by Anne Bishop
Considering this was his new assignment, that did not bode well for him because it could be a visual opinion of the last police officer who had manned the station.
“It’s a temporary reassignment,” Captain Hargreaves had said.
“I don’t work and play well with others. That’s why I work highway patrol,” Grimshaw had growled. “Why can’t the town boys from the CIU team talk to the villagers? It’s their investigation now. Let one of their own park behind a desk in Sproing.”
Silence. He’d been working at the Bristol station under Hargreaves for only a couple of weeks, but he’d already learned to be wary of that weighty silence.
“There’s something damn strange about the CIU team from Putney jumping on this case when it should be outside their jurisdiction,” Hargreaves finally said. “So I want someone in the village who reports to me and can handle the day-to-day business during this investigation, and I’ve decided that someone is going to be you.” After a moment, he added, “We need to be careful. Can’t afford to step on any toes. Town boys don’t always appreciate that when they come into a small place like Sproing.”
In other words, despite all the evidence over the past year of how the terra indigene respond to things they don’t like, the CIU team might want to treat this investigation as if they were dealing strictly with other humans.
So there he was, the temporary officer in charge of the police station in Sproing while the Putney CIU team looked into the suspicious death of Franklin Cartwright—if the business cards he’d found near the body actually belonged to the victim.
Captain Hargreaves had told him the station would be unlocked, and if it wasn’t, he should check with the mayor or with the tenants who had offices on the second floor. The door was unlocked, so Grimshaw went inside to look around, glad he didn’t have to talk to anyone yet. Finding a set of keys in the middle drawer of one of the desks, he pocketed them, assuming they had been left for him. He also assumed the landlord—or the holding company that owned the building—had a set for the station as well as the two offices on the second floor. One office was rented by the village’s lone attorney. The other? Hargreaves didn’t have information on the other tenant.
Two desks, one on either side of the room. Two chairs to go with the desks and a visitors’ chair in front of each. Gun cabinet empty of firearms. A cell in the back part of the building—more accurately, a room with a single bed and a rickety bedside table, bars on the window, and a barred cell door. Storage room for supplies and a wall of filing cabinets that actually had files, although nothing current. A bathroom that included a shower cubicle. A small kitchen area that contained an old refrigerator that still worked and a new coffeemaker.
If push came to shove, he could bunk at the station until he found temporary lodgings.
Grimshaw ran a finger over the desks and was surprised that he didn’t swipe away more than a thin layer of dust—nothing more than what you’d expect just before the weekly cleaning. So the grungy feel was more from age and dingy walls, not a current lack of upkeep.
He wasn’t sure if that was better or worse.
Having seen his new headquarters, he stepped outside. The village hall, which housed the courtroom as well as the offices for all the municipal services, was on one side of the station. The lone bank was on the other side.
Directly across the street from the police station was a store called Lettuce Reed.
“By all the laughing gods,” Grimshaw muttered as he crossed the street. Was it some kind of produce market? Or something more esoteric and borderline legal?
As his foot hit the sidewalk and he saw the sign in the window announcing a sale on used books, it hit him. Lettuce Reed. Let Us Read.
“Cute.” He hated cute and was already predisposed to dislike the froufrou owner of the place.
The wooden door stood wide open. Grimshaw opened the screen door and went in. As his eyes adjusted to the darker interior, he had the unsettling experience of recognizing the man standing behind the information island in the front part of the store.
“Hello, Julian,” Grimshaw said.
“Hello, Wayne. If you got pulled into this business with the dead body, then I’m sorry for you.”
A decade ago, they had been cadets together at one of the Northeast Region’s police academies and had remained friends until Julian disappeared a few years after graduation. But it had only been because of the events of the past year—events that had rocked the whole continent of Thaisia—that Grimshaw had pieced together enough information to make some educated guesses about Julian Farrow.
Julian had been a brilliant cadet. While he didn’t excel to the point of ruining the curve for the rest of them when it came to some of the tests, he had an uncanny ability to sense his surroundings and know when something was off, even when there was no indication of trouble.
During the academy drills, he knew when police needed to go down an alley with weapons drawn and when their mere presence would break up—or calm down—whatever trouble was stirring. Once he was on the force, that ability had saved his fellow officers too many times to count. Which was why the Incident was more damning than it might have been.
Julian had uncovered some bit of naughtiness—probably some kind of corruption within official or police circles. The kind of naughtiness that destroyed careers and came with prison sentences. But no one was really sure, because one night when he was on the late shift and his partner had called in sick, Julian responded to a call for assistance. When he arrived, he didn’t find the frightened woman who had called the emergency number; he’d found five men wearing balaclavas waiting for him. Wielding clubs and knives, they jumped him before he could draw his weapon and fire.
Or tried to jump him. He hadn’t walked far enough into that alley for them to make a thorough job of it. Two of them managed to stab him and a couple more landed damaging blows with clubs before Julian shook free and ran for his life.
