Chương 17: Chapter 16 - Poffskuffendeling

We had long ago left the lurker's main nesting area, but we were still in the swamp. Conrad and I hadn't had any lunch, but it was getting late enough that I was beginning to worry more about dinner—not that I had a clear idea what time it was. Conrad hadn't brought his phone. He didn't see the point in hauling it around when it had no reception, and he didn't want it to get wet. Brilliant, really. I wish I'd thought of that. Mine was in my pocket, still turned off and wetter than ever.

Without phones, we could only guess what time it was by the position of the sun and how loud our bellies were rumbling. I was embarrassed by the racket that mine was making, but I found the noises coming from Conrad's stomach far more thought-provoking.

"Are you sure you're okay?" I asked for the third time.

"For god's sake, I'm not going to eat you!" Conrad glanced over his shoulder.

"Our guard is still there. I don't think they're going to go away, Emerra." I looked behind us. I couldn't spot the lurker, but if Conrad said he was there, then he had to be hiding somewhere. I sighed and turned back around. Conrad and I were wading through a relatively shallow area of the swamp. It was a nice break from all the slogging we'd been doing, and it wasn't like it mattered where we were going.

Kappa was ahead of us, bounding from tree to tree, inspecting every trunk for hollows, pawing around the plants, and sniffing everything. Of course, he had more energy than we did. The little punk had been grazing the entire time, eating every small, slimy, unfortunate thing he could catch. When I mentioned this to Conrad, he reminded me I was welcome to eat as many snails as I wanted. I hadn't reached that level of desperation. Yet.

"This is stupid," I grumbled.

"It was your idea," Conrad said.

"Yeah! I know! That should've been our first clue!" The problem was that I'd let my temper get the best of me. Even after I knew that the lurkers were looking for something, Old Man refused to tell me what it was. All he would say was that they wouldn't be upset if the three of us wandered around the swamp. We argued in circles for a few minutes, neither of us getting anywhere, then I'd snapped, "Fine! Then we're going to go searching! You said you wouldn't be upset, right?"

He'd scowled, but he hadn't objected when we left. Once we were outside the nesting area, Conrad pointed out two things: one, since we had no idea what we were searching for, it would be hard to know where to look, and two, Old Man had sent someone to follow us. My stomach sank.

"Conrad, Kappa, would you mind wandering around the swamp with me for a while?" Kappa's face filled with a beautiful joy.

"Kay!" he cried before bounding off.

"I don't mind," Conrad said.

"Is there a reason you don't want to go back to the motel?"

"I don't know if Old Man thought I meant 'right now' when I told him we were going to look around, and I don't want him to think I'm a liar." I decided to wander until the spy Old Man had sent after us got bored and went home. Unfortunately, I'd made that resolution based on what I knew about the lurkers' ability to focus, and all my information came from playing with Kappa. It hadn't occurred to me that an adult bog-monster and a young bog-monster might have different attention spans.

Or, heaven help us, that Kappa might have the bog-monster version of ADHD. So there I was, hours later, legs chafed from walking in wet jeans, exhausted from slogging through water, hungry to the point of distraction, hanging out with a starving wolfman, miles away from the motel, not one millimeter closer to finding whatever the heck I was supposed to be looking for, and I had nobody to blame but myself. I stopped slogging.

"You know what? We can rest. Do you need a rest?" Stupid question. Conrad never seemed to need a rest. I rushed on before he could confirm my suspicions." I need a rest. Let's try to find somewhere to sit down." Conrad pointed forward and to our left where Kappa was sniffing around the grass. It took me a second to realize why he'd drawn my attention there. Kappa was standing on dry ground. He'd found a dry patch! And there was a flat-ish area not completely covered by plants!

By all the swampy gods— that was the most precious real estate in the world. I let out a cry of relief and waded toward Kappa. On hands and knees, I crawled out of the water, then flopped on my back, arms outspread, to soak in the sunshine that had managed to filter through the trees. Conrad ran up the bank, snatched something long off the ground, and threw it into the bushes. I jerked away from the unexpected movement.

"What was that?" Conrad kept his eyes on the projectile for another moment, then turned to me with a faint smile.

"Nothing," he said. I decided not to press the issue. Kappa, on the other hand, went ooooh, and ran off to investigate. I laid back down. Conrad sat on the ground beside me. Above me, the distant branches swayed in the breeze, their curtains of moss sweeping after them like long skirts. I let my eyes rest by following their slow dance, back and forth, through the air. I was able to relax most of my body, but the weight in my heart wouldn't go away.

