Wickerman Cove

Part 5: Dr. Etrange

She checked the app again. It had changed from Silence Echo Secrets to Seeming Echo Shadow. From what she could tell, that was the street corner on the other side of the road.

A white goth woman with a dog stood, smiling slightly as the people hurried past. She was standing outside the café where Steph had agreed to meet Doctor Etrange. She looked a little older than Steph, although not by much. The dog was wearing a service dog tabard, and it had a sleek, foxy look that did nothing to match Etrange's overflowing black curls, or her frilly, lacy black dress. She'd really committed to the whole Victorian Goth thing, since she was wearing a bustle that turned her ass into a five-inch shelf.

Her face lit up as she noticed Steph. It made sense – Hitch had probably sent a picture while she'd been on the flight. Etrange looked cute when she smiled – a sort of quirky, Amélie type of look that suggested she had a collection of pet butterflies and cried when they died.

Steph tried to shove her instant dislike to the back of her mind. They hadn't even had a conversation yet. Still, she did look like the sort of woman who had a Fjallraven Kanken backpack and pretended not to know how to Venmo.

Steph picked her gear up and hauled it across the nearest crosswalk. Etrange watched her approach with an expression of perky, blue eyed imbecility.

"Hi," Steph said, offered her hand, and then remembered to start signing, "I'm Staff Sergeant Stephanie Zoubaryeva. Hitch asked me to take care of you for the weekend."

She spoke as she signed. It had been so long that she'd almost forgotten she needed to do that. "Sorry if my BSL is a little rusty. It's been a while."

That's alright, Etrange signed back. You're doing very well. I'm Penny, this is Renard.

A flash of... weirdness... crossed Stephanie's vision as she tried to formulate her reply. There was no way she was going to drive to Maine if she was getting her skull split open by a goddamn migraine. For a second, the ghostly image of an elongated skull – with four, oddly positioned horns – superimposed itself over Renard's head as he greeted her with an assault of catlike head rubbing, and then marched smartly back to stand at Penny's heels.

Migraine hallucinations were new. That, or she was going crazy. Hopefully the former.

"Alright," Steph said, signing. Renard was a normal dog again. Hopefully she wasn't going crazy. "Well, we've got a long way to go, have you eaten? I need to pick something up."

Penny shook her head. She made a gesture at the café, her face twisted into an expression of exaggerated mournfulness. That was the thing about habitually communicating in sign, it got you used to making weird faces.

Too many people complained about Renard, Penny signed. He's an assistance dog, but a lot of people wanted to fight about it, so I decided to wait out here.

Steph looked through the window to where a blonde, white woman with frosted bangs was glaring at them through the café window.

"When you say, 'decided to wait out here'," Steph said, forcing herself not to get angry unless Penny wanted her to, "do you mean they just kicked you out?"

Penny made a 'weighing' gesture with her hands, and signed, They said a lot of things. They also assumed I was deaf, which I can understand.

Steph did her best not to ask why Penny needed to sign if she wasn't deaf, and cursed the restaurant out a little, but without any real feeling. Her head was starting to pound. Travelling to Maine like this was going to be hell. Maybe they could find a motel or something.

"Okay," Steph said, not signing anymore, since Penny didn't need it. "Hitch just kinda dumped this whole thing on me, so you'll have to forgive me for asking dumb questions: are we flying to Maine, or do we need to get a vehicle?"

Visions of renting an SUV on Hitch's alleged government credit card flashed through her mind, mercifully allayed when Penny smiled and shook her head.

I have a car, Penny signed. Flying causes problems with Renard. They're supposed to let him on, but even with paperwork, some airlines don't like it.

"Oh," Steph said, momentarily feeling less sorry for herself. "That's crappy. Okay, how far is it to your car?"

Penny gestured to a slice of darkness between two buildings. I parked in a lot just through there, she signed. It's so hard to get parking in New York, but there was just a whole lot completely empty.

Steph looked down the alley, which barely seemed wide enough to drive down. It was full of dumpsters and bundles that had the telltale shape of sleeping human beings. The tides of people out for a good time on Ditmars rolled past it, edging away from the darkness and glancing in. The oddly moving shapes resolved into homeless folks, trying to sleep on a busy Friday night. The good people in their party clothes flinched and hurried on.

"You, um... you don't get to the city a lot, do you?" she said, watching a figure, a heavyset white man with a black hoody, vanish into the alley. "Shit, it's Astoria, not the Bronx. Do you have luggage?"

Penny nodded, and produced an adorably tiny wheeled suitcase that Steph hoped wasn't everything she had. Her hair bounced as they crossed the street, smiling and nodding to everyone they passed. Steph – weighed down with everything she'd owned on base – just did her best not to growl at people as they made eye contact. Renard, who honestly looked a lot more like a big fox than a dog, trotted between them, the white light from the Italian place showing his assistance dog tabard as a dark purple. He perked up when he noticed her noticing.

Okay, he was a cute dog. This wasn't going to be so bad.