Maybe he’d been disoriented. Or maybe his uncanny sense of place, which seemed to have let him down in that alley, started working for him again. How else to explain why he turned down another alley, one that ended at a solid wall. He’d scrambled up on the big garbage containers and managed to get over the wall before he blacked out, having lost a lot of blood.
That was the testimony he gave: he blacked out and couldn’t provide any information about what walked into that alley behind the five men who were chasing him. But something did. Something large enough and powerful enough to eviscerate five men before ripping off their arms, their legs, and their heads. The savagery had shocked the entire police force in the Northeast Region, to say nothing of causing a panic among the citizens in human towns who had thought they were safe from the terra indigene as long as they stayed within town limits.
No one could prove Julian hadn’t blacked out, that he hadn’t heard everything that happened to those men. No one could prove he’d chosen that alley with the intention of trapping those men. No one could prove he was anything but the victim of attempted murder—or assault at the very least if the men were only supposed to “discourage” him from further investigations into the naughtiness.
No one could prove anything. But everyone on the force who had gone to the academy with him or had worked with him knew about his ability and were certain he hadn’t chosen that alley at random, that he’d known in some way that it was his only chance of escape.
And no one could prove that he’d sensed what would happen to the men who followed him into that alley. But two of those men were fellow officers, which caused a stink and all kinds of investigations. In the end, Julian was awarded a settlement for his wounds, which were declared grievous enough to end his career as a police officer, and he disappeared.
Until now.
Grimshaw looked around. Didn’t seem to be a thriving business, but that could just be the time of day. “A bookstore?”
“Have to make a living,” Julian replied. “I like books, like to read.”
And I know an evasive answer when I hear one. “Why here?”
“Why not?”
Grimshaw rested both forearms on the island, a relaxed “Let’s shoot the bull” stance. After a moment, Julian mirrored his posture so that, at first glance anyway, they looked like two friends just catching up with the “How’s your life been?” news.
“Why are you really here?” Grimshaw asked. “Before you try to bullshit me, let me remind you that I’m not stupid and we do go back a ways. And there was always something a little hinky about the way you left the force.”
“You think there was anyone on the force who would want to work with me after the Incident?” Julian countered.
“I would have.” Simple truth. He studied the man who had been his friend. “Why didn’t you tell anyone you’re an Intuit, that your ability wasn’t exclusive to you?” He made it sound like he’d known for a while instead of waiting now for the answer that would confirm his educated guesses.
“And risk exposing my people to discrimination or persecution?” Julian’s gray eyes looked as hard as stone. “We’d already been down that road, already had the experience of how other humans responded to our ability to sense things. That’s why our communities are in the wild country—and why we don’t admit what we are when there is a need to spend time away from our own.”
“Now that some Intuits have come out of the closet, so to speak, it’s been estimated that one out of three human communities in the Finger Lakes area is an Intuit community or a mix of Intuit and Simple Life folk,” Grimshaw said.
“Something that still isn’t commonly known outside of government and police circles, and which communities are Intuit hasn’t been confirmed. And the Finger Lakes, or Feather Lakes as the Others call them, are the wild country. There isn’t a single human-controlled village on any of these lakes. Being part of the highway patrol, that is a fact you know well.”
Yes, he did. “If you had to keep what you are a secret, why not attend an Intuit police academy in one of your own communities?”
“There wasn’t one. Not then. There are a couple of them now in the Northeast Region for the men who feel the need to serve and protect.”
Grimshaw continued to study the man who had been his friend. Julian’s dark hair was long enough to pull back in a tiny tail, but he wore it down so it looked shaggy—or maybe just disheveled in a way that might appeal to some women. A lean build and finely sculpted face with a thin scar across one cheekbone, a souvenir of that attack—or maybe just the scar that people could see. Grimshaw suspected Julian Farrow had a few other scars from that night that weren’t on the skin or visible to the eye.
But he’d also been a good cop. Even more than that, he’d been a good investigator.
Which left the question: what had Julian Farrow really been doing all these years?
“You sure that’s all you’re doing here in Sproing? Selling books?”
Julian looked toward the screen door. Grimshaw thought he heard a quiet scratching on the screen, but when he looked over his shoulder he didn’t see anything.
“I have just the thing for an evening read,” Julian said. “Something I doubt you would have read before.” He walked into the back area of the store and returned a minute later. He placed two books and what looked like a narrow trencher on the counter. Opening a container, he put ten pieces of carrot on the trencher and walked over to the screen door. He propped open the door with a gallon jug that must have been filled with sand or water—Grimshaw couldn’t tell which from where he was standing—and set the trencher on the floor just inside the threshold.
As he walked back to the island, he held up two fingers and said, “Two pieces for each of you.”
Grimshaw stared at the critters who gathered at the door. Five of them. For a moment, he wondered if Julian had gone completely out of his mind to be feeding giant rats. But the faces didn’t belong to rats. What could look that happy about a piece of carrot?
“Alan Wolfgard writes thrillers,” Julian said when he resumed his place on the other side of the island’s counter. “And the other is a mystery written by an Intuit writer.”
