“Would you go with me?” Agatha pressed further. There was plenty of room on the sofa next to her—room that Thomas wouldn’t hesitate to sprawl in as they talked. But Pearl wasn’t Thomas. She stood in the middle of the room like a dog that has been told it mustn’t touch anything.
“I would accompany you to wherever you wished to go,” Pearl acknowledged.
Agatha huffed and crossed her arms. “That’s not what I meant,” she grunted. She turned to pick up her book again.
Pearl, seeing that her mistress no longer required her full attention, went about her customary duties of tidying up the room.
Agatha wasn’t reading; she watched the fair maid over the cover of her book; someone in the house is responsible for conspiring with the thieves… A servant? Wouldn’t that be so typical? But then—she had always felt Pearl to be the most typical servant in the whole of Afton-by-the-Sea. Agatha shook her head as Pearl removed the tea tray from the room; this whole fiasco was really starting to twist her mind in all sorts of strange directions!
Outside the window, two friends wended their way down the lane: one young girl recently arrived with her father, and one tall man no one had seen enter the village at any point.
Chapter 6
Madi skipped alongside Celian. She no longer had to walk slow and watch him carefully. He seemed to be adapting to his body quite well. Instead, she watched the open sides of his shirt flap open, exposing the pink scar on his chest. The memory of the raw wound caked with sand still remained fixed in her mind. It wasn't torn or jagged, and there were no other wounds on his body, so it couldn't have been an animal attack. In fact, the shape of the wound almost reminded her of the way a fish looked when her father cut it with a knife to clean out the insides. Had someone wanted to do the same thing to Celian?
Madi didn't realize they had stopped till Celian placed a hand on her shoulder. She stopped and finally raised her eyes to his face.
"What is it?" His face was lined with concern.
Madi's face flushed as she realized that perhaps he had noticed her staring.
Celian's hand followed her gaze, brushing the scar.
"How did it happen?" She asked.
Celian stiffened. He shook his head. "No." He kept walking onto the sand.
She scurried after him. "Why not? Don't you remember?"
"No, Madi!" Celian repeated, with more force.
"But—"
"Madi!" Celian finally turned, and the young girl fancied she saw grey clouds swirling in the marbled depths. He frowned deeply, as one in great pain. "I will not speak of it," he stated.
Madi felt the terror of the unknown creeping into her. It gave her chills to even begin speculating on what might be the source for such a reaction. This fear nearly prevented her from saying anything further.
Celian and Madi stood side by side as the tide slowly worked its way up the beach. She saw the wistfulness on his face, in seeing the water in which he once lived so close to him. His gaze seemed to travel right to the furthest point of the horizon, where empty, vast waters beat against the sky. A question formed in her mind, and she wondered if he would still thunder at her.
"What's it like?" asked the young girl softly.
He let her slip her hand into his and chuckled. "What is what like?"
Madi lifted her eyes and watched him carefully. "Being a Leonie," she stated.
She felt her reward when Celian smiled and dropped easily into a sitting position on the beach. She sat beside him. Neither cared about the fast-approaching tide.
"The Leonie," Celian began to explain, "is like my true form, who I am on the inside, even when I look like something else on the outside." He started tracing lines and figures in the dark sand. It took several moments for Madi to realize he was trying to form words and letters. Celian gave up and continued. "We change form to avoid being seen, for our true form is so strange and so much different than anything another race is accustomed to, that we would frighten a lot of people if we didn't change form."
Madi squinted up at him. "Can you really be anything at all?" She asked.
Celian nodded. "I must have water, of course, because in order to take another form, I must be in my Leonie form—but I can do that very quickly." He left his hand buried in the sand, and Madi saw his skin pale and turn that lovely iridescent shade of the Leonie he was... But just as quickly, she watched his body disintegrate into the sand. Soon his empty clothes were the only things resting on the beach beside Madi. The young girl waited to see where he had gone, but nothing came of it. Celian had simply vanished.
"Celian!" Madi shivered and hugged herself as a gust of wind blew her skirts about. "Where are you?" She called.
A flurry of sand swept up around her and the clothes. Madi shielded her face and cringed. As she reached one hand into the thickening swirl, she could almost feel pressure like a hand clasping her own, and she instinctively grabbed. Immediately, her grasp closed around flesh and bone. A second hand appeared, reaching for the trousers, and gradually the rest of him stood before her as he had been, smiling and brushing grains of sand out of his hair.
Madi couldn't help but applaud at the display. "Do you shift often when you live in the sea?"
Celian sat beside her and wrapped his long arms around knobby knees. "In truth, I don't often have reason to shift—unless a predator decides to pursue me."
Madi's eyes grew wide. "You mean, like sharks and such? What do you do?"
Celian's multicolored eyes danced. "Most of the time, I
