Page 12 of The Sixth Spring

Will licked his lips. What… what that thought? What was going on with him tonight?

He shook it off, told himself his head was just all mixed up from everything that had just happened.

Will’s gaze swept from the creature’s arm to the shoulders and down the chest. To the brighter gray belly scales that disappeared beneath the waterline. Behind him something was still moving in the water. Definitely a tail.

“Uh, yeah. Okay.” Will said, pulling his hand away. Now that he’d helped the creature, it was time to go. He shouldn’t be here, hanging out in the swamp with–with a monster.

…Was he a monster?

Monster meant something specific. Something horrible. The person in front of him… didn’t seem horrible. Different and scary to Will in those differences, but–but that wasn’t its fault. It hadn’t hurt him, had actually helped him.

Thoughts Will dared not look at were brewing at the edges of his mind. His eyes kept drifting to the creature’s bare torso, and he couldn’t stop it.

Over the years Will had snuck looks at boys in locker rooms. First in curiosity, and later…

Later, he’d looked because he couldn’t help himself. Because there was something different about him. Something monstr–

He forced his gaze off the creature’s body.

The hand reached out again. It grabbed Will’s forearm that was just hanging there in midair, frozen. Will’s heartbeat shot up into his throat.

The creature leaned closer, so close that Will felt its breath on his face. He expected the stench of rot, but instead it was a strangely sweet scent. Almost like oranges.

That couldn’t be right.

Its other hand reached for him, and then claws were moving over Will’s hair again, this time the nails raked softly across his scalp, moving top to bottom.

It was so shockingly gentle that his whole body trembled in response. The dark eyes on him were sharp. Watchful. A claw tip traced down to the bridge of his nose, and then down to Will’s lips.

His next breath came out in a strangled pant. What…?

Will’s gaze fell on the creature’s mouth in return. It didn’t have lips, just a severe, dark line, with a smaller scale patterning around it. The same decorative ridging went around his eyes too. It was reminiscent of an alligator.

Will shivered as the pad of one of his fingers touched Will’s lips.

He didn’t understand what it was doing. It was curious, maybe, about their differences? But the intimacy of its touches–

No one ever touched Will like this.

No one had ever touched him, period.

Will had been hugged once by a boy in middle school for catching a flyball during P.E. It had been a spur of the moment touch, done before the boys had caught on to what he was. Before they avoided him like his condition was contagious. The hug had been like a rockslide, the way it had moved through him. It made Will feel things he’d didn’t even have words for back then.

He’d trembled like a quake afterward, and the moment had stayed with him, seared into his memory.

This felt like that. Like a terrifying revelation that he knew would linger in his mind long after they parted.

The fingers were careful. The creature had such sharp claws, but was touching Will like he was precious. The hands went down Will’s neck and to his shoulders. The claws grazed his skin, but didn’t cut. They traced his body like they were memorizing it, making it more real everywhere they lingered.

Will shuddered, shoulder’s curling as a spike of heat shot down through him. His teeth clenched, repressing the sound in his mouth.

The touching stopped.

“It’s–it’s okay,” Will said quickly, almost tripping over the words. He closed his eyes a second, took a steadying, humiliating breath. “Sorry.”

The apology meant nothing, the creature wouldn’t understand.

Except then the hands were moving again. This time, they drifted downward.