"I'm sorry I wasted so much time today," I muttered. For a few seconds, Conrad didn't answer. My cheeks grew warm with shame and embarrassment, and my eyes started to water. I knew that most of my emotions were tied to my hunger and exhaustion, but there was an eternal speck of fear that lived in my chest, and it was always watching for any sign of disapproval. Conrad said, "You don't talk about your powers." I had no idea what to make of that statement. I rolled my head to the side to look up at Conrad.

He was sitting with one leg raised to his chest, leaning toward it, and one arm resting on his knee as he stared out at the swamp. I watched the line of his muzzle move as he spoke.

"Maybe it's normal to you, and that's why you never talk about them, but before I'd met you, I'd never seen anything like it. Watching you use your powers is like looking up at a storm rolling over a mountain, or looking up at the stars. You get the feeling that the world is a very big place." My soul went quiet, humbled by the honesty in Conrad's voice.

He continued, "I meant it when I said I didn't mind walking around, and if anyone could find something when they don't even know what they're looking for, it'd be you, zombie-girl." When he peered down at me, the shadows made his yellow eyes look amber.

"I don't think it was a waste of time." I couldn't stand to watch his face any longer; there were too many emotions gooped up in my chest. I stared back up at the branches and the patches of sky beyond them. A part of me was startled by the idea that anyone would bother paying attention to me like that. I was also touched, idiotically happy, and embarrassed. It made me feel warm and shy and stupid, all at the same time. And through that whole mess of mushy nonsense ran an unexpected thread of sadness.

Conrad rarely said stuff like that. It was a big step forward when it came to how much we shared, and I wanted to return his openness, but in so many ways, I didn't know how. The real reason I never talked about my powers was because I didn't know anything about them, and I didn't know how to deal with them, so, like every other uncomfortable topic that was strewn around the wreckage of my two lives, I swept it under the carpet and pretended it wasn't there.

At that point, trying to cross the carpet would require climbing gear. I managed a wry smile.

"Yeah, well, I think today's proved that there's a minimum amount of information my powers need before they can be useful." I sat up and crossed my legs.

"You know, if they're in the mood to be useful." Kappa came barreling back through the bushes with most of a snake dangling out of his mouth. When he came up to show me his prize, I hid my shudder. This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source. He'd chewed off the snake's head. I felt a gruesome and bizarre urge to laugh. Who's biting who now, huh?

"Um," Conrad said, "is he okay to eat that?" Kappa turned around and dropped himself into my lap. He held up one part of the snake, then another, as if he was trying to figure out how to eat it. He decided to start at the top, and went after it as if it was some kind of absurdly thick licorice rope. I lifted my eyes so I wouldn't have to watch.

"He's fine. Even if it was venomous, snakes aren't usually poisonous, and these guys eat poisonous frogs all the time." In a desperate attempt to drown out the quiet growls and smacking noises coming from the bog-monster in my lap, I said in a loud voice, "Conrad, what do you think the lurkers are looking for?"

"You said you think it's an object?" I hesitated.

"That was the impression I got."

"Impression" was a good word for it. Old Man had never confirmed it was an object, but the misty idea had rooted itself in my head and solidified. Was it mystical insight granted to me by my supernatural powers, or was I an assumptive twit who couldn't be shaken from her certainty? Only time would tell. Conrad hummed, then said, "The lurkers didn't seem to have many objects. It's hard to imagine them valuing something enough to go out searching for it night after night for over three months." He was right.

While we were in their main nesting area—or, as I thought of it, Lurkerberg—the only objects I saw were their nests, their weapons, and the tracking devices fixed to their ankles. If they'd lost a tracker, I had no doubt that Brodie would be happy to replace it, and if they'd lost one of their weapons or a nest, they'd make another.

"It has to be something else," I said.

"Something unique that they can't replace."

"I'm more interested in how it went missing," Conrad said. When I looked at him, he added, "If it's that important to them, it's hard to imagine it was misplaced." I tried to wrap my arms around Kappa. He was slimier than the average teddy bear, but I'd snuggled him before and, doubtless, I would snuggle him again—but this time he had that snake as a defense. The moment its cool scales brushed my skin, I retracted my arms and sat there, feeling thwarted. Why had I wanted a teddy bear?

Because I hadn't liked what Conrad had said.

"You think it was stolen?" I asked.

"Maybe. Or maybe someone took it without realizing what they were doing. If you hadn't told me about Kappa's rock collection, I never would've guessed they were so important to him. But whether it was an accident or on purpose, I think the lurkers believe a human was involved." I remembered all those neon green lines disappearing off the screen.

