Page 33 of Heartsong
Anna didn’t know if she should be impressed or terrified.
That first night, she’d gone to bed late with Frey set up with the remote and the TV volume on low. She’d woken up early to make sure she saw him before dawn, only to find that he’d managed to dive down a technology video rabbit hole and filled in some of his knowledge gaps on electricity, motors, and the internet.
The next night, he had her go around the apartment naming all the machines—that’s the stove, this is the microwave, and this is the fridge, it has to be kept closed—as well as show him her ancient laptop and newer-ish cellphone. Over dinner, they’d discussed modern banking and the use of credit cards.
Anna was happy to answer, though she didn’t understand how his head wasn’t exploding with all the new information. He just gobbled it up and went right onto the next. She supposed she could understand; he was gorging on the new.
She wasn’t surprised when he fell down the World War II rabbit hole his second night. He was unimpressed with her lack of knowledge about the merits of different fighter jets.
The horrors of the war brought up questions about more recent history—recent at least in the eyes of someone over a thousand years old—and Anna was saddened when his questions grew more somber. When told how many had been killed by the wars, Frey had gone silent for a long while.
She hadn’t pushed him, and she was relieved when, upon waking up tonight, he’d been more interested in delving into what humans knew of his own history. It baffled him how humans had forgotten his kind and didn’t like her suggestion of his resemblance to Judeo-Christian demons.
“We were created long before the conversion,” he argued.
“Yes, but many people still saw you, even as statues,” she rebutted. “All of you are so striking, it wouldn’t surprise me that you stayed in the consciousness somehow.”
“But we are not demonic. We were made to protect, to defend. Not scare or manipulate. Although…” His face went slick, frown easing into a smolder, “perhaps some of us were made to seduce.”
Anna’s face lit up like a neon sign—god, sheneededto stop blushing around him! She’d never blushed this much, not when she’d lied to police officers and social workers about her mom being a responsible adult, not when she and that store clerk had made eye contact as they watched her steal some bananas, not even when her college boyfriend had screamed he loved her as he came.
The blushing was getting out of hand. It wasn’t who she was.
So she threw the remote at Frey. To reassert dominance.
His smile turned smug as he clicked through video options, finally settling on one. Meanwhile, Anna hid behind her mug of tea and tried to will Captain over from the windows so she’d have something to focus on other than the big gray behemoth currently taking up her whole living room.
He’d rolled up the sleeves of the flannel and it wasn’t okay.
He’d also never bothered to button it, so it was just all rippling muscles on display all night, which also wasn’t okay.
For her state of mind.
For her sanity.
For her libido. And therefore state of mind.
Statues aren’t sexy.Sure, they could be beautiful, moving, arresting. You had to be dead inside not to be moved by Michelangelo’sDavidorPietà. But you weren’t supposed tofeelthings for statuary.
Just call me Pygmalion.Great, now she was thinking about his rippling chestandmaking art history jokes to herself. This was bad.
Maybe I should get some fig leaves to put over his bits.Even with pants on,thatpart of him bordered on obscene.
That impulse buy had come back to bite her in the ass.
Frey gracefully alighting to sit on the floor across the coffee table from her finally snapped her out of her spiral, and Anna nearly choked on her tea.
With deft claws, he pulled her one pack of cards from their cheap packet and laid them on the table. He’d asked over what kinds of games humans still played and was delighted to learn about card games. He’d promised to teach her to playfidchell, an ancient Celtic board game she’d learned about, if she could find a comparable board and pieces. In the meantime, he wanted to play a card game.
Setting down her mug, Anna took up the cards. She hadn’t learned much from her mom’s deadbeat boyfriends—except for a handful of party tricks.
She bit down on her smile as she made a show of shuffling the deck, starting with an overhand before riffling and cascading. An amused rumble echoed from across the coffee table, and Anna couldn’t hold back her smile anymore.
Five cards landed in front of Frey in a crescent.
Replacing the deck between them, Anna put on her best poker face and took up her own cards. Leaning forward, she told him very seriously, “The game is Go Fish.”
He leaned forward, too. “I must confess, I do not enjoy fishing.”
