by Anne Bishop
“In other news, on the orders of Northeast Region Governor Patrick Hannigan, a task force of humans and terra indigene removed all of the alleged ‘blood prophets’ from halfway houses and other institutions in Toland. Citing health and safety concerns, the girls were taken to undisclosed facilities elsewhere in the Northeast. A spokesman for Governor Hannigan said some of the facilities could be facing charges of pandering and abuse.
“This just in. The captain of a ship from Brittania reported seeing a cargo ship sucked down by a whirlpool that appeared and disappeared without warning. The Brittanian ship looked for passengers and crew but found no survivors. The captain did say an unprecedented number of sharks were in the area. He also noted that, after leaving the area, his ship was followed by orcas until they were well away from the Fingerbone Islands, which the other ship was approaching when it went down.”
* * *
Meg tried to distract herself from the pins-and-needles feeling that roamed under her skin since their little caravan had left the Courtyard. She should have made a controlled cut yesterday, but Simon had asked her to wait, saying he needed a day to make arrangements.
But he wouldn’t tell her what kind of arrangements, only that they would take a little trip before she made the cut.
A moving image, like a movie. She absorbed the experience of riding in the backseat of a car. Merri Lee was in the backseat with her; Simon was in front with Michael Debany, who was driving. The hum of the tires on the road. Trees and grass and flowers growing wild. And the river! She wanted to stand on the bank and just watch the Talulah River.
She jumped, startled, when a hand closed over hers.
“You’re trembling,” Merri Lee whispered. “You okay?”
Meg nodded, then noticed Simon watching her. A whisper was as good as a shout to Wolf ears—even when those ears were human-shaped.
“I’m fine,” Meg whispered back. But she looked at Simon when she said it, then waited until he turned his attention to the front of the car before continuing. “The river is . . .” She shook her head, reluctant to admit just how much the river pulled at her.
“Closer to Talulah Falls, where there are rapids, it’s a powerful experience. And the Falls themselves. I saw them once.” Merri Lee smiled. “Hard to describe.”
Meg nodded.
They turned off the main road, passing a large, unappealing building before they drove up to the dwellings. House, garage, garage, house. That kind of dwelling had a name, but she wasn’t interested in searching through her training images to recall it, not when Karl and Ruth drove up, followed by the Courtyard’s minivan. Blair got out from the driver’s side, Henry from the passenger seat. Nathan and Tess got out from the side door.
“Simon?” Meg said as another group of cars drove up and parked nearby.
“That’s Steve Ferryman,” Simon said. “He’s bringing some of his people for this.”
“For what?”
“Look around, Meg. Before anyone says anything, just look around, get an image of this place.” Simon pointed at Merri Lee. “You stay with her.”
He walked away, gesturing for Michael and Karl to follow him.
Ruth joined her and Merri Lee. “Did you know there was a development here? It looks . . .”
“I don’t think we’re supposed to offer opinions yet,” Merri Lee said. “Meg needs quiet time to absorb.”
Ruth nodded.
It felt a little odd to stand there quietly with girls who weren’t cassandra sangue, absorbing images. She wondered what they saw.
She looked over her shoulder and watched Simon talking to Steve Ferryman and the people he’d brought from Great Island. She noticed Nathan carrying a basket over to a blanket that Tess had set over weedy grass.
The pins-and-needles feeling that had been roaming under her skin during the drive settled in one spot on her back.
Time to cut, she thought. As she looked at the houses and saw the columns of black smoke shift into Sanguinati, she thought she understood why Simon had brought her here.
* * *
“This is Emily Faire,” Steve Ferryman said. “She recently received her degree as a nurse practitioner. After you called and told me what you wanted to do, I asked her to join us. Thought it would be a good idea to have a trained medic on hand.”
“I’m pleased to meet you, Mr. Wolfgard,” Emily said. “Is it okay if I go over and introduce myself?”
Simon nodded. He waited until she was out of earshot before turning back to Steve. “You had a feeling?”
“No, not that kind of feeling,” Steve replied. “But Dr. Lorenzo is on that task force regarding the cassandra sangue. He may not be able to have regular office hours, so you should consider having someone else working in the Courtyard’s medical office. Emily is interested.”
“Not many humans to look after.”
“I thought she could split her time between the Courtyard and this community. And she doesn’t have to treat humans exclusively.”
“We have our own bodywalkers.”
“Yes, you do. But it wouldn’t hurt for the terra indigene to become familiar with human healing. To learn simple things, like how one of our healers takes a person’s temperature, or uses a stethoscope to listen to heart and lungs, or measures blood pressure.”
He couldn’t see the harm in any of those things, especially now that he needed to consider how much human the terra indigene wanted to keep. “I’ll think about it.”
“It’s time,” he told Steve. “Go on up. We’ll be there in a minute.” He fixed his gaze on Michael Debany, then walked away, expecting the human to follow.
“Problem?” Michael asked.
“Merri Lee is your mate. Why was she holding Meg’s hand?” He hadn’t known he’d felt angry, or even threatened, until he heard himself snarl the words.
Michael blinked, swayed a bit, but didn’t actually take a step back. “It’s a girl thing. Friendship. Comfort. Nonverbal communication.”
Simon narrowed his eyes. “You’re not female, and you hold Merri Lee’s hand. That’s friendship?”
Michael smiled. “That’s friendship. But with me and Merri, it’s also romance.”
Romance. Something to think about. But right now, there was something else he needed to know.
Hurrying to join the rest of the terra indigene and humans assembled, Simon focused on Meg.
