The Girl from Shadow Springs

by Ellie Cypher

  Dev’s words filtered back to me. Ask about the other one. The other one.

  Setting down the sextant, I glanced over. Cody were still too far out of it to be useful, eyes closed and his breathing soft. The gentlest horizon of red just returning to his cheeks. Careful, I snuck down the hall to the back room. Only to find it disappointingly empty. Save for a whole bunch of books.

  Tons of ’em. A library, really. Must have cost a fortune to bring ’em here. Why would anyone want that many books? I picked up the closest one and flipped through the pages. Some of them torn, all of them moth-eaten and molding. Old, old books. The language weren’t even right. A feeling, not unlike the brush of scales against my skin, skittered up my spine.

  “Now, I believe you wanted something from me?” Cody’s raised voice called from the front room. Starting, I near dropped the book and went back out.

  In his chair, Cody leaned into the soft leather, the long smooth skin of his neck exposed.

  I cleared my throat and stalked over.

  Cody didn’t open his eyes. The only sign he’d heard me were a smile tugging slow at the corner of his mouth.

  “I—what’s so amusing?” I narrowed my eyes.

  “It’s really not funny at all, is it?” Cody gestured round the ransacked room.

  “No, it isn’t.” What were wrong with him?

  “So let us cut to the chase.”

  “Yes, let’s.”

  “My uncle.” His eyes flew open. And this time there were no drowsiness there. Clear as ice they were. “That is, of course, why you are here. Just leave it to Bastian to send a wide-eyed local instead of a University recovery team for help. That man really is as hopeless as my uncle said.”

  I raised my hands, taking a step closer. “I don’t know nothing about your uncle, a University, or nothing about anyone named Bastian. That ain’t why I dragged you in here.”

  He sat up bolt straight in his chair.

  Good. “Like I said, I just want to know if you’ve—or any of you—has seen a girl. Or a man, big, white hair, black dog. They don’t need to be together. I just need—”

  “It’s only me, I am afraid,” he said. “Obviously, that is the problem.” He gestured to the room.

  “Well, that ain’t my problem.” I grunted. “But good to know.”

  Cody opened his mouth and then closed it. He blinked at me for a long time, trying to recalculate where he thought this conversation were going. “This girl you are looking for, who is it?”

  “My sister, Bren.”

  “Your sister? Is there something wrong with her?”

  You could say that. “She’s been taken.”

  “Taken?”

  “Are you just gonna echo back everything I say?”

  “What, no.” He looked around, eyes big, as if Bren were about to pop out of the fireplace. “Sorry, let me get this right. You have a sister named Bren and she is missing. And you think I somehow know something about it? That I know who took her?”

  I fixed him with a glare. “Not missing. Taken. Like I said. And yes. I see it as a distinct possibility.” The South had money… but brains, that were clear optional.

  “And just to be sure, you are not here about my uncle or me or his research? And not about what we were looking for out on the Fl—” Cody cut off abruptly.

  “The Flats?” I finished for him. “Ain’t no one got business out on that ice. Only ones out there are treasure hunters and dead men.” Usually they were one and the same.

  Cody shifted in his seat. “Right, well. No. Not on the Flats exactly. That’s his area of research you see. Out there, past the ice and… you know…” Seeing my expression, he trailed off.

  “Know what?” I asked. That Rover clear had business out there too. I took another step closer to him.

  “Other places,” Cody finished lamely, waving his hand.

  It took all my willpower not to reach out and smack it.

  I crossed my arms. “Look, Cody, you got problems, I can see.” I put on my best smile. Like Bren would’ve told me. “But those problems? They ain’t my problems. I just want to know if you’ve seen my sister. Or the Rover who took her. Big, white hair, goggles, runs with a nasty black wolf.”

  “A wolf?” he asked, going suddenly still. A strange note to his voice, high and low all at once. Like it weren’t really a question. “Big one?”

  “You could certain say that.”

  Cody stood up abruptly, and walked over to the desk, riffling through the loose papers that covered it, mutterin something I couldn’t hear. Finally, he picked up a single sheet, letting the others flutter to the floor at his feet.

