by Tess Grant
Hunter’s Moon
By Tess Grant
Digital ISBNs:
EPUB: 9781772994278
Kindle: 9781772994285
WEB: 9781772994292
Print ISBN: 9781772994308
Copyright 2017 by Tess Grant
Cover art by Michelle Lee
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means ( electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book.
Chapter One
The tang of old pennies hung in the air. Kitty was smart enough to know she hadn’t stumbled on some stash of long-buried loot. No self-respecting pirate would be caught dead in the middle of the Michigan woods.
That coppery smell was blood.
Maddie had the scent too. The golden retriever pressed forward, nose scuffling through the mulch. Her fluffy tail hung inactive. A wiggly rear end might divert too much energy from her nose.
Somewhere high above, a cloud ghosted over the sun, and the forest light grew dark green and cool. Kitty moved forward slowly. It would be just perfect to step into the middle of something completely nasty. Her shoes still looked mostly decent after a winter indoors. A big smear of muck across the toes would really round out her look.
Maddie suddenly growled, stopping dead. One paw hung suspended in the air and her body tensed.
“Maddie? What’s the problem?”
The retriever lowered her head to the ground, slowly pacing a circle. Kitty leaned over the spot that had thrown the dog off. Maybe it was a coyote. Maddie hated them.
A paw had indented the soft ground right where the aging dog had spooked. Kitty nodded—positive it was a coyote—and crouched down next to it to get a better look. Maddie circled around her, chest rumbling. Kitty knew a little about prints. Her dad had been pointing them out to her since she could walk. Deer and rabbit marks were everywhere, but this didn’t belong to one of the gentle guys. It had the four toes and pads of a predator, and it was big. Laying her hand over top of it, she could spread her fingers and barely cover it. Deep claw marks dug into the leaf mold ahead of the pads. Cats sheathed their claws when they walked; this was some sort of huge canine.
If this was a coyote, it was mutant. What sort of a thing made a print like that?
Kitty moved forward into the deep shadows under the trees. Something dead was in there. Flies buzzed and whirled under the trees. Maddie stayed where she was, guarding the print.
The carcass lay half-hidden under some ferns at the base of a broad oak. It was a deer, or what was left of one anyway. Its soft tan hide lay torn; its white stomach stained brown with dried blood. Great gashes ran the length of it, shoulder to haunches. Kitty’s stomach churned. This was about killing to kill; not one bite was missing. Sickened, she turned to leave, halting at the sight of the head. She had assumed it was at the end of the neck tucked away unseen under the bracken. She was wrong.
Completely detached, it lay under the next tree.
Whatever had done this was no dog.
A cold drop landed on Kitty’s cheek, then another. Rain. Glancing up, she could see through the gaps in the early May canopy. The innocent little cloud that had skated across the sun earlier had morphed into a monster. Gray and angry, it covered everywhere she could see. Maddie growled again and Kitty checked the dog. Normally Maddie would be all over something dead—nosing it, rolling in it—but the ghost of whatever made that print held her interest more than a good roll in the bloodstained leaves.
Kitty moved toward the dog. Drips came faster now, and it was definitely darker. Outside the trees, it must be raining hard.
“Come on, you big bad thing.” She leaned over Maddie and rubbed her ears gently. “You scared it off alright. Let’s get on home.”
She knelt next to the dog, clucking and cooing. A twig snapped behind her, sharp against the hiss of rain off the new leaves.
Kitty moved fast but Maddie moved faster. The retriever bolted into the dark shadows containing the carcass. Kitty spun that direction too, heart pounding.
Don’t turn your back on it, her mind warned. Maddie wasn’t enough to hold off whatever had sliced up that deer in there.
In the murky shadows, she caught a glimpse of a man sliding behind a trunk. Blue jeans, plaid work shirt, white hair.
