“Why else would you take a demon into your body?” His voice strains to release the words as he trudges through the deepening muck.
“Demon? Leopold is the demon, and our marriage was never consummated.” I squirm to see if he will let me down without my asking, to no avail.
“Always like a woman,” he sneers through grunts. “You open your legs in exchange for security, and once your husband bores you, you claim the marriage wasn’t consummated. I know all the tricks of a woman.”
“Let me down! It’s not a trick,” I say as I twistharder in hopes of elbowing him in the face. He’s much stronger than he looks. Fueled by his fury, his spindly arms overpower me easily. “Have you seen Leopold? He’s too old for martial relations. He’s incapable of love outside of his work—”
“So, you decided to become his work? Manipulate him into loving you when your black magic failed? Did you pray before you sacrificed your body and soul to the devil’s work? Well, you will pray now—all the witches pray when they see death’s approach. Who will you pray to?”
“No! No! No!” He’s a madman. Why didn’t I see his madness before? Is this why I instinctively kept him at arm’s length despite my hunger for companionship? While he’s too homely for romantic stirrings, I never put much effort into growing a friendship, either. Did my intuition keep me safe? I kick my legs, but they glide between his knobby knees. If only one kick would connect! “What will you do to me?”
What will he do to my eggs?
“Nothing more than you deserve,” he says as he throws me into the shallow end of the swamp.
Freezing water attacks like needles while stones batter my muscles. First my rump, then my head bounces off the bottom. Pain from the back of my skull pierces between my eyes. It’s like mybrain seeks a place to hide from injury. I scrape my nails on anything that passes my hands to anchor myself, but the slippery frons glide through my fingers. My boots press into the mud but sink into the bottomless murk. I thrash with the desperate need to raise my face above the water’s surface.
“Scream, yes, scream, Little Jezebel,” he yells in my face as his left hand bats my arms away from him. His right-hand fingers wrap around my throat. They burn against the frigid water. I claw him as he presses his thumb gently against my windpipe. “Your open-mouthed screams swallow water. You will die faster than I can strangle you. Drown, and you can escape the pain of my righteous justice. You’ll receive your final judgment at St. Peter’s lectern and your punishment in hell!”
Despite his religious tirade, he strangles my ability to scream with his diabolical thumbs. My legs kick as high as I can lift them, knees bending to pummel his back. I fight the lack of air, the dizziness from my head injury, and the sweet surrender to the abyss. I can’t stop clawing my way to fresh air. My babies need a mother. What will happen to them if I die?
Cold water rushes into my mouth and up my nose, hosting a deluge of confusion.
I’m just so sleepy. Is this death or another dose of Leopold’s drugs? Where am I?
I snort to blow the water from my nose, butmore rushes in…
Why am I so cold? Did my fire go out? Where is my duvet?
My arms stop spinning. I stop kicking my feet to conserve energy. My limbs drop like leaden, limp noodles. I can’t sleep for some reason, but my fuzzy thoughts can’t remember why. What is that insistent pushing on my throat? A man’s silhouette blocks the beautiful hues of the rising sun. Who is he? Why does he frown at me? I can’t lift my hand to slap him away…
But another blur takes him from my sight.
A large orange blob appears on the water’s surface. Are they underwater, or am I? Why would they wear such a loud color while outdoors? Scaly claws grab my arms and haul me from the water with a roar in my ears. I’m lifted nose-to-nose by a lizard-like creature with Leopold’s brown eyes but with long feminine eyelashes. No, she doesn’t have a nose—just two nostrils that close between exhales.
“Breathe,” she growls. She speaks through jagged fangs and puffy lizard lips. “Collect air before you try words. Mr. Breyers held you under longer than he holds us. He wanted you gone, but you aren’t his. You are Phin’s starlight.”
“Phin,” I moan as the memories threaten to drown me again. Phin. Phin’seggs. Escape. Drowning. “I must save Phin. I went to Mr. Breyers to save Phin.”
“Mistake,” replies the lizard lady. She holds me with four arms—two lizard claws and two human ones with brown fingers. With infinite tenderness, she lays me on the bank. Her snake body slithers from the water. I’m rolled to the side for her to prod my head. “Cut, not flattened.”
There’s one miracle.
I risk fainting to climb onto my elbows. Peering around my snake companion, I catch a glimpse of Mr. Breyer’s fate. A blue lizard man—twin to the female who tends to me—holds Mr. Breyer’s flailing arms. Is that a merman? Yes! A man’s torso slaps Mr. Breyers with the large, flat tail of a ten-foot grouper. He must be a merman. Two men’s upper halves with yellow birds’ wings—wider than our house—use their four thick bear legs to anchor Mr. Breyer’s legs.
My lizard caretaker presses my face to her ample bosom as Mr. Breyer’s cries fade into the night. Crickets chirp as the creatures remove his body with a chorus of splashing. A whoosh, and the two bird men fly over our heads empty-handed. I guess the blue lizard man and the merman will dispose of his final remains.
“What’s your name?”
“Ruth,” my orange lizard companion says shyly. Her lashes lower in the demure fashion of a lady even though I bet she’s never stepped foot into atea parlor. “Nobody has ever asked my name before.”
“I’m Harriett, and nobody asks my name either. Any friend of Phin’s is a friend of mine, so would you mind introducing me to his siblings?”
“Siblings? I don’t know this word,” Ruth replies with a slow shake of her head. The crests on top remind me of a lady’s updo with coils instead of curls piled on top of her head—except Ruth’s coils move with her expressions.
“It’s a name for the ones who share a parent with you. Your eyes are the same shape and shade of brown as Leopold’s, so I assumed he was your…Papa. That’s what Phin calls him, so another assumption is that you two are siblings. Like Hansel and Gretel…if you read their fairytale.”
I bite my lip. It’s a gamble to assume Ruth read or listened to the books I found in the nursery.
