Читать книгу Shifter's Destiny - Anna Leonard - Страница 10

Once Elizabeth caught her breath, she said the first thing that came into her brain.

“There is no such thing as a unicorn.”

The words sounded perfectly reasonable, and sane, and confident. Considering that her sister had her arm around the neck of a horse—very definitely a horse—with a foot-long, spiral-shaped, pointed horn in the middle of its forehead, Elizabeth wasn’t sure she believed her own words. But she repeated them anyway. “There is no such thing as a unicorn. It has to be a fake, some kind of a con or scam. Or it’s a mutant deer.”

It didn’t look anything like a deer, or a moose, or even a mule. It was definitely a horse. And that was definitely a horn.

So it had to be a fake. If she touched the horn it would be plaster, or plastic, somehow glued onto the horse’s head. Or grafted, some kind of surgical measure… Who would do such a thing? A circus or a sideshow? Maybe. That was the most reasonable guess. Sideshows did that kind of thing all the time, didn’t they? She had been to one, once, when Maggie was very little, a traveling circus, with cotton candy and carnival rides. They’d had a bearded woman and a so-called mermaid in a tank, so a unicorn would fit perfectly.

Yes. That made sense. Elizabeth nodded once, satisfied. If it belonged to a circus, no matter if the horn was fake or a freak of nature, then it was probably valuable. There might even be a reward, but no matter how much they were going to need money, they couldn’t afford to take advantage. They needed to stay out of sight, away from anyone’s attention, until she had time to think things through, and figure out what to do.

And if it was a scam of any sort, they really couldn’t afford to be caught up in it. Especially not if the person who was running it came looking for his or her animal, causing trouble. Elizabeth would go to the police, if she had to, but not as part of someone else’s problems. They’d take Maggie away from her for sure, then.

And if they took Maggie away, it would be easy for Ray, as an Elder, to claim custody. Elizabeth knew, bone-deep, that if he did that, she would never be allowed near her sister again, that Maggie would never be free. There was no evidence to support that—Ray had never done or said anything threatening—but she knew.

But the only people who might have believed her were dead, now. Only she was left to protect Maggie.

Her sister, not sharing her worries, was busy petting the creature, cooing into pointed white ears that flickered back and forth as she spoke.

“Maggie… be careful,” she warned, watching the horn come dangerously close to her sister’s body as the horse leaned into the hug. Even if it was fake, that tip was probably sharp.

“It won’t hurt us,” Maggie said, stubbornly hugging the beast. “It helped us! Didn’t you, guy?” She rested her face against the white neck. “You saved us. Like Prince Charming’s noble steed. Only where did you leave Prince Charming?”

The horse made a noise like a snort, and shoved Maggie—gently, but enough to make her stagger, as though responding to her question with indignation.

“Maggie, please step away from the horse. I agree, it helped us, but it’s still a strange animal and outweighs you by a considerable amount.” Her sister had never met an animal that she couldn’t charm, but Elizabeth saw no reason to tempt fate.

Maggie made a face, but complied, giving the beast one last pat before taking several steps away. The horse watched her, but stayed where it was. “You think they’ll find us again?” Her voice was matter-of-fact, but her body tensed as she spoke.

Elizabeth wanted nothing more than to reassure the younger girl that everything would be all right, that they were safe, but she had never directly lied to her little sister, not in thirteen years, and she wasn’t going to start now. “Not if we’re smart. We need to figure out how to get to the other side of the reservoir, somehow, and then we can find a bus station. Once we’re farther away, they won’t be able to find us again.”

She hoped. Her only plan had been to get as far away from the Community as possible, and find someone who wasn’t cowed by Ray, someone who would listen to them, and protect them. But now… Elizabeth looked around, noting that the light that had been slanting through the trees was fading, all too aware of the fact that they had no idea where they were—any direction she chose could lead them right back into Jordan’s clutches, or leave them wandering deeper into the woods, away from the bus station that was their only chance to get away.

Jordan was a smarmy bastard, but he was right—Maggie was still exhausted. She needed to rest, and have a good meal, something more than the hot dogs they had gotten at the flea market, and… things they weren’t going to find, standing here like ninnies. Elizabeth mentally counted the money they had left, and flinched. There was enough for bus tickets out of state, and another meal or three, but not much more than that.

“I just need to figure out which way leads to the next town over.” She didn’t even know what town they were in right now. She had lived here her entire life, all twenty-six years, and once she got outside a ten-mile radius of her home, she was lost. What the hell had she been thinking, abandoning everything without a plan?

Panicked. She had been panicked, and knew, the same way that she knew the summons was bad news, that Ray was counting on her to be her usual practical, pragmatic self. Think-it-through Libby, her dad always called her. Think-it-through Libby would never have yanked her sister out of school and abandoned everything they owned on an hour’s notice, on the basis of a series of bad dreams and a gut feeling.

But she had.

The horse took two steps forward, so graceful it seemed almost to float more than walk, and, bypassing Maggie, circled around Elizabeth. She turned to watch it move, only to stagger herself when it pushed at her from behind with its shoulder. She had been right; it was solid muscle, and she had to take several steps forward to keep from falling over.

Up close, the horn was clearly attached to the forehead with more than glue, and when she—with daring that amazed her—reached out to touch it, the sensation under her fingertips was that of solid bone, smooth and cool and heavy.

With that touch, a wall of memories fell on her. She could almost hear her mother’s laugh, see Cody’s bright, fearless smile, smell the scent of her dad’s cologne….

