouldn’t be up.”
“You left,” Pearl accused, ignoring her mother and looking at Driz, her brow furrowing.
Driz was so tired of doing the wrong thing. “I am back now.”
“Where’d you go? Why are you covered in dirt?”
Driz realized Pearl was right. “I was digging.” She looked at Oak, whose face was a cold, impassive mask. “Who was that?”
“You know the answer to that, goyle.”
Driz shivered. She needed to hold Pearl, but Pearl remained behind her mother. “Why did you tell me to go there? How did you know it was there?”
“You know the answer to all that too.”
“Tell me!” Driz’s wings flared as her anger swept through her, the monster within rising up.
Oak coiled, a second revolver in her hand in an instant.
“Don’t,” Pearl said. Her eyes were also wide as she stared at Driz.
Shards of ice pricked Driz’s skin, and she forced her wings down. “Did you bury that goyle?” she asked Oak, speaking extra carefully.
“Thirty-five years ago.”
“Have we met before?” Driz couldn’t remember, but why else would Oak think she would know these things?
“Thirty-five years ago.”
Pearl snapped her head sideways. “You told her to dig her up?”
“Was that my mother?” Driz asked. It was the only thought that made sense. “Did you kill her?” But Driz didn’t have to ask. Oak was now right. Now Driz did know. She looked at Pearl. “You knew?”
Pearl didn’t meet Driz’s gaze as she nodded.
Driz reeled back a step. “Why?”
Oak pulled free of Pearl’s grip. “Because we’re enemies, goyle. And now you know it. So here I am. Won’t you take your vengeance?”
“What’re you doing?” Pearl hissed, stumbling as she chased after her mother. Driz lurched forward, ready to go to her. To steady her. But Pearl put a staying hand out, palm to Driz.
With a single gesture, she placed an unseen wall between them. Pushing Driz away. Keeping them apart.
Perhaps they had never belonged together to begin with.
“I’ve waited all these years for that night to come back to me. And now you have. Well?” Oak watched her with something like glee in her eyes. Almost like she was excited.
“You want me to attack you?” Driz asked.
“Don’t you? I murdered your mother for no reason but that I felt like it. How’s that make you feel, vulture?”
“My name is Drizzle,” Driz growled, straightening to her full height.
“That is the name my mother…” Torrent’s angry, disgusted, accusing face blended with Oak’s.
“The name the one who raised me gave me.” Torrent had been Driz’s mother.
Driz didn’t remember the one in the dirt. And Torrent didn’t want Driz either.
“Stop this,” Pearl demanded, glaring at her mother. “I told you I’d never forgive you.”
“Even if it’s self-defense?” Oak asked, not taking her gleaming eyes off Driz. “Do it, goyle. You know you wanna.”
“You’ve gone raving. Enough.” Pearl grabbed her mother’s arm. They struggled for a moment.
Driz heard the shot before she registered the pain. It burned through her cursed shoulder. The mixing blight glowed brighter in the night.
She couldn’t tell if Pearl or the sheriff had shot her. But perhaps it didn’t matter.
Driz stumbled back, her own blood hot. And familiar. The ice in her veins melted and turned molten.
All she’d ever wanted was to help. To belong.
“Driz!” The sound of Pearl’s voice only intensified the pain.
Driz roared, the vile, intimidating part of her nature surfacing, screaming from the agony of it. She flared her wings, slamming her palms onto the shivering earth, crouching like the beast she was.
She should not have looked at Pearl. If she hadn’t looked, she would not have seen her fear.
Pearl was afraid. Of her.
Driz turned away and lurched into the sky, pain her best companion since she had met Pearl.