Stranger

by Sherwood Smith

  She picked up speed. Mud splattered her ankles and the hem of her dress. Henry’s footsteps died away. She ran on alone, faster than she ever did in training, and didn’t slow until she saw her house.

  Felicité darted to the side door, raced up into her room, and locked the door behind her. Then she pulled the curtains. She unpinned her hat, tossed it aside, and turned up the lamps on her dressing table. Her mirror was at least six generations old. Family legend claimed it as a treasure from China, handed down from mother to daughter.

  The mirror had never reflected anything like her before.

  Her face stared back at her, framed by intricately carved wood. Her hideous, mutant face.

  Nictitating membranes slid across her eyes, distorting the elegant uncreased eyelids she’d inherited from her mother. On both sides of her neck, gills gaped red and wet as open wounds. She forced herself to keep breathing with her nose, like a normal person, until the skin finished growing across her nostrils and the gills took over. The grotesque frog-like webbing on her hands was still limited to the first joints of her fingers, but it would grow if she got any wetter. She could feel it between her toes, too, the stretchy itch she utterly despised.

  She tore off the dress and flung it away. Over her breasts and belly, her smooth brown skin had grown a layer of silvery scales. That was all it took: a few minutes of moisture, all over her skin. If she ever pressed her naked body up against the naked body of a sweating man, her Change would surely begin.

  There would never be “the One.”

  No man would ever accept her monstrous body. If she wanted to keep her secret, she would have to be alone forever.

  She was lucky to even have that choice. She still had nightmares about that first Change, alone in her own bathroom when she was thirteen, but she knew how very lucky she was. Imagine if it had happened in public! She was lucky to have a bathroom with a lock, and parents who didn’t insist on her swimming or training hard or playing any sports where she’d get soaked in sweat. She was lucky to have Wu Zetian to help her keep her secret.

  She whistled. Wu Zetian sleepily emerged from her rat house. She was the only living being ever to see Felicité in her monster form. Felicité cuddled her and sniffed back tears, afraid they would leave scaly tracks across her face.

  She put her rat down and grabbed a towel from her bathroom, and rubbed it over her hair and her monstrous body until her skin burned and turned red, and she felt the Changes fading. When she faced the mirror again, there was Felicité Wolfe, future mayor.

  Norm.

  The rain poured down outside. She opened her closet and took out the gloves, the scarf, and the hat with a veil that she always wore whenever there was any chance of rain. Some of the girls snickered when they saw her like that, but as long as they were laughing at her “obsession” with her hair, they would never suspect the truth.

  She put on a dry dress and closed-toe shoes. Then she picked up the scarf, careful to arrange its rich, soft folds right up under her ears. She pulled on the gloves. Last the hat, with the golden ribbons tied firmly under her chin. The veil covered her face.

  She sat down on her bed, Wu Zetian by her side, and waited for the rain to end.

  36

  Mia

  MIA, SHERIFF CROW, AND ROSS WERE HALFWAY TO the jail when the storm hit.

  By the time they reached it, they were all soaked. Mia hoped her mother’s dress would survive. It squeaked at every step. Embarrassingly, the loudest squeaks were at her armpits, where it was impossible to stop wet silk from rubbing against wet silk.

  The jail was deserted, its four cells empty; no drunk-and-disorderlies were sleeping it off for the night, though the dance would probably end there for a few.

  Sheriff Crow led them into her office, where she unlocked the weapons cabinet. Ross was clearly relieved and happy to finally get his knives back. As he undid his belt to slide the sheaths back on, Sheriff Crow beckoned Mia.

  She had never seen the sheriff’s bedroom before. Purple lightning flared, briefly revealing a plain bed, a night table, and a clothes press. Sheriff Crow shut the door and started to peel off her slinky dress. Mia obligingly turned her back.

  “Are you sure you want to go along with us?” the sheriff asked.

  The transition from the noise and cold of the storm to the hot still air of the bedroom was suffocating. “Yes. Well. I think—”

  “What, Mia?” Sheriff Crow rustled around, pulling on her sturdy work clothes. “I know you can hit a target, but what I’m trying to figure out is what you bring to an actual fight if that bounty hunter gives us one.”

