His tone didn’t sound welcoming, and she noticed that he kept the burned side of his face turned away from her. He’d obviously thrown a shirt on when he heard her coming up the stairs, but hadn’t bothered to button it. Unlike his scarred face, the rest of him seemed . . . perfect. Or at least, perfectly distracting. But their easy camaraderie of the darker hours seemed to have vanished with the light.
She dragged her mind back to why she’d come and held out the bag. “Sorry to show up unannounced. I don’t mean to intrude on your work, but Koshka wanted me to bring these to you while they were still fresh. More or less.”
No smile. “That’s very kind of you. I found the other batch before I went to bed, but I didn’t hear you climb up to drop them off or I would have come out and thanked you.”
Bella eyed the coffee cup in his hands longingly, but he didn’t offer her any. She was starting to get the feeling he didn’t much like guests. Or maybe it was just her. “Oh, that wasn’t me. Koshka brought those up himself. He can be surprisingly light on his feet for such a big cat. Maybe he picked it up from the acrobats at the circus.”
Sam gave her a strange look. “Uh-huh. He seems quite . . . remarkable.”
“You have no idea,” Bella said, forcing down a laugh. “So do I get to meet the patient? Or would you rather not have me walking around in your space?”
Sam shrugged. “No worries. Part of the job is showing people around the fire tower. Forces me to keep the place neat, so it’s not all bad.” He opened the door and waved her in ahead of him.
Bella thought that neat was something of an understatement. Calling the interior of the tower neat was like calling Koshka large. There was a narrow single bed against one wall, its sheets and blankets tucked in military fashion. Rows of wooden cupboards ran under most of the other windows, much like in her caravan, making the most of the limited space.
There were few personal items on view, only a couple of framed pictures and a stack of books on top of one of the cupboards. The institutional green paint was peeling a little around some of the windows and the door, but everything else that was visible was almost painfully clean and tidy. The only thing out of place was a plate that held a crust of bread from a late lunch. And a wide box in the middle of the table that was letting out a pitiful eeping noise.
“Oh,” she said, peering inside to see two huge yellow eyes gazing back over a gaping beak that clacked open and shut as if to remind her that she’d brought his meal. “He’s adorable!”
“And hungry,” Sam said, tipping the sad little carcasses out onto a paper plate. “I meant to go out and check my traps this morning before I went into service, but I had a rough night and overslept. Thanks again for bringing these by.” He bit his lip. “I mean, thank the cat for catching them.”
“I will,” Bella said. “But really, he’s happy to have any chance to show off his hunting skills.”
Sam held one of the mice up by its tail over the box and then hesitated. “Here, you want to have a go?”
She wasn’t sure if he was trying to chase her away, but if so, it wasn’t going to work. Anyone who lives with a cat learns to deal with the occasional rodent. At least these ones were dead already. Besides, life and death were part of the natural circle. Creatures had to eat to survive. It was just the way of the world. If Sam thought she was going to squeal at the sight of nature in the raw, he had a lot to learn.
Bella fed the owlet, cheering as he gulped down his food with a greedy intensity that bode well for the little guy’s future recovery. And she grinned to herself when she heard Sam mutter under his breath, “This has got to be the weirdest first date in history.” It wasn’t a date, of course, but he had a point.
After they were done, Sam showed her how he used a large set of binoculars to search for signs of smoke, pointing out the radios and a series of notebooks in which he kept track of any incidents. He seemed more animated when he was talking about the work, but Bella could tell the moment when he realized he was facing her, and turned away. She wished she could tell him that it didn’t matter, but she knew already that he’d never believe her.
“If there’s nothing else,” he said gruffly, “I should probably get back to work. Conditions are dry, which means a high chance for fire.”
Sam moved toward the door, his desire for her to leave not even subtle anymore, but she ignored the hint and went to stand in front of the windows that looked out over the view to the east.
