Chapter 71 #23
She had just wrestled the cover off the bowl of meat that was stored on the lower shelf when Colin appeared in the office archway, glanced around, then stepped into the room.
“I wanted to see how you’re doing,” he said, eyeing the tank as he walked toward her. “The Arcana are keeping us apart during work hours to avoid another ‘conspiracy of foolishness.’ ”
“Who said that? Lucas or Jack?”
“Actually, it was Ashley, but Mia and Kia agreed. They also agreed that we mean well, but we have a lot to learn before we take another walk around the park.”
A variation of her status as the clumsy puppy.
“I was given a binder yesterday afternoon of the expected predators that live in Wyrd, including the seasonal ones that use the island as a stopover during a migration or the place where some species come to breed and raise or hatch their young. I have to pass a quiz every morning before I’m allowed outside on my own.
” She wasn’t feeling bitter about that. Not at all.
“Hold the bowl while I open the cover on the tank.”
“Why do you have hatchlings in a tank, and why are you feeding them?” Colin asked.
“I think this could be called a Frost teaching moment. I have to feed them and observe until I fully appreciate the danger I put myself in.”
“You had a reason.”
“Oddly enough, that did not impress Lucas, Jack, or anyone else here.” Beth slid the mesh to uncover one half of the tank’s top.
She picked up a large slotted spoon, filled it with small chunks of meat, then held it over the tank.
She tipped the spoon, dumping the meat into the tank before the hatchlings began leaping to reach the spoon.
“Whoa,” Colin said, watching the feeding frenzy as Beth dumped two more spoonfuls into the tank.
Beth slid the mesh screen to cover that half of the tank, then opened the other side.
The hatchlings rushed to the other side, the ones that had already consumed chunks of meat as big as their heads moving slowly enough to give others a chance at a meal.
Some of them lifted their heads out of the water, opened mouths filled with sharp teeth, and waited for the meat to fall.
“Wow,” Colin said. “When the magic spoon appears, meat falls from the sky.”
“Oh, thanks for that image.” Finished with the feeding, Beth put the spoon on the lower shelf of the cart while Colin put the cover back on the bowl.
“Here’s another image for you. Anything that falls from the magic spoon is food, even if it’s another hatchling that landed in the spoon and was tipped back into the water. ”
“Wicked.” Then he frowned as he watched a couple of the smaller hatchlings get consumed by the rest. “You put your face in the water when you were reaching for the kid.” He thought about that and stared at her. “Your face.”
“Don’t you start. Lucas and Jack are giving me enough grief about that.” It was hard to admit you had done something incredibly stupid when everyone else was telling you that you had done something incredibly stupid.
“I imagine Captain Forrester will have something to say about it, too, when he arrives this afternoon,” Lucas said from the archway.
Beth looked at Colin and mouthed, “Your father?”
He nodded.
She sighed. Then she bristled. If she had to do it again, knowing what she knew now about the hatchlings and how much she had risked, she still would have done it. Or maybe she would have moved faster and hauled the kid off the lake’s stone wall and…“We need a holding cell.”
“A what?” Lucas asked.
“A place to hold misbehaving children.”
Silence. Then Lucas, sounding curious, asked, “Does this cell have to be on a foundation?”
“No, but it would be better if it wasn’t running around on chicken legs.”
“Okay.” Lucas walked away.
Colin turned and looked at Beth. “ ‘Okay’? What did he mean by ‘okay’? And chicken legs?” He tried to put a hand on her forehead. “Do you have a fever or something?”
“No. My arm hurts where I was bitten, and I’m feeling bitchy because I deserve the desk duty for being complacent about thinking the park was safe—or safer than the rest of Wyrd.
And it is, but that doesn’t mean it’s safe.
So you be careful, too, and listen to Mia.
There are huge birds on the island that can strike with such power, it can break an adult human’s back, and it can dismember the body in less than a minute to take the meat back to its chicks. ”
Colin paled. “You know this how?”
“I saw one when Jack and I were out searching for the missing people.” She didn’t mention—yet—that the harpy bird-woman came from a branch of the Arcana.
“The binder I was given has enough information about her kind for me to know a small child who wanders away from a parent is just the right size to haul off before anyone can react to the strike.”
“Keep one eye on the sky.”
“Words to live by. Literally.”
