weather wasn't so wonderful, either. It was often quite chilly at night, and rained more often than not. The forest was long since divested of predators, but there was very little meat to sustain them, mostly the occasional squirrel or bird could be captured and roasted. The people lived mainly on berries and tubers and nuts. In time, like anything else, they got used to it and no longer minded their living conditions. As a 64 year old forever, Baudry did mind. He never came to like being cold and he felt he was cold all the time. This was one of the reasons he was generally a sour type person. He didn't want to be always complaining, but inside his mind was a constant refrain of complaint. He didn't like this. He didn't like that. He didn't like trees, or dirt, or even birds, and he especially didn't like hunting for goals. He didn't have many friends. The other "old people" were too much like himself. The "young" ones were simply too different. And there wasn't ever much to talk about. The weather? The trees? The gossip? No, Baudry didn't have much to say, at least not to anyone else. He did have some news, though, that others might be interested in, now that he'd been "called to order", called by a squirrel.
"Called by a squirrel?" he stopped himself in mid-stride. "Now I know for sure I've gone nuts." He sat right down on a rock and shook his head.
"What am I doing?" he asked himself out loud. "I'm talking to squirrels?"
"It did say The Hidden One," he reminded himself, "and you never believed in that stuff."
"That's definitely true," he had to agree. "It's not something that I would make up."
"Unless you have gone out of your mind," he countered. "It's been known to happen."
"No," he disagreed, "that's only more stories. You'd think it would happen to us, but it can't. Nothing can happen like that. We never can change, remember?"
"You've got me again," he relented. "So I guess that leaves us with the squirrel."
"The squirrel has spoken," he repeated. "We might as well go."
"Might as well," he gave in. "Why not? It's not like we have anything better to do."
"Stop saying 'we'", he scolded himself as he stood up to continue his journey.
"Whatever you say," he replied.
Two
Edeline was informed by crow, and had no idea what it was talking about. The crow, perched on top of an ancient rotting tree stump, cocked its head and gave her a beady stare.
"You're new here, aren't you?", it inquired.
The crow was even closer to the truth that it imagined. She was not only new, she was brand new, having been dumped into the forest less than half an hour previously. She'd spent that entire time on the verge of tears, and would have been weeping for sure if she had been able to believe that this was even happening to her. It seemed like only moments before that she was getting out of bed, preparing to begin another normal day.
She'd had ordinary plans. It was a Tuesday, a work day. She had meetings to attend, papers to present, decisions to make. She remembered thinking about pastries, for some reason, although she had none in the kitchen. Marvin would like an almond treat, she had told herself, making a mental note to pick some up at the bakery on her way home that evening. She'd looked down at his still-sleeping form, a half smile working its way across his face as he dreamed about who knows what. Edeline had gone through her customary routines, carefully applying the face cream, arranging stray hairs in her eyebrows, scrubbing her face and hands, preparing for her morning exercises. She had only just spread out the yoga mat and turned on the instructor's video when the knock came at the front door.
She had considered not responding. After all, she was only wearing her pink terrycloth tights and top and hardly looked presentable, in her opinion. Nevertheless, it was her own home, so whoever it was deserved whatever sight they beheld, so she did open the door. If she'd only known who was there, she would have fled out the window instead.
"Yes?" she asked politely of the two rather large, stupefied men who stood there gaping at her body.
"Ma'am?" one of them managed to stutter while the other one blinked and turned his head away in an effort to avert his eyes.
"Can I help you?" Edeline prompted him.
"Edeline Wills?" he fairly mumbled. This great bulk of a man was beginning to sweat in quantity. His eyes became bleary as he grabbed a handkerchief from his back pocket and began to mop his face.
"What's all this about?" Edeline asked as the second man, blubbery and stinky as well, raised his hand to shield his face.
"A.I.D," the first officer told her. "You'll have to come with us."
