Revelations by Carrie Lynn Barker Page B

She caught me looking.
    “This must all be so interesting to you,” she said.
    “You have no idea,” I muttered.
    Hermione guided me by my shoulder over to her work table. I finally got a good look around the room. The shed was about ten feet by twenty but so cluttered with things it looked a whole lot smaller. Bare bulbs dangled from the ceiling, giving off little light. A worktable dominated the room, lit by a quality florescent. On the table was a microscope and a whole bunch of other stuff I could not identify, stuff that looked like it would be right at home on the set of Doctor Who .
    Hermione began to explain. “Right now, my brother and I are working on a genetic comparison of our own DNA.” She gestured with her stubby hand towards Humbolt, who leaned against a bookshelf. “As you can see, he and I are quite different, yet we are twins.” Hermione was right about that. She and her brother were different. They were the same size, in height and weight. Her face looked much like his, round and beautiful, but her horns were straight, measuring about a foot and extending from just above her forehead. “We are trying to discover what it is exactly that makes us this way,” she continued. “For instance, the horns. And then there’s this.” From behind her, she produced a genuine tail, tufted at the end like that of a cow.
    I couldn’t resist. “Can you swish it?”
    She swished her tail so it thumped her chest. “I can swish it.”
    I bit my lower lip in something that might have been embarrassment, but when you meet a cow person…well, you’ll know what I mean if you ever do. Hermione was beautiful and intelligent, and I couldn’t resist her charm. I stayed and listened to her talk for a good twenty minutes while Jonas and Humbolt joked on the other side of the shed. When she asked me questions about myself, I answered her as honestly as I could without revealing too much about my true nature. I didn’t know much about me anyway, so she offered to run some tests to see what she could discover. I surprised myself by readily agreeing to this.
    Then I said goodbye, as I could see Jonas getting bored and beginning to poke into things while Humbolt told him to quit it. Once again I found myself alone in the presence of the lizard man. All we did was go inside where Jonas made me a sandwich. Alendra disappeared to who knew where, and I didn’t bother to pry. Philip joined us after a while and we sat and discussed what life was like out here in this desert Commune. I listened and gave my opinion, but my mind drifted elsewhere. In this house with these people I would soon consider my family, I could think of nothing else except my father, my real family, who disappeared.

Chapter Nine
    My time at the Commune would be shorter than I would have liked. It wasn’t my fault, what happened there, at least not in full. I loved everyone there, including Alendra, who became a dear friend eventually. I shudder now to think of them. I considered them my family in many, many ways, and it was my betrayal that brought it all to an end. Yes, eventually they did find me, though I didn’t lead them there, not directly, anyway.
    Here I am, getting ahead of myself. I lived at the Commune for over a year. I spent many an hour at the movies with Cadence, always during the daylight hours and always holding her hand in the theatre since she was terrified of the dark. Starch and I became the best of friends from the moment of our initial meeting. We had an affinity for The X-Files, for obvious reasons. Philip and I had many an intellectual conversation on many a philosophical topic, as did Hermione and I, often with her shy, silent brother simply looking on. Alendra and I discovered a common ability. That we could never deny. I spent many a night in envy of Pete and Patty’s symbiotic relationship. Anyway, I fell in love with the place, fell in love with the desert, and fell in love with the people.
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