Earl stared at Bael. Bael stared right back.
Earl grumbled, “Fine. Come on in.”
Jillian practically slumped against the van in relief as Earl turned and walked into his house. Hauling her ugly-ass canvas bag out of the passenger seat, she mouthed, “Thank you.”
Bael realized his earlier panic feeling had been replaced by something much warmer and sweeter. And he would never, ever tell Zed about it.
Bael knew why Zed picked Earl for her first interview. Earl was prickly, there was no doubt about that and he wouldn’t just lay down and let Jillian walk all over him while serving her sweet tea. But Earl also had a soft squishy marshmallow center, underneath all that gruff. So once Jillian finally settled in, she would get some good information.
The whole interview process was fascinating to watch. It seemed a lot like plain old visiting, but by a paranoid person who was taking the time to record a casual conversation between neighbors. She asked Earl all of the little “getting to know you” questions—how long his family had lived in Mystic Bayou, where they lived before, who built the house they were sitting in. All questions designed to help Earl relax, and prevent defensive responses right from the start. Jillian’s body language and voice were completely different, when she was speaking to Earl. She was relaxed and interested but not overenthusiastic or off-putting. It was like a dance. She flitted from one conversational topic to the other, connecting them and weaving them together so that Earl seemed to forget he was being interviewed and just relaxed into talking about his favorite topics. Bael hadn’t seen such masterful verbal maneuvering since the passing of his own grandmother, the undisputed queen of Mystic Bayou’s limited social scene.
Ten minutes in, Jillian had Earl serving her willow bark tea and showing her the wood carvings his family had been creating for generations, commemorating great acts of bravery. The Websters were sinfully proud of the carved wooden figures, but for Earl to show them to an outsider just demonstrated Jillian’s heretofore unknown people skills. Also, there was the possibility that because Earl didn’t actively provoke her like Bael, she felt compelled to be charming toward him.
“So, you clearly have quite a few grandchildren that you’re not proud of at all,” Jillian noted, nodding toward the dozen or so teenagers smiling out from framed photos on his mantel.
Earl chuckled. “Good fledglings, all of them. Beautiful and brave. A bit too brave, if you ask me.”
Jillian cocked her head. “How do you mean?”
“They want to leave the bayou,” he said. “Websters have lived here in Mystic Bayou for generations, since before the dragons moved in. They want to go to big cities, where they can see more and meet more people. But you can’t make weather in big cities, not without someone spying on you. Too much light keeps you from really seeing the sky. And don’t get me started on the damn cell phone towers.”
“Is that a problem a lot of families are seeing? Younger people who want to move away from the Bayou?”
“Oh, I wouldn’t call it a new problem. As a group, we get a family with a wild streak every generation or so,” Earl said, jerking those enormous shoulders. “Last time around, it was the Beasley boys. They wanted to move to one of them gator farms in Florida and put on a show, pretending to be specially trained gators. The problem being that none of them were smart enough to make the move happen. My grandkids burn a bit brighter.”
“So, the Beasleys just stuck around and pursued their careers in the voyeuristic arts,” she muttered, jotting down some notes in her little Moleskine notebook.
Earl shot Bael a look, eyebrows raised, but then nodded. “You were right to warn her.”
“And how does that make you feel? Your grandkids wanting to move away?”
Earl frowned at her, as if he was disappointed. “That’s sort of a stupid question.”
“I’m aware, but I have to ask it anyway,” she said, not seeming offended in the least.
“Yes, it hurts. But I understand the need to stretch their wings and see new skies. I can only hope that when they’ve seen what they want to see, they’ll come home.”
“Is that your wife?” Jillian asked, nodding toward a photo in which a much younger Earl had his arm wrapped around a pretty blond woman with a broad smile.
“That’s my Kat. She passed away a few summers back. She was a phoenix, a real firebird. You could see her for miles when she lit up. My girls take after me, but the boys take after her.”
