The Last Inn

by Rachel Gay

  Part of her wanted to ask the two how their search for the wolf had gone, but when she tried to bring up the subject Terra just shook his head and muttered something about “muddled tracks” while Lani smiled and changed the subject.

  She wondered why she bothered. Erin reminded herself of what she had said earlier: it was Kota’s problem, his curse, not hers. The more she thought about it, the more she realized that she was sick and tired of curses and wolves.

  She thought about this the whole time she ferried dishes out to the guests and to those townspeople who had come for the food, and by the time the dirty plates were back in the kitchen she was more than ready to sit down at a table with some of the guys from the town patrol and a group of people on their way to the city.

  “I’m from Valre, a village east of here,” one of the young women with the group told Erin. “It’s even smaller than this place.”

  “Really? Why are you going to the city?” Erin asked.

  “For work,” the girl said with a shrug. “The capital is always looking for new help, you know. Some of the factories and schools even send out recruiters, like the one who came to my village.”

  “You’re all going to work at the same place?”

  The girl laughed and the guy sitting next to her shook his head and said, “No, we’re just traveling together for safety. A few of us were talking about getting a room together, but Lucy and some of the others don’t have to worry about that. One of the perks of housework, I guess.”

  “Yes, sweeping and dusting is going to be wonderful,” the girl said with as much sarcasm as she could muster.

  Erin thought about this while the others talked. Recruiters never came to this town. She guessed they figured if anyone wanted to go to the city they would just do it, but no one ever left.

  She wondered if she could just pack up and leave for the city. Moving to the inn was supposed to have been a trial run, after all, and a way to earn some money to get by on once she was there. She had never really planned on a certain time to leave, or even exactly what she would do once she got there. Now she was thinking it would be worth working for Madame Elzwig even if it meant getting out of here.

  “Erin?”

  Erin jumped at the sound of Kota’s voice and looked around. Nearly everyone else had gone home or to their rooms, and the fire in the grate had died down while she wasn’t paying attention.

  “Why don’t you go to bed?” he asked gently.

  Erin stared up at him, wondering how he could act so nice after everything she had said to him earlier. Didn’t he ever get mad, or have regrets, or do anything just because he wanted to, and not because someone had asked or told him to do it? Why couldn’t he be selfish, or even the least bit normal?

  “What?” he asked, after the staring went on for a little too long.

  “You’re weird,” she muttered, not expecting him to hear over the sound of the chair scraping back.

  “I know,” Kota answered with a smile that only frustrated Erin more.

  Entry 55: The Show Begins

  Midnight found Kota sitting in a chair close to the low fire, which provided the only light in the inn’s common room. Occasionally he would turn a page of Sollis’s journal, but otherwise he stayed so still that an onlooker would have thought he had fallen asleep.

  In fact, when his head dipped down again and the worn out journal started to slide out of his hands, there was someone watching, and she used the moment to ease her way down the stairs and walk up to his chair unnoticed.

  “If you fall asleep like that, you’ll wake up with a crick in your neck.”

  Kota’s head snapped up and he nearly knocked his chair over trying to look around. Seeing Lani smiling down at him, he stood and said, “I’m sorry, did you want something?”

  “I couldn’t sleep,” the young woman announced as she walked over to the fireplace and leaned against the mantel. “Do you always stay up like this?”

  “Yes, usually,” Kota said. He glanced at his chair but remained standing like Lani.

  “It must get boring, sitting up all night.” It was hard for Kota to read Lani’s expression with the firelight behind her, casting a shadow over most of her face.

  “I find ways to keep busy.” Kota noticed that he still had Sollis’s journal in his hand and moved it so that Lani would not notice. “Are you sure I couldn’t get you something to drink?”

  “No, I don’t think a drink will help me get to sleep,” she said, shaking her head. Her ponytail, now untidy, lost a few more strands of dark hair, one of which caught on the corner of her smile. “Would it be okay if I sat up with you, for a little while?”

  “Er...” Kota hesitated, during which time she pulled a chair up next to his and sat down, patting the seat of his chair until he followed suit.

  “This is cozy, isn’t it?” Lani stretched her feet out toward the fire and sighed. “It’s just so cold up in my room, you know?”

  “I’m sorry,” Kota said automatically. “I could find you some more blankets–”

  Her hand grabbed his when he started to stand and Lani said, “Really, it can wait, Kota. That’s your name right, Kota?”

  Kota nodded and sank back into his chair.

  “Everyone in town talks about your cooking,” she said, propping her chin up so that she could sit and study his face.

  “They do?”

  “Oh, yes. The ladies say you might look like a scarecrow, but you sure know your way around a kitchen.” Lani grinned at Kota’s expression and added, “They say even Madame Elzwig herself tried to buy you out.”

  “Do people really talk about me that much?” Kota asked, failing to sound as casual about it as he meant to. “I’m sure they have better things to talk about.”

  “I’m sure they’ll have more than enough to say about me and that hunter after today,” Lani remarked. “They love their gossip, these people. They ate up the story about the wolf and those shadows.”

  “You told them about that?”

  Her bright eyes examined Kota’s face with an intensity that worried him as she said, “Why not? You tell people a little story, and they’re more likely to tell you something in return.”

