Xaxac knitted happily away on the return trip while Alex slept on his master’s lap, once again in his drugged out stupor. This time Xaxac had the sense not to blame him. He was happy to say that the return trip was entirely uneventful, in a pleasant sort of way, and he was happy to feel the crispness of autumn that held a smell that he could not really describe, but quite enjoyed. The heat of the summer was finally gone completely, and he looked forward to returning home. It felt better, for some reason, to knit in the cooler weather. And his mama had more fruits after the harvest to bake into pies. When he had been a child she had snuck these home as often as she could, but now that he lived in the big house with such an enviable job, he would probably get a slice every day.
Agalon was getting much more lax with him, to the point that Xaxac was beginning to entertain the notion that he might be able to sneak away into the kitchen and see his family. He didn’t fully believe that such a thing was possible, but the thought entered his mind.
When they stopped for their pitiful lunch, Xaxac was happy to see that the security Agalon had hired did not join them. They stayed near the fighters, who huddled together against the cold and ate their provisions with a low murmur. Every so often one of them would glance their way, and when it was Wyatt, Xac waved to him, then playfully blew him a kiss.
He did not see Billy among them.
He actually noticed that a few people were missing. The original half dozen fighters had had their numbers cut in half.
Xaxac did not understand why everything was so pleasant.
He knew that he should be in trouble.
He didn’t understand why he wasn’t in trouble.
When they had returned to the stables, Lee had acted like none of it had happened. He hadn’t said a word to Agalon. That made no sense. Xac deserved to be in trouble. He was the one who had run, who had disobeyed Lee who had been put in charge of him.
But Lee hadn’t said anything.
Xaxac chewed slowly, in thought, as he remembered something Lee had said to him, so long ago. When Xaxac had told on Mrs OfAgalon, the housekeeper, because she had tried to hit him, Lee had scolded him, had told him that humans were never to tell on each other. Lee had said that they were supposed to look out for each other.
Xac watched Lee, who ate faster than nearly everyone else on the blanket and was sitting in repose with his hands in his lap, as quiet as everyone else.
Their eyes locked, and Lee’s stern face softened.
Xaxac smiled at him.
“You reckon we’ll make it by nightfall?” Kyrtarr asked.
“You can ride with the fighters, if you want,” Agalon said in the tone and cadence of a joke, but Xaxac knew him well enough to know that he spoke like that so that he could guard his words. If Kyrtarr really was afraid, Agalon wouldn’t be angry at him for making the sensible choice.
Xaxac stared up at the sky.
It was a little before noon.
They were making good time.
“You know,” Alex said slowly after he had taken a drink from his master’s flask, “I… I ain’t even really scared no more, you know?”
Xaxac smiled at him.
“I mean…” Alex continued, “After they locked me in there with him an’ everything.”
“Just between you, me, and the good lord Thesis above,” Agalon said to Kyrtarr, “I… don’t rightly know what’s gonna happen. I don’t know if that… messed up the schedule or… I just don’t know.”
“It was… weird,” Xaxac said, looking up at Agalon with pleading eyes, “I… I remembered it. I didn’t never remember it before. I didn’t do it on purpose but… maybe now I’ll always remember it. If I can control it that’ll make everythin a lot easier. I wouldn’t never hurt-” he paused. He was going to say ‘nobody’, but his brain elected to flash an image behind his eyes that he had no desire to see and refused to dwell on, of a man lying on the dirt missing a good chunk of his head, of red flesh, white bone, and something grey that oozed not only blood but something strange and clear that Xaxac could not, and did not want to, identify.
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The image made his stomach churn and for an instant he was afraid he was going to be sick, but in a very strange way; not as he had been sick before, but in a way that made his body shake and his head pound.
But he shoved it away through sheer force of will and continued, “Y’all.”
“I know you wouldn’t darlin,” Agalon said as he stood, “But we probably still oughta be gettin back on the road.”