  “Did it look something like this?” he asked, holding the page toward me.

  I rushed to take it. Even from paces away there weren’t no mistaking it. That were the very likeness of the beast. Right there on the page. My skin prickled. Whoever had drawn this had certain seen one. Not a coincidence, it couldn’t be.

  “You draw this?” I asked, giving all the papers another glance. A disconcerting image of Bren’s charcoals flooded up inside me. Pictures and drawings littered the floor around us, like pulled pages from some fancy book. They showed all different types of animals and plants I ain’t never seen. Bren would have loved them. I scowled.

  “Well, not all of them,” Cody said. I eyed him up and down. “It’s more of a hobby, really. My uncle, Walter, he’s the real naturalist. He drew most of them; I am not nearly as good. But I did, however—” He swallowed, indicating the page I held. “I did draw that one. Here.”

  My eyes went wide. He’d seen it. Or good as said so. No other way about it. “Your uncle and you, where did you…?” I trailed off as the pieces slipped into place. Oh you’re an idiot, Jorie A right drowned fool. How could I have not seen it sooner? The two Southerners. Of course they were here together. The man and his nephew. The man and the Rover. I looked quick at Cody, a flash of something dangerous to pity flaring in my gut.

  “Where is your uncle, Cody?” I asked. But of course I already knew the answer. In my body shed.

  A thick stillness filled the room. The slow hiss from a dying fire and the thunder of my panting unnatural loud. It were the first time in my life I didn’t want to be right. Please don’t let me be right.

  “I don’t know,” Cody said, running a hand through his hair.

  “You do not know.” I stared at him. That pity twisting ugly tight inside me.

  “Why else do you think I was drinking? To drown it all out of course.” He said it strange, eyes fixed on the far wall. Not looking at me. “It’s because—”

  “Because why?” I asked real careful like. It weren’t a question.

  Cody blanched, his breathing hitched. “Because he’s dead. And it is all my fault.”

  CHAPTER 8 Death and Reclamation

  Your fault?” It was my turn to be surprised. I didn’t know all that much, but I knew this boy weren’t no killer.

  Cody’s brows knitted together. “Well, good as.”

  And now I knew I should have hit him. “What do you mean good as? Either you did or you didn’t, Cody. There ain’t much room for in-between.” My words came out hard, but inside I were crumbling. He didn’t know anything about Bren.

  Cody’s hands clasped at his side. “He’s been missing for days. Just disappeared. Which he wouldn’t do—he just wouldn’t. But no one around here seems to care. No one listens and no one can be bothered to tell me anything.” His tone bitter. “What other conclusion is there to draw? And it’s my fault.”

  “Stars, Cody!” Least it explained the state of him.

  “He left everything.” Cody spread his arms wide. “His life’s work. Everything he’s ever read or thought or drawn is here. He would never abandon this, could never abandon this, not if he were still alive.” His voice trailed off, as if the last words were a feather in his throat. His eyes shot to the floor. “I should have never let him leave that night. I knew something about the deal to get us out in
to the Flats was not right. The way he had been acting, keeping odd hours, not telling me where he’d been. For my own good, he’d said. And he got like that sometimes: anxious, quiet. So I dismissed it, or tried my best to. Marked it up to stress. But when he walked out… I didn’t stop him. I didn’t know.” Cody dipped his head. “I never even said goodbye.”

  “Tell me, Cody, your uncle, did he have reddish-brown hair and blue eyes?” I knew, but I had to be sure.

  Cody’s head shot up, a sickening hope blooming in his expression. “You’ve seen him.”

  “I have.” I wish I hadn’t. It felt suddenly as if our roles were reversed. Cause maybe we both had something the other wanted. I didn’t think that a good thing.

  “Bless the stars. You don’t know how much this means to me, that he’s here and you’ve seen him. I’ve never been so happy to be wrong in my life. Come on, let’s go right now,” Cody said. Jumping up, he began to rummage through one of the smaller trunks, tossing silks and books onto the floor before finally pulling out a glossy blue-and-silver coat. I eyed it warily as he put it on. Fingers dancing along the bright silver edges of the heavily embroidered coat. Buttons closing. “Take me to him.”

