by Devon Monk
He rubbed his hand over his eyes, scrubbing at them for a good bit. “That’s right. We did, didn’t we? My apologies, Mae.”
“None needed,” she said. “How are you feeling?”
“Human. As I prefer. Thank you. For that.” He smiled, and that charm he’d possessed since birth shone through. “Though I have a strong hankering for cinnamon. I don’t suppose there’s a stick of it anywhere around these parts? Or a dash of it in tea?”
“Might have something in my coat pocket,” Cedar said.
“Did you hear what it is we intend to do this night?” she asked as she found Cedar’s coat hanging on the chair, and rummaged in his pocket.
“I think so. The Madders are set on us hunting the Holder, because that is what the Madders are always set upon, near as I can tell.” He pushed up and sat, resting his back against the wall without a pillow to ease him. “Father Kyne is hoping we will search for the children. We’ll be looking for the children, won’t we, brother?”
He rolled his head to the side and gave Cedar a knowing look.
Cedar nodded. “Children first.” He didn’t have to add of course. After he’d suffered his own daughter’s death, he’d lost his strength to brush the pain of any child aside. If he could help, he would. “We hunt the Holder at the end of the night, if we have we have time.”
“You never disappoint,” Wil said, not unkindly.
“Put on your pants,” Cedar said. “I’ll find your boots.”
Cedar stood, and was glad there was no pain. He had expected to suffer for this respite of the curse he had carried for so many years. But this was Mae’s spell. She had yet to cause him pain.
“Your things are here, Wil. I brought them from the wagon.” Mae placed a folded stack of clothes on the blanket. “Boots are by the door. Also, this.” She handed him the small cinnamon hard candy Cedar had kept in his pocket.
“Oh…you are an angel,” Wil said as he reverently pulled on the candy’s wax wrapping and held up the disk of sugar like a man studying fine wine.
“Thank your brother. He’s the one who remembered it last town we stopped through. I’ll leave you to dressing.”
Wil popped the candy in his mouth. “God. Oh, God. This…” He closed his eyes, rolling the candy around in his mouth. “How did you know?” he sighed.
“You always want cinnamon when you’re back in your own skin.”
“True. I tried it in wolf once.” He frowned. “It was like licking a rusty pipe. Hideous. But this, this is so…so…” He just closed his eyes again, a smile across his face.
Mae walked out of the room and shut the door behind her.
Cedar stared at the door for a moment, wondering if casting the spell had fatigued or harmed her. She didn’t appear to be overly tired, but then, she often kept such things behind a calm exterior.
“Have you asked her yet?” Wil asked.
“Hmm?” Cedar said, coming out of his thoughts. “Asked her what?” He reached over for his gun belt hanging on the wall peg.
“You know what.”
Cedar did indeed. He had confessed last month in those scant hours when he and Wil could converse that he wanted to marry Mae. He had also said he didn’t know when to ask her.
“It hasn’t even been a year since her husband passed,” Cedar said, plucking up his ammunition belt. “I don’t want her to feel I’m expecting anything of her.”
“You do see the way she looks at you, don’t you?”
“Wil. There isn’t time for that now.”
“There is tonight. And I’ll have plenty of time to convince you that there is an honest woman who I’d love to share our family name with, in a brotherly way.”
“I am aware. Very aware.”
“So then, brother. Do I need to also remind you that most women won’t wait forever? Not in this quickly changing world. What if some handsome man comes along and persuades her away with his wiles?”
“Wil. I have never taken your advice when it comes to matters of the female persuasion. I see no need to be doing so now.”
“Life changes quickly, brother. As I reckon it, you and I change rather quickly ourselves.” He chuckled under his breath and stood up, stretching up onto his toes and reaching fingers toward the ceiling. “Love being tall. Love it. Don’t love being unfurred in this weather, though.” He shivered, then quickly dug about for his undergarments, and pulled those on, followed by breeches, shirt, and an overshirt.
