Page 33 of The Deer and the Dragon
“It’s not going anywhere. Come and go…if you want.”
I got to my feet uncertainly and looked at her patient hand, as still as a marble statue. I had seen hundreds of deer in my lifetime, even those yearlings with the red and white spots that I spied across her now. They’d frozen with the same unnatural stillness available only to something that had survived a lifetime of being hunted. Yet she had not treated the angel as if she were a creature of prey.
I looked beyond her into the pockets of shadow within the apartment, wishing Caliban would step out. But he wouldn’t be saving me from this decision. I was on my own.
“What will it be like?” I whispered.
She looked up into her memories, eyes wide and doe-like as she searched for an appropriate response. “Have you ever woken up from a dream and struggled to remember what was real? Sometimes it takes you a few moments to gather your bearings, to collect yourself, to come back into the present?”
I nodded.
“That moment upon waking, but forever.”
“That sounds awful.”
Fauna tsked. “And I assume you knew there would be drawbacks. Why else would you have spent nearly three decades of this life saying no? Though I guess, given your apartment and your success, your human life must be pretty satisfying. Live deliciously and all that.” Her hand fell to her side.
“No,” I replied. “It’s not.”
Her sparkle returned. She winked. “Most humans spend their lives asleep to reality. What do you say, Marlow? Are you ready to wake up?”
Chapter Twelve
I needed a moment to gather my thoughts, and it came in the form of a scalding shower. It had been surprisingly easy to convince Fauna to wait.
I’d told her that I needed to scrub myself clean after all I’d been through, and she agreed that I reeked of pus and trauma and that I could use a good soaping. I’d practically collapsed with exhaustion the moment the boiling-hot water hit me. It burned my skin, which I welcomed. Each scalding droplet reminded me that this was real.Iwas real. I was alive. I sank to the shower floor, struggling to shampoo my own hair. A distant, painful memory of Caliban holding me in the shower years ago while I’d cried tugged at my heart.
You’re not happy.
I missed him so intensely whenever I ran the hot water—each droplet like a rain of memories, drowning me in him. He’d never tried to get me to change. He hadn’t scolded me or told me to clean up my act or been disappointed when I came home wasted or with a stranger on my arm. He’d only cared whether my choices were bringing me joy or stealing it from me. And he knew that half of what I did was a bandage to patch the bleeding wound of the one thing I’d believed at my core to be true: none of it existed. An imaginary friend can’t take corporal form. I needed to drink, get laid, date,medicate, fly across the globe, to run as fast and far as I could to get away from him, and none of it had worked.
Nothing, except telling him not to come back.
I squeezed my eyes closed, forcing the images from my mind.
When I finally opened the shower curtain, I gasped at Fauna leaning against the sink, eyeing a piece of paper. I could scarcely make out her shape through the dense steam that filled the room. I scrambled for a towel, but she didn’t bother to look at me.
“This was in your pocket?” she asked, flashing the hastily scrawled sigil with fold creases down the middle. My crumpled pants, shirt, and underwear remained balled on the floor. I couldn’t imagine what had possessed her to let herself into the bathroom and dig through my pockets, but then again, I was the crazy one.
I yanked the towel from the hook and tucked it against my still-dripping body. Hair drenched against my neck and shoulders as I gaped at her. “Don’t you know about privacy?”
“No,” she said dismissively, then waved the paper again. “You had this in your pocket when you were out of the house, and you saw both Silas and the parasite?”
Water plastered my hair to my forehead, dribbling into my open mouth as I stared at her.
“Fascinating,” she whispered. She brought the sigil close to her face, turning it over as she examined it from different angles. “I can’t believe that worked. But then again, if anyone could make something so powerful, it would be the Prince. Come on, sweetie. I have questions. And I’m hungry.”
I’d barely stepped onto the bath mat, soaked hair dripping loudly onto the floor as she flung open the bathroom door. The cold shock of the hall beyond hit me as the steam rushed from the room. She left it open as she stalked to the kitchen with purpose.
“It’s after midnight,” I called after her.
She gave me the time I needed to towel off my hairand change into an old T-shirt and sweatpants. At her very specific request, I ordered a number of doughnuts, pastries, and deep-fried sweets from a twenty-four-hour dessert shop. She wasted time with cartoons, not questioning the way I gaped at her like she was a dog walking on its hind legs who’d learned to talk. It took forty-five minutes of colorful children’s shows before the food arrived. I turned off the TV the moment the delivery man showed up at our doorstep. She was elbow-deep in sweets before she was ready to hold a conversation.
“So, let’s talk about your true sight,” Fauna said, mouth smacking through bites of sticky pastry.
I wondered how she managed to make tearing into a glazed doughnut look dainty.
“True sight?”
