Chapter 6
Chapter
“Buckland. I must write to Buckland,” I muttered, as I ran around the shop lighting my candles.
I had no reliq-lamps—only the rich would spend a week’s worth of magic on something that burned out and had to be replaced every morning by a fresh reliq.
I gathered ink and quill next. Buckland and Catherine would likely be at the London house, since he only taught at Oxford in the fall.
The pterodactyl sat on my worktable and chirped. Lucy’s wide eyes swung between us both, a pendulum of shock.
“But how is it alive? You’re sure it came from a fossil?”
“Yes! From a fossilized egg! At least I thought it was fossilized. And I don’t know how it’s alive!” I spilled ink on my hands and dashed it across my skirts.
“Maybe you’re a witch, too,” she mused, and I scowled.
“Don’t be ridiculous. I have to use a reliq like all the rest of us.”
“And did you tap your reliq to resurrect the creature?”
I paused, mid-stride. “No. But that’s because I didn’t resurrect it. I didn’t have anything to do with that. I was just the person who happened to be there….”
That sounded silly, even to my ears. The odds were too great. But what part could I have played?
I wrote the note to Buckland matter-of-factly, before I could second-guess myself.
I’d found a near-complete pterodactyl fossil in the cliff.
And a live one, too. I assumed the Society would be interested in procuring both specimens, the living and fossilized?
I requested a prompt response. Signed and sealed.
Lucy grimaced, studying the pterodactyl as it walked cautiously across the desk. It moved on all fours, the wings tucked like a bat’s. “It looks rather…demonic, don’t you think?”
The pterodactyl did look, unfortunately, like a demon, with those bat-like wings and the hooked, pointed teeth jutting out of its orange beak.
This was going to be difficult to explain, wasn’t it?
An entirely new species no one had seen before? Hatched from an ancient egg? Who was going to believe that?
I could only hope Buckland had some better ideas about how to introduce this creature to the wider scientific community, and the public, in a way that didn’t end with the pterodactyl killed and my reputation destroyed.
“What should we feed it, then?” Lucy asked. “A human soul?”
I scowled. “It’s not a demon.”
I should have thought to feed it. Well, to be fair to myself, I had thought of it, and then I’d forgotten in my haste to write to Buckland.
It wouldn’t do anyone any good if I let my specimen starve to death before I could hand it over to the Society.
“Fish seems like a safe bet for now,” I said, studying the shape of its skull and the pointed fangs hanging from its beak like icicles from a gable. “Until I can more thoroughly examine its teeth.”
Lucy cocked her head. “Or, you could just offer it different things and see what it likes.”
“I—” I laughed. “I honestly hadn’t considered that.”
Lucy laughed, too, and then the pterodactyl joined in with a screech, flapping its wings and sending my letter flying.
Lucy took the letter and promised to come back with some food for the creature, which meant I was alone with the pterodactyl again, and somehow more nervous than I’d been in the cave. Maybe it was just starting to hit me. The responsibility all at once feeling real.
I had to care for this creature. Feed it. Keep it safe. Keep it alive. Except living things weren’t exactly my area of expertise. I’d be far more at ease if I’d only found its fossilized egg.
But that wasn’t thinking like a geomagician. That was the way a frightened woman would think. I needed to think like Buckland.
If Buckland were here, he wouldn’t be afraid.
He would grasp the opportunity presented.
As Lucy so astutely pointed out, this was a chance to study the habits of a live specimen of a long-gone animal.
A chance to learn about its diet. Understand its habitat.
Watch its behaviors. Measure its intelligence.
We had so much to learn, and there was so much the pterodactyl could teach us.
I offered the creature my hand. It stretched its neck forward to rub against my palm, and I could feel the thin bones of its neck. I studied it, carefully and curiously, as I scratched behind its head.
The skull was something like a puffin’s, with a large, rounded beak slashed with a yellow stripe. The golden eyes were wary as I ran my hand down its short neck and across the small body, only a little bigger than its head. The long, whiplike tail ended in a feathered fan.
It made an unhappy noise as I moved down its wing, following the bone from shoulder to claw, the way you would reach to shoe a horse.
“I won’t hurt you,” I said softly, and it settled at my voice.