“What the fuck . . . ?” Grimshaw whispered. Then he caught the warning in Julian’s eyes and picked up one of the books. “Never heard of Alan Wolfgard.” But he knew the name meant the author was a terra indigene Wolf. “You like his stuff?”
“I do. And his perspective on the genre is . . . different.”
I’ll bet.
“And something you may find useful,” Julian whispered.
Hearing a scraping at the door, Grimshaw looked back to see the five whatever-they-were push the wooden tray to one side of the door. Then they made that happy face and hopped away. Not like a rabbit or anything else he’d ever seen.
“Those are Sproingers, from which this village takes its name,” Julian said.
“But what are they?”
“That’s a question. I’ve collected books about places all my life, especially books that have photographs of wildlife and plants from other parts of this continent as well as other parts of the world. My best guess is the template for the critters we know as Sproingers came from the continent of Australis.”
“That’s so far away it might as well be another world,” Grimshaw protested. How many weeks on a ship would it take to reach such a place? “How could a critter from . . .” Then what Julian had said hit him. “The template?”
“Among the odd things about Sproingers, besides the fact that they’re here at all, is that there are always about a hundred of them, and on this continent they can only be found around Lake Silence,” Julian said. “They have no natural enemies—they’re big enough to take on any domestic cat, and dogs back away from them—but there are never more than a hundred. There are bobcats who live in the woods, as well as coyotes—both ordinary animals and terra indigene. Nothing touches the Sproingers. So they’re a bit of a tourist attraction with their happy little faces and the way they hop around and stop at various stores for treats. And while they stuff their faces, they listen to everything that’s going on around them.”
“But they’re not predators,” Grimshaw said. “There has never been a known form of terra indigene that wasn’t a predator.” The terra indigene, the earth natives, the Others, were, as a group, the dominant predators throughout the world, and they could be a terrifyingly efficient killing force, as humans had learned last summer.
“That’s true,” Julian agreed. “Sproingers aren’t predators. I doubt the same can be said about their other form.”
“Do you know what that is?”
“Something dangerous.” Julian hesitated. “Did you wonder about the name of the store?”
“I thought some froufrou idiot owned the place.”
Julian laughed softly. “I opened the store last fall. After the terra indigene swept through Thaisia last summer and killed so many humans during the Great Predation, a lot of stores in Sproing were suddenly without owners, either because the owners died or the people packed up and ran. The bookstore, such as it was at the time, was one of those places. The owner’s heirs wanted to sell fast and get to anyplace that was human controlled. I bought it.
“It was around dusk one day before I officially opened, and someone stepped into the store. She looked small enough to be a child, but she never came all the way into the store and the light was such that I couldn’t see her clearly. She asked if I was going to open the story place, and I said I was. She asked what the name would be, and I told her I hadn’t decided yet and maybe she could help me pick a name.
“I didn’t think anything of it; just a curious child. But two days later, she walked into the store at dusk and placed a scrap of paper on the counter with two words carefully printed out: Lettuce Reed.”
&nbs
p; “Let Us Read. She chose words that sounded correct.”
Julian nodded. “Either she didn’t know better, or she was testing me. Either way, that’s how the store got its name. Now five of her kind come to the store once a week, at dusk. In fading light, you could mistake them for human. They have the right shape, mostly. But they’re not human. I’m not sure what kind of terra indigene they are, but I am sure they’re predators of the highest order, and they live somewhere around this lake. They come in and each of them buys one book. Sometimes they return a book for a used-book credit and tell me why they didn’t like it. Other books they like a lot, so I suggest other stories that might appeal to them.”
Grimshaw thought about that. “Five Sproingers come for carrots every day?”
“Most every day. They don’t show up on Earthday, when the store is closed. But I don’t think my book buyers and the Sproingers are the same beings—although it’s possible that one kind of terra indigene has chosen to take two very different forms in order to keep an eye on things around this part of the Northeast.” Julian looked at Grimshaw for a long moment. “Wayne, something is going on in Sproing. You should be careful about who you choose as allies.”
A shiver went down Grimshaw’s spine. No idle warning. Not when it came from Julian Farrow.
“What do you know about Victoria DeVine?”
Julian thought for a moment. Too long a moment?
“She’s a nice woman,” Julian finally said. “Smart with a sassy sense of humor; she doesn’t hurt other people’s feelings in order to be funny. The Jumble was part of her divorce settlement, along with a cash payment. She sunk the cash into the property, which needed repairs as well as new windows, new wiring, plumbing, septic tank. You name it, the place needed it. She managed to fix up the main house and three of the guest cabins. Now it’s a game of wait and see if she can get enough guests on a regular basis to be able to keep the place going. I haven’t witnessed one, but I gather she’s experienced mild anxiety attacks since her separation and divorce, but for the most part has handled the challenges of living in an isolated spot like The Jumble. As far as having paying guests, she has a prime beach, which is available only to her guests—something some of the villagers resent because it’s bigger than the public beach area at the southern end of the lake. I guess people got used to using The Jumble’s beach as if it was public land and don’t like it being off-limits.”