She squinted into the gloom. He was gone. She couldn’t see anything but tiny leaves wagging side to side, dripping in the spring rain. A branch twitched low in the undergrowth, and she caught a glimpse of Maddie, but even she disappeared. Shaking her head to clear her eyes, Kitty tried one more time. No one. Nothing.
“Maddie? Maddie?” Her voice barely penetrated the shade. “Maddie? You’ve got two seconds, and I’m going.” Nothing but the rain answered, pattering against the dead leaves on the ground. “I’m serious, dog.” Talking to Maddie made her feel calmer. It wasn’t as weird as talking to herself, and it took her mind off the rapidly darkening woods and the torn-up deer. It reminded her she wasn’t alone.
Maddie materialized out of a cluster of ferns, skirting the deer and picking her way toward her owner.
Kitty blew out a breath of relief. “You almost got left behind. Let’s go.”
She took one last look before turning to jog home, but there was nothing to see. Nobody hiding behind a tree. Nothing moving. Something about that plaid shirt and blue jeans was familiar, gnawing, but she couldn’t pull it up. Whoever he was, he was gone.
Kitty started after Maddie, down the trail to home. She pushed the rain out of her eyes with the back of her hand. Between the dark and the spring storm and the dead animal, maybe she’d imagined the whole thing. Maybe he’d never really been there at all.
* * *
Kitty burst into the house, dripping onto the hardwood floor in the entry. Maddie slid in behind her, releasing the lovely perfume of wet dog into the mudroom.
“Kitty? Where have you been?” Her mom, Anne Irish, poked her head around the corner of the kitchen. Her short dark hair stood on end as if she had been running her fingers through it. She probably had—she always did when she was worried. “You just kind of disappeared.” Anne looked at the small puddle gathering around Kitty’s feet and curled a lip in mock disgust. Holding her palm out to Kitty and the dog to keep them at bay, she whisked across the dining room into the small bathroom. “Let me get a towel. For both of you. You’re soaked.”
Kitty looked down at her jeans, dark blue and clinging to her legs. Soaked pretty much covered it. She kicked her shoes off. So much for trying to keep them clean out in the woods; they were a mess now.
Anne came out of the bathroom, flinging a towel at Kitty’s head. When it flopped over her daughter’s face, she laughed. “Two points.”
“Thanks a lot, Mom.” Kitty pulled the clip that held her shoulder-length brown hair up and began massaging her head with the towel.
“So where were you?”
Kitty heard the creak of one of the old wooden chairs by the table that meant her mom had taken a seat to hear the story.
“Up in the woods.” Kitty pulled the towel down just in time to see her mom’s face blanch. Oh boy, she thought, here it comes.
“Kitty,” her mother started, standing up and coming closer. “We’ve been over this. I don’t want you up in the woods right around the full moon. Before, during, or after.”
Kitty bent over Maddie. Her mom had tossed a beat-up towel at the dog too, and it had landed square on Maddie’s back. She began roughing up the dog’s fur. She didn’t need to see her mom’s face. She’d heard the lecture before.
“I
’m serious. All the crazies come out around this time of the month. Something about the tides and biorhythms. The emergency department visits go way up. You need to stay out of the woods.”
Kitty could see her mom’s shoes out of the corner of her eye. Anne’s foot started to tap. Bad sign. Kitty stood up and shrugged. “Sorry. I just forgot.”
“Forgot? It’s been the same rule forever.”
“Dad always reminded me.” Her mother’s foot still tapped, so Kitty tried again. “I’ll try to check the calendar from now on.”
Her mother sighed. “I’m not just saying it, really.” She took the towel Kitty offered, then hesitated. “Hold on a minute. Could you take Maddie out to the workshop for the night? I guess I should have mentioned that before you got dry.”
Kitty cocked her head in confusion. “What do you mean?”
Anne rolled her eyes, like her daughter was too dim to get it. “Well, now you’re going to get wet again.”
“I get the wet thing,” Kitty said, feeling exasperation rise. “What do you mean, put Maddie in the workshop?”
