Marked in Flesh

by Anne Bishop

  Simon watched them as the other four juvenile Sanguinati joined them. At least bison watching would give them something to do.

  Jackson studied the land. “Back home, the land stretches out and you can see a long way. Here it won’t be as easy to keep track of a herd.”

  “You may want to purchase a couple of all-terrain vehicles that the farmers and livestock wranglers can use,” Jerry said. “Steve wants a couple of them for the cassandra sangue campus along with a couple of small carts that can be attached to haul gear or feed.”

  “Or the humans could use horses,” Simon said.

  “If you want horses, you should talk to Liveryman. But you’d need to build some kind of shelter and a place for feed. The ATVs could be stored in the old industrial building.”

  “Some of these houses will belong to terra indigene. Most will not have a car and the garage will be empty. Wouldn’t a garage be big enough for a horse?”

  Jerry scratched the back of his neck. “I’m not saying it wouldn’t be useful to have a couple of horses here, but you’ll do better to build a structure meant for a horse than to try to refit a garage into a safe stall. You could store feed in a garage if you put wooden pallets on the floor to keep the hay dry, but that will attract mice that will get into the house through the attached garage. I suppose you could get a couple of cats.”

  “The Panthergard don’t usually eat mice because it takes a lot of little rodents to make a meal,” Simon said. “But there are other terra indigene who would eat mice.” If the Others promised to consider them nonedible, maybe having a few domestic cats living in the community would reassure the humans. With the way humans hoarded possessions where mice could nest, cats that lived with humans would find hunting in a house easier than an Owl would. Maybe there were spare cats on Great Island?

  Horses, cats, and all-terrain vehicles. More things for the list the next time he talked to Steve Ferryman.

  “Anything else you need?” Jerry asked.

  Simon shook his head.

  “Almost forgot.” Jerry opened the passenger door of his truck and pulled out a carry sack, which he handed to Simon. “We have tennis courts at our community centers, both on the island and the mainland part of Ferryman’s Landing. Don’t know if any of your folks play the game, but Ming Beargard saw Pam Ireland throwing a tennis ball for her dog, and he thought you might like a few of the balls for the youngsters.”

  “Thank you.” The Wolves already knew about this kind of ball. Bouncy—and soft enough that it didn’t hurt a pup if he missed the catch and got conked on the head. But he didn’t tell Jerry that this wasn’t a new thing for the Lakeside Courtyard. Besides, these balls could stay here for the Wolves who would settle in the River Road Community.

  Jerry drove away, turning north on River Road to head back to Ferryman’s Landing.

  Jackson reached for the carry sack. “Can I see one of those?” He studied a yellow ball, squeezed it, then threw it.

  The juvenile Wolves watched the yellow ball disappear in the long grass.

  “You’re supposed to run after it and bring it back. That’s the throw game,” Simon said.

  Jackson threw another ball in the same direction, and this time the Wolves raced after it. After finding both balls, they trotted back to Jackson, who threw the balls again.

  Simon watched his friend and felt excitement bubble inside him. Jackson throwing a ball was part of the prophecy Meg saw for this community. “Roy Panthergard is going to resettle here. A female might be coming with him.”

  Jackson aborted the next throw and looked at Simon in surprise. “A mate? The Panthergard aren’t as solitary as regular panthers, but would two of them—could two of them—live so close together?”

  “Don’t know. Don’t know if the female is planning to stay or just wants to look at this part of Thaisia before deciding. Either way, Roy is going to settle here.” Simon hesitated. “What about you?”

  “Me?” Jackson’s next throw was so short the Wolves barely had to move to catch it. “You thought I would be staying? Why?”

  “Because Meg saw you here.” Simon shrugged. It was still too easy to believe that everything a blood prophet saw would happen in the future, especially when Meg had been right so often. But you couldn’t make assumptions about the visions.

  When Jackson looked uneasy, Simon continued. “This is what Meg described—you throwing a ball for juvenile Wolves. I thought it meant you would live here.”

  The Wolves dropped the balls at Jackson’s feet, then trotted off to explore the land around the houses, having had enough of the game.

  “I like living at Sweetwater,” Jackson said. “And Grace is from the High North and would miss the snow.”

  “We have snow.”

  Jackson laughed. “You don’t have what Grace calls snow.”

  He hoped no one relayed that comment to the Elementals in Lakeside. He didn’t want Winter to feel the need to prove she could provide as much snow as some of the Elementals in the Northwest or High North.

  “Besides,” Jackson continued, “the Hope pup is settling in, learning the land and how to take care of herself. And it’s different now, isn’t it? The Intuits are more interested in talking to us, exchanging information about the prophet pups, asking what would be helpful for the ones they’re looking after. It’s not just a weekly visit to the trading post anymore.”

  “And you’re the leader they talk to.” Simon nodded. “Like Joe is talking to the Intuits in Prairie Gold.”

  “You and your Meg showed Others and Intuits that it’s possible to really work together.”

  “Not all humans feel that way,” Simon warned.

  “Not all the terra indigene feel that way either.” Jackson picked up one of the tennis balls and frowned. “Don’t think you want to put this in with the clean ones.”

