Chapter Forty-seven
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Melody. Melody. Melody. Not Meldy. I’d just caught myself. She didn’t correct Hale when he called her that, but mostly because I’m pretty certain Hale scares the swizzle sticks out of her. My siblin’ takes a little gettin’ used to. I guess. Especially when ya’re a tiny, fragile human. Prolly those intense, slowly movin’, dark-dark blue eyes.
“Hey.” Alex’s eyes piped up a bit as Melody and I walked into the room. “How was lunch?”
“They put a lot of food on your plate, here,” his mother answered. “Good. But it’s like they’re feeding you for slaughter.”
I laughed up a lung for about five seconds until I caught their glare. Thought that was the funniest thin’ I’d heard—in a long while. They both looked at me—strangely. What? Expression must be a common human thin’.
“What?” I mumbled.
They both hurried to look away. Melody busied herself checkin’ out her son’s tray. “You haven’t eaten much. Can’t you get a little more down you?”
“You didn’t see the pile I started with,” he said.
Melody nodded. Guess we’d settled they feed ya for slaughter in an ogre hospital. “The doctor came by, huh,” she said. “Spoke to her down the hall.”
“Can’t keep a secret from you,” he said. Which sounded a little rude to me. To an elder. These humans have an odd manner. Take a bit gettin’ used to.
“So your blood work, looking better. May be able to be released tomorrow.”
He blinked, shifted a bit, as though embarrassed about somethin’. An edge of discomfort added to his expression. Was it anger?
“You’ll have to rehab daily for a bit,” she said, pushin’ his food around on his plate with his fork as though lookin’ for grubs. Doubt they gave him a troll lunch. “Bele’s folks are so kind to put us up, during.”
“Maybe they’ve done enough for us,” he said. Whoa.
Melody reacted a bit like me, except she flinched. I don’t flinch. Irritation gnawed in my gut, and I didn’t even understand where any of this angst was comin’ from. So what was he gonna do? Sleep in a snowy gully? Walk back North? I glared at the super-shiny, white vinyl tile at my feet, to keep from threatenin’ his life.
I waited for Melody to set her child straight. But she backed up a step. Didn’t understand the dynamics here, but I decided I needed to get the hen, woman, out of here.
“Melody. Alex is doin’ great. Let’s go into the Hamlet and get ya some more appropriate clothes for the Range.”
She turned toward me, teeterin’. I sensed nothin’ but confusion, and a thread of trepidation. Oh, some embarrassment too.
“On me. I love to shop.” Don’t really. Rather pull my nails out. “Be a treat to spoil ya just a bit.” She didn’t move, so I grabbed her at the elbow and gave her a tentative, non-ogre nudge. She didn’t fight me, so I dragged her for the door.
Clearin’ the doorway, tears were streamin’ down her face. Good thin’ she didn’t swim in makeup, or she’d look more raccoonish now. We made it to the elevator, neither of us sayin’ a word. She finally managed to smudge away her tears. Waitin’ for the lift, I texted Hale that I was takin’ Meldy shoppin’. Prolly laughed, and that bull doesn’t laugh. He’d been tickled orange I took Alex to the sportin’ goods store. Hale replied with “K”. Long sentence for him.
Three minutes later, crossin’ the parkin’ garage, a few sobs snuck out of Melody’s face, which glowed red, I don’t think from the cold. Maybe partially. Our summers don’t warm up much, relatively speakin’. Mind back to Melody, it spun more than givin’ me any ideas to calm Melody down. What should I do? What would Mama do? That was simple. But I’m acclimated to autistic bulls who don’t like to be touched. I went for it anyway, and wrapped an arm around the woman and tugged her against me—her shoulder against my hip. Maybe not the best move, ’cause she proceeded into a full-fledged cryin’ mess.
I got her into Mama’s luxury Ogre Motors—picked her up to accomplish it. The woman looked like a tiny doll in the broad seat. Yeah, OMs are built for ogre and troll butts. She prolly couldn’t see over the dash—definitely couldn’t touch the floor with her feet. Got the engine and heater goin’, turned the air on high on her side. I’d be sweatin’ long before she got warm, so I unbuttoned my vest. I sat, didn’t prepare to leave. Waited. A minute later, after blowin’ her nose good with a tissue I provided her from the glove box, her breathin’ sorta evened out. I waited a bit longer.
“I can’t really empathize,” I said softly. Mostly ’cause I had no idea what happened in that hospital room. “Forgive me for that. But I understand this has been hard for ya. If ya wanna talk to a fifteen-year-old, I’m here for ya.”
She croaked out a laugh. Then relaxed into an easier one. When she settled, she ask me how old I was. Her brows rose. “I heard Beky say you’re in medical school. Uh, do ogres—”
I gave her a smile. “Some fool convinced them I was special or somethin’.” She asked how special. Didn’t see any reason not to share all the embarrassin’ detail about Hale and I headin’ for TIT at thirteen. Without explainin’ who the family is. What our bloodline means in the Range. That was worth another shock, another time.
