"Hey, baby," Wanda says cheerily, when Gemma finally escapes the chatty elderly granola dykes at the farmer's market with her string bag of produce and a promise that she'll definitely pass on these flyers about the weekend alternative spirituality workshops to her sweet girlfriend, and catches up to her at their usual café.
(Alternative spirituality workshops sound more Gemma's thing, in general, than Wanda's; but among the Wiccan placebo bullshit the lovely devoted greying couple have at their stall, among the tinctures of supermarket seasoning-aisle herbs and uh, you do know that's fucking poisonous? weeds, they have something that purports to be a traditional witch's remedy for lycanthropy; and Gemma nods and smiles, nods and smiles at them, every week, and ditches the flyers in a trashcan out of sight, and keeps constant score of who's safe and who's probably not.)
"Hey," Gemma says, and clocks who it is that Wanda's bumped into for a friendly chat of her own, while Gemma's been nodding and smiling and holding her tongue: Evil Jogger.
"This is Miranda," Wanda says, smiling at Evil Jogger. "You remember...me telling you about her, right, baby? From the park."
"No," Gemma says, wearing her own best smile, and her own best friendly, unthreatened tone of voice.
"I run into her all the time!" Wanda says, shooting Gemma a look of surreptitious, suspicious confusion. "She jogs there? When I'm dog walking?"
"Not ringing any bells," Gemma says, placid as the summer sea.
(The sea, with its insidious swarming fucktons of stinging sea bugs.)
"Well," Wanda says, eyes narrowed a little. "This is Miranda."
"Gemma," Gemma says, extending her hand, makes eye contact while she shakes Evil Jogger's, and does The Thing.
A lot of humans preeningly assure themselves they have were-dar. Mostly: no. But there's The Thing which you can do, if you're sometimes other-shaped, a vibe you can put out, that humans can read clear as day as being Something Else, and are mostly creeped out as hell by.
Miranda's hand spasms in Gemma's. Gemma holds her gaze and, out of Wanda's line of sight, curls her lip enough to show off a canine, and growls just above the level of ambient noise; watches Miranda visibly join the dots from the unheimlich freak in front of her to Wanda's occasional big fuck-off doggo and gratifyingly blanch.
She makes rapid, unnerved excuses, and flees.
"I was sitting right here and I listened to every word you said," Wanda complains. "I know you did that, but I don't know how."
Wanda, bless her, is absolutely certain she has were-dar.
"Clearly she just thought your girlfriend was an imaginary-Canadian ploy to play hard to get," Gemma says lightly.
"She's got a boyfriend," Wanda says impatiently, rolling her eyes, and Gemma nods and smiles, nods and smiles, enters an even blacker mark against Evil Jogger's memory — fucking unicorn hunter — and gives Wanda a conciliatory kiss on the cheek.
"Guess I've just got a scary face," she says.
