Marked in Flesh

  When it was time to go into the water, no one knew what to do. At least I didn’t. After staring at us for a moment, Simon, Blair, and Nathan jumped into the water, then climbed out and shook water all over us.

  It was cold! Merri Lee, Ruth, Theral, and I hopped around, making noises and saying, “It’s cold, it’s cold, it’s cold.”

  The Wolves jumped in, climbed out, and shook water all over us again! The third time the Wolves shook water on us girls, we were sufficiently wet that it didn’t feel that cold anymore—and the Squeaky Dance game was done. Unfortunately, I think this is a game the Wolves really enjoyed, so I suspect we’re going to be on the receiving end of surprise soakings for the rest of the summer.

  But once we got in the water, it felt so good! At one point, Nathan bumped into me and I went under and came up sputtering. That’s when Ruth asked me if I could swim, and I said no.

  Simon shifted to human form and just stared at me, shocked. How could I not know how to swim? All the puppies knew how to swim.

  I pretended that Simon was wearing swimming trunks like Michael and Karl, and even though the water was pretty clear, the shade of the nearby trees kept the obvious from being obvious.

  Michael offered to teach me how to dog paddle. He got snarled at from three directions, because no one was going to teach me to paddle like a dog! The Wolves don’t mind dogs; they just don’t want to be mistaken for a dog, and I guess they don’t want me to be mistaken for one either.

  I think Michael deliberately exaggerated the movements because Simon huffed, shifted back to Wolf, and began paddling around us to show me how to do it. Michael held me up while I tried kicking with my legs and paddling with my arms. Then I tried on my own with Simon and Nathan swimming on either side of me. When I got tired, we all climbed out and sat on blankets under the trees.

  I must have fallen asleep for a little while, because I woke up feeling so content.

  But contentment isn’t going to last, is it? Dead fish are washing up on the shores of three East Coast cities. I heard Vlad tell Tess the fish were the storm’s herald. I didn’t feel any pins and needles under my skin because of that comment. I don’t know if I should be relieved or worried.

  I hope you’re doing well at the Gardners’ farm. Steve Ferryman is supposed to come by this week to show Simon—and me—plans for the new campus for the cassandra sangue. Steve says the girls are doing well, and the caretaker he hired for them is very intuitive about when to introduce something new and when to stay with the familiar.

  I’m trying not to use the razor. Some days that’s easy to do. Other days it’s so hard. Maybe the younger girls will be able to escape the addiction. And if they can’t escape altogether, maybe cassandra sangue like you and me and Hope can find other ways to reveal some prophecies. I’m just not sure those other ways will veil our minds sufficiently, or if the euphoria that comes from cutting—and the likelihood of an early death because of it—is the cost of staying sane.

  You always believed we could survive in the outside world. I’m doing everything I can to give at least some of us a chance of not only surviving but truly living.

  Your friend,

  Meg

  It is not enough to say we should have food and water and timber and oil. It is time to say we will have the food and water and timber and oil to feed our children and build our cities and heat our homes and run the machines that make us greater than the creatures hiding in the so-called wild country. It is only wild because it has not felt the bite of the ax or the plow. It is only wild because we still cower from the phantasms that were the stuff of stories we heard as children. Abolish the phantasms and see the creatures for what they are—animals that have not yet been conquered. It is time to banish the stories of childhood. It is time to claim our true place in the world.

  —Speech written by Nicholas Scratch, delivered at chapter meetings by HFL leaders throughout Thaisia

  CHAPTER 15

  Moonsday, Juin 11

  A few minutes after Meg opened the Liaison’s Office for morning deliveries, Steve Ferryman and Jerry Sledgeman drove into the Courtyard and up the access way, pulling into the employee parking lot. Alerted by Nathan’s howl and the Crowgard cawing a warning, Simon left Vlad to finish restocking HGR’s shelves so that they looked full when the Addirondak Wolves arrived that afternoon.

