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She takes a deep breath and then she looks right at me.
“Have you ever killed someone before?”
“Yes.”
“I thought so.”
“Does that bother you?”
She hesitates for a minute, but then she simply shakes her head. Peggy starts cleaning up the supplies and putting things back where she found them.
“You don’t have to do that,” I tell her. “He’s not coming back.”
“It just seems polite,” she shrugs. “A place for everything, and everything in its place. Right?”
“My mother used to say that.”
“Mine too.”
She looks at me for a long minute, and then Peggy continues moving around. She acts like she’s completely at home in this random cabin, like she doesn’t mind at all that there’s a shifter body lying just outside the walls.
Finally, she turns to me.
“It’s late.”
“Or early, depending on how you want to look at it.”
“Do you fly in the daylight?” She asks pointedly.
“Never.”
“Then we should sleep here,” she says looking around. “Until night falls again.”
Slowly, I push my chair away from the table and stand. I move to the window and pull back the curtains. Sure enough, the sun is coming up. I hadn’t even noticed the night had turned into morning, but Peggy had.
I turn back around and see her digging around in the cupboards.
“What are you looking for?”
“This.” She holds up a wad of towels and then she lays Daisy on the bed in the little cabin. She starts to undress my niece.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m out of diapers,” she says simply, as if that explains the whole thing. I watch as she carefully constructs a makeshift cloth diaper from the fabric and then she gives Daisy a bottle. She settles my niece in the bed, and then she turns back to me. For a minute, I think she’s going to say something to me. Anything.
For a minute, I crave her words.
I want her to look at me and think I’m worth talking to.
I want Peggy to think I’m important, valuable.
We’ve never cared about a woman’s opinion before, my dragon whispers, and I know that he’s right. Peggy’s different, though. She’s not like anyone I’ve ever known – man or woman. She’s kind and caring, compassionate. She’s very, very brave. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone as brave as she is.
She doesn’t speak to me, though. Instead, she starts rummaging around again and produces a little cardboard box, which she fills with more blankets. Then she collects her two little kittens and plops them in the box.
“Stay,” she tells them, as if that’s all the instruction they need.
To my utter and complete astonishment, they stay.
