“It’s something strange. Something that doesn’t make sense. Marcus shouldn’t have died. He should have made it home safe. But he didn’t. No one seems to know what happened. It’s a mystery.”
“He walked alone in the forest at night,” Van offered in his shy voice. “Maybe something bit him.”
“That could be,” Harper agreed. “But the problem is, there were no bite marks on him. Not even from a spider. If something had bit him, we would have seen a mark.”
“Maybe he fell in a hole,” Shep offered.
“Well, perhaps,” Harper said again, “but then he would have hurt his foot or his leg, but his arms and legs were fine. He didn’t have a scratch or a bruise. He only had a strange mark on his head. Like maybe someone hit him really hard.”
This last comment made the boys go very quiet. They all looked at each other nervously.
Shep stood up and wiped his hands on his shorts. “I don’t like this game. I don’t want to play Mystery anymore.”
“Okay. Okay,” Harper said, hands up in a surrender. “Can we play Secret?”
The boys looked at one another and then nodded in happy anticipation. This sounded fun.
“Have any of you,” Harper said dramatically, “ever seen anything really secret out in the forest? Something you knew you weren’t supposed to see?”
They each got a little smile on their face. “I once saw someone pooping next to a tree,” the oldest one said proudly. They all laughed and pretended to wave away a bad smell.
“I once found a paper with a drawing on it,” Van said excitedly. “It looked just like a…” he suddenly got shy and started laughing. He ran over to Harper and whispered the words in her ear. “Like a penis.” He fell down laughing while the other boys stared incredulously.
“What did he say? What was it?”
She laughed and explained. “It looked like something only boys have.” Tyler understood immediately, but little Shep was lost. His friend whispered it to him and Shep fell down laughing.
“Ha-ha-ha! Wow!”
“What about you, Shep?” Harper pried. “What secret do you have?”
His big eyes sparkled, and he gave her a big smile. “I know where the men go at night. They don’t know that I saw them, but I did. They were talking like this.” He furrowed his brow and made a lot of angry gestures, wagging his finger and putting his hands on his waist. “And they drank something that made them fall down.”
“Really?” Harper wondered at his words. It sounded like some of the local guys had a little secret bar. But that wasn’t necessarily dangerous. However, if they were making powerful enough alcohol it could be that someone got drunk and accidentally hurt Marcus.
“Do you have a secret?” Shep asked her.
“Hmm…” She considered it and finally came up with something good. “Yes. I can do this.” She stood and shifted into her odd, half-animal half-human shape. The boys’ eyes bugged out when she finished. They’d only seen full shifters, never a partial one, and this was a big shock to them.
“How’d you do that?” Tyler asked.
“I don’t know. No one else in my family was a shifter, so I never had anyone to talk to about it. Until now.”
“Whoa.”
“Cool.”
She went back to her original state, much to the disappointment of her little friends and regarded them seriously. “Boys, I think you’re all very big and very strong.”
Shep puffed up again. “We are.”
“So,” she said, “I need your help. Can you think of anything that Marcus said or did the last time you saw him that was strange or maybe even a secret? Anything at all?”
They looked at each other again, considering the question. Tyler chewed his lip and Harper waited, certain he had something he wanted to tell her.
“There was one thing.”
“Shh!” Shep quickly slapped his friend’s shoulder. “We can’t talk about that.”
“Boys,” Harper said, taking a knee so she could look them in the eye. “What you know might help me with this mystery. You could be heroes. Real life heroes.”
This intrigued them, and Tyler looked over at Shep for confirmation. The little boy nodded.
“Marcus had a secret place. He told us about it a couple of times. But we never went there.”
“Did he tell you where it was?”
They thought for a moment, then Van remembered. “Yes! He did tell me. He said it was under the foster tree. No, the frosting tree. Something like that.”
“Wait,” Harper said, realizing something. “Did he say the fossa’s tree?”
“Yeah,” Van said excitedly. “That was it. The fossa’s tree. What’s a fossa?”