  “I have to protect Ross,” Mia blurted out.

  “You have to protect him? From what little I know about Ross Juarez, the one thing that seems clear is that he can take care of himself.”

  If she had seen what Mia had seen, at the base of that blood-red tree . . . Mia crossed her arms. Silk squeaked. “I have a flamethrower.”

  “It’s raining.”

  “I have a crossbow that shoots six arrows.”

  “Simultaneously?” Sheriff Crow stopped knotting her rawhide laces. “When did you make this? Why haven’t you told me before?”

  “Um. Well. I only tested it yesterday.”

  When she’d test-fired it, the recoil had knocked her down, and every arrow had gone wild. She’d felt tiny and weak then, and she felt tiny and weak now, especially in the same room as the strongest person in town.

  Sheriff Crow was giving her a very suspicious look. “Does it work?”

  If Mia confessed that she couldn’t use it herself, there would be no reason for her to come along. But if she waited till they were at her cottage, maybe Sheriff Crow could take it, and she’d be so pleased with it that she’d let Mia come with a regular crossbow. “Oh, it definitely works!”

  Ross called, “Could I borrow a shotgun?”

  The sheriff gave Mia another suspicious look as they returned to the office. She got a gun for Ross, and took out her own rifle. The two swiftly loaded their weapons.

  “Okay.” Sheriff Crow tucked her rifle under her arm to protect the touchhole from the rain. “If you’re that determined, Mia, let’s go get your miracle crossbow.”

  They set out into a wild wind that drove stinging rain into their faces. When they neared her cottage, Mia was surprised to see golden light in the windows. “Did I leave the light on again? I’m so absentminded—”

  Two rifles whipped up, pointing at the door. Waving the others back, the sheriff kicked the door open.

  A tall man in a long black coat sat on Mia’s bed, one elbow resting on the engine as he browsed one of her manuals. His face was scratched from forehead to neck.

  “Stand up,” Sheriff Crow ordered.

  The bounty hunter laid the manual aside, then stood, hands held away from his body. “I figured you’d show up sooner or later.”

  “Who’ve you been fighting?” the sheriff demanded.

  “Cats.” The bounty hunter jerked his thumb toward the surgery.

  Mia gasped. “You didn’t hurt my cats?”

  “Boot’s on the other foot.” His lips thinned in what might have been a smile.

  A sheet of purple lightning brightened the windows to a mad glare. Spheres of light leaped along every metal object in the room. The bounty hunter took a fast step away from the bed, where the engine briefly glowed with lurid light. The cottage vibrated in a blast of thunder.

  When the rumbles began to roll away, he said, “This is not a natural storm. That purple lightning and St. Elmo’s Fire? I’ve seen it before. Voske’s oldest daughter Changed last year. Deirdre’s a stormbringer. If she’s here, Voske’s outside your gates right now.”

  Ross’s voice cracked. “You’re a liar. You’re working for him. This is some kind of trick.”

  “Any particular reason we should believe yo
u?” Sheriff Crow inquired.

  Mia quietly felt along the stacked boxes until she found the comforting shape of her flamethrower.

  “Take a look,” said the bounty hunter. “You won’t have seen the army approaching because Deirdre uses mist to settle the dust from the horses’ hooves. But I bet you can see them now.”

  “And you’re telling us, why?” Sheriff Crow held the rifle loosely, muzzle pointed at the floor. Mia knew how fast she could bring it up. She wondered if the bounty hunter did.

  He had seemed perfectly cool before, even when St. Elmo’s Fire burned on the engine inches away from him, but now his lips tightened. “Voske didn’t send anyone to warn me he was coming. I think he’s planning to kill me along with the rest of you.”

  Mia was ready to rush out and take a look for herself, but the sheriff said calmly, “And why would that be?”

  The man leaned back against the wall, equally calm, as if they were having a casual conversation over drinks at Jack’s. “Voske hired me to fetch the book, preferably along with the boy who stole it. He also gave me the option to kill the boy.”

  Mia edged closer to Ross.