“Goodness,” she said, and shook her head. “My little boy really aimed for—” She didn’t finish. I sensed renewed embarrassment. A moment later she whooshed her fist about the cab of the SUV. “And, you certainly aren’t indigent, like Alexander and me.”
Every thought that came to me, to shut down her—awe was definitely not the best word that came to me—seemed probable to march sideways. Actin’ all humble would surely backfire.
To postpone that to hopefully never, I put Mama’s car in reverse and followed the camera view out of the spot.
“I should be stubborn and say no to the warm clothes,” she said slowly. “But I’ll be honest. I haven’t had a new stitch, other than a cafeteria uniform, in better than two decades.”
Her face was prolly beet red, so I didn’t look her way. I asked instead if she’d be more comfortable shoppin’ with Mama. I couldn’t think of a single human I could muster to the task.
“Wouldn’t even consider botherin’ her. I’m sure she’s—”
I interrupted her by tellin’ the car to dial Mama.
Mama answered with, “What’s up, rug rat?”
~
Hale
~
After we’d both finished eatin’ lunch and Bele and Meldy had headed back upstairs, without a siblin’ to embarrass me, or a Northerner to listen in, I nudged between one of Beky’s many threads of conversation to tell her what I’d shared with Bele that mornin’. She actually listened through the whole spiel. Waited until I was quiet for a good spell. Thinkin’? She doesn’t usually seem to need a lot of time before her mouth starts runnin’, really fast. Mostly because her mind is, I think, always gushin’ with more thoughts than ten ordinary motor mouths.
“You think we’d settle into a fair friendship, do you?” she asked.
I waited. That sounded like a loaded speargun pointed between my eyes. Which could hurt, prolly.
“First time you’ve come close to suggesting you like me a bit,” she finally said. “Don’t know about livin’ up in these high peaks through winter, though. Doubt there’d be many groups of humans to lead around the frozen gullies.”
I reminded her she admitted she hadn’t explored much south of the Range.
“True. Would you be travelin’ with me?”
If I’d still been eatin’, I’d have been certain a hunk of beef had clogged up my throat, and expanded on me.
I took a deep breath. “Ya gotta expect there aren’t two individuals on this planet with feet as itchy as yars.”
She laughed. “Is that no?”
“Didn’t say that. But hard to carry a hunk of granite cross country.”
“You’d send a delicate flower into the Wildes alone?”
“Oh. I thought we were talkin’ about ya.” I hope that was as funny as my brain case suggested it might be.
“Did you just try to make a joke?” She held a stern, I think, look on her face.
“If it wasn’t funny—no.”
“It was funny.” She smiled. For not caring much for facial expressions, that made me feel sunny and light inside. My sternum twitched.
“You didn’t use the term mate,” she said. “So I’m unsure yet about your intentions.”
That thick thin’ in my throat threatened again. I worked to swallow it down for half a minute, maybe. “Ya know I’m seventeen, right?”
“You accusing me of trying to rob the cradle?” she asked.
“Uh. Don’t take this wrong. But maybe, ya’ve come on a little strong.”
“You were the one texting me a hundred times a day.”
I told her I couldn’t guess how she got a degree in economics, how poor she was at arithmetic.
“Well, you are a stud,” she said. “A handsome one. So I didn’t mind.”
Ick. Needed to get back on topic. “I’d never be fleet footed, like ya. Don’t know how that would work.”
“Fleet footed? Does that suggest I’m flighty?”
Did I want to go there, just to prove I can converse like an adult? My long pause must have been a green light for her to continue.
“To be fair, I still live with my parents. Maybe go on one big campin’ trip a summer, these days.”
“Speakin’ of that, ya interested in livin’ in my parents’ house, or ya wanna get a nearby loft?”
“Suppose I’d see yar handsome face more often if I lived with them. Assuming you’re going to be there too. How you think Kriz and Zia will feel about a nest-grabbing interloper crashing into their lives?”
“Help that Mama loves ya.”
“Aw, so sweet. Does she? And yar papa?”
I snorted. He certainly hadn’t glared at her like he did Alder. Plus he oddly has a sweet spot for orcs. We were quiet a couple minutes. Hard to believe Beky could remain in her own thoughts that long. My mind even moved on. “I’m drivin’ south mid-mornin’, a short trip. “Since they’re already kickin’ ya out of here this afternoon, if yar blood work stays good, ya think ya’d be interested in joinin’ me?”
“Of course. Why the trip?”
Here it came. “Got a doctor appointment.”
“Doctor, that doesn’t practice here? Somethin’ wrong with ya? Missing an organ or somethin’? You’re not about to die on me, are you?”
“A troll doctor. A healer.”
She coughed a little. “Healer?”
I nodded. This could make or break.
She cleared her throat. “Clearly my papa believes that sort of thing is possible.”
I waited.
“Suppose we could ask him—”
“Her,” I said.
—“What the possibility of an orc and ogre-troll, you know.”
The elephant sittin’ in our laps. Funny hens come around to the same element. Not that I didn’t wonder about it.
~
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