“Please don’t scream,” Constance said. “He’s very close. We don’t want him to start shooting again.”
Her eyes were dark blue, imploring.
Bonnie nodded against the hand, and the grip around her mouth slackened immediately. Free, she scrambled away. Constance appraised her coolly. Behind her was Harris, pale and sweating. His right sleeve was torn and slick with blood.
“You bastard! What have you done?”
Harris held out his hands to calm her. “Please, let me explain. You ran before I could talk to you. Please, just listen to me.” To Constance, he said, “Do we have time?”
“Evan is with Shep Thomas. They’ve stopped moving, for now. Go ahead.”
Bonnie made herself be calm. “I’m listening.”
“Are you frightened?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t be.”
“How, exactly, should I feel?”
Constance had moved away, giving them a little privacy.
“Just don’t be frightened.”
“Tell me what’s happening.”
He was crouching now, only an arm’s length from her, and there was something different about him. This was the man to whom she had been married for nearly three years, whose son she had given birth to— she knew him, this was him, and yet there was something about him that was not him.
Harris had never been a big man, but his shoulders had always been wide, and he had always held himself as if he were walking into a stiff wind. Erect, attentive. She had never considered him handsome, but his face had been boyish, attractive, with straight lines. His eyes had always been bright, intelligent.
Now he seemed shrunken somehow. Lines mapped his face, framed his eyes, traversed his forehead, that she had never seen. His shoulders were slumped, and he leaned on his knees as if he desperately needed the support. His eyes, though, were the worst. They were tired eyes, and they would not look directly at her.
His long fingers, pianist fingers, stroked one another. She imagined she was watching a tiny man inside a larger shell, a thin layer of skin stretched over the smaller shape to make it appear larger.
“I wanted to tell you everything,” he said. “I was going to. I really was. But things happened so quickly. They got out of hand.”
“Tell me now.”
Without actually looking at her, he said, “What do you know?”
“Enough to frighten me. Your sheriff said something about some people. Shedders, or something.”
Harris’s lips curled in a smile that looked pained. “Locals call them that.”
Bonnie felt suddenly angry. There were too many pieces. It was a jigsaw dumped in front of her, but she had never seen the cover of the box, did not even know what kind of picture she was looking at.
“For God’s sake, just tell me what’s going on? What happened to Evan? What happened to you? Tell me!”
Harris winced at the sound of her voice. He looked down at his hands.
“Evan was sick. He was very sick.”
Bonnie’s heart leaped like grounded fish. “Now?”
“Back in February. That’s when I found out.”
“Sick how?”
“It started with headaches. I thought he might be allergic to something, you know, like my mother and her migraines from chocolate or pork. But when he was tested, it wasn’t allergies.”
He fell silent, but Bonnie did not prod him. She was not sure she wanted to hear more. She felt as if she had been dragged into a dream that was suddenly taking a wrong turn. The rustling of leaves above enhanced the dreamlike feeling. If she did nothing, it might correct its course.
“They found three tumors in his brain. Small ones, but growing. They performed a biopsy, and the tumors were malignant.”
It was a full-fledged nightmare now.
“But you never said anything!”
“I never told Evan. I never told anybody. I couldn’t. It was almost as if I didn’t talk about it, then it wouldn’t be true. The tumors were inoperable. The doctors wanted to try some new radiation therapy, but they thought his chances were almost nonexistent. They told me he’d be dead by late summer.”
Somewhere nearby a bird’s wings fluttered, a breeze stirred branches of leaves, and the forest seemed to sigh as if it were alive.
“He seemed fine to me. I mean, the same as usual.”
“Around that time I met Constance.” Bonnie looked toward Constance, who was crouched, leaning against a tree, turned away from them. “We became friends, more than friends, and when I told her about Evan and about what the doctors said, she told me that sometimes there was another way.”
Harris’s fingers were still working at one another. For a moment it seemed to Bonnie that his nails had grown, and were tearing at his flesh, but when she blinked and looked closer she realized it had been a shadow. When he saw her looking, he made his hands be still.
“Constance told me about the shedders. She called them Silliarah. That’s their own name for themselves. I don’t know what language it is, and I don’t really know what it means, but I think it’s something like … people.”
“Who are they?”
He seemed not to have heard her.
“She told me they were special. They were different. Sometimes, she said, they could do things like healing.”
“Oh, Harris.”
“I didn’t believe her, of course. I wanted a miracle, but I wasn’t crazy. And this sounded really crazy. But she took me up here to the creche and I saw. I saw them, Bonnie. People. But different. Not like us. Not quite.”
“What did you do to Evan?”
“They live in the hills around here. The locals know all about them. The shedders have always been good to the people who live near them. They heal, Bonnie. They heal sickness. And they’re old. Very old.”
Bonnie lowered her eyes, embarrassed at his passion. When she looked up, Harris was smiling sadly.
“I took Evan up here in June. Henry and some of the others looked at him. They couldn’t do anything for him. The tumors were too far developed. They might extend his life a little, but he would die by Christmas. They said there was only one way they could save Evan.”
