Trickster's Girl (The Raven Duet)

by Hilari Bell

  The forest wasn't silent. Water trickled through a dozen streams, mosquitoes hummed, and wind sifted through the branches above. But its soul was utterly still, with the quiet aliveness of trees.

  "Here," Kelsa said. "This will do."

  The old woman nodded. Kelsa untied the neck of the medicine bag, and then folded it into her pocket.

  In Raven's presence, she might have felt silly performing the obeisance to trees her father had taught her. But she thought the old woman would understand, and she swept her hands up and around, ending in a deep bow.

  "Greetings, your majesty."

  The cedar's spirit felt different from that of the great cottonwood back home—older, more self-contained, but not unfriendly.

  Kelsa laid her hands on the smooth bark. Despite a level of humidity that made her sinuses run, it felt dry under her palms.

  For trees, the words came to her easily.

  "Child of time, watching the ages pass. Part of the life that breathes for all the earth, breathe for us now. Heal and be strong."

  She cast a generous pinch of sand over the tree, then replaced her hand against the cool trunk. The scent of cedar and wet green life filled her lungs. Kelsa's sense of the forest's spirit was as strong and deep as ever ... and nothing changed.

  No welling of power. No surge of reaction. Nothing.

  Kelsa turned to the old woman, dismayed.

  "Is this the wrong tree? I didn't feel anything. No ley power at all."

  Astonishment swept over Otter Woman's face. "You can sense the ley? Raven didn't tell me that."

  Raven, who'd been so surprised by her ability to feel the blast of power through the nexus, hadn't mentioned it to his allies? Raven, who'd taken Kelsa right past this place. Raven, who hadn't tracked them down in a full night and day in a form he could take safely even in Canada.

  Cold certainty swept over Kelsa. This forest wasn't on the ley at all, and Otter Woman had brought her back here deliberately.

  She wasn't Raven's ally. She was the enemy.

  CHAPTER 11

  KELSA'S PULSE THUNDERED IN HER ears. "I must have picked the wrong tree." She looked into the woods, concealing her expression as her mind raced.

  "Most humans can't sense the leys at all." The old woman's voice was thoughtful, and so cold that Kelsa shivered. She couldn't just deny it, but...

  "I was almost certain I felt something, at least once. But I have to admit, the other times it was hard to be sure, and Raven had to confirm I'd done it. Did you feel anything?"

  "No." The warm brown eyes searched her face. Raven had never been good at reading human emotions. Kelsa could only pray his enemies were worse.

  "Raven did say some nexuses would be quieter than others," Kelsa went on. "Maybe you could pick out the right tree?"

  "Maybe I could." The old woman turned and led the way farther up the trail. She stopped five minutes later, at a tree with a sign in front of it: BIG TREE.

  Kelsa remembered Raven's comments about unimaginative human names, and fought down a pang of fear and loneliness.

  "All right," she said with a bright smile. "This time I'll try harder."

  She pressed her hands against the tree, inhaling deep breaths of the damp air, taking a minute to think. Assuming she succeeded in bluffing her way past this moment, then what? Since Otter Woman hadn't simply killed Kelsa or stolen the medicine bag while she slept, Kelsa had to conclude the rules still applied. So if the enemies wanted to keep Raven from rejoining her, they'd have to use the tools of this world to hold him, which meant he was probably still in a cell in Deese Lake. How they were keeping him there Kelsa had no idea, but she knew where to start.

  And she didn't dare stall much longer.

  "Child of time, watching the ages pass..."

  Kelsa repeated the incantation like a prayer, with all her heart in it, then cast a pinch of the precious dust over the tree trunk. This time the lack of response didn't surprise her. She pasted a hopeful expression on her face and turned to Otter Woman. "Did it work? I thought I felt something that time, but I wasn't sure."

  The suspicious gaze searched Kelsa's face once more, then the old woman nodded. "Yes, you got it right that time. The ley is healed and we can move on."

  "Good!" Kelsa tried not to overreact, but it was hard. A human would have realized that she was lying. Otter Woman simply started down the trail toward the road.

