“Come on.” She threw another bite of tuna to the rolpie and led her into the tea-colored water. Cerise wrapped the leash loop tighter around her wrist and slid her arms around Nellie’s narrow neck. “You get the rest when we get home.”
Cerise clicked her tongue and the rolpie took off down the stream.
TWENTY minutes later, Cerise shut the gate on the rolpie enclosure. Someone, probably the younger boys, had made a reasonable attempt to repair the chain-link fence, but it wouldn’t hold if Nellie decided to ram it. In the twisted creeks and rivers of the swamp, rolpies were vital. In some places, the water was completely stagnant and the swamp vegetation blocked the wind. The rolpies pulled the light swamp boats all over the Mire and helped save gasoline.
As long as a human was present, Nellie was an excellent rolpie: obedient, sweet, powerful. The moment you took the person out of the equation, the silly beast freaked out and tried to take off.
Maybe she had separation anxiety, Cerise reflected, starting up the hill toward the Rathole. Segregating Nellie into a smaller enclosure would just lead to disaster. Knowing her, she would bray night and day, because she was alone. And reinforcing the big fence would be too costly and take too much labor.
Cerise chugged up the hill to the Mar family house. Water dripped from her clothes and squished between her toes inside her boots. She wanted a hot shower and a nice meal, preferably with some meat in it. Things being what they were, she’d settle for fish and yesterday’s bread. She’d have to oil her sword, too, but that was part of living in the swamp. Water and steel didn’t mix very well.
The Rathole, a sprawling two-story monster of a house, sat on top of a low hill. Fifty yards of cleared ground separated the house from the nearest vegetation. The kill zone. Fifty yards was a lot of ground to cover when you had rifles and crossbones trained on you.
The ground floor had no entrance or windows. The only way in lay up the stairway to the second-floor verandah. As she approached the stairs, a small shape slipped from behind the verandah’s colonnades and sat on the stairs. Sophie. Lark, Cerise corrected herself. Her sister wanted to be called Lark now.
Lark gave her a weary look from under dark tousled hair. Her skinny legs stuck out of her capris like match- sticks. Mud smudged her calves. Fresh scratches marked her arms over the old bruises. She hid her hands, but Cerise was willing to bet that her nails were dirty or bitten off, probably both. Lark used to be a bit of a neat freak, as much as an eleven-year-old girl brought up in the swamp could be. All gone now.
Worry pinched at Cerise. She kept her face calm. Show nothing. Don’t make her self-conscious.
She came up the stairs, sat next to Lark, and pulled off her left boot, emptying the water out.
“Adrian and Derril are riding the Doom Buggy through the Snake Tracks,” Lark murmured.
The dune buggy was a hell mobile made of pure fun. In fact, Cerise had snuck away with it before and had so much fun, she flipped it over. But touching the dune buggy without adult supervision was strictly forbidden. Stealing it and wasting expensive gasoline was punishable by three weeks of extra chores.
Of course, both fifteen-year-old Adrian and his fourteen-year-old sidekick, Derril, knew this and could handle the consequences. The most pressing issue was that Lark just tattled. Lark never tattled.
Cerise forced herself to calmly pull the other boot off. The very basis of her sister’s personality was changing, and she could only watch, helpless.
“The boys didn’t take you with them?”
The answer was so quiet, she barely heard it. “No.”
Six months ago, they would have. Both of them knew it. The urge to reach out and hug Lark’s bony shoulders gripped Cerise, but she kept still. She’d tried that before. Her sister would stiffen, slide away, and take off into the woods.
At least Lark was talking to her. That was a rare thing. Normally, Mom was the only person who could get through to her, and even she had a hard time drawing Lark out lately. The kid was slipping away into her own world, and nobody knew how to pull her out.
“Did you tell Mom?” Cerise asked.
“Mom isn’t here.”
Odd. “Dad?”
“They left. Together.”
“Did they say when they would be back?”
“No.”
Cerise tensed. In the Mire, the resources were few and the people were many. The families fought tooth and nail over the smallest things. Almost every clan was in a feud, and theirs was no exception.
The feud between the Mars and the Sheeriles had started eighty years ago and was still going strong. Sometimes it burned bright and sometimes, like right now, it smoldered, but it could burst into open warfare at any moment. The last time the feud had flared, Cerise lost two uncles, an aunt, and a cousin. The standing rule was: you go out, you let someone know where you’re going and when you’re planning on coming back. Even their father, who was the head of the family, never strayed from this rule.
Anxiety rolled over her. “When and why did they leave?”
“At sunrise, and they left because Cobbler got his butt bit.”
Cobbler, an old wino, bummed about the swamp doing odd jobs for moonshine. Cerise never cared for the man. He was mean to the kids when he thought their parents weren’t looking, and he’d stab anyone in the back just out of spite. “Go on …”
“He came over and told Dad wild dogs got into Grandpa’s house. They chased him and one bit him on the butt. His pants had holes.”
Sene Manor had been boarded up for years, ever since their grandparents had died there of red fever twelve years ago. Cerise remembered it as a sunny house, painted bright yellow, a spot of color in the swamp. It was an abandoned wreck now. Nobody went near it. Cobbler had no business going there either. Probably was looking for something to steal.
“What happened next?”
Lark shrugged. “Cobbler kept talking until Dad gave him some wine and then he went away. And then Dad said he had to go and take care of Grandpa’s house, because it was still our land. Mom said she would go with him. They rode out.”
Getting to Sene Manor by truck was impossible. They would’ve ridden out on horseback.
“And you haven’t seen them since?”
“No.”
Sene Manor was half an hour away by horse. They should’ve been back by now.
“Do you think Mom and Dad are dead?” Lark asked in a flat voice.
Oh, Gods. “No. Dad’s death with a sword, and Mom can shoot a Mire gator in the eye from a hundred feet. Something must’ve held them up.”
A muted roar rolled through the trees—the dune buggy’s engine getting a workout. Dimwits. Didn’t even have the patience to turn the engine off and roll the buggy back up to the house. Cerise rose.
“Let me deal with this, and if Mom and Dad aren’t back by the end of the hour, I’ll go and check it out.”
An old dune buggy burst out from between the pines, splashing through the mud on its way to the house. Cerise raised her hand. Two mud-splattered faces stared at her from the front seat with abject horror.
Cerise drew in a deep breath and barked. “Cramp!”
Magic pulsed from her hand. The curse clutched at the two boys, twisting the muscles in their arms. Adrian doubled over, the wheel spun left, the dune buggy careened, and the whole thing toppled onto its side in a huge splash, sliding through the sludge. The hell mobile turned, vomiting the two daredevils into the mud, spun one more time, and stopped.
Cerise turned to Lark. “Feel free to go over there and kick them while they’re down. When you’re done, tell them to clean everything up and head straight to the stables. Aunt Karen will be overjoyed to have two slaves for the next three weeks.”
Cerise took her boots and headed into the house. The vague feeling of unease matured into full-blown dread in her chest. She had to figure out what had held up her parents, and the sooner the better. For a moment she almost veered toward the stables, but riding out by herself would be just asking for trouble. She needed backup, someone steady in a fight. Better to spend an extra ten minutes gathering help now than regret it later.
