Fox and Birch (The Rowan Harbor Cycle Book 3)

by Sam Burns

  “Conner,” the guy answered, looking as surprised as Fletcher was. “The guys just call me Conn, though. I guess it’s kind of, um, a joke. Or something.”

  “I’m sure they find it hilarious,” Devon deadpanned. “You a knitter, Conner, or did you just come in to hit on my friend?”

  Fletcher started to turn to stare at Devon, but the way the guy—Conner—blushed bright red made him pause. Flirting? With him? That seemed wrong for a man in his line of work. Weren’t they supposed to be married to their work or unable to form meaningful relationships?

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean to make anyone uncomfortable. I mean—you,” he said slowly, fumbling, head bowed and looking up at Fletcher through lowered eyelashes. “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. I just, um, noticed you. At the police station yesterday. And I know the circumstances are bad, but I—sound like a complete idiot, don’t I?”

  “Not a complete idiot,” Devon answered, amused.

  Fletcher shot him a glare before turning back to the—to Conner. “Look, this is flattering and all, but—” The guy cringed like a dog caught peeing on the carpet. Fletcher took a second to calm his jangled nerves. This guy hadn’t killed his mother. This guy actually, bizarrely, seemed to think he and his friends were doing something honorable. “You’re planning on leaving town soon, aren’t you? I don’t date much, but I definitely don’t date around. I’m an all-or-nothing guy.”

  “So if we were staying—” Those brown eyes shot back up to his, looking relieved, and maybe a bit hopeful. Fletcher needed to nip that in the bud.

  “But you’re not,” Fletcher pointed out. “Not much work for a bounty hunter in Rowan Harbor, no matter what your boss says.”

  Far from looking put off, Conner nodded and bit his lip. Then he stopped and shook his head. “Frank’s not my boss. We’ve just been working together for a little while is all. He’s worried about this guy, White, so he asked me to help.”

  “And the other guy?” Fletcher asked, needing to know for reasons he didn’t want to examine. The voice whispered angrily in his ear.

  “Bob? He’s just kind of an old soldier. Likes nobody, and nobody likes him. Seen too many bad things, I guess.”

  Fletcher thought of his mother’s smile, the gentle way she would ruffle his hair when he was frustrated, somehow making everything bad evaporate from his mind. He nodded and stared down into his tea. “Yeah.”

  The silence stretched on a moment before Devon interrupted. “So thanks for dropping by, Conner. Your concern is actually appreciated. If you get a real job and move into town, you should drop by again and ask Fletcher out. Or”—he motioned to the walls, covered with yarn in every color imaginable—“if you pick up knitting, we’ve got you covered there too.”

  Conner was still blushing, and Fletcher was starting to worry his cheeks would stain red. “Yeah. Um, it was nice to talk to you.” He took a step backward and almost tripped over the edge of a rug. “Fletcher. And . . .”

  “Devon.”

  “Devon. Nice to meet you both.” And he turned and left.

  They stared after him for a while before Devon shook his head. “That was quite possibly the most awkward thing I’ve ever been a party to. And I’ve been through some awkward things. What did you do in the station, a striptease?”

  Fletcher thought back to his stripping and mad rush to escape, but that had been after the men left. He shook his head. “I just stood there like an idiot and let Wade do all the talking.”

  Devon looked back to the door where Conner had made his escape. “Apparently silent-you left quite an impression. I mean, you’re an easy guy to like, but that’s next level, Fletcher.”

  With surprise, Fletcher realized that he was blushing too. He shook his head, as though that could make his brain work again. “Even if by some miracle he’s the nice guy he’s acting like, he’s with them. He’s one of them. They kill people.”

  Devon nodded, but he was still looking at the door speculatively. Fletcher didn’t want to know what he was thinking. “Maybe so,” he half agreed before turning back to Fletcher. “More tea?”

  Grateful for the chance to change the subject, Fletcher nodded and held out his half-full mug.

  Devon didn’t comment, just went to brew more, leaving Fletcher to stew in his own confusion.

