Chapter 14
The next day, we wolfed – no pun intended – down a big breakfast, and then changed Twilight’s bandage. She fought us even more than the day before. Two hours later, the bandage was changed and Kestrel and I were as sick of Twilight as she was of us.
As we rode away across the meadow, I was relieved that Mom still hadn’t discovered that we’d taken the jerky, even though it was just a matter of time. She would have known by now if she hadn’t asked us to make dinner last night. We’d been amazingly lucky.
When we were about halfway across the meadow, Mom let Loonie out of the barn where we’d left her. The old girl came bounding after us, joy suffusing her entire canine face. I hardly had the heart to turn her back after we entered the trees and Mom couldn’t hear me tell her to go home, but I had to do it. It was too dangerous for Loonie to be around the wolves. I silently promised her that I’d take her with me that afternoon, when I rode Kestrel halfway home.
Once at the bluff, it took a while to make sense of the wolves’ tracks, or rather, non-tracks. We’d hoped to follow them through the wolves’ back door, but there’d been a light skiff of snow overnight and all we could see were indentations here and there – impossible to tell if they were former tracks or indents left by tiny snow chunks falling from trees or whatever. We tried to find the den by riding in its general direction, but it was well hidden and we kept missing it.
“I’m going to have to go pretty soon,” Kestrel finally said, after our sixth unsuccessful pass.
“Okay, I’ll just climb the bluff. You can wait below with the horses, okay?”
“You promise you’ll be careful?”
“I promise.”
“I’ll be right below you.”
The climb up was relatively quick compared to the night before. Slowly, I raised my head above the lip of the bluff and looked down toward the den. Only the black hole was there. No sign of the wolves. I rose higher. Still no wolves. The fresh snow in front of the den was unbroken. Nothing had passed over its surface since the snow had fallen last night.
I looked down at Kestrel and gave her a wave, then hoisted myself over the lip of the bluff.
“Evy, what are you doing?”
I looked back and waved, then put my finger to my lips.
The snow crunched as I moved closer to the den, the bag of moose jerky over my shoulder. No point in dumping it unless the wolves were still living in the den. Our investigation yesterday may have made them move on and if they were gone, I wanted to sneak the meat back into the smokehouse.
I crept even closer, and with every step became more confident that there was no one home. At the mouth of the den, I bent down to peer inside. It wasn’t much of a den, being more like a shallow dirt dugout. And it was empty. Though it was well hidden, it wouldn’t have been a comfortable home for them. In fact, I was surprised they’d denned here at all, especially during the coldest weather. No wonder they’d been having trouble.
“Evy! What are you doing?”
I turned around. Kestrel was climbing over the ridge, her eyes wild. She must have tied up the horses and climbed it in record time. “They’re gone,” I said. “I was just double-checking.”
The tight expression on her face increased. “You could have told me they were gone.”
“Sorry. When I signaled you, I just thought they might be gone, and didn’t want to startle them if they were still here.”
“And what if they were still here? They could have killed you.”
“But they weren’t,” I repeated and turned back to the den. Why was Kestrel harassing me? She wasn’t my mom.
The silence behind me grew increasingly pointed and brittle, but I had practice at ignoring problems – I am my mother’s daughter, after all – so I hummed and faked a long visual search of the den, which told me nothing that I hadn’t already figured out. When I finally felt able to face Kestrel, I arranged an apologetic expression on my face and turned around.
She was gone.
I hurried to the edge of the bluff. She was already halfway down, and I could tell she was upset by the way she moved.
“I’m sorry,” I yelled, but she didn’t stop.
I started down and made it close to the ground in record speed, but then slipped on an icy rock and went flying backwards. I landed in the snow on my back and stared up at the blue, blue sky. I heard snow-muffled hoofbeats, and then Twitchy’s big nose came into view, with Kestrel glaring down at me.
“Are you okay?” she asked, sounding like she wished my answer was “no.”
