Sighing, Lacy sat back down on the bed, still staring out at the back yard, but her gaze now more focused on the woods beyond.
“Luke,” she whispered. “What are you doing now?”
She heard noise from the living room and knew that Solomon was up and moving as well. Frankly, she would have been surprised if he wasn’t.
“Hey,” she said, when she opened the bedroom door and came out. “Sorry about earlier. I don’t know what came over me. I got so tired all of a sudden.”
“I think it’s called exhaustion,” Solomon said. “Don’t worry about it. With everything you’ve been through, it’s understandable.”
“Coffee?” Lacy asked, moving to the kitchen. “I’ll make some food too, but I thought coffee might help chase some of the cobwebs away first.”
“Sounds great, but I already made it. Hope you don’t mind.”
“Pfft. Fresh coffee when I get up? And I don’t have to make it? What’s to mind?”
She poured herself a cup and held the pot up. He passed his mug over and she filled that one too. After she had taken a few sips, she set it down on the counter, and went to the refrigerator. “How about a salad? Maybe throw a burger or two on the grill? I’m in the mood for one.”
“Sure, sounds great. What can I do?”
“Nothing. Hang out. I like doing it.”
A short time later, they sat on Lacy’s deck, tucking into burgers and enjoying the warm summer evening. Lacy kept scanning the edge of the woods, hoping, but not really expecting, to see Luke appear.
“You miss him, huh?” Solomon said to her.
“Yeah, I do. He was really the only one ever for me. Despite the last few months.”
“What happened?”
“Ah, you don’t want to hear about that.”
“I told you about Celia.”
Lacy was quiet for a moment. Then, “It was good for a while, you know? After we got married. Luke was really struggling though. More than I knew. It wasn’t about me, or at least I don’t think it was. It was his writing. He always kept a good face about it, but I think now that it was eating away at him. He poured himself into those stories, lived them in his mind. I could always tell when he was in the middle of one, because he wouldn’t be with me. Not really. He’d be off in some other world inside his own head.”
“Luke was a writer? I didn’t know that,” Solomon said.
“I guess we hadn’t talked about it. It’s weird. It’s only been a couple of days since you showed up in my hospital room, but it feels like forever. Like you’ve always been around. But yeah, Luke was a writer, just not a published one.”
She stopped and took a sip of her wine. Birds flitted among the trees, but nothing else moved in the woods.
“I knew it bothered him, but I didn’t know how much. He started drinking. Well, I guess I should say that he started drinking more. He had always had a taste for it. Hell, he and I used to get halfway lit, laugh the night away and fall into bed together at the end of it.”
She stopped again, and glanced at Solomon, feeling a faint burn in her cheeks.
“Sorry, I don’t know why I said that. TMI, right?”
Solomon smiled. “I’m aware of what husbands and wives do.”
She cleared her throat. “Anyway. He started out having a beer in the afternoon. I mean, we had both done that on occasion, no big deal. But he started doing it every afternoon, while I was still at work. Pretty soon, it was more than one. Then, he started to get lonely, and he’d head into town. There were a couple times that Ed called me to come get him.
“But here’s the thing. When we were home here, the two of us? He was fine. He never got drunk, and he was his old, charming, fun self. It was hard to reconcile the two.”
“Why would Ed call you? Was he getting violent?” Solomon asked.
“No, nothing like that. He’d head into town, probably have a beer or two driving there, and then go to the bar. Then he’d start putting them away. Once he was good and liquored up, he’d start ranting to people. Telling them the stories that he had written, like they were real things that had happened to him. A couple of times, he left the bar and wandered down the sidewalk, trying to talk to whoever was around. He scared a couple of people pretty good.
“I should have noticed more…I should have done something. But I didn’t want to believe that there was anything really wrong, you know? He wasn’t writing anymore. I finally went and looked, and it was piles of the same stories he’d had for the last couple of years, done over and over. And the writing was bad in the new versions. Really bad. But that’s not the worst part.
“He had written notes to himself on them. They were all the same. About how horrible the story was, how worthless he was as a writer and as a man, how he was going to lose me…on and on. After the first few, I couldn’t read anymore.”
She stopped again and took a sip of her wine. Solomon sat quietly next to her, listening but not saying anything.
“But you know what?” she continued. “It was the damndest thing, but I started to get angry. At him. At Luke. I got it, that he was having a tough time. But this drunk, self-pitying asshole wasn’t the man I knew. He wasn’t the man who showed himself to me all the time. So I stormed out of his office and found him, and we had a real old fashioned come-to-Jesus dust up. I told him straight up that he wasn’t going to lose me, not for not being a published writer, but if he kept up the crap, he had a good chance of doing it that way.
“It worked! For a while, anyway. He cried, I cried. We hugged and talked, and he stopped the drinking. Got himself turned around too. He cleaned up his office and burned all of the new ‘editions’ of his stories. The old ones, the good ones, he put in a drawer. Then he turned off his computer and asked me if he could take a couple of days to figure out what he was going to do. Of course, I told him yes, pleased as could be that he was turning over a new leaf.