The wings didn’t fold like a bird’s. They arced back from the claws in a sweep, a sort of jutting elbow. I’d never seen any creature like it. Not even in sketches.
“You, my friend,” I said, “are going to be the subject of so many papers.”
Lucy returned with a bit of dried fish and bread crust.
We set a strip of fish between the pterodactyl’s front claws. It bent forward and poked with its beak, then flung its head back and gobbled it down.
Thank goodness. At least I wasn’t going to have to chew its food first, as mother birds do for their offspring.
I put down a little more fish, just ahead of the pterodactyl’s beak this time, so that it had to walk to pick it up. All four sets of claws clicked on the tabletop; it moved like a lizard rather than a bird, the body curving with each step.
The creature looked at me expectantly after it swallowed the fish.
“It’s learning to trust you,” Lucy said softly.
The pterodactyl chirped, looking at me expectantly. Still hungry. Before I could set out more fish, it launched itself off the table, gliding smoothly down to my feet.
Lucy and I yelped, both of us jumping back as the creature trotted over and sat before us, looking disconcertingly like a dog. It opened its beak, colorful jaw yawning wide. A thick, gray tongue extended. It squawked insistently.
I dropped the last of the fish into the open maw with some nervousness. The beak slammed shut, and the fish disappeared.
So, the thing could glide already, and far better than any baby bird would be able to this close to hatching.
I mentally composed some notes. The pterodactyl is born with functional wings, and able to glide from a height soon after hatching.
This suggests it did not require significant maternal nurturing after birth.
I held very still as the pterodactyl experimentally rubbed the ridge of its head against the folds of my skirts.
Lucy knelt and stretched out a hand. She clicked her tongue softly, and after a moment’s caution, the pterodactyl let her stroke his head, closing his eyes as she scratched at the back of his skull.
“What are you going to call it?” she asked.
“The German specimens are called Pterodactylus antiquus, but this one is much larger than either of those examples.”
“I meant a name.”
I frowned. “Oh. I don’t know. What do you think I should name him?”
Her eyebrow twitched. “Him?”
I looked down at the pterodactyl weaving around my skirts. I doubted a visual inspection would tell me anything—it seemed most likely the creature had a cloaca, given its similarities to birds and reptiles both.
But I didn’t have to look. I couldn’t explain it, but I knew, somehow, that the pterodactyl was male.
He tilted his head, swinging his golden eyes to mine.
I shrugged. “I can’t just keep calling it it.”
Lucy straightened. The pterodactyl poked curiously at her boots.
“He is sort of cute, isn’t he?” I said, as he opened his toothsome maw again.
Lucy snorted. “That’s what mothers always say.”
I hung a sign in the window, Closed for Research, then ran upstairs to the flat and packed a bag of clothing. Together, Lucy and I managed to trap the wriggling pterodactyl in a wicker basket.
We both agreed it would be best to head to Lucy’s farm, and even better to do so under cover of dark. Otherwise, someone would surely catch a glimpse through the shop window of the strange, flying demon, and the gossip would be all over town before I could count to ten.
Lucy’s cottage was isolated and rarely visited. Ideal conditions for keeping the pterodactyl secret, and safe, until Buckland sent someone to fetch it.
My hand was on the key when I remembered the rent.
“Wait. Mr. Bolington is coming tomorrow. I have to stay.”
Lucy shook her head. “Don’t worry about him.”
“You don’t understand. Last time he said he’d throw all of my fossils into the street if I didn’t pay. Every one, he said.”
“I just told you. You don’t have to worry about him,” she said again. “Let’s leave before the rain picks up.”
I narrowed my eyes.
“Luce. What did you do?”
She finally turned to look at me. “I paid him.” She wrinkled her nose. “After I posted the letter.”
I went rigid.
“Please don’t be angry, Mary. Consider it an early thirtieth birthday gift, if you like.”
I couldn’t be angry. How could I be angry with Lucy simply for being Lucy? She saw a way to help, and she helped. She saw an injustice; she tried to right it. That was who she was.
No, I wasn’t angry. I was grateful—so grateful—and with that gratitude came a flood of hot, oily shame.
“I’ll pay you back.” I swallowed hard. “As soon as I sell the pterodactyl.”