  Kota turned that over in his mind and nodded. “So you spent all day asking around after the wolf?”

  “Oh, no, I don’t need to ask around about that.” Lani laughed, but quickly stopped when she realized how loud the sound was in the quiet inn. “No, that was before I made a few arrangements for tomorrow.”

  “What sort of arrangements?” Kota asked, not needing to fake his interest.

  Lani leaned forward so that she was uncomfortably close to Kota and said, “Now why would I ruin the surprise? I just hope you’ll be there to see it all this time, instead of the tail end of things.”

  Kota shrugged. “Well, I can’t make any promises if I don’t know what you’re talking about, but if you need me...”

  She reached out and brushed the side of Kota’s face with her hand before he pulled away, coming unnervingly close to touching his mark. “I will.”

  Lani smiled again and stood up before stretching and faking a yawn. “Well, I suppose I’ll see you in the morning. Goodnight, Kota.”

  Kota did not answer, not that she waited for him to do so. He heard her go up the stairs, and as soon as the sound of a door opening and shutting reached his ears he rubbed at his face to try and get rid of the feeling of her touch.

  Lani did not wait long that next morning to put her plan, whatever it may be, into action. Just as the first guests prepared to head on their way after breakfast, she stood in the center of the room and declared, “Ladies and gentlemen, as you may or may not know, I am a tamer. If any of you would like to watch a demonstration of my abilities for free, please follow me to the edge of the forest.”

  “And just what are you going to do?” Terra asked from his place near the stairs, speaking over the other guests.

  Lani smiled, her eyes finding Kota as she said, “I am
going to summon the unnatural wolf that has been plaguing this village and put its exploits to rest.”

  Terra snorted and shook his head, but a murmuring started among the others. The inn soon emptied as a stream of followers trailed Lani toward the line of trees in the distance.

  “You’re not going?” Terra asked Erin and Kota as he paced across the floor, watching the group walk away through the windows.

  “I, um...” Erin hesitated and glanced at Kota, who was sticking close to the kitchen door, out of the sunlight.

  “I can stay here and watch the inn,” Kota said, and Erin nodded. It gave him an excuse to stay behind, indoors. “Are you going, Terra?”

  “I could walk Erin there,” he said quickly. He stopped his pacing and added, “You know, since you don’t like the forest and all.”

  “Thank you,” Erin said, able to tell that more than one person needed an excuse. “I’ll tell you what happens later, Kota, okay?”

  Kota nodded and watched them leave, noting that whatever Terra thought of the tamer’s abilities, he did grab his bow and arrows as he left. The moment they were far enough away, Kota bolted out the back door. It meant going far out of the way to the north and back around to come at the group from the side of the forest, in the shape of the wolf no less, but he had no intention of waiting around to see what Lani had planned.

  By the time he came close enough to the group to hear what was going on without being spotted in the brush under the trees, Lani had already started into some grandiose speech, full of words designed to keep an audience guessing. Tamers, besides their own natural talent, were born and bred to thrill a crowd.

  Just as she reached the point where the first of the guests would start to get antsy, Lani said, “Now for the summoning. I advise you to step back, as there is no guarantee what or how many fell-beasts may come.”

  Even the most skeptical of the people took a step back at this, leaving a wide ring around the tamer as she raised her golden flute to her lips and began to play.

  In the forest, Kota’s mind erupted into an explosion of noise and agony, in the process losing all control over what happened next.

  Entry 56: Taming

  The sound that came from beneath the trees, like a growl and a snarl wrapped up in one and closer than anyone expected, made more than one person jump. Even Lani missed a note in the strange, complicated tune she was playing on her flute, but she recovered just as fast and did not stop playing.

  As the music grew faster, the snarling came closer until it became a long, low rumble from the chest of the wolf who emerged from the bushes.

  Erin gasped, but for a different reason than most of the others around her; this wolf seemed a far cry from the Kota she knew, the rake-thin wolf who cowered away when it could not run or hide. If not for the mark over its eye, she would never have connected him to this massive wolf, made even bigger by the ridge of fur standing along its back and wide, gaping jaws locked into a grimace.

  The wolf shook its head but continued coming closer to Lani, drawn by the song of the flute. Beside Erin, Terra reached for an arrow even as the wolf’s muscles tensed to leap, but he did not have the chance to shoot before Lani’s preparations she had told Kota about became evident.

  The tamer risked moving one hand from the flute to make a gesture, and at the sign a light flashed in the treetop overhead, just before a ball of fire swooped down over the wolf and curved back up into the air.

  Terra swore, and ducked like the rest when the flame dove down again, so close to the wolf that the canine stumbled over itself trying to get out of the way. Erin watched, hand over her mouth for fear that she would call out and give Kota away, as the flying flame drove the wolf first one way, then another, until Lani nodded and blew a different note, this time long and shrill.

  The wolf shook its head again and dropped to the ground, trying desperately to put its paws over its ears and block out the sound. It did not even see the dark brown shape that pounced on it, its wide, spade-like paws forcing the wolf to the ground.

