by Melle Amade
Iona nods.
“They’ve just arrived,” Callum mutters and I can tell by the way his eyes are scanning the perimeter, he’s planning out exactly what we should do. “They’re going to expect to see the Ridder, so I’ll go and greet them now. While I’m talking to them, just slip out of the jeep as ravens and leave.”
“Shall we go to the farmstead and just blend in with the rest?” Iona asks. The bears might have good smell, but their vision sucks and I don’t think they’ll expect she got out of the collar. They won’t be looking for the banished girl.”
I recoil a bit at this description, but I don’t make a noise. My heart is pounding in my chest. We’ve been so worried about if Darko was going to come that none of us remembered to consider if the order might show up unexpectedly.
“No,” Callum says. “We don’t know why they’re here, let’s figure that out before we do anything else. Take her to her house.”
I’m thinking maybe I should go to the Sanctuary. But Callum looks over his shoulder at me and shakes his head as if he can almost figure out what I’m thinking.
“You need to be someplace where you can stay a few days. We don’t know what this is going to take. If they are here for a week you need to hide out there for a week and make it seem like no one even lives there,” he says. “I believe since you were banished with a collar they probably don’t give you a second thought, but we still need to figure out why they’re here before we make any other decisions. I’ll come and see you tonight, but for now Iona will protect you.”
Iona doesn’t look particularly pleased with this assignment. But she just shrugs.
“She’s the one who can throw fireballs, maybe she should be protecting me,” she mutters.
“You aren’t the one the Order would just as soon see dead,” Callum shrugs.
“Good point,” Iona says.
“All right, I’m out.” Callum pulls on the door handle and it swings open. Iona shrinks into her raven self and hops onto his seat. I realize the only way out of here is going to be through the door he opens, so I follow suit. Callum stands holding the door open to block everybody’s view. We spring off the seat and make the small leap into the trees above where he’s parked. We are hidden in the foliage in seconds and I steady my breath.
Iona motions with her head for us to go, but I shake mine. There’s no way if the Order has shown up that I’m going to leave right this second. I need to know who is in those vehicles. I want to find out if it’s my father, if it’s El Oso. Have they found him? I don’t think they would just randomly show up.
But those who are in the vehicles are already out milling around in the courtyard. It only takes me a second to know my father is not amongst them. And neither is El Oso. There are, however, two shifters I do recognize. Polaris, the mammoth white polar bear Berzerken who has been leading the Order in El Oso’s absence towers above everyone. And standing diminutively in his shadow is the beautiful Indonesian princess, Lady Heather, who left with El Oso and my father to find the chalice. She is the only shifter besides Roman and I to wear the collar. Even now, as she stands there in her long green traditional Javanese gown, the cold gray metal collar glimmers against her neck. Though I’m in raven form, my neck stings with sympathy for her plight. But, as I watch her, she slowly and deliberately turns towards me, her eyes finding me through the leaves and in the branches where I hide.
Without a doubt not only has she seen me, a raven in the tree, but she knows exactly who I am. She knows I have gotten out of my collar.
***
We fly low over the treetops of Topanga. The trunks are still blackened and bare from the forest fire that ripped through the canyon when we burnt the sanctuary to escape Vasquez the mountain lion. I know the path on the ground as well as I know my friends’ faces. These are the canyons I hiked up, down and around endlessly as a child. My gaze automatically falls on the space where the Sanctuary used to rest. The amazing treehouse my father built for my friends and I that we ended up burning to the ground. I almost veer in that direction, but I remember what Callum said about needing food and shelter. But after seeing the look on Lady Heather’s face, I’m not so convinced my house is the best place to stay under the radar. I’m pretty sure she knows where I live. Topanga isn’t a big town.
My heart swells as we sail down the end of the canyon and I see my house. The sun is just starting to set but being low in the canyon, the area around my house is already full of shadows and gloom. My parents went through such a huge effort to renovate the house. They didn’t know we were leaving. The roof shines brightly now. The shingles of the old cottage are still there, but they’ve been given a coat of paint and everything’s been made to match. Finally. Right before we had to give it up.
We coast to a landing in the dirt that makes up our front yard. The chicken coop is empty. My father’s woodworking shed, attached to the garage, is also silent. The house is dark.
“Come on, we better get inside,” Iona says. She has the same natural tendency is Callum does for looking around and establishing a safe perimeter. A born Ravensgaard. I’m half Ravensgaard and half dove. Not that any of the Ravensgaard know, but I do. And I can see the differences. As I stand there in the yard, I’m a little nervous about going into the house. This is where Henry, Mom, Dad, and I used to live. It almost feels impossible that we’ll ever get to come back.
I shake off the feeling.
“Where’s the key?” Iona asks.
“Where it’s always been.” I think every family in Topanga has a key, behind the lowest piece of wood on the woodpile, the one farthest from the door. I grab the key and undo the lock and we slip inside. The house smells dry and disused, like dust has settled in the cracks and the corners and like maybe, just maybe, we’ll never be able to clean it out.
