Hunting November

by Adriana Mather

  Ash looks at Emily. “I’ll keep your friend safe. I give you my word.”

  “I don’t want your word,” she says, turning toward him. “I don’t want any of this.”

  “We have to go,” Ash says again, and there’s a warning in his tone, a warning not to linger and let someone other than Ash catch me here.

  I approach my best friend, wanting to tell her everything she means to me and that nothing is the same without her, but also not wanting to scare her. So I simply say, “I’ve missed you, Em,” and I hug her. “I’ll be back before you know it.”

  She clings to me. “You better be,” she says, insistent, and pulls back to look at me once more. “I’ll never forgive you if something happens to you, Nova. I will hold a grudge into the afterlife if I have to.” She attempts a smile, but her eyes well up.

  I smile back, the weight on my chest almost unbearable. We share a look in the moonlight, one that says what I can’t bear to voice—that we need each other. Turning away from her is the single hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. And as I slip back out the window, I leave a piece of my heart behind.

  ASH AND I move quickly across town. He follows me through backyards and side streets, not attempting to talk to me about what just happened. And even though I don’t want to discuss it, I also hate the silence. Every familiar inch of this town does nothing but remind me of Emily and the life I’m giving up. When I was in the Academy all I wanted was to come back here, and now that I’m here I want to shut my eyes, crawl under my covers, and sob. I bite my lip, trying to physically hold back my upset, and I blink away the wetness in the corners of my eyes.

  Ash stops when we reach the edge of the forest that leads to my house. He gives me a hard look. I’m certain he’s thinking that going to Emily’s was a terrible idea. But he doesn’t say it; he doesn’t have to. We both know.

  “We need to retrieve whatever your dad left you in that tree,” he says instead.

  The shock pulls me out of my thoughts. “Hold on, now?”

  “Now,” he says, and I can tell he’s frustrated with me. “We can’t sneak back into your house in the pitch dark, because we’ll have no idea if someone is following us. Because you didn’t even know that I was following you.”

  “All of our stuff—”

  “I stashed our bags at the edge of the woods. We just need that note and we need to leave.” What he doesn’t say is “before you cause any more trouble.”

  “Okay, let me see….” I scan the woods, mentally planning the best route to the tree and twisting my mom’s ring on my finger. If I can navigate these woods with a blindfold on, then I can definitely do it with only a little moonlight. “I’ve got a plan, but it’ll require us climbing through a few branches that are much thinner than the ones we practice on at the Academy. You okay with that?”

  He nods and I exhale. Sneaking out to go see Emily was one thing, but sneaking into woods that might have a Strategia in them is something else entirely. My pulse is racing and I’m sweating under my winter coat.

  I weave us through the familiar forest, going around areas that are overgrown with brush and littered with fallen branches. Even so, our steps aren’t completely silent. It’s impossible to avoid making noise in the dark when there is so much leaf and plant debris on the ground. And every crunch we make zings through me like a jolt of electricity, making me feel increasingly worse that I put us in this position.

  I lead us around a patch of particularly thick brush near my house and our steps get louder. Ash touches my arm and brings his finger to his lips. I stop moving. He scans the forest and my heart pounds so hard in my temples that my vision blurs momentarily. Does he hear something? See something? I desperately want to ask him, but I have no intention of talking, given the possibility of exposure.

  I take the most deliberate steps of my life, counting them off as I go, like there is a magic number where this horror ends and we get out safely. We’re still a good couple of hundred feet from the cluster of large trees that grow close enough together that we can climb from limb to limb. At least when we’re off the ground, our sound and visibility will be reduced. When I count off eighteen steps, a particularly dry leaf crunches under my boot. I freeze, holding my breath.

  One excruciating second passes and I scan the trees around me. I cautiously lift my foot, but before I can take a step I hear a faint hum and Ash pushes me to the ground so fast that I barely get my hands under me to break my fall. As I land in a pile of cold leaves, there’s a telltale thud as an arrow strikes the tree in front of me. The arrow hits exactly where my chest had been only a half second earlier.