  Lani stopped playing the flute and bowed to the onlookers, or at least those that had been brave enough to stick around. “And that is how it is done, ladies and gentlemen.”

  The guests of the inn clapped, one or two giving a whistle, and Erin supposed she was the only one who heard Terra’s teeth grinding. One lady asked, “What are you going to do with it now?”

  “Tame it, of course,” Lani said, rolling up her sleeves as she said it. “Like Arlo and Junta here. Arlo?”

  The ball of fire swooped down again, and the same lady gave a shriek as it landed on Lani’s shoulder. The fire disappeared, leaving in its place a beautiful bird that looked like a flame, or a flame that looked like a bird; it was hard to tell which, when the phoenix rustled its wings to steady itself.

  Which made the creature pinning down Kota Junta, a creature about the same size as the wolf whose long, dark brown hair looked like it had been made out of mud. Its elongated face and small, round ears resembled that of a badger’s, and overall it looked like something that had just popped up out of the ground.

  “What does she mean, tame it?” Erin asked Terra out of the side of her mouth as she watched Lani bend down in front of the struggling wolf.

  “Magic,” Terra said, his face twisting at the word. When he saw Erin’s reaction, he said, “What, you think those two listen to her because she gives them treats? Tamers control their beasts with spells and tricks. Like puppets.”

  “Whereas you just want to kill it for fun,” Lani retorted, easily able to hear what the hunter said when he made no point of lowering his voice. “Do stop the high and mighty act, it’s getting old.”

  Terra’s face flushed as those around them laughed, but Erin had stopped listening. She stared in horror as the tamer placed her hand on the wolf’s head, just above the ears, and tried desperately to think of a way to stop this.

  She thought Kota might bite her, but the wolf merely struggled and whined to get away. Lani laughed and murmured something to the animal that Erin could not hear, but she could see the wolf’s eyes widen as the tamer’s hand began to glow softly.

  She also saw the wolf open its jaws and bark, the sound not bothering Lani but having a definite impression on the bird on her shoulder. The phoenix gave an undignified squawk and tried to take off, bursting into flame as it did so. Junta, or the mud badger as Erin thought of it, jerked back to get away from the fire so close to it, and the wolf used the movement to spring up, toppling Junta off.

  Lani screamed before she could stop it, and the wolf licked her face and ran as fast as it could into the woods, faster than any of the bystanders were coming forward to help the screaming, cursing tamer up off the ground. It would have outrun Terra’s arrow as well, if the hunter could have stopped laughing long enough to shoot.

  “Oh, shut up,” Lani snapped at Terra as she dusted herself off. “I came closer than you ever will!”

  Terra kept laughing, his face turning red as he fought to breathe, and the tamer’s own face flushed scarlet when she heard a few chuckles among the other guests of the inn. She looked around and scowled when she saw the wolf was long gone.

  “I’m not done yet,” she said and ran back toward the inn with her mud badger following at a more sedate pace due to its short limbs and bowlegged walk.

  Erin exhaled deeply as the other guests started to walk back toward the inn, talking and laughing among themselves about what they had just seen. No doubt they would be telling others about the marked wolf who outwitted a tamer wherever they went to next.

  She rubbed her eyes and looked at Terra, who seemed to be getting a hold of himself. “Were you worried she was going to get the wolf before you could?”

  “Me, worried? No, of course not,” Terra said, proving that he was a terrible liar. That, or his voice always cracked and Erin just hadn’t noticed it until now. “The pets were a surprise though, but I guess I should have expected them.”

  “They definitely
surprised the wolf,” Erin said, staring at the ground while they walked. She remembered the wolf coming out of the woods, massive and feral and completely unlike the Kota she knew, and she shuddered. Was it just Lani’s flute that made such a difference?

  “Too bad Kota missed all of the fun,” Terra said, startling Erin. “I can’t wait to tell him all about it.”

  His smile suggested that he planned to tell the story where Lani could hear him recount the whole thing, and Erin nodded before she remembered that it could be a while before Kota showed back up. “Maybe you should wait a while, until it slows down a bit?”

  Terra could hardly argue when they came back into the inn and found that everyone was more than ready to leave now. Watching the tamer work had been fun and all, but as one of the women told Erin as she returned her keys, no one wanted to stick around and see if the wolf made a return appearance.

  It wasn’t until the last of the guest left her alone with Terra that Erin thought to wonder what could be keeping Kota so long, or where Lani had disappeared to after the failed taming.

  Entry 57: The Closet

  Kota lay curled up in the dark, his arms over his head to block out the sounds coming from downstairs. Getting past Erin and the other guests had been simple enough; they were all too busy talking about the wolf to notice him as he slipped in through the kitchen and fled up the stairs to his room.

  He replayed the incident at the edge of the forest over and over again in his head, but every time he remembered that moment when Lani started playing her flute he curled in further on himself to try and escape the shame.

  How did it happen? Surely it couldn’t have just been the music, but no other answer presented itself except for one he did not want to consider. Everything had become a red haze of anger and rage, and even now he wasn’t entirely sure what he meant to do when he stepped out from beneath those trees.

  Something small and fluffy maneuvered its way through his arms to look in at his face and squeak.