Brother to Dragons, Companion to Owls - Jane Lindskold [13]
Head Wolf steps back, the interview over. The Pack disperses and when Abalone would drift away, I reach out and snag her cape.
“Stay a while, that we may make an end sooner.”
Abalone stops at my lightest touch. Professor Isabella studies her quizzically. Abalone’s return gaze is cool.
“So, you are Sarah’s friend,” my teacher asks.
“I’m Abalone. Yeah, I’m her friend.”
Their words are calm; their tones are even, friendly. But their budding animosity comes to me as a strong scent, like urine in a subway tunnel. My heart tears. I cannot bear that these two, at least, will not love each other, will torment each other over their possession of me.
I step between them, touch Professor Isabella’s arm, then Abalone’s. They let me turn them like dolls. I take Professor Isabella’s hand.
“Thou wert my guide, philosopher, and friend.”
“Pope,” she says. “Yes, I was and am, Sarah.”
Now I take Abalone’s hand in my left. “Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried, grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel.”
“Hamlet,” she says, but the look that she flashes Professor Isabella is playful. “Act One, scene three.”
“Spoken by Polonius,” Professor Isabella concludes. “Sarah has surrounded herself with people of sophistication and culture, it appears. I would be a fool not to listen to her judgment.”
“It’s still just a bit after dark,” Abalone says. “Let me take you both to a diner.”
I smile, feeling genuine curiosity flavor their new accord and dissolve the jealousy. When we are out in the cool night air, I walk between my friends and listen to them talk, taking pleasure that one can tell the other what I lack words to explain.
“…so when the word came that the Free People had adopted a peculiar, lovely woman who spoke only in strange fragments and carried a rubber dragon around, I knew she had to be Sarah. I tried to stay away, but I finally gave in.”
We arrive at the diner and Abalone takes a corner booth, where our conversation will go unremarked. She slides me a jelly packet for Betwixt and Between.
“Ah, I see you know Betwixt and Between,” Professor Isabella chuckles.
“Is that its name?” Abalone giggles. “Neat. She always feeds it, so I’ve given in.”
“You and me and everyone else,” Professor Isabella sighs. “Sarah is amiable but she turns mean if anyone tries to take Betwixt and Between away. She will leave them for short periods of time—if she must—but heaven forbid if they are not where she left them when she returns.”
Between comments, in a dreamy voice, “Remember the goons who hid us in the linen cupboard?”
“How can I forget?” Betwixt retorts. “You wouldn’t stop whimpering and I knew we would need both of our heads to yell loud enough for Sarah to hear us.”
“Me whimpering?” Between is indignant. “You whimpered! I planned how to get Sarah to us!”
“Did not!”
“Did so!”
“Not!”
“So!”
Abalone and Professor Isabella keep talking as if they cannot hear the dragons.
“You seem to be Sarah’s protector,” Professor Isabella continues and Abalone swells a little. “Have you kept your Head Wolf from prostituting her yet? I know that you personally don’t streetwalk.”
Abalone seems at a loss before her bluntness. “Head Wolf isn’t any common pimp.”
“Certainly not.” Professor smiles wickedly.
Aware that the words have somehow offended Abalone, I interrupt.
“If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men,” I say in agitation.
“Blessed are the peace makers,” Professor Isabella replies, patting my hand. “Abalone, Sarah seems to want us to be friends. Forgive me for my assumption, but Sarah’s beauty is extraordinary. I could not help but believe that she would be encouraged to sell that beauty or at least trade on it to gain Head Wolf’s protection by becoming his mistress.”
“Half-right,” Betwixt chortles.
Blushing, I swat him.
Abalone keeps some poise. “I’d be lying if I didn’t agree that Head Wolf is hot for Sarah—but so are half the guys and girls in the Pack.”
Professor quirks an eyebrow at her and Abalone colors.
“Not me, I don’t go for girls and, anyhow, Sarah