“It’s a very different, very unique animal. And I know right where she is.” She stood to leave and saw their faces fall.
“You don’t want to play anymore?” little Shep asked, his eyes big with disappointment.
“I wish I could,” she responded sincerely, kneeling down. “But our friend, Marcus, needs our help. Even though he’s not here. And I promised to help him.”
“All right,” Shep agreed, hugging her at the knees. The other boys stepped up to get a squeeze out of her as well. Harper hugged each of them and thanked them for their help. The sun was setting, but they still had a ton of energy, and she wandered out of the forest, completely exhausted from the physical exertion that all that playing had brought out in her. Who knew investigations could be so demanding?
She stopped on the way out as several male voices drifted toward her. She stopped and watched several adult males make their way into a little dip in the land. She saw candles glowing under a roof for a moment, then something blocked them, and she couldn’t see anymore. She could hear them and they sounded raucous and angry, just as Shep had described them.
She was torn. Was it better to investigate the bar or go and check out the area around the bottom of Larissa’s home? Both seemed like good moves, but neither felt urgent. She checked the sky and saw that she was about to be plunged into darkness. With a big, tired sigh she pointed herself home and walked down the main pathway to her tree. A neighbor lifted her up off the ground, and she stopped in to chat for a moment as a thank you. Luckily, they had a little dinner left over and she accepted the food happily, explaining that she’d ended up playing like a kid in the forest that day.
“Huh,” Gloria, her bear neighbor, huffed, “and here we all thought you were out helping Dahlia with her son’s case.”
“Oh, I was. I was spending time with Marcus’ little friends. Anyway, I won’t bore you with the details. It was just tiring.”
Gloria crossed her big arms and regarded Harper with a shrewd look. “Something going on with you, little miss Harper? You all right?”
She nodded and got up to wash off her plate. “Yes, I’m fine. I just had a lot of stuff happening at once today. I guess I’m a little overwhelmed.”
To her shock, Gloria’s eyes danced over Harper’s stomach, and she lifted her eyebrows as if surprised to see it, like it was somehow different from before. Harper put a hand over herself.
“What?”
Gloria played innocent. “Nothing. Nothing at all. You get some sleep. Like you said, you had a real full day.”
She turned away with a little smile on her face, leaving Harper to wonder at yet another mystery.
The next morning, she woke with an odd sense about her. The treehouse felt softer and fuzzier all around her, despite the fact that it was just as solid as ever. She shook her head, trying to let go of the odd sensation she was experiencing.
Come on, brain, she thought, get it together. After some breakfast and a bracing cold shower, she felt a bit more clear-headed. She wanted to go and explore around the base of Larissa’s tree and then visit the secret men’s hangout. If she could.
Outside the sun beat down, and Harper said a little thank you to the shade all around her. Without all of these lovely trees, the whole community would be roasting
. Still, the heat made her a bit dizzy, and she had to stop and put her hand on a big, pale tree trunk to get the ground to stop pitching.
She was ill. That was it. She’d eaten a sick bug or a rotted piece of fruit, and her body was rebelling.
Despite the fact that Larissa’s tree was very close, she soon realized she wasn’t going to make it. She was sweating too much, and she felt as if she might vomit. Then, without much warning, the contents of her breakfast revolted and rushed up to her throat. She threw herself forward and let it all out, but it was not a graceful action. Soon, she had humans and shifters all around her, all genuinely concerned.
“Harper,” Tina said to her, very worried, “you look awful! Let’s get you home.”
“I’m fine. Something I a–” Another round of vomit kept the explanation at bay. Tina held her hair back as she finished and spit out the last of it with a poorly aimed shot. It went right on her foot.
Finally, the deluge came to an end, and she weakly walked back with Tina, leaning on her the whole way.
“I need to find out what happened,” she said drowsily.
“You don’t need to figure out what got you sick,” Tina reassured her. “Just focus on getting some rest and recovering, all right?”
