Page 79 of For the Strange and Surprising

She gasps, whispering, “Is it bad? The belly button or…” Then she bounces her brows.

“Worse,” Will mumbles, eyeing me as he leans back. “The nostrils. Straight for the brain.”

“I am so lost,” I tell them. “Am I supposed to be the alien in this situation?”

Will cackles, and though I’m happy to see him in such a jovial mood, I’m thoroughly confused.

Ada grins and shrugs. “I mean, technically, we’re the aliens since we’re not from this world.”

He waves me over. “Alien or not, you’re holding my stash, man. Bring it here.”

I shake my head at him. “You should have sent for me earlier, Will. I would have brought all the crates down for you.”

“They’re down here now. If you help me sort them, I won’t hold you captive.”

Ada ambles around the empty room before spinning on her heel. “What would you like me to do?”

“I don’t want to put you to work, too,” he says, then backtracks when she raises her brows. “You don’t mind?”

“If I did, I wouldn’t have offered,” she jokes. “Consider this me paying my dues for the inside information.”

He points to the stack behind her. “I need to shelve all these bottles. Wine is in the black crates; they go on this rack on their sides.”

Ada begins immediately, as quick and careful as he is with his products. “And the others?”

“Don’t worry about those.” He waves her away before he notices how efficient she is.

“I’ve stocked bottles before, Mr. Battlerain,” she informs him. “I can’t reach the top racks without a step stool, but I can do the work.”

“Call me Will.” He chuckles. “Restaurants or bars?”

“Both at one point or another.”

He nods. “Liquor on the short wall, mead on the long wall. Match the letter on the cork tops with the labels on the shelves.”

Ada pulls her hair up as she moves to the next stack. I wait for her to finish with the top crate and notice a collection of tiny circular scars on her back. As I swap the wooden boxes, my mind whirls with ideas of how she got them.

I’m not suspicious of her, but Ecaeris would add them into his book of evidence if he saw them. They look like puncture marks from claws, only not as deep as mine.

“Can I ask you some questions while we work?” she inquires, and I almost answer her.

“You ask today; I ask tomorrow,” Will barters.

“Deal.”

“Then shoot.”

I’ve never comprehended that statement, but Ada seems to.

“When did you get here?”

Will hums. “I came in ‘76.”

She takes her time emptying another crate, then turns to glance at him. “What made you decide to stay here?”

“I couldn’t find a way off the island that didn’t involve crossing the ocean,” he confesses. “I fell in love while I was trying to figure it out and forgot about it. There wasn’t really anything left there for me.”

I can’t stop myself from cutting in. “Do you ever miss Earth?”