I hit the light switch automatically. But Iona steps in, shuts the door, and turns off the light right behind me. She pulls the phone out of her back pocket and switches on the flashlight.
“No lights.”
“But it’s really dark in here,” I mutter trying not to sound like a petulant child afraid of the dark.
“It doesn’t matter,” she says. “You heard Callum. We have to make it look like no one’s here. If any bird happens to be flying overhead, if any of the Berzerken happen to be lumbering by, the last thing we need to do is give them an excuse to come over and find out what’s going on.”
“Fine.”
Iona starts to check all the entrances to the house. She goes into the kitchen, past the dining table, and rattles the back door. She looks down the hallway leading to mine and Henry’s bedrooms.
“Is there any exit there?”
“Not unless you count my bedroom window,” I smile. “I used to sneak out through there all the time.”
She ignores my weak humor and points up the stairs that go to my parent’s room and the bathroom where my mother almost drowned me.
“What about there? Any access points?” She asks.
“Just the windows.”
“Good. I’m going to make sure all the windows are locked down,” she says. “Why don’t you check for food.”
I raise my eyebrows and go to the pantry to do, but I don’t really have to. I know there’s food here. In a way, now I kind of understand why, though my father was never a big the-world’s-going-to-end guy, he always made sure our pantry was stocked up with dry goods and canned foods.
I open the door to the closet and it’s all still there. Tubs of rice, tubs of dried beans, containers full of granola, flour and sugar, everything tightly sealed and ready to go. Not that I would know exactly what to do with flour and sugar, but I know how to eat cereal and make rice. Cans are all fine. They wouldn’t be out of date yet. And my guess is we will be holed up here a while. I close the pantry and I’m heating water on the stove when Iona walks in.
“The whole place is button-down and well locked,” she says. “Your old man did that?”
“Yeah. He always made
sure everything could be locked up tight. It’s hard to get in from the outside and always has been. I’m going to make a cup of tea. Do you want one?”
She stares at me in the shadows, fairly solemn. The room is dim and all the green of our kitchen is muted in the evening shadows. I actually don’t mind very much. Having lived up at the village for the last month with electricity from a generator, we didn’t use much light at night. I got used to just looking at things from the firelight. But, the fire pit is not going to be allowed here, either.
“I’m good on the tea,” Iona says. She runs her hand along the green tiles, tapping them repetitively as she chews on her lower lip.
I rarely see her on edge.
“What is it?” I ask.
“Telling you the story about the chalice today reminded me something Callum said since you came back from the north. He said something about Aiden’s dad knowing something about it. Did you hear that story while you were up there?”
I frown a little bit. I’m not sure how much I’m supposed to say, but if Callum said something, maybe I can repeat the same thing.
“He was delirious,” I say. “He said something about gathering all of the things they needed for the spell. A team of shifters had been working on it. And they had actually succeeded. They’d gotten the cage, the chain, the crown, the sword and-”
“The chalice,” Iona says. Her eyes glower. “They found the chalice. And lost it. The Van Arends lost the chalice.” She says. “It’s been under our nose this entire time.”
“That’s not what he said,” I say. “All he said is they were looking for it.”
“Don’t you see they must have found them? They must have found them or else there’d be no way El Oso would have magic. Lord Van Arend knows something.”
She heads towards the kitchen door.
“Callum said we’re supposed to say inside and out of sight,” I say. I can only imagine the last thing the shifter world needs right now is for Iona to rush up to Van Arend Manor and accuse the Lord of hiding the chalice while the Order is in town.
“No, he didn’t,” she says. “He said you had to stay out of sight. So, when I go out the door, you lock it. And you don’t open it up for anyone until I do three taps on your bedroom window. I’ll be back.”
With that she is gone.
13
I sit in the dark shadows of the cold house, sipping the remnants of my tepid tea, curled on the couch underneath a blanket. I’d love to start a fire but I’m sure I’m not allowed to do that either. Smoke coming up from the chimney would show there was somebody in the house. I wish Roman or even Iona was here to keep me company. Or that I had cell service so I might be able to get a text to find out what’s going on. I pull the most well-worn, comfortable quilt in the entire universe from the back of the couch. Snuggling into it I drift off to the sound of tree branches scrape lightly against the shingles. Some people might think it was creepy, but I’ve grown up with it my whole life. It’s a comforting rhythm rocking me to sleep.
A light repetitive tapping, like acorns falling on the roof, startles me awake. I sit up in the dark, my hands strangling the edge of the blanket. I hear the tapping again but it’s not on the roof, it’s at the front door. Iona said she would go to my bedroom window. But what if it’s Callum? No one’s supposed to be here, so I can’t exactly call out and ask who it is.
However, from the bay window in Henry’s room you can see the front door. I slip off the couch quietly, my socks sliding across the creaky wooden floors as I move through the dark of Henry’s room carefully, so as not to stub my toe on any massive book or toy he’s left lying out in the middle of the floor. I try not to move the curtains but I have to angle the dark blue fabric slightly so I can crack a view of the front door. I don’t know what time it is, but darkness is settled everywhere, especially under the awning covering our front patio. But there’s one thing that can’t hide in the darkness.
