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“Angel, I need you to tell me what’s going on. Do we need to go to the hospital?”

Bracing my hands on the frame of the bathroom, I let my head drop to the door as I test the handle, aaaand it’s locked.

Of-fucking-course.

My hand flexes around it as I try to restrain myself, and I feel the metal give into my grip.Well, that’s new.

“Winnow, baby, I need you to communicate with me. Are you hurt? If a snake bit you, we need?—

I hear a choked sob from behind the door. “I’m fine!”

The sound of Winnow’s sob has a tendril of fear for her striking through me like a lightning bolt.

“Angel, I need you to stand in the bathtub.”

Silence… Sniffles.

“… But why?”

“... Because I need to fix whatever is going on.”

A moment passes.

“Are you in the shower?”

Her voice sounds slightly further away, and I hear the ruffling of the shower curtain. More sniffling, more muffled sobs. “Gideon, I’m fine, I promise, please, don’t?—

The splintering of wood makes Winnow release a shrill scream as I kick the bathroom door so hard that the thing comes clean off the hinges and hits the floor with a thud.

Before I can even catch a full glimpse of her, she’s yanking the shower curtain closed. “Don’t come in, Gideon, please! I just need a few?—

Her cry is nothing short of panicked, and when I go to yank the curtain open she proceeds towrap herself in it like a fucking burrito.

“Goddamn it, woman. What the fuck is happening?”

I’d laugh if she wasn’t sobbing inside her shower curtain burrito, and it’s when I’m in the process of trying to unroll her that I see it.

Her tail.

The spaded end of her precious little pink tail.

And my heart just about breaks.

“Oh, angel…”

Winnow’s sobbing turns unrestrained. I reach up to the curtain rod, push it up out of its setting, and slide it free of the rings. It hits the floor with a loud clang just before I scoop Winnow, still rolled up in my shower curtain, into my arms and lay her on the bed to begin unrolling her. She wails, but her resistance has waned; she already knows she can’t stop me from doing it.

“Gideon, don’t! Please!”

I unroll her to the edge of the bed and then straddle her with one foot on the floor. There’s only one layer hiding her face from me, and I can see her tiny little horns and flowers peeking out from the top of the curtain.

Bracing myself on my elbows, I gently tug just the very edge of the curtain so that her eyes are revealed. The second her eyes meet mine, she lets out a wail, and I’m tugging away the rest of the curtain and pulling her into my lap.

“Shhhhh, come here, baby girl. I already told you there ain’t nothin’ you need to hide from me.”

Winnow’s sobbing swiftly wanes and reduces to a sniffle. “You mean… You—You?—

Cradling her in my arms, I’m shaking my head at her, so fucking relieved that she’s okay. “Is this what all the fuss is about?” I nod at her horns and the strange, but no less beautiful, little flowers in her hair.