I'd hung up the phone confused and concerned. Mel leaving the tribe had killed our friendship for a decade. We had just started to patch it back together. I was afraid the issue of the sons would soon blast it apart again.
But the call helped solidify my plan. I would head to Madison Saturday morning. The farmer's market gave me a convenient excuse for being in the city-much better than just showing up on Mel's door and demanding to talk to the sons.
I'd gone to bed and slept a solid four hours. Now I was standing in the bathroom admiring my increasingly haggard appearance.
I turned my face away from the mirror, grabbed a wet towel, and scrubbed it over my skin. As I twisted my torso, my back shrieked.
The damned injury had been nagging me again. . since Thea woke me up at four, asking if I was ready to resume our search for the baby.
I'd ignored her and eventually she'd gone away, but the other pain had remained. I'd stayed in my room a couple of hours stretching and thinking, but neither had done anything to lessen the pain.
I ran hot water on the towel and pressed it against my back. After a few seconds I threw it into the bathtub. It landed with an angry slap.
My injuries and recent failures were piling up and weighing me down, but I had a day to kill before heading to Madison.
Normally I would have exercised, but my back was in no shape. I left the house and passed by the barn with its room full of weights. It was early, but everyone was up. The hearth-keepers were working in the garden and warriors were clinking weights together in the barn. The camp would be busy for the next few hours, then things would settle down for lunch. During the heat of the day we would run errands and work on less physical projects. In the evening we'd be outside again, working the horses and practicing for the exhibition at the fair.
I stepped into the woods.
'Zery!' Thea appeared on the path. She was carrying her bowl. I could smell the same oil I'd smelled before, olive oil. At least that's what Lao had said it was last night.
'I was looking for you earlier. You didn't answer your door.'
I tilted my head and took another step down the path.
'I found the son's name, the one who owns the cabin,' she said.
I paused.
'Jack Parker. He's lived there five years. Has probably been watching this camp.'
She was right. He had told me as much.
'I'm searching for more information, for other places he might go now that his house is destroyed, but so far nothing. He seems to have no history.'
'Like an Amazon,' I replied. Amazons did everything they could to stay under the human radar. We sometimes shared identities, had more fake IDs than a bar full of teenagers. I guessed the sons did the same.
'You don't know where he might go, do you?' she asked. The bowl she held dripped oil onto her shoe. I stared at the round stain for a second, considering my answer.
My voice steady, I replied, 'None. I'd never seen him before yesterday.'
'How about your friend? The one in Madison? She has connections, doesn't she?'
'She's out of town.'
A shadow passed over Thea's face. 'But she'll be back. Soon?'
'No. I called last night. She's gone for a while. The sons are gone too.' I'd decided last night I wasn't taking Thea with me to Madison. I had no qualms about lying to her. I just hoped lying was enough to keep her at the safe camp.
She didn't like my answer, but she didn't question it.
With Thea gone, I returned to my walk. I had plenty to think about. I was going to Madison, and I wasn't sure what I was going to do when I got there. It all depended on Mel and exactly how connected to the sons she had become. If she had thrown in with them, stood with them
My stomach clenched, but as my body warmed from my walk, the ache in my back subsided. Thankful for that, I rolled my head left then right and forced any possibility that Mel had gone to the other side from my mind. I would find out tomorrow, no need to dwell on it today.
The path I was on led to the obelisk. There was another trail that wound through the fifty acres we owned. All except the two acres the house sat on were wooded. Amazons and animals alike used these paths. In fact, parts of it predated our ownership of the land. There was more than one 'thong' tree, trees manipulated by Native American tribes to point to places of interest, off this path. All pointed toward our obelisk.
We had raised the stone, but we didn't make the woods sacred-that energy had been there forever. And we weren't even the first to recognize it.
I got on the longer trail behind the barn. It wove around the back of our property, eventually branching into three paths, one continuing until ending at a barbed-wire fence erected by a neighbor, one going out wider around the outskirts of the neighbor's holdings, and one that led to the obelisk. I took the outer path. It was cool this morning and the air smelled of leaves, flowers, and earth.
Birds were out too, lots of them screeching at each other and me to keep away from their nests. As I approached an oak that had been struck by lightning a few springs back, something stirred high above my head. I glanced up to see an owl fluttering overhead, like a very large brown-speckled butterfly. He seemed to watch me, his eyes flaming.
He hovered a second longer, then took off, flying up and out of the trees.
I ran my fingers up through my hair and stared after him, not sure what I expected to happen next.
Nothing did. I lowered my hands and shook my head.
The sons were making me jumpy. Every animal, no matter how small or safe, I now saw as a potential threat.
I didn't like it. I had two weapons on me today. I reached to the small of my back where I had stored a pair of nunchakus. They were a weapon I wasn't as skilled with as others-my staff, for instance-but I had been practicing and they were easier to carry with my strained back. I also had a belt on that concealed a blade disguised as a buckle.
So, the first wasn't my strongest choice and the second wasn't my fastest. Deciding on the nunchakus, I pulled them free from my pants and held both ends in my right hand. If a son surprised me, I could quickly drop one end and attack.
With my fingers wrapped around the weapon, it was hard to relax my body or my brain. I kept moving, every inch of me on alert.
It was just as well. Maybe nine yards further along I heard voices, murmurs. I had left all the Amazons back at camp.
My arm tensed as I moved closer.
There was a flash of blue and yellow, and bodies jumped out at me from nowhere. I spun, raising my arm automatically over my head and my fingers letting go of one end of the nunchakus. My back complained; I twisted my face in response.
'Oh dear. We surprised her.'
'Did you see him? Did you?'
An elderly woman with a pair of binoculars pressed to her eyes searched the sky above my head. 'They are so rare. Emily, do you have the camera?
'Karen, how about the recording? Did you get him?'
I staggered backward, my gaze dashing over the group. There were six of them, all dressed in T-shirts, khaki shorts, and a variety of head gear. The one with the binoculars shoved her hand flat against my chest and pushed
