by Devon Monk
“Our promise is not easily given,” Cadoc said. “It is nearly impossible to earn the Madders’ oath, the Madders’ favor. But once given, it cannot be broken. Especially not by us, Brother Alun.”
Alun swore one hard, burning word. Then he rubbed his mittened hand over his beard, scraping away snow and ice. His gaze searched the shadows around them as if he had lost something valuable.
“We knew this day would come,” Bryn said.
“Aye.” Alun sighed. “We did. This will be the last of it. No man there will have another promise from me. But on this old vow, they will collect. And it will be the last time I set foot in this devil’s town.”
“It will be the last time any of us set foot in this devil’s town,” Cadoc said. “He, I am sure, will see to it.”
“He?” Cedar asked. “Who?”
“The devil,” Cadoc said.
The wind picked up again and snow sifted down like flour through a sieve. The wagon scuttled onward, crawled along as fast as a man could walk.
Ahead a glimmer of gold sparked and burned brightly, perhaps a lantern on the west edge of the bank.
“Just a ways now,” Bryn said. “Catch the wind’s march, boys. We’ll be to land soon.”
Cedar adjusted the sail, and so did Alun. Just as Bryn had said, the wind drew them smoothly, slowly, as if dreading the journey, while Cadoc steered them toward the ever-brightening light.
Soon Cedar could make out its source.
A man in a full cloak with a wide, heavy hood sat on a horse on a rise over the bank. He held an oversized lantern, mirrored to enhance its flame. The light threw shadows against his face so thick, Cedar couldn’t make out a single angle of his features.
“Trim the sails,” Bryn said. “This is our stop.”
“Do you know that man?” Cedar asked as the wagon came to a creaking stop, sleds skiffing over the ragged ice at the river’s edge and riding up to settle in the snow on the bank.
“No,” Alun said. “We knew his family, I expect.”
“Ho, stranger,” Bryn called out. “What town lies beyond this bank?”
“Des Moines,” the man answered, his accent pressing hard on the spaces between the words. “Where do you fare from?”
“Long away and better days.” Alun jumped down out of the driver’s seat and lashed the ropes of the sail tight so the wagon didn’t go wandering off onto the ice again.
“Was it your song playing?” Cadoc Madder stepped onto the snowy ground too and saw to resetting the hitch so the mules could pull the wagon on land again.
“It was the song of my father, and his before him,” the man said.
“Father’s, eh?” Alun asked. “I suppose it has been some years since we were last through. We’ll need shelter for the night and a place for the animals out of the storm.”
“Yes,” the stranger said. “Follow me.”
It didn’t take long to get the animals situated to pull the wagon. Mae released the calming spell, and the mules and horse all seemed a little spooked to find themselves in the middle of a snowstorm.
With some pushing, pulling, coaxing, and cussing, they managed to get the wagon up the bank and onto a road.
* * *
It was well and dark now and the only light came from the lantern the man carried, the lanterns on the wagons, and the occasional flickering behind the thick glass of the houses they passed.
The streets of Des Moines rambled between haphazard structures built with the hurried signs of sudden growth now that the railroad joining the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers had come through town. That, along with the mines of coal, lead, and a rare vein of copper, had put the city’s star on the map.
The town was quiet beneath the snow. Houses gave way to warehouses, shops, and brick buildings. Now and again a shout broke the night, a gunshot cracked, or the rattle of laughter and piano reminded Cedar of this city’s restless state.
Des Moines had grown dense with the people who had settled here for years. Now more were coming through, building businesses, clearing land for farms, working the mines, and seeing to the shipping of grains, cattle, devices, and other goods between the east and west.
The railroad and telegraphs that connected this great land had been a boon to the town and had given it enough spunk to build tall buildings, airship fields, and foundries.
It was a city now. Called itself the capital of Iowa.
