WereHuman - The Witch's Daughter: Consortium Battle book 1 (Wyrdos)

by Gwendolyn Druyor

  When they landed he taxied directly to his hangar. He hopped out, telling Laylea to stay where she was with hand gestures and stern verbal commands. Laylea didn’t even lift her head. Clark looked around. He saw no one else at the small airstrip and considering his enhanced senses he felt confident the place was deserted. He’d regularly scanned the place for cameras and unless someone had bugged the loose collection of hangars in the last twenty-four hours, he was safe.

  The mountain folk had paid him with handwoven fur blankets, molasses, wooden carvings, canvas bags of fresh herbs, mesh bags of wild carrots, jars of Bela’s berry spread, Red’s garlic, Hardknock’s pair of cured otter skins, and a brace of geese. Clark arranged it all on the protective pallet that lived on the floor of the plane. Setting Laylea and her soiled bed on the floor, he folded down both cockpit seats. He held his palm out at Laylea again, reminding her to stay.

  Maneuvering the stack through the door was tough but he only lost the carrots. Everything else he successfully transferred from plane to truck bed in one trip. He swapped the plane for the truck in the hangar and got it battened down, only hastily wiping up the sick that fell out of the bed.

  He lifted Laylea as carefully as he could, holding her against his chest as he untangled the mess that he’d made of the bed and its tie-down straps. He transferred the contraption to the truck and belted Laylea in, then took an icepack from the glove compartment and set it, wrapped in his river-rinsed handkerchief, on her hip with the seat belt to hold it in place. Her eyes followed him as he shut up the hangar and climbed into the driver’s seat. While the engine warmed up, he smoothed the fur on her wrinkled forehead, petting around to scritch her chin with his fingers. She laid her muzzle down in his palm.

  The route home took twenty minutes. Clark drove the whole way with one hand and his knees so Laylea could keep her hand pillow.

  At home, he parked in the garage and rushed around to gather Laylea and the icepack into his arms. The door opened before he could get his keys in the lock. Bailey yelped with joy at the sight of the puppy. They heard Sher sigh in the kitchen.

  “Sher, I need your help.” Clark warned Bailey off with a hand but the boy had already noted Laylea’s tucked tail and glazed eyes. He held the door as Clark rushed in to find fruity oaty cakes sizzling on the griddle. Sher leaned against the counter facing the stove. She held a book in one hand and her to-go mug in the other.

  “Laylea was wounded.”

  As soon as she saw them, Sher flipped the gas off and tossed Bailey a hot mitt. “What happened?”

  Clark started to set Laylea on the island counter but though she took the ice from him, Sher had him continue holding Laylea as he described the pertinent details of the hermit’s attack. Sher palpated the leg and hip and when she touched a spot that hurt worse than the puppy could handle, Laylea whimpered and showed her teeth. She licked Sher’s hand.

  “That’s no good, huh?” Sher asked. “Okay, Laylea, I’m gonna give you something to make you feel better and reduce the swelling. Are you hungry?”

  Clark answered, “She had mushy kibble with turmeric for breakfast about four hours ago.”

  “Hopefully she’ll eat again. We’ll try to make it appealing. Bailey.” Sher rolled her eyes. “You’re gonna love this. Grab me a can of tuna and scoop a little kibble into your old Muppets bowl.”

  The mom fetched a medicine bottle from Woodford’s cupboard along with a mortar and pestle. She took the tuna from Bailey and set it on the counter in front of Clark while the kid dipped the plastic bowl into Woodford’s food. Clark pushed a thumb into the metal top of the tuna. He opened just a small hole and poured the juice over the kibble in Bailey’s bowl. Sher mixed some of the powder from a ground pill into the mush.

  Then Laylea cuddled in the dad’s arms while Bailey fed her out of his hand. Woodford howled at being left out. So Clark and Bailey sat on the ground and fed him tuna. Sher sat on the stool above them, scratching Woodford’s belly with her foot.

  “Did he want the book?” Sher asked her husband.

  Clark looked up. Bailey was well occupied. “Hmm?”

  “The newest rescue. Did he want the book I gave you?”

