She knows why Simon is upset. It’s because of the prophecy, because of the thing she didn’t want to tell me about.
Ruth, on the other hand, looked concerned, but she didn’t look knowing.
“This is what we figured out.” Merri Lee set a series of photographs on the sorting table. “Meg has created a framework of tangible things that acts as an anchor and keeps her from being overwhelmed by visual and auditory stimuli. The framework is a combination of big things like the sorting table and smaller things like where the CD player and the stack of CDs are placed on the counter. These are the constant things that can’t change because Meg needs to count on them being exactly where they are.”
“It’s like the furnishings in Meg’s room at the compound—,” Ruth began.
“Cells,” Meg said tightly. “They were called cells. They locked from the outside, and we only had what the Walking Names allowed us to have.”
Ruth nodded to indicate understanding. “The cells’ contents didn’t change for as long as the girl lived in the compound. We think that lack of change balanced all the new images and videos the girls were shown as part of their training to describe the visions.”
Meg didn’t add her personal bit of speculation: that the sterility of the cells made the girls want to study the images—and made them more willing to cut in order to experience some stimulus. The addiction was still there, the craving for the razor and how the euphoria made her feel. It still veiled her mind to protect her from the visions, but the euphoria didn’t feel as intense as the sensations she’d felt a few months ago. Or maybe she wanted to believe that because there were so many other kinds of pleasant stimulation now.
Something she needed to think about a while longer.
“We can’t say if it’s because of the training or simply how their brains work, but we think that, because they absorb everything around them, blood prophets suffer from information overload much faster than other people, and they zone out in order to give their minds a rest,” Merri Lee said.
Meg could tell by the way Simon’s ears had gotten a little furry and more Wolf shaped that he was listening hard to everything they were saying, but she wasn’t sure if he understood what they were saying.
“When pups are young, they have to absorb everything too in order to learn about the world,” he said. “Their constant things are the den and the pack.”
“What happens when their little brains get tired?” Merri Lee asked.
Simon narrowed his eyes at Meg. “They curl up and take a nap.”
Meg narrowed her eyes right back at him. He didn’t look impressed. “Well, humans aren’t built to take these quick little snoozes throughout the day.”
His only comment was a huffed tch sound that told all of them what he thought of that human failing.
“The point,” Ruth said, “is we tried to determine what makes up a constant and what makes something acceptable even when it changes.”
Merri Lee pointed to the photos again. “For example, a vase could have flowers or not have flowers. A vase with flowers was different, but it didn’t cause anxiety. The gate to Henry’s yard could be open or closed. There could be food in the fridge here or not. But Meg chose where she put the CDs, and if someone changes the placement, that does cause Meg to feel upset.”
“From what she told us, most days that would equal feeling a little upset,” Ruth continued. “But a little distress on top of a little distress on top of a barrage of new images might push a blood prophet to cut herself in order to relieve the emotional pressure of feeling overwhelmed.”
Simon stared at Meg and growled. “Things are always changing in the Courtyard.”
“Yes,” she said, hoping she could make him understand. Hoping he would keep his promise to let her have a life—even if having one killed her. “Every day when I make my deliveries, the Courtyard looks different. But it’s a good different, a natural different.”
“And Meg sees it as an active image,” Merri Lee said. “We think that’s part of it. By driving through the Courtyard—or walking or riding as a passenger—Meg is an active participant in a moving, changeable image. The land changes with the seasons. . . .”
“But my apartment doesn’t change,” Meg finished. “The furniture stays in the same place unless I move something.”
Simon started to scratch behind one ear. Then his face colored as he realized his ears were Wolfy. Not meeting their eyes, he shifted his ears back to human shape.
“There’s not a lot of stuff in your apartment,” he said. “Not much furniture. We don’t need much. . . .” He trailed off.
“Neither do I,” Meg said. “Neither do the other girls.”
“So . . . more Simple Life than Crow’s hoard?”
She hadn’t seen either of those things, but only one sounded soothing. “If Simple Life is more like our apartments, then, yes, like that.”
“The immediate problem is the girls living on Great Island, right?” Merri Lee asked.
Simon hesitated, then nodded, leaving Meg to wonder who else needed help.
“Whoever is looking after the girls should clear their rooms of extraneous visuals—pictures on the walls, figurines on the tables, things like that,” Ruth said. “They can take photos of all those things and make up a binder of images. Maybe allow each girl to look at the images and select a handful of items she would want in her room, then allow her to position them. But once she has ‘set’ her room, the girl’s room cannot change unless she is the one making the change.”
“Also, take a photo of each room as reference for the adults so they don’t inadvertently change something,” Merri Lee said. “Even a small difference of putting a book on a different shelf can be disorienting for these girls. Which we all learned when I moved the stack of CDs earlier today.”
“Routine,” Ruth said. “Flexibility wasn’t part of the care or training in the compound. Everything that is different is a stressor for the girls.”
