Page 41 of Faun Over Me

“This had better be good,” Ramble grumbled, angrier than Cricket had ever seen them. Their mouth was a tight line, eyes narrowed, and ears pressed flat against their head.

“It is,” Mac assured. “I promise.” And then she made them wait, refilling coffees, making Ramble a new cup of tea, and setting out a basket of breakfast bars and packaged muffins. Cricket and Ramble both reached for a granola bar, their eyes meeting. She sent a question across the table with a look, silently begging her cousin to relent. To be nice.

Ramble’s expression remained hard, and one ear flicked in annoyance.

Avery remained still while they waited for Mac to explain, hunched in her chair with her arms crossed and gaze vacant, completely disassociated from the conversation and the persons in the room. Seeing this shut-down version of Avery, when she had been so alive just hours before, made Cricket uneasy. She set her palm against the flat of her back, wanting to comfort the human, and Avery straightened, leaning out of her reach.

“Like I said,” Mac finally started, “my dad owed a favor to a colleague and asked me to look at your application.”

“Why your dad?” asked Cricket.

“He’s a congressman,” she answered. “Congressman Murray, 3rd District, Ohio. I guess he owed Payne a favor from years back.”

“I can’t believe this.” Avery bent forward, her forehead thunking against the table.

Cricket thought back over their conversation surrounding the camp, recalling that Avery took this job to be a better version of herself. Her fears that she was failing, that she wouldn’t be able to break free from years of biased nurturing. She recalled that ill-fated guitar lesson she’d stumbled upon and the guilt that had so clearly ravaged Avery at her behavior and paired it with every exchange, both sweet and sour, where the human girl asked questions, learned, and adapted—never making the same small-minded mistake twice in a row.

“But not to hire her?” she blurted.

“Come again?” Mac asked.

“He asked you to interview Avery but not to hire her?”

“That’s what I said,” the camp director squinted, tilting her head in question.

“Then why did you?” asked Ramble.

“Because she was the best for the job.”

“Liar.” Ramble shoved back in their chair and crossed their arms.

“I’m not lying!” Mac put her hands up. “Avery is a poly-instrumentalist. She marched at Messiah for three years and served as drum major for the fourth. Her resume is stellar.”

“And?” Ramble prompted.

“And?”

“Mac,” they sighed, shaking their head. “Babes, I have known you for a decade. You cannot lie to me. Why did you really hire her?”

Mac stared at her wife. A long, hard stare that was more a conversation than a look. When Ramble did not relent, Mac sighed and dropped heavily into her chair.

“I thought … I thought that maybe if I could change Nathan Payne’s daughter’s mind about inhumans, we could get to him.”

“WHAT?” Avery shrieked.

“And his clients,” Mac added as a mumble.

“Mackenzie!” Ramble hollered. “You are using her to prove a point?”

“Yes, alright?” Mac again threw her hands. “I need to raise funds for the camp. I need investors if we’re going to expand, and I miss my family, Ramble. I hate that only my parents and a cousin came to our wedding. I hate that we can’t go visit Columbus without people hissing slurs at us.” Cricket’s jaw fell open, her heart sinking low in her chest. She’d had no idea her cousin and their wife faced such prejudices in the world, had no idea Mac came from a family that might disapprove of their union. “I hate that they hate you.”

“Oh, Mac.” Ramble jolted from their chair and gathered Mac in their arms, murmuring quiet words even Cricket’s ears could not catch. A heavy, weighted silence followed her admission, a silence full of meaning. Cricket had never once considered that her cousin’s wife struggled with being married to an inhuman or that her family was as bigoted as the city humans tended to be.

She’d met Mac and gotten to know her at Spring and Harvest festivals over the years. Had stood behind Ramble at their wedding, but she’d forgotten how empty Mac’s side of the bower was.

All the faun were in attendance. A naga family and their children, a few wolven, gnomes, and moon-eyed. Former students, friends, and colleagues who had celebrated Mac and Ramble so joyously that the lack of humans in attendance was hardly felt. But now … now it was all Cricket could see.

She glanced at Avery, glaring at the table, and grabbed her hand, refusing to let the girl pull away.

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