  Laylea rubbed her face against her dad’s pale green button-down. She left a streak of mush on his chest. Clark kissed her forehead.

  “He remembered his name.”

  Sher choked on her coffee.

  “Yeah," Clark agreed. "But he’s going by Hardknock instead.”

  Sher reached down and pulled off one sneaker so she could wiggle her toes into the muscles of Woodford’s thigh. “He must be one of Trask’s newer CFs.”

  Clark hummed a few notes of the song into Laylea’s head. “Well, the conditioning may not be up to your quality but your recovery tricks don’t seem to be working as well either.”

  “He remembered his name.” Sher crowed a little.

  “It’s not doing good things for his sanity.”

  “Hardknock should have needed the book. Was it important to him?”

  Clark nodded for a while. Laylea leaned into him, one step from sleep. Bailey offered her bowl to Woodford to clean.

  “I didn’t get much breakfast. Think you could finish those pancakes for me?”

  “Sure.” Sher slipped her shoe back on. “Was the book important to Hardknock?”

  Bailey stood with the clean bowl. “Can Laylea have some more?”

  “As much as she would like.” Sher sent her son off to the food bucket. “Did he want the book?”

  Clark finally relented. “The book,” he said, “is what set Hardknock off.”

  Sher stood. She took two strides towards the swinging doors and froze. Realizing her coffee mug was still in her hand, she walked over to the French press and poured out the last drops. She drank it. Grounds from the French press went into the compost bin. She washed the press and her mug in the sink, dried them, and put them away into the cupboards.

  “How much medicine, mom?” Bailey asked. “Same as before?”

  Sher reached over and tapped more of the powder into the mush. She flashed a smile at her son but he darted back to the dogs and her eyes darted among the different recipes taped to the backsplash over the stove. Split pea and barley soup. Peanut butter oatmeal muffins. Fruity Oaty cakes. Banana bread. Chick Pea Chili. Fingerprint Cookies written out in Baileys block letters.

  Her voice was subdued when she spoke. “Tell Jay to check in on him and make sure he’s reading.” She looked over at the counter. Clark’s elbow stuck out but the rest of him was hidden. “He’ll feel better. He’ll be better.”

  Sher snapped the plastic lid onto the bowl of pancake batter. She considered putting it away in the fridge but left it beside the half-browned circles on the griddle. Bailey laughed and then apologized when the puppy yelped. Sher selected a towel from the five hanging on the oven handle and crossed to pull a reusable gel pack from the freezer door. Laylea’s cry made the hair stand up on her arms. The wail quickly subsided to a barely audible whimper. Sher imagined the puppy was trying not to cry. Flexible cold compress acquired, Sher wrapped it in the yellow flowered towel. She found herself working as quickly as if Bailey were the one crying.

  Clark’s voice, husky and raw, froze her.

  He sang.

  I find

  my mind

  By listening to my heart

  Together they will keep my soul from fracturing apart

  The tune was hers. The words were new. Laylea stopped crying at the first note.

  The emergency ice pack from the truck caught Sher’s attention as she listened. It sat on the counter over the boys’ heads where she’d tossed it. Clark had insulated the cold with his paisley handkerchief. Worn from seven years around his neck and being shoved in his back pocket, the oversized square of cotton frayed at the edges. Listening to Bailey join in, humming her song, Sher swapped the crisp new kitchen towel for the ratty, wrinkled bandanna.

  As the song ended, she lowered herself to sit on the f
loor with everyone else. Bailey knelt beside Woodford. He held two fingers up for the injured puppy to lick clean. But Laylea’s eyes were fixed on Clark. Sher watched her son try to get the little dog’s attention. She risked a glance at her husband.

  Clark’s face was one that would draw anyone in. It took effort for him to turn his thin lips down into a frown where Sher had to concentrate just to not look angry. His eyes might hold a wealth of secrets but he couldn’t remember them, thanks to her.

  “You woogied the book, didn’t you?” Clark kept his eyes on the wounded puppy.

  “I didn’t—” She started to correct his invented verb then just nodded. “It was supposed to help him. It will help him.”