Alex had taken another huge swig of the potion Kytarr kept for him, and thus had not been able to stand on his own either to make it back into the wagon or back out of it. Whatever his master had given him really did a number on him; he had barely been able to hold his head up and had only muttered those two sentences during their lunch, then he had fallen right back to sleep, and he slept now on the sofa of the sitting room in the guest suite at his home where Agalon and Xaxac were staying the night.
Xaxac knelt on the rug, nude once again, and stared down at the chains Agalon had looped around his wrists.
“Nothing might not happen this time,” Agalon said.
Alex tried his best to sit up on the sofa, but he could not stay awake long enough. Xaxac wished they would at least take his makeup and boots off.
Kyrtarr glanced out the window and Xaxac could see the fear on his face.
“I don’t feel nothin,” Xaxac said.
“You usually feel somethin?” Lee asked and glanced at the tray of spinach Bobby had sat on the table.
“I usually feel… scared,” Xac shrugged as best he could in his chains, and liked the sound they made when they rattled.
“I wish you didn’t scare so easy, darlin,” Agalon laid a hand in his hair and began to scratch at his scalp in the way he knew Xac liked.
“Little bunny Foo Foo,
Hoppin’ through the forest-” Alex sang and Lee rolled his eyes and began to mutter under his breath.
“Wish that youngun would make up his mind. Either sleep or don’t.”
Bobby giggled, and Xac watched the windows.
But he did not see the full moons.
He had never seen the full moons.
Instead, he shrieked as the familiar pain tore through him, and his mind no longer spoke to him.
“Huh,” Agalon said as he continued scratching between the monster’s ears, “That’s… now I just… don’t know what to make of all that… I just… how ya feelin, Honey Bunny? Can ya talk?”
The rabbit leaned heavily into his touch, snuggled into his side so fiercely it apparently threw off his center of balance and he fell onto his side on the carpet.
“We shoulda rolled that up,” Lee huffed to Bobby, “Let’s get that rolled up.”
The two of them moved to do so, and Agalon thought it was the remarkable condition of humans that they could become accustomed to anything.
“I don’t,” Agalon frowned and cradled his face in one hand as he watched the rabbit roll around on the floor, not as if it was in a panic, but as if it were… playing? Did rabbits play? He was heavier than Agalon had anticipated, and he squirmed until he managed to get out from under him and climb slowly to his feet in time to the sound of the cracking of his back. Xaxac did not seem to mind this much, and continued to roll lazily about the room.
“Xac?” Alex asked, and he sounded a bit more awake, as if the potion had begun to wear off, and the rabbit’s unsettling eyes focused on him, too big and too far apart on its face. But Alex saw the recognition there.
“I am absolutely terrified,” Alex said as he shoved himself up, using the side of the sofa for support, and made his way toward the monster on the floor that would tower over him when it stood, “Absolutely,” Alex said as he collapsed onto the floor in a way that seemed as if he had not meant to do it, then crawled until he was sitting next to the monster and could stare down at the rabbit in chains, “erect with terror.”
He giggled, and the monster rolled over onto its stomach, so Alex stroked its fur and began to sing.
“Little bunny Foo Foo,
Hopping through the forest,
Scooping up the field mice,
And bopping them on the head.”
He sang without much enthusiasm, yawned loudly and the rabbit repeated his action.
“He’s… never acted like this before,” Agalon said, “he usually gets real scared.”
“He said he wouldn’t scared,” Kyrtarr said as he watched Alex snuggle into Xaxac’s fur, bury his face in it, and fall back to sleep.
“He may be worn plumb out, master,” Lee said as he and Bobby tugged the carpet out from under the two sleeping pleasure slaves to finish rolling it, “It’s been a long trip. We’re all pretty wore out.”
“But he ain’t never been this calm,” Agalon argued, “It always happens at night and he ain’t never been this calm. It ain’t like him. If he’d’a been like this the last time… I mean… the last time the moons was full…”
“I don’t know,” Kyrtarr said, “But I don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. Maybe he’s finally figured out how to straighten up and act right.”
Agalon watched the gentle rising and falling of Xaxac’s back and Alex’s sleepy head resting there with a concerned frown.