an oatmeal cookie from the jar, then darted out, the door banging behind
her.
I crumbled uneaten toast between my fingers, wondered what our twinned
Revelation dreams meant. Although I felt better behind my high fence, I didn’t
want to risk the lives of my children on it alone, or on my own unconfirmed feelings of
safety, or old family legends. We sure hadn’t been safe in Las Vegas. But would
we be any safer in Hawley? I had fled in desperation, but I’d had a lot of time
to think in the past week while washing old panes of mottled glass and hacking at weeds.
I realized that there were just too many unanswered questions. Why had Nan been so
adamant we come here to Five Corners? And how had she known about the Fetch? Before I
even had much of a clue myself, she had
known
.
I’d taken the girls to visit her just after we’d arrived,
but she’d kept us busy, made sure we were all swirled up with her hawks and
helping the girls fly them. Tiny and implacable, she’d commanded and coaxed the
girls all morning, her long silver braid swinging as she gestured at them. When
she’d gone in the house to supervise snacks, I followed her, caught her in the
hall, asked her what she meant when she sent the note.
“An old woman’s fancy, maybe … no need
to dissect it, Reve. You’re here now and that’s what matters.”
“But why were you so insistent? And how did you know about the
Fetch? Our Fetch? I never told anyone.” I took hold of her bird-wing arm,thin as a stick. Nan tisked at me, just as one of her birds might,
and shook me off. She was shrunken with age now, but still strong with ropy muscle from
handling hawks and cleaning mews every day of her long life.
“Don’t look for more trouble, Revelation,” she told
me. “You have enough.” And she strode into the kitchen, commanding her
housekeeper to hurry with lunch.
The connection of the distant past with what was happening now had been
tugging at the periphery of my consciousness, and my dreams kept stirring it all up
again. And now Caleigh’s. I sighed, yanked my hair back until my scalp hurt,
determined to pull all the weirdness out of my brain.
Miss May, our goat, bleated desultorily just outside the kitchen door and
brought me back to the present. She was missing the horses. As soon as I knew where we
were bound for, I’d had them shipped to a farm in Vermont. Even before I had any
idea how I would get my family away. The horses had been bred and raised in the West,
with its dearth of trees, and I knew they’d need time to get used to the heavy
foliage of New England, the shadows it cast, the drifts of leaves. Even a well-trained
horse will spook at things it’s unaccustomed to. It would have been stupid to
uproot us all to ensure the safety of my children, then let the twins crack their heads
open in a needless fall. It was a risk to even bring the horses, since the Fetch could
track their route as well as ours, but I reasoned that I couldn’t take everything
from Grace and Fai. Or myself. So I’d written up false bills of sale, trying to
cover their tracks, too.
I’d shipped Miss May with the horses, but as soon as the owner of
the farm learned we were on the East Coast, she insisted on sending the goat down to us
before the horses were due back. She informed me that Miss May had wreaked more havoc
than any horse she’d ever trained. I chalked up her complaints to goat ignorance.
If Miss May didn’t get what she expected, when she expected it, she’d let
you know. For instance, she was usually quiet for most of the morning as long as she had
a treat after breakfast. So when I opened the door armed with an oatmeal cookie, Miss
May trotted up, her dark coat shining like a Hollywood starlet’s mink. She took
the cookie I offered gently, then ran off, her white tail twinkling at me.
I nudged a cookie out of the jar for myself, picked up
my mug, and
her.
I crumbled uneaten toast between my fingers, wondered what our twinned
Revelation dreams meant. Although I felt better behind my high fence, I didn’t
want to risk the lives of my children on it alone, or on my own unconfirmed feelings of
safety, or old family legends. We sure hadn’t been safe in Las Vegas. But would
we be any safer in Hawley? I had fled in desperation, but I’d had a lot of time
to think in the past week while washing old panes of mottled glass and hacking at weeds.
I realized that there were just too many unanswered questions. Why had Nan been so
adamant we come here to Five Corners? And how had she known about the Fetch? Before I
even had much of a clue myself, she had
known
.
I’d taken the girls to visit her just after we’d arrived,
but she’d kept us busy, made sure we were all swirled up with her hawks and
helping the girls fly them. Tiny and implacable, she’d commanded and coaxed the
girls all morning, her long silver braid swinging as she gestured at them. When
she’d gone in the house to supervise snacks, I followed her, caught her in the
hall, asked her what she meant when she sent the note.
“An old woman’s fancy, maybe … no need
to dissect it, Reve. You’re here now and that’s what matters.”
“But why were you so insistent? And how did you know about the
Fetch? Our Fetch? I never told anyone.” I took hold of her bird-wing arm,thin as a stick. Nan tisked at me, just as one of her birds might,
and shook me off. She was shrunken with age now, but still strong with ropy muscle from
handling hawks and cleaning mews every day of her long life.
“Don’t look for more trouble, Revelation,” she told
me. “You have enough.” And she strode into the kitchen, commanding her
housekeeper to hurry with lunch.
The connection of the distant past with what was happening now had been
tugging at the periphery of my consciousness, and my dreams kept stirring it all up
again. And now Caleigh’s. I sighed, yanked my hair back until my scalp hurt,
determined to pull all the weirdness out of my brain.
Miss May, our goat, bleated desultorily just outside the kitchen door and
brought me back to the present. She was missing the horses. As soon as I knew where we
were bound for, I’d had them shipped to a farm in Vermont. Even before I had any
idea how I would get my family away. The horses had been bred and raised in the West,
with its dearth of trees, and I knew they’d need time to get used to the heavy
foliage of New England, the shadows it cast, the drifts of leaves. Even a well-trained
horse will spook at things it’s unaccustomed to. It would have been stupid to
uproot us all to ensure the safety of my children, then let the twins crack their heads
open in a needless fall. It was a risk to even bring the horses, since the Fetch could
track their route as well as ours, but I reasoned that I couldn’t take everything
from Grace and Fai. Or myself. So I’d written up false bills of sale, trying to
cover their tracks, too.
I’d shipped Miss May with the horses, but as soon as the owner of
the farm learned we were on the East Coast, she insisted on sending the goat down to us
before the horses were due back. She informed me that Miss May had wreaked more havoc
than any horse she’d ever trained. I chalked up her complaints to goat ignorance.
If Miss May didn’t get what she expected, when she expected it, she’d let
you know. For instance, she was usually quiet for most of the morning as long as she had
a treat after breakfast. So when I opened the door armed with an oatmeal cookie, Miss
May trotted up, her dark coat shining like a Hollywood starlet’s mink. She took
the cookie I offered gently, then ran off, her white tail twinkling at me.
I nudged a cookie out of the jar for myself, picked up
my mug, and
Similar Books
