The Thread That Binds the Bones by Nina Kiriki Hoffman, Richard Bober Page B

web wake to him.—Silver, let the Carroll shape come back. Relax, so that he no longer feels you, but stay with him wherever he goes. Carroll. Carroll.
    The shadow Carroll and the bird melted into one another within the embrace of silver, and then Carroll stood up, naked and human, and stared at Tom. His hazel eyes looked thoughtful. He pursed his lips, then held out his hand.
    —Is that a trick? Tom asked Peregrine.
    —I don’t know.
    Tom shook hands with Carroll. Carroll’s hand was cool, his grip strong but not punishing. Tom said, “I assume you can get home from here.”
    “Yes.” Carroll dived up into the air and flew away.
    Tom sighed, shoved his hands into his pants pockets, and walked back to the car.

Chapter 9
    “Well?” Maggie asked Tom as he climbed back into the driver’s seat of the cab. She was sitting in the middle of the front seat; Eddie sat quiet beside the window.
    Tom looked at her, wondering who she was, this utter stranger. He closed his eyes a moment, then opened them again and saw her just the way he had before: a girl, hugging herself, one shoulder hunched higher than the other, head bent toward the higher shoulder, her brows drawn together above her nose.
    He reached for the key, which was still in the ignition.
    “Please,” she said. “What did you do with him?”
    “I let him go.”
    Both her shoulders hunched higher. She stared out the front window as he started the car. He saw a single tear travel down her cheek, but she made no sound.
    They drove in silence for a while. “He said he rescued you from someone who was hurting you. What did he do to the guy he took you away from?” he asked presently.
    “He cast a most magnificent hurtful spell on him,” she whispered.
    He hesitated, then said gently, “Maggie, I’m not Carroll.”
    She relaxed, sagging back against the seat. “I know.” She touched his arm. “I know. That’s what’s good about you.”
    After another silence, he said, “But how could you know that when you said you’d take my protection?”
    “Watched you with your wife.”
    “What?”
    “You asked her questions, and listened to her answers. You don’t trust her yet, but you do listen.”
    He stared at her, then back at the road. An utter stranger, full of threat and promise, and she carried his mark in her hand.
    They bucketed up out of a dip in the dirt drive and came suddenly upon the patched asphalt of Lost Kettle Road. Tom turned right, then pulled over and glanced back. The lane leading to Chapel Hollow was almost invisible, a dirt trace between trees, underbrush dipping over its edges. “No mailbox,” he said.
    “They got a p.o. box in town. Mr. Dirk picks up the mail a couple times a week,” said Eddie. “He’s a lawyer. He makes sure none of the zoning or anything interferes with the Hollow.”
    “Huh,” said Tom, frowning. “Eddie, you were living in Arcadia when I got there. You remember hearing about these people before you ran into Gwen?”
    “Nothing real obvious. Pops used to say, ‘Beware the women.’ I just figured he got burned in his marriage, which he doesn’t talk about. Didn’t think it had anything to do with me.”
    “Nobody told me anything about them, although people seemed to expect me to leave when I had no plans to. Maybe they expected the people in the Hollow to take me. I heard some guarded comments that I didn’t understand. I never asked what they meant.” He put the car back in drive and they headed out. “So what are we going to tell them when we get back? I don’t want them to know that I’m—that I’m—” He bit his lower lip.
    “Related,” Maggie suggested.
    “Right,” he said, smiling at her. “I mean, I have friends in Arcadia. You get the feeling these Chapel Hollow people are enemies of the Arcadians? Or what?”
    “I talked to the other fetches,” Eddie said. “Delia’s been there the longest, and she sort of feels like they’re her family. She came there when she was about