  Kelsa followed, her gaze darting around for a club-size stick or even a convenient rock, but the wet verdant forest didn't produce much in the way of weapons. Even if she found something ... In their human form shapeshifters had human weaknesses. If Raven had been knocked out when she pushed him into the river, he'd have drowned. Kelsa's father had been careful to point out that the d-vid version of knocking someone unconscious, where they were out for a few hours and then suffered nothing worse than a headache, was pure fiction. If you hit someone hard enough to knock them out, you stood a good chance of killing them. That might be less true of a shapeshifter, but it was probably more true of someone who wore the body of an elderly woman. Kelsa might be willing to defraud a bank, but murdering an old lady—or even a being who looked like an old lady—wasn't something she could do.

  Then how could she escape? Just running was out. If Otter Woman couldn't shift into something that could fly, she had friends who could. In human form they had human weaknesses. They got hungry, thirsty, tired. Would they react like a human to human drugs?

  By the time they reached the bike, she had a tentative plan.

  "Since we're close to Smithers," Kelsa said, "would you mind if we went back there and did some shopping? We're getting low on food, Raven will have to leave his bike gear in a jail cell, and you're going to need some for yourself before we go much farther. According to the map the next big town is Whitehorse, and that's too far."

  And going south, to Smithers, would take Kelsa farther away from Alaska. At least this time they were trying to lure her off the path instead of killing her.

  If they managed to separate her and Raven permanently, they'd win.

  Volunteering to head south again, at least for a short time, was the right move. Otter Woman's bright gaze was less suspicious now. "That sounds sensible. As long as it won't delay us too long. You have a world to save, my girl."

  That last sentence was probably the first true thing the old woman had said. Kelsa gave her truth in return.

  "Don't worry about that. I finish what I start. Always."

  ***

  Raven had said that his enemies hadn't looked in on this world lately. Kelsa made a mental list of the things she'd need, most of which, praise God, probably hadn't existed when Otter Woman last dealt with the human race.

  Kelsa received confirmation of that theory when they pulled into Smithers after sunset. The old woman stared at the blazing lights and teeming streets of the small city with astonishment, and something very like dismay.

  Kelsa smiled grimly. "I hope you've got money."

  Otter Woman did, and Kelsa didn't ask how she'd acquired it. For dinner she dragged her companion into a restaurant with live music. Loud live music. By the time they reached the parking lot, the megastore was open for only two more hours.

  There was nothing unusual about the store by Kelsa's standards, but Otter Woman gazed in fascinated shock at the array of goods for sale. Kelsa loaded the glide cart with clothes, including a set of Otter Woman-size bike gear, before hurrying on to the grocery section.

  It might be a while before she had another chance to shop, so she stocked up on camping food, including a careful selection of self-heating soups. Cosmetics were more challenging, but by now the old woman was accustomed to watching Kelsa throw things into the cart.

  "Cosmetics?" She was staring at a selection of stick-on face gems. The card she was watching rotated slowly through all the colors of the spectrum. The card next to it flashed alternately silver and midnight blue. "Makeup?"

  "And sunblock," said Kelsa, tossing in the darkes
t foundation she could find. "To keep me from getting sunburned in these long days. And soap and shampoo." And small packets of temp hair color, black, and a bottle of clear brown nail polish, because she couldn't think of a better way to alter her PID.

  By the time Kelsa swept into the pharmacy section, Otter Woman was so numb she hardly bothered to ask.

  "Vitamins. Also, I have some allergies."

  One packet of capsules looked very much like another, after all.

  Kelsa had Otter Woman put on her bike gear in the parking lot while Kelsa unpacked the shopping cart into the bike's packs. They bulged when she finished, too full for aerodynamics or passenger comfort, but that wouldn't last long.

  The last thing she did before leaving Smithers was to flash charge her bike. "We can't stay in a hotel," she told Otter Woman. "Not unless you have an ID card that lets me be here legally. And one for you as well."

