Page 24 of Moist!

chapter one

CREATURE

Morning Patrol:

Day eighty-nine, first surveillance of the day.

My vines pierce the swamp’s murky waters. They stretch and grow, the fibers pulled taut. They become the roots of the copper iris. Then, they become the soil, so wet beneath the water and so rich with minerals, they move through my veins to settle on my moss green tongue.

Metallic, salty to finish. I grunt in approval.

A dragonfly’s iridescent wings shift from blue to silver to green as it lands on a stalk of a milkweed.

A fat toad, one of several clustered along the marshy edge of the water, extends its long tongue to cling to the insect mid-air before devouring it whole.

The ridged head of an alligator rises from beneath the duckweed to see the kill in action.

By its small frame, the alligator is a young female; by the quickness with which it snaps up the toad, it is an experienced hunter.

Nearly halfway through my new assignment, and the swamp is recuperating from the scorching summer heat nicely .

Midday Patrol:

The sun is high in the sky, and a flight of butterflies lands on the vines of my shoulders.

I sense their exhaustion, their tired wings, their little bodies aching.

With dew caught in the rough crags of my bark, I provide the butterflies water and allow them to rest in the shade of the leaves that sprout from my head and shoulders.

I feel the vitality of the swamps' flora and fauna deep in the twisted vines of my body.

I am their protector, one of many guards assigned by our commander to different marsh and swamp land.

I stand still, patient and silent, as the swamp roars with life.

It is my duty to listen to my charge, to always be vigilant and defend as necessary.

My legs, like the trunks of the cypress trees, are broad and gray-brown, with roots at the base that taper up to the muscled sinew of my thighs. My feet sink into the mud, and I drink in the water through my rough skin, measuring the acidity.

The water is balanced.

I check again.

On my last assignment, a marshland much further inland, I had missed a sudden spike of acidity in the water.

I’d been distracted by the anger of a group of humans who had invaded my temporary home.

Their animosity was so thick, the emotion infected the land, and I had been too late to realize what larger damage they proliferated: the humans were gleefully dumping toxic waste from a nearby refinery.

I’m very good at following the directions of my post, but that time, I’d been too preoccupied trying to figure out why the flowers were wilting, why the birds had flown in erratic circles, that I didn’t stop the men the first time.

However, I made certain it would not happen again.

In the end, the humans had served a valuable purpose.

A smile tugs at the dark green corners of my mouth.

The alligators never feasted so well.

Soon after, my commander assigned me to watch over this new swamp. It is a small parcel of land, only some light recovery needed from a season of intense temperatures.

“You will relax and recover from your hunt, far from the populace.” She had said it kindly, but the leaves on the back of my neck had bristled.

I’m certain the easy assignment was punishment for not preventing the humans from their initial harm and the centuries long cleanup it would require.

I had never failed before; I am good at my job, and it felt unnatural to be given anything other than the toughest of cases.

“No arguments, Creature.” Her head, topped with a crown of purple flowers, shook as she spoke to me. “You are just as much a part of the ecosystem as the golden silk spiders and the swamp iris. Rest.”

My commander is a millennia older, and, most importantly, she is right to punish my mistake.

“I will go wherever I’m told,” I had relented. “I will not fail again.”

My vines retract into my arms and reform into my hands. The swamp drains from my foliage before finally being wrung out.

After almost three months watching over the land, it is close to healthy. The insects and animals are content, and no irate human emotions flow through the earth. Yet, the flora of my muscles are taut, restless to protect my charge from another attack.

Evening Patrol:

Warning! the toads loudly croak.

Watch out! the fireflies blink with their glowing abdomens.

The placid surface of the water vibrates, and the grass reeds shimmy with unease. Narrowing my glowing purple gaze, I quickly scan the marshy land. I look right to left, then up and down below the waterline. The sun is setting, and it is too dark to be certain I’m seeing it all.

Useless, I hiss, extending my limbs outwards, sinking my vines deep into the soil to better get a read on the threat. Who or what is harming you? I ask the land.

And then, I feel it—the weight of a human moving at the edge of the water, as if they were atop my back. Their body moves in place, fast and sweaty, the grass drinking up their salt as they run.

What have they done to you this time? I growl.

The swamp answers with an irritated hum.

It’s different from my previous marshland charge.

Then, the reeds had cried out in pain and anger, the animals moving in panic.

Now, the land is uneasy with the energy of a new presence and seems to be reacting to the human’s frantic movement with a sudden stillness.

The herons are silent, the water does not move; only the drone of unease and the chirp of cicadas fills the air.

