I’d try to research judges’ rulings, because I know some Actaeons have been caught before, but there are no “Actaeon vs. The Rookery” cases to be found. Standard law enforcement doesn’t even know about our existence and never deals with the crimes committed against us. 

Maybe there’s a special court, lawyers that center around our cases, and prisons for our felons, but all Judith ever tells me is that “The constitution wasn’t written for phants, so it can’t be expected to apply.” 

And all I know for sure is the snake will be the perfect excuse for Judith to come do an impromptu, unannounced review of the George’s premises and my living conditions tomorrow, and I’ll probably be back in my cage…I mean…room in the Rookery, by this weekend.

Whatever. Why even bother getting angry at this point? It’s not like I’ve ever had any choice in the matter.

Maybe she’ll at least be able to make sense of why I’d be smelling bath salts and bleach. How on earth that snake got in here.

And why the George’s have Fangsbane.

This place isn’t normal, that’s all I know. And I want normal. I don’t trust anything that can’t be explained away by the societal norms and cliches ‘normal’ people have built their lives around and this house is a little too quirky for c…

“...and try to avoid her triggers. A few of those have a tendency to lead her to lapses of psychoneurosis.”

I ignore the word, as much as I hate it, and simply blurt.

“I saw a blind man with his Doberman earlier, and my heart rate has been kind of unsteady since then. You know how I am about dogs.”

It registers.

Pause.

“Well, yeah. That can do it. Stay safe, okay, Mora? You know I worry about you.”

I know. I know.

“Listen, Mr. and Mrs. George, I have to go now - another child’s harbor givers are waiting on the other line, but I’ll make sure to check in as soon as I can and see how Mora’s doing, alright?”

Murmurs of kind hearted acknowledgement, ‘yes’s and ‘have a good evening’s.

Judith doesn’t HAVE another patient.

She laughs airily.

“It’s pretty late anyway, and I know you guys usually have dinner about now, so I’ll let you go. Bye for now. Bye Mora. Talk to you soon. And relax, okay? Pick some irises with Mrs. George.”

And like that the phone clicks. 

But I caught her hint.

It just doesn’t make sense. 

***

Mr. and Mrs. George didn’t join us for dinner tonight. I heard them eating in the dining room long after I’d already gone to bed, but they spent most of the evening outside with flashlights, searching for snakes and spreading Fangsbane essential oil around the base of the house like some sort of magical ritual. Christopher George and I ate ‘together’ in silence. 

I feel like I’ve had all the marrow scraped from my bones and replaced with dry ice.

How much do Mr. and Mrs. George already know about me? What does Christopher know?

Honestly, he’s even more unsettling than they are, tonight.

Glancing at me fleetingly out of the corner of his eye every few minutes during the meal like I’d made some kind of sudden motion that caught him off guard though I was practically a statue, staring at my plate and toying with my food.

Why is he so jittery?

Always looking around at everything but never really seeming to focus on anything for more than a second at a time, besides his dinner, or whatever he’s drawing or playing on his console.

His eyes graze across me like blue electricity, and my hair stands on end every time.

My heart stops beating.

What are you looking at? 

But that would sound menacing, so I didn’t say anything at all and he certainly wasn't interested in conversation, the nutso. 

I’ve barely even heard his voice in the 6 weeks I’ve been here, and when he does talk, it’s never to me unless he has to knock on a door or excuse himself as he tries to get past me on the stairs.

Therese and Verner are both so sweet-

Or they seem sweet anyway…

…How could they raise such a freaky kid?

But, I guess if they really are Actaeons, it might be my saving grace that their son is so bad at hiding it.

Being alone in the same room with him gives me the creeps. 

All my warning signals are set to 100, and I can’t wait to get to my room and lock the door fast behind me as he fidgets, eyes scrolling over the room again and again.

What on earth are you looking for?

Don’t tell me.

I think he tried to get a look at my face as we left the kitchen and turned out the light.

