“I really can’t.”
“You know,” Declan said softly. “I think of myself as kind of between genders.”
Ro jerked his head up.
“Like, sometimes I think of myself as a femmy gay boy. And sometimes I think of myself as non-binary or feminine-of-center or genderqueer or whatever you want to call it. Just because I was assigned male at birth, doesn’t mean it’s my only option. How I present myself to the world is my choice.”
Ro’s eyes grew large. “I’ve read about trans people. I just never…” he trailed off.
“You’ve probably met some of them, too. You just didn’t know.”
Ro nodded. “Um, should I call you something different?”
“You mean like pronouns? Nah. He/him works for me, though I wouldn’t be offended by she or they. I can never quite decide whether I’m expanding the definition of masculinity or wandering outside it altogether. Maybe both? The important part is I don’t really have to decide. I can just do what feels right.”
Declan reminded himself to slow down. Ro needed a minute to think before he said this next part.
“You, um, well,” Declan continued. “I feel like I always say too much. ‘Cause I’m pushy and annoying. But you’re always so sad when you talk about heart-singers. Can I just suggest that…. maybe you actually are one? Or maybe you aren’t quite that, but something similar or in between.”
Ro nodded, so small that Declan might have missed it if he wasn’t looking.
“I mean,” he went on, “I know it’s a bit different, but I don’t think that you have to stick with the identity that you’re born with. Or, um, given? Even if there are actual gods involved.”
Ro opened his mouth, then closed it again.
“Well, think about it,” he patted Ro’s hand. “I’m always here to talk.”
“Um, thanks.”
Declan figured that was enough for the day. “Hey May!” he called. “I need an expert egg cracker. Are you good at that?”
Ro’s brows wrinkled. “You’re going to be pulling out eggshells all night.”
Declan shrugged. “That’s why we’re putting the eggs in first. Anyway, how else is she supposed to learn?”
Ro grabbed a chair and May hopped up so that she could reach the counter. She immediately picked up an egg and held it over the bowl like she was going to drop it.
“Hang on,” Ro reached toward her, but not fast enough.
“I’m cracking the eggs!” She pulled it tightly to her chest.
“Um… you know that we only eat the inside, right?” Declan asked. “There are a lot of secret steps. You have to be careful, like a spy.”
She gave him a confused look.
“You have to be calm and careful, like a princess,” Ro corrected.
“Ahhhh… I see.”
Ro shrugged. “If I could get her to manufacture even the slightest interest in spies, I’d go that direction.”
“Well, Princess May. Let Princess Declan and Princess Ro show you all the fancy princess tricks for cracking eggs. After the princess brownies we can paint our nails.”
May squealed. “Princess tricks!”
“Calm and careful princess tricks,” Declan confirmed.
She nodded solemnly. Ro raised one eyebrow.
Declan elbowed him gently in the ribs. If Ro was flexible enough in his thinking to encourage May to be a spy, he could give himself permission to play with gender, too. Or… whatever the equivalent was. “You know you want to.” Sometimes it was better to show than tell.
By the time Ro and May left that evening, they’d made princess crowns, painted their toenails, and eaten brownies and peanut butter cookies, with a short break for some healthy sandwiches and fruit.
It would have been a great day if worries about Geir weren’t nibbling at the back of his mind.
Now that they were gone, all of his fears came rushing back. He was reaching the end of the second day without Geir.
He got the sense that there was something else going on that Tier and Kayla didn’t want to tell him, too. He thought that the Chief might even be keeping Ro in the dark, since he wanted him to be safe. The incident at the grocery store flashed through his mind. Was someone watching him even now?
Declan looked around the cabin. It looked shadowy and empty without Geir in it. There wasn’t even a lock on the door, something that he’d found charming when he first moved in but now found a bit frightening.
He reminded himself that he had phone numbers, now. He’d put Tier, Ro, and Kayla’s numbers in both Geir’s phone and his own, even though it didn’t get reception out here.
Alright, he wasn’t going to sit around and be scared. He’d left all of the dishes everywhere when they were baking and cleaning up the dried batter wasn’t going to be easy. He kind of appreciated the mess, actually, because it gave him something to do. It turned out that four-year-olds were very messy.
He put his music back on, though he moved slowly around the kitchen. Maybe when everything was clean he could read something comforting. An old favorite.
How did the spies in those books stand all the stress?
He’d just put the last clean bowl back in the cabinet when he heard a knock at the door.
He froze, not sure whether he should answer it or do something brave and adult like hiding under the bed.
The knock came again. “Declan? Are you there?”
That was Tier’s voice, he was pretty sure.
He opened the door.
Tier’s eyes were wild, and he grabbed his arm, yanking him outside. “Where’s Rohahen?”
Chapter 26
Geir
Dark.
Slow.
Silt.
And water.
Geir’s world collapsed to the soft ooze of mud across his tentacles, the slight flicker of a fish as it disturbed the water above him.
The flickering sensation came again, a dim awareness at the edge of his mind.
Slowly, lazily, he stirred. There was no time. No hurry. But that niggling awareness bothered him. A thin suggestion of danger came with it.
He raised his head above the muck, but even with the scattered, hazy eyesight that was meant for the depths, it was too dark to make out a shape.
It must be night, because the water above was solid black instead of dappled with light. He didn’t know if a single day had passed or many, and even his hunger couldn’t help him because he had vague memories of eating fish that had been unlucky enough to swim by.
Why was he feeling on edge?
He slowly withdrew from the mud, his skin gaining sensitivity in the water. If anything were nearby he’d now be able to pinpoint its size, shape, and direction.
The sensation came again, like the water was displaced by some much larger boat or animal, but he couldn’t determine where it was coming from. He tensed his muscles, ready to protect himself from a predator.
But there was nothing there.
Memories slowly returned, filling in the gaps. This sense of invasion wasn’t a physical sense, but a magical one. In his long history, he’d only experienced this once or twice before.
He was connected to the land around him, and his land was being invaded.
As he shot up to the surface, another thought broke.