"John, I don't know what to do if Sam doesn't come back-- I love him, and I thought he loved me, and I don't have anywhere else to go--"
"Don't worry Caroline, I'll take care of you," John said.
"You will?"
"Of course. You and I can work to find a way to fix you."
She seemed confused, so he continued, "To find a way to make you human."
"Turn me human? Why?" "Why? Of course you want to be human; anyone would want to be. No, more importantly, who could love a monster?"
"...oh."
John smiled frost-brightly, in a vain attempt to pass some small measure of cheer onto her.
"Caroline, don't you fret about a thing; I'll be here with you to help, every step of the way!"
He thought he heard the faint sound of weeping from her room that night; surely Sam's reaction had come as a great shock and betrayal.
He, despite doing his best to be supportive, was unsure what else to say or do to comfort her.
After all, he had already said everything he could.
“Sam, please come back...” Caroline called, standing and dripping bathwater onto the thick woolen carpet.
Sam was long gone, out the door and headed God-Knows-Where, having forced his way past John without a single word to his brother.
John looked to Caroline to ask her, and saw Why.
Green scales glinted across her damp skin, like leaves in a forest understory. Acusatory emeralds in the dim of the hallway.
They’re fading as the skin dries, The part of John’s mind that was still functioning said. some sort of merfolk? Or perhaps a wyrm?
What kind of monster (he hunted monsters, killed them as he met them, of course he did why wouldn’t he- only good monster was a dead one, he always said) what kind of creature was his brother’s wife?
“John?” asked Caroline, drawing her towel around herself like a shawl.
Her skin, drier now, soft and fleshy, let her pass as human again. “John, are you...did you....did he say anything to you? Is Sam coming back?”
Of course he wasn’t coming back, John thought. Little Sam’s always hated monsters just as much as me, couldn’t even stand to hunt them himself, building his little weapons so he wouldn’t have to sully his own hands-- John remembered what Sam had hinted to him last night, and his face tried to form a wry smile but only made it as far as a wincing grimace.
Oh this is just perfect for Sam’s grand plans, his ambition outstripping his lovely, poor, politically unconnected wife; and now he has the perfect excuse to leave her, won’t have to face the scandal a divorce would cause--
His shoulders shook in silent, tearless sobs. How perfect for him. He even left his beloved wife alone with his murderous, monster-hunting brother, to tidy up the last loose ends.
Meriwether stared into fire for a long, long time afterwards, so long that Alberto half-thought he had become too lost in his thoughts to continue speaking them. The glow from the dying fire lit up his countenance, catching his eyes and the lines that gathered painfully around his eyes and brow, tugging the corners of his usual smile with the weight of years.
Eventually, Meri sighed and met his former apprentice’s eyes once more.
“And then I did what I was sent to do. I sighted down my barrel, and I took the shot.
“I’d like to say that that was the day I left the Masons then and there, but I had been in the Order for most of my life by that point, and I no idea the man I was outside of it. Also, I was always very good at at pushing off the big issues as far as I could shove them.
“Besides, I was quite, quite, good at my job; and I reasoned that if it was something I was good at then that meant it had to be a good thing to do.
“So I stayed-- for years after-- and I regret to say that even after all that, Thomas lost confidence in me before I could bear to lose confidence enough in him.” he sighed. “And then, I left.”
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