Gabriel’s shoulder.
“You make blush. You meet…now meet, Shyanna,” she said taking my hand again.
She took me closer. The girl didn’t move away, she took a strange little hop forward, then stood and took two steps before crouching back down, as if waiting for her mother to come the rest of the way. Gabriel placed her hands on top of her child’s head as the child began to whimper.
“You’s know’s me loves you.” Then she pulled her into her arms, both seeming to cry. “You’s must go with this thing now.”
“No, no, no…me stay, no flap. Yes me’om?”
“Oh Shya…” Then the mother fell to her knees.
I was at her side holding her up. I felt a fully shaped hand rest gently on my arm. I looked down at the smallest, most perfectly shaped hand with the longest solid black talons I had ever seen, and it was spectacular. My vision traveled from her tiny arm that was covered in extremely small scales, to her huge eyes. Now that she wasn’t as excited as earlier, they showed more of the whites, but the center was still one large black, round color. She had no lashes and blinked very fast and often, unlike the rest of us. I smiled at her and laid my hand down on hers. She twisted her head then leaned down and sniffed my skin.
“Flowers.” Her tongue darted out, then soon after followed another of her little giggles.
“You’s be fine, yes?” Her mother touched her cheek.
“You won’t have to have that chain anymore, and I’ll never let anyone ever hurt you again.”
“Hurt again?”
“You’s no bad, Teekie.”
“Me’s flap?”
“You’s can flap all you’s want,” I added with a bit of a giggle of my own.
She shot up in the air yanking on the chain, yelling over and over. I asked for someone to please release her, but all heads were shaking no, and everyone was backing away, all but my group and her parents.
“Shyanna, come back down, sweetie. I’ll have to get my tools back on the ship to get it off. I promise it will come off once we are off this island.”
“Me’s go now, yes?”
“Yes?” I looked back for an answer from, Jacob. He in turned looked at the girl’s father.
“Grateful,” Gabriel said and kissed my hand with her lipless mouth.
“I will cherish her,” I replied bending down and hugging her.
“You’s come next time. Wife see’s girl on ship?” the older male, her husband added.
“Of course, it would be my pleasure,” I said and went to shake his hand.
“Hum…” he took my hand. “Not usual, you’s not usual at all.”
“Go…go…go,” Shyanna steadily said as she hopped on the ground next to me and her mother.
“Boy, this just keeps getting weirder and weirder doesn’t it?” Derek shook his head and started following the crowd.
Chapter Three
It was hard keeping Shyanna still in the boat. She actually fell over the side once and just as fast came right back into the boat, saying, “cold” making us all laugh, which in turn got her more excited. I think her laughter was the strange giggling sound that was too hard to explain. I believe it was starting to sound more like several birds singing out at once. Some sounds were extremely high pitches, while others carried the softer tones, and all coming from her. The closer we got to the ship, the calmer she seemed to get. I wasn’t sure if it was fear of never being this close to one, or the sheer wonderment of it all. The first thing I saw was Jessie and Johnny standing there waiting on us. Johnny was holding his little piglet, while Jessie held up a torch lantern.
“Look Jess, they have me another friend.”
“Take him below, Jessica,” Jacob said, like more of an order than a request.
“Please, Jessie. We’ll explain as soon as we can,” I added then looked over at Jacob. “What’s crawled up your butt?”
“Defiance for one thing,” he replied tying the boat to the ship.
“Oh for Pete’s sake, don’t you think that I could be saying the same
Jasmine Haynes, Jennifer Skully