“Someone could make a binder called ‘Our Village’ or ‘Ferryman’s Landing,’” Merri Lee added. “The girls can study images ahead of time, and their teacher or caretaker can discuss what else they might see, like cars moving on the street or people riding bicycles. Static images combined with a moving image. Then they can go out as an adventure, to see those things for themselves.”
Simon focused on Meg. “You didn’t have those things.”
“But I have the routine that shapes the days. And I don’t need a binder for the Courtyard because I’m familiar with most of the roads and buildings now.” She wouldn’t remind him that she hadn’t expected to survive more than a few weeks, so she had gorged on images and experiences, determined to live while she could.
And she wouldn’t tell him it was often her fear of what the scent of blood might do to predatory instincts that kept her from cutting more often than she did.
“Does that help?” she asked.
“It helps.”
“Will you tell me why you’re angry and sad?”
He glanced at Merri Lee, then looked at Meg and whined softly. “Some of the blood prophets have left the compounds. You saw them walking by themselves near roads. And some of them . . .”
Meg understood then why Merri Lee wouldn’t tell her what she’d seen that morning. “I saw images that indicated some of them would die.”
“Yes. But the terra indigene are searching for the girls now. So are the police. We’ll find them, Meg. We will find them and get them to a safe place.”
How many girls had she seen? “Where will you take them?”
“To Intuit villages or terra indigene settlements,” Simon said. “Whatever is closest to the spot where we find them.” He paused. “What should we do when we find them?”
What would have helped me if I had been alone and frightened, if I had been found by strangers?
“Images,” Meg
said. Merri Lee and Ruth nodded vigorously. “Tell the girls what is happening. Tell them how they will get from where they are to where they’re being taken. We all have general images about traveling. Tell them the sequence so they can recall the training images that match. Then, if you can, show them a picture of the room that will be the safe place.”
Her arms suddenly prickled so badly they burned, but she didn’t dare rub her skin. Simon would recognize the warning of prophecy. So would Ruth and Merri Lee. They knew she shouldn’t cut again today, having cut herself this morning, and Simon was already upset. She didn’t want to think about how he would howl and growl if she pulled out the razor a second time in one day.
“I have to go,” Simon said. “The rest of the terra indigene need to know these things.”
“So do the police officers involved in rescuing the girls,” Ruth said. “You should call them too.”
He bared his teeth to show he didn’t like someone giving him an order, but the teeth stayed human size, so he must have thought Ruth was right. That was probably the real reason he growled at them and said, “You write this down for the Guide.”
Before they could protest, he walked out of the sorting room and slammed the back door as he left the office.
“Well . . . ,” Merri Lee sputtered.
“I guess we should start writing The Dimwit’s Guide to Blood Prophets,” Meg said.
After a moment, Ruth nodded. “Yes, we should. And I think we should find someone who can draw so we can add a cartoon Meg pointing out important items.”
“What?” Meg yelped.
“The cartoon Meg could be named Meg Pathfinder,” Merri Lee said. “And she could provide Trailblazer Tips that other girls would find useful.”
“I don’t think we should call it Dimwit’s,” Ruth said. “Maybe just The Blood Prophets Guide.”
“Yes,” Meg whispered. The painful buzz under her skin faded to a light prickling in her fingertips. Then that, too, was gone. “A guide for the girls as well as the people trying to help them.”
“All right.” Merri Lee clapped her hands. “Let’s see if we can use the computer in the Business Association’s room to write up these first notes. Who should we ask for permission? Vlad or Tess?”
“Whichever one we find first?” Ruth said.
“The office needs to stay open a while longer,” Meg said. “You go ahead and get started.”
“You’ll be okay here on your own?”
“Arooeeooeeoo!Arooeeooeeoo!”
Meg sighed as Skippy’s yodeling arroo sounded just outside the sorting room’s delivery doors. “I’ll be fine. I’ll walk out with you.”
“Aren’t you going to let him in?” Merri Lee asked.
“Not until I’m sure he’s not trying to sneak a mouse into the office,” Meg replied. “Especially since Nathan isn’t here to sniff them out.”
Her human friends hurried to the back door of A Little Bite. The juvenile Wolf, sans any furry toys, came into the office.
As Meg carefully filed the photos Ruth had taken for their experiment, she thought about the tone of the other girls’ voices when they talked about the Guide. Not a dismissal of whatever bad thing was happening to the other cassandra sangue, but a distraction, an effort to help.
And that was a different kind of reference. A Life Reference.
Meg labeled that audio memory “cheering up a friend.”
* * *
Standing at the upstairs window that gave him a view of the paved area behind the stores, Simon watched Merri Lee and Ruthie hurry toward A Little Bite while Steve Ferryman yapped at him over the phone.
“They didn’t say you had to remove the wallpaper from the rooms, just the extra things that make the room look too busy,” he said when Steve stopped for a moment. And why did humans put paper on walls anyway?
“Are the girls sure removing everything but essentials from the rooms won’t cause more trauma?” Steve asked.
“No, they’re not sure. But telling the blood prophet pups what to expect should help. I have to go. More calls to make.”
“Thanks for this. Really.”