“Socks. I’ve been looking forward to these.” He sat down and bunched up a pair of thick wool socks, then dragged them over his bare toes. “So…snuggly. Ah, my loves, how I’ve missed you. Seriously and completely. I’d wear six pairs, if I had them.”
“Your feet wouldn’t fit in your boots,” Cedar said. Wil was like this when he took man form. No, Wil had always been like this. Enthusiastic about life, with a delight for all sorts of things. His attitude was infectious.
“Almost wouldn’t care,” Wil said. “But this. This is a boot.” He held one up and kissed the top of it, then shoved his foot into it. “Plenty of room in the toe, soft on the arch, royal of bearing. Built for a king.”
“Hurry up, your majesty,” Cedar said. “There’s work to be done.”
“Tell me you don’t love a good boot after tromping around barepads for days on end.” Wil stood and buckled his belt.
“True. Although I’d go without, as long as I could have a cup of coffee.”
“Right, of course. So would I. Speaking of which, are we in luck?”
“We are. Kitchen’s this way.”
“So is Mae, I believe. How are your knees?”
“Why?” Cedar asked.
“Just wondering if you’re capable of a bended one.”
“Won’t be asking her tonight, Wil.”
“If we don’t keep hold on the life we want, it’s likely to just wander away.”
“It’s been a while since I’ve heard you in a philosophical mood,” Cedar said. “Must be the full moonlight’s set you romanticizing.”
Wil laughed. “My words are falling on deaf ears, I’m afraid.”
“For now,” Cedar said, settling his coat over his shoulders and buttoning it up. “We have hunting to do.”
Wil strapped on his gun and gun belt before shrugging into his coat, tugging it straight, and then latching it closed.
Making a point not to meet Cedar’s gaze, Wil said, “Last I knew there were no laws against a man hunting more than one thing at once.”
“I suppose,” Cedar said.
Wil hooked laces up his boots and pulled them tight. “So you’re still not going to talk to her tonight?”
“There are children to save, Wil. Everything else can wait.” Cedar gave his brother a smile. “But the night’s young. I’m of a positive considerance you’re not going to stop talking about it until dawn.”
Wil grinned as he adjusted his hat. “Reckon you know me pretty well.”
They left the room and found Mae waiting in the kitchen. She had on her long coat, a pair of breeches tucked into her boots, and a hat pulled tight to her chin. She was also carrying a shotgun.
“Are you ready then, gentlemen?”
“I’d be wasting my time asking you to stay, wouldn’t I?” Cedar said.
“Yes.” She opened the door. “I’ve hitched the mules to the wagon and filled it with blankets. If we find the children, we’ll need some way to bring them back. I promise I won’t get in your way.”
“I’ve never once worried about that,” Cedar said. Then, “Are you sure you shouldn’t stay with Father Kyne? To see that he’s tended?”
Wil tugged on a thick pair of gloves and worked on settling a length of wool around his throat to cover the grin he was giving Cedar. Ask her, he mouthed.
Mae had, thankfully, turned her attention to the weather through the door’s window.
“Thank you, Mr. Hunt,” she said as she drew her scarf around the bottom half of her face, “for thinking of him. But he will b
e fine. Now. Let’s hunt for the children so you can hunt for the Holder.”
“Have I mentioned how I always enjoy your company, Mae?” Wil asked. “And my brother, he just can’t stop talking about how much he likes having you around.” Wil stepped outside and gave Cedar a big wink before offering his arm to help steady Mae across the icy ground to the wagon.
Cedar sighed and followed them, closing the door behind him.
For a moment, the world slipped and his vision split in two. He was outside the door to the church and he was inside, lying in a bed, staring at the ceiling, the beast calling his name.
He shook his head and the double vision faded. But for that second, he had seen through his own eyes and through Father Kyne’s. He glanced at Wil, who hadn’t missed a step. He must not be experiencing the same thing.
He considered saying something, but decided this was too rare an opportunity to turn away from. They’d hunt for as long as they were able.
Mae had seen to it there were two horses saddled along with the wagon.