Is he trying to get a glimpse of my cracks, to identify me?

The second I turned my head, he looked away again, his unreasonably blue eyes going back to scanning the walls, the stairs, and the floor in jumpy, skittish motions, with his head tilted just slightly to one side like a bird of prey, searching for a target.

***

“Operator 5. We’ve found one of the eggs. Can you please make ready for her?”

“Roger that, Wizard. What class is this egg?”

“Ummm” the woman in the purple suit squinted at me pensively from behind her glasses. “Roe.”

“Gotcha, we’ll prepare a tub for her.”

***

“...Actually left the bleach in my hair for more than an hour and by the time she got back to me the ends had literally melted. She tried to tell me it would be ‘fine’ once I’d washed and conditioned it, but I don’t know what she considers ‘fine.’ My hair has been breaking off almost nonstop all day. I look like a shedding cat!”

Judith didn’t call again last night. 

Is that my heart beating so loudly or all the footsteps bouncing around the hall? Echoing off the walls in a rush to beat the bell.

I dodge another student who slides by me with a mossy of giggling friends, all wearing yellow bumblebee sweatshirts and strawberry ice cream-pink hair. 

They smell to high heaven of cheap hair dye and floral body wash and my attention is both dragged back to Mandy’s bleach fiasco and divided in two.

“Oof. That sucks,” I remember to say, but opening my mouth just makes the scents more pungent.

I want to sound- to be invested - 

But there’s an anxiousness wriggling its way through my bones that’s starting to make me feel fidgety, like a squirming toddler, as Mandy and I make our way across the wide hallway-landing combo eerily lit by the bluish sunshine squeezing itself into the room through the floor to ceiling windows to lick every layer of the school building.

I scan the halls for Bird Brain every chance I get, but I don’t see him.

Did the Georges want to harbor a kid old enough to attend school with their son so he could keep tabs on me?

I tap my pocket nervously and am greeted by a ‘clack’ that eases my anxiety, albeit ever so slightly, and I let myself attend to the world around me again.

Mandy is rubbing a longish strand of green hair between her calloused fingertips with a martyr-like sigh, but when more strands snap off and fall to the floor like so many pine needles, she gives up caring and simply rolls her eyes.  

When was the last time I was around evergreens? One of my previous harbor families grew some in their yards but…

I miss the forest.

My stomach churns.

Mandy tucks her unbroken hair delicately back into the elaborate bobby-pin hairstyle she concocted to mask the uneven length of her tresses, and I try to think of something to say-

Words pour out of my mouth in a ‘casual’ stream, but I won’t remember them in five minutes.

My fingers rub together fretfully, itching to check my messages again, just to see if I missed something.

Think about something else.

I’m never supposed to pull out my ‘special’ phone in public, but today I keep it in my front pocket, tapping it anxiously every few minutes like a nervous tick, just to make sure there isn’t an invisible, gaping hole in my pocket that I somehow didn’t notice that the phone might have fallen through since the last time I checked.

It’s still there. Calm down. If Judith wanted or needed to call me she would have.

But why didn’t she?

Did she talk to her team? Is she double-checking the Georges’ files?

For the life of me, I’ve never seen a file for a single one of my harbor givers, but I’m sure the Rookery must have them.

“So now I’m trying to figure out what to do,” Mandy shakes her head before grinning over at me. “What do you think? Maybe a full pixie cut?”

“Is green hair not enough of a change of pace for you?” I smile a little roguishly. “Who knows what other mistakes the salon might make if you tried to chop off more length than you’ve already lost.”

Subconsciously, I’ve started veering toward the window - just to get close enough to peek out - and Mandy veers along with me, without seeming to notice our little sideways motions every fourth step.

Am I subtle or is she just distractible?

“The green hair was intentional,” she’s laughing, “But you’re right. It could be a mess, and I’m not sure I want to risk having to wear a pixie cut at the Wildflower Fest if I don’t like it. Though maybe I could go dressed like a flower fairy or something if all else fails.”

