Freida Waters's Arc

Chapter 4 of 6

Drake perched on his rock, safe but still a mystery. Freida turned every page of her reptile guides again. She found no purple eyes, no honey scales, no fruit-eating lizard. Without a name, she could not prove where Drake belonged. And Corvina would come. Freida needed the truth before that dangerous woman knocked on her door. The door opened first, but it was not Corvina. A woman ducked inside, shaking mud from her boots. Black hair spilled past a green scarf. Pink glasses sat crooked on her nose. A belt of old keys jingled at her waist. Freida knew her at once. Mei Lin Chen wandered the swamps chasing folk tales, and she had helped Freida dig up forgotten history before. "You look like a woman with a puzzle," Mei Lin said. She spotted Drake and stopped. "Oh. That's a good one." Freida told her everything. The mangroves. The cages. The beast. The lizard who matched no book she owned. Mei Lin set a heavy gray book on the counter. Green stains dotted its cover. "I traded three keys for this last spring," she said. She flipped through pages of swamp beasts, then tapped one. "There. That's your fellow." Freida leaned close. The drawing showed purple eyes and red claws. The scales glowed like amber. "A Garth Lizard," Mei Lin read. "From Swamp Cat Hollow. Very rare. Nearly gone." She glanced at Drake. "Not dangerous, though. They just eat fruit and hide." Freida's chest loosened. She had a name at last. She had a home. Swamp Cat Hollow sat far from these mangroves, which meant Drake truly came from beyond the local swamp. "Endangered," Freida repeated. "Then Corvina had no right to cage them." "No one does." Mei Lin closed the book. She studied Freida's worried face. "You're afraid she'll come here." "She will." Mei Lin smiled and tapped the book. "Then don't fight her with force. Fight her with a story." She pulled a chair close. "There's an old tale about the Garth Lizard. People say it's a trickster. Steal one, and it curses your luck. It leads you into the deepest mud and leaves you there." Freida's eyes widened. "That isn't true." "Of course not." Mei Lin shrugged. "But Corvina hunts legends. A superstitious woman believes what she fears." She leaned in. "Tell her Drake is cursed. Tell her the beast will turn on anyone who cages his kind. She'll leave him alone." Freida wrote the tale on a scrap of paper. Her hand shook, then steadied. She finally knew what Drake was and where he came from. And now she held a weapon against Corvina that needed no knife. She tucked the paper into her pocket. Outside, a boat scraped against her dock. Heavy boots thumped closer. Freida looked at Mei Lin. "She's here," Freida whispered.