  He met the two men at the access way. “We’ll talk in the Liaison’s Office so that Meg can see the plans too.” He smiled, showing longer-than-human canines as a friendly reminder that trying to poach Meg wouldn’t be tolerated. Not that he thought either Intuit would, but it never hurt to reestablish territory.

  Not that Meg was his territory, but he did have a responsibility to the whole Courtyard, and Meg was a vital connection to the nonedible human element that was now underfoot every time he turned around.

  Simon led them through the back room and into the sorting room.

  “Hi, Steve. Hi, Jerry,” Meg said, giving Simon a puzzled look.

  “Morning, Meg,” Steve said. “Can I use the table?”

  Meg moved a couple of stacks of catalogs. Steve unrolled the plans for the cassandra sangue campus on Great Island.

  “We have thirty acres to work with, but we’re thinking to put most of the buildings together,” Steve said. “That will make it easier to run the water and sewer lines, as well as the electricity. And we wanted to keep plenty of grass and trees for the girls as well as the wildlife that’s already there. Eventually, we’ll build for a hundred residents. Older girls and adults will have studio apartments and some common areas for socializing. The younger girls will have rooms and common areas in their building. Pam Ireland, who’s working with the girls now and will be the administrator of the campus once it’s built, will have her own residence on the grounds. We’ll have a stable with a handful of horses—a couple of them to pull carts and the rest for riding. The Liveryman family is donating the horses and training them. They’ll also have someone looking after the horses as part of their contribution to the campus. Since the idea is for the girls to learn to do things and be independent, there will also be a small farm with a dairy cow or two, and some chickens. We thought about pigs, but figured cows, chickens, and horses will be enough for girls between the ages of eight and eleven to take in. Plus, we’ll have a kitchen garden, but that will probably happen next year. Our first priority is the living quarters.” He looked at Meg. “What do you think?”

  Meg studied the plans. “You should have a place to swim.”

  Steve winced. Simon didn’t think Meg noticed.

  “We have a swimming pool at our community center,” Steve said, giving Simon a “help me” look. “We didn’t put a pool into the budget for building this place.”

  “Not an official kind of swimming pool.” Meg looked at Simon. “Something like the one in the Crowgard part of the Courtyard.”

  “She means a swimming hole,” Simon said. “I’ll show you the one we have here.” He felt reluctant to take more humans to a part of the Courtyard that was usually off-limits. In fact, they had recently put up a larger Trespassers Will Be Eaten sign to remind the human pack that they were allowed to go only up to the Green Complex but no farther, and unchaperoned humans driving down the road that led to the Pony Barn were just asking to be hit by Tornado or struck by Lightning.

  “Library?” Meg asked.

  “With only the five girls, we figured some bookshelves in the common room would be enough,” Steve said.

  They studied the plans for a few more minutes. Not a compound, Simon thought. Not a prison with cells. A steady place where cassandra sangue could count on the routine of daily chores to balance the things that would keep changing.

  He wondered if Jean had said anything to Steve about the prophecy she had seen where so few human cities remained.

  When familiar trails disappeared, you had to find new ones—or make new ones—to take care of your pack.

  “You need the building supplies for the you
ng girls’ den, the Pam’s den, the stable, and the barn and other buildings for the animals and other food,” he said.

  “Yes, but we can start with—,” Steve began.

  “You need to buy all the building supplies you can.”

  “Sure, but we have a budget and—”

  “Now.”

  Silence. Finally, Meg said, “Simon?”

  He kept his eyes on Steve. “You need to buy supplies for your village. You need to buy the human supplies used by the Simple Life folk and the terra indigene. You need to prepare now for a hard winter.”

  Meg looked at the three men. “But . . . it’s Juin. Summer is just starting.”

  Steve stared at Simon. “How long and how hard a winter?”