  “I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” I hedged.

  Cody looked up, genuinely surprised. “Why ever not? If your place is close, surely it cannot be that much trouble. And if my uncle is hurt, I can help. I’ve learned all about triage and am good with—”

  “You won’t be able help him.” I cut him off.

  He paused at that. The conversation, my tone, finally sinking in. He looked at me. Just looked at me. And I knew in that moment I just had to say it. Like setting a break in a new fractured bone, there weren’t no use messing around. Besides, I’d never seen any point in sugarcoating bad news. Just hurt worse later. I were practical. I weren’t cruel.

  “He’s dead.” I said it fast. Fast enough he blinked at me for a long time as it sunk in. When it did, his shoulders slumped, the jacket slipping ever so slightly down his arms. All the buoyancy of the new hope spilling out around him.

  Silent, he moved to the fireplace. Face grim. “How?”

  He were greedy or stupid or both. But I didn’t say that. Instead I took a breath and stilled my impatience. “Shot.” I grimaced a little at the coldness of my tone. “In the back.”

  “Shot? You mean I let him walk out of here alone, and he was—he was murdered?” Cody picked up a long metal poker and began eviscerating the inner bodies of the rapidly dying logs. “And here I’ve been worried about him getting lost out in the snow or at worst a fall on the ice.…”

  Crackling sparks, like wayward stars, flew up and into the flue. Outside, the shutters moaned with the run of the wind. He stood for a long time, just staring at the flames. His shoulders taut, face unreadable. Tension running clear as a river through his bones.

  “Are you certain it can’t have been an accident? That we are talking about the same man?” Cody finally asked, sliding his hand into the pocket of his coat.

  I nodded, but he did not look at me. Just stayed staring at the hearth, his fingers rubbing over whatever trinket he had in his coat.

  “I should thank you then, I think. For telling me.” He ran a hand through his hair, sending the floating embers that had settled there dancing into the air between his fingers. A few landed like gray snow on his sleeves. “At least I know.”

  “There ain’t nothing to thank me for.” And you’re gonna right hate me for it in a minute. If Cody had what the Rover wanted… I had to try. I took a deep breath, forcing down the last flicker of pity in my gut. I weren’t here for Cody. I were here for Bren. And I had to know. No matter what. Back straight, I strode over and stole the metal fire poker from Cody’s hand.

  “What in the—” he started.

  “Where is it?” I brandished the poker.

  “Where’s what? What’s wrong with you?” Cody tilted his head, disbelief written clear as the morning light across his face. Confusion, and then a slow dawning of realization. He let out a brittle bark of laugher. “Or was this what you meant by helping me? You are going to kill me too?”

  “Hardly,” I scoffed. “What kind of girl do you think I am?” The one you are pretending to be, a little voice inside me whispered. The one holding a poker to his chest.

  “Then what?” he asked, all the tension flooding out of him. “What does it matter now, anyways? You can take whatever you want. You wouldn’t be the first one to try.”

  “So you admit the Rover has been here?”

  Cody gestured, sudden angry. “Someone has, clearly.”

  His anger stoked mine. “Well, either you get to talking or I get to making you talk. Your choice.” I threw poker down onto the hearth, where it landed with a huge clatter. I leaned my face into his, stopping close enough to feel the warmth of his breath across my cheek.

  “Whichever way works the same for me. Just because your family is dead don’t mean mine needs to be too.”

  Cody’s eyebrows shot up, cheek muscles flexing with disapproval. Good. Get mad. Angry men talked. When he took a step backward, I curled my lips into a wide smile. “So you better start tellin me everything you know. Beginning with exactly why you’re here and where the stars his notebooks are.”

  Cody cleared his throat, spine once again tall. “The body. I want to see the body first.”

  “The body?” I took half a step back. “Why?”