After making sure Mae was settled in the driver’s seat of the wagon, Wil swung up on one of the horses. “I’ve missed this,” he said as Cedar, already in his saddle, sent his mount across the snow. “Would you like me to take the lead?”
“No,” Cedar said. “We can’t strike out into the night on a gut feeling. Not in this weather. Mae?” He took his horse to the side of the wagon. “Is there any kind of spell that might locate the children? I’ve done some hunting and found no real signs of them today other than frozen footprints by the river.”
“I don’t think so,” she said. “I tried scrying for them when you were in town.” She shook her head. “Father Kyne gave me this.”
She handed him a pink ribbon. “He said it belonged to Florence, the Peters’ daughter. He didn’t know if it would be useful. Perhaps for a scent?”
Cedar took the ribbon fluttering in her fingers and held it in his palm. The song of the Strange rose soft from that thin strip of silk. The Strange had touched this ribbon. Maybe they had touched the girl who it once belonged to.
He offered the ribbon to Wil. As soon as Wil grasped it, his eyebrows hitched up. “Strange,” he said. “Think you can follow that?”
Cedar nodded. “You can’t?”
“Usually I’d say yes, but this”—he pointed at his chest—“change makes me a little uncertain about the whole thing.”
“Just tell me if you see something I don’t.” Cedar took the ribbon back and placed it in his pocket next to the small piece of copper.
He turned his horse down the lane following the hint of Strange song caught and muffled in the cold wind.
Wil’s senses might feel unreliable, but Cedar’s were very foggy. He could hear the Strange, he could smell them, but he didn’t see a single creature.
When they reached the end of the lane, Wil spoke. “Do you see that?”
Cedar scanned the darkness. “No.”
“There are ribbons of light, like trails tracing along the street.”
“I don’t see anything.”
Wil dismounted.
“What are you doing?” Cedar asked.
“I’m going to find out what they are.” Wil stepped into the center of the street, spreading his bare hands as if trying to catch the nature of the wind upon his fingertips.
“What do you see?” Cedar asked.
“A thin pink string of light runs down the street. There’s other lights, like ribbons in all sorts of colors, coming from all the roads to this one. And none of them are higher than my waist.”
“Do you think it’s the Strange passing through?”
Wil shook his head. “I hear singing, Cedar. Children singing. Laughing. Some are crying. When I stand in these ribbons, I hear their voices. They walked this way, drawn away in the night. Lost.”
“Are you sure?” Cedar asked. “Finding them shouldn’t be this simple.”
“I know.” Wil walked back over to his horse, shaking his hands out as if shedding water. “You really can’t see that?”
“No.”
“So?” Wil asked. “What do you reckon?”
“It’s a trail. A trail the children walked. One ribbon for each child, pouring out of the heart of this city.”
“That’s…convenient,” Wil said. “So you think the Strange made these trails? To lure us?”
“Possibly,” Cedar said.
“We’re going to follow them, aren’t we?”
“We shouldn’t.”
Wil’s eyes crinkled up to make room for his grin. “It is the only trail. If it’s a trap, let’s spring it and move on to the next.” Wil clicked his tongue and urged his horse down the road following the lines of light.
Mae brought the wagon up beside Cedar. “He’s always so full of fire,” she said, not unkindly.
“That he is,” Cedar agreed. “And it has often burned him. He says there’s a clear trail that the children, many, many children followed this way. We’re going to follow it.”
“You sound concerned.”
“I can’t see it, and he can. I know Wil and I perceive the Strange differently, but”—he peered at the road, and at the city ahead of them—“I see nothing of the Strange. At all. Even though it is the full moon.”
“Maybe it’s the spell we cast?” Mae offered.
Cedar shrugged. “And to find a trail lit up bright as a torch and nearly on our doorstep? It’s too easy.”
“You think it’s a trap?”
“It seems likely to be.”
“And Wil?”
“Like you said, he’s filled with fire.”
“So are you,” Mae said. “You just keep a closer mind on the draft.”
Cedar smiled, then set his horse after his brother.
