An hour or so later, my headache teamed up with my exhaustion to overwhelm me, and I had to excuse myself from the crowd of lurkers. Three times. Loudly. When they finally heard me over the discussion, I was already annoyed, and it showed on my face. None of them tried to argue with me. Instead, they immediately went back to arguing with each other.

I wandered over to where Conrad was sitting on the muddy ground with his back against an earth wall. Kappa was in his lap. There were three baby-sized lurkers crowded around Conrad’s folded legs. Their desire to inspect Kappa and their fear of the wolfman created an adorable tension that kept them going back and forth like nervous yo-yos.

They scampered off when I approached. I heaved a dramatic sigh and collapsed beside Conrad.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“Just tired,” I grumbled. “And my head hurts.” My stomach burbled. “And I’m hungry.”

“How are the debates going?”

“You know what bothers me? There I am, standing ankle deep in the mud, listening to their discussion—able to understand them and talk to them—and they act like it’s no big deal. I mean, why would that ever be useful? You, on the other hand—”

“I’ve done nothing but sit here!” Conrad protested.

“One of the lurkers saw you punch the alligator.”

A slow smile broke over Conrad’s face. “Was that the reenactment I was watching?”

My nose wrinkled when I stifled my giggle. “Pretty good, wasn’t it?”

“It sounded like they were impressed,” he noted.

They had been. All that oohing and aahing must have given it away. The lurker who’d seen the fight had acted out all the major roles himself, switching between them to create the most impact. His impression of me as I sailed through the air hadn’t been flattering, but I had to admit, his mimicry of Conrad landing the final punch, as well as the gator’s death throes (this lurker was going for effect, not accuracy), was real A-plus stuff. Best theater anywhere.

“What would you expect?” I said. “Anyway, I explained that you wanted to help them too. That’s when they got excited.”

“Are you jealous?”

“As a matter of fact, yes!”

Conrad chuckled and put his arm over my shoulders, resting his hand on the top of my head.

Kappa leaned on Conrad’s thigh so he could get closer to me. “Mera?”

“Hey, buddy.” I smiled and reached out to stroke a fin on the side of his head. “Are you okay?”

Kappa frowned. Maybe that was the only answer he had.

“I’m sorry about what happened to you,” I said. “That must have been so scary. But you’re safe now. They know that we’d be furious if anything happened to you, so they promised they’d leave you alone.”

Kappa scowled and padded his hands over Conrad’s leg before rendering judgment. “Okay.”

He plopped back down in Conrad’s lap.

The little lurkers crept toward us again.

“Kappa,” I said, “can you understand them when they talk to you?”

Kappa tilted his head and trilled at me. His brow was furrowed.

I looked up at Conrad. “What does it sound like to you?”

“It sounds like Kappa noises to me. Growls, hisses, little sounds.” The wolfman shrugged, then said, “Can you really understand it?”

My mental weariness was so powerful that it made my limbs feel heavy. I drew myself up by taking a deep breath.

“Sometimes I hear words in all the noises,” I said. “The rest of the time I have to guess by what they’re doing.”

“How does that work?”

The gator’s death scene had less exaggeration than the shrug I offered Conrad. “Maybe the language isn’t complete yet. Brodie said something about them having a proto-language. That sounds like something only half-made, doesn’t it?”

“Sorry. I’m not a linguist.”

“Yeah,” I grumbled. “Neither am I.”

Conrad’s thoughtful expression faded as he shook his head. “Your powers are weird.”

“Tell me about it.”

The baby lurkers had snuck all the way back to Conrad by then. He pretended not to notice them so they wouldn’t get spooked. Kappa peeked his head over Conrad’s other leg so he could see his curious audience.

“Did you learn anything while you were listening to them talk?” Conrad asked.

My gaze drifted back to the crowd of lurkers on the other side of the gathering place. That’s what they called it: “the gathering place.” It was important enough to them that they had a term for it.

“There’s something wrong,” I said, “and they all know about it. They keep dancing around the topic while they talk about what they should do, but I don’t know what ‘it’ is.”

“They won’t tell you?”

“Some of them want to. Scaredy-stone is on our side—”

“Scaredy-stone?”

I leaned toward Conrad and pointed into the crowd. “He’s that one. Large brown patch over his left eye.”

He was still arguing on our behalf. I could tell by how often I saw his teeth.

“Is that his real name?” Conrad asked.

I let my hand drop. “That’s what I’m calling him. As far as I can tell, none of them have names.”

Conrad motioned with his head toward Scaredy. “But he wants to tell us what’s wrong?”

“Yeah, but it’s a rough argument.”

“How so?”

I rubbed my forehead and spent a useless second wishing that I had some painkillers.

How could I explain it?

“Nobody wins,” I said. “When you listen to them, everything they’re saying—they’re upset—they’re desperate—but they don’t think there’s a good solution. The lurkers who don’t want to tell us are saying that they have no reason to trust us.”

Conrad let out a grunt. “They have a good point.”