“Really?” Jillian’s eyes sparked with what could only be termed “scientific ecstasy.” “So, they’re either thunderbird or phoenix? There’s no crossover? I’ve read some theoretical papers on the subject, but the superna—er, magie community has been reluctant to discuss how hybrid genetics work.”
Bael sat forward a bit on Earl’s lumpy couch, watching her closely. Of all the human emotions, he understood the nuances of greed best. But when he looked at Jillian, he didn’t see the hunger of acquisition in the brilliant curve of her smile or the tension in her hands as she gripped her pen. She wasn’t calculating the price she could get for taking magie secrets back to the outside world. He saw the thirst of curiosity in her. She burned to know for no other reason than wanting to understand. The knot of apprehension that had gripped Bael’s chest since the League proposed this project, slipped loose just the tiniest bit.
Earl rubbed the back of his neck with his long fingers. “Well, I don’t know too much about genetics or papers. I just know when two different creatures mate, it takes a while to see where their young will land, usually by age twelve or so. Some kids are lucky and they get a mix of their parents’ gifts. Some kids, like mine, show a strong affinity for one set of talents over th’other. Some get none. Everybody feels a little sorry for those kids, but we try not to treat ‘em any different.”
“What did your families think of you and your Kat getting together?” Jillian asked.
“Aw, at least we were in the same sort of family of magique. We were both sky creatures. Not as weird as the time one of Bael’s cousins tried to elope with that chupacabra girl a few years back.”
Bael shuddered. “We don’t talk about cousin Barry.”
“So, no one has a problem when the families intermarry? As long as they’re not completely incompatible and/or goat-sucking monsters?”
Earl nodded toward Bael. “Oh, most folks don’t have any problem with it. Some families are a little stricter, like the Boones. A little more worried about keeping the lines free of human blood. Others are happy to get some fresh genes in the pool.”
Small grave lines bracketed Jillian’s mouth for a moment, but then disappeared.
“So, going back to the subject of your grandchildren, what do you think you can do to persuade them to stay in the Bayou?”
“It’s not my job to make them want to stay,” Earl said, snorting a little. “Or their parents’ job to make them want to stay. If we to try to keep them here, it’s only gonna make them fight even harder to leave and they’ll resent us so much they won’t want to come back. If they need to go out and see the world, I can’t stop them. I can only hope they fly back when they see it’s not all they hoped.”
“That’s very philosophical of you,” Jillian said.
“Well, if that doesn’t work, there’s always bribery,” Earl said, making Bael snort and spit his iced tea back into his glass.
It was almost an hour before Jillian seemed to feel like she had asked enough questions. She even answered a few about herself while Earl signed the necessary releases for his voice recordings. Jillian was from Loveland, Ohio. Her utterly human parents were living, but she had nothing to say about them beyond pleasantries about her mother hosting charity events while her father ran an industrial equipment company, whatever that was. She had no siblings. She’d left no husband or beau behind when she’d come to Mystic Bayou. And she very gently, but firmly, informed Earl that she was not interested in going on a blind date with his oldest grandson, even if it would keep him in t
he bayou. Bael wondered if she’d made up a false life, empty of attachments, as some sort of cover for her work in the League, or if she was the loneliest person he’d ever met.
Bael watched her as he helped her load her equipment into her van, trying to detect some hint of sadness about her. But the lack of family didn’t seem to weigh on her. Was she one of those solitary creatures, like the harpies that lurked at the edges of the swamp, eager to be near the rift, but more eager to avoid contact with others? She didn’t seem like an antisocial creature. She had good manners, tolerated Zed well enough, engaged Earl in lively conversation. Did she simply not need people?
“So did I pass?” she asked as they loaded their last bag into the van.
“Beg pardon?”
