camwyn | Because I am Too Damn Tired: LXG, Diary of a Mountie, Still The Same Part As Last Time

*** CONTINUED FROM PRIOR PAGE ***

I didn't need to look up to see the smile on Swift's face. I could feel it. I don't know how much of it was him trying not to laugh at my predicament and how much was relief that he hadn't been stuck with the infant instead, but then again I didn't care to find out. I've never really had to handle babies before. Puppies, yes, but the last time I held anyone's baby was during a diphtheria epidemic in a Yukon Indian village. That was years ago.

She wriggled in my arms a little. I started to put her down, but she stopped squirming - just wanted her arm free to try and grab at my nose. She missed, of course. I wasn't about to let those claws get that close to my face. They might've been tiny, but so are the claws on lynx kittens, and those are sharp as needles. Besides, she'd just torn her way out of an egg. She had to be strong to do that.

She. Not it, she. It was awfully hard to think of this child as related to the things that had tried to kill us down at the docks. True, she had a scowling sort of look, but so did the Indian babies at the village. I think most babies look like that, at least at first. She might have had webbing between her fingers, but - well, at that size it hardly looked like more than the webbing between my thumb and forefinger, or any man's. Her toes looked just as normal and natural as any child's, without the slightest hint of tail to 'em. Why, as I was counting them over, she wriggled her toes and kicked out - just a little bit of a kick. Nothing that suggested she could punch through a thick, leathery eggshell. I patted her foot then and apologized for the intrusion, but she didn't seem to understand. She just stared at me with those black eyes of hers and waved that pudgy little hand.

It occurred to me then that you couldn't properly call a baby like this human. She had no mother - at least, not the way most people would count it. She was hatched, not born. The laws of the British Empire don't exactly cover people hatched from eggs. If I were to bring her before a court and ask them to decide what she was, why, they'd probably argue about it for months on end. I expect they'd call her an animal, when everything was said and done. I could understand that being the case with the ones at the docks, but this one. . . well, she had fingers and toes, feet and hands. Everything about her, except the webbing and the claws, was exactly what you'd find on a human baby. But she'd hatched from an egg, and if that egg had been kept cold she'd have hatched out with spines and fangs and a tail, and if I knew my law at all that would be enough to call her an animal. Somehow, that didn't sit right with me.

Dorothy was watching me when I looked up. "She's pretty," she said softly.

I nodded. "Are there many water babies in Oz?" I asked.

"Well, no, not really," she said thoughtfully. "Oz is a beautiful country and all, but it's got the Deadly Desert on all four sides. There's Sea Fairies in the ocean, but that's miles and miles and miles off, clear on the other side of Ev. But I've heard stories about 'em, and Trot - she's from California, she got to Oz in a giant whirlpool - she had a magic ring from the Mermaids, so that if she ever got in trouble on the water, they'd help her."

I had enough sense not to ask further. Not because of the subject matter - it's hard to be a skeptic when you've got a fresh-hatched mermaid's baby in your arms - but because I suspected any more questions would reduce her to tears again. Instead, I resettled the baby so she could see her a little better. "We're going to have to give her back to her parents, you know," I said. "Assuming they don't try to eat us."

Dorothy's face brightened at that. "I bet I could do it," she said. "As long as I have the Belt on."

"Maybe," I conceded. "But, you know, we couldn't send a little girl like you down to face all those mermaids alone, could we? Some of them might still be angry, and give you trouble. We'd have to come with you, and we don't have the Belt."

She grew thoughtful at that. "Huh," she said. "That's so, I s'pose; but the Belt's got magic powers. The Nome King used to use it for all his magic transformations. Maybe I could use it to hide someone so the mermaids wouldn't bother 'em."

Since I wasn't paying attention to her, the baby made another grab for my nose. If I hadn't shaved off my mustache years ago (Louise said it itched), she probably would've caught hold of it. "Oh no you don't, Missy," I told her - but really, I had to smile, even if she was scowling furiously.

Swift, who had been watching us the whole time, went back to fiddling with his rifle. "You know," he commented without looking up, "I could probably- what was that?"

"What was what?" Dorothy asked, but I'd heard it too.

"That thump?"

Swift nodded. "There it is again-"

"I heard it too," said Dorothy. "And a - why, what on earth are you doing?" That last was addressed to the baby. She was craning her tiny neck, peering over my arm towards the window. It reminded me of the look Prince got when-

Come to think of it, Prince was staring at the window too. And the fur on the back of his neck was beginning to bristle. I glanced over to Swift, but he knew what I was going to say already. Without a word he set the rifle down and pulled out his tin of wax. "Dorothy," I said quietly, "have you ever held a baby before?"

"Oh yes. Munchkin babies, mostly." I must've looked pretty blank, because she added, "They're people in Oz. They're just like reg'lar babies, only smaller."

"All right." The baby squirmed a little. "You had better put some of that wax in your ears, because I'm going to need you to hold this little girl. for me" She nodded obediently, tucked the stuff in, and took the baby from me. I thought for a second and called Prince over; he let me block his ears as easily as he had Miss Poppins. Then it was only a matter of my own ears. (Let me tell you, neither deafness nor the feel of squishy wax is anything I care to repeat again. If another case like this ever comes up, I hope it's not until after Swift's finished his work on the vibrating metal.)

After that the whole thing seemed - well. There was an old prospector I knew in Forty Mile who told me once about a dream he had, a nightmare of sorts. He had fallen through the ice of the Yukon River in winter and floated downstream. There were people standing along the riverbank, talking and working. None of them seemed to see him. He tried to call out to them, but nobody heard. He kept trying to yell in the dream, but there wasn't the slightest bit of sound coming out of his mouth. Said he was sure he was just about to freeze solid when he woke up.