  “That’s my condition. I’ll tell you everything—I will—but I want to see him first. You said he was murdered. Shot. Well, I want to see it—him.”

  “Why?”

  “He is my uncle, okay?” His eyes blazed with suspicion. “And you will show me where he is. Now. And then I’ll tell you what I know.”

  If it weren’t so irksome I would’ve smiled at that. This boy might be worth more than he looked after all. Good. If he were gonna make it out here, he would certain need to be. There was something of the dying fire in that look he’d fixed on me. Something hot and angry. A wild animal, sad and bright all at once. Surrounded by chaos and loss… and me.

  It hit me then, like a bolt. The fact that he were very much alone. What he loved sudden and forever gone. At least we’d that in common.

  He’d called my bluff. I may not be past riling him up, but I weren’t gonna actually bruise him. Swallowing my irritation, I put up my hands.

  “Deal.” If I weren’t gonna get answers here, I’d get ’em somewhere else. So be it. I gestured to the door. “If it’s what you really want, I’ll take you. But I warn you, Cody Colburn, it ain’t gonna be pretty.”

  “Just show me.” Cody swallowed, hard. But didn’t back down.

  I knew that there were worse ways than fists to hurt a man. And the way determination mixed with fear on his face, I didn’t think he’d ever seen a dead man before.

  Well, he sure as stars was about to.

  CHAPTER 9 These Scattered Scars

  Me in front and Cody trailing, we trudged on through the town’s high snows. The only other footprints were those left by the smallest of animals. Nimble, scattered prints of birds and mice, scratched into the ice. All of ’em lives just waiting to starve. Look as I might, there weren’t no trace of any wolves, or their thieving owners.

  I glanced behind me every now and again making sure Cody followed close. Each time, his head were down and his hands clenched in his coat. Over my shoulder, Shadow Springs began to disappear. A rotting smudge on the horizon behind us. Good riddance.

  The snowbound road, lined as it were by rickety black buildings and the rusted lines of the defunct rail system, soon gave way to the boughs of massive evergreens. Great timbers, most without needles, stood like matchsticks in the snow, suffocating in white. Fitful rumbles filled the cold as great sheets of ice slipped from the laden evergreens, crashing to the forest floor. A noise as lonesome as it were beautiful. And deadly.

  Turning us down a small path, we coiled deeper into the winter-bare woods. The sm
ell of the cold pines sinking sweet and welcome into my lungs. Chill biting at my nose. The wild rushing over my skin. I near to closed my eyes with the welcome relief of it.

  “It’s always been all about him,” Cody said at my side.

  I started a step. When had he gotten so close?

  “The rest of us all just came in second to it, really. Nothing more important to Walter than his great works.” His tone wasn’t bitter, just resigned.

  I gave him a sideways glance, his square, clean jaw lit just right by the evening light. Something in the lonesome of his words caught at me, snagged down deep. I opened my mouth and then closed it right quick, scoffing at myself. What was I gonna say to him? Sorry? That didn’t right cover his loss. Not even the start of it.

  “Nothing was too much of a sacrifice; nothing was too much to give for knowledge. Unearthing the unfound. Academic discovery. That was the world—his world. Knowledge and truth above all else. Including family. Including me.”

  I frowned, walking quick and trying not to hear. Even if I said something, if I tried, why would he care? I’d only look the fool for trying. When you didn’t know what to say, it were best say nothing at all.

  Undeterred by my silence, Cody rambled on. “That’s why we were sent up here, you know. Well, not sent, not really. He volunteered us. If it meant proving his findings, he’d run us anywhere. But he was always like that, really. Just ask my parents. Though you’d have to move a ton of collapsed ruins first.” His words swirled out into the cold, his breathing hard as he caught back up falling into step at my side.

  “It could have been worse I suppose. Growing up at the University. With my uncle. It’s not like I was alone. Not all the time.” Cody glanced up at the night sky, a slow smile lingering on his lips. “After all, out here we are never truly alone, not really. All you need to do is look around. This world, these places. Life. Always there, if you know where to look for it.” He gestured with one hand toward the world. To the ice and trees and stars above.