  4

  Man Comes to the Forest

  Thursday and Friday were suspiciously quiet. Fletcher didn’t see the men around town or even hear about the havoc they were causing through the town’s gossip network. He tried to hope they’d given up and left town, but he was neither optimistic nor stupid enough to actually believe it.

  He’d tried focusing, or meditating, or whatever it was again, but without much luck. He worried that without Oak there to impress, he wasn’t inspired enough to try very hard. It made him feel like a preteen with a crush, but the awareness that he was being weird about it didn’t make the focusing any easier.

  The voice was more of a low hum than audible words most of the time, like it somehow understood that he had bigger problems to deal with.

  Friday night, though, he dreamed.

  A young man found him. He’d been alone for such a long time, and it had been awful, but somehow, this was worse. The man’s avarice was a palpable thing, and the way he ran his fingers over Fletcher’s—wait, what?

  Pages. Fletcher’s pages. He was the book. He didn’t force himself awake at the realization, instead semiconsciously allowing it to continue, because it was information he didn’t have, and it felt important.

  Centuries of loneliness had been a torment. There was a longing for companionship like an aching hole in his belly, but there was something not right about this man. The greed in his eyes was unsettling. The way he would reach out and stroke the cover made him want to shudder. Fletcher did not want this man to have him. But he was stuck in a book. He couldn’t get up and walk out. There was no way to escape.

  Then he was in a round room, with walls of stone, and Solomon White was there. The vampire looked bored as he carried a bound and struggling woman over his shoulder, dumping her on the floor in the center of the room. “Thought you were going to do your niece,” he said as he looked up. “What’s this one for? You need a spare sacrifice?”

  “More like a practice sacrifice,” an older version of the unsettling man answered, his voice vibrating with barely contained excitement. “Wouldn’t do to get it wrong on the day. Get me that bowl. I need something to hold the blood so I can paint the runes.”

  “Right,” White agreed, heading toward a set of shelves. “But why the runes? You can transfer magic from other things without them.”

  The man sighed and looked put out to be answering questions. “I don’t need the runes, the sacrifice is enough. The runes are just a sort of buffer. An insurance policy, to protect me if things go wrong.” He picked up a black stone knife and walked over to the wildly struggling woman. “I’d say this won’t hurt for long, but I’m afraid it’s going to take a few hours.”

  With a practiced move, he made a small cut in her bound wrist, and blood started to flow.

  Fletcher woke, staring at his bedroom ceiling.

  The man in his dreams had been Hector MacKenzie. Different than the picture Helena had given the station, but unquestionably the same man.

  Maybe the dream meant nothing to the investigation, but it meant something to Fletcher. The book hadn’t wanted MacKenzie, and not because it had wanted someone with more power, but because it hadn’t liked him. It hadn’t wanted to be left alone, exactly, but it hadn’t wanted to be used by Hector MacKenzie. And MacKenzie was every bit as bad as they had imagined.

  He felt like he was in a fog as he got out of bed. As he showered, he kept scrubbing at bloodstains that weren’t actually on his hands. He poured his usual bowl of sugary goodness, but sat in the chair and stared at it for a while before remembering he was supposed to eat it. Breakfast wasn’t able to hold his attention, and his eyes drifted to the birch twigs
sitting in the middle of the table. He’d tried staring at them. He’d tried closing his eyes and imagining them. He’d tried thinking about nothing. None of that had made a difference, and thinking about nothing felt impossible. He couldn’t get back into the mindset he’d found in the woods with Oak. As much as he didn’t want to bother them, he needed to go back.

  Since he didn’t know how long he’d be outside, and he didn’t want a repeat of Wednesday night, he checked the temperature before he left and bundled up. Better to carry his coat because he’d gotten warm than to force Oak to take care of him like Devon had, because he couldn’t act like a functional adult.

  The walk to Oak’s grove was a beautiful one, and he usually enjoyed it, even in the leafless gray of winter. The forest in January had its own kind of beauty.