She was too far gone to explain that wasn’t what she meant. The ride in the lift was treacherous, but her bed was a welcome sight. Tina helped her undress and dropped her clothes on the floor. Harper stepped out of them and then collapsed onto her soft mattress, her eyes closing almost immediately. Tina had gone oddly quiet, but Harper barely had the state of mind to register it.
“Harper,” Tina said quietly, “I think I know what made you throw up.”
But her words went unheard. Harper was sound asleep before she’d even finished speaking.
Chapter Five
Schemes
The next morning, Harper awoke to find Tina in her kitchen, making a light soup. Her friend gently led her from her bed, sat her down at the table, and told her in kind, gentle words, “Harper, you’re pregnant.”
Of course, Harper hadn’t believed her. How could she be pregnant? And besides, how would Tina even be able to tell? It had only been a couple of days since she’d been with Grey. She was just sick.
“Honey,” Tina said gently, “you aren’t pregnant with a human baby. You’ve got Grey’s baby in you. Your gestation will only be a few months. You’ll give birth to what looks like a human but is, in fact, a baby shifter. The same thing happened to a human friend of mine.”
Harper fell back in her chair. A baby. She was having a baby. She blinked, amazed at just how cavalier she’d been and how foolish.
“I have to tell Grey.”
“I’ll go find him. You get cleaned up here.”
Harper nodded her spinning head, wondering how on Earth this was going to go. Would Grey be happy? Angry? Disgusted, maybe? She’d never had to have a serious discussion with a boyfriend before. She had never even had a boyfriend. This was all new territory.
She tried not to stress over it too much as she bathed. Warm water this time. Tina had forbidden her from using any cold water on her body. She poured a tincture of fruit tree leaves over her to get her temperature down a little, a trick that everyone in the neighborhood used to fight the heat. After her shower, she ate a bit more soup. Her stomach had settled, and she suddenly wanted the whole pot, but she paced herself.
A fast knock came from the door later while she was reading and trying not to think about tiny birds or her new lover. She took a deep breath and stood to answer it.
There on her patio was a stricken, pale, young man with a slack face. He had a look to him that, unbeknownst to either of them, was exclusive to young men on the verge of becoming fathers. She stepped toward him wordlessly, took his hand, and put it on her stomach.
“So, it’s true. You really are…” He gave her a desperate, wounded look, unsure what to say next.
“Yes,” she confirmed, “I am. Can you feel anything?”
He spread his fingers across her pelvis, then leaned down to press his cheek against her. “No. Not yet.” He stood. “Can you? Is it moving inside you?”
She shook her head. “I feel different, but I don’t feel the little form yet.” She led him inside, and the two of them lay down on her bed, staring at each other. They were silent as they gently touched each other’s faces, tracing the lines of their individual traits and wondering at how this eye would pair with these lips, this cheekbone, that jaw. What would this little creature look like when it came into the world?
“Grey,” Harper whispered, “I’m scared.”
He closed his eyes and let out a sigh of relief. “At least I’m not the only one.”
She gave him a playful smack and he pulled her in for a kiss. “Don’t worry, my Harper. I’ll be a devoted father, even before this little flier is born.”
“Are you sure it will be an airborne shifter?”
He nodded. “You wouldn’t be going through the process this fast if it were a human. I’ve seen it happen.”
She thought about having a little flier like Grey, and the thought made her smile. Back when they were young, Grey would shift for her and deliver silly little messages to her security staff as they stood watching the two play in the park. The notes always said things of no real importance – suggestions for what to serve for dessert that evening, notes about the weather, questions about her mother and who she had been. Perhaps it had been Grey’s magical movements that shifted him from human to bird that caused her to fall in love with him. Or maybe it was just his patience with her. Whatever it was, she wanted her little one to be just like his father.
“What are you thinking about?”
“You,” she told him, “when you were younger. And how I hope our child is just like its father.”