"That would explain why they keep focusing their search on Fort Rive."

"And it would explain why they won't accept help from you or the bracelet man."

"Huh?"

"If they think a human stole it, they're probably going to have a hard time trusting any of you." I scowled at the ground.

"You smell uneasy," Conrad said.

"Do you really think they didn't want our help because we were human?"

"I don't know, but I think it's possible." I scowled some more. Whenever Old Man had talked about humans, he always used the same sign. Tall. The big ones. But when he'd talked about the intrinsic… whatever … that made him decline help from me and the bracelet man, he'd used a different sign. He'd put one of his bulbed fingertips to his pale throat and pulled it down an inch or so. I felt like there was a different concept there. Something obvious. Something he thought I should've understood.

He had watched me, waiting for me to catch on. Him. His neck. His throat. Off-white.

"Pale." My mouth barely shaped the word as I exhaled.

"You think it's something else?" Conrad asked. I groaned and rubbed my forehead.

"Yes, but don't ask me what or my head will explode. Besides, it doesn't matter. If Old Man intrinsically doesn't want our help, there's not much we can do about it." I let my hand drop and heaved a sigh.

"What were we talking about again?"

"We were talking about the fact that the lurkers think a human took whatever it is they're looking for."

"Right. And if the object really is in Fort Rive, then they'll have to create a whole new word for the kind of time wasting I've invented. I dunno. Poffskuffendeling." Kappa paused. His top-fin brushed my neck when he looked up at me. I very, very purposefully did not look down. Conrad chuckled.

"That's one hell of a word, Emerra. You should write it down."

"Yeah, well, hopefully I'll never have to use it again." I brushed back Kappa's top fin and said to him, "Come on, buddy. If you want to finish that, you better get to it." He went back to enjoying his snake snack. Conrad used one of his claws to pick at the mud stuck between the treads of his boot.

"What do you think about Kohler?" he asked. I blinked at the sudden change in topic.

"Brodie?"

"Yeah." I made a weird face to demonstrate the depth of my confusion.

"I don't know. Should I have an opinion on him?"

"You had the chance to talk to him outside the yurt."

"Yeah, for, like, five minutes." Conrad did nothing but watch me with those big eyes of his. He knew that always got to me, and he never had to say a thing. I shrugged so he wouldn't see me squirm. There was no sense in rewarding bad behavior.

"He's fine. He's…nice—you know? In an average kind of way." I remembered how Brodie smiled when he talked, and how his eyes squinched up when he was thinking.

"Maybe more than average," I admitted.

"He seems…" My voice trailed off. Now that I was putting some effort into it, there was a lot to think about—like how he stumbled over his words when he was nervous, how serious he sounded when he was talking about helping the lurkers, and that soft look of sadness and resignation when he told me he knew that Ayla wouldn't spare a thought for him. How on earth could I sum that all up?

"He seems sweet," I said.

"I think he's got a good heart. And a big one." And I think he gave it to the wrong girl.

"You like him?" I was unclear on many things, but I knew that Conrad was no teenage girl, cooing out the question with an evil grin on her face. On the other hand, there was enough ambiguity in the word "like" to make me feel flustered.

"All five-minutes I know of him, sure." My cheeks flushed when I heard how defensive I sounded.

"Anyway, what about you and Ayla?"

"What about me and Ayla?" Conrad asked, sounding a bit defensive himself.

"You got to talk to her for the same five minutes! What do you think of her?" As Conrad looked away, the edge of his black lips ticked straight back, splitting the difference between a smile and a frown. His brows lowered over his eyes, his ears limboed out to the side, and he shook his head. All that, and I still couldn't tell what he was thinking. I felt bad about my outburst. It wasn't any of my business what Conrad thought of Ayla, and I didn't want Conrad thinking that I disapproved of her.

I didn't want to get in the way. My stomach wrung itself up, squeezing a sour taste into my mouth. Okay, so I did want to get in the way. But not for a good reason. And get in the way of what? I mean, they were completely different species! — which was… also… probably… not my business. I had never stopped to consider Conrad's sexuality. It hadn't seemed relevant. I thought he was like me, and Kappa, and Iset—like most of the people at the Noctis mansion, actually.

We were all misfits, alone or isolated from the rest of our kind. But Ayla Davids had raised some alarming possibilities. I didn't know whether or not Conrad could be attracted to a human, but I did know that only the worst person in the world would stand in the way of their friend's happiness. I stopped chewing on my lips and forced myself to say, "She's pretty, isn't she? For a… for a human—I mean, humans would think she's… pretty."