Anne took a deep breath. Kitty could tell she wasn’t going to like whatever was coming. Her mother always took that one-before-the-plunge breath when she had bad news.
“Maddie is going to sleep in the workshop from now on.” She turned and walked back into the kitchen.
Kitty dropped Maddie’s towel on the bench near the door and followed her mother. She wasn’t worried about getting the floor wet any longer. “What do you mean?” she repeated for the third time.
Anne stiffened and spun around to face Kitty. Her voice was low, almost silky—a full one hundred eighty degrees from her laughter a few minutes before. “You heard me. The dog is sleeping in the workshop from now on. Nights and whenever we go somewhere.”
Kitty saw her little brother Sam, small and blonde, come in from the living room, drawn by the siren call of an impending argument. She ignored him.
“Do I get to ask why?”
Her mother sighed. “That dog is getting old. She’s incontinent, she drools, she throws up. Wherever she sleeps, she leaves a mess. I can’t have her in the house anymore.”
Anger bubbled in Kitty’s stomach. She wouldn’t win this fight—she never did—but she might as well go down swinging. “Mess? What difference does it make? This house is a pigsty anyway.”
Kitty saw her mother’s nostrils flare. Point scored.
“You’re right, Kitty. It needs some cleaning. But in case you haven’t noticed in your wanderings out in the woods, I’m back at work full time.”
“Oh, I’ve noticed. The emergency department this, the emergency department that. I’ve noticed nothing gets done around here.”
Anne nodded her head, her smile tight and angry. “That’s right, dear. That’s where you come in. Time to step up to the plate and help out. Now that school’s almost out, you can add cooking and cleaning to your slate.” She turned back toward the stove. “That way, things will get done around here. Now put the dog out.”
“You can’t do that. Dad wouldn’t….”
Her mother spun back toward her and her words came out choppy and cut off. “I guess that still hasn’t sunk in either. Dad’s not here. I am. He’s behind some sand heap in Iraq fighting this stupid war.”
A memory flashed into Kitty’s head. Departure day. Her father in desert camo standing on hot airfield tarmac at the base, running a hand over his newly shorn head. “Let Mad keep an eye on you, Kitty. She’s good protection.”
A tiny straw but Kitty grasped at it. “Dad wanted her in the house. To protect us.”
Anne snorted. “Protect us from what? This is Maddie we’re talking about. She’d hold the door open for people and give them a guided tour. I know you’re upset. But I can’t do this anymore. The girls at work think I should have her put down. I’m only putting her out.”
She walked past Kitty into the living room. As she went by, she shot Kitty that mom look, the one that meant, “Do what you’re told, because this discussion is over.”
Her footsteps faded as she went upstairs.
Kitty started back toward the entry. Sam silently watched her go, eyes wide. The air throbbed in the aftermath of the argument, pulsing with the blood in her ears.
Kitty snapped her fingers at the dog, and Maddie started forward. She wouldn’t be so eager if she knew what was in store for her. Kitty let the farmhouse screen door slap shut behind her and started down the two-track that led to the old red barn. She thought that if she turned, she would see her mom watching her from the upstairs window like when she was a kid going out to play. Anne always used to wave from that window.
“I don’t want to see her,” she muttered.
But underneath a thought pulsed, nagging that nowadays her mom might not be watching her at all. Anne was either too wrapped up in her new duties as father, breadwinner and handyman to care or driven away by the arguments that came more and more often. It always started the same way. The two of them would be fine, laughing and joking. Then one of them would say something, do something, to set the other one off and boom—fight time. Kitty wondered if she’d make it off to college alive. Sam had been right to stare. When her dad had been home, he had been both glue and peacemaker, but the fracture lines were forming, deepening with every angry word.
