“I don’t know what that is.”
“Want to taste it?”
“Taste,” the raven said. It hopped down from Loray’s shoulder and onto the back seat of the automobile.
“Are you asking me to tag along?” she told him.
“Well, you’re in my automobile.”
“Is it your automobile if you stole it?”
“Right of possession, girlie,” he said cheerily.
Casiopea ran a hand down the dashboard, considering the situation. She did need a ride, and she wasn’t too inclined to remain in Tijuana, even though she had not planned her next stop. Going home was out of the question. She wanted to remain in motion.
“Why would you take me with you?” she asked.
“For a lark. Also, I can’t read a map to save my life. Can you read maps?”
“Of course,” she said. She had spent enough time contemplating Grandfather’s atlas and tracing routes with her fingertips.
“Good. I have no sense of direction.”
“You called me a soiled parcel,” she reminded him.
“Lady Tun, I tried to make it up to you by getting you nice dresses. By the way, very fetching skirt. I appreciate someone with a sense of color.”
Casiopea wasn’t ready to concede. She let out ahmpfand gingerly placed her hands on her lap.
“So…want to go to New Orleans or Quebec?”
“I don’t know if I want to make up my mind now,” Casiopea said.
“Take it from me. Now is always the answer. Besides, do you have anything better to do? Mope around for a decade or two?”
Casiopea drummed her fingers against her skirt and chewed her lip. The dramatic poetry she’d read would have called for this and more. There was sadness in her, of course, but she didn’t wish to crack like fine china either. She could not wither away. In the world of the living, one must live. And had this not been her wish? To live. Truly live.
Loray took out a silver flask from his jacket and pressed it against his lips. He offered her a swig, and she declined.
“Should you do that? Drive with one hand?” she asked, alarmed.
“I’m a demon, remember? Don’t worry,” he replied, tipping his head back.
“I know you’re a demon. That’s why I’m worried.”
“Oh, small potatoes. I won’t steal your soul, promise.”
Casiopea slumped back against the car seat, watching his hands upon the wheel, the feet on the pedals. She’d wanted to drive an automobile; she had confessed this truth to Hun-Kamé. Here was an automobile, at last.
“Would you teach me?” she asked.
“What? To steal souls?” he said, raising an eyebrow at her.
“To drive!”
“What if you crash the car?”
“It looks like a straight line,” she said, scoffing and pointing at the dusty path they were traveling. There didn’t seem to be any art to moving the vehicle down the road. He certainly handled it in a casual way.