Colin nodded. Then he eyed her. “Chicken legs? Did you really see…?”
It was Colin, and she knew she could share some things with him the same way he had shared things about the Llamalidians with her. “I didn’t see a house on chicken legs.” She grinned. “But I did see a herd of purple cows.”
70
Charles walked toward what looked like an old circus wagon and an exhibit set up on a large metal cart.
The sign next to the wagon read: Unsupervised Children Are Caged Here.
The sign next to the metal cart read: This Is Why.
The other sign by the cart had the movable hands of a clock, indicating when the next feeding demonstration would take place.
Since the tank was filled with water and had a mesh screen secured over the top, he assumed the inhabitants were fish of some kind. Not like any fish he’d ever seen, but…
He turned his head and studied the ornamental lake, thinking about the boy who had been badly injured by something in the lake—and thinking about how the Arcana had chosen to respond to the new accusation that they were negligent about the well-being of people who visited the park.
While he and Aisha waited in line to buy passage on the ferry, he’d watched two teenage boys about Colin’s age denied passage and watched the person in the booth refuse a mother with a baby in a stroller and a little boy who kept trying to free himself from her hand.
When the woman argued that the park should provide some day care for the moms who wanted to get their cards read, one of the ferry’s crew stepped onto the dock and just stood there.
Then he smiled and asked the woman if the boy knew how to swim.
The question hadn’t sufficiently terrified the woman, but the smile had. And that smile had made Charles wonder if he’d finally seen the Ferryman.
Several other people withdrew from the line, dragging their children with them. A couple of parents signed the waiver that required them to take full responsibility for their children while they were visiting Wyrd.
The fare for children was twice that of adults. The Arcana were making a point.
And that wagon and the signs were the second stage of making a point.
“Beth was being snarky when she suggested a holding cell for misbehaving children. She didn’t think Lucas would really do it.”
Charles looked at the young man wearing a ball cap, sunglasses, and a green T-shirt with “Destiny Park” embroidered on it. God, he’s grown in just these few weeks.
“Hi, Dad,” Colin said.
“Hi, Colin.” Charles gave his son a squeeze on the shoulder. “No hugs in public?”
“Yeah. Thanks. I’m trying not to do things that I have to explain as cultural differences—at least for a few more days.
Hopefully it won’t be much longer before Lucas and Jack decide that the Frost teaching moment has had the desired impact on the new employees and will return the fishies to the lake.
Then they won’t be giving Beth and me the hairy eyeball all the time.
Lucas and Jack, I mean. Not the fishies.
” Colin finally took a breath. “Where’s Mom? ”
“Since children can’t go unsupervised, she’s with Jazz and Davie. They wanted to have their cards read.”
Colin eyed the time on the clock by the tank.
“You should keep Jazz and Davie away from this side of the lake during feeding time.” He turned as if tracking two older teenage boys who were showing interest in the lake.
“Dad, I have to go back to work. I need to sweep up the heads before someone picks one up.”
Alarmed by those words, Charles followed Colin to the broom, large dustpan, and rolling trash receptacle—and the pile of what looked like moving fish heads.
They were about the size of a golf ball and had a flat side covered by a membrane that was transparent enough to show the pulsing organs protected by the bony head.
One of the teens reached for a fish head.
Colin grabbed the broom and blocked the hand. “Don’t do that.”
The boy straightened. “Yeah? Why not?”
“Because the heads aren’t all the way dead yet.
If you slip one in your pocket, it will chew through the fabric and then chew its way into your thigh before you can get your jeans unzipped and down.
And once it’s in your thigh, it will burrow deep in order to hide—and feed.
Once it has a safe place, it will keep feeding, and it will grow a stub of its body back—enough for it to go through the next stage of its growth. ”
“Are you shitting me?”
Colin shook his head. “Wait here.” He went back to the tank and removed a bowl and spoon from the lower shelf. When he returned to the mound of heads, he uncovered the bowl, scooped a few chunks of meat onto the spoon, and dropped the meat on top of the mound.
In all the years Charles had been with the police force, in all the things he’d brushed against when dealing with Wyrd, he’d never seen anything as disturbing as a mound of heads surging to consume the meat—or consume each other.
A few rolled off the mound and seemed to be trying to reach the feet of the humans watching them.