Chapter Fifty
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Hale and Beky had already turned to leave when I caught the come-hither motion from Tie, so I waited until they’d left, and returned to the hen’s bedside. She reached out, so I took her hand.
“This will be easier for me,” she said in my head. “Hope ya don’t mind.”
I shook my head. “Do you need anythin’?”
“In a way,” she said. “To help ya, like I said I would.”
“Don’t—”
“Shush. Young folk think too much. I may linger a few more days, but my mind mostly checks out on me without so much as a wait-a-minute. Don’t know if I’m even makin’ sense now. Bridgin’ yar siblin’ took a lot out of me.”
She paused long enough I thought she’d fallen asleep, but with a lightest hand clench, she was back. “I didn’t have anyone to set me on my path. I spent a lot of hours in meditation, askin’ the gods for direction. But the one truth I eventually accepted, is there is no healin’ involved in what I did. Don’t tell any of my folk that, though. They might perpetuate some harm on ya.” I sensed her smile. “What I did manage to do was convince folk in pain that they had hope for survivin’ it.”
“Ya’re tellin’ me not to give up on medical school?” I asked, hopin’ she appreciated my humor. By her weak smile, I guess she did.
“Ya’ll have to find yar own way. Do yar own meditatin’. But somethin’ ya can share with yar siblin’.”
I waited. Had she fallen asleep?
“Tell him he’s not broken.”
Not—broken. Did she—reach deep in my mind and clutch that out of old synapses? There was a time, though I never stopped lovin’ him, I considered him—broken. That I had to help him keep the pieces together. Tears rolled down my cheeks. Pressure built up in my sinuses, and my nose ran, sprinted. Mucus dripped over my lip before my hand could stop it. With the rush of emotion, I still managed to sense Tie was indeed asleep now.
I slowly arranged her arm back under the quilt, smoothed out the wrinkles, and maybe for the first time in longer than I could remember, truly opened my mind to the gods, and thanked them for givin’ Tie to us, if though for too short a time. No wonder the hen was revered by her clan, and every clan she served.
~
Hale
~
I sensed the emotion in Bele as we strolled toward the front of the lodge. Outside, I grabbed the bolster from the back and set it on the front-passenger seat. Beky gave me a look. I ignored it for the time bein’ as I hefted her up, closed her in, and walked around the OM to get behind the wheel.
The sub-freezin’ temperature actually felt nice after bein’ inside Tie’s place. I guess the old and sick don’t care much for— But I turned on the engine and got the heat goin’ for Beky. Orcs don’t have a lot of meat on their bones to keep them warm. Not that I didn’t notice her shiver when we stepped out on the broad veranda.
“Thought you don’t like to drive, if you don’t have to?” Beky said softly, studyin’ the side of my face.
I prolly wouldn’t have normally answered that. My nature is not to share much of what I’m thinkin’. But—maybe I feel different around Beky. That makes sense. From the moment she stepped up to our table, it’s like her spirit took me as her own. That made no sense. “Bele—” How’d I say it? “Just had a moment—with the healer. She’s—”
“Gonna need some time?” she asked.
I gave her a nod. Figgered that was good enough.
I stared out the front glass, watchin’ the defroster do its thin’. After a few moments, in my peripheral, I noted Beky’s hands dancin’ in her lap a bit. Bein’ a very self confident hen, relaxed inside her own skin, figgered there was a discomfort of some kind goin’ on. But I’m not so good at askin’ a lot of questions, so I waited on her to broach whatever it was goin’ on.
We ogres don’t have great hearin’, I guess tied to that not havin’ to worry about predators sneakin’ up on us evolution-thin’, but I actually heard her lips part angrily. “So you and I might not be physically compatible in all ways.”
That was a killer openin’ salvo. I waited for what might follow.
“But I’m smart enough to know that there’s something special between us. That I would be stupid to put to risk.”
I figgered that required turnin’ to look at her. I even allowed her to snatch eye contact, though I didn’t know how long I’d be able to keep that up.
“I’ll need something of a formal invitation to move to the Hamlet though.”
That maybe confused me a bit.
“No. Not like in writing, you idjit.”
I closed my eyes. Hens have always confused me more than the common critter.
“I want you to tell me you want me to—uh, be in your life. That you want me to move here and—well, see where things go after that.”
“Uh. Ya want me to—uh, say that now?”
She nodded.
