“I... had a name?” Gizelle shivered, and was glad for the weight of Conall’s hand on her shoulder.
“Let’s sit,” Scarlet suggested, waving a hand towards the deck, where a round table had a handful of chairs around it.
They spread the papers out, and Gizelle stared at the pictures, curled up on her chair with her knees up tight to her chest.
They were photos of a family; a curly-haired toddler being held by a dark-haired man, then standing proudly holding the hands of a smiling woman. The next photo showed a splay-legged gazelle fawn shaking off a diaper.
“Your parents,” Scarlet explained. “Your father was a gazelle shifter like you are. Your mother is noted as possibly a mythical shifter, but nothing was officially known.”
“I... had a mother.” Gizelle felt dizzy and distant. “A mother of my own.” Conall offered a hand. She stared at it a moment, then put her own into it, weaving her fingers into his.
“They died in a car accident. No one could ever prove it wasn’t an accident, but you were never found afterwards.” Scarlet moved another paper over the photos. “Then there was this.”
Conall frowned at it. Then he squeezed Gizelle’s fingers until she squeaked.
“What is it?” she asked anxiously.
“A copy of a bill of sale,” Conall said reluctantly. “For exotic livestock. I presume that is Beehag’s signature.”
Scarlet had clearly read through the material previously, familiar enough with it that she could show Conall and Gizelle the relevant parts of a sea of pages full of careful handwriting on grid paper.
“Subject Seven, in particular, is mentioned as a gazelle shifter, and the date on her entry to the system matches the bill of sale,” she said calmly. “It appears that Beehag was researching the key to shifting. He appears to have been looking for a serum to keep shifters in animal form, to suppress their human instincts and make them... biddable. In most of the subjects, this backfired, turning them human instead.”
“I thought Beehag was just a collector,” Conall growled.
“I think that was his primary purpose,” Scarlet agreed with deceptive serenity. “There is mention of a client or possibly a friend with ‘mutual interests’ who was driving some of this research. The name Corbin is mentioned in a few private letters.” She shuffled through and indicated them.
“Who could even have access to all these documents?”
“I had a... number?” Gizelle asked quietly.
“It appears so,” Scarlet said, ignoring Conall. “You puzzled the scientists. They tested you quite extensively. Their final diagnosis is that you went feral at some point. There are a few notes that they may have started with too young a subject, and a few that you had unexpected blood chemistry. Maybe it was the drugs they gave you, maybe it was something from your mother’s side; there’s a note that they were looking for basilisk blood. One of the scientists mentioned you came in with a head injury, and the brain can do amazing things to compensate if it has to. The special things you can do—it’s probably a combination of all these things. I don’t know if we’ll ever know for sure.”
Her gazelle was there at her back, nuzzling protectively. Gizelle didn’t have to be here, she didn’t have to remember, she could run from this.
Her gazelle had always been there, Gizelle thought fondly. Then it occurred to her: those years in the cage that she had no memory of. Her gazelle had been there.
But not with her.
Instead of her.
You remember, she told her gazelle. You remember everything. So I don’t have to.
Spiral horns dipped in gentle acknowledgment.
There were no memories buried in her head, waiting to spring out and surprise her. There were no terrible revelations lurking in her mind to dread. She had been asleep through all of it, sheltered and protected.
Like Jenny’s otter had been, before Jenny could shift.
Gizelle felt like a band around her chest had been released.
Everyone’s stories of the zoo had been so harrowing, and everyone looked at her so nervously when they spoke of it, that Gizelle had unknowingly been bracing herself for all the awful things to someday come flooding back.
Now she knew they never would.
Was it terrible? she had to ask her gazelle.
The gazelle’s response was almost a shrug and Gizelle’s relief was complete. Animals lived now, not in their memories. Everything had happened long ago, and she didn’t have to worry about it bubbling up someday and drowning her.