  “Long. And very hard,” Simon replied. “If you buy a product from another city, make sure you buy enough of it to see you through to spring.” That would give them all a few months to figure out new ways to get what they needed.

  “My wife starts buying extra toilet paper in September to make sure we’re not trying to grab the last roll in the grocery store when the ferry can’t make a supply run,” Jerry said. Not looking at any of them, he added, “And the female supplies.”

  But that was as far as Jerry ventured into that dangerous territory. Simon hoped it was enough for Meg to take the hint.

  “Do we know when winter will arrive this year?” Steve asked.

  Simon shook his head, relieved that Steve understood they weren’t actually talking about the season. This talking about one thing and meaning something else felt strange, but there were things he didn’t want to share with humans, even ones he trusted. “When it comes, it will come hard and fast.” He and Vlad had heard a news report about a speech being given by all the HFL leaders in Thaisia. Did Captain Burke and Lieutenant Montgomery think it odd that all these leaders were howling to reporters but Nicholas Scratch was so conspicuously absent from the news?

  The terra indigene knew that a storm was coming. The only questions were when it would hit and what would still be standing when it was done.

  “Wait by your car,” Simon said. “I’ll show you the lake.”

  Steve rolled up the plans. He and Jerry said good-bye to Meg and went out the back way.

  Simon watched Meg rub the crosshatch of scars on her left upper arm.

  “You know something,” she said.

  “I know we should buy human supplies while humans will still sell them to us.”

  “They have to sell them to us.”

  “They’ve gotten bold. They don’t believe we’ll do anything if they break the rules. Why should they? The HFL is telling them what they want to hear—they can take without consequences.” Simon gently pulled Meg’s hand away from the scars. “You and the female pack need to start buying the things that are essential for you. I don’t know how much longer those things will be around. Some companies might go out of business.”

  Meg stared at him in disbelief. “How can companies that make things like toilet paper go out of business?”

  Should he show her the letter from Jean? Was it wrong to want to protect her from that information when she already had so many things to think about?

  Before he could take the letter out of his pocket, Meg got that look in her eyes—the look that told him she was reviewing training images and memories.

  “A while ago, Ruth told us—the female pack—about a list she had found in an old book,” Meg said with a care that made Simon think of a Wolf testing the ground with each step. “It was a list of human towns and cities that didn’t exist anymore. I suppose you could say that the companies in those towns went out of business.”

  “You could say that,” he agreed. “Maybe another company in another town would start making some of the same products, but it would take time.”

  “I understand.”

  Did she? He hoped that was true. “However much you decide to tell them, you need to keep this just within the female pack, Meg. Make the other girls understand that they have to keep this within the pack.”

  Meg nodded. She didn’t look happy, which made him unhappy, but sometimes you couldn’t share a carcass—or information—if you wanted your own pack to have enough to eat.

  “Steve and Jerry are waiting for you,” she said.

  He wanted to press his lips to her skin, but he didn’t think she would let him right now, so he walked out to join the other males.

  “She’s going to want to buy toilet paper for every person she’s met, isn’t she?” Steve asked as he opened the back door and got in, leaving the front passenger seat for Simon.

  “She can’t.” What was this obsession with toilet paper?

  After a moment, Jerry said, “Where to?”

  Simon directed him to the road and the turn toward the Crowgard’s part of the Courtyard—which meant passing the new sign. He smelled fear, but neither man said anything.

  “The information you received that makes you think a big storm is coming,” Steve said. “You didn’t get that from Meg, did you?”

  Simon shook his head. “From Jean.”

  “Gods above and below.”

  He could hear Steve trying to steady his breath. “Simon, Jean is . . .”

  Simon hesitated, thinking of what he’d just said to Meg about keeping information within the pack. But he’d already told Steve and Jerry that a storm was coming. He didn’t feel easy about telling them more, but he removed the letter from his pocket and handed it to Steve. “Her brain is sick. That’s not why she sees what she sees, but maybe it’s the reason she chooses to remember what she sees.”