  “We’ll take those two with us and put the carry sack with the clean balls in the garage attached to the Sanguinati’s house.” When they were ready to leave, Simon called the juvenile Wolves.

 

  Help chase the bison was more like it. Trouble was, the bison knew about wolves; these young Wolves knew just enough about bison to get themselves into serious trouble. And two packs of juveniles with no adults of any kind around? Not going to happen.

  he growled.

  They returned, looking sufficiently chastened. Simon suspected that had less to do with actual obedience and more to do with not being banned from the next outing.

  Jackson said when Simon drove away from the community.

 

 

 

  Jackson laughed quietly.

  Simon thought of the way Sam looked when he was with Meg, how much the pup had grown since that first night he’d caught her scent and curiosity had quieted fear. And he thought of how he felt about having Meg as a friend.

  • • •

  Meg crumpled that day’s issue of the Lakeside News and threw it into a corner of the sorting room. Then she retrieved it and smoothed it out before placing it in the wire bin she used for the recycled newspapers.

  How had Merri Lee put it? Same news, different day: Governor Patrick Hannigan still urging city governments to show common sense instead of giving in to the sensationalism being thrown about by the Humans First and Last movement, and Agent Greg O’Sullivan saying the Investigative Ta
sk Force was still investigating the cause of the dead fish that continued to wash up around Toland.

  Those articles made her hands tingle while she read them, but the article that quoted Nicholas Scratch . . .

  Humans were powerful. Humans were right. Humans deserved all the riches the world could offer. People shouldn’t have to be grateful for handouts that were doled out according to the whims of animals.

  Her skin burned so much as she read the article she couldn’t touch the newspaper anymore.

  Too soon to cut, she thought as she went into the bathroom to wash her hands. And no point cutting now that the burning has gone away.

  Returning to the sorting room, Meg set the decks of prophecy cards on the table and opened each box. She hesitated a moment, then retrieved the discarded cards from the cityscape box—the cards that identified Thaisia’s larger human cities. She even included the two sets of the more fantastical images. Last, she spread out the sheets of paper that held Hope’s sketches of the cards that should be included in this new Trailblazer deck everyone expected her to create somehow.

  Hope’s sketches showed a mix of cards. Some were scenes that might be taken as a whole or be relevant because of one image, and some were images of things. Was that mix already in the decks? She hadn’t really given the cards a proper look the last time she’d touched them.

  Meg wasn’t sure how long she’d been staring at the decks, feeling overwhelmed even before she began looking at images, when she realized she wasn’t alone. She looked up at the big man standing on the other side of the table.

  “Henry?”

  “You sighed. I wondered what was wrong.”

  “You heard me sigh?” She looked toward the open window. She and her friends hadn’t considered that anyone might overhear them when they talked in this room, especially since they usually spoke quietly to avoid Nathan eavesdropping from the front room.

  “I was working outside and heard you. Jake heard you from his perch on the wall. And Nathan heard you. It was a loud sigh.”

  She hadn’t thought her sigh had been that loud, but all the Others had excellent hearing, so it could have sounded loud to them.

  “Reading the newspaper bothers me,” she admitted.

  “This is recent?”

  She nodded. “Every time I read about the HFL movement or something Nicholas Scratch said, my skin prickles or burns. I’m trying not to cut. I really am.”

  “That Nicholas Scratch and the HFL humans are trouble. You don’t need to cut to tell us what we already know.” Henry gestured to the decks of cards. “And those?”

  “I don’t know what I’m doing with these cards. I don’t know how to combine images from these decks to make one that will be useful to cassandra sangue. What if I leave out something that another girl needs but isn’t significant to me?”

  Henry pursed his lips. The scar on the right side of his face still looked raw and painful, a daily reminder of the HFL’s agenda where the Others were concerned.

  “Why do you need to know right away?” he finally asked.

  “So that other girls can use the cards instead of cutting.” Other girls. Was she that addicted to cutting that she didn’t want an alternative? No. Cutting would kill her in the end. She could—would—learn how to use the cards for her own sake as well as that of other blood prophets.

  “First you learn the nature of a thing,” Henry said. “We have a teaching story among the Beargard. A young bear is hungry. He goes to the river looking for fish. He waits by the river for days and days until he is weak with hunger, but there are no fish. Why?” Henry looked at her expectantly.

  “I don’t know this story. I don’t know why there are no fish.”

  “He arrived too soon. If he had learned the nature of the fish that spawned in that river, he would have looked for other things to eat and come to the river at the proper time.” Henry gave her a careful smile. “Look. Learn. Then you will find what you need.”

  Meg sighed.

  “Arroo?” Nathan queried from the front room.

  “She is fine, Wolf,” Henry said. Then he gave her a long look. “Are you fine, Meg?”

  She touched one of the decks. “The cards might reveal an answer to a question, but using them doesn’t produce the euphoria. Using them doesn’t feel as good as cutting.”

  “Until you learn their nature, how do you really know that is true?”

  She didn’t have an answer, but she did have a question. “Henry? Are the bison going to roam around the Courtyard?”

