My grandfather, recognizing a request for information when he heard one, sighed and said, “Petrifaction is the process of flesh or plant matter being converted into stone.” Shelby looked at him blankly. “Basilisks, cockatrice, and stone spiders are all petrifactors. They can, one way or another, turn flesh to stone.” Shelby continued looking at him blankly. “Don’t you have any of these things in Australia?”
“I think the crocodiles ate them,” she said flatly. “Can we go back to the core question here? How can a person be turned into stone when nothing’s been injected or dumped on them?”
“You saw my eyes,” I said, tucking my new pistol into the waistband of my pants. I rubbed the corner of my right eye with a finger, dislodging another bit of gravel. I was going to be putting in eye drops for the next few weeks, while I waited for the moisture levels to get back to normal.
“You explained that, though,” she said. “Visual allergies.”
“Calling petrifaction a ‘visual allergy’ is pretty accurate, but it doesn’t describe the whole process,” said Grandpa.
“You’d be better off calling it poison that you see,” said Grandma, stepping into the room with a jar of bilberry jam in her hand. “In the case of visual petrifactors, like the cockatrice, it enters via the eye—making it most dangerous to actually lock eyes with one of them—and travels down the optic nerve to the rest of the body. From there, it will begin petrifying whatever it encounters.”
“Cockatrice petrify from the inside out, starting with the eyes and internal organs, while basilisks petrify from the outside in, starting with the eyes and skin,” added Grandpa. “A basilisk will actually leave most of its prey unchanged, counting on suffocation to provide the killing blow.”
“Why?” asked Shelby.
“Crunchy outside, chewy inside,” I said, taking the jar of jam from my grandmother and shoving it into my pocket. “They peck their way through the hard stone shell and have a nice meal all pre-packed and waiting for them. The two species do have one thing in common, though.”
“They’re horrible?” ventured Shelby.
I laughed. “No. They both start with the eyes.”
“So do some gorgons,” said Grandpa pointedly.
“I know.” I shook my head. “I think the presence of a cockatrice in our backyard is a pretty strong indicator that a gorgon didn’t kill Andrew. Yes, a Pliny’s gorgon could have turned him partially to stone. It can’t have been a greater gorgon. There would have been no flesh left.” I didn’t want to think of a Pliny’s gorgon being responsible for this. Dee had been as shocked as the rest of us.
Dee had spent her entire adult life pretending to be human, and doing it well enough to fool almost everyone she’d ever met. Dee disguised her history, her culture, and her species on a daily basis. If she was a good enough liar to manage all that, why wouldn’t she be good enough to fool me by looking surprised when a dead man was found on zoo property?
“You know you have to consider it,” said Grandma.
“I know,” I said miserably.
“Hang on a second,” said Shelby. “There’s different kinds of gorgon?”
I turned to eye her. “What do they teach you in the Thirty-Six Society?”
“Not that,” she replied. “You may have a Eurocentric view of the cryptid world—which doesn’t make much sense to me, mind you, since you lot are living in North America—but it’s not the only view there is, and we’re an island ecology. Mostly, we try to keep the native species from eating each other, and we only worry about the non-native ones when they turn invasive.”
Given the climate and geographical isolation of Australia, I’d be stunned if there weren’t at least a few families of gorgons living there. That doesn’t necessarily say anything about the skill of the members of the Thirty-Six Society. The chupacabra predates European colonization of the Americas, and we didn’t know they existed until about fifty years ago (as far as I know, the Covenant still thinks they’re just werewolves with a skin condition). When something has good reason to stay hidden, it finds a way.
“Since we’re about to go looking for a cockatrice that we know was responsible for partially petrifying at least me, is it okay if we save that particular natural history lesson for later?” I asked.
Shelby nodded. “Yes, although I suppose I ought to ask: is there a way to find a Pliny’s gorgon? Are there any in this region?”
My thoughts went to Dee again. “There are a few,” I admitted.
“That makes them strong suspects,” said Shelby. Then she paused and eyed the three of us, expression turning suspicious. “You’re being awfully forthcoming with all this information, you know. With as long as you’ve been living under the radar, I’d expect more restraint.”
“It’s simple.” Grandma smiled sweetly, showing more of her teeth than she really had to. Something about that expression triggered a reminder at the back of my mind, telling me that I was basically a very advanced monkey, and that even very advanced monkeys need to worry about bigger predators. “We can always kill you later if it turns out you can’t be trusted.”
“Grandma,” I said sternly. “Please stop threatening my girlfriend.”
“I’ll threaten anyone I want to,” said Grandma.
Shelby laughed. We all turned to look at her. She shook her head. “I’m sorry. I know I should be taking this all terribly seriously, but this is so much like listening to my own family argue that it’s actually very relaxing. Do let me know if we reach a point where I should be running for my life, all right?”
“Good lord, there’s more than one of them,” said Grandpa.
“Okay, well, that’s a disturbing concept for all of us, but I think we should get moving if we want to track this thing before it disappears again,” I said, sliding a pair of polarized goggles on over my glasses and motioning to Shelby to put hers on. “Shelby, you’re with me. Grandma, I want you to stay here and keep an eye on Sarah. Grandpa—”
“I’ll go out front and look for suspicious cars,” he said.
“Great.” I grinned. I couldn’t help myself. “Let’s go commit some senseless acts of science.”
Even with the kitchen lights on, the backyard was dark enough that Shelby and I had to pause for several minutes in order to let our eyes adjust. She stuck close beside me, her gun in her hand. I would have told her to put it away, but she seemed to be treating it more as a security blanket than a weapon. I couldn’t blame her for that. Even coming from a cryptozoology background, this had to be a pretty major shock to the system.
It had definitely been a shock for me. I adjusted my polarized goggles and began walking slowly forward, stepping as lightly as I could. “Cockatrice have internal ears, like snakes,” I said, pitching my voice low. “They’ll hear you coming mostly through vibrations in the ground.”
“So it’s safe to talk, yeah?”
“Yes. Just don’t stomp.” My grandparents had chosen their home partially for its spacious yard, which had seemed perfect when they were planning to start a family. Now, it seemed too large, and the old swing set by the back fence was surrounded by strange shadows, where anything could be lurking.
“I’m not much of a stomper,” said Shelby.
She matched my pace step for step. I took my eyes off the ground long enough to steal a sidelong glance at her. In the moonlight, her hair seemed to almost glow, and the expression of intense concentration on her face was one of the sexiest things I’d ever seen. I frowned, forcing myself to look away. She was a distraction. I didn’t need that. Not here, not now—and maybe not ever.
“So were you really planning to break up with me when you realized I had a Johrlac nearby?” I tried to keep the question light. My bitterness still seeped through.