“We can try tomorrow,” Scarlet said patiently.
“Tomorrow...” There was something Gizelle was supposed to remember about tomorrow. “Chef is making figgy pudding tomorrow!”
“Yes, but...”
Gizelle was already gone, flying to tell Conall about the pudding.
Conall, unfortunately, was at the restaurant. Gizelle fidgeted a while at the back entrance, then decided she was not feeling brave enough to join him after a particularly loud laugh from one of the other guests.
Instead, she returned the checkers to the game board on the deck below with a sigh of relief, frowning over the red marks in her sweaty palm from holding them too tightly and too long.
Then she went to graze as a gazelle, because it was easiest, and the sun was warm on her tawny coat and the grass was sweet and the insects made a lovely, restful droning sound that drowned out all the rest of the noise in her head.
By the time she was aware of time again, the sun was starting to set.
She still hadn’t told Conall about the figgy pudding, so she went to find him. Her sarong was where she had left it, so she tied it back around herself in one of the clever ways that Lydia had shown her.
Conall wasn’t at his cottage, so she went to look for him.
He wasn’t on the bar deck, but Magnolia was.
Magnolia was restful to be around. She was the biggest and most beautiful thing that Gizelle knew, as a human or as a polar bear.
When Gizelle approached her, Magnolia tipped her sunglasses down her nose. “Darling, you’re looking almost tanned, you’ve been out in the sun in your human skin so much.”
Gizelle envied how comfortable Magnolia was in her own skin.
Not even her gazelle’s skin was that comfortable.
“It’s just the sunset,” Gizelle assured her, putting both pale arms out in front of her. “I’m still more moonlight than melanin.”
Magnolia’s laugh was like caramel. “I love how unexpected you always are,” she said warmly.
“I love that you don’t think I’m weird. Unexpected is better than weird,” Gizelle said gratefully. She thought that she should sit in one of the tall chairs, but when she did, she was too restless, so she stood again almost at once.
“Want some water?” Magnolia offered, preparing one of her ringed hands to signal Tex from the bar.
Gizelle shook her head. “I had a drink from one of the rain buckets earlier,” she explained offhandedly.
“So, tell me about Conall,” Magnolia said, with no trace of the discomfort that other people got on the topic. “Because he looks like a dish, and you don’t look as happy as you should.”
Gizelle decided that sitting would make her more likely to stay through the whole conversation and perched up on the tall chair with her legs crossed. “It’s not what I expected.”
“Having a mate?” Magnolia prodded.
“Any of it,” Gizelle said mournfully. She tried to square the napkin in front of her to the circular table, with futile results.
“Do you like him?” Magnolia asked.
“I do,” Gizelle said at once. “He’s beautiful and kind and never shouts.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
Gizelle stared across the table. “I am,” she said finally.
Magnolia
laughed at her. “You are not a problem.”