“What’s out in that direction?” she asked, aiming the big binoculars at hills that didn’t look any different from the ones in every other direction.
“Trees, mountains, not much else,” Sam said. His hand twitched as if he wanted to grab the glasses away from her, and his shoulders were so tense they caused his shirt to bunch up over the broad expanse of his muscles. “A few cabins. Most of it belongs to the national park, like the part you’re camped in. Why?”
Bella pulled a picture of the Riders out of her back pocket and showed it to him. “A few friends of mine were headed in this direction to go camping, and they seem to have disappeared. I figured that since I was here anyway I’d have a look around for them.” She put the binoculars down on top of a cupboard and handed him the photo. “You haven’t seen them, have you?”
Sam raised an eyebrow. “Interesting bunch. Sorry, no. I’m pretty sure someone would have mentioned if they’d seen three guys on motorcycles like those. Especially if one of them was as large as the bearded giant on the Harley. But I can ask around, if you like.”
He handed the picture back and moved toward the door again. This time she followed, although slowly.
“Are there any caves that you know of in the area? My friends like spelunking.” Okay, Bella didn’t know for sure that the Riders liked climbing around in caves, but she was guessing that in their long lives they’d probably done it plenty of times, so it wasn’t exactly a lie. Besides, she couldn’t come right out and ask if Sam could think of any caves that someone could use to hold three magical prisoners in. He already thought she was weird enough, what with the mouse delivery.
He shrugged. “Don’t think so. There may be some though.”
Bella smothered a sigh. She missed the witty, friendly Sam she’d chatted with the other night. But apparently he was an illusion, fostered by starlight and darkness.
“Okay, thanks.” She put one foot outside and then turned around again. “By the way, have you seen anyone else in the woods?”
“Besides you? Mostly just the usual—a few locals, some hunters, a couple of backpackers. Why?”
“Oh, it just felt like I was being followed earlier. I thought I caught a glimpse of someone.”
“You were probably imagining it,” Sam said. “Lots of people get jumpy alone in the woods.”
Bella rolled her eyes. Alone in the woods was the way she liked to be. And trying to have this conversation was reminding her of why. She hated being treated like some wimpy woman. It annoyed her. Which usually wasn’t a good thing for the annoyer.
“I don’t imagine things,” she said through gritted teeth. “I’m not the imaginative type.”
“You’re an artist,” Sam said, sounding surprised. “I thought you were all imaginative types. Either way, it was probably just an animal. Nothing to worry about.”
Not for a Baba Yaga, it wasn’t. “I wasn’t worried,” Bella said. “Just asking. Thanks for showing me around. Sorry I bothered you.” She shut the door behind her a tiny bit more forcefully than was strictly necessary, while magically erasing the tiny char marks her fingertips had left in the paint. Hopefully the walk down all those stairs would burn off the rest of her temper before she accidentally set the forest—or one particular irritating man—on fire.
* * *
SAM WATCHED HER go, feeling torn between his usual relief at having his space back to himself and regret at losing the glow Bella seemed to carry w
ith her presence. He wanted to kick himself for acting like such a jerk.
No wonder she’d stormed out without a backward look. She’d come bearing gifts, and he’d acted as though she was carrying the plague. Hadn’t even offered her a cup of coffee, although he’d clutched the one in his hands the entire time she’d been there. Idiot. He was so out of practice being around women, he couldn’t even act like a normal human being with the only one he’d ever met who didn’t seem to notice or care about his scars or his raspy voice.
Of course, maybe she was just a good actress. There was something distinctly odd about all the questions she’d been asking. He wasn’t sure what she’d been after, but Sam was pretty certain she hadn’t climbed all those stairs just to bring the owlet its dinner. Maybe something to do with those three guys she was asking about. They looked pretty shady. Could she be some kind of bounty hunter? She sure as hell hadn’t come visiting for the pleasure of his company. Which was a good thing, since he’d defaulted to his usual tactic of being downright unpleasant, so she would leave as soon as possible.
