“Oh yes, we were raised on fairytales…together in a nursery despite our different mothers. Those were the good times—hatchlings of different ages playing, a mother to teach us her human ways, and books to help us escape when the experiments were too hard…”
“I’m so sorry for what Leopold and Mr. Breyers did to you. I can only imagine what it was like growing up inside that room—”
“The nursery was wonderful,” she snaps. “I can’tcompare the nursery to your life in the big world, or I will wither away like autumn leaves. Phin used to say that. The big world that we found in books isn’t for us. The swamp is for us. Mr. Breyers made the mistake of trying to drown you in our swamp. His death was always on our minds. He beat us, but never in our swamp.”
“I didn’t know, or I would have asked him to stop,” I reply. “Please know I didn’t help Leopold or Mr. Breyers with your mistreatment—”
“Our cage brothers and sisters told us of your kindness and its limits. Whether or not we agree with Phin’s decision to claim you, we agree you aren’t evil like them. You didn’t deserve to die at the hands of Mr. Breyers.”
“Nobody does,” I whisper.
“Well, that can’t happen anymore, can it? We must face the ones who come next. You’re hurt. You can’t stand on that leg.”
“I twisted my knee climbing out of my window at the big house. When I kicked Mr. Breyers, I must have aggravated it—made it worse. Once I rest it, I’ll be okay.”
“I’ll splint it with reeds once I find the right stick. We patch each other’s wounds in the swamp because we are family.”
Her words bring my hand to my belly. She stares with wide eyes of interest, irises eaten byher pupils, at my protruding sack of eggs. I nod to affirm her suspicions. “They’re Phin’s eggs.”
“Phin’s last story, before he disappeared, was of a raft life with his starlight. We thought it was another one of his fairytales, but he must have been planning a future with you.”
“Yes,” I whisper before sobs cut off my words again. Her inquisitive eyes—so strikingly human—watch me recover my wits. “We want to build a raft life for our hatchlings. It is our dream.”
“You don’t believe your dream will come true. Dreams are nonsense, written in books for those who look like you. We’ve learned our place isn’t one where dreams come true, so why have them? Only Phin dared to write his own story…and look where it got him.”
“Maybe he hasn’t arrived at his dream yet,” I say as my plan pieces itself together like a wooden puzzle. “Maybe there’s still time. Will you help me?”
Chapter 10
John the Blue Lizard Man disappears into the swamp to build an escape raft with some of the silent siblings. With Ruth’s help, I met the twins—Raymond and Roy. Their golden wings shed feathers with each flap, so how did I miss them in my wanderings? The siblings must be experts at hiding in the swamp or driven to become experts to avoid Mr. Breyers’s whips and paddles. Their stories of abuse break my heart, and tears flow freely down my cheeks when I thought I had none left to shed.
Thomas is the merman whose leg muscles have more girth than my waist thanks to carrying his heavy tail behind him. Ruth’s glide and Thomas’s tail leave identical tracks through the mud. I had assumed those markings were trenches from the constant ebb and flow of the tributaries adjacent to our land,but it was the siblings’ movements all along. How often did they watch me in the garden, traipsing through the swamp, or skinny dipping with Phin?
It’s eerie to be surrounded by Leopold’s eyes without the piercing, analytical stare. Thomas, the twins, Ruth, and even the siblings who can’t speak but hover around me with curiosity all share those almond-shaped brown eyes. How different they look without evil lurking behind them! Did Leopold’s face hold the same warmth and simplicity as theirs when he was a child? Or was he always cruel? These hybrids might know, but digging through their memories would harm them more than satisfy my curiosity. They struggle enough with their odd additions and appendages. I don’t need to add to their misery.
“We can take you to the stables,” Thomas begins but trails off when I turn his way. He acts like many wives whose husbands punish them for talking out of turn. My heart breaks for him. Whatever events silenced him, I hope they ended with the death of Mr. Breyers.
“Leopold will want the horses as soon as the post office opens. He’s waiting for a telegram from more scientists like him. He will bring them here to see me, and I fear they will want to take Phin’s eggs from me.”
“Where is Phin? It isn’t like him to leave you in the hands of Mr. Breyers,” says Raymond. Now thatthe sun has melted some of the mist, his blond highlights set him apart from Roy. Otherwise, his nervous, lip-chewing habit would be all I had to go on.
“I climbed out my window in the big house alone. I stupidly went to Mr. Breyers for help against Leopold.” Shame drips from my words for not knowing the personality of my own servant. “He never showed his violent tendencies around me, but men like to hide their real nature from ladies.”
I wince once the words leave my lips. Isn’t Ruth a lady? Yet the knowledge of Mr. Breyers’s savage beatings quivers her lips when I say his name. Aren’t Thomas and the twins gentlemen? They came to my rescue. Thank God I didn’t sayhumanmen orhumanwomen, implying these creatures aren’t more humane than the demons who run the estate, hidden under a veneer of civility.
“Speak frankly with us, please,” Ruth begs. “No need to dilute your words with swamp water. We know what we are and how we were created. It was never a secret that we are less.”
“But you aren’t,” I blurt out, grabbing her human-like hands and squeezing them. “Your beginnings weren’t your choice, nor are they a blemish on who you can become—”
“You sound like our mother. No wonderPhin desired you to carry his eggs,” Thomas whispers. The others nod in agreement.
“My hatchlings need their father, too,” I reply before unfurling my legs to stand. “I don’t want to leave without Phin. We will create our raft life, and you can come with us—”
“Come with you?” Thomas’s eyes round, and his jaw drops in terror. “We can’t leave the swamp! Where will we go? Who will take care of us?”
“Phin always leads us,” Ruth snaps.
She plants her four fists on the ridge of her snake tail at hip height in a surprisingly human pose. While they mention a mother raising them, I’m still amazed by the adaptation of their bodies to human mannerisms and body language. I’m surrounded by evidence of nurture overriding biology in direct contradiction to Leopold’s research. In creating sentient creatures with human mothers, he disproved his hypothesis. A scientist can’t create a new hybrid animal and observe a new set of behaviors. They didn’t evolve in a single generation like he said they would. They are still people…and, therefore, deserve to be treated as such.
