“Let go of the girl, LeFel,” Alun said low and clear, coming closer and closer, “or we’ll have ourselves a go at you.”
The brothers were smiling, eyes mad and drunken bright. They each brandished weapons in their hands: hammer, ax, and gun.
Shard LeFel’s gaze shifted between each of the brothers.
“Might be a good night for someone to die,” Cadoc said. He pulled a pocket watch out of his vest and pressed the winding stem down, sending the watch ticking.
Shard LeFel eyed the pocket watch, then let go of her wrist. “You are a waste of my time, poor Rose,” he said. “And so too your kind.”
Kind? Rose looked back to the Madders. Their expressions were unreadable. Was she somehow like them?
But as soon as the watch had begun ticking, the townsfolk seemed to wake up out of their sleep and the room came back sharp again, though not a person appeared to notice they’d lost a minute or two.
The Madder brothers stood shoulder to shoulder in the center aisle. They moved apart just enough to make a place for Rose to stand between them. She hurried to do so and walked with them back to the doors of the church.
“Think he broke your wrist?” the second brother, Bryn, asked as they walked forward behind Alun. Cadoc walked backward, watching LeFel.
“No,” Rose said as she rubbed at her hand to get the blood moving in it. “It’s fine.”
They were at the back pews now, and all the room was riled up again, mumbling and chattering, repeating the words “bewitched” and “deviser” and, most frightening of all, “burn her too.”
Her mother stood behind the last pew, face stoked red as a baker’s oven. She pointed at the door. “Get on home, Rose Small. Lock yourself in your room. You make me sorry I’ve ever called you my own. No wonder your mother left you to die.”
Rose opened her mouth, closed it around nothing but air. She had no words, not apology or anger, though both raged a wild storm in her. A deep, silent sob of betrayal twisted at her heart.
“Get home before I throw you out for good,” her mother said.
Alun Madder smiled at Rose’s mother and tugged his beard. “Maybe the girl’s old enough not to belong to anyone anymore, Mrs. Small.”
“You have no place preaching to me, Mr. Madder,” she said. “You and your dirty brothers don’t belong in this town.”
The Madders laughed, but Rose kept on walking, head up, arms straight at her sides, wooden as a doll. Her eyes burned with tears.
She pushed open the door and hit the fresh night air like she was running from a fire. She wasn’t running home. No, she’d never go back to that house. Never go back to those people. She didn’t belong there. She had never belonged there, and her mother had just put words to the truth they’d both been denying all her life.
There wasn’t a lock or latch that could keep her in this town a moment longer.
And there wasn’t anyone, or anything, that was going to keep her from helping her friend.
She ran straight down Main Street, the bits of metal and wood in her pockets jingling with each step. She had to get to Mae’s farm. Had to get there in time to warn her. Had to get there faster than the townspeople’s torches.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Cedar Hunt was halfway back to Mae Lindson’s house, having made his way to the Madders’ mine. He’d found the brothers gone, his clothes and guns wrapped up tidy as a parcel near their front door. Didn’t know where his horse was, either somewhere in the brothers’ mountain or maybe set loose. Didn’t take the time to track it down.
He’d promised Mae Lindson they would face the Strange together, but more than once he’d found himself blacking out in the saddle on his way back to her house, the wound stealing his strength and his senses away. Now he was on foot, pacing, waiting for the curse, the change, to slip over him.
The deep-belly warmth of the wolf stirring in him eased the pain in his side some. Maybe, he thought as he unbuttoned his shirt and folded it atop the mule’s saddle, the change would heal the wound. It would help; he was sure of that.
The moon, shaded to the waning, pushed up at the horizon’s edge as Cedar pulled off his boots, pants, and belt. He secured his clothing alongside the borrowed clothes and weapons, then drank down the last of the water from the canteen and secured it too.
He rubbed the mule’s muzzle, then pointed her in the direction of Mae’s house, and sent her on her way.
Moonlight, silver and pure, burnished the dry, golden land. And Cedar Hunt’s fingers found first the tuning fork, then the crescent moon and arrow chain still around his neck. He hoped the chain would help him keep his reason and wits one more time, so that he could find Elbert, find his brother, and hunt down Mr. Shunt.
He arched his back, bathing in the moonlight, no longer feeling the pain of his injury, no longer feeling any worries, any cares. If he couldn’t kill Mr. Shunt as a man, he’d sure as hell find a way to kill him as a wolf.
Cedar gave in to the change, relished the warmth and the thick haze of sensation that stretched and remade him. And then he lost himself, drowned himself in the killing needs of the wolf. And ran, toward town, toward Mae Lindson.
Rose Small considered not returning to her home. But there were things stashed there she might need, things that might help her save Mae. She ran up the porch stairs and through the main room to the stairs that led up to her bedroom tucked against the rafters. As she ran, her mind sorted options.
She didn’t have much time. If Mr. Shard LeFel had a few minutes more, she was sure the entire town would be marching out to burn Mae’s house down. Speed was the best she could do. Reach Mae before the town reached her. Warn her to run.
But if that didn’t work, they’d need weapons.
Rose pulled out a knapsack. The canvas was stiff, the buckles old, but strong. Into the bag she stuffed her spare dress, underthings, shoes, and sweater. She added the leather-wrapped tools Mr. Gregor had given her on the sly, and which she kept stashed beneath her bed, out of her parents’ sight.
She hesitated over the bits of brass and gears in the box under her bed. She had gathered all of it over the years, things she used to make things, fix things, devise things. She didn’t want to leave so much behind, but didn’t see how the weight of it, nor the bits themselves, would be of practical application tonight.
Instead, she packed bullets for her Remington and derringer.
Rose pulled on her overcoat. She’d added pockets on the inside of the coat, and into those she stashed bullets.
Rose found the messenger satchel, which she’d fashioned out of oiled leather. She tucked into it a sheaf of paper, pen and ink, her three books, and a thin but sturdy wool blanket.
Lastly, she drew her heartiest bonnet and a tool belt out from under her bed. She buckled the belt around her waist, holstering both guns into it, then put on the hat.
She took a moment to look around her room, at the only home she had known. Even though she wasn’t wanted, she would miss it. But it was time to move on. She’d known it for years. And now there was no denying it anymore.
Just as she turned toward the door, she saw one last thing. A palm-sized china doll that had been wrapped up in the blanket with her when she’d been abandoned on the doorstep. Impractical to take along now. She’d need room in her packs for other things. Like food.
Rose picked up the doll and hugged her tight to her chest. She had whispered all her hopes and fears to that doll, had held her and pretended she was a gift from her real mother, an admission that her mother left her behind out of love, not hate or shame.
“No place for you now,” Rose whispered to the doll. She placed her on the window, facing the street below