The blush, which had been receding, rushed back into my cheeks, sloshing all the way up to my forehead, turning the tips of my ears pink. Ah, yes. I'd forgotten how brilliant I was when it came to turning a potentially embarrassing conversation into a platinum example of pure awkwardness. I blathered on.

"She seemed to really like you." Conrad's ears twitched around in embarrassment.

"I don't think so." Uh-huh. Classic shy guy technique: deny any possibility of interest.

"Dude," I said, "she was flirting with you." He shook his head again. Kappa looked up at me and made a trilling noise. I unthinkingly looked down and got a close-up, foreshortened view of the last one-third of a snake. Where had it all gone? What about the bones? Was Kappa eating all of it? That boy's stomach must have been a garbage disposal! I swallowed and focused on Kappa's upturned face.

"Flirting is how humans try to show that they like someone," I explained.

"You flirt with me?" Kappa asked. I opened my mouth to deny it, but then closed it and scratched my head.

"Um, yes? I hug you and tease you a lot. But it's not quite the same thing."

"You don't like me?"

"No, buddy! I adore you! But it's a different kind of interest." He looked more confused than ever.

"You know what?" I said to the sixty-year-old bog-monster.

"You're too young for this conversation. I'll tell you more about it when you're older." When I looked over at Conrad, there was a smirk on his face.

"And she was totally flirting with you, Conrad Bauer!" I insisted. Kappa mumbled through a mouth full of snake guts, "In-ter-esss-ted." I continued, "Think about how close she was standing! And the way she smiled at everything you said." I snapped my fingers and pointed at him.

"She flicked her hair back while I was outside, didn't she?" Conrad's ears dropped into deep-embarrassment mode. That was when the wiggling stopped and his ears stayed low and slightly back. He shifted his legs.

"I know what it looked like." He rushed to add, "Not that—it's not that people flirt with me—" His mouth snapped shut. He huffed, then tried again.

"I watch a lot of shows, Mera. I know what flirting looks like. But that lady's got her wires crossed." Okay. Yeah. I wasn't going to disagree with that assessment, but I knew that furries were a thing, and I wasn't about to go around kink-shaming—"She was scared of me," Conrad said. My thoughts slammed to a halt. He shifted again.

"It wasn't as bad as you when you first met me—" A stab of shame thunked into my chest.

"—it was more like when I met Wuller," Conrad said. Wayne Wuller was the headmaster of a boarding school over in England. He'd read all about lycanthropes before he had the chance to meet Conrad, so he was more fascinated than he was intimidated.

"Okay," I said, "But, then—""Ayla wasn't attracted to me." The gears in my head felt like they were trying to grind through a decade of rust.

"How do you know that?"

"You saw how close she was standing. It was a closed room with no other strong smells. You think I wouldn't be able to smell something like that?"

"Attraction has a scent?" Conrad grunted and rubbed his brow ridge.

"It's complicated. When it comes to attraction, there are a lot of things going on. Some are obvious, some are subtle, but I should've been able to smell a difference. She wasn't attracted to me. I have no idea why she was flirting with me." The rusty gears ground on, trying to churn out some kind of insight, but there was no raw material for them to work with. As far as I was concerned, flirty girls were as much of a different species as lycanthropes were. I couldn't begin to guess what made them tick.

"It makes me uncomfortable when people's smells are off like that," Conrad said. I looked up at him.

"Brodie's smell was off too," Conrad added.

"Not often. Not like Ayla's. But once or twice, I'd catch a scent from him that didn't make any sense. That's why I asked you about him." Before I could bother him for specifics, Conrad's ears swiveled toward the deeper part of the swamp. His nose followed.

"What is it?" I asked. Conrad stood up.

"That's Vance's boat. He's coming this way." I lifted Kappa from my lap, put him in front of me, and scrambled to my feet. I could hear the sound of the engine in the distance.

"Do you think he'd be willing to give us a ride?"

"We can always ask." Conrad squatted down and put out his arm.

"Come on, Kappa. Time to go. Drop the snake or swallow it." Kappa dropped what was left of the snake and ran up Conrad's arm to perch on his shoulder. The bog-monster tugged on Conrad's ear and said, "Boat man?" I tried to dust some of the muck off my pants, but it was mud and snake flecks—not dust—so it stayed where it was.

"I think he prefers the term 'grave man.'""Let's go meet him," Conrad said.