“You had the chance to kill them, and you didn’t.”

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

Conrad turned his head to get a better look at me. “Generally, when you point that out to people, they tend to become more nervous, not less.”

My mouth opened, then closed. I made a sour face. “Well, then it’s a good thing I didn’t mention it.”

Conrad smiled and faced forward again.

I went on, “The ones that do want to tell us are saying that we can’t make things any worse.”

Conrad didn’t respond.

“You don’t think that’s a good point?” I prompted.

“I think it shows a lack of imagination.”

A half-laugh, half-scoff burst out my nose. It wasn’t classy of me, but I was too tired to care.

“Do they have a leader?” Conrad asked.

One of the baby lurkers wandered my direction. It was a wonder there was any room in their tiny heads for brains when their eyes were that stinking big! I grinned and put my hand out to see if I could entice the cutie any closer.

“Mera,” Conrad said.

I glanced up. He looked both amused and exasperated.

I lowered my hand, cleared my throat, and put on my serious face.

“A leader. Right. Ummm…not exactly. They seem to decide things by consensus, but there are some lurkers that have more respect than others.”

“How could you tell?”

“By the way the others listened to them. You could tell their opinions carried more weight.”

And there had been one lurker. The most respected one of all. He never spoke, so it wasn’t anything he’d said that had clued me in; it was how all of the other lurkers had glanced at him while they were speaking. I thought of him as Old Man because whenever I looked at him, I saw age.

I amended my statement: “They might have a leader.”

“What’s their opinion?” Conrad asked.

“I don’t know.”

It was his turn to sigh (but his were never as dramatic as mine). “All right. We have to be ready for the possibility that they’ll refuse our help.”

My heart shrank. “And if they do?”

“We’ll have to do the best we can without them.”

My half-sized heart glowed. Conrad’s off-handed, matter-of-fact tone was near the top of a long list of reasons why I liked my wolf-boy. Give up? Go home? Nope. We had a job to do, and it wouldn’t even occur to Conrad to allow the lurkers’ reluctance to stand in his way. They were going to be saved whether they liked it or not.

“If that happens,” he said, “see if you can get them to agree to allow us safe passage through the swamp.”

“Do we need their permission?” I asked.

“Not really, but it’ll show them that we respect that this is their home. It would also help if we could get some idea of what the problem is, and why the lurkers think going into town might help them solve it.”

I pulled my knees up to my chest and rested my chin on them. I was so lost in my jumble of thoughts that it took a second for me to notice that the lurker baby had inched close enough to touch my hand. When I felt the cool touch, I looked down, smiled, and wiggled my fingers.

The baby bounced back a foot, then crept toward me, belly on the ground, fins wiggling.

I only had a few moments to play before the group of lurkers broke apart and turned toward us. Old Man emerged from the middle of them. The crowd followed him as he came our way.

My sneakers slid as I struggled and squished my way to my feet. My clothes were a hopeless mess, my shoes were a loss, and my dignity was going cheap. It didn’t feel great presenting myself to their leader like that, but I consoled myself with the fact that he was coming to meet me muddy and naked.

Since it was easier to be nonthreatening when he wasn’t towering over them, Conrad stayed seated, but he put Kappa on the ground beside him. Kappa looked around to get an idea of what was going on, then he sat on his butt beside Conrad and frowned so he’d look more dignified.

Old Man finished covering the distance between us, and we stood there, watching each other, for a few seconds.

Then he started talking. It was mostly inarticulate sounds with words tucked around them, but when Old Man spoke, he gestured with his hands more than the others. There wasn’t a noise that didn’t include a hand-sign.

I kept my eyes fixed on him, trying to pick up every clue I could. I needed all of them.

“What’s he saying?” Conrad asked.

“He says he’s happy…but it’s more like…an accepting happy—oh! Grateful!”

Accepting happy? Really, Emerra?

It seemed stupid that fate had decided to give me the gift of understanding but not the gift of brains.

I went on, “He’s grateful that we’re willing to help, but they’ve decided…no.”

“No what?” Conrad said.

Old Man’s face was stern and impassive. My shoulders grew heavy.

“Not us,” I said.

“Would he accept help from someone else?” Conrad asked.

My head rose, and I turned to gaze at Conrad. That was the kind of simple genius I hoped would be included in the gift of brains.

I turned back to Old Man. “Is there anyone you would accept help from?”

The crowd of lurkers glanced at each other, their faces displaying a variety of frowns and scowls. One of the lurkers nearest Old Man leaned toward his elder.

I heard the phrase “bracelet man” and the word “find.”

Old Man let out a sharp hiss that barely moved his lips. The other lurker fell silent.

I stumbled forward a half-step. “If this bracelet man can help, we’d be happy to go get him!”

Old Man eyed me again.

“Is this bracelet man a friend?” I asked. “Is he human?”

Old Man gestured as he spoke.

A few seconds later, Conrad muttered, “Mera?”