"What?" Edeline was incredulous. "What are you talking about? A.I.D? That's ridiculous." She backed away from the door, and considered slamming it in their faces. She would have to think fast, but she couldn't. Another mistake. The officer seemed to read her mind and suddenly, without any indication that it was possible for him to move that quickly, he'd retrieved some handcuffs from somewhere and slammed them onto her wrists, and pulled her out into the apartment building hallway.
"Let me go!" Edeline shouted, but struggle as she might, the huge policeman easily dragged her down the hall and into the elevator, while his partner closed the apartment door and followed closely.
"If you don't be quiet I'll have to enforce you," the officer told her, once they were heading down toward the underground parking lot. Edeline knew what that meant. They would gag her, blindfold her, put her in a straitjacket, carry her if they had to, like a sack of potatoes. She had heard about this kind of thing. Who hadn't? What she wanted to know now was, why had they mistaken her for one of those creatures? The A.I.D. was not known to make mistakes, but clearly they had done so this time.
"No questions," the officer warned her, hustling her into the back of the patrol car. Both of the men seemed to breathe more freely once they did not have to look at her any longer. The second one drove while the first one tapped a memo into his device, transmitting their status and coordinates to headquarters.
"No questions?" Edeline repeated in her mind. She had a million questions. Well, only one that mattered. Was this really even happening? Maybe she was still in bed, asleep, having a nightmare. The car careened out into the street and sped off, as if it were an emergency. Officer Barge, the driver, was worried. Something like what he was thinking could cost him his entire career. Why had they sent him on this assignment? It was utterly against policy and he very well knew why. Generally, male officers were not allowed to bring in female immortals. Anything could happen and often did. They didn't call them 'mermaids' for nothing.
"Is it true?" he blurted out to his partner, Sergeant Rand, "that nothing can ever happen to them?"
"Silence!" Rand ordered. He did not want to get into it, especially not in the presence of the thing. Mermaids could not be harmed. It was true. No matter what you did to them, they could not be harmed and that was the very problem. You wanted to test that theory. You wanted to do things, just to see, and if you did, if you let down your guard and gave in ... Sergeant Rand had seen it happen before. Good men, helpless against themselves, utterly ruined because of these mutants. It was entirely their fault.
"Pretend it's not even there," he advised his colleague, and Barge did his best to do so. He thought about everything else instead. He thought about meatballs, and pigeons, and the way the clouds seemed to fall when it rained. He thought about moons and parades and pixie dust and the smell of varnish and dried fish. He thought about everything except the thing in his back seat now, and no one was more relieved, no one was happier than he when they finally arrived at HQ and were able to unload their cargo at the docking bay.
Edeline was taken to a small, windowless office in the basement of the large official A.I.D. building by two heavily armed female escorts, who again advised her not to speak or make any sudden motions. She was deposited alone in there, told to sit on one of the two cold metal folding chairs, the only furniture at all in there. The room itself was also cold. In only her terrycloth exercise outfit and slippers, Edeline was already uncomfortable. She was n
ot alone for long. In a few minutes, a small, elderly man came into the room, closing and locking the door carefully behind him.
Captain Snig was long past retirement age, yet he was not allowed to retire. His unique skills and experience were still required, especially in cases like this. He'd been through the procedure many times, and was not disturbed any longer. Still, he wore large dark sunglasses to protect his mind. The glasses seemed to cover most of his face, leaving only a narrow nose and unusually tiny mouth exposed below, and a balding, spotted cranium above. He wore a uniform that might have fit him long ago, before his body had shrunk so. Now he was all hunched over, a mass of wrinkled blue cloth and that face of a bespectacled ancient turtle. He hobbled over to the other metal chair, facing Edeline, who cleared her throat and prepared her defense.
"It's no use," Snig told her. "You might as well save your breath."
"There's been" she began but he held up his hand to interrupt her.
"No mistake," he completed her sentence, but not in the way that she would have.
"How," she started again, and again he stopped her before she could finish.
"Retinal scan," he informed her. "The officer performed it the moment you opened your door. The image was relayed back here," he continued wearily, "and the officer was confirmed before you