Betrayals

ears, a high clear thin tone like a bell stroked over and over. It filled my skull like cotton wool.

The owl cocked its head, a what’s up, boss? look. I blinked. Dust motes hung suspended in the air, and the round clock fastened up over the door had gone silent. It wasn’t even ticking.

This was the space between precognition and something weird happening. Something weird or Seriously Bad. It was too soon to tell which.

Whoosh. The owl took wing in a flurry of feathers. It was a big bird, almost too big for the room, turning in tight circles and heading for the door. Its wings thopped down just as it was about to hit them on the jamb on either side; it turned, smart as a spaceship in a movie, and was gone out into the hall.

Sudden certainty filled me. I was supposed to follow it.

Gran had always told me to trust this feeling, and Dad always told me not to let the backwoods foolishness take the place of clear logic. But he also never stopped me when I got that look on my face, the look that said I was seeing something he couldn’t.

Gran was famous for “the touch” for miles around, and I’d always assumed I’d gotten it from her.

After all, she’d trained me, right?

But now I was wondering just what I’d gotten from where.

The owl had shown up on my windowsill the last morning I’d seen Dad alive. Last time, the owl had led me to Dad’s truck, and Christophe. The streak-headed werwulf that had bitten Graves had also been there, but that was incidental.

Wasn’t it?

I didn’t have time to sit around. I bolted after Gran’s owl, my legs full of heavy unwillingness.

The world slowed down to something covered in hard goopy plastic, a clear fluid I had to force my way through to move anywhere. This was also part of the space-between, that heaviness. I didn’t have time to wonder if I was moving too quickly for the world to catch up, or if I just had to reach through a little more space to reach the body I moved around in on a daily basis.

My bruised shoulder clipped the door on the way out, and a zigzag of red pain shot all the way down my ribs. My sneakers slapped the stone floor, and I got up a good head of speed even through the clinging flood of whatever slows the world down when you’re following your dead grandmother’s owl.

The hall receded like a mirrored passage in a fun house, the kind where everything is multiplied into infinity. The yellow-pale glare of fluorescent lighting crawled into each crack and chip in the walls. Stone floor with occasional bursts of worn industrial carpet or old linoleum blurred under my squeaking sneaker soles. The Schola receded around me, its halls warping. One sleeve of the too-big blue sweater unrolled and flapped around my left hand, but I didn’t have time to pull it up. It was hard work keeping the owl in sight as I slipped and skidded, bouncing off walls and on the verge of tripping countless times. Until it banked again, zooming down another short hall, and a pair of double doors was in front of me.

I hope they’re not locked. But the right one threw itself open as soon as I hit it, the little pump-thing on top that made it close without slamming giving a high hard pop and a clatter as bits of it rained down. The door smacked the stone wall, and its hinges gave a scream. Chill night air poured in, blowing my hair back.

I leapt the threshold at warp speed, and the cold was a hammer blow against every inch of exposed skin. It cut right through me, and my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth. The thick clotted taste of wax and citrus poured over my palate. The owl banked in a tight circle again, then headed away at a good clip.

The taste of oranges is bad trouble; Gran would call it an arrah. She meant “aura,” like when people with migraines get weird tastes or smells right before their heads decide to cave in. Me, I just get a mouthful of fake rotting fruit, kind of, when something really-bad-weird is about to happen.

Like, say, when a sucker is about to come out of nowhere and paste you a good one. I mean, I also get it, but with a different tang, when I’m about to see an old friend, or things are going to get weird but not dangerous.

I wasn’t going to slow down to find out which flavor of weird this was going to be. Not with that sudden sureness in the middle of my chest pulling me forward. Urging me on.

The woods pressed close into the building’s personal space, and ribbons of greasy white threaded between black naked branches. It smelled wrong, too powdery for fog, with an undertone of the ugly dry smell of a snakeskin. And the cold was more than weather, it was a weight pressing against skin and heart and bone.

I took the three stairs down with a leap and landed hard, gravel crunching underfoot. Almost slipped, but pulled up high and tight like a ballerina, and flung myself after the owl. Here there were gardens, it might be pretty once spring came. Now, however, ice rimmed the wooden boards holding long rectangular plots of winter-dead garden back and dripped in icicles from the fog-ribboned trees. It was the east side of the complex of buildings that was the Schola, and I wondered in a dreamy sort of way how the hell I’d gotten over here.

Right behind the panic beating like a second heart inside me. And the fear soaking through my entire body. Something bad was about to happen, I was sure of it now. I could only hope I’d received the warning in time, and that I would be able to get away from it fast enough.

Past the gardens the land ran downhill in a gentle slope, toward the river. A ribbon of paved path curved down toward a shack of a boathouse, crouching against the moon-silvered water. The moon was half-full, shedding her light over a gray and white landscape that looked exactly like an ice sculpture with streaks of oil-soaked cotton wool hanging from every sharp edge.

The fog was closing around the Schola in grasping, veiny fingers.

Halfway down the hill, saplings and bushes started springing up, the forest’s outliers. Then the trees rose, dense and black even though they were naked and festooned with shards of ice. The owl soared, came back, circled me as I ran, and shot forward down the hill, leaving the graveled path behind and crossing the paving, heading for the inky smear of trees.

My breath came in harsh caws of effort. I ran, and the owl returned, like it was pressing me to go faster. It wheeled over my head again, and I thought I heard Gran’s voice. That’s a wise animal what muffles its wings so the mouse can’t hear it, Dru. And it’s a wise animal what hides even when it’s quiet. You never know when somethin’s up over the top of you lookin’ down.

The first time I’d seen the owl was on the sill of Gran’s hospital window, the night she died. I’d kept quiet about it ever since. Only Dad knew about it, and he was—

Stop thinking and run. This time it was Dad’s voice, full of quiet urgency. The only place their voices were left was in my head. It was better than being alone but it was so, so lonely.

I tried to speed up, but the thick clear goop over the world was hardening. My heart rammed against the walls of my chest, pulsing in my throat and wrists and eyes so hard, like it wanted to escape.

The world popped back up to speed like a rubber band, and I was flung forward as if a huge warm hand had reached down and tapped me like a pool ball. Almost fell, caught myself, and leapt over the last garden box, clearing it with feet to spare.

Sound rushed back in. Ice crackling, gravel flying, my own footsteps a hard tattoo against frozen ground, the harsh rhythm of my breathing, and behind me, padded footsteps and a high, chilling howl, queerly diluted through the odd, gleaming fog. The taste of oranges ran over my tongue again; I couldn’t spit to clear my mouth and wouldn’t have anyway, since it wasn’t just waxen oranges. I knew for sure now it meant something totally and completely bad was going down.

I ran for the trees like my life depended on it. Because I knew, deep down, that it did.

CHAPTER 8

Branches slapped at my face and hands. I leapt over a fallen log, crunched down in a pile of leaves, and fell. Scudgy leafmuck splorched up through my fingers. The darkness scored itself with little diamond holes of moonlight, sharp frozen reflections. I scrambled to my feet and took off again, dodging a creeping streamer of fog. The locket was a lump of ice on my chest.