The white shock of hair.
It’s Darko, the Hunter.
I gasp, stumbling forward, my hand pressing against the glass to keep my balance. It makes a light thud and immediately Darko whips around to look at me. He’s at the window in a flash, faster than I ever could’ve imagined somebody could move. He stares in at me.
“It’s okay,” he says. “I’m not here to hurt you.”
Every single thing I’ve heard over the last few months about the Hunters and every single doubt, fear and concern that my friends and everybody have about the Hunters flies into my brain as he stands there, forehead pressed against the glass.
And…I don’t feel any of it.
I am not afraid of him.
I don’t feel like he’s against me or dangerous or even like he’s going to hunt down the Van Arends.
“I just want to come in and talk to you.” His voice is muffled by the glass. “I have more information for you.”
I take a deep breath and stand up right.
I am a Thunder Being. I can make fire in my hands, I can turn into a raven and a dove. I have no reason to be afraid of this human who stands at my door. So even if he were to try anything, I have ways to protect myself. I am not a victim here, I am able to make a choice.
“Come to the front door,” I say.
When I open it, he’s standing there his eyes bright and clear blue, and his face full of light and what looks like…hope. But something stirs in the shadows near the woodpile and in seconds I am pushed back into my house, falling back onto the floor and lying under the body weight of…
“Lady Heather,” I say.
“How did you do it?” Her voice is a desperate rasp of indignation and shock. “How did a stupid little human like you-”
“I am a shifter.” I interrupt her.
“How did you get the collar off? This thing that I have worn for thirty-two years, five months, and fifteen days. How did you get it off?” Her accent is thick as she speaks to me, demanding answers.
My fingernails click and sparks start to fly. She glances to each side, watching the fire in my hands. But it only makes her jaw strengthen in determination and she leans in, putting her face directly in mine. “I don’t care. You can burn me if you want. Anything is better than living like this any longer. If there is a way to get out of this collar I need to know.”
“It might help if you got off of her,” Darko says, stepping past us and sitting on the couch. “And although she cannot shift anymore-”
“I could still shift if I did not have this damn collar on,” she says, glaring up at Darko. “The collar your people invented.”
“They are not my people,” Darko sighs. “I would have stopped them if I could.”
“Would you get off me?” I push at Lady Heather, completely tempted to zap my fingers against her side, but I realize it’s probably something that’s not going to make her respond very kindly.
All this woman wants is her freedom. She’s not going to kill me to get it. And then the thought enters my head, maybe she wouldn’t even be able to kill me. She looks up at Darko to see if she really should get off of me. But I’m looking at her and I’m thinking about him and I’m suddenly realizing. I am the most powerful one in the room.
I could burn them, burn the house down, fly away and never be touched. My heart leaps a little bit at the idea and a nervous chuckle rises in my chest, but I close my mouth around it. I’m not here to kill and hurt people. Patch already died at my hands, a task I do not regret, but it’s something I’m not anxious to repeat. Not unless absolutely necessary.”
Lady Heather loosens her grip on me and slides to the side.
I spring up the minute she’s off me, my stance poised for attack. Despite my power and my trust, I should not be lulled into a false sense of security. Both of these people are stone-cold killers. But while Lady Heather has her hands up and fingers like talons pointed at me, Darko is relaxed, lounging on the couch, looking particularly friendly.
“You can help us.” His pale, white skin almost gl
owing even in the darkened room.
My gaze flits between the two of them quickly. “What do you mean ‘help us?’”
They are an us.
“Your lover is a Hunter?” I ask Lady Heather.
“We need your help,” Darko responds, his smile never wavering.
I glare at him. “My father isn’t in Indonesia, is he? All this…You were just trying to get me back here.”
“Lady Heather is a prisoner,” Darko says. “She doesn’t have a lot of control of where she goes or what she does. This was one of the only places we knew she could get to without a problem.”
“You don’t know where my father is,” I say. “Do you?”
Darko shakes his head. “No,” he says. “But I knew if you had to go overseas, you would have to stop back here first for resources. I knew you would come back to Topanga, the one place Lady Heather could find an excuse to get to.”
My heart sinks low. “This is all a set-up. Just so I can help her-”
“Get out of the collar,” Lady Heather says. “I will not beg you, but you must help me. If you have a way to get out…you must.”
“You shouldn’t have lied to me,” I glare at Darko. “I would’ve helped her anyhow.”
“Maybe,” he says. “And maybe not. But now we are here together, there’s no reason we shouldn’t help her.”
I glare at them both, somehow feeling used and wronged, and at the same time knowing it’s the truth, there’s no reason why I shouldn’t help her. The man who has imprisoned her for almost two of my lifetimes is the same man who now imprisons my father and who is my mortal enemy. Of course, I would help her. Especially because I know she can be freed.
“If I get your collar off, will you help me?”
“I will do what I can,” Lady Heather says. “But there are extreme limits to what I am capable of.”
“Where have you been for these two months?” I ask. “Weren’t you with El Oso and my father?”
