Freida Waters's Arc

Chapter 2 of 6

Freida carried the lizard through her shop door and kicked it shut behind her. Blood still smeared her palm. She had wanted the swamp's secrets, but a bleeding secret needed a body to hold it. She remembered the glass tank in the back room, left from the bearded dragon she kept years ago. She hurried to it, blew off the dust, and set the trembling creature inside on the sunning rock. The lizard hissed and pressed against the glass. Its scales shone amber and gold. Its eyes were a strange bright purple, and its claws were red as berries. Freida had no idea what it ate or how to fix its torn side. Guess wrong, and it would die on her floor. She climbed her ladder and pulled down a green book with a smiling bearded dragon on the cover. Her old reptile guide. She sat on the floor beside the tank and read fast. Clean the wound with warm water. Keep the animal warm. She filled a bowl, wet a cloth, and worked it gently over the torn scales. The lizard flinched but let her. She dabbed until the bleeding slowed and stopped. Next she found the heat lamp coiled in the same box. She clamped it over the tank and switched it on. The bulb glowed, and warmth spread across the rock. The lizard crept toward it and settled under the light. Its breathing grew slow and even. Now food. Freida turned the pages. She found a chapter on feeding and ran her finger down the list. Some reptiles ate insects. Some ate greens. She had crickets in a jar from her old pet days, so she dropped a few in. The lizard ignored them. It only stared at the fruit bowl on her counter. Freida picked up an orange fruit and cut a slice. She held it near the glass. The lizard lunged, snatched it, and swallowed. Juice dripped from its jaws. It grabbed a second piece and ate that too. Freida laughed for the first time all morning. She filled the water bowl, and the lizard drank until its sides stopped heaving. "A fruit eater," she said. "I'll call you Drake." Drake blinked his purple eyes and curled under the lamp, safe. Freida sat back, tired and glad. The obstacle was gone. She had kept the strange creature alive. But the book troubled her. She flipped to the section on species and found nothing amber. No lizard in these pages had purple eyes or red claws. She fetched her thick guide to swamp animals and searched that too. Every native lizard was green or gray. None matched Drake at all. Freida closed the book slowly and looked at the sleeping lizard. He was healed now, but he did not belong here. No swamp she knew had ever held his kind. So where had Drake come from, and how had he ended up bleeding under her mangrove trees?