“I wanted you to see this place as it is now,” he said. “And then I’d like you to tell us what you see as its future. We need to know what we can do here. Can you tell us, Meg?”
“It would be like what we did the last time you made a controlled cut,” Merri Lee said. “You had focused on the Courtyard that time.”
Meg nodded. Then she twisted her arm to reach a spot on her back. “I can’t make the cut.”
“I can,” Emily Faire said. “And I brought a first-aid kit with me.”
Meg pulled the razor out of her pocket. After a moment’s hesitation, she handed it to Emily before sitting on the blanket, her legs loosely crossed to avoid pulling the skin on the knee that was still tender. After another hesitation, she pulled off her top. The bra adequately covered her breasts, but the thin straps didn’t hide much of her back.
Simon heard Emily Faire suck in a breath. So did Steve Ferryman. Merri Lee and Ruthie paled as they looked at the scars already on Meg’s back.
A thousand cuts. Someone had figured out that was all a cassandra sangue had before the cut that would kill her.
He refused to count Meg’s scars.
After Meg explained how to make the cut, and Emily located the exact spot where the skin prickled with prophecy, and Merri Lee indicated she was ready with her notebook and pen, Simon went down on one knee and looked into Meg’s eyes.
“What do you see he
re in the coming months? What can we build here? Speak, prophet, and we will listen.”
Meg kept her eyes on his as Emily made the cut.
So hard to be so close to Meg, to smell the fresh blood flowing from the wound and know how good it would taste, how good it would make him feel after he licked it up. But he stayed.
Connection. Communication. Friendship.
He saw the change come into her eyes before he smelled the lust of euphoria that filled her when she began to speak prophecy.
But this time, it was different. Meg looked around at the houses, at the land.
“What do you see, Meg?” Simon whispered.
She smiled. “Jackson is here. He’s throwing a ball for some of the younger Wolves. And there’s a gold cat shifting to human. Roy. I remember him. And a smaller cat. Pretty. Short tail and pointy ears. And people working in gardens and painting houses. A woman is feeding some chickens. Horses and carts. Cows and goats and sheep. Big shaggy animals.” She frowned, clearly searching her memory. “Bison.”
Bison? Simon thought. Here?
“Windmill,” Meg said. “Bus full of books. Lights in the windows. Wolves howling. Owl in the moonlight. The sound of a guitar. Laughter.” She sighed.
“That’s it,” Merri Lee said quietly.
Simon stepped away to distance himself from the bloody cloths Emily Faire was placing into a plastic container. Henry and Steve Ferryman joined him.
“Sounds like we don’t want to depend on the highest forms of technology for everything,” Steve said. “A windmill is Simple Life, but it would provide a mill for making flour and cornmeal at the very least.”
“Library bus,” Henry said. “Ming Beargard told me the other day that your village is sending a library bus to the places where the gards live on the island.”
“We’ve included those residents ever since we turned a bus into a rolling library,” Steve said. “But Ming and Flash Foxgard and a few other terra indigene were the only ones who entered the bus to make a selection. Now more terra indigene approach when the bus stops.”
“They can’t pass for human,” Simon said, understanding why they wouldn’t have approached before.
“No, they can’t pass,” Steve agreed. “For generations, the Intuits have shared the island and the work of providing food for everyone, but there was a barrier and most of the Others kept their distance. Something changed in Lakeside, and that changed things for us too.”
They all knew what had changed in Lakeside.
“If Meg can tolerate a little more new, I’ll treat you all to a meal at Bursting Burgers,” Steve said.
Simon caught her scent and turned as Meg approached. “I’ll see how she feels.”
Steve and Henry moved away to talk to the rest of their group.
“Did you get the answer?” she asked. “Is it . . . bad?”
Simon smiled. “Actually, it’s good. You saw the community we’re hoping to build here. Intuits living in some of the houses; terra indigene living in others. Farmers growing the food. Humans and Others working together.”
“That is good.” Meg’s stomach growled.
He laughed. “That sounds Wolfish.”
“I’m hungry.” She pressed a hand to her stomach. “Really hungry.”
The euphoria was supposed to make her mellow. She didn’t look mellow. She looked like she was considering the best place to sink her teeth into him. He didn’t like the way that made him feel because he had the uneasy thought that bunnies felt the same way just before a Wolf pounced.
“Steve Ferryman invited us all to go to Bursting Burgers in Ferryman’s Landing. Lots of food there. Beef.”
“A burger sounds good.”
“Then let’s go.”
As they walked toward the group waiting for them by the cars, Simon’s hand brushed against Meg’s. He hesitated for a step or two; then he took her hand, ready to release her if she growled an objection. But after a startled look, she smiled and curled her fingers around his.
He had opened some stores to human customers for years; he had hired humans to work in those stores and in the Market Square. But nothing had really changed between humans and Others until Meg stumbled into the Courtyard, half-frozen and on the run from the man who had owned her. Her efforts to fit in and build a life were stories that drifted on the wind—or on a Crow’s wings—into the wild country. Either way, the earth natives who touched human cities only when they came to destroy were sufficiently intrigued by what he and Meg were doing to keep their distance a while longer. Maybe they would stay intrigued long enough to give the terra indigene who had learned the human form time to prepare if the earth natives who were Namid’s teeth and claws decided extinction of humans was the best way to protect the world.
For now, he and Meg were going to have the adventure of seeing a new place and having a new experience. Together.
He wasn’t human. Would never be human. And Meg didn’t expect him to be. But feeling her hand in his, Simon thought maybe he could learn to be human enough.
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