“But those things never last, do they? For the next few days, things were great. I’d come home and he’d have the house cleaned up, dinner cooking away and music playing. It was like we were dating all over again. We’d have dinner and he’d listen to my mundane stories about my day and I’d listen to his. He was walking a lot, to give him time to think, and work off some of that beer gut he’d gotten.”
“And then what happened?” Solomon asked quietly.
“He was gone. I came home from work, and he wasn’t here. No music, no dinner cooking, nothing. It was like he hadn’t been here all day. He was gone. I waited all night, but he never came back. Not then, not the next day, and not the day after that. I called Ed, of course, and he came out, but there was no sign of a struggle or anything like that.
“I got around to thinking that working things out for Luke meant that he didn’t want to be here anymore. And that he had decided to go and the easiest way to do that was to leave. No muss, no fuss.”
“I’m sorry, Lacy,” Solomon said. “That must have been horribly painful for you.”
“Oh, it was. Ed checked on me, Maggie too. But I’m tough, Solomon. In case you hadn’t noticed. If Luke didn’t want me, then okay. It hurt, but I had lived before him, and I’d live after him. I went on thinking that too, until a few days ago.”
“When you saw him.”
“Yeah. And now I’m thinking that he didn’t leave me. Something grabbed him. That Soul Gaunt thing. And while that makes me feel a little better about myself, I’m terrified of what it means for him.”
Her voice broke on that last and Solomon reached over and squeezed her hand. She grabbed hold and squeezed back, glad for the contact. After a moment, she collected herself, patted his hand, and let go.
“Thanks,” she said.
“We’ll find him, Lacy. I’m not letting this go.”
She nodded, then a thought occurred to her and she looked around. “Hey, where’s Daisy? I haven’t seen her since I got up.”
Solomon smiled. “I sent her on an errand,” he said, and took another sip of his wi
ne.
CHAPTER 21
“Should we go tell Jamshir now?” Florian asked, setting his glass down.
“Tell him what? That Rustling Elms was attacked? He’d only have me investigate it anyway,” Jediah said. “No, let’s wait here, see what Shireen and Orlando come back with, and go to him with that.”
“You’re hoping to use it as leverage for bringing Solomon back, aren’t you?”
Jediah looked at him. “Why would I need that? We’ve both agreed that he needs to be. I, the Head of his House, and you, his accuser. Why would he balk at it?”
“Who knows? He’s Jamshir, does he need a reason? He could refuse simply because he feels like it. We both know how he is.”
Jediah said nothing, but took another sip of his liqueur. To Florian’s eyes, he looked almost nervous, certainly uncomfortable.
“What’s going on, Jediah?” he said. “I know you too well. I can tell when you’re trying to hide your thoughts.”
Jediah sighed, grimaced and looked down at his near empty glass. “Jamshir. It’s more than him being selfish and a lesser man than his father. I don’t know that I trust him anymore. He’s changed…become different than he used to be.”
Florian lifted an eyebrow, surprised to find his friend talking so bluntly. In truth, he had been feeling much the same way about the leader of the Folk. But he hadn’t been so rash to speak of it so freely, not even to Thaddeus.
“You speak dangerous words, my friend.”
“Dangerous or not, they’re words that need speaking. I think Jamshir has lost his caring for the Greenweald. I think now that Jamshir cares mostly for Jamshir.”
Florian nodded. Spies were not unheard of among the Folk, and he was sure that Jamshir had them in both his and Jediah’s households, but not here, in this room. Thaddeus was an accomplished enough magic-user to ensure that this room held no magical listening devices, even if he was not on par with the wizards that House Glittering Birch had.
“I’ve felt the same, for quite some time now. But I’m curious. Why do you say this?”
“Glittering Birch has almost as strong a martial force as we do, in addition to his sorcerers and whatever else he has hidden. Yet any time that danger, of any sort, rears up, it’s up to us to put it to rights. At one time, he would join us, spread the glory, sure, but also spread the danger. Now, he sits, consolidating his strength. For what?”
“In case you decide that he’s not fit to rule, I would imagine,” Florian said. “Glittering Birch is a strong House, there’s no doubt of that. But he’d be hard pressed to come up with soldiers who can match your Shireen, or Orlando, and as for Solomon….well.”
“So you think he’s afraid?”
“Mmm…I don’t know if afraid is exactly the word I would use. Cautious is more like it. And opportunistic. He saw a way to remove Solomon from your house, and in doing so removed what he must surely see as the greatest single threat to his rule.”
Jediah was silent for a moment. “Then he won’t agree to bring him back, will he?”
“My thought is no, he won’t. Which is exactly why we should tell him what’s happened.”
“I don’t follow,” Jediah said.
“Think about it. Jamshir needs to be shaken out of his complacency. If you say he’s been taking no chances with his men, then he needs to be shown that he can’t sit on the sidelines. Not for this. Maybe when he loses a few men, he’ll not be so slow to agree to bring Solomon back.”
