“No,” she said, almost recoiling at the thought. “For one thing, you’re hurt. And for another, you’re a guest. Now let me have a look at your wounds.”
I carefully removed and hung the dinner dress, then let Shea care for my back. After her departure, I crawled into bed, though I left the lamp lit, suspecting she might claim the floor in here rather than her sisters’ room. I heard her come in a little while later, and allowed myself a tentative smile. The barriers between us were falling away. And maybe I needed a friend as much as she did.
CHAPTER SIX
THE PRICE OF FREEDOM
Over the next few days, I joined in more of the family’s activities, helping with meals, playing with the younger girls, and assisting Marissa with her reading and letters. While I had never before spent such intimate time among a human family, I couldn’t help but think their lifestyle peculiar, even for their species. They lived far away from any human settlement, from any neighbors, ostensibly preferring to keep their own company. Thatcher, in particular, continued to make me nervous. From what I could tell, he hunted, cleaned, and repaired his weapons, chopped firewood and prowled the area around the cabin as though on alert for intruders. He appeared to have no livelihood, and even when he relaxed in his armchair with his pipe in the evening, his gun was never out of reach.
My initial assessment of Elyse as timid was a gross understatement, though the reason for her meekness remained unclear. I had assumed she was afraid of her husband, but he never raised his voice or hand to her. Instead, it seemed she was afraid of life itself.
Even though I was on the road to recovery, my body felt heavy and sluggish. I probably weighed less without my wings, but my inability to hover made me feel rooted in a way I never had before. It felt like the earth was working against me, like it was trying to prevent every step I took. This sense of discontinuity with the natural world was demoralizing, and never more apparent than when I bathed and was surrounded by water—water that, when I’d been in possession of my elemental connection, had hugged my skin gently and kept me warm like a silken coat. Now it pressed on me, pulling at me and making it hard to breathe. Before long, I dreaded submerging myself in the treacherous substance. With no ability to communicate with it, the water’s raw power was evident, and I feared the element that had once been my closest ally.
* * *
I was outside one afternoon with Shea, fetching firewood, when three sharp cracks punched through the air, startling us both.
“What’s going on?” I asked, clutching the Anlace that was sheathed at my hip. I scanned the trees, which hugged the More house almost constrictively, on alert for a threat.
“Gunshots,” Shea said shortly. “But not from my father. He doesn’t hunt this close to home. Something’s wrong.”
She patted the pocket of her coat as though to check its contents, then rushed into the trees. I sprinted after her, suspecting I would be more effective in a conflict than she would be—I wasn’t wearing a dress, and would be calmer if Thatcher was injured. Besides, she’d saved my life when I’d run off.
Shea was faster than I expected, or else I was slower, and again I bemoaned the loss of my wings for handicapping me. I caught up to her when she halted, confused about which way to go, for snow was falling and the footprints Thatcher had left on departure were gone.
“Follow me,” I said, mentally re-creating the gunfire in my head. The shots had so abruptly broken the quietude that I could still hear them ringing in my ears, and I thought I could guide us closer to their point of origin. Eventually the sound of a male voice reached us, and we jogged toward it, taking care in case there was peril ahead. We broke into a ring of trees, but heard no sounds other than the dull rustling of an animal in the distance.
“Dad!” Shea screamed, forgetting caution, and I rushed to quiet her, pressing my palm across her mouth. I’d already been attacked once in this forest. What if the voice we’d heard belonged to one of the contract hunters about whom Thatcher had told me? She tore my hand away, her eyes darting frantically about.
“What are you doing out here?”
Thatcher pushed his way through the underbrush and into the small clearing, dragging a dead buck. Close on his heels was a burly, bearded man with blank eyes and a hunting gun resting against his shoulder.
Shea pressed her hands against her cheeks. “I heard the gunfire. I thought something bad had happened.”
Thatcher’s heavy brows dove toward his nose. “And if something had happened, what were you planning to do about it?”
Her jaw clenched tightly, Shea withdrew a silver pistol from her coat pocket. “I came armed.”
Though I instinctively shied away from the weapon, I looked at her with new respect. I did not know how much skill she had with the gun, but at the very least she was willing to defend herself. Thatcher glanced at the burly hunter, who was stroking his beard as though he was bored or hard of hearing. Somewhat more relaxed, he then shook his head at Shea, although he did not otherwise address his daughter’s readiness to do battle. Instead, he motioned to his companion.
“I ran into Gray here. He was tracking this buck and I helped him. We’re going to split the meat back at our place. Let’s get going.”
Thatcher and the hunter headed off, Shea trailing without objection, but I hesitated. Our flight from the cabin had taken us in a direction opposite the Bloody Road, into a part of the forest with which I was not familiar, and a strong sense of apprehension stole over me.
I stood still, barely breathing, the hair on my arms and the back of my neck prickling. Glancing around, I soon found the reason for the feeling. Every tree in the ring that surrounded the clearing was scratched, as though marked by a wild animal. I pressed my memory, but couldn’t recall the markings being there when Shea and I had arrived, though my senses, lacking magical enhancement, didn’t pick up peripheral detail in the same way they once had. Even more disconcerting, each set of scratches was level with my head. Shea was shorter than me, Thatcher and Gray taller, and no scratches announced their heights. It was as if some creature had made me a crown.
A drop of icy water landed between my shoulders and slipped down my spine, and I jumped, breaking free of the trees’ bewitchment. Trying to will away my misgivings, I followed the trail of deer’s blood until I caught up with the others.
Once back at the More residence, Thatcher and Gray took their kill to the shack that stood behind the house. Shea and I went inside and sat before the fireplace in the main room, warming ourselves in silence, and I tried to assess the damage I might have done to my back with today’s exercise. While I couldn’t be sure, it felt like I was bleeding, and I wanted to scream in frustration at the sluggish rate of my recovery. Behind us, Elyse busied herself with dinner preparations.
“You two are quiet,” she said, and I jumped at the sound of her voice. She was so meek that I never really expected her to have one. With a huge sigh, Shea came to her feet, leaving her coat and pistol on the chair.
“It’s nothing. Just Dad. He wouldn’t take me hunting with him and now he’s angry because I followed him.”
Elyse nodded, curling her body around the stove as if she wanted to become part of it, to disappear entirely. What was it about this family? Shea was brash and defiant. Elyse acted like a horrible fate awaited her every time she spoke. Thatcher continually scrutinized me, presumably thinking I had an ulterior motive for being there, when he was the one who had saved my life. If all humans lived like this, they were a stranger species than even Illumina or anyone in the Anti-Unification League realized.
We washed and changed into dinner dresses, then ate without Thatcher, who was still helping Gray divide the meat. The younger girls had already been sent to bed by the time he entered, and Elyse hastened to prepare him a plate of food. But it wasn’t food that interested him.