Milo reached into his coat pocket and retrieved a large swirly rainbow lollipop. He held it out timorously.
The deer sniffed the treat, then skipped excitedly, sending Milo’s pulse skyrocketing. Tentatively, the deer bent down to take the candy, but it changed its mind and sashayed backwards.
“It’s okay,” Milo assured it. “I won’t bite.” He was far from certain that the Thing could offer the same guarantee.
Using all the willpower he could muster, Milo sidestepped towards the enormous creature, the candy extended as far as he could reach. “PHEW-EEEE-OOO,” he whistled.
Still apprehensive, the deer nipped the head of the lollipop from Milo’s hand, crunching its prize as it retreated to the other side of the clearing.
“I’m Milo.” Milo pointed to himself. “Is that where you live?” He pointed to the spring.
The creature cocked its head, as if trying to understand the words. Can it? It swallowed the last of the lollipop, then snorted and skipped like a playful puppy.
Milo laughed for what felt like the first time in ages. “You want more, do you?” He took out another lollipop from his pocket and the deer danced in a circle, its formidable antlers whizzing perilously within range of Milo’s face.
“Gah!” Milo stumbled back.
Worried the Thing might accidentally trample him, he tossed the lollipop in the air. The Thing reared up and caught the candy in its massive jaws, its front hooves flailing. Landing with a THUD, it looked down to find Milo cowering at the base of the boulder, his arms shielding his head.
From between his elbows Milo watched as the deer finished its sugary treat. And then something changed.
Milo rubbed his eyes, thinking his vision had gone blurry, but there was nothing wrong with his sight. Each hair on the creature’s body was vibrating as its form shimmered into translucence. Beads of slimy sweat coursed down its neck and legs as the stag, antlers and all, decreased in size until it was about as tall as Lucy’s wolfhound, Errol. When it finished, solidifying once again, it snorted as if to say, “Is this better?”
Dumbfounded, Milo scrambled to his feet. “Thank you. This is a much more manageable size.”
Seeming quite proud of itself, the dog-sized deer pranced around, kicking its knees up like a show pony.
Milo laughed. “I think you deserve some more candy, you silly Thingus.” Grinning, he disappeared behind the boulder and rummaged through his pack, picking through colourful stretches of taffy, candy buttons, and peppermint patties the size of hockey pucks. When he re-emerged, he stopped in his tracks. “What the—” The peppermint patty he was carrying dropped to the dirt with a THOD.
The creature had mutated again. Well, not the entire creature. Its body was still a graceful, if comically proportioned, white stag. Its head, however…
“How in the world?” Milo found himself looking into a pair of familiar blue eyes.
The Thing’s head, while still crowned by a gorgeous spread of antlers, had shrunk and rounded to form a human face, the proportion and colouring of which resembled a somewhat pinched sculpture of Milo himself.
“Holy—” Milo began.
“Holy mother of fewmet flinging frogspit!” interrupted a new voice.
Milo whipped round to find none other than Lucy Sladan gawping at the scene, her mouth open so wide he could see her tonsils.
Remedial Rendezvous
Lucy pushed through the pine branches she’d been crouching behind, heedless of the fact that her parka was covered with black streaks of sticky sap. Her blood bubbled with a confluence of competing emotions.
“I’ve spent my entire life trying to discover unknown cryptozoological species, and you manage to stumble upon one in a couple of WEEKS?!” The last word came out as a shriek.
The human-faced stag reared back on its hind legs.
“Whoa, Thingus.” Milo held up his hands to calm the bizarre being. “What are you doing here?” he demanded of Lucy.
“I was gonna ask you the same question.” Lucy goggled at the incredible creature. “But now I understand perfectly.”
It had taken several hours of intense ingenuity for Lucy to get to the Siren’s Lair. She’d spent all morning straddling a cardboard platform tied to two freshly inflated inner tubes, using a tree branch as an oar. Her jeans were wet to the knee. Her teeth chattered in the Autumn wind and strands of sweaty hair clung to her forehead. But none of that mattered right now. What did matter was the magnificent creature before her, which was the most hideously beautiful thing she’d ever seen.
“How could you not tell me about this?”
“Can you keep your voice down?” Milo fumed.
The dog-sized, child-faced deer shifted its weight uneasily from one hoof to the other.
Milo retrieved a chocolate disc from the ground then gently approached the creature. “It’s a peppermint patty,” he said. “Go on, eat it. It’s good.”
Keeping its eyes on Lucy, the being plucked the candy from Milo’s hand with its human teeth. It dropped the treat on the ground a yard away and munched on it like it was a patch of grass. When it finished, the Thing waggled its antlers happily, its cherubic cheeks covered in chocolate.
“This is so cool!” Lucy chirped. She made a beeline towards the strange being. The creature jumped in alarm and darted behind Milo.
“What are you doing, crazy?” Milo hissed at Lucy. “I’ve spent over a week gaining this Thing’s trust. You’re either going to scare it away or it’ll rip your face off. You don’t know what it’s capable of.”
“What do you mean?” Lucy could barely rein in her exuberance. “It looks harmless.”
“Harmless?” scoffed Milo. “It’s a deer with a human face!”
“I know! Isn’t it great?”
Milo glared at her, arms crossed.
“Okay. I’ll be careful.” She rolled her eyes.
With her hand outstretched, Lucy approached the Thing slowly, as she would a stray dog. The being gingerly sniffed her fingers and didn’t retreat. With a pointed look at Milo, Lucy gently patted the creature’s shoulder. She could feel a soft purr deep within its throat. Scratching up its neck, she felt under its chin.