He pulled her in close for a big kiss on the forehead. She wrapped her arms around him and just let the warmth of the room melt her into him and his strong, reliable frame. They kissed, and it felt like a different kind of kiss, as if they had been doing it for years. He felt so familiar and easy to touch that he seemed to be an extension of her, a new appendage or longer hair with the man she loved swinging from the tendrils.
“Grey,” she whispered to him, “I need your help.”
“Of course. What can I do?”
She sat up and looked down at him, chewing her bottom lip. “I’m very close to finding out what killed that boy, Marcus. Will you do something for me? If I go, the people might not talk to me the way they would talk to you.”
“Sure,” he shrugged. Grey was always up for a project.
“Well,” she started, “are you familiar with the younger part of the forest? Where the trees are a bit thin?”
“Yes, that’s where Marcus was playing before he died, right?”
“Right.” She stopped and did a double take before continuing. “How did you know that?”
“Black Feather and I tried to do a little digging of our own, but we didn’t get very far.”
“Okay. Good. So you know a little bit about what’s going on. Well…” she repositioned herself so that she was down by his feet. He didn’t hesitate to put a foot in her lap, a non-verbal request for a massage. She rubbed his tough, callused foot but put her own up in his face so he would do the same.
“Well,” she started again, “apparently, there’s a little secret bar over there. It opens at dusk, and as far as I can tell, it’s a male-only establishment. I need you to go and see if you can get the guys talking to you.”
He closed his eyes as he relaxed into his foot rub. She tapped him with her foot to get him to wake up. He shook his head and blinked, fully alert. “Why? I mean, why do you need me to go? You can’t ask them?”
“Not if it’s a male thing,” she said, a bit exasperated by the explanation. “Say you’re there celebrating the new baby or whatever and hang out. I need to know what they’re drinking and what sort of effect it has on them. See if it makes them violent o
r impulsive. It’s possible that Marcus was killed by someone who just had too much to drink.”
“Oh, I see,” he pushed his thumbnail into her big toe and made her yelp, but she instantly felt her sinuses open up with the pain. “You need me to go and be friendly. But really, I’ll be undercover.”
“Essentially, yes,” she agreed as she pulled each of his toes one by one. He spent so much time barefoot that his toes were often crunched up with tension as they carried him over rocks and up the sides of trees. He flexed and wiggled them after the painful treatment, and the muscles in his face went slack with the sensation of relaxed toes.
“All right, sure. But,” he switched out the foot he held for her second foot and she did the same with his, “what if I get too drunk to remember anything?”
She dug into his arch as she considered the problem. “Maybe take Black Feather with you?” She checked his face for a look of confirmation but found none there. “No?”
He shook his head. “Black Feather gave up alcohol a long time ago. Some friends of his got hooked on it, and now it’s all they do. He can’t stand it. He likes to have fun, but alcohol and being around drunk people just makes him angry.”
The two went quiet as they considered the problem and worked out the kinks and knots in one another’s feet. Unfortunately, there seemed to be no way out of the conundrum.
“I guess we’ll just have to risk it,” Harper sighed, defeated. “Try not to overdo it. Just drink until you’ve got a nice little buzz and then maybe just fake it.”
“If I fake it, they’ll get suspicious,” Grey said, his gaze traveling. “Hey, what if I do my best to take notes while I’m there? I’ll drink as slow as I can and slip off to the bathroom or outside and jot down anything interesting. Huh?”
Harper thought about it, but the image of Grey taking notes at a bar while a bunch of rowdy men brawled around him seemed hard to get a hold of. Surely, someone would notice. “I don’t know, hon.”
“Hon? That’s new. Hey, where will you be while I’m out spying on drunk guys?”
“Oh, I didn’t tell you,” she gave him his foot back, and he sat with crossed legs. “Marcus had a secret little spot just under Larissa’s tree. Apparently, not even his family knew about it.”
Briar on Bruins' Peak (Bruins' Peak Bears Book 7) Page 55