  He went on. “When I tracked him here—well, Tom Preston and I know each other. I tried to get the book and the boy by legal means. When you wouldn’t surrender them, I tried to intimidate the boy into handing it over. When that didn’t work, I tried to steal it. I take off my hat to you, Juarez.” He tipped an imaginary hat to Ross. “I still don’t know where that book is.”

  “Sounds to me like you did your best for your employer,” said Sheriff Crow. “What went wrong between you?”

  “I think Voske got paranoid,” the bounty hunter replied. “He hired me for a job that should’ve taken a couple days. It’s been over a month. If he’s been spying on me, maybe he saw me talking instead of fighting, and thought I was throwing in with you folk.”

  “I don’t suppose you know how he spies on people?”

  He shrugged. “No idea.”

  Ross scowled. “Don’t believe anything he says. He claimed I could control people’s minds!”

  The bounty hunter’s mouth twitched in amusement. Mia suspected that the lie had come under the heading of “legal means.”

  The sheriff seemed to agree. “That was to turn Preston against you, but this story makes sense. Voske’s tried to take Las Anclas before, and we know that he never forgives what he sees as betrayal. If he thought you double-crossed him, and he knew we were planning a dance tonight . . . Yes, I can see him deciding it was the perfect opportunity to take the town, and get the book, the thief, and the traitor along with it.”

  The bounty hunter nodded. “So here I am. If I’m going to be fighting him anyway, I’d rather have some backup.”

  The sheriff tucked her wet hair behind her ears and turned her entire face to the man. “Are you asking me to deputize you?”

  “Yes.” He returned the sheriff’s cool gaze with unblinking black eyes.

  “All right,” she said. “Let’s go.”

  37

  YUKI

  YUKI SAT SHOULDER TO SHOULDER WITH PACO, watching the mud fight Henry had started. Laughing kids competed to see who could slide the farthest, while his friends slow-danced in the rain.

  “I thought I’d hate watching everyone dance when I can’t,” Paco said. “But it’s okay. I’ll be able to dance next time. Maybe I’ll teach Ross folklórico, since he’s got my old outfit.”

  “Yeah, you should.” Yuki leaned his head against Paco’s shoulder. He couldn’t remember ever feeling this relaxed.

  The tower bell rang.

  Yuki snapped upright.

  The bell kept ringing, tolling out a pattern so unexpected he almost couldn’t place it. The bell was ringing for Battle Stations—without even going to Lockdown first. It had to be a prank. But Henry, the only person who might even consider it, looked as poleaxed as everyone else, a forgotten mud ball dripping in his hands.

  “It’s real,” Paco said. He started to get up, then fell back. “Ow—damn! Where’s Dr. Lee?”

  “Dr. Lee! Dr. Lee!” Brisa’s high voice came from behind them, accompanied by the thump of crutches. “You’ve got to heal us!”

  The doctor came splashing through the puddles. “I just left Tom Preston. There’s an army at the gates.”

  Paco grabbed his arm. “You have to fix my knee. I don’t care how much it shortens my life. I’m not sitting here while my town is attacked.”

  “Me either.” Brisa raised clenched fists. “They’ll need us!”

  Yuki held his breath as Dr. Lee glanced from one to the other. “Brisa, your ankle would have healed in a few weeks anyway. It’ll be fine as long as you don’t kick anyone. But Paco, even if I did heal you—and you’re right, that would take months off your life—you’ll still have a limp, and it’ll still hurt. You need to do rehab—”

  Paco waved it all away. “I don’t care. As long as I can walk.”

  “Do it, Dr. Lee. They’re both on my bow team.” Even as Yuki spoke, he found it hard to believe this was actually happening.

  “All I’ll take is one month,” Dr. Lee warned, motioning Brisa to sit beside Paco. “And you, a week. Go on, Yuki. They’ll catch up with you. Go.”

  He ran through the pelting rain. A crowd had converged at the armory, party clothes dripping. Judge Lopez supervised the children and old people in the supply lines, passing along weapons and ammunition.

  “Your weapons are on the wall,” Josiah Rodriguez called to Yuki. “They’re sending the kids to collect everyone’s armor from the schoolhouse. Stay low!”