No. Those were memories of better times, happier times. If she let them come back now, she would break down and then Maggie would be lost.

The horse, as though sensing her thoughts, stepped closer, pushing her again with the exact same amount of force behind the shove, and she got a definite sense of being told to get a move on.

“That way?” She felt insane, asking an animal for directions, but… maybe not so insane, after all. She looked at Maggie, who was looking at the beast intently. Her sister nodded.

“I think so. It wants us to go… that way?” Maggie pointed in the direction the horse—the unicorn, all right, Elizabeth admitted it, the unicorn—was pushing her.

It shoved her again, and she took the third step of her own accord, almost numb at this point. “What the hell. You got us here, maybe you can get us out.”

There was so much that was crazy in her life, what was taking directions from a unicorn, at this point? The thought almost made her laugh. Almost.

Maggie slipped her hand into her sister’s, and they walked forward along the indentation in the grass that indicated a deer path, the unicorn following behind. Its hooves barely made any 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 and draped it over the younger girl, then curled up next to her, snuggling for comfort. Maggie was right, it was surprisingly soft and comfortable. As her eyes closed, almost against her will, the last sight she had was their rescuer, a pale glimmer in the dusk, standing guard, his head up and alert to any sound or movement beyond the circle.

Reassured and oddly comforted by the sight, she slept.

Ever since the first wave of flu deaths hit the Community back in the autumn, Elizabeth’s dreams had been filled with faceless shadows moving around her, the sense of being caught in a whirlpool, spinning her around and pulling her down to some dire fate. It was all silent, as though the sound had been sucked out of the world already, except for her sister’s breath, labored and wet. It was the sound of a flu victim, trying to breathe, and no matter how terrifying the dream, waking to hear that noise in reality terrified Elizabeth more. Even now, when Maggie looked like the picture of health, the slightest hitch in her breath or faintest cough sent Elizabeth into a vague panic.

She had always dreamed, and always remembered her dreams, even as a small child. When something good was going to happen, or something bad, or merely a change in the air—she had known that her mother was pregnant with Maggie weeks before her mother realized, and had known that the small baby growing there would change her life forever. But she had never had nightmares—not until almost a year ago, when she woke screaming with the sense that something was lurking, just out of sight, waiting to catch her, to rend her apart with its claws. Nothing concrete, no specifics—only with Maggie’s birth had she ever known what change was coming, specifically. Only a sense of dread and distress that she could not shake, and could not prevent.

When her parents died, Elizabeth expected the nightmares to stop. Instead, they intensified. The night before Cody’s death, the dreams had been even worse: Maggie’s pale face alternating with Cody’s laughing one, and then her parents cold in their coffins, and a sense of menace no longer lurking in the shadows, but in midleap, claws outstretched. She had woken, not screaming but crying, her chest burning as though she’d been running all night, and been unable to go back to sleep. She had lain in bed for hours, waiting for the sun to come up, until the message came that Cody had been found, dead. She had not truly slept since then, unable to relax even in her own bed.

Tonight, curled up under a roof of trees while armed men searched for them, effectively homeless, guarded by an impossible creature and the future terrifyingly uncertain, Elizabeth slept, and dreamed not of menace, but of joy. In her dream, she stood under an open vista of clear blue skies and white-capped mountains, and felt the presence of peace and love around her, embracing her.

It was somewhere she had never been, a peace she never felt even in the best of times. Yet even within the embrace of that peace there was an uncertainty inside her, a sense that something would go wrong; that this contentment wasn’t meant for her. Not if she couldn’t take care of Maggie, make sure that Maggie was safe.

The dream faded, and she felt herself waking up in slow, comfortable stages: the warm crackle of their bedding underneath, the faint dampness of dew on her skin and clothing, the reassuring sound of Maggie’s occasional sleep-snort and the press of her body still curled under Elizabeth’s protective arm. Maggie was still safe. For now.

The light was dim around them, filtered through the leaves and barely enough to see by. Elizabeth guessed it was a little before dawn. At home, before everything changed, this had been her favorite time of day; before the controlled chaos of opening the bakery and getting the day’s orders started. Libby’s Loaves had been her own domain, her contribution to the Community at large. How proud she had been of it!

Her mother had taught her how to bake bread, back when she was Maggie’s age. There was another bakery in the Community, but it was Libby’s Loaves that everyone wanted for their table—she left the pastries and cakes to Asha and her husband, who owned the other shop across town.

She hoped they understood the meaning of the recipes—and the deed—she had left under their door, just before she and Maggie had left.

Those thoughts led to the awareness that they needed to be up and moving soon, and no time for reminiscences or regrets. Sliding her arm away from Maggie carefully, to keep from waking her just yet, Elizabeth got up from their makeshift mattress and looked around to see if the horse had stayed with them, overnight, or had wandered off as mysteriously as it had appeared. They hadn’t even thought to tether it—not that there had been anything to tether it with, since there had been neither bridle nor lead rope to use. Still…

The circle they had slept in was horse free. Elizabeth admitted to a sinking feeling of disappointment that didn’t make any sense. Whatever the animal was—horse, deer, fake or real—it wasn’t theirs, and while it had been amazingly, almost miraculously helpful, she couldn’t count on that help continuing.

“Just you and me again, baby,” she said, turning to wake Maggie and get her ready to walk again, and yelped in shock at the man standing across the clearing from her, watching her with a steady gaze.