Jillian leveled a bemused, yet annoyed, look at him. “The test you wanted me to pass before you’d be willing to unleash me on the general population. That’s why Zed only scheduled one appointment today, right? You joined me on my interview with Earl because you wanted to watch me. You wanted to make sure I wasn’t going to take advantage of Earl, ask him leading questions, poke my nose where it didn’t belong. So, tell me, how did I do?”
He stared at her, eyes narrowed. He really thought he’d hidden his agenda a little better. It was unnerving to have a human read him so easily. “Just fine. I didn’t really pay much attention. I just stuck around so you wouldn’t get lost on the way home.”
Jillian dropped her sunglasses over her eyes as she jerked her driver side door open. Bael was struck by the urge to pull them off of her face, to get rid of any obstacle blocking his ability to see into her eyes. His hands twitched at his sides, but he gripped his gun-belt to keep them still.
She smirked at him. “Lead the way, then.”
6
Jillian
Three days after she arrived in Mystic Bayou, Jillian finally met the matriarchs of local society. It was Saturday afternoon. Jillian was sitting on her porch, still wearing cotton sleep shorts and tank top because it was the coolest clothing she owned, drinking a Coke while she pored over information on phoenixes and thunderbirds. She’d done some previous research on thunderbirds in college, but had less experiences with phoenixes, Harry Potter references aside.
Their ability to shift was often connected with the cycle of life, destruction and rebirth, which sounded beautiful and terrifying all at once, shifting into giant many-colored birds that burned with blue fire. Sometimes phoenixes needed to burn and regenerate to heal themselves from injury or distress. Sometimes they burned to predict great calamities. And sometimes they chose to burn, just for the joy of it. Jillian wondered if the associations with flight and fate were what had made Earl’s thunderbird side such a compatible match with his wife.
And Bael, where did he fit into all of this? It was very frustrating that she couldn’t figure out his shifter form. She’d figured out that Dickon Macey was a garden gnome within five minutes of spotting him at the Food’N’Fuel. (There was a disappointing lack of red pointy hats, but an abundance of back and shoulder hair that resembled moss.) Why couldn’t she figure out Bael’s tells? How did he manage to tamp down all instinctual responses around her? How could he appear to be so utterly human, when he was clearly something more? And why was she too stubborn to inquire around? She couldn’t walk out into town and throw a rock without hitting a Boone. She was going to have to ask Zed some sneakier questions to get better clues.
She sighed, pinching her lips together. Because her intelligence was more than a point of pride for her. It was her defining personality trait. And admitting that she couldn’t puzzle something out was more of a blow than she was willing to admit.
She flopped back in the swing. Sonja was right. Jillian was going to have to either have her friend airlift her some batteries or the world’s biggest Sodoku book. Otherwise, she was going to go crazy.
In the distance, she heard what sounded like thunder, and by the time she saw Zed’s bike, it was too late to run inside for some more appropriate clothes. So, she was going to brazen her way through it with a smile.
She stood up, sliding her papers into their file folders so they didn’t blow away with the breeze. Zed somehow managed to park his bike in the driveway while waving his enormous hand at her.
“Well, hey there, cher!” he called after shutting off the bike. He slid his aviators into his collar and waggled his dark brows. “You didn’t have to get all dressed up on my account.”
Jillian noted that he didn’t wear a helmet. His only concession to safety was to tie his hair back out of his face. He slung his jean-clad leg over the bike and stood, stretching his back. He unclipped some bungee cords holding a file box onto his bike, then he crossed her lawn, hefting the box over his shoulder. His faded black t-shirt rose over some impressive abs, dusted with dark hair.
If she wasn’t absolutely sure that it would turn out to be an emotional disaster of Pompeii proportions, she would take Sonja’s advice and climb that man like a tree. For science.
He draped his heavy frame across her porch swing, thunking his heavy motorcycle boots against the railing. He put the heavy box in her lap. “Hey, there, cher. I brought you those census records you asked for. I mean, we haven’t participated in a federally funded census in more than a century. But we do the League’s version—household, number of people, any magie, that sort of thing. Just for the sake of keeping up with trends.”