“Change him,” Bonnie said softly, remembering Evan’s words.
Harris was surprised. “How did you know?”
“He told me. He was frightened. He didn’t know what was happening.” She stared at Harris angrily. “Change him how?”
“It’s something they do. It’s a gift, really, and they don’t bestow it lightly.”
“Tell me, Harris. Just tell me.”
“They can make us just like them. They said they could do it for Evan, if he wanted it, if I wanted it for him.”
“What did you let them do to him?”
There were tears in Harris’s eyes now.
“I didn’t realize how great a change it would be,” he whispered. “I only knew that I couldn’t let Evan do it alone. I asked them to change me, too.”
Bonnie stared at him with mounting horror. “What changes? What did they do?”
“I went first. Two months ago. It’s like a disease, I suppose. A good disease. I wanted to be waiting for Evan when it happened to him, so he wouldn’t be so frightened. They infected him only weeks ago. The change causes a temporary loss of memory, and that can be frightening. I wanted him to be up here for that, and we were driving up, when …”
“The accident.”
“The accident. I suffered a concussion and some other injuries. I wandered away. Constance and some of the others found me. But by then, you had Evan.”
“What did they do to you?”
“They made us part of the body.”
“What body?”
“Their body,” he said. “I told you they were like us, but not quite. Part of the not quite is … part of it is that each of them is at once himself, or herself, and also part of the greater body.”
“His dreams?”
“Not dreams. They were try
ing to help him along, trying to make the transition easier. The other part of it is physical.”
“What has he become, Harris?” Her own voice sounded like somebody else’s.
“It’s like a renewal, Bonnie. A rebirth. The body changes. It rebuilds itself to suit its new function.”
“Function?”
“As part of the whole. Each part has a job. It truly is a body, Bonnie. A gigantic body made of many smaller parts.”
“The skin?”
“That’s part of it. The shedding. That’s the most obvious part. It’s what makes them feared, I think.”
“What’s your function, Harris? What have you become?”
He laughed bitterly. “I’m nothing. I was too old. I’m just a part of them, that’s all. As useless now as I ever was. They put up with me.”
“And Evan?”
“I don’t know.”
“Who does?”
“Constance knows. And Henry. They’re the shapers. They’ll guide him into being what he must be.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“If it hadn’t been for Shep Thomas, you’d have known everything long before now.”
“Shep has been helping me.”
“I didn’t want to keep this from you. I hope you know that. I told you these people are different. They’ve always been outsiders. Persecuted. They’ve suffered a lot, Bonnie. From people like Shep Thomas. He hunts them. He doesn’t even know them, but he kills them.”
She didn’t want to hear any more. “Stop it.”
“We have to talk more about Evan.”
“What about him?”
“He’s still sick. He hasn’t come completely over. He may still die.”
“So, they didn’t heal him.”
“It’s not their fault.”
As he spoke he trembled and hugged his arm. Blood squeezed from between his fingers. Constance moved closer and touched his arm. Bonnie had heard enough and she wanted off the subject.
“What happened?”
“A lucky shot,” Constance said. “He likes to shoot.”
“He shot a girl,” Bonnie said. “A little girl. I didn’t see what happened to her. But there was blood.”
Constance closed her eyes, her face relaxing, then opened them after a few seconds.
“She’s hurt, hiding, but she’ll be okay.”
Harris moved closer to Bonnie, still clutching his arm.
“Why did you run?” Harris asked.
“I don’t know. For Evan, I guess. I promised him I wouldn’t let you get him. I was frightened. I still am.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about all of this sooner.”
“It wouldn’t have helped. You don’t think I’d have agreed to this, do you?”
“He’s alive,” he said defensively.
“If we can stop Shep Thomas,” Constance said.
Bonnie found herself studying the other woman’s face. Strong lines, perfect skin. Her eyes revealed only concern. Her features displayed only compassion, and intelligence, and hidden for the moment, sorrow. But no malice. None at all.
“He hates you,” Bonnie said.
“He has a right to, I suppose,” Constance said.
“He thinks you killed his brother.”
Constance lowered her eyes, and for a moment the sadness that Bonnie had detected came to the surface.
“Did you?”
“Yes.”
“But, why?”
Constance closed her eyes and spoke in a very soft voice. Bonnie had to lean close to hear it.
“Six years ago a girl left the creche, like all young people do. She met a young man. Not one of us. She was indiscreet, like all young people are. She fell in love. She wanted to bring her young man to the creche, to reveal to him her heritage. That, too, under the right circumstances, we encourage.”
“Shep’s brother.”
“His name was Jeff. When he learned that his lover was not like him, not at all like other people, he felt… revulsion. Betrayal. Horror. All of that. A natural reaction. One we are accustomed to eliciting from strangers. Fear of things that shed their skins, all manner of shedders, is so near to instinctual that it is very hard to overcome.”
“So you killed him?”
Constance opened her eyes and looked sadly at Bonnie.
