“Strange things like what?”
“Men being bitten in two,” said Frank. “Is that strange enough for you?”
“Maybe.” I looked to Dee. “You couldn’t bite a man in two—”
“I appreciate the vote of confidence.”
“—but that lindworm we saw earlier could, and we’re only about five miles from where we tagged it. That’s well within a lindworm’s normal territory. Do you have any wild onions growing around here?”
Dee blinked. “Yes. We passed a patch a little ways back.”
“Can we get some? I think six bulbs or so would be sufficient.”
“And that will keep the lindworm from attacking us?”
“If it’s the lindworm, yes. If it’s something else, we can at least make it cry as it eats us.” I shrugged. “If we have to go through this patch of trees regardless, we may as well try for the solution that doesn’t end with us being digested slowly in the stomach of a giant lizard.”
“I appreciate non-digestive solutions,” said Frank. “Deanna, you wait here. I’m faster.” With that, he turned and trotted back toward the promised onions.
I shook my head. “If it’s not one thing, it’s something else.”
Minutes ticked by while Frank gathered onions in the distance. The sun was high enough to make me wish that I’d thought to bring sunscreen. Portland isn’t really sunburn country. I slapped at a fly that had landed on my arm, and said, “Hey, Dee? While we’re waiting, you want to fill us in on what we’re walking into?”
“Sure,” said Dee. “It’s not like I’m going to convince you to turn around now.”
“Pretty sure that ship has sailed,” said Shelby, who was eyeing the nearby foliage with trepidation, as if she expected it to attack at any moment. Then again, she came from Australia: she probably did expect some sort of vegetable ambush.
(Australia. The only continent designed with a difficulty rating of “ha ha fuck you no.”)
Dee took a deep breath, appearing to gather her thoughts, and said, “Most Pliny’s gorgons live in communities like this one, close enough to mid-sized human cities to be able to blend in, but far enough away to have some autonomy. We tend to move on when the cities get too large, since the alternative is discovery, and that never ends well for anyone.”
“I can see that, what with the,” Shelby made a snaky gesture in the air above her head, “and all.”
“Yes, that,” said Dee, clearly not sure whether or not she should be offended. “This particular community was founded by Hannah and some of her cousins from her mother’s side, about fifty years ago. I won’t tell you where they came from originally, although you can probably figure it out if you read those notes of your great-grandfather’s.”
“Er. Yes.” Somehow, I didn’t think that telling her the notes had been destroyed was going to help. “Was it a matter of relocating an older community, or . . . ?”
“Hannah had issues fitting in with her original community,” said Dee delicately.
“Because she’s gigantic?” asked Shelby.
“Something like that. Pliny’s gorgons and greater gorgons don’t historically have the best relationship, and when it became clear that she needed to move if she wanted to keep the peace in her family, she took some of the younger, more flexible cousins along with her. This,” Dee waved a hand, “was intended to be the first of a new breed of community. A permanent one.”
“Hence all the illusions and distractions on the way in,” I said.
Dee nodded. “We pay every year to have them renewed. The idea is that the cities can grow up around us until we’re just one of those strange little patches of forest that seem to exist in every major metropolitan area. Then we’ll always have a refuge. Not all our children can stay, of course—the limited footprint of the settlement means that we have population caps—but we know they’re safe as long as they’re with us.”
“So what about the fringe?” I asked. “How did that start?”
“The farming aspect was always a part of the community ideal,” said Dee. “Originally, there were some who wanted to see this turned into a multi-cryptid settlement. Plant vegetable lambs and bring in some manticore for protection, start growing bird-fruit and get a few tailypo to come and hang around doing whatever it is that tailypo do . . . but it didn’t work out. No one really liked needing to wear eye protection every time they left their trailers, and non-gorgons could never quite relax around us, knowing that all it would take was one slip for them to be at risk. We settled into being a normal gorgon community.”
I frowned, eyeing her, and waited. There had to be more to the story.
Sure enough, after a few seconds of silence, Dee sighed and continued, “Some members of the community, though, felt like the leadership had rejected them by even implying that cohabitation was possible. They said we would never be free until we were able to exist entirely independent of human culture and human resources. They moved to the edge of our protected land and started their current farming projects.”
“Which eventually expanded to include things like ‘happy fun time with cockatrice,’” I said. “Okay, I’m starting to understand the situation. How much do they mingle with the rest of you?”
“More than we’d like, not as much as would probably be good for them,” said Dee. “I think—” She cut herself off mid-sentence. I turned to see Frank trotting back toward us, his hands now full of small purple onions.
“This is enough?” he asked.
“That’s more than enough,” I said, and produced a knife from inside my pocket. “Pass them over.” He handed me the onions. “Shelby, give me your hands.”
“Righto.” She stuck her hands obligingly out toward me, cupping them to make a rough bowl shape.
I started trimming the green tops off the onions before cutting the onions themselves into quarters. The leafy parts I dropped to the ground, while the onions went into Shelby’s hands. “Everyone take a few chunks of onion and rub them all over your skin. I know it’s not the world’s most pleasant perfume, but as much as it bothers you, it’ll be ten times worse for the lindworm.”
“My eyes are already burning,” said Shelby.
“I have more eyes than you do,” countered Dee, and took a piece of onion.
“Regardless, if we’re covered in onion, we won’t smell like food. If we don’t smell like food, the lindworm won’t eat us. Since I’m opposed to being eaten, I’m okay with being a little onion-y.” I finished cutting the last onion, and wiped my knife on my sleeve before tucking it back into my pocket. “Be sure to get the back of your neck, ears, and anything else that isn’t covered by your clothes.”
“You really do know how to party,” said Shelby, dumping half the onions back into my hands before she started scrubbing herself down with the remainder.
“Ain’t no party like a Price party,” I said. Dee and Frank were covering each other in onion, moving with a careful efficiency that spoke to long years together. I glanced over at Shelby as I rubbed onion on my cheeks and neck. She didn’t look like she needed any help. I still wanted to offer it.
This was exactly the wrong place to be wondering about the state of my relationship, which didn’t do anything to make me stop doing it. Shelby and I had both been lying to each other, even if only through omission, and while that wasn’t the most comfortable thing in the world, it was the level of commitment I’d been both comfortable with and ready for. Now that I knew she wasn’t as much of an outsider in my world as I’d assumed, where did that leave us? She’d said that things were “different” between us now, but was that good or bad?