“Well. Okay. Ya know—feelin’s aren’t somethin’—I understand well. But bein’ around ya is like feelin’ a fresh breeze on my face for the first time. The warmth of the sun. The smell of the pines after a shower. The joy of younglin’s playin’.” I had to stop there. Wasn’t sure how to describe that thin’ that dances all over my sternum. Makes me tingle.
“So, you like me a lot?” she asked.
I nodded. I’ve signed contracts that didn’t seem as difficult to ink.
“Well. It’s my turn. I love what you have going on with Bele. I think the two of you are something special. I adore your mama. Your papa is a bit to get used to. But he’s kind of cool too. Your Uncle Ike cracks me up. I think your embrace of your art exceeds the definition of love. Believe your ability to love is enabled by the vision you have for the things you create.”
Didn’t expect any of that. Maybe, nice that she didn’t go all henish on me. Aunt Ezra has emotion drippin’ from her sleeve and it makes me so uncomfortable.
“You’re a bit young, but that means I get to mold you into the bull that works for us.”
Uh. What?
Then she started laughin’ up a lung.
She was still gigglin’ when Bele slid into the backseat. Beky sobered quickly. “What’s going on?” she asked Bele.
I was allowin’ the OM to three-point back up for me but could still sense Bele wipin’ at her eyes. Beky handed her a tissue from the glove box, and she noisily blew her nose. I wonder if humans manage that task with a bit more grace.
“I wanna talk about Alexander,” she said.
Who? Oh. Alder. Was she cryin’ about him?
“No, stupid. Not cryin’ about him.”
I considered allowin’ the SUV to manage the spiralin’ drive like I did the reverse, so I could pay better attention to the storm of emotion eruptin’ from Bele, but decided against it. That way, if I didn’t respond the way she believed I should, I could claim I was otherwise preoccupied.
“Yesterday at the hospital,” she began, and that explained a lot right off the top. Her confusion and irritation last night had ripped me up one way and down the other. Thankfully Beky didn’t notice. Or if she did, she didn’t show it.
Bele described the friction between Alder and his mama. In minute detail I didn’t think was necessary—more analysis, maybe, than should be perpetrated between two souls. Then it dawned on me, when she asked, “Is he a heartless thug, or just pathetically stupid?”
Normally, in my experience, a hen askin’ a question like that doesn’t really want to hear another opinion. Just wants quiet concurrence. So I kept my mouth shut, though a thought was ruminatin’ in my skull cap.
Beky had twisted hard in her bolster seat, and split up her studyin’ between me and Bele.
After a bit, Becky said, “Think she really wants your opinion at this point.”
Yeah? I wasn’t convinced—until a shriek of irritation slapped me in the back of the head. And I don’t mean the siblin’ mind-to-mind thin’ we have goin’. She slapped me. Ouch.
“That was harsh,” Beky mumbled.
Yeah. I thought so. Plus I could have taken us over the ledge. On the bright side, considerin’ all the boulders and trees, we wouldn’t have actually rolled that far, on this stretch.
“If ya got some stupid bull insight, Hale. Share it.”
Be hard to misinterpret that sentiment. “Well.”
“Spill it.” She didn’t even give me thirty seconds to steel myself.
“Sounds as though he was embarrassed,” I offered.
“Embarrassed?” Beky mumbled.
“How so?” Bele hissed.
I set my shoulders and said, “Well. He’d just been shown to be not much of a bull. Pretty weak in the eyes of the hen he’s stupid in love over. Risked his life to be with. Then his mama shows up, when he’s yet barely breathin’, and treats him like a weak little babe.”
“Wasn’t like that,” Bele grouched.
“In front of the hen who’s twenty times stronger than him, almost two feet taller, and a lot smarter,” I added.
Bele snorted.
I shrugged. She asked for the stupid bull version.
“Ya think he’s stupid in love with me?” Bele asked.
“He probably emptied his bank account, or went into debt to pay for airfare down here,” Beky said softly.
I was already enterin’ the turnpike by the time Bele got through levelin’ the stupid bull’s version of thin’s, and spoke again. “So I should cut him some slack?”
“He’s a human,” I mumbled. “Not gonna get any better with time.”
Beky howled—I think it was laughter. Yep. It tapered into a gut-roarin’ example of unadulterated hilarity. By the time it slowed down, Bele was workin’ hard to act insulted. Maybe to hide a snicker. After a prolonged pause, she said, “That was rude.”
~
The End
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