“Of course not. We never allowed him beyond the farmhouse. We knew from the start he would never accept us. What we had not anticipated was his attachment to the girl, or his mistaken belief that we had somehow abducted her.”
Bonnie, grasping the nature of the tragedy that had befallen Jeff Thomas, moaned softly.
“He returned shortly after his first visit, armed, prepared to retrieve what he felt had been taken from him. He had an idea where the creche was, and he entered the forest. Alone, armed, he was mistaken for an intruder. He was an intruder.”
“But Shep said it looked as if his brother had been killed by wild animals.”
Constance and Harris looked at each other, but said nothing.
“Is Shep going to hurt Evan?”
“I don’t know,” Constance said. “If he decides that Evan is one of us, he might. He can’t be predicted.”
Bonnie felt her strength fading, leaking out as if her reservoir of courage and determination had been punctured.
“Please, help me,” she said.
“There is no immediate danger,” Constance said. “They have stopped moving.”
“He’ll lead Thomas to the creche,” Harris said.
“The protectors won’t let that happen.”
Harris looked hard at Constance, but left his question unasked. Constance nodded, frowning.
“What?” Bonnie demanded. “What are you not saying?”
Constance put a hand on Bonnie’s arm. “Your son is nearly one of us. He’s drawn to the creche. He’ll lead Shep Thomas there. If that happens, the protectors will move in. Right now, they’re likely to consider Evan a threat.”
“Protectors?”
“They have one duty, one purpose, and that is to protect the creche.”
“Are they what happened to Jeff Thomas?”
“Yes.”
“Can’t you stop them?”
“No.”
Branches cracked behind Harris, and Sheriff Risely appeared. He was carrying a rifle, and his face dripped with sweat. He took in Bonnie quickly, then nodded to Constance.
“Tell me,” Constance said.
“He shot up her legs. I stopped the bleeding as best I could. I called Doc Ingram in town, and he’s on his way with some help. She should live.”
“And Henry?”
“Henry’s fine. Shaken up. Doc’s looking after him.”
“Thank you, Ron.”
“Where’s Thomas?”
“Somewhere by the stream, with Evan.”
Risely sighted his rifle toward the stream, slowly scanned. At one point he paused, and his lips tightened.
“I think I see them. No clear shot.”
Constance put a hand on his arm. “No, Ron, that’s not our way.”
Risely grunted and lowered the rifle.
Constance said, “He shot Emerson’s daughter. She’s hurt, but not badly.”
“Jesus. Who the hell does this guy think he is? Protectors moved in yet?”
“Not yet.”
Bonnie listened angrily to Risely. “You knew all about this! You lied to us!”
Risely looked to Constance for support, but apparently she had none to offer.
“I told you, Miss Laine, things aren’t always what they seem. The Silliarah have lived in these hills for as long as I can remember. They’re like a treasure, and we don’t show it to just anybody.”
Constance smiled at this.
“A treasure?”
“Whatever else you think, that’s the truth. They’re healers. Great healers. Better than any of your modern medicine. And all they ever ask in return is that they be left alone, that we protect them. And we d
o, Miss Laine. And we will.”
“Even when they kidnap innocent children?”
“Whatever they do, they have their reasons. I think that’s been explained to you.” He rubbed his chin, still looking at her. “You’d be hard pressed to find a person in Marchmount who hasn’t had somebody close to them saved from dying by the Silliarah. They are our neighbors, and our friends.”
Constance touched Risely’s hand, and Bonnie sensed a strong and deep relationship there. He looked at Bonnie again.
“But don’t you worry about your boy. He’ll be safe.”
More confused than ever, Bonnie covered her eyes and shook her head.
“What if the protectors attack him?”
“He can be concealed from them,” Constance said.
“He can?”
“I was trying to tell you, Bonnie,” Harris said. “Evan isn’t completely healed yet. Because he won’t come all the way over. He won’t allow himself to finish changing.”
Constance reached for Bonnie’s hand. “The protectors won’t know Evan is one of us, because he’s holding back enough to confuse them. He’s holding on to you. I’ve sensed that from the beginning. He loves you very much. He doesn’t want to lose you.”
Bonnie felt tears coming to her eyes, but she brushed them quickly away.
“How can I help him?” she said hoarsely.
“Give him up,” Constance said. “Tell him it’s okay. Tell him to go with his daddy. Tell him you love him, but that he must cross over. He must let go.”
“What will happen to him?”
“He will become what he is meant to become.”
“And what’s that?”
Constance looked at Harris, then back at Bonnie. “A protector.”
“But why? Why that?”
“It’s simply the ways things are,” Constance said. “It’s what the Silliarah ordain. It’s what the body needs.”
“And if he doesn’t cross over? What then?”
“He’ll die,” Harris said. “The tumors will come back. He’ll weaken himself fighting. And he’ll die. And nobody, not the doctors, not the Silliarah, and not you will be able to save him.”
Bonnie leaned against the tree. “How can I believe you? How can I know?”
Harris gripped both her hands. “Look at me. Look at me.”
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