They followed the road in relative silence, the only sounds coming from the city itself and the occasional high drone of airships landing in the field north of town. They passed no more than a handful of souls, a worker coming in on foot from the coal mines, a cart leaving town to farms and fields more distant.
Other than that, it was as if the town were intent on making itself deserted, hidden from what it knew roamed the night.
Wil kept a running report on the trail. It took a sharp turn, looped into a muddled knot, and strung in ragged tatters down a single street into town.
“I’m beginning to think there might be a wild goose at the end of this chase,” Wil said with a grin.
“You’re the one who wanted to spring the trap,” Cedar reminded him. “You know the Strange. They’ll lead a man down a twisted road, then right off the edge of a mountain, if they can catch his eye with a shining light.”
“This doesn’t look like no will-o’-the-wisp,” Wil noted.
“I know,” Cedar said. “That’s why we’re still following it.”
The street widened and grew toothy with cobblestones. One thing the city did well was keep the roads mostly free of ice and snow. But it was full dark now; there would be no need to have workers clearing the roads if there wasn’t going to be anyone using them.
They reached an intersection and Cedar pulled his horse to a stop.
A sound was rising, far off and high, but not in the sky and not carried by the wind. It was growing louder and louder from the earth beneath his feet. Loud enough his and Wil’s horses both whickered and fidgeted, unsettled.
Cedar dismounted, pressed his hand against his horse’s neck to calm him, then knelt, spreading his fingers out across the street.
The sound wasn’t anything he’d heard before. It rumbled, but also hissed and crackled like lightning snapping the sky. And behind it all was a single chord of notes, the trumpet of some great beast.
Something—something big—was beneath the city.
And it was moving, growling, waking up.
“Tell me you hear that,” Cedar said.
“I do,” Wil said.
“Mae, do you hear anything unusual?” Cedar asked.
�
��No.” She paused, then said, “Yes, like a horn of some kind?”
“Yes,” Cedar said. “If you can hear it, then it’s not a Strange song.”
“Which I couldn’t be happier about,” Wil said. “Their songs lead to dances that last for the rest of your days. Hate to wear out these boots. I’ve barely worn them in.”
“I wouldn’t worry,” Cedar said. “They wouldn’t dance you to death. The Strange only like pretty men.”
Wil let out a loud laugh and Cedar couldn’t help but join him. He’d missed his brother. Missed his laugh. Even though this was not the best of their times, it was still time together. Valuable. And the longer they spent hunting Strange or, hell, the Holder across these states, the more of a chance they’d have to pay on their promises, break the curse for good, and make their days their own again.
He was looking forward to many long years together with his brother. And with Mae.
“It sounds like gears to me,” Cedar said. “It might be the generator we saw in the copper mine.”
“But why would it make this sound? What could it be powering?” Wil asked.
“I don’t know,” Cedar said.
“Huh,” Wil said. “Maybe they know.”
Cedar glanced up at his brother. He was looking west, down the road that jagged between brick and wooden buildings, and beyond that, the fields, forests, and river.
“Who?”
Wil glanced at him, worried. “The Strange. You don’t see them? There’s”—Wil paused—“dozens. Ghostly, but real. Well, real as they get without bodies to possess. Tall as chimney stacks and thin as thread, short and squat like toads.”
“I hear them howling, screaming,” Cedar said. “But I can’t see them.”
“That’s…” Wil lost his voice for a moment, swallowed the words back into place and tried again. “Not right. Something’s wrong with them. Something’s very wrong with the Strange.”
“Talk to me, Wil.”
“They’re coming this way fast. Real fast.”
“Mae, keep tight hold of the mules,” Cedar said. His own horse was dancing and snorting, trying to bolt. Cedar tightened his grip on the reins, but didn’t even try to swing up into the saddle.
The curse that Father Kyne was holding fell around him like an icy cloak. His vision split again. He saw the room where Father Kyne was standing. And watched as he strode through the church and into the night air. He felt the push of the beast, urging Father Kyne out into the night. Needing to kill the Strange. Needing to hunt and run.