Lena had somehow shrunk the surrounding oaks of her grove to a more reasonable height, and was currently clearing a section of the canopy, folding the branches back to allow us a better view of the stars and a distant comet that should be visible through the telescope later tonight. I had a new eyepiece for the scope that I’d been wanting to try.
I pulled a crumpled piece of green paper from the pocket of my jeans. The front was an advertisement for a book club that had met at the library over the summer. On the back, I had done my best to recreate the lines Gutenberg had engraved into my skull.
“Any progress?” Lena asked as she emerged from the grove.
I shook my head. “It’s not a form of libriomancy I understand. If he had written a longer phrase, I might be able to find a source, but this is just a single word. It could refer to anything. I suspect the pen is as much a part of the magic as the writing. I’d give half my books to get my hands on it.”
I didn’t tell her about the e-mail I had received from Nicola Pallas yesterday. I hadn’t told anyone, though I had reread it until I memorized every word. I was certain Nicola had broken some rule or another in sending it, which was amazing all by itself. Or maybe there were simply no rules for a situation like mine, and she had taken advantage of that omission.
The e-mail had been short and businesslike. Pallas began by reminding me that I was no longer a Porter, and that any attempt to access Porter resources or data would be ill-advised. Because of my service to the organization, she thought it only fair that I receive my final paycheck. It would be deposited into my savings account at the end of the month, and that would be the last time they contacted me.
Then, at the very end of her message, she warned me against trying to undo Gutenberg’s spell, explaining that historically, almost all such attempts had ended badly.
I knew Nicola Pallas. She was far too careful in her writing to have used the word “almost” by accident. Just as importantly, she knew me well enough to know I would pounce on that word as proof that it could be done.
She had given me hope.
“I heard on the radio that a sparkler photobombed a live news broadcast down in Detroit,” Lena commented.
My lips quirked. For the past two days since the attack, I had been inseparable from my computer, reading every article and blog post I could find about the attack on Copper River, Michigan. Theories ranged from the outlandish to the mundanely predictable: mass hallucinations, government experiments gone wrong, aliens, and more.
The physical repairs to the town had undermined many of the stories. I had driven past the water tower, standing tall once again. I couldn’t find a single weld to show where the legs had broken. The restaurant remained closed, but the door and windows had been fixed.
It was the same throughout town, and the reporters who arrived in search of a story met with confusion and conjecture from people who remembered nothing of the past days. On the other hand, there were always people eager for attention who were happy to confirm whatever explanation the reporters wanted, so long as it gave them their fifteen minutes of fame.
The last article I read had taken the government conspiracy approach, claiming that Copper River was a test site for hallucinogenic weapons, and everyone who stayed would be dying of cancer over the next decade.
I told myself I wasn’t obsessing. I was trying to read past the stories, to find out what the Porters had been up to, and whether they had been able to track down Bi Wei and the others. With no access to the Porter database and no magic of my own, this was my best chance to reconstruct their movements.
I watched Smudge climb slowly up one of the oaks, stalking a firefly. I hadn’t been certain what would happen to him with my magic gone. How much did Smudge exist independently of me, and how much was his magic bound to my own? The first time I watched him toast a cricket, my relief had been overwhelming.
As had the envy that followed.
Lena slid down beside me. “What happens now?”
I pointed to the sky. “Later tonight, between Ursa Minor and Cassiopeia, we should be able to see—”
“Dork.” She kissed my ear. “You know what I mean.”
“I’ve still got the library job. I asked Jennifer to move me back to full time.” No matter what else the Porters had done to me, at least they had repaired my library. I had been going there since I was three years old. I blinked hard and waited for the tightness in my throat to ease.
I could feel the depression trying to pull me down and smother me, as it had done at random times for the past two days. Nidhi was ready to start slipping Zoloft into my drinks. She would have been happier if I was talking to someone, but I couldn’t exactly go to a normal therapist with my problems, and Doctor Karim wasn’t allowed to meet with me anymore, since I was no longer a Porter.
I had also been volunteering around town, trying to pitch in wherever I could. I had donated blood, run an impromptu story time for kids, helped out with a charity fundraiser for the “unexplained” deaths that had taken at least twenty-one people…anything to be useful. Anything to keep from feeling powerless.
When I walked past the cemetery and saw the freshly dug graves, nothing seemed like enough.
“I’ve got something I want to show you.” Lena sounded uncharacteristically shy. “Nidhi, too. A project I’ll need both of you to help with.”
Before she could say more, Nidhi emerged from the back of the house with Jeff and Helen DeYoung in tow. I was starting to get used to having an extra houseguest in Nidhi. I knew perfectly well she was staying because she was worried about me, and wanted to make sure I wasn’t suicidal. It wasn’t an unreasonable fear, but after coming so close to so many different flavors of death, I had no desire at all to go there again.
“Later,” Lena whispered.
Jeff and Nidhi waited while Helen navigated the deck with her crutches. She had taken on a pair of wendigos on the south part of town. I hadn’t been able to pry anything out of her, beyond, “You should see the other guys, eh?”
Jeff was in slightly better shape. The first time I saw him, he had looked half-mummified in bandages from the cuts he had suffered, but the worst of his wounds had scabbed over and were beginning to heal. By the time the next full moon rolled around, he should be good as new.
Guan Feng had slept undisturbed through the attack, and most of the creatures had abandoned the library to come after me. I had gotten the rest of the story from Helen, how the students of Bi Sheng knocked Jeff unconscious with a flick of their fingers, until one of the rescue workers found him curled up and snoring in the library the next afternoon.
“We brought cedar-smoked salmon,” Helen announced. She had become far friendlier when she learned I was no longer welcome among the Porters.
“And a thank you from Laci’s and Hunter’s families.” Jeff dug a pair of knitted mittens and matching hat from the pocket of his sweatshirt and tossed them to me. “For taking care of the bastard who attacked their kids.”
They were surprisingly soft, gray with a dappling of black spun through the wool. “Thank them for me.”
“They’d been saving the yarn,” Helen said. “Spun it themselves.”
I hesitated. “What exactly am I holding here?”
Jeff chuckled. “Nothing too weird. They brushed it from Laci and Hunter the first year they went through the change. It’s tradition, at least in these parts. You spin the fur into wool and use it for something special. Wear those, and any werewolf will know from the scent to treat you like family.”
“Thank you,” I repeated, humbled.
“Won’t be long until word gets out about us,” Helen said. “The Porters are trying to cover things up, but it’s like trying to put the egg back into the shell. There have always been rumors about Tamarack, but now folks will start putting the pieces together. Two families have left town already. The rest are stocking up on weapons and ammunition.”
“If the Porters can’t stop the signal, they’ll do their best to control it,” Lena said.
“Has anyone in Copper River figured out what you do—what you used to do, I mean—on the side?” Helen asked.
“Not yet.” Earlier today, after attending the first of what would be many funerals to come, Pete Malki had asked about the additional trees in my backyard. Several of my neighbors wanted to know how my home had