“He says that Bracelet Man knows something, but I’m not following what. Whatever it is, it connects them—him and the lurkers.”

“Connects them how?”

“I don’t know. Old Man isn’t making any noises and there’s no word.” I turned so Conrad could see my gesture. “All he’s doing is this.” I held both hands up, palms toward him, put my palms together, and then held them out again.

Conrad’s eyes went from my hands to my face. “And it connects this bracelet man to them?”

“Yes, but Old Man doesn’t want the bracelet man to help. There’s something wrong with him.”

“Did they say what?”

“Kind of? Like, I think he tried to tell me, but…I didn’t get it.” I knew Conrad would ask, so I blathered on, “It’s something that belongs to who the bracelet man is. Something that can’t be…removed? Or dealt with?” I chewed on my lip a moment, then blurted out, “Old Man wanted me to know it wasn’t something that the bracelet man had done. That’s important to him.”

“You mean there’s something intrinsic to the bracelet man that makes it so the lurkers don’t want his help?”

I snapped my fingers and pointed at him. “That.”

“Did they say if he was human?”

“I don’t know. They don’t have a lot of words that work like that. They have a concept of them-them, Kappa-them”—Kappa glanced up, startled to hear his name—“and not-them, but they don’t seem to have a word for human. Just something about us being tall.”

Conrad’s eyes dropped when he chuckled, then returned to me. “Does that mean he’s thrown you and me in the same category?”

I asked Old Man what he’d call Conrad.

He used the gesture he always used with the word tall, but the word I heard was “alligator.”

I said to Conrad, “You got the modifier ‘monster.’ He said ‘gator,’ but I think what matters to them is the sharp teeth and the strength.”

Conrad smile faded. “You’re getting impressions.”

“Huh?”

“You’re getting impressions—not just the words.”

“I mean, I guess?” I groaned and put a hand over my eyes. “I’m trying really hard here, Conrad.”

“I know.” He paused. “You better ask them about letting us go through the swamp.”

I let my hand drop and turned back to Old Man. His eyes shifted from Conrad to me. He was watching and listening as hard as I was.

“We’re going to be spending some time in your swamp,” I said, “and we’d like your permission to be here. Would you let us come and go? Please?”

I could tell that question caused some confusion. The crowd of lurkers kept glancing behind me to where Conrad was sitting. Some of them were probably wondering why we thought we needed something as weak as permission. If the gators couldn’t stop us, what could?

But some of the glances looked calculating, and I wondered if they were doing the same apocalyptic math problem I had struggled with: if one Conrad Bauer took on over a hundred lurkers, who would be left to walk away, and would it be worth it?

Old Man didn’t bother looking at Conrad. His head tilted from side to side as he considered me.

Then he said, “The swamp isn’t ours.”

It was a simple statement—no inarticulate noises, no hand gestures, and one word for every idea. Swamp. Not. Ours.

I knew they understood the concept of ownership, and they applied a closely related idea to relationships. They possessed each other in the same way that I had made it clear to them that Conrad and I possessed Kappa. We were together. We were each other’s.

But they didn’t own the swamp?

This time I tilted my head. “Home?”

All the black eyes in my view widened. I would’ve paid good money to know what they’d heard when I said that.

“Home,” the Old Man repeated. He nodded.

I said, “Will you be mad, sad, or frustrated if we come and go through your home?”

I eventually understood the next question to mean, “Will you hurt us?” There were fewer words and a lot more pantomiming.

“No,” I assured him. “We want to be friends. We’ll only attack you if you attack us.”

Old Man glanced back at Conrad.

That’s right, buddy. For a limited time only, you too can enjoy freedom from worrying about the scariest alligator you’ll ever meet.

He returned his attention to me. “Why home?”—which I understood to mean why would we want to hang around in his swamp.

I hesitated, but if we were supposed to be friends, I didn’t want to lie to them. Besides, I couldn’t think of a good lie fast enough.

“We want to look around,” I said.

Pandemonium!

Okay—not real pandemonium. There was no rioting, looting, or running around while shredded money drifted through the air. But the sudden shift from the quiet of a midday swamp to the absolute racket that followed was so stark it felt like I’d slapped my hand down on a bright red button labeled NOISE. And it wasn’t coming from one or two lurkers. It was coming from all of them.

Conrad had to raise his voice to be heard, “Emerra, what’s going on?”

“I don’t know! I think I said something wrong!”

The babies hopped away, looking for someone to comfort them. Kappa’s head swiveled from side to side as he tried to understand what was happening.

Scaredy-stone and two other lurkers had to do a lot of shouting before everyone calmed down.

I knelt in the mud so Old Man and I would be roughly eye level.

I tentatively said, in the most inoffensive tone I had, “Look around?”

Old Man said, “Search.”

“Search?” I repeated.

His eyes narrowed.

I grinned when I saw it. Too often things were lost in translation. This was one of those rare times when something was found.

“Okay, Old Man,” I said, narrowing my own eyes, “what am I searching for?”