  "If Raven was half as smart as he thinks he is, he'd have provided some," the old woman snapped. "I'm tired. We'll camp in the first open place outside this noisy city."

  Kelsa didn't argue. If she was careful, she could make the trip to Deese Lake last a full day.

  They both slept late in the morning. Otter Woman presumably because she was tired, and Kelsa because the longer she pretended to sleep the less time she'd have to kill.

  First, she had to escape from Otter Woman. After that, her plans were more vague—and even the thought of pursuing those vague plans made her heart pound. It was one thing to lie to her mother, run away from home, even to run the border. It was another thing entirely to break someone out of jail.

  The paved road gave her no excuses to slow down, though she managed longish stops for breakfast and lunch, where she demonstrated the use of the self-heating cans.

  "They're convenient," Otter Woman admitted, finishing the Sow-sodium potato soup. "But it's not very tasty. I liked peanut butter better."

  It had been the blandest thing Kelsa could find. "You can have peanut butter too." She held out the jar. "And I'll open a better can for dinner tonight."

  Once she hit the unpaved road, Kelsa started to take her time.

  "Didn't you go over these bumps faster yesterday?" Otter Woman complained.

  "I was trying to get away from Deese Lake as fast as I could," Kelsa told her. "The last time I came up this road I blew a tire—that's what got us into trouble in the first place. I don't dare risk that again."

  They ended up camping on the other side of Gnat Pass, less than ten miles from Deese Lake. It was only six in the evening, and it would still be light for almost four hours, but after two scant meals Kelsa was hungry. "And I don't want to start biking through the woods, or even over the lake trail, with only a few hours before dusk," she told the old woman firmly.

  Otter Woman shrugged. "I don't mind stopping here. On a bouncy road, hanging on to that bike of yours is more tiring than riding a horse."

  "I wouldn't know," Kelsa said. "I've never ridden a horse."

  "Never?"

  They chatted as Kelsa fixed dinner—which didn't take long with crackers and self-heating cans of spicy chili.

  She had no idea how the sleeping capsules would taste, but even if the strong flavors of the chili didn't mask them, Otter Woman probably wouldn't know the difference.

  Her body shielded the cans from the old woman as she popped the tops. She used one of the strong, ecoplastic lids to slice open the capsules and dumped the powdery contents into one of the cans. Two pills was a normal adult dose. Kelsa doubled it, for Otter Woman had to fall deeply asleep. If two were perfectly safe, surely four wouldn't kill her?

  Kelsa was breathing faster as she stirred the chili, mixing the heated contents, mixing in the drug. She handed the old woman the drugged can and a spoon, hoping her smile didn't look as fake as it felt.

  "This isn't as boring as the one you had for lunch."

  She took a bite herself, watching with what could surely be taken for a hostess's concern.

  The old woman took a spoonful and chewed the chili cautiously.

  Kelsa had to remind herself to breathe.

  "Spicy." Otter Woman took another bite. "But not bad. I'm going to start missing fresh food soon, though." Her spoon dipped into the chili once more.

  Kelsa felt as if she were melting with relief. "If it's too spicy you can mix in some of the crackers. And we'll have apples for dessert."

  While they ate, they discussed which fruits and vegetables traveled well. As soon as she finished eating, Kelsa yawned. "That rough road really takes it out of you! I'll set the tent up now."

  Human form, human weaknesses. The old woman yawned in sympathy. And again a few minutes later.

  By the time Kelsa had set up the tent and laid out the bedding, the wrinkled eyelids were drifting down.

  "My, I'm sleepy. I don't remember it coming on this fast."

  How long had it been since this being had worn a human form?

  "It can," Kelsa told her. "Especially after a day of exercise in fresh air. I'm certainly ready for bed."

  She pulled off her boots and rolled up in her blanket to prove it, and a moment later the old woman joined her. Less than ten minutes later, the woman's breathing assumed the deep slow rhythms of sleep.

  Kelsa wanted to check her pulse, to make sure the old woman's heartbeat was still OK, but she didn't dare touch her. The woman's breathing showed no sign of distress. It would have to do.