  “The two males have been taken to the Chambers. The fences should keep them from roaming beyond the Sanguinati’s part of the Courtyard. The females are grazing where they will. Why?”

  “They’re going to get bigger.”

  “Much bigger.”

  “Do they chase things?”

  At first she thought he was amused. Then he said, “Ah. The BOW.”

  “Sometimes a deer is in the road when I’m making deliveries, but it moves out of the way. I don’t think a grown-up bison needs to move out of the way of much.” Merri Lee had promised to check Howling Good Reads and Ruth said she would check the Market Square Library for information about bison. Mostly they were concerned that the new residents would devour the kitchen gardens. Meg wondered how bison felt about a Box on Wheels that chugged along on the Courtyard’s roads.

  “I will give you an answer when I have one,” Henry said.

  When he left, Meg moved over to the window but kept out of sight. She heard the wooden gate open and close, heard footsteps on the path. But they stopped before Henry reached his studio because Jake cawed, announcing that a truck had pulled into the delivery area.

  On impulse, Meg opened a random deck of cards. Unsure how to shuffle cards, she fanned them out in one hand with the images facedown. Picking a card, she turned it over.

  Basket of ripe apples, looking so . . .

  Rotten. Wormy.

  Meg blinked. No. The card showed a basket of ripe, unblemished apples—a delicious harvest.

  The office door opened. She heard Nathan scramble off the Wolf bed to meet the deliveryman at the counter.

  Meg dropped the cards and hurried into the front room.

  “Hi, Harry.”

  “Miz Meg.”

  Harry’s voice. Worn. Drawn. “Is something wrong?”

  “Got a package here for Miz MacDonald. Says to keep it cool.”

  “Harry?”

  Nathan stood on his hind legs, resting one front paw on the counter.

  “Might not be making deliveries much longer.” Harry lowered his voice and leaned toward Meg. “There’s been talk about Everywhere Delivery becoming Everywhere Human Delivery.”

  “Arroo?” Nathan asked at the same time Meg said, “What are you going to do?”

  “Hand in my notice; that’s what I’ll do,” Harry replied hotly. Then he looked over his shoulder, as if afraid of being overheard. “Course, I don’t know what the wife and I will do without my paycheck, but I’ve also heard talk that if you’re fired for being a Wolf lover, you forfeit your pension, what there is of it. So I would rather resign and get what money I can. But that means you might have some trouble getting deliveries. And something like this”—Harry tapped the box—“might not arrive before it spoils.”

  Meg thought about the prophecy card and shivered.

  “Arroo?”

  “I’ll tell Mr. Wolfgard what you said.” Meg stepped back from the counter. “Thanks, Harry.”

  “You take care.” Harry looked at Nathan. “Both of you.”

  Meg pressed both hands against the Private door’s frame and waited until Harry drove away. Then she focused on Nathan, clenching her teeth to keep from biting her tongue to relieve the buzz and burn. “Get Henry.”

  Nathan cocked his head.

  “Something is wrong with that box.” She didn’t dare unclench her teeth to speak clearly. “Get Henry. Get Tess.”

  Nathan howled.

  Running
through the sorting room and back room, Meg clawed at the back door until she finally got it open and bolted outside.

  “Meg?” Pete Denby ran down the stairs from his office and caught her as her legs gave out. He half carried her to the stairs, sat her down, and gently pushed her head between her knees.

  “Meg?” Tess’s voice, as sharp as a razor.

  “Package. Something bad,” Meg mumbled. “Tongue burning.”

  “What does that mean?” Pete asked.

  “That means you don’t let her out of your sight.” Tess went into the Liaison’s Office.

  “Are you cut?” Pete patted Meg’s shoulder. “Did you see something?”

  “Heard a truck. Picked one of those prophecy cards from a deck. Saw rotten apples, but the picture was of a basket of ripe apples.”

  “Gods. Okay. How’s your tongue now?”

  Meg raised her head. “Better.”

  “Because you spoke the warning. Isn’t that how it works?”

  “I don’t think someone sent a basket of apples to Theral. The box isn’t big enough.”

  Pete pulled his mobile phone from his pocket.

  “I’ll be all right.” Who would he be calling anyway?

  “Doug? You or Lieutenant Montgomery need to come to the Courtyard ASAP. Suspicious package.” Pete paused, looking at Meg as he listened. “Don’t have the impression we’re dealing with anything explosive.”

  Meg shook her head.

  “Human law doesn’t apply in the Courtyard,” she said once Pete finished the call.

  “Theral is human. The threat is coming from another human. That’s police business.” Pete stood and held out a hand. “You feel well enough to go back inside?”

  “I’d rather sit out here for a bit longer, but I would like a glass of water.”

  He made a face. “I’m not going to try to explain to Tess that I left you on your own.”

  She sighed. She really wanted some water.

  Jake flew over the back wall of Henry’s yard, landed near the stairs, and shifted to human. “I will get water for our Meg.”

  Pete made a choked sound, and Meg averted her eyes. She was becoming accustomed to these quick shifts from fur or feathers to naked human and back again—as long as it wasn’t Simon. It was different when it was Simon.