  “Run!” Ash says, and we shove ourselves up, my legs moving so quickly that I’m shocked they don’t slip out from under me. An arrow flies by my head, so close that I feel its wind on my cheek.

  I sprint through the woods, Ash by my side, our boots pounding through dry leaves and snapping twigs with each step. Another arrow hits the tree next to me. By the evenly measured delay between shots, I would guess there’s only one archer. And whoever it is has excellent aim in the dark with moving targets. I push my legs harder, demanding that they move faster. I lead us in a zigzagged path behind trees and fallen branches, aware that if I ease up for one second or give the archer a clean shot, one of us will die.

  “Up, Ash,” I breathe as we run full-speed toward the closely clustered patch of trees I was looking for. My hand-to-hand combat skills are definitely lacking and I’ve got much better chances of holding my own off the ground.

  I grab the tree trunk and hoist myself up onto a familiar branch. I glance over my shoulder, but Ash isn’t behind me. Sheer panic squeezes my chest. I scan the trees, looking for signs of him. But the only thing I see is a light-colored bow, and it’s pointed directly at me. I immediately jump to a neighboring branch and an arrow hits the trunk. I can’t run without knowing where Ash is, but I can’t stay here, either.

  I yank my gloves off and shove them in my pockets, wiping my now-sweaty hands on my coat. I peek around the trunk, and just as I do, Ash lands a kick, not on our attacker, but on his bow. The wood cracks and splits. The Strategia, who I can now see is a man both taller and broader than Ash, takes a swing before Ash can recover his footing. The impact is so hard that I hear the thunk as the guy’s fist connects with Ash’s skull. Ash goes flying into the tree behind him, but the guy doesn’t stay to fight. Instead, he turns and takes off in my direction.

  His black hood flies back as he runs, revealing his brown hair and short beard. His strides are so long that they encompass two of mine. Ash is moving now, too, but he’s a good twenty feet behind. I turn and scramble along the branch faster than is safe.

  I hear the Strategia’s boots scrape along the tree trunk behind me and hear him grunt as he pulls himself up. Given his speed, I have ten seconds at most before he reaches me. I catch a glimpse of Ash running below us, and if I didn’t think I would break something from this height, I would jump down to him. There is no way Ash will make it up here in time to help me fight—if this guy grabs me, I’m done. He moves like a well-trained assassin, and while I’m good in trees, I’m also a student who barely spent a few weeks at the Academy.

  I grab a higher branch, pulling myself up quickly enough the bark burns my hands. The guy makes a swipe for my ankle and gets so close that if I were a fraction of a second slower, I would be tumbling to the ground. Please don’t let me die. Please, please don’t let this be the end. I won’t make this mistake again. Ever. I promise. Just let me make it to my dad in Europe.

  The branch I’m on forks and I take three daring strides and jump to an even thinner one on the next tree.

  “Stop, November!” Ash yells, and I’m so surprised that I actually do.

  I whip around and the Strategia is running along the branch I was just on.

  “Mr. Baines!” Ash shouts.

  My mind snaps int
o focus. Baines—Old English stemming from the Latin word ban, meaning “bones.” It likely referred to a thin person. Thin. I look down at the branch I’m on and it suddenly occurs to me what Ash wants me to do.

  The Strategia makes a leap to the branch I’m on. Just as he lands, I jump, grabbing the branch above me, and slam both feet down on the thin one. The branch snaps in half, the sound ringing through the forest, leaving me dangling and leaving the Strategia no time to recover. His arms flail desperately around him and he falls twenty feet, hitting the ground with a dull thud.

  I swing my legs back and forth for momentum and get my ankle wrapped around the branch. I pull myself along with my arms and legs until I reach the trunk, then rush down it to help Ash. But the moment my boots hit the ground I can see there’s no need. The bearded guy lies perfectly still, his arms and legs splayed out around him, a pool of blood forming below his head where a piece of New England granite sticks out.

  For a long second I stare wide-eyed, my feet frozen in place, not able to process what I’m seeing. I blink, but he’s still there, unmoving. My stomach turns and my hands fly to either side of my face.