Florian was a little surprised to hear himself speaking like this. Only a short time ago, he had been arguing vehemently against this very act, and now here he was, plotting with Jediah for how they could make it happen. But he had always been a practical man, once he let his reason reign over his emotions. He would never embrace Solomon, and would always blame him for what had happened, but he had come around to believing that it also wasn’t intentional. The thing in the pool that had taken Celia, that was the real murderer.
“You could be right,” Jediah conceded. “Although I have a feeling that he’ll tell me to handle it anyway. As long as the Soul Gaunt isn’t killing Glittering Birch soldiers, he won’t move.”
“No, but what if we told him that we couldn’t find it?”
“I can’t do that, Florian, and neither can you. If we hold off on it, then how many innocents die from other houses.”
Florian settled back. In truth, he hadn’t thought of that. “You’re right, of course. Still, there must be a way to turn this threat so that we get what we need.”
“We need? You’ve come around quickly.”
“You’ve made your point convincingly. I will never love Solomon, but I understand the need for him to be here.”
There was a knock at the door.
“Come,” Florian called out, and another minor member of his House appeared.
“My lord,” he said. “There is someone….well, something…here. That I think you should know about.”
“What is it?”
“It’s a dog, lord.”
“A dog?” Florian laughed. “So now I’m to be bothered by every stray dog that wanders into the compound? Give it some food and let it roam as it wishes. It will go away when it’s ready.”
“It’s not just a dog, lord. It looks like a Hunting Hound.”
Florian’s blood ran cold. He had forgotten the Hunting Hound that he had had Thaddeus send after Solomon. They were trained to kill their quarry, and then return to the one who had sent them with proof. Usually very grisly, and bloody, proof.
“Oh, no,” he whispered.
“What did you do, Florian?” Jediah’s voice was very quiet.
Instead of answering, Florian walked quickly out of the door, ignoring how such haste must look to his servants. With Jediah on his heels, demanding answers, he left his home and went down the steps to where the Hound waited.
Yes, it looked like the same Hound that Thaddeus had returned with, but really who was to say? They all looked very much alike to him. It could have been a Hound that had been dispatched to find and eliminate him. That thought made him glad that Jediah was nearby.
He slowed as he approached, but the Hound did nothing other than to sit, its tongue lolling out of its mouth, watching him as he neared.
“Easy, now,” he said quietly. “That’s a good boy. No one’s going to hurt you.”
He looked at the ground in front of the Hound, but there was nothing there, or anywhere around him. There was no blood on the dog’s muzzle, and it didn’t look as if it had been in a fight. Hunting Hound or not, if it had tangled with Solomon, there would have been some signs of it.
“I don’t understand…” he began.
Jediah pushed past him. “For the gods' sake, Florian. How many Hunting Hounds have you seen with a ribbon tied around their necks?”
Florian could only gape as the Hound allowed Jediah to slip off the ribbon that he now saw had been loosely placed around its neck. Attached to the ribbon was a small piece of paper.
Jediah unfolded and read what was written there. Then he looked up at Florian, his face creasing into a smile.
“It’s from Solomon,” he said. “He’s alive, he’s got most of his memories back, and he says he needs our help. You’re not going to believe this. He says there’s a Soul Gaunt on that earth.”
Florian felt like the world was spinning out of control. Old stories pop up again, and a supposed killer beast is made into a messenger? What was going on?
“Then we need to help him,” he heard his own voice say. “But how?”’
CHAPTER 22
“Ruuuunnn.” With that, the man’s head flopped forward, his breath hitching in his throat. It looked like he had used his final strength to issue his warning, and for that Shireen was grateful. But what did he mean…?
Her thoughts were interrupted by another sound. In the darkness, at the side of the large room came a dry hiss, long and drawn out, slowly evolving into what sounded like a chuckle. The temperature in the room beg
an to drop rapidly and the overall feeling of wrongness that pervaded the whole tree intensified. The Soul Gaunt was here.
“We need to go,” she said, backing away from the poor man hung on the wall and looking around. “Now.”
The three of them turned, but then the voice came out of the darkness. “Ruuunnnn….” It was the same word that the man had used to try to warn them, but twisted. Instead of a warning to flee, it was a challenge. Run if you like, it won’t matter.
Before they could take another step, the doors that they had come through on the opposite end of the room suddenly slammed shut.
“Come on,” Shireen said again. “It’s trying to scare us.”
“It’s working,” Thaddeus muttered.
“Yesssss, yesssss….ruuuuunnnn!” The voice was louder now, coming closer through the darkness. Shireen could feel the fear working at her defenses, trying to get her to lie down and surrender to it. She wouldn’t! And she wouldn’t let Orlando or Thaddeus do it either.
She moved forward, walking quickly and trying to look all around them at once, her breath steaming in the cold air. Out in the wild, the Soul Gaunt hadn’t come near their fire, but she didn’t know if that was because of the light or the flames themselves. She was hoping it was the light, and held the stone that Thaddeus gave her higher.
The dry chuckle came from behind them, and made her want to flee from it as fast as she could, but she knew that would be a mistake. They needed to stay calm, stay together and get out of this room, then out of the tree, and back to Jediah. They’d return with plenty of House Towering Oaks soldiers and slice this damned creature into ribbons.
“Stay close,” she told the other two.
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