It was a little bit like that. When I looked up from stopping my ears with wax, Dorothy was very earnestly talking to the baby. Couldn't tell what she was saying, of course, but that didn't matter. She wasn't talking to me. Whatever she was saying, it didn't seem to be having much of an effect. The baby was reaching towards the window with both her tiny hands, squirming as if she thought she could get loose and crawl away somehow. Swift's eyes were wide with alarm, maybe because he had one hand on the inside of the shutters. As I looked to him, he lifted his free hand and made a scratching - no, a clawing - gesture. Then he jerked his thumb towards the shutters.

J. had said the Sirens had chewed their way through the hulls of the Scottish fleet. Down at the docks, the Sirens we'd met had had claws long enough to climb up the pilings and onto the quay. And the baby had those selfsame claws.

I breathed easier as Swift turned from the window to pick up his rifle, but as I reached for my own, Prince nudged my leg. I looked up in time to see Dorothy silently reprimand the baby one last time - before she headed straight towards the window herself. Swift was shaking his head furiously, mouthing words at her that I'm sure she couldn't hear, but it didn't seem to have any kind of effect. Prince looked up at me piteously, one big helpless whimper made flesh. To tell the truth, I felt the same way. I could have ordered him to stop Dorothy, but with the wax, what would be the use? All I could do was point – then again, this was Prince, and that was enough. He wagged his tail and bounded towards the window, but too late. Dorothy already had her hand on the shutter-

The door to the room swung open, revealing the form of Mary Poppins. Prince tugged at the little girl's sleeve, turning her around. I pulled one of my earplugs out in time to hear her say, "Get away from those shutters, Dorothy."

It's been a long time since I've seen someone so young look so surprised. Between the order from Miss Poppins and the fact that Prince was still tugging at her sleeve, she couldn't help stepping away. Miss Poppins nodded. "Very good," she said. "Now, if you please, give her to me."

I thought I saw Dorothy's arms pull the water-baby in a little bit tighter at that. It didn't help the baby's disposition any – she let out a whimper and struggled to reach for the window again. Miss Poppins sighed. "Dorothy," she said, a bit more kindly, "I have just spoken with a proper Mermaid aboard our dirigible. The entire hotel grounds, particularly the walls and windows leading up to this very room, are covered with angry Sirens. They want this little one back."

Dorothy turned and stared at the shutters a moment, then looked down at the baby in her arms. "I'm s'prised at you," she said reproachfully. "Why, those fish-ladies-"

"Would like her back, Dorothy. Now, give me the baby."

With a sigh, the girl obeyed. It still made no difference to the water baby, who just kept struggling towards the window. "Thank you, Dorothy," said Miss Poppins. Dorothy murmured a "y'r welcome", which seemed to be enough for the nanny. "We're going back to the dirigible now," she declared, straightening up. "With any luck, this will all be cleared up quite soon."

Almost as soon as Miss Poppins had left the room, Swift turned to the shutters. He rapped on one with a knuckle, then nodded slightly. "The weight's gone," he said. "Bet you we can open them now."

"But Miss Poppins said-"

"She didn't say anything about opening the windows after she left, now, did she?" Swift grinned. "Besides, I want to see."

He threw the shutters open. They kicked up a puff or two of sawdust and shavings. Apparently, the Sirens had been a quarter of an inch away from getting into the room with us. Swift started poking at the cuts, but I stuck my head out far enough to look down instead. There were still Sirens clinging to the building – headed downwards, true, but that just made it worse somehow. The yard looked like a pine tree fallen after a storm, there were that many spines and bristles casting shadows in the moonlight. Not one of the Sirens was moving, either. They were all staring up at Miss Poppins and the baby as she serenely glided away. That seemed to be what they were looking for; as soon as she'd passed over, they started inching their way back across the land in the direction of our airship.

"There's a sight I could have gone my whole life without seeing," I muttered, pulling back into the Inn.

"Oh, I don't know. They're interesting, in a dangerous sort of way."

"Swift-"

"Call me Tom, Sergeant. We don't stand on ceremony in America."

"All right, Tom. I'd rather not have an interesting death, if it's all the same to you."

He laughed. "I thought Mounties were supposed to be brave!" he said, clapping me on the shoulder. I just smiled back.

"I thought Sirens were supposed to be myths."

"All right, fair enough…" He grinned, stepping away from the window.

"So what do we do now?" piped up Dorothy. "We can't really follow Miss Poppins and the others, can we?"

"Not while they're in the dirigible, no," I told her. "They might be a while, too. I think it might be a good idea if we were to get you to your bed now. You can get some sleep, and when Miss Poppins comes back, I'll wake you up."

"Promise?"

"I promise."

So we got her to bed, at least for a little while. Tom and I stayed up, taking turns watching at the window. I would've liked a nap myself, but it wouldn't be a good idea to fall asleep in the middle of a case like this. If anything went wrong we'd be up to our noses in Sirens again. We were lucky, though. In the end it was neither Miss Poppins nor angry Sirens that greeted us; it was Danner, clinging to the dirigible's ladder and knocking at the window with a vast grin on his face. "Come on up," he yelled. "Wait until you see our guest!"

Like any other sleepy child, Dorothy grumbled a little when I shook her awake, but we got her and Toto up the ladder easily enough. Danner had to carry Prince, which didn't go over well at all. The rest of us made it up on our own, and as soon as Prince could be coaxed out from under the furniture again, Danner led us to-

"That's the bathroom," stated Tom.

Danner nodded.

"People don't like being disturbed in the bathroom."

"Oh, trust me," said Danner, "it won't be a problem."