Simon ended the call, then walked to the desk in HGR’s office. Pointless to write e-mail. The packs would be out searching. Probably pointless to call and leave messages on the phones. But some Wolves did put on a collar that had a leather pouch attached in order to carry a mobile phone or some other human item. A howl carried for miles and didn’t depend on poles and lines or metal towers to carry messages. A howl would travel from Wolf to Wolf, providing information to everyone within range. But police wouldn’t recognize an “I found something!” howl; they would need a phone call.
He called Jackson first and condensed everything Meg’s pack had told him into one sentence: treat the blood prophets like puppies who don’t know anything and are afraid of everything.
Wasn’t likely any of the girls would be found near Sweetwater, an area in the Northwest that contained an Intuit village and the terra indigene settlement where Jackson lived. A few weeks ago, a simple roadblock had been set up across the road leading to that area after a human village had been contaminated with gone over wolf, a drug made from the blood of cassandra sangue. No one could have left girls along that road without the Others knowing about it.
The phone rang under his hand, startling him enough to snap at the person on the other end. “What?”
“Simon?”
“Joe?” Something wrong. Terribly wrong. Kicked by a bison, ribs caved in wrong.
“We found . . . We didn’t know . . .” Joe’s howl of grief had Simon leaping to his feet.
“You found some of the girls?” Roadkill. Not all of those girls would have Meg’s strength and desire to survive. Was that why Joe was grieving?
“A few. They’re heavy with pups. All of them are ready to whelp.”
When the terra indigene attacked the compound run by the Controller, they hadn’t seen any gestating females. Pups old enough for schooling, yes, but no females bearing those pups.
Had the breeding females been kept in a different place from the girls who were cut? “What else?”
“We found the dead puppies,” Joe whimpered. “Simon, they killed the puppies.”
A horrible pain ripped through Simon. Memories of reaching his sister Daphne after she’d been shot. Memories of finding Sam cowering, his little paws covered in his mother’s blood. Memories of Meg the first time he’d seen her, stumbling into Howling Good Reads half-frozen and looking for a job.
“What puppies?” He could barely shape the human words.
“Many of the terra indigene who were searching for the girls only recognize humans from the Others who can shift to that form. The Eaglegard and Hawkgard saw humans throwing noisy sacks into a lake many times before today, but they didn’t understand. They just thought the stupid humans were fouling their own water supply. By the time some of the Crowgard flew by the lake and recognized the sounds coming from the last of the sacks as crying baby . . . Too late to save any of them.”
Would they have done this to Meg? Would they have bred her on some kind of farm like livestock? Would they have thrown her pup in the lake if it had been male and useless for prophecies?
Cleaning house. Isn’t that what humans called it when they wanted to avoid being punished for some wrongdoing? Cleaning house. Destroying the evidence that would show everyone they were bad, even for humans.
Maybe we should do a little housecleaning too.
He wasn’t sure what else he said to Joe, or what Joe said to him, before he ended the call with a promise to send information about how to keep the rescued girls alive.
Humans. He had tried to watch them, work with them, even help some of them.
Right now, all he wanted to do was get rid of them before they hurt Sam. Before they hurt Meg.
He cou
ld, and would, rid the Courtyard of the sickness called human before it contaminated the terra indigene, before it changed them. He was, after all, the dominant Wolf, the leader.
He went downstairs. John Wolfgard took one look at him and cowered.
Simon took the keys from his pocket and calmly locked HGR’s front door.
No escape from that direction.
“Simon?” Vlad’s voice. Sharp. Almost challenging.
“All humans are banished from the Courtyard. I don’t want to see them, hear them, smell them.”
“What happened?” Tess’s voice now. Just as sharp.
Simon turned and felt the fury explode in him when he spotted Merri Lee and Ruthie standing next to Tess, whose coiled red hair rapidly gained streaks of black.
Ignoring Tess’s visual warning, Simon rushed at the girls, his hands shifting to accommodate Wolf claws.
“Filthy monkeys!” he howled at them. Spittle flew from his mouth. He swiped at Vlad when the vampire stepped between him and the girls. “Filthy, greedy monkeys! Meg’s puppies aren’t something you drown like a bag of kittens! But that’s what you do, isn’t it? You destroy anything to get what you want, anything that isn’t exactly like you!”
He almost dodged Vlad when he leaped to attack Merri and Ruthie. He might have survived Tess. But Henry’s big, furry arms caught him, lifting him off his feet so that all he could do was struggle and rage.
“Get out,” Vlad said, pushing the girls toward the back door. “Get out of the Courtyard and stay away until I call you.”
“But I live in the efficiency—,” Merri Lee began.
“Find another place tonight,” Vlad snapped.
“Give her ten minutes to pack a few clothes,” Tess said. “Ruthie can run over to the Three Ps and tell Lorne to close up, then go to the medical office and tell Theral.”
Simon howled. The prey was getting away!
“Go!” Tess said.
The girls ran toward the back of the store. But Merri Lee turned back. “What about Meg?”
Simon screamed.
“We’ll look after Meg and keep her safe,” Vlad said, watching Simon. “Go.”