  Instead of thinking about that, his mind was consumed by the image of a young Hector MacKenzie looking at him with such longing that it bordered on sexual. Avarice, his dream had coined it, but he didn’t know what that word meant. Want, he guessed. But how was he dreaming words in English that he didn’t know? The book didn’t know English, did it?

  Hello? Can you understand me? He asked in his head.

  When he got no answer, he rolled his eyes at his own stupidity. He’d probably just heard Jesse say it sometime. Jesse was smart; he knew words like that.

  It didn’t make him feel better, that he was losing his grip on what in his own head was his, and what belonged to the book. It firmed up Oak’s worry that the book’s magic would displace his own. The book might not be doing it on purpose, he grudgingly admitted to himself, but that didn’t change the fact that he had to stop it from happening.

  Oak’s tree and the waterfall came into view, and they were as beautiful as always. The hazy mist over the water made the scene look like a dream or a painting. The forest seemed quieter than usual, in that hushed way that winter did, and it made the whole place seem even more dreamlike.

  Oak stepped from their trunk, and it was the first time Fletcher had seen that happen. There was something perfect and magical about the way they stepped away from the giant white oak, like a piece of a living puzzle. It didn’t feel like magic; it felt like it was the way things were supposed to be.

  They smiled at him.

  He dipped his head. “Oak. I, um, I forgot to bring the twigs—the birch—with me. But I couldn’t focus right at home. I thought maybe you could help.”

  “It would please me to be of aid, Fletcher Lane.” They walked over to him, surveying the woods nearby as they walked. “The forest is holding its breath. There are strangers in our harbor, yes?”

  “There are murderers. They call themselves hunters. But they’re not wolves, or members of the Hunter family, or looking for food. They hunt—” How could he even explain?

  Oak didn’t seem to need the explanation. They nodded and rubbed a hand down their blackened leg. “They hunt things they do not understand.”

  “Yes.”

  “Sit with me, Fletcher Lane,” Oak said, and motioned to the same clear patch of ground they’d used on his last visit. “These men, why have they come?”

  “They say they’re looking for Solomon White. The, um, the man who hurt Isla.”

  They were quiet, Oak examining him. “You did not simply tell them that he was killed?”

  Which was the most reasonable question, so of course Oak had asked it. If only they had thought of it before the strange men had come into town. If they did it now, filed a report about the man’s death, it would be beyond suspicious. He looked down at the center of the cleared space, where the twigs had been before. “My mother always told me that if you couldn’t tell the truth, you should tell as much of it as possible. We didn’t. We sort of pretended it didn’t happen.”

  “Who were you supposed to tell?”

  Fletcher had a deep respect for the way law enforcement worked. He thought keeping track of every action taken on the job was crucial. The police had to be answerable to the people they were supposed to protect. But red tape and paperwork weren’t the kind of things that an ancient dryad would appreciate. “It’s complicated. There would have been forms to fill out at the station. We’d have had to explain what happened.”

  “But you wished to pretend that it had not happened,” Oak said. Their tone was light, as though it wasn’t meant as the condemnation it felt like.

  “Yeah,” he agreed.

  Oak reached out and took his hand. “You are ashamed that you took a life.”

  Fletcher squeezed his eyes shut, holding Oak’s hand tight. He couldn’t deny it; he wouldn’t lie to Oak like that. “It’s ridiculous. He was a monster. I’m not sorry he’s dead.”

  “But you are not pleased that you were the one forced to take his life,” Oak countered, and Fletcher nodded. “And that is good.”

  “Good?”

  “It is the way of nature that some die. Wolves eat deer. Deer eat plants. Mushrooms consume my brethren.” Oak motioned to a cluster of mushrooms climbing the trunk of a nearby tree. “But these are things which are necessary to life. The deer feels no joy in taking the life of a sapling.”

  Oak let Fletcher take his time thinking about that. He thought there was more to Solomon White’s death than that, but maybe he was overthinking it. Just because he hated White didn’t mean that he’d wanted him dead. He didn’t much like his neighbor’s dog, but he’d never in a million years think of hurting it.

