Re: Woods: Patrick/Mary
That's not the type of hurt that makes people burn woods. If they do, then they have bigger problems than you, Del. [It was going to take Patrick some time to get used to calling her by a different name. Sure, he hadn't known what she looked like, but she sounded like Del, and he felt like he knew Del. Which, all right, not entirely true, but dude wasn't so good at quick 180s.] Nah, man, I don't want you to tell me your secrets as payment for something. We'll figure out who set the fires at no cost to you.
[Dude rolled his eyes.] Hah. Hah. Hah. No, I'm not afraid of the Big Bad Wolf eating you, and stop joking about pretend werewolves. There are wolves in the forest, man. There's a huge pack that comes into town every moon, and I spend days keeping dumb teenagers from getting chomped. The abandoned houses are inhabited by witches, and there are people in town that hunt supernatural creatures, man. They just take them out without warning. The freaks at the carnival are the real article, and you know about Webster's time travel. Dude, you have to be careful out here. [And, since he'd said that much, dude just went for it:] There's magic here, my girl. Real magic, and it's not all nice.
[It took him a second to get she was talking about the ears, and he shook his head until blond covered pointed tips again.] Dude.