  Yuki vaulted over the corral fence and ran to the wall, where he found Meredith checking her arrows. As the leaders of the best two student bow teams, they were positioned on either side of the front gate, with the best adult shooters on the gate itself.

  He took up his position behind a shield, glad to see a bow and a full box of arrows waiting. His mother was already on the wall, incongruous in her brocade party dress, issuing orders as calmly as if this were another boring drill.

  What finally convinced Yuki that it was real was how chaotic it was. Unlike the way things happened in the smoothly organized drills, half the people who should be there weren’t, others were in the wrong places, and no one wore armor. His own team members were hastily removing bracelets and embroidered vests, elegant hats and high-heeled shoes, and tossing them into the basket held up by Grandma Callahan.

  Julio Wolfe splashed up. “Can you see them?”

  “Not in this rain.” Yuki’s mom peered into the darkness.

  His heartbeat raced. He’d rather know it was bad than not know at all.

  A fork of purple lightning lit the entire sky. In its glare he saw the army lined up in rows, some mounted.

  Henry gasped, serious for once. “There’s thousands of them.”

  Yuki’s mother’s voice cracked out. “There are not. He’s spread them out so it looks like there’s more than there are.”

  “Get ready!” Fast, splashing footsteps on the sentry walk brought everyone’s attention to Mr. Preston, his embroidered tunic dripping. “They’ll try to blow up the gate.”

  Yuki gripped his bow, wishing he could see better. He wiped his eyes; it didn’t help. The rain was too thick, the clouds heavy overhead.

  Then the rain stopped instantly. Clouds parted with unnatural speed. The light of the moon was so bright that it seemed like another lightning flash. He saw enemy soldiers grouped around bulky objects wrapped in shiny oilcloth. Those must be their explosives.

  “Mr. Preston!” Yuki’s mom called out. “Do you think this is Voske’s army?”

  “It has to be. What I wish I knew is if Ian Voske is out there himself.”

  A horn blared a series of notes, and tiny flames arced toward the wall. Yuki ducked as fire arrows flew overhead.

&
nbsp; “Here they come,” Mr. Preston said.

  Yuki wished he felt as calm as Mr. Preston sounded.

  With a ripping sound, Voske’s soldiers sliced off the oilcloth, revealing barrels.

  The barrels began to move. Some were pushed by heavily armored fighters, but one rolled by itself, obviously propelled by some Change power.

  “Teams One through Three,” Yuki’s mom called. “Aim for the pushers. The rest of you, on my mark, light your arrows, and hit the barrels before they reach the gate. Everyone, hold for my command.”

  “They’re too close,” Henry muttered. “We should shoot now.”

  Yuki clenched his teeth to stop himself from snapping, They’re still out of range, idiot!

  The smell of sulfur eddied on the air as the arrows were lit. Arrows flew overhead, this time lower. Someone at the far end of the wall let out a scream.

  Yuki peered around his shield, trying to see how the enemy armor was jointed. He heard his mom’s voice in his mind, crisp and clear: “Remember! When your enemy is wearing armor, don’t shoot at their bodies. Aim for elbows, knees, armpits, neck. Anywhere the armor has to gap. They’ll be doing the same to you.”

  The figures and their barrels of explosives moved closer. Behind them, the line of soldiers also approached.

  Another wave of arrows flew overhead from the attackers. Down the wall, a bow twanged. An arrow flew out—and clattered harmlessly off the helmet of one of the attackers.

  “Henry. Step out of line, and join the supply team.” Yuki’s mom’s voice was sharp.

  “But I hit the guy!”

  “You know what ‘edge of range’ means. Even if he hadn’t been wearing a helmet, that arrow would barely have had enough velocity left on it to scratch him. Now, get off the wall.”

  “You’re pulling me off the wall, when I nearly got the first kill?” Henry protested.

  Mr. Preston’s voice rang out. “Henry Callahan, get off the wall now.”

  Yuki’s mom called, “Aim!”

  Yuki hefted the bow, picking his target: A big soldier, whose armor shifted, exposing his knees as he lifted his foot out of the mud.