So why was he so sorry that it had worked?
ELEVEN
BELLA SPENT THE rest of the afternoon searching toward the east again. She’d spotted what she thought was what the sprite had described as “the very tallest tree ever, with moss like a frog’s belly in spring” from the window of the tower and forged her way resolutely in that direction. Underneath the tree, she’d thought for a moment that she sensed a shiver of power, but it vanished before she could be certain.
Maybe Sam was right and she was imagining things. There was a first time for everything. Like not being able to stop thinking about some guy. That, missing lunch, and the long, fruitless search made for a crabby Baba.
Back at the caravan, Koshka greeted her with an affectionate lick and the announcement that they’d had company while she was gone: someone snooping around.
“One of the townspeople?” Bella asked. “Or, uh, Sam?” Not that she cared if he decided to come around. She was still a little annoyed at him. Or at herself, for being insensitive about his obvious discomfort around others. Either way, she didn’t care. Probably.
She had a sudden alarming thought. “Hey, it wasn’t Brenna, was it?”
Koshka laughed, an odd coughing sound somewhere between a purr and a revving truck engine. “Not unless she is currently disguising herself as an adolescent Human, and somehow I can’t see even crazy Brenna doing that.”
“An adolescent? You mean a teenager?” Why would a teen be sneaking around the caravan? Looking for something to steal, maybe? Bella didn’t have much experience with Human children. She hadn’t grown up around them, what with being raised by an aged Baba Yaga in the woods. “How old was our visitor?”
Koshka lifted a hind paw and scratched idly behind one large ear. “How am I supposed to know? All Humans look more or less the same to me. Not a child. Not an adult. Female. That’s the best I can do.” He lowered the paw. “But I’m pretty sure she’s been here before; this isn’t the first time I’ve caught her scent around the camp. Never too close, but definitely hanging around.”
“Huh. Maybe I should go see what she’s up to,” Bella said, cracking her knuckles together. She was still unsettled after her encounter with the prickly version of Sam, despite all her attempts to shake it off during her walk through the forest. She snapped her fingers fretfully, and sparks flew out.
“Not in the mood you’re in,” Koshka said. “You’d just scare her off. I’ll go check her out myself.” He disappeared into the woods before Bella could argue with him.
* * *
JAZZ SAT AS still as she could on the bank of the creek, watching her fishing line drift through the water as though it had nothing better to do than waft to and fro. It certainly wasn’t catching a fish, the useless thing. Truth was, Jazz sucked at fishing. She could curse out the line all she wanted, but she suspected she was doing it wrong. She only caught little fish, and the last one was days ago.
She’d caught a rabbit in a snare once, something she’d read about how to do in a book. But the book didn’t say anything about how the rabbit would look at you with its big brown eyes, and she’d ended up caving and letting it go.
You’d think she’d be tougher after living in the woods for all these months, surviving off of whatever she could catch or find—she’d brought a book on what you could eat in the wild; she wasn’t an idiot—or steal from campers. But this week the pickings had been scarce, and she was hungry.
Jazz thought maybe she could get some food from that cool wagon-house she’d spotted, but weirdly, she could never find a door in the stupid thing although the red-haired lady living in it always seemed to be able to get in and out.
Suddenly a gigantic cat appeared next to where Jazz was sitting, startling her so much she almost fell into the water. For a minute, she thought it was some kind of wildcat, on account of it being so very, very big, but then she recognized it as the one she’d seen hanging around the wagon and let out her breath in a big huff.
“Hey, cat,” she said, reaching out a hand carefully. Jazz liked cats. One of the places she’d lived had a bunch of cats. She’d liked the cats a lot better than the people who owned them. They’d been real assholes. “Whatcha doing out here?”
She could swear that the cat’s answering meow sounded almost like he was saying, “I could ask you the same thing.”
