Branches whipped past her face. She made it back to the road just as it broke out from the surrounding bush, revealing a shallow basin in the clearing: Silver Springs. Her brain felt like it was short-circuiting as she stared out over the clearing and its just-finished houses.
She’d seen the plans—they all had, that Christmas just gone. Sheena’s mum had grumbled that she was surprised Fiona and Rena hadn’t given them all copies of the blueprints as presents. Not the properties themselves; oh, no. Silver Springs was the result of years and years of investments and planning. Once the houses sold, Fiona and Rena would be set for life.
On the plans, everything had been neat and tidy. Clusters of houses—some designed to look like alpine chalets, some drawing on the classic design of good old Kiwi corrugated-iron sheds—connected by a road that wound through the basin in tandem with a picture-perfect stream. On the far side of the basin was the house that had started it all: Rena’s family home, a patchwork homestead with generations of additions and add-ons. The design of the new houses had drawn from this original: the angle of the roof here, a bay window there, wood or metal cladding there. Chaotic, but beautiful. The perfect combination of Fiona’s inner sheep and Rena’s inner tūī.
That was on the plans. In person, it was on fire.
Sheena tried to think past Oh God, it’s all on fire, but it was no use. Her brain kept circling back around.
It’s all on fire.
She breathed out hard. When the vapor cleared, everything was still all on fire.
Which was all the opportunity her sheep needed to panic.
Run! it bleated, and off Sheena went, zig-zagging down the road to the nearest cul-de-sac like a mad rugby ball. Not into the fire! she shrieked at it as her legs carried her along with her sheep’s mad instincts. “Not into the—aaargh!”
Flames roared from the nearest house. Heat slapped her face, viciously close. Shocked, her sheep let go of her body and Sheena stumbled back, not stopping until she was back on the tree line.
What is wrong with you? she asked her sheep as her chest heaved.
Someone might be trapped in there!
Sheena gritted her teeth. Maybe her relatives were right about her, after all. She couldn’t be trusted to look after herself. And you wanted to help them by getting us both burned alive? We’re not fireproof, remember? Just like we’re not barbed-wire-fence-proof and hole-full-of-boiling-mud-proof!
Wool is a little bit fireproof, it muttered.
It’s not—
Better than acrylic! it chirped. Actually chirped. Sheena groaned and buried her face in her hands.
‘Better than acrylic’ isn’t going to help against THAT! Sheena almost choked as the breeze carried a waft of stinking smoke over to her. Besides, who were you planning to save?
Silver Springs was a ghost town. There weren’t any cars in the driveways; no one was living here yet, were they?
Just Fiona and Rena.
Fiona and Rena, who were meant to come and pick her up. And hadn’t.
Sheena’s heart thudded in her throat.
*FIONA!* she shouted, sending her telepathic voice out like a fishing line across the basin. *RENA! ARE YOU THERE? CAN YOU HEAR ME?*
There was no response. Her fishing-line didn’t catch on anyone’s mind… which wasn’t unusual. She always had trouble directing her telepathy towards anyone she couldn’t see. It was as though her sheep’s miniature-ness was reflected in all aspects of her shifter powers: her telepathic abilities, her control over her sheep when she was in human form, everything.
Sheena bit her lip so hard she tasted blood.
There was one other thing she could do before chucking herself straight into the fire. Being a sheep shifter was good for more than getting her into trouble. Aunt Fiona and her mate were part of Sheena’s flock, and that meant she had other ways of sensing them.
“Ohh, I hate this I hate this I hate this,” she muttered, and opened her mind.
The world in front of her eyes went fuzzy. But she didn’t let herself close her eyes completely, even if she wasn’t going to be using them for a few minutes. Please let this not be a mistake, she thought, and looked out across the fire with her psychic senses. She was looking for other minds—other members of her flock, whose psychic presence pinged her sheep’s all-clear signal—and this was always, always when things went wrong for her.
Opening her telepathic senses like this always made her feel so vulnerable. She never felt as small as she did when she was seeing everyone else’s psychic presences laid out in front of her like a string of Christmas lights. Lambs were full of bright, bounding energy, older sheep shifters glowed like friendly hot coals, and Sheena was… small. Like a candle that could be pinched out. In her more generous moments, Sheena thought it was no wonder everyone in her family treated her like a porcelain doll. Most of the time, she was just annoyed, and kept fences up around her mind so that people couldn’t see just how snuffable her flame looked and would have less reason to coo over her.
She gritted her teeth and tried not to think about that. If Fiona and Rena were around, she would be able to see them. She strained her mental eyes, hunting for any sight-feel of either of them—Fiona’s wooly bonfire, Rena’s warbling flutteriness. Anything.
There was nothing. Sheena sighed with relief and was busy reeling in her mind again when something moved at the far reaches of her psychic senses. She gasped. It wasn’t a member of her flock, but it was someone. Not a light, but a presence.
Vaguely aware that the fuzzy non-psychic world was moving around her, she tried to focus her mental vision. The light pulsed gently, then flickered out.
For once, Sheena was glad to refocus on the real world and find she’d wandered off. Especially since she hadn’t wandered into the fire. She was halfway around the tree line, arcing towards her aunts’ house—exactly