“Yeah.” I sat up. “Sorry,” I said again, trying my best to sound contrite. I really hate it when Kestrel gets mad at me, especially since she’s my only friend – literally.
“Can you imagine what that’s like? To see you walk out of sight toward three wild wolves? How would you feel if you were the one at the bottom of the cliff, watching me do something so totally stupid?”
“It’s not really a cliff.” Okay, I was being a little evasive.
“How would you feel?” She wasn’t about to be distracted.
So I thought about it – and the unpleasant realization struck me that I would be terrified for her. “Sorry,” I repeated for a third time, and this time I really meant it.
Her face lightened, just a bit. “You can be so frustrating sometimes, Evy. It’s like you think you can do anything and never get hurt. What if they weren’t gone? What if the big one came out of the den and attacked you?”
“Yeah, it was a mistake. I won’t do it again,” I said as I climbed to my feet. One of my boots had come off and I looked around, while standing on one leg – my uninjured leg, thank goodness.
Actually, Kestrel was wrong. I didn’t think I’d never get hurt. I just thought that sometimes things were worth a bit of pain, but there was no use telling her that. She really wasn’t into listening right then. Instead, I’d let her have her rant and then she’d be okay. She’s really great when she doesn’t get all cautious and stuff. Like yesterday. She was Supergirl then, saving me from plummeting to my death and leaping off a cliff to save her horse.
I finally spied my boot and hopped to pick it up, then knocked the snow out of it.
“So do you think they left for good?” she asked, finally acting more like Super-Kestrel.
“I think so. I think we scared them away yesterday.”
“So that’s why the big wolf ran to attack us yesterday? Because it was scared of us?” Kestrel being sarcastic.
“Maybe after we left it realized we could come back to the den anytime, even while it was out hunting.” I went to untie Rusty.
Gone, he said, when I climbed to his back.
I rolled my eyes. Nice of him to tell me now.
When we got home, we sneaked the jerky back into the smokehouse, said hi and bye to Mom, and started off toward Kestrel’s house. Loonie romped beside us like a pup as Kestrel and I talked about the different techniques we’d heard for training young horses. She thought imprinting might be good for Twilight, even though she wasn’t a foal, and I wanted to be convinced it would work. I was desperate to find some way to stop the battles. Tonight would be my first time cleaning her wound alone and I wasn’t looking forward to it.
I waved goodbye to Kestrel at the halfway point and turned Rusty toward home, then dove into my thoughts. While imprinting sounded good, I wondered if it would only make things worse. Twilight’s problem wasn’t fear so much as anger. Also, though she seemed willing enough to stand to be groomed, imprinting was a lot more invasive: touching her everywhere, over and over. She’d totally hate it. Just like she hated everything to do with me and her new life – well, except for the grooming, I guess.
Not knowing what to do was totally frustrating, especially since I could sense Twilight’s unhappiness below the rage. She felt isolated and alone – but it almost seemed on purpose, and that made me kind of mad at her, even though I didn’t want to be. She didn’t want to know we were nice. She didn’t wan
t to accept that we were trying to help her. She didn’t want to realize I’d saved her life. She just wanted to resent us and dislike us and escape as soon as possible.
I didn’t know how to fix the problem without talking to her – and that was something I could never, ever do. If she ever discovered I was Willow’s murderer, the slim chance of having a relationship with her would turn into no chance. The two had been close friends, plus they were half sisters, and when Willow had been injured it had devastated Twilight. She’d moped around after the young mare, almost as if she was in mourning, as if Willow had died right then. I could only imagine how terrible it was for her when her sister really did die.
And because I didn’t want Twilight to hate me forever, I could never speak to her. That meant I had to find another way to get her to like me, to get her to accept that I only wanted the best for her, to get her to realize that captivity wasn’t that bad. There had to be a way to get her to enjoy being a domestic horse – and I hoped, to get her to like being my horse.
Winter of the Crystal Dances Page 14