Cedar thought it might be the sort of town Rose Small was hoping to see one day: full of busy and bustle, fed by all the new ideas coming on rails from the east. He wished, for a moment, that she might be here with them. Then the wind scraped across his exposed skin and he was glad she was safe and warm back in the Kansas coven.
They turned down a street lined by unlit lamps, then left that street for another, and finally came to a winding lane.
Cedar rolled his shoulders. The press of people sleeping just behind the tall walls was a palpable weight on his nerves. Dawn would come too soon. By moonrise tomorrow, he’d be full under the hold of the Pawnee curse and in the body of a beast.
Hungry for Strange blood.
The Madders hadn’t said a single word as they traveled the streets; neither had their host, who led them down the lane.
In short time, a structure rose at the end of the path.
A single candle in a high arched window flickered in the framework building. Above that rose a blocky bell tower with a simple cross atop it. A church. From the look of it, a very old but well-kept house of worship.
The rider took them past the building to a barn that was larger than the church by half. He dismounted and motioned them forward into the shelter.
The barn wasn’t large enough for the wagon, but there was a generous lean-to, beneath which the wagon would be shielded from the worst of the weather.
Their host led his horse into the barn and they followed.
“There are stalls for your animals here.” The man pushed the wide hood of his cloak away, revealing black hair smoothed back from his wide forehead and tied in a single braid that fell at least halfway down his back. He had the tanned skin and carved angles to his face that spoke clearly of native descent. And yet, he wore a modern man’s clothing. At his neck hung a simple silver cross.
An Indian preacher? Cedar didn’t think he’d ever heard of such a thing.
“Mr. Hunt,” Alun said. “Please see to the mules and our host’s horse. We have business to conduct with Father Kyne here. I assume there’s room in the church?”
The native man nodded. “Find your welcome. I will follow in a moment.”
Alun strode out of the barn, impatience clipping his step. “Brothers,” he said. “Let’s get this done with.”
Bryn and Cadoc turned heel and followed him.
Wil was waiting in the shadows. As soon as the Madders had passed by, he slipped into the barn.
Mae and Miss Dupuis led the mules and horse toward stalls, all of the animals too tired to care about the unfamiliar surroundings.
“They’re in a hurry,” Mae said. “Do you know why?”
Cedar took the horse’s reins from her. “I’m given to understand they owe a favor to someone here in town.”
“Perhaps that is why they wanted to avoid it?” Miss Dupuis said.
Cedar watched Father Kyne, who stood in the stall, removing the light saddle from his horse. He was watching them all but, most especially, him and Wil.
“I don’t know the Madders’ business,” Cedar said. “And they seem content to leave it that way. I do want to thank you, Father Kyne, for guiding us to town. It’s been a long, hard ride.”
“My pleasure,” he said quietly. “You and the wolf. He belongs to you?”
Cedar nodded. “My name is Cedar Hunt. The wolf is named Wil. This is Mae Lindson and Sophie Dupuis.”
Father Kyne nodded to them each, and draped the saddle over the stall door, followed by the bridle. “You are all welcome to my home, for as long as you have need.”
&
nbsp; “We don’t want to be a burden, Father Kyne,” Miss Dupuis said. “Perhaps there is a hotel with room for us this evening?”
“Not so late in the night,” he said, stepping out of the stall. “In the morning, I would be happy to take you to better accommodations. But tonight, no one should be out on the streets. There are…strange happenings in our town. I do not think it would be safe.”
He pulled the hood of his cloak back up and then left the barn, disappearing into the snow.
Cedar finished with the saddle, blanket, and bridle from the horse, then closed the stall door behind him.
“Well,” Miss Dupuis said, “I, for one, am looking forward to some time out of this weather. Perhaps a cup of tea, or a hot meal.”
She adjusted her scarves and hat, tucked her hands into her woolen muff. “Do you need any help with the animals?” she asked.
“No,” Cedar said. “We’ll be right behind you. Wil, please go with her.”