The big barn had been converted into a garage, not that anyone ever used it—too much pigeon poop—and the granary had become her dad’s workshop. Yanking open the small door, Kitty stared inside. She had to admit it was homey enough. The stained and nicked plywood shell of a room held three or four different saws, and a couple of workbenches ringed the walls. Shelves connected the work areas and tools littered them still, months after Nate Irish had left. A few curling photographs of her dad and his friends were thumbtacked to the walls. Tucked under the last shelf on the far wall was a nubbly blanket neatly folded across a pad of eggshell foam. Maddie’s bed. Mom had already moved her out.
Heavy white poster board leaned against the wall, and as the door rattled, the sheets slid down spreading a white blanket across the oil-spotted floor. Kitty shuffled it angrily into a pile and threw it on the workbench. It slapped down next to an unopened pack of Sharpies. She sighed. Must be some school project of Sam’s, she thought, making “Stop, drop and roll” posters for fire safety week or “Plant a tree for Arbor Day.”
Kitty wished she were ten years old again, worrying about what to draw on some stupid poster. But she was seventeen and she was stuck right here.
The dog sat in the doorway watching her. The workshop steps gleamed dark with rain. Her butt was wet already; she might as well sit down. Plopping down next to Maddie, Kitty hung her arm over the dog’s shoulders. She glanced at her parent’s bedroom window. A figure stood silhouetted against the light. Her mom.
She glanced away in a hurry, gazing instead out past the turnaround driveway. Beyond the road, the wall of trees stood. In the growing dark, their fresh leaves hung silver, roofing over the gloom underneath.
In there lay the shreds of a deer and a paw print like nothing she had ever seen.
Twin beams split the gloom as a car came up the hill. Maddie stood up and trotted to meet it as it turned into the driveway. A girl leaped out and ran toward the barn, hands fanning the air over her head as if she could open a dry tunnel through the rain. She bolted up the stairs past Kitty and into the workshop.
Kitty laughed as she followed her in. “What are you doing here?”
Her friend Jenna shook the rain off like Maddie coming out of a bath. “What my mom doesn’t know doesn’t hurt her. I took a little detour from the grocery store.”
“More like a big detour,” Kitty said. The town grocery was close to five miles away, and Jenna’s house was on the opposite side.
“I gotta make it fast, so she doesn’t suspect. I have this great idea,” Jenna gushed. “You’re going to love it.”
“Hmmm.” The last time Jenna had an idea Kitty was supposed to love, they’d
both ended up with a C-minus on their joint science presentation. Kitty leaned on the doorjamb, studying the woods. Had she really seen somebody in there? All the crazies come out around the full moon. Did they?
“Jenn?” Kitty turned around suddenly. “Do your parents act weird….”
“All the time,” Jenna interrupted her with a giggle.
“Not like that. I mean…” Kitty’s gaze flicked up to the upstairs window. The light was off and her mother was gone. She looked back at the woods, leaves bobbing in the spring rain. “Never mind.”
“So listen,” Jenna said, waving her hands. “School’s out in three weeks, right? Dance team tryouts are in two.”
Kitty’s gut lurched. Jenna bringing up the dance team was not a good sign. It hadn’t come up since freshman year, so Kitty had thought she was safe.
“I’ll come up with a routine. We’ll start practicing and ta da!” Jenna pirouetted in the middle of the workshop. “On the team for our senior year.”
Looking down at her bare feet and wet jeans, Kitty frowned a little. “I’m not sure that’s the best idea. I’m not really dance team material.”
“You’re going to love it.” Jenna patted her arm and jumped down the workshop stairs. “Gotta go,” she yelled as she ran across the yard. “Mom’s going to kill me if I don’t get home.”
Kitty raised a hand as the car pulled out onto the road. Its headlights punched into the shadows under the trees for a second then as it turned, the trees dropped back into darkness. She pushed Jenna’s visit to the back of her mind as she stared across the road.
Her dad’s voice whispered in her ear. “Keep Mad around. She’s good protection.”
Yeah, but from what?
Chapter Two
This is so not good, Kitty thought. How had she let Jenna talk her into these tryouts? Oh yeah, she’d never really said yes. That little detail hadn’t blipped Jenna’s radar.