I was not about to say watching you in the moonlight, and I was a little too emotional to think clearly and to admit I needed to apologize. “I wanted to go for a walk.”
“You didn’t get enough of that already?” he asked, and I thought how lame an excuse it was. He added, pointing towards the zipper. “We’re walking plenty tomorrow.”
“Fine.” Embarrassed, I pushed past him in the dimly lit tent so I could get to the door. I had too many emotions, and I didn’t really know what I was doing.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
“I never got to finish that walk.” My fingers fumbled on the tent zipper.
Greer came up from behind. “Like hell you do.”
“Want to make a bet?” I said. His hand clasped over mine, holding my hand and zipper down and shut.
Just as I was turning around to tell him off, something big thwacked against the tent, followed by a loud growl. I crawled to the other end of the tent, terrified for the moment the bird would tear through the fabric. Greer didn’t even bother to flinch.
“The tent’s impermeable,” Greer explained. “Hellfire couldn’t get inside.”
The bird jumped and hacked at the material with its big toe, but the tent didn’t budge.
“Forget the walk.” Bitterness and anger tinged Greer’s voice. “That bird will be at it all night. Besides, cassowaries aren’t the only things out there. There’s worse, much worse. At some point, I’d think you’d realize that. Looking at your history, tomorrow a penguin might do you in.”
“There aren’t penguins in the woods,” I said in defiance.
“Shows what you know. Your family created genetically modified animals to survive the different environments. They made America a living zoo. ”
“What? Penguins? How is that possible? They eat fish.”
“Not the Northeastern Termite Penguin, a poor and unfortunate freak of nature. Long-legged, with a tongue that can zip out at seven inches. Natural penguins have weird enough tongues, but the genetically altered ones are the stuff of nightmares. You should see the Mid-Western Hyena. They eat rats in a way that makes you feel sorry for the rat.”
I moved next to Greer on my sleeping bag. “I thought the koala—”
“Were the only animals? Or that they only release cute, fluffy animals? The Merrics don’t think like that. They add whatever animal they like. Tilbolt Merric thought the country needed kangaroos. Grenoble Merric thought we could use more jaguars. Melville Merric added ten thousand wild poodles.”
The Merrics. “What else is out there?”
“I don’t think you really want to know.” Greer slipped off one of his boots, followed by the other. He had cooled down considerably, and he was acting so natural, like nothing out of the ordinary had happened. The bird still slashed at the tent to try to get at us. “Genetically modifying the animals can increase aggressive behaviors.”
The bird rammed the tent again. “How much longer is it going to keep this up?”
“He’ll go all night.”
He had saved me yet again. Again and again, this guy had been my hero, and I kept bringing him into danger.
“We need to talk, you know,” I said to him.
To my surprise, Greer responded with, “I know.”
I took a deep breath and moved across from Greer so I could look him in the face. “I’m not too trusting. I mean, I used to be. I grew up trusting that people were good. My mom always said there were more good people in this world than bad. I didn’t know the man posing as my uncle was one of the terrible ones, and I didn’t trust the Diddles. I ran into Nate because I was lost.”
Greer stared down at his feet. “Looked like you were running away to get back to the Merrics.”
“Bollard’s a vile human being, and I’m terrified of him.” Tears were filling my eyes. “I don’t ever, ever want to see him again.”
“But you walking off like that almost brought you right back to him,” Greer explained, and he looked up at me. “Do you know what would have happened if the Diddles had called the Libratiers and not those hunters? I’d be worse than dead by now and you… you think losing a day’s memory is bad? They’d have taken your memories all the way back to before the Boston attack. Heck, they’d likely take all your memories back to the day you left home and erase the whole summer.”
“They can do that?” Oh God. My face fell. Of all the things I had considered might happen if they captured me, losing all my memories wasn’t one.
“And worse, but you already know that, don’t you?” Greer’s jaw tightened.
Lothaire, the nightmare, the bird, Claudette, and now me. I shrugged and said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Greer shook his head and took a deep breath. “You play innocent well, I’ll give you that. But it’s a lie, isn’t it? I could forgive you going to talk to the Diddles. You’re practically a kid—“
My hands flew to my hips. “I am not a kid. I graduated high school and I’m almost eighteen.”
He held his ground. “I could forgive the Diddles. It was poor judgment. Reckless. I hoped the nightmare was a side effect of all you’ve been through but after yesterday… how am I supposed to testify for you at the trial?”
“Trial? What Trial?”
“Yes, the Galvantry trial. The trial that decides if the Galvantry will help you or not. I took you assuming the Merrics had never trained you.”
“I’m not following,” I said, because I wasn’t.
Greer’s eyes narrowed. “I know what it all means; I’m not new to the Merrics. The nightmares, the hypnotism.”
My eyebrows squished together, and I shrugged. “What does my nightmare have to do with me accidentally doing what I did yesterday?”
“Accidentally?! Waverly, it takes years of training for a Merric to entrance a group of people and especially to leave out a selected—it took Queen Bianca nearly two years before she could hold the trance. Claudette took four years.”
“I wasn’t trained.” When he didn’t look as if he believed me, I