  “I didn’t know he would…Oh my god…” My voice is fast, and even in the cold night air, I’m burning up. “I didn’t mean to…He almost killed you, Ash. I mean, if he’d used a knife instead of a punch…” I stare at the man’s unmoving face, instantly reminded of all the dead bodies in my dream. “I did this. I killed him. I can’t believe I killed him.” I repeat it because it hasn’t fully sunk in, because it’s all too awful to be true.

  Ash walks right up to me and puts his hands on my shoulders, turning me away from the body. “Look at me, just at me,” he says insistently, moving me until the dead man is out of sight. Even in the moonlight I can make out the intensity of Ash’s eyes.

  Guilt ripples through me. How could I have done this? I’m not a killer…I’m not.

  “You need to focus, November,” Ash says in a demanding voice. “You need to get the message from your dad. Whatever you’re feeling right now will pass; but if you let it consume you, you won’t be able to think. You’re the only one who can retrieve that message.”

  I nod at him and break eye contact. It takes every ounce of my determination not to cry. I almost got Ash killed. I killed someone. And I broke my promise to Layla. This isn’t the Academy; there aren’t teachers and guards, curated challenges and structure. This is real, and it’s deadly.

  “Go,” he says, and I do. I jog about fifty feet, focusing all my energy on locating and climbing up the right tree, scrutinizing each detail more than necessary, and trying to push away the image of the blood I fear will be with me forever.

  About fifteen feet up, the trunk splits into two parts. I brush aside the leaves in the crevice created by the split and wiggle out a loose piece of bark. Underneath it, exactly where I stashed it four years ago, is a worn square tin a little smaller than my palm. I pull it out of the trunk and pry the top off. Folded inside is a baggie with a piece of paper in it that wasn’t part of my original time capsule. Dad. I close the tin again and press it to my heart, relieved that I was right and that he didn’t disappear without leaving me a message.

  “November?” Ash says from under the tree I’m in.

  “It’s here,” I say, and climb down to the ground.

  He spots the small tin in my hand. “And your father—”

  “There’s a new note inside,” I say in a hushed voice.

  Ash lets out a sigh of relief. “Good,” he says. “Let’s get out of here, and then we can read it. But first”—he holds up a key with a small wooden horseshoe attached to it—“I found this in the assassin’s pocket, practically the only thing he had on him, besides weapons, which I took. Do you know what it’s for?”

  My thoughts return to the man’s bloodied head and I clutch the tin like it’s the only thing tethering me to my sanity. Ash holds the key out, and I reluctantly take it.

  I tilt the horseshoe to catch a bit of moonlight. “It looks like it goes to a padlock. And if I had to guess I’d say it’s for a barn or storage shed,” I say, trying to suppress the sick feeling welling in my throat that this not only came off a dead body, but from a person I killed. “There are lots of both around here, especially on the outskirts of town.”

  Ash nods, like he came to the same conclusion. “Are any of them rentable, possibly a barn someone could pay cash for? Or even better, something someone could use without the owner noticing?”

  “Hmmm. It would have to be one of the bigger properties. But I can think of four or five farms that are big enough to have unused barns or sheds,” I say, going over a mental map of Pembrook. “Would it need to be walking distance from here?”

  “Definitely. And with a direct route through the forest to and from your house that avoids the town and people,” he says.

  I nod. “Anything else?”

  “If I’m right, the building this key belongs to will be in a large open field with no crops or trees,” he says.

  I hand the key back to Ash like I can’t get rid of it quickly enough. “There’s a farm about a mile from here, a straight shot through the forest, that has a field tucked way back in the property that pretty much never gets used.”

  He exhales like he was hoping that was what I would say. “Let’s go get our bags and see what we can find.”

  “But what about…” I point behind me.

  “There is nothing to hide here,” Ash says. “His injuries are consistent with falling out of a tree. Nothing more.”

  “Won’t the arrows be suspicious?” I say, worrying about what the scene will look like to Sheriff Billy. Will he somehow connect it with Dad’s and my disappearance?

