Shifter's Destiny. Anna Leonard
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noise on the dirt, now that it was walking rather than galloping. Elizabeth glanced behind, unable to help herself, and those wide brown eyes met hers in an almost human glance. It was taller than they were, its head above their shoulders, so it would be able to see anything coming ahead of them. More, its chest was broad and muscled, and its hooves were weapons able to take out anything coming up from behind them. Trust me, that dark gaze seemed to say.
The sense of safety she had felt earlier returned, and she nodded once in response, and then turned her attention back to the barely visible track winding through the trees.
They walked in silence a few strides, but Elizabeth could feel something building within her normally sunny-tempered sister. She waited, patiently, and finally it burst out.
“They’re not going to give up, are they? Why, Libby? Why won’t they just let us alone?”
All Elizabeth had told her sister as a reason for their flight was that the Elders wanted to separate them, place Maggie in another household, a real family, not just a sister who worked too many hours to raise a teenager. Elizabeth hadn’t mentioned any of her other fears, the ones that seemed insane in the daylight, but so very real when shadows surrounded them. Cody might have been able to banish the fears, with his laughter and his optimism, but Cody had hung himself on the tree behind his house, six days ago. Eight days after Elizabeth had confided her dream-stirred worries to him.
Maggie knew, anyway. Maggie always knew. Like Elizabeth’s dreams, only more so.
Maggie Sweet was special that way.
“I don’t know,” Elizabeth said now, in response to the question. “I wish I did, but I don’t. We’ll stay together, baby. Just like I promised you.” When their parents had died, at the shared grave among so many other graves, she had sworn that she would always be there, that she would not leave Maggie alone.
“Okay.” As simple as that, and to Maggie, the world was right side up and stable. Elizabeth wished, not for the first time, that she had her sister’s faith in her own abilities.
Cody had told her once that, if she put her mind to it, she could grow wings and fly. But Cody was dead. The police, called in from the nearest town, said he had committed suicide, too depressed by the spate of deaths in the Community to go on. Elizabeth knew better. No matter what, no matter how many friends they lost, he would never have done that, would never have gone without a word to her. Not after what she’d confessed to him. But nobody would believe her, thinking her stressed and grief-stricken.
If she had insisted, if she had uttered a single word about her fears, her dreams of something terrible about to happen, Ray would have had all the excuse he needed to take Maggie away from her.
Elizabeth didn’t know how long or how far they walked, but her feet were beginning to hurt, and Maggie was clearly fading.
“We’re going deeper in, not out,” her sister said, her fingers tightening around Elizabeth’s hand. “Is that okay? Shouldn’t we be going out?”
“I think it’s taking us around the reservoir,” Elizabeth said. “It must… smell water, or something. Or maybe it’s going back to its stable… it’s okay, Maggie. We don’t want to go back the way we came, so anything is better than that, right? Look, see those yellow flowers? They’re called lady’s slippers. They’re orchids. Do you remember? Mom had a pillow she’d made, it had those embroidered on it.”
Maggie scrunched her face, trying to remember. “It was green? On the rocking chair?”
“That’s right. The dog ate it, when you were, oh, about nine.”
“Poor Mickey.” The memory, as she’d hoped, made her sister laugh, and forget her exhaustion for a while. “He always ate everything, and Mom would get so mad…. I miss them, Libby. I miss them so much.”
Elizabeth’s heart ached. “So do I, baby.”
Their parents hadn’t been young—Maggie was a surprise late child—but the flu epidemic that swept the Community shouldn’t have taken them, not both of them, healthy adults still in their prime. So many people who should not have died, and yet they had, young children and adults alike.
Six months since those deaths, and the pain was still as raw as if the funeral had been yesterday. How much worse was it for Maggie, almost fourteen years younger, without the memories to console her? Elizabeth did her best, with photographs and stories, but eventually it would all be a faded blur, especially now that the photographs, like everything else, had been left behind. Elizabeth had taken a few photos, quickly pulled from frames and stuffed into her bag, but it wasn’t enough, not nearly enough.
Stories would have to fill the gap.
“You were too young to remember, the year that Mickey tried to jump the fire with everyone else during Winterfair. He almost made it, too, except his tail drooped too much, and he got all singed. You’ve never seen such an embarrassed-looking dog, his tail all bandaged, so every time he wagged it, he swatted someone….”
The stories flowed from her as they walked, the smell of warm dirt and pine in the air, the pine needles and dirt soft underfoot. It couldn’t have been all that long, in reality—maybe two hours, if that, since they’d been approached by Jordan and his men—but the light kept fading, the angle of the setting sun not making its way through the tall branches, until it became difficult to see where they were going. Maggie was leaning against her more than before, and she was about to tell her to get back on the horse’s back, when it tapped her—gently, carefully—on the shoulder with its horn, and then nudged her off to the left.
They left the path, faint as it was, and walked through a line of trees and down a small decline. Up ahead, as though waiting for them, there was a clearing, about ten feet in circumference, where the tall evergreens formed an almost perfect circle. Inside the circle there was a pile of leaves and soft branches piled in the middle.
“It looks like a bed,” Maggie said. “I think we’re supposed to sleep here?”
Elizabeth looked back at the horse, who stared back at her. “It’s not exactly Motel Six.”
“A lot cheaper,” Maggie said, for once being the practical one. “And we’re here.” She knelt down in the pile, testing it with her hand. “It’s actually soft,” she said, surprised. “And dry.”
“Is this where you sleep?” Elizabeth asked the horse, and then felt like a proper idiot. It might have a horn, and it might be leading them somewhere, but expecting it to suddenly answer her… She needed sleep as much as Maggie did, clearly. She hadn’t slept, really slept, in almost a week. Certainly not since they’d cut Cody’s body down from the tree.
“Thank you,” she said to the horse, anyway. “For… everything.”
Maggie was busy arranging their knapsacks to act as pillows, trying different positions to see if she could see the sky through the branches overhead. She was clearly taken with the idea of spending the night out of doors.
Sleeping in the woods wasn’t Elizabeth’s idea of comfort, but it was smart. Jordan wouldn’t stop looking, but he only had a few people with him, and searching the entire forest would take too long, especially since it would be dark soon. He couldn’t afford to bring in more people, or ask for help, since they would want to avoid any official attention as much as she did. Maybe even more. Cody’s death had been investigated by the police, if briefly. Having his best friend turn up missing a week after his death might send up official warning flags, make someone outside the Community take notice.
Anyway, nobody would believe that she’d keep Maggie outside all night, not when she’d been so sick. Jordan would be looking for her in town, under shelter. If they could sleep here, and get started early in the morning, when he’d be asleep, they could maybe slip past him.
It was the best plan she could come up with. And Maggie was already curled up in the makeshift nest, half-asleep from exhaustion but still trying to see stars through the overhead canopy of leaves. Elizabeth took off her jacket