  He had killed White, because White had been trying to kill them. The man hurt Isla and planned to take the book back to Hector MacKenzie, who was a murderer. Hector MacKenzie, who had used the book to commit murder and would doubtless do so again. Fletcher hadn’t had a better choice.

  Finally, he sighed and gave a shrug. “It’s still hard sometimes, even if I know that I did what I had to do.”

  “That is what it is to be self-aware,” Oak told him. “When I was very young, I realized that this was what made me different from my fellow forest creatures. The wolf hunts and kills to eat. It does not consider the deer’s feelings. I think of the feelings of both deer and wolf, and even after so many years, it is sometimes difficult to reconcile.”

  “What about the people who tried to kill you?”

  Oak looked over to the burn marks on their trunk, then down to their scarred leg, running a hand along the blackened limb. “They killed for a different reason. They feared.”

  “I was scared,” Fletcher pointed out.

  “You were threatened. You acted in the only way you could, but it is good that you do not take death lightly. Men who take death lightly become like these men you fear. That is not the path for you.” Oak squeezed his hand. “Now, close your eyes and consider your . . . fox switch.”

  Fletcher’s eyes closed on command, but then he didn’t know what to do. He’d told them turning into the fox was like flipping a switch, but there wasn’t an actual process in his brain. It just happened. That was why he’d never progressed past fox; it was like the light switch in a room—there was just one, and it was instinct more than skill to flip it.

  He didn’t want to disappoint Oak, though, so he tried. He thought about shifting, but tried not to actually shift, which was harder than it sounded. It was something his mother had made him practice when he was a kid. Feel the shift, but don’t make the shift. It had always been frustrating and slightly painful because it left his muscles in a state of constant tension for as long as he did it.

  After a moment, the tension in his limbs was joined by that movement in his gut that he was starting to associate with the book.

  “You feel it,” Oak said. “The other magic within you. You can sense it.”

  He nodded but tried not to lose his concentration.

  “It is like your own magic, but unlike it. Can you feel the difference?”

  As much as he didn’t want to, Fletcher tried to locate the source of the squirmy, hair-raising feeling. He focused on it, on the way it felt different than the rest of him. He reached out
for it with his mind and recoiled when he got close. Brushing against that magic was like dipping his fingers in oil; it wanted to stick to everything that came near it.

  Oak had explained it perfectly. The book’s magic was like oil, and he was made of water. He had a sudden realization that if it took over, he wouldn’t just to lose his ability to shift. He would lose himself. At that realization, it was as though the oil, the magic, retreated from him, curling up into a tiny ball. Like it didn’t want to take him over.

  He opened his eyes. “It—he, I think. He’s not just magic. He wasn’t just a book. There’s a person in there.”

  Oak looked like a proud parent. “Yes, there is a consciousness.”

  “This might sound stupid, but I don’t think he actually wants to hurt me.” Fletcher let go of the shift, and his shoulders sagged. “But if we take him out, what happens to him?”

  “I do not know. It is not a problem that you and I can solve.” Oak patted his hand, their wide, green eyes sympathetic. “What we can do is focus. The more control you have, the more likely you can help when the time comes for him to be moved.”

  “Okay,” he agreed. “Let’s work, then.”

  He closed his eyes and thought of the shift. Fox, but not fox. Like that between moment when you’re not awake or quite asleep yet.

  Wade talked about his wolf as though it were a different creature than himself, but Fletcher didn’t feel like he had a fox inside him. He was the fox. He didn’t think quite the same when he was a fox, but as a fox, he had different needs. Foxes didn’t need to make friends or have jobs. Like every creature, they needed food, shelter, and safety. It was the same for most creatures of the forest.

  The longer he focused, the more he could feel the line between himself and the other magic. At the moment, it was like a tiny kitten, curled up in a ball in his stomach. Tentatively, he touched it and felt consciousness. Awareness. Concern.