When Women Were Dragons(64)

I shoved my hands into my pockets to warm them up. “I don’t think orphan is a very nice word,” I said primly.

If he heard me, he didn’t act like it. “I also heard about your little outburst at the library today,” he chuckled. “They’re all talking about that, too.”

Shame churned through my stomach. I was going to have to apologize to Mrs. Gyzinska. And to Mr. Burrows too, probably. But not for a bit. I decided to change the subject. “You work at the library?” I took a step closer, trying to get a clearer look at his face. I didn’t recognize him. “I’ve never seen you there.”

“Not exactly,” he said, writing something down in his steno pad. “And I’m not surprised you don’t recognize me. I do my work at the library, if you understand me, thanks to the generosity of dear Mrs. Gyzinska. God bless that woman. The world doesn’t deserve her. But I don’t wander about in public very often. My work is best done with a low profile, you see, so my office is a bit out of the way. I have the run of the place after hours. But that isn’t so bad for those of us who are curious for a living.”

I stood there quietly for a long time. The man didn’t notice me puzzling over his words. He looked through his contraption and took more notes. I wanted to look at what he was writing.

“So . . . you’re a professor?” I asked.

“Once upon a time, I was,” he said as he kept one eye pressed against the viewing lens of his device. “Back when people called me Doctor. Doesn’t that sound nice? Dr. Gantz. Now they just call me old man.” He wrote a word and underlined it with a firm stroke.

“You can probably still call yourself doctor,” I said. “If it makes you happy. It seems like once a person becomes a doctor they must stay a doctor. Right?” Admittedly, I had no idea how it worked.

He ignored this. “Please. Keep your voice down. I don’t want you to startle her.” I looked back across the river. All this for a cow?

“What makes you think it’s a she?” I asked. But then I felt silly saying so; every dairy farm I had ever seen was entirely female, with males only trucked in every once in a while when it was time to make them all mothers. Of course it was a she.

He turned the page and started writing again. “Well, that is an excellent question! Very astute! It’s true they mostly are female, though, to be fair, not entirely—though that’s a controversial take, and there isn’t a lot of agreement on that point, thanks to the lack of scientific exchange and the strangulation of the community of ideas, but don’t get me started on that!” He swallowed a laugh, as though this was an inside joke between the two of us. I had no idea what he was talking about. “To answer your question, I know this one is female because I’ve been watching her for the last several hours. Fascinating creature. Quite old. This sort of thing takes longer when they’re old, which is true for pretty much everything, if I’m being honest, but you have many years before you have to learn about that. In any case, the slow pace is a gift, actually, and fantastic for my research. Lots of opportunity for observation.”

He was an odd man. Off-putting. He seemed to be having a conversation with himself, and not really with me. I didn’t want to be there anymore. “Well. Nice to meet you. I have to go.” I gave a wave.

He looked up from his notes. “Oh, but must you so soon? If you stay, you can see her launch. It is amazing, watching them use their wings for the first time.”

I blanched. “Wings?” I said. The river gurgled and the bog burped and the wind shook the grasses and the trees. I shivered. I heard a sigh coming from somewhere, but I couldn’t tell where. Animal? Or just the breeze exhaling through the empty windows of the building behind us. “Oh. It’s a bird over there? It was making such a racket, I thought for sure it must be a c—” I didn’t want to say what I thought. Why would a cow be in the cranberry bog? I didn’t want him to think I was silly. “So. A bird, you say.” I wasn’t making a particularly good impression.

He paused for a long moment, his mouth pursed slightly to the side. “Sure,” he said. He wrote something down. “A bird.” His voice was flat. “Have a wonderful night.” He turned back to his binoculars and began drawing without looking at the page. I turned and left without a word.

I shoved my hands in my pockets, sharply aware that our conversation had reached an abrupt, and awkward, end. I walked away in the dark.

Why did I know that name? Gantz. It wasn’t particularly common. I racked my brain, thinking through classmates and teachers. Maybe the author of a textbook. Who else? And also, I wondered, why on earth would an old bird be using its wings for the first time?

I walked up the stairs toward Spencer Street. The moon hovered low over the trees, its thin light casting long shadows stretching across the ground. Dry leaves skittered along the pavement as I walked. I paused, looked up at the sky, and marveled at the stars, the darkness, the quiet of night, the thin moonlight, the wide expanse of bog. I saw the silhouette of wings rising above the birches and soaring upward—a dark shadow against the spangle of light. Using her wings for the first time. Good girl, I found myself thinking as I turned and walked toward home.

It wasn’t until later that I realized it was the most enormous bird I had ever seen. I shook my head. Probably just a trick of the light.