  “Gods,” Steve said again after he read the letter. “All right, we’ll purchase what we can afford.”

  “Buy what you can get. The Courtyard has money. We’ll pay for it. You’d better buy what you can for the River Road Community too.”

  “Yeah, all right.” Steve handed back the letter. “One thing the ‘Meg, the Trailblazer’ e-mails have done for us is provided us with an expanded network of Intuit settlements. We’ve started a second list of what each settlement makes and what it wants to buy. The village council already decided to purchase as much as we could from our own.”

  “Send that list to Meg and Vlad, since Meg doesn’t remember to check e-mail.” He pointed. “Pull up at the bridge. That’s the lake Meg wants you to see.”

  “The campus doesn’t have a lake, but there is a creek that runs through that land. I think we could find a spot that could be opened up to make a natural swimming hole,” Steve said. “We’ll take another look when we get back to the island.”

  They drove back to the Market Square, letting Simon out when they reached the access way.

  “By the way,” he said as he opened the door. “Can Sledgeman’s Freight haul livestock?”

  “Sure,” Jerry replied. “We have a big trailer for livestock. Mostly use it for horses, but it will work for other kinds of animals. You need something relocated?”

  “Yes. They will be coming soon.” Simon got out of the car, then waited until Steve moved to the front passenger seat before adding, “And you need to find someone who can ride a horse and look after some young bison.”

  They stared at him. “Bison?” Steve said.

  “Eleven of them. We can split the herd between the River Road Community and the Courtyard.”

  Their expressions reminded him of Skippy when the juvenile’s brain wasn’t working quite right. Hoping Jerry had enough sense not to drive before he could think, Simon went into Howling Good Reads to get ready for their guests.

  • • •

  Meg called the female pack, including Eve Denby, assuring everyone it would be a quick meeting but it needed to be now.

  “Girl stuff,” she said and started to close the Private door. As she expected, Nathan scrambled off the Wolf bed and let out a protesting arroo at being shut out. But when he saw the rest of the girls, he turned around and went back to the bed. Guarding against feral deliverymen was one thing; de
aling with the human females, whom he couldn’t bite, was something else.

  Meg glossed over the meeting with Steve Ferryman. While the campus on Great Island was interesting, it didn’t have anything to do with them. But the part about supplies . . .

  “I don’t usually slip into squirrel mentality until autumn, but with more and more companies being owned by HFL members, Simon has a point about buying what you can while you can,” Merri Lee said.

  Meg frowned. “Squirrel . . . ?”

  “Buying cans of soup, jars of spaghetti sauce, and boxes of spaghetti. Stocking up on toilet paper, paper towels, and tissues. And the things we girls need because no one wants to run out of those supplies in the middle of a blizzard.”

  She looked at them, surprised that no one felt the alarm that she had. “So this is normal?”

  “In Lakeside? Sure.”

  She blinked.

  “Meg, you weren’t thinking about these kinds of supplies last winter, but when the radio announcers warn of a big winter storm, we pay attention,” Merri Lee said. “And believe me, we don’t take TP for granted.”

  Ruth nodded. “You expect every last roll in the store to be bought when that happens.” Then she frowned. “Why do you think Mr. Wolfgard is so concerned about stocking up?”

  Because more human cities are going to disappear. “Because of the sanctions that were imposed recently, there are delays on any merchandise being shipped from one region to another,” Meg said, offering a less frightening explanation. “Maybe the delays will get longer and there is more chance of running out of some supplies?”

  “If there are restrictions about the amount of paper supplies one family can purchase at a regular grocery store, the humans who work in the Courtyard will be looking to make up the difference by buying items in the Market Square stores,” Eve said. “And speaking as the property manager, once the sale of those two apartment buildings goes through, there will be the potential for ten human families, with human needs, living there. Maybe the Business Association heard a rumor about shortages.”