Page 32 of Faun Over Me

“That must have been frightening,” Avery said. It took every bit of concentration to keep her eyes on Cricket’s face and not let them drop to the slight swell of her breasts hidden by a bandeau bra. Or the nipples lining the front of her torso, the nubs just visible through the thin dusting of fur. Cricket frowned, opened the bottle of saline, and poured it over the cut on Avery’s calf.

“I’m not scared.”

“I didn’t say you were.” Cricket kept silent, intent on cleaning Avery’s wound with the cotton balls. Once done, she glanced around the cabin at a loss. “Under the bed.” Avery wiggled her toes in an attempt at a point. “There’s a Tupperware of towels.”

“Ah.” She grabbed the bin and a towel and gently, carefully patted Avery’s leg dry. Next, she grabbed the hydrogen peroxide, glancing from her work to warn, “This will sting.”

And it did. Avery hissed, gripping the edge of the mattress as white foam bubbled up. Cricket cleaned it away with more saline, patted her leg dry with another towel, and grabbed gauze from the kit, applying it over the wound before wrapping it with a bandage.

Avery watched it all with a sense of awe. The care of the faun, the gentleness of her touch. She bit the corner of her lower lip, wide eyes narrowed in concentration, and when she was done, Cricket set Avery’s leg down, resting the heel on her knee. Again, Avery wiggled her toes. “We match, now.”

“What?” Cricket glanced up, blinking at Avery as if coming out of a daze. “Oh, right. Sorry. I was … lost in thought.”

“About what?”

“The place before.” She cupped Avery’s heel, fingers resting lightly on the outside of her foot. “I don’t even remember it. Not really. It’s more like images? Dawn in the woods, a bonfire, sunlight through the trees, my mom and dad dancing. They say we used to have magic.”

“Magic?”

Cricket nodded, her expression turning wistful. “Healing magic in our music and our hands, but we lost it when we fell through.”

“That’s awful.”

Another shrug. “I suppose. I mean, we kept some of it.” She gestured to her own ankle. “We heal pretty fast, just can’t help other people or inhumans. But, like I said, I don’t really remember. My cousin probably does. They were fifteen when it happened. Used to say they had just begun to feel the magic, and the closest they’ve ever come to feeling it here was when they heard this place for the first time. ‘The music of the wood.’”

She shrugged it off as if it were nothing, but Avery could hear it in her voice—the loss of something she’d never known and never would. How did you account for that? How did you live day to day with the injustice of knowing something so wonderful, like actual, honest-to-goodness magic, was taken from you and not sink into the righteous anger that must be frothing just beneath the surface?

So much of Cricket made sense now. The snappish tone, how quick she was to anger, to push people away and assume the worst. And why wouldn’t she? She’d had something wonderful stolen from her through no fault of her own, and she had no way of getting it back.

“I never said you were scared,” Avery whispered, unable to give strength to the words as she repeated them. “I said that it must have been frightening. I’ve lived in the same place my whole life. I commuted to college from home. This is the first time I’ve ever lived apart from my family, and it’s terrifying.”

Cricket’s fingers tightened around her heel, the wide gaze slowly rising to meet her eyes. The warm glow of a table lamp reflected in those eyes like a candle flickering in the dark, and Avery couldn’t escape the feeling that if she just leaned closer, she would fall right into those deep, dark pools.

“And I’m an adult or something. I can’t imagine how hard it was to be ripped from your home and dropped into a strange place as a kid.”

“It was,” Cricket murmured, blinking in surprise as if she hadn’t expected to speak. Her tongue darted out, moistening her lower lip, and she dropped her hand away. The walls came up in an instant, faster than Avery could process. “Why do you care?”

“We’re sharing this earth,” she tried to explain, but how could she? Her fascination with inhumans was over a decade old. Her desire to be among them, befriend them, know them, almost as old as the time they had spent on this earth. Now, she had this chance, this one glorious summer, and no matter what she tried, it was always the wrong choice, the wrong words, the wrong action. “I just want to be a good neighbor.”

“Well.” Cricket hoisted herself to her feet, standing with her injured hoof hitched. “When I need a cup of sugar, I know where to go.”

“Crick—”

“Good night, Avery.”

“Cricket, please.”

“I said good ni—” A howl shattered the night, tearing through the trees and bouncing off the hills. Cricket’s ears shot straight, her head twitching in the direction of the sound, and she froze. Not a flinch, not a shiver, not a blink. The next howl came from further away. Still, it had Avery crossing the cabin, grabbing the faun’s arm, and drawing circles on her bicep with her thumb.

“It’s alright.” She tugged gently, frowning when Cricket didn’t budge, her taut figure giving new meaning to the term statue still. “Cricket, come away from the door. It’s alright. We’re inside, see?” She reached across the faun and turned the lock. “Locked in, the windows are latched. Nothing can get in.” Cupping her elbow, Avery again tried to guide her to the bed. “Please, stay. I don’t want you out there while that thing is anywhere near the camp.”

Finally, she cupped the faun’s cheek. “Please?”

Cricket’s wide-eyed stare twitched down to Avery’s face. She blinked, her shoulders relaxing, and then nodded. “Alright.”

15

Cricket

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