Dropping under the water, I test it once more and discover it unchanged — the human has not polluted it.

Not yet. But as I close in on the unwelcome visitor, the swamp’s whining buzz grows louder and louder until finally, I am certain there must be a whole herd of humans.

The humming has become an earsplitting drone that echoes in the water, far more intense than at even my last assignment.

Moving slowly, I am deliberate with each lift of my foot and reach of my vines.

I rise out of the water, scanning the land for the mass of humans who must be there.

I spot one instantly. A single female, alone, back to me, running in place.

The human is mere yards from the water's edge, so focused on her task, she doesn’t turn to see me. I scan the swamp further. There are no other humans. It doesn’t make sense.

The noise is too loud, the swamp’s reaction too strong, for just one little human.

I look for other items of destruction the land might react to, containers marked with words of warning or large bags filled with waste, but she has so little with her, a cell phone and a metal water bottle at her feet.

Only small swatches of tight gray fabric cover her chest and hips, hardly enough to conceal tools of harm.

There is so much vulnerable flesh on display, rounded in the curves of her legs and generous weight of her buttocks.

The fullness of her ass shakes as she runs, the only movement in the sudden stillness.

Though she is a great deal smaller than me, as all humans are, she is taller and fuller than the ones I have interacted with before.

She is different from the men who’d cowered before me in more ways.

They had appeared sharp in their defensive stances.

They’d been stiff, even when they entered the marshland, their bodies angled away from nature, as if repulsed to be in an environment not human-made, cautious to not touch the green.

But this human looks soft, like the downy undercoat of a river otter, so plush, I’m certain my vines would sink into her like thick moss.

She doesn’t shy away from the swamp; instead, she lets the long grass brush against her calves and avoids the delicate flowers as she runs.

And when she lifts her arms, I catch the sharp shadow of powerful muscle in the waning sunlight, golden light catching like morning dew on her flushed skin.

I will not be distracted. I frown, jerking away from her bouncing backside. She is a threat to the swamp.

My palms press into the mud, hoping to find the land’s relief. Instead, I confirm the dirt is still troubled, the animals too quiet.

She is one human, just one soft, strong human.

My tongue darts out from between my lips, searching for the moist salt of her sweat.

I taste the air and find it bitter with this human’s emotions.

I inhale, savoring her worry and anxiety.

There is something else in her scent. It’s strong and sweet, like ripe berries, but somehow, it’s less mundane, less human, more—I inhale deeply— divine.

What is she? More importantly, what kind of destruction can she cause?

The human mutters nervously to herself as she runs in place, stopping only to check a device on her wrist and mutter some more. As her pulse grows louder and more panicked, the cicadas fall from their own rhythm and begin to match hers .

Very odd, very strange. I realize why the air tastes the way it does.

The human in front of me is not completely human at all: she is a Strange.

What kind, I can’t be sure. She is obviously not a swamp monster like me.

It’s too early in the evening for a vampire to be out, there is not enough of an animal scent on her to be a shifter, she does not have the tell-tale pointed ears of a faerie, and she is far too tall to be an elf…

She is a witch.

She must be. There are few Strange in the world, and even fewer who are human in their appearance, at least without some magic to disguise them. I would be able to sense the glamour.

No wonder the land feels her emotions so strongly—there is magic behind it.

Silently, I lift myself onto the grassy bank just as the witch decides to drop to the ground.

She holds herself up on her palms and toes; then, her arms bend, and she moves her full chest closer to the ground before she pushes herself up.

She repeats the process, lowering down and pushing up, her energy growing more chaotic.

She is seemingly in distress yet repeats her actions? I want to understand. I need her to stop more.

Hidden in the shadows, I sink the vines of my hands into the ground once more, tunnelling them through the dirt to sprout beneath her. When she moves downwards again, I can feel her skin with the tips of my vines.

She is softer than a river otter . My vines stroke lightly against her belly. Like the underside of the swamp iris’ petal .

Her thighs jiggle as she pushes herself back up, the light of the setting sun glowing over her dimpled flesh, unable to hide the power beneath the surface. Her sweat drips into the dirt, and my vines absorb it. It is bitter and anxious, and the plants will get sick drinking too much of it.

I’m good at my job—very good. This swamp will not suffer the same fate as the last one .

It took only a moment of distraction for a small group of humans to do a level of destruction that will take centuries to fix.

With a Strange, I do not know what havoc could be wrecked, even unintentionally.

Whatever is causing this witch to feel as she does and the land to grow quiet in response, I will fix it.