“Anyone ever tell you that the polite thing to do is call before you show up to a single lady’s house?” she asked.
“I’ve found that most of the single ladies I know don’t mind,” he said, cocking his head to survey her bare legs.
“Well, this one does.”
“You keep on being cranky with me and I won’t take you to your party,” he told her. “And it’s all the way out at my maman’s place, so we’re gonna have to hurry right quick.”
She winced. “A party?”
“There will be pie.”
She frowned at him. “Do you think you can lure me to a stranger’s house with baked goods?”
“It’s really good pie,” he told her. “And it will be a chance for you to meet a lot of people at a time, something I know you’ve been itching to do.”
She grumbled, “Let me put on pants.”
“The five little words no man wants to hear,” Zed said, pouting a little.
Jillian had expected a few families to be gathered at Clarissa Berend’s house for a simple cookout. Instead, it looked like the entire population of Mystic Bayou had parked their pick-up trucks on the overgrown lawn. The house was more of a stone mound with windows, a sturdy tin roof and a large steel door. It wasn’t exactly welcoming, but it certainly looked like the sort of place Zed would spend his time.
Zed parked his bike along the winding gravel drive and it took a few moments for Jillian to release her fingernails from his back. The man drove like a demon, laughing into the wind and trying to carry on a conversation with Jillian as if she wasn’t screaming herself hoarse into his shoulder blades. Zed didn’t seem to mind. In fact, he seemed pretty amused by the fact that her legs didn’t seem to be getting the message from her brain to unclench from around his waist.
“Your mother’s house is made of stone?” she said, trying to make casual conversation as he stood up from the bike, taking her with him. “That’s not typical of southern Louisiana.”
“My daddy tried to offer her a house made of wood, and she refused him.” He unwound her legs from his middle and lowered her to her feet. Smiling fondly at her, he unbuckled her helmet and hung it from the back of the bike. “Told him she wouldn’t sleep in a crate. She would have a proper den or nothing. Took my daddy two more years, but he built it with his own hands.”
“Well, a girl has to have her standards,” Jillian said, wobbling slightly on her legs. “So how am I going to tell who’s who tonight?”
“What do you mean?”
“Shifters look just like any other humans in most cases. Faes can do am
azing glamours,” she said, sounding slightly frantic. “How am I going to tell human from a magie in such a large crowd?”
Zed frowned at her. “Why is that important?”
“Because I don’t want to offend people! This could be a cross-cultural minefield. If I try to reach out and shake the wrong hand, I could start some sort of inter-species incident, which will not only undermine the League’s authority but hurt a lot of feelings.”
He patted her already mussed hair with his huge hand. “Catin.”
“You better not have just said something bad about me in French. I have Google translate.” She nudged an elbow into his ribs.
“Don’t look it up on Google translate. I don’t want you finding me later and hitting me with those bony little fists. In France, it would be an insult. Here, it just means I think you’re a doll baby.” Zed threw an arm around her shoulders and her knees almost buckled under the force of it. “We magique can sense each other. There’s a sort of ‘hair standing on end’ awareness when you’re in the presence of another shifter or a fae. It doesn’t help you much, though. Just relax. We’re so used to bein’ all mixed up that we don’t hold you to a strict etiquette. Just treat everybody politely and you’ll be fine. Not the icy politeness you use on Bael, but the sweet, funny girl you are around everybody else.”
“Thank you for noticing.”
She could hear the rumble of conversation from the backyard, even as Zed led her around the formless perimeter of the house. A dozen huge picnic tables had been arranged in two columns in grass that had been recently mowed. Lanterns and geraniums hung from cords strung between the cypress trees, giving the yard a festive, fragrant air. And while the yard was crowded, Jillian realized that a good portion of the buzzing she heard wasn’t conversation. It was pouring out of neatly kept beehives Clarissa had arranged along the perimeter of her property.