  Clark hummed.

  “I’m sorry.” She reached out to the little dog. Laylea looked away from Clark. The puppy tapped her palm with its little nose and a smile brightened Sher’s face. She scooted closer to her husband and wrapped a hand around the dog’s muzzle as a bitch would do with her mouth. Then she slid her palm up the warm face and massaged the loose fur at the nape of Laylea’s neck. “I didn’t mean for you to get hurt. I’m going to do everything I can to help you get better.”

  The little dog turned her sleepy head and licked Sher’s finger, leaving a mess of mush. Her glazed gaze searched Sher’s face. If Sher had believed it could, her heart would have melted.

  Clark offered her a white monogrammed old-man handkerchief from his back pocket and Sher considered it. But at the last moment, she reached over and wiped her hand clean in Bailey’s hair. The boy giggled. Sher scooted closer, snuggling her hips in next to Clark and shoving him over so she could lean on the kitchen island as well. She slipped a hand between the dog’s paws to feel her heartbeat. It pumped strong and her breathing was regular. Laylea licked her again.

  “Laylea?” Sher asked.

  The puppy dropped her head back to look up at the mom.

  “Would you like to stay here?”

  Laylea tried to sing. Her joy came out in a rolling howl and they all laughed at her except Woodford who never took his eyes off Bailey. Clark shifted Laylea to free his right arm which wrapped around Sher. The mom brushed her fingertips against the tiny yellow bruise on Clark’s cheek, healing it. Bailey lay on the ground to let Woodford lick the mush out of his hair.

  Laylea thought about her brothers and their basket in the bike shop. She remembered her mother’s bouncy curls and the warm thick milk from her belly. She remembered playing the game of hide in the bag when her mama was so scared. She didn’t remember why Mama had left her but knew it had something to do with the sweet smelling man who had found them. She trembled, remembering how he dropped her on the hard table, on the leg that still hurt now.

  Three hands reached out to comfort her. Laylea blinked her eyes, trying to look at them all at once. The sweet man couldn’t hurt her here. And that’s what her mama wanted.

  Laylea tried to sing again but it came out as a sad little wff. The family laughed at her again. She sighed and fell asleep, safe in the arms of her family.

  Chapter Twelve

  “Dad, is it time yet?” Bailey stuck his head in the kitchen to ask yet again.

  Woodford waited for the door to stop swinging before he pushed in after the boy. He padded between Clark’s feet and the blanket he held to get to the water bowl beside the back door.

  Clark replied, yet again, “It is not time yet.”

  He folded Maggie’s rabbit wool blanket and tied it with a silver ribbon, attaching a card he’d printed with an invented story of its origin. He set the bundle on the counter beside the bunches of labeled herbs. He’d strung the sturdy plants together by their stems while the crumbly fronds lay in individual sized mesh bags. The air was filled with the sweet scent of boiled blackberries. His tools lay clean and drying in the dish rack, the preserved jam jars packed with newspaper beside Bela's berry spread in two cardboard boxes on the stove.

  Bailey climbed up onto a kitchen stool. He fingered the rolled up otter skins. “What are you doing?”

  “I am packaging the payments I got in the mountains. You and I are going to hit the farmer’s market regulars before we go to pick up Laylea and your mother.”

  “Yay!” Bailey fell off the stool and rolled over to Woodford’s bed beside his food bucket. A quick belly rub and the boy was off, the kitchen door flapping behind him, the hound on his heels.

  Clark shook the water from the cleaned greens of Ahab’s wild carrots. He laid them on a pair of kitchen towels as he braided the stems together and tied them with a thick twine to which he attached a crafty label with another clever lie of the vegetable’s provenance.

  Normally he tried to offload the hermit’s goods as soon as he got them home. But Laylea seemed most comfortable in his arms so Clark had delayed. Sher ordered forty-eight hours of observation. But when Laylea hadn’t improved by dinner the next day, Clark reiterated that Hardknock had been wearing steel-toed boots.

  A short argument ensued over whether he was reiterating or stating the fact for the very first time. In the end, Sher had decided to spay Laylea a little earlier than she would prefer in order to take advantage of her unconsciousness to get a closer and more clinical look at the hip.