  Kelsa rolled out of her blanket, then crawled out of the tent as quietly as she could, taking her boots with her. Otter Woman didn't stir.

  After donning her boots, Kelsa walked the bike away from the tent. The electric motor didn't make much noise, but that wasn't the same as no noise. The soft crackle of forest detritus under the tires would register on the woman's subconscious as a natural sound, but the hum of the bike's engine might not.

  It cost Kelsa a pang to abandon the tent she'd shared with her father, but if that was the price of escape, so be it.

  ***

  It was almost eight p.m. when she pulled the bike into a clearing—only a few miles down the road from her camp, but she didn't dare get closer to the town until she'd made some changes.

  If she was going to stop the tree plague, she had to get Raven out of jail. She wasn't sure exactly how to do that, but the first step was to get in to see him and find out what was holding him there.

  Kelsa had never had to change her appearance to fool the omnipresent cameras of the grid, but she'd listened to other kids talk about how it was done. One thing they all agreed on was that changing race was easier than changing gender.

  First she cut her hair. This was the dry side of the mountains, but when the long strands fell away the rest sprang into frizzy curls. Not quite like a black girl's hair, but not unlike some of the mixies she'd known.

  With only her bike's rearview mirror, tipped to the side for the best possible view, Kelsa went for the modish cut her mother had been urging her to try. She shaped the curling mass into a wedge over one eye, with thin spikes darting down in front of her ears and another deep wedge on the nape of her neck. At least it felt like she'd cut a clean wedge in the back, but she was working by touch at that point and couldn't be sure.

  It did make a difference—her face looked rounder, her cheekbones more prominent. She had to admit, her mother had been right about that.

  Darling, you look so cute! Kelsa grimaced, and tried to push the thought of her next conversation with her mother aside. A conversation she dreaded. After this, the police would be looking for her. And the first thing they'd do was call her mother. After this, she couldn't just go home and pretend nothing had happened.

  The thought of a felony on her record, of maybe even going to jail, made Kelsa shudder. Her counselor had warned her about doing things she might regret, and while a judge might accept grief for her father as an excuse for lesser crimes, Kelsa was pretty sure it wouldn't get her off for jailbreak.

  But the alternative was to give up, go home
, and watch her planet die. And even if Kelsa could have done that, she couldn't leave Raven in jail, at the mercy of his enemies. She owed him too much, and she liked him too much for that.

  Human or not, he'd become a friend. And friends didn't leave their friends in jail.

  She spread the temp color over her palms and rubbed it into her hair, disarranging the careful style. When she was certain she had completely worked in the glossy black coating, with no brown patches to give her away, Kelsa washed her hands and wiped the smudges off her face and neck.

  It would take a few minutes to dry, which meant it was probably time to get Charlie out of the way. Kelsa had been off-soading with her father and some of his friends in the red-rock desert when one of them bent a wheel rim, so she knew this kind of message was sent as text—Sf nothing else, her father's friend had explained, it gave you some wiggle room if you happened to hit the wrong mechanic.

  To: Charlie's Salvage and Repair

  Your page says you do towing. I've bent a wheel rim on the jeep road up by Deadwood Lake.

  Kelsa had to stop and bring up a map to get some plausible coordinates.

  Can you come up and haul me in? Everyone's all right, so there's no need to report this to traffic cops or anyone. Your rates looked really reasonable. I'd be willing to pay twenty percent more—and throw in a beer—for a discreet tow tonight. We were fishing. You know how it is.

  She signed it Johnny Phillipini, in case Charlie decided to check the pod's registration before he came. Her father's friend said that as long as no one was hurt, most tow drivers were willing to keep quiet about bringing you in, even if you'd had a few too many. After all, tow-truck drivers weren't legally required to report anything. It was just custom, and customs were open to compromise.

  If that was true in Utah, it would certainly be true in the far less security-conscious wilds of Canada. But while a tow-truck driver might be bribed into letting some details slide, the police wouldn't.