Jazz laughed at herself; she’d clearly been on her own in the woods too long. But she answered anyway, since there wasn’t anyone around to call her a weirdo or judge her talking to animals like a crazy person.
“I’m just trying to stay out of trouble, cat,” she said. “Speaking of which, aren’t you going to get into trouble if you don’t go back to your little traveling house?”
The cat meowed again, sounding indignant.
“Oh sure, I get it. You’re a cat. No one is the boss of you.”
The cat blinked big green eyes at her. Or maybe they were yellow. It was hard to tell in the muted shadows under the trees.
“Hey, you get no argument from me,” Jazz said. “No one is the boss of me either. Life is way better that way, don’t you think?”
“Me-ow.”
Right, now the cat was arguing with her. Jazz couldn’t have said why it felt like she could understand everything the animal said, but she did.
“Fine, maybe the lady you live with is nice, but not everyone is, you know.” She shifted a little on the hard dirt and twitched her line the way the books all said to, so that a fish would think the worm on the end was alive. Nothing. Apparently the fish hadn’t read the books.
The cat let out a big yawn, showing teeth like razors and a gullet the size of the Grand Canyon, then batted at her makeshift fishing pole, making her drop it on the ground.
“Oh nice,” Jazz said. “Now my fishing technique is being dissed by a cat.” She picked the pole back up and dusted it off. “I suppose you could do better?”
The cat yawned again and strolled down to stand motionless by the side of the creek for a moment. Then one huge paw flashed out almost faster than Jazz could see and came back up with a sizable trout speared on its scythe-like claws. With an attitude she would have called smug in a human, he dropped it into her lap before sauntering off in the direction of the wagon.
Jazz gazed at the retreating cat and then down at the fish still wiggling wetly on her ragged jeans. “Huh,” she said. “Is it just me, or was that kind of strange?” She sighed. “Great. Now you’re talking to fish too. Dude, you have got to get a grip.”
* * *
“I’M PRETTY SURE she’s living rough in the forest,” Koshka reported to Bella. “I didn’t smell any other Humans on her, and she’s too skinny. I don’t think she’s getting enough food.” He shook his massive head. “Someone needs to teach the girl how to fish. I don’t think the forest is her natural environment.”
“Don’t look at me,” Bella said. “I use magic to catch my fish. Besides, I don’t have time to babysit some lost kid. Maybe I should report her to someone. You know, call the authorities.”
Koshka plopped down next to her on the steps of the caravan, making the entire traveling house rattle. “The authorities? Since when do Baba Yagas have anything to do with the authorities?” He snorted. “I mean, other than Barbara marrying one of them.” They were all still trying to wrap their minds around that turn of events, since the oldest of the United States Babas was also the least likely to follow rules of any sort. Yet she’d ended up marrying a seriously law-abiding sheriff. Bizarre. And a little amusing, for those on the sidelines.
“What do you suggest? I ignore the kid and let her starve?”
“I think if she was going to starve, she probably would have done so already,” Koshka said. “But you could try leaving some food out for her and see what happens.”
“What happens will probably be that she tries to hit me over the head with a tree limb and then search the caravan for drugs and alcohol,” Bella muttered.
Koshka rolled his eyes. They both knew he had better intuition about Humans than Bella did, but she hated to admit it. “And if she does, the hut will kick her out on her ass and I’ll bite her. After which you get to say, ‘I told you so.’ But we both know that isn’t going to happen. So how about you just be patient and do it my way, and we’ll see how it all plays out. I have a good feeling about the girl.”
“Pfft,” Bella said, getting to her feet. “I’ll think about it. In the meanwhile, I’m going to do another spell to look for the Riders, now that I have a better idea of which direction they might be in. I think if I can narrow the focus of the search spell, I might be able to break through whatever seems to be blocking it.”
“Great,” the dragon-cat said. “On your way to get your supplies, make me a tuna sandwich, will ya? In fact, make three. I’m feeling unusually hungry.”
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