She walked out of the barn and so did Wil.
Mae lingered in the stall with the last mule.
“Mae,” Cedar said. “Are you all right?”
She patted the mule on the nose before ducking under its neck and stepping out of the stall. “Better now that we are out of the storm. How are your hands? The burns?”
“Fine,” he said. “I don’t feel them. The burns,” he clarified. “I wanted to thank you. For the spells, the warmth against the cold. I wouldn’t have survived that without your witchcraft.”
“I think you are overstating that a bit,” she said gently. “Nothing could have stopped you from finding our way through that storm.”
He gave her a slight smile.
“Tomorrow will be the full moon,” she said. “Do you want me to try to cast something to ease the beast?”
They’d tried that, more than once. Spells didn’t seem to have an effect on the curse he carried. The best way to be sure he didn’t roam the night killing Strange—or accidentally any people who got in his way—was to chain him up and wait until dawn gave him back his mind and body.
Mae strolled up next to him. He could see the fatigue in her step, but she held her shoulders back and her eyes were clear. “Or do you want me to chain you?”
She paused, her gaze searching his face. It was suddenly no longer the beast that he was thinking about. It was Mae and only Mae.
Mate, the beast whispered in his head.
Cedar very gently brushed a stray lock of her hair away from the curve of her cheek, his fingers hot and stinging. “I want,” he said softly, “you.”
They had had too little time alone together since they started this journey. Only enough for a caught hand, a stolen kiss. He hadn’t even had a chance to tell her how much he loved her. To ask her if she would be his wife.
Mae looked down and smiled, but shook her head slightly, taking this moment away too. “We need rest, you need rest. I want…” She looked away, swallowed, then looked back to him, her expression calm, clear. “I want you to eat something, and drink.”
He took in a breath, knowing he should say more, explain to her that he wanted her in his life, forever.
But before he could say a word, she slipped her finger gently to his lip, and then very carefully kissed him. She pulled away, and he could see a small drop of his blood on her bottom lip. She took out her kerchief and dabbed at her lip, then at his.
“You are injured, Cedar,” she said softly. “You might not feel it now, but you will. You need rest.”
The beast inside him pushed, wanting out, wanting her, and if not her, then wanting the hunt.
But she was right. He needed rest, warmth, and a man’s mind for as long as he could have those things. He took a deep breath and ignored the beast’s demands. He offered her his arm. “Mrs. Lindson,” he said.
“Rowen,” she corrected. “My maiden name is Rowen. I think I will use it again.”
Cedar’s heart leaped at that and he smiled. “It’s a good name.”
“Yes, it is,” she said.
It was a short enough walk to the church, and the glow from the windows made of small colored panes lay a patchwork quilt across the snow.
Mae stepped into that light, and for a moment he imagined her at the altar with him, exchanging vows. Then she stomped snow off her boots and stepped through the door.
He shook his head. This was something new to him. When he’d been a much younger man and asked his wife to marry him, it had been a whirlwind of plans, and preparations, and a wedding before spring was over.
But Mae…Mae was worth waiting a thousand springs for.
He climbed the church steps and paused.
An eerie call, like the weeping of the dead, echoed through the night.
He snapped around, hands to the side, feet spread, bracing for an attack.
Nothing moved in the snow. Nothing he could see. The call rolled out from the city, a sobbing wail.
The Strange were crying. He’d never heard a Strange weep, but he knew with every inch of his being that it was the Strange behind that sound.
The crackle of lightning licked copper against the sky. Once, twice, three times. Then thunder rumbled in its wake. He thought he heard a gun fire far off, then all was quiet again, smothered by the falling snow.
There should not have been lightning in the middle of this snowstorm. Copper lightning. There should not have been thunder.
And the slight scent of blood in the air told him there was something else here that didn’t belong: the Holder.
Rose had never been in a library before. The small town of Hallelujah, where she’d been raised, had a few books in the schoolhouse and a few more in the church, but there wasn’t a proper library within a hundred miles.