  Bailey backed into the kitchen. He held the door to let Woodford skitter in before he set a shoebox up on the counter.

  “Can we sell these? The bald lady sells slabs of bark with google eyes.”

  “That’s a man,” Clark corrected.

  He set the carrots on top of the jams and peered at Bailey’s offering. Polished rocks sat in an even layer on the bottom of the box. He had two stunning pieces of agate surrounded by a mix of small brownish red carnelians and clear blue opalite. It was all bordered by a dozen of the most colorfully patterned jaspers Clark had ever seen assembled.

  “These are beautiful. Are you sure you want to give them away?”

  “I don’t want to give them away.” Bailey looked at his dad as if the old man had lost his mind. “I want to sell them. Laylea is another mouth to feed. I have to pitch in.”

  “Oh kid.” Clark lifted Bailey onto a stool. “You don’t have to pitch in. She doesn’t eat that much and I’ve got a way with the vet. I’m sure we can negotiate her bills. Don’t worry.” He picked up a blue and purple jasper. “How did you find all these?”

  “I don’t know.” Bailey pulled out one of the agates to show him the reverse side. “I just see them. You know, like when you make me shut my eyes and tell you all the different kinds of trees around us. I remember the rocks too.”

  “That’s really cool, kid. You got any you want to keep? Cuz I’m pretty sure we could sell all of these to Ms. Audrey.”

  Bailey shrugged, flipping the stones in the box. “I’ll find more.” Then his face lit up. “She’s the lady who makes jewelry.”

  “Yeah. And not the ugly stuff. We’ll stop by her shop while we’re out. Don’t take less than fifty cents a stone. And make sure you say there’s more where that came from.”

  “Yeah, there’s lots more. All over the ground. I found this one on the playground at school.” He held up a large opalite. “Why would she pay me fifty cents for a rock?”

  “You just look around at the jewelry in her shop while I make small talk.” He set a carnelian back into the box. “Hey, what do you say we have her set one of these in a necklace for your mom?”

  “No.” Bailey pulled the box away. “I’m looking for a labradorite for mom.” He stood and took the box with him as he bent to nuzzle Woodford. “Can we get Laylea now?”

  Clark made a mental note to look up labradorite the next time he stopped by a library. “Go get your shoes.”

  After successfully unloading all of the hermits’ stuff, Bailey negotiated a dollar per rock for the agate and jaspers with the rest thrown in as “a gift to a new customer.” He raised the price by pointing out she could advertise all of her stones as local and ethically mined. Clark enjoyed the looks Audrey shot him assuming he had put the words in Bai
ley’s mouth. Bailey sealed the deal by asking if there were any colors she’d like him to keep an eye out for in particular. Audrey, playing along, showed him a necklace a customer wanted some matching earring for. Bailey had stared at the pendant until Clark ushered him out of the store.

  Once at the clinic Bailey gave his fifteen dollars to Michelle and asked her to apply it to Laylea’s bill.

  “Now where did you get fifteen dollars?” Michelle took the fives and faced them before she tucked them away in the locked top drawer.

  Bailey watched her drop the key into a side drawer after she secured the cash. “Don’t you have a register?”

  “No need. Most people pay with credit cards. Your mom just had an envelope tucked into the filing cabinet under C until I suggested we make this pencil drawer our kitty.” She snorted. “Get it? Our kitty? Oh dear, I peed a little. Do you ever have accidents?”

  Bailey shook his head. Heat rose to his ears. “Do you need to go to the back? I can watch the desk.”

  “Oh no.” Michelle leaned in and whispered, “I wear diapers. Kenneth just loves kicking my bladder. Were you a runner in your mommy’s belly or did you sleep?”

  Bailey’s eyebrows knit together as the heat raced past his ears to fill his head. He leaned in and whispered his confession, “I can’t remember.”

  Michelle laughed at him again. Bailey worried that she would have another accident. Before she could ask him any more questions, he dropped below the counter and crawled over to curl up with Woodford in the dog's bed.