His smile falls immediately. “Oh. I get it.”
“Get what?”
“This is about the hooves, right? The horns, the fur. This is where you try to reconcile the two parts of me. Because you need me to be one or the other.”
“I’m not judging you, if that’s what you’re getting at.”
“You absolutely are judging me, but that’s not what I’m getting at. You can’t cope with the idea that I’m just… both. Man and monster.”
I turn away from him and go back inside.
He follows me. “I get it. I’ve lived in this body my entire life, so there’s part of the answer to your question. I am a satyr chimera. I was born a satyr chimera. But I am still very much a man. I was born a man too.”
I check the water heater fire, throw some more wood just to make it flare up, and then go back upstairs and start the tub for a bath. Again, he follows me. So I guess I have to say something about his last comment. “I’m not insulting your manhood, Pell. I’m just curious.”
He leans against the doorjamb as I sit on the edge of the tub, waiting for the water to get hot. “You’re not hearing me. I’m not insulted. I’m just frustrated that you fucking humans can’t cope with things like me. I have to be myth. I have to be cursed—”
I throw up my hands. “Dude. You’re completely cursed!”
“I am cursed to stay here as the monster of Saint Mark’s. But I wasn’t cursed into this body. I was made this way. Just like you were made that way.”
I try to rewind the conversation to see how we got here. Because just a few minutes ago we had this weird, but nice, morning glow going on and now we’re suddenly in some kind of identity fight. “Look, I appreciate what you did for me last night. My only point is, you won’t need to stay down here with me anymore because I don’t want to stay here.”
“Where will you sleep then?”
“I dunno. I’m sure there’s a room in that giant fucking cathedral with a bed.”
“OK. Do you know how the rooms work up there?” He nods his head to the cathedral.
“What do you mean, work? They’re rooms.”
“They’re variable. The inside of that place changes all the time. Just like the inside of this cottage. The only rooms that stay the same are the rooms on either side of the entrance halls and that main staircase. Upstairs it’s all magic, all the time.”
The water is finally hot so I plug up the tub, get up, push past him, and go back out into the bedroom to grab some clothes. “What kind of magic?”
“It’s a…” Pell pauses like he’s thinking. “They’re like… I don’t know how to explain it. It’s like a record of all the days.”
“Oh, yeah. Tomas mentioned this. OK. I’m following. Go on.”
“It’s just magic. Naturally magic. And magic isn’t good or bad, it just is.”
“Well, that’s not true. This is a curse, remember? That’s obviously bad.”
“You’re assigning feelings to a force, Pie. Is wind bad? Is rain bad? Is fire bad?”
“It can be.”
“Yep, it can be. But the wind blows sails, and the rain grows crops, and the flame lights your way home. None of that is inherently bad. And neither am I.”
“Whoa. That came out of nowhere.”
He sneers at me. “No, it didn’t. You think I’m evil because I have horns. You think I’m a monster out of Hell because I have hooves. This is the whole point of what I’m trying to say. I’m not good, I’m not bad, I’m just a flame in the dark.”
“OK. I completely follow that logic. But what I’m also hearing is that you’re both. You can destroy and save.”
He spreads his arms wide, an all-encompassing gesture. “Aren’t we all?” But he’s no longer sneering at me, so I feel like we’ve arrived at some kind of common ground.
“I guess,” I admit. “But I don’t have a monster side. I’m just cute, remember?”
His wide grin is back and this tells me that while we have not really settled this, he’s comfortable ending the convo here. “Take your bath, wear comfortable shoes, and meet me in the cemetery when you’re done. We’re taking a trip today.”
“A trip? Not to Granite Springs, I hope.”
He growls. “No. And don’t bring that fucking sheriff up again. The more I think about what happened to you last night, the angrier I get.”
“I didn’t bring up the sheriff. That was you.”
“Well, don’t do it again.”
I push him out of the bedroom. “Go away. Your man side is showing.”
I take my bath and put on a really cute light-blue sweater dress with some knee-high brown boots with a short heel and pull my hair up in a simple ponytail. These clothes are nice, but if I had known that I’d have to work off the price by giving a monster a hornjob, I might’ve thought twice before buying them.