"Did you hear that?" Roxton asked and looked up at Marguerite. Trying not to watch her busy hands, he'd been studying one of the cave's blue fairy lights -- or as Challenger would have said, the energy matrix manifesting as luminescence. It was all interpretation. Where George saw particle physics and equations, Marguerite preferred fairies. And George wasn't there. It was just Marguerite, Roxton and the countless glowing blue fairy crystals that lined the cave.
"Hear what? I didn't hear anything," Marguerite said. At the moment their refuge was as silent as death.
Finishing her bandaging, Marguerite rocked back on her heels and inspected her handiwork. Underneath the makeshift bandage cut from a blanket, angry black, blue and bleeding red gouges crisscrossed Roxton's chest in just about the pattern an infant tyrannosaurus rex might make threshing an uninvited nest mate. Actually there'd been two infant "t's", both still dark green and gold. That had made them two weeks old, maybe less.
Marguerite gently gave Roxton's bandage one last pat and tried to smile. "Well, John, when you get home, you'll have an absolutely stunning set of scars. All your London lady friends are going to be so impressed."
Roxton snorted. "The only lady friend I care about is right here." His head jerked around. "You can't hear that?"
An uneasy vibration sent loose blue crystal shards skittering across the cave's gently sloping floor and cascading down toward a narrow entrance. Six tons of motherhood prowled outside. She'd smelled Roxton's blood on her dead babies and she meant to have the rest of him, preferably in pieces.
Mama t-rex had chased them through the darkening rainforest, sometimes closer than death follows life. Sometimes, like when they'd scrambled in here, much further behind.
I've heard it's hell to outlive your children, Marguerite mused. "If you mean Mama Malicious thundering around out there, John, don't worry. She can't get at us."
"Yes, yes, the t-rex, but there is something else. Can't you hear it? A sort of hum? And there's words, too. It's saying something."
Marguerite bit her lip. Roxton was worse off than she'd thought. He was hallucinating. "No, John, I can't hear anything, but why don't you lay down, love? Get some sleep."
Roxton shook his head and ordered, "Listen."
Marguerite carefully slid down to the floor and put an arm on John's shoulders. He felt like a block of ice. She hugged him and rubbed the bull neck. She kissed his cheek. "I'm listening."
Finding no humans to shred, mama t-rex began to move off, and the gut-deep vibration of her footsteps died away.
Two hours ago, just before sundown, she and Roxton had been hiking the last small rise before Stinking Springs Valley, looking for a dry place to spend the night. The overgrown path had kept Roxton's machete busy. He'd been looking back over his shoulder and telling Marguerite to take care where she stepped when he disappeared. One moment he was there, smirking and swinging the big machete. The next moment he wasn't.
Roxton hadn't made a sound as he fell and Marguerite had tracked him only by the giant ferns he slammed, rebounding off them like a ball in a tavern game. Eventually the ferns had stilled. "Roxton?" She'd yelled then. "Roxton?" A pop-pop of pistol shots had answered. It had taken her an eternity to get down there.
Marguerite shifted her buttocks on the crystal gravel. The night had been still for quite some time and Roxton really needed to sleep. "You know, it might be a good idea if ..."
"Listen, Marguerite," Roxton insisted.
The t-rex gone, only the ker-thumping heartbeat in Marguerite's forearm filled her ears. She dropped her arm and that faded too until finally she heard it -- a thin, wild trilling, a fairy song. "I hear."
"What are they saying? Can you make it out?" he asked, turning toward her, a seriously miscalculated move. Gasping a heartfelt, "Damn," Roxton slid to the cave floor. Afraid to touch him, Marguerite vacillated and waved her hands around as he sank down. His breath whooshed out in a huge sigh. His eyes closed. The thick shoulders relaxed.
Safe, that's what the fairies were chirping. You're safe.
With two trembling fingers, Marguerite checked for Roxton's pulse and muttered a quiet, "Thank God." He'd fallen asleep, like any reasonable person might after running through the rainforest for an hour, shedding a pint of blood and missing dinner. As Marguerite normally would herself. With the back of her fingers she caressed his sunken cheek and smoothed a black eyebrow. "Sleep, love. I'll watch."
But why push yourself so hard, Marguerite? a tiny chirp demanded. There's twenty feet of rock between you and that rex. You're safe here. See those fairy crystals? They'll keep you safe. Just believe in the crystals.
"Who said that?" Marguerite asked the walls.
The fairy song continued to titter and pitter. Safe, safe, safe.
Marguerite just needed to trust the fairies, to believe. It all made perfect sense. Hadn't fairies watched over the Challenger party, sending aid and answers when needed, healing wounds, repairing hearts? Without them, the whole Challenger expedition might have died in the balloon crash that stranded them here. Or missed meeting Veronica. "Or I might have missed loving John," Marguerite whispered aloud.
Safe, the fairies sang to her. You're safe in a fairy cave. Safe and sound.
Yes, why not sleep? Marguerite told herself. A whole mountain held the mama t-rex at bay and one couldn't find any place in the world more protected than a blue fairy cave. Both she and John needed their strength to hike back to the Treehouse tomorrow.
It felt so right to be here, and weren't they safe? Marguerite slipped down to lie beside Roxton's warm bulk. She nestled her head up to his. He didn't stir. Listening to the reassuring rhythm of Roxton's strongly beating heart, Marguerite closed her eyes.
Safe, the crystal fairies sang to her. Fairies wouldn't lie, would they? Tonight she and John would be safe. With a last sigh, Marguerite fell deeply asleep.
The triumphant buzzing of tiny wings filled the air.