But here the entire house was filled with shelves that reached up two stories high. Off where one might expect bedrooms were chairs and tables and lamps set easy for the eyes. The whole place smelled of summer—that peculiar dust-and-dry scent of well-tended books, oily ink, leather, and wood that was shared with the season.
“I could live here,” Rose sighed, drawing her fingers along the mounded spines of the gold-lettered volumes.
Thomas Wicks chuckled. “Do you read much, Miss Small?”
“I’ve always endeavored to do so. Mostly the periodicals coming through my parents’ shop. Sometimes a novel or poems, but those were usually ordered by people in town who were quick to pick them up.”
“Come now. You never once snuck a book off in a corner and took a peek?”
She looked up and across the room. Thomas was half-turned from the shelf there, in shirtsleeves and vest, having draped his coat and jacket across the back of a chair. He’d taken off his hat too, revealing his dark, wavy hair. She thought he looked rather at home here, as if he did indeed have a cot stashed away in some corner of the place and would at any moment kick off his shoes and settle in by the fire.
He smiled, waiting for her answer.
“Maybe once or twice,” she admitted with a laugh. “Old Mrs. Pruce loved her romantic fiction, and Mr. Donaldson asked every week if a new bit from his favorite, Longfellow, had come through.”
“Did you have a favorite too?” He turned back to the shelves and tipped his head just slightly to one side to better read the titles on the spine. “Poetry, intellect, suspense?”
“Oh, I like it all, especially the popular fictions. But really, anything at all to set my mind dreaming.” Rose noticed a stout brown volume and tugged it out gently by its top. The Handbook of Household Sciences. She tucked it under her arm with her other finds, The Lady’s Oracle and The Lamplighter.
“And you, Mr. Wicks? Do you have a preferred sort of reading?”
“I am particular to the philosophies.”
“Really?” She glanced back over at him.
He nodded, even though he was still facing the shelves. “I have a horrifying fascination about such things. Seeing the world through other people’s eyes and minds. Imagining the implications of varyin
g arguments and scenarios. About the world. About the heavens. About the human heart. So…fascinating.”
The way he said it all, it sounded like poetry. Rose folded the books against her chest and studied her companion. “Do you live here in town, Mr. Wicks?”
“Presently.” He tucked his hands behind his back and bent nearly in half, browsing the books on the lower shelves.
“What is your occupation?”
“Currently? A purveyor of fine literature. Previously? A railroad and express agent. And before that, other, less interesting things.”
“You’ve worked for the railroads?”
“Just so.”
“How exciting,” she said. “Have you been to all the great cities, then? Boston? Philadelphia? New York?”
His shoulders tightened just a bit at the mention of the cities. He pulled himself up to his height again, then, casually: “If one may consider them great. Yes. Those places and many more.”
The way he said it, she suddenly wondered why he had left them for this rather out-of-the-way spur in Kansas.
The wind battered at the shingles and sieved through the cracks around the door, reminding her that outside this cocoon of ink and page, winter was on a wail. Time had slipped away. It was dark out, and here she was lingering with a perfect stranger after hours.
Best she be moving on.
“Well, then,” she said, giving her words a lift. “Thank you for showing me around the place, Mr. Wicks. I’ll just be signing out and on my way.”
“Yes,” he said. “Of course.” He seemed to choose a book at random off the shelf, then picked up his jacket and coat. “I do hope you’ll allow me to see you to your front step?”
Rose narrowed her eyes. What did she really know about this man? Nothing other than the rather idle chitchat over the last few hours. He seemed a kind, polite, and guileless sort. But it had been her experience that sly-hearted people often hid behind kind smiles.
“Oh, I wouldn’t want to be bothering you,” she said. “I know my way about. Why, I suppose Mr. Davis might be headed out to the farm, and I’ll just hop his wagon.”