  “Collected them,” he says, pointing to a pile of shafts and a broken bow, which I hadn’t seen in the dark. “We’ll bring them with us and dispose of them.”

  “But we can’t just leave him. I mean—”

  “We have to. We have no idea if he was alone, so we need to move out quickly,” Ash says, the urgency in his voice intensifying.

  I suck in a deep breath. I know he’s right. But it all feels wrong—leaving my house without saying goodbye, leaving Emily with lies, leaving a dead Strategia in the woods. This isn’t my Pembrook; it’s a nightmare.

  ASH AND I emerge from the woods in the back field of Moody Farms. We hug the trees around the perimeter of the open field and a pack of coy-wolves howls in the distance. Old Mr. Moody told me himself that the coyotes in this part of Connecticut are wicked big because they mated with wolves a long time ago, and over time most of the coyote genes got bred out. Who knows if it’s true, or if he was just trying to keep us kids from sneaking into his hayloft, with tales of almost-wolves? But it gave me a healthy fear of coming here after dark. I frown at the memory of being scared of such a simple idea, mourning the girl I was before I went to the Academy, before I knew too much.

  I look at Ash, following me silently through the dark, our breath billowing out in front of us. There are so many things I want to tell him, things I want to explain. But until we’re out of Pembrook and out of the path of the Strategia who are hunting me, neither of us is going to take an easy breath.

  I lead Ash to the barn and we slink around it, staying close to the shadows. We do a full lap of the building before he stops at the padlock that holds the wide double doors closed. He taps on the knife secured to my belt loop and I pull it out, my hand unsteady. Ash slips the key into the lock and opens the door about two feet. It’s pitch-black in the barn and we remain still and silent, assessing our surroundings. Everything is quiet and there are no signs that anyone else is in the building. The only sound is the wind howling through the bare trees.

  Ash strikes a match and my eyes widen.

  I almost choke as I take in the large metal frame occupying most of the barn. “A plane? I thought if we were luc
ky we might find a backpack or something with information, but a friggin’ plane?”

  “A private jet,” Ash says, smiling for the first time in what seems like forever. “A nice one. Whoever that assassin was in the woods, he must have been important.”

  Ash passes me the box of matches and I put my knife back in its holster. He blows out his match as it nears his fingers, and I light another. Now with his hands free, Ash starts removing the wooden blocks that stabilize the wheels.

  “Hang on. What are you…You’re not thinking about taking this thing?” I say, my words dripping with disbelief.

  “Absolutely,” he says like it’s the most obvious conclusion in the world. “Unless you would rather fly commercial and risk being detected? This is actually best-case scenario.”

  “But who’s going to fly it?” I ask, unable to wrap my mind around this plan, which is galaxies outside my comfort zone.

  “We’ll just have to wing it,” he says, tossing the wooden blocks up into the plane and pulling the barn doors completely open.

  “We’re definitely not winging it,” I blurt out.

  “Relax, November,” Ash says with a good-natured grin. He’s suddenly his usual easy self and somehow I’ve gotten more uptight. “I’ve been flying planes since I was eight. And with something like this, it practically flies itself.”

  He heads up the stairs and turns on the lights.

  I follow him. “Holy…,” I breathe as I look around the small plane in awe. There are two recliners with a big flat-screen TV, a small dining table, and a bed. Maybe Ash was right; maybe this is best-case scenario.

  Ash goes right to the cockpit and turns the plane on with ease. While he’s pushing buttons he hands me the padlock from his pocket. “I’m going to roll this plane out of the barn, if you wouldn’t mind locking up. Just make sure to wipe our prints off.”

  I nod, taking the cold metal lock and climbing back down the steps. I look up at the old hayloft I used to play in, barely visible in the moonlight, and I sigh, overcome by a pang of sadness. Goodbye, Em. Goodbye, Pembrook. I suddenly wish it were light so that I could log the details of it better. But the tail of the plane clears the doors and there is no more time to consider what this moment might one day mean to me. Instead, I pull the barn doors shut and wipe the lock down, careful to erase all signs that we were here.