Ugh.

I resist the urge to groan or roll my eyes.

‘Flower fairy?’

“What’s the Wildflower Fest…?” I pretend to care.

The last thing I want is to have anything to do with anyone’s idea of a ‘fairy costume.’ I have my fill of horrible phant ‘inspired’ costumes during Halloween.

If I see one more mermaid bikini I’m gonna barf.

I add a little bouncing bob to my gait so I can stand more or less on tiptoe, but I still can’t see anything out the window, and I probably shouldn’t risk getting any closer.

Mandy is sweet enough in her own way, but I don’t need her asking what I’m looking for. She talks too much and asks way too many questions already.

“...forgot they didn’t do Wildflower Fests in your slice of the state. They’re a pretty big deal for us rural bumpkins around here.”

I look at her sideways.

She’s really just been rambling on this whole time though I’m not even responding.

Well, more power to her, I guess. It makes my life easier.

I double-tap my pocket again.

“Honestly, it’s probably the only big thing, this is such a hole-in-the-ground part of Montana,” Mandy laughs, glancing toward the window.

I look away quickly.

What am I holding my breath for, really? What am I expecting to find or see?

Some sign that Judith is actually acting on the panic warning I sent her yesterday?

It wouldn’t be obvious if she did, right? So all I can do is hope and try not to exacerbate any problems.

I start to reach toward my pocket again, but Mandy laughs, taking both my hands in hers, and walking backward down the hall, forcing me to HAVE to pay attention.

To keep her from falling down the stairs onto the next landing-hallway combo. Sly green kitty.

“Ber-ry, what on earth are you thinking about?” She’s pouting like a 7-year-old. “You’re acting all finicky-fidgety, and you’re not even paying attention to me.”

I smile as she stamps her feet in a playfully lackluster temper tantrum, but at the same time, I feel a twisting uneasiness in my chest that stretches all the way down to my stomach.

I’m really really sick.

My insides practically boil with venomous black.

“Sorry…,” I lie meekly, and the tears come to my eyes easily. “I was just remembering the flowers that used to grow wild where me and my grandmother lived. We had lots of maiden pinks in the spring and irises in the wintertime...”

“We have maiden pink too,” Mandy frowns, putting her arm around my shoulder sympathetically, “But irises never bloom in the winter. Almost nothing does other than Hellebore and Camellia”

Ope.

Crap.

This is what I get for not learning more about horticulture.

Quite a lot of things about Iris Wood were less than natural. Maybe all of them-

But every dunce knows that things die in the winter everywhere other than our forest.

“They probably weren’t irises,” I wave my hand delicately, trying to look casual. “My grandmother used the wrong words for everything, so I never know the right ones. She always called peaches ‘wooly plums.’”

That wrings a laugh out of Mandy and she lets go of my hands so she can put me in a headlock.

“Yikes. No wonder you do so poorly in science. But honestly, a hairy plum sounds so cursed.”

“Yeah yeah. You try learning a second language,” I roll my eyes as I shrug out from her firm grasp a little too seamlessly and she raises her eyebrows at me, a mixture of surprised and impressed, before thundering down the ancient teak wood stairs to catch up to me.

“What’s got you in such a hurry, today?” 

She doesn’t sound accusing, just curious, but my skin bristles anyway, and I force myself to slow my pace as she slouches her shoulders to speak more or less at my level as the crowd of students in a hurry to be just slightly late to class becomes denser.

“Too much energy,” I lie. “I can’t wait until track this afternoon.”

“Oh, same-” she starts to say, but we both stop short suddenly before she can finish her statement. 

On Mandy’s part, it’s because of her impromptu quick side-step to avoid running into the greasy Jheri-curled hair of a girl about 5 feet tall. 

On my part, it’s because of the overwhelming smell of phant.

…Not just any phant. 

Siren.