The lowly guards were assigned specific locations to protect: the crop fields, the orchards, or the livestock. They had to remain in one location all day or all night, depending on their shift. Willa had no idea how they didn’t fall asleep while engaging in such mindless, boring work. The Scouts, on the other hand, regularly enjoyed a change of scenery and experienced exciting adventures on a near daily basis.
She aspired to be a Scout one day. Someone with her intellect wouldn’t be assigned permanent grunt work like laundry hanging or crop tilling, and she knew it. But first she must turn sixteen and become proficient with a rifle. While the notion of killing forest creatures didn’t appeal to her, hitting the hand-drawn bullseye at the gun range did.
Movement from Harlan snapped her out of her reverie. He was signaling to stop-and-squat. That meant he had heard something out of the ordinary. She wasn’t alarmed, though. This usually happened in the vicinity of the perimeter during exiting and re-entering. This time, though, Harlan’s body language seemed more tense than usual. When he tilted his head back and sniffed the air like a bloodhound, her inner danger-radar blared.
“Cricket,” she hissed, then made a hand motion when his head swiveled in her direction. The well-trained Cricket dropped flat on the ground. He would pay for that later, she thought. The unfortunate timing placed him in a particularly nasty patch of smilax vines. Those cat-claw thorns could rip exposed flesh handily, and pierce lightweight clothing. Poor Cricket wore his jacket tied around his waist. His bare arms would be shredded like he’d crawled through barbed wire.
Willa’s hearing was no match for her brother’s, but it was still excellent. Lying flat on the ground, she listened for what might have registered on Harlan’s sensitive eardrums.
Muffled crunching of dead leaves in the cadence of footfalls. The snapping of a small tree branch, immediately followed by silence. Perhaps the perpetrator knew he’d screwed up, thus the silence to regroup and take the full measure of the mistake. Any woodsman worth his salt didn’t step on brittle tree branches in the forest when he was trying to be stealthy. The thought triggered an image: the handsome woodsman from Fergus’s fairy tale who vomited digestive juices to liquefy the Barbie monster. Another thought followed on its heels: that of the gingerbread house-dwelling witch who had prevailed against the over-confident child and her brother.
Two minutes passed. The crunching footfalls resumed, and they were coming closer. She slipped her fingers into the pocket of her jeans and withdrew her new knife. After a gentle press at its base, the stainless steel blade gleamed in the late afternoon sunlight.
A snuffling sound resonated from the direction of the broken tree branch. Was it a bear? Bears lived in the forest, of course, but they usually avoided humans. During their adventures, they had never encountered one. What was the correct protocol during a bear confrontation? Playing dead was definitely not the way to go. She remembered that, at least. Were you supposed to be loud? Make yourself appear large and aggressive? Yes, that was right. And one more thing. Never turn your back on a bear.
The snuffling stopped, but the crunching of leaves continued. She rolled onto her stomach, then lifted her torso off the ground just far enough above the brush to see what was happening. Movement in the murky depths caught her eye. A blurred shape darted from behind a giant pine tree, then disappeared behind another.
Willadean wasn’t so confident that she believed three children could overpower a bear. So was it a good thing or a bad thing that the shape wasn’t bear-like? Somehow, the remaining options felt more ominous. If a Scout found them outside the perimeter, Mama would ground them to the village for weeks. Maybe even months. If it was a stranger, the outcome could go one of two ways. Bad stranger equaled danger. Good stranger, no harm, no foul...everyone could go about their respective business. If it was the dangerous woman on the loose that their benefactor Ray had mentioned in the note, they might be in serious trouble.
Seconds ticked by. She strained her ears. Snuffling sounds emanated again from the gloomy forest.
She smiled. Now that the snuffling was closer, she recognized who it belonged to. “Pops!” she called. “Over here!”
With his ancient shotgun in hand, her grandfather came into view. She saw a look of relief cross his wrinkled face.
“You kids will be the death of me. I been worried sick,” he said when he caught up to them.
“Why?” She frowned. Most likely, Pops knew about their forays beyond the perimeter, though they didn’t discuss them. She hadn’t given Pops the specifics of why he needed to cover for Fergus, and he hadn’t asked. Plausible deniability and all that. They were close enough now to the perimeter that she could deny realizing they had traveled beyond it. But with her grandfather, she wouldn’t need to deny anything. She suspected he didn’t ask a lot of questions because he already knew the answers.
“Can’t explain it. Just got a feeling.”
“Pops, you’re shaking.” She stared at the trembling hands in surprise. For such an old coot, they were still plenty strong. Strong hands didn’t tremble; weak ones did. The thought of her grandfather becoming frail sent a wave of nausea through her belly.
“Told ya. I been worried sick.”
“But why? Why is today different than any other day when we’re out...uh, playing?”
“Can’t explain it and you know why. Come on. Let’s get going.” He shot furtive glances behind them as they plodded through the woods.
“Seriously, Pops. What is going on?” she said once they’d gotten through the perimeter. Pops had given two men a cursory nod as they passed fifty yards in the distance. The Scouts had identified her
