“Right, then. One, two, three—” We slap our cards down on the table.
Callum whoops and throws a hand into the air. He won. He reaches across the table, grabbing my winnings and the shoes, and I feel as if I’m withering in front of him. Flannery sighs; Declan takes another long swig from the thermos.
And outside, someone screams.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The boys and Flannery leap to their feet, so in sync that it feels choreographed. I follow them to the tent flap; when it’s raised, there’s chaos. People are screaming, parents are hustling their children toward the center of the camp. I hear shotguns being cocked, people crying and shouting. Ardan and Declan dash from the door of the tent. A man with Declan’s sharp nose and chin tosses him a rifle. There are whistles, and a crowd of men is gathering at the edge of the RVs, staring into the forest, their eyes locked on the trees ahead.
Flannery grabs the shirt of a crying woman who runs past, yanking her around. “Who’s gone?” Flannery shouts at her.
The woman is quivering, eyes wide and filled with tears. “Keelin,” she says. “The little one.”
“Keelin,” says a voice behind me—Callum. “They never take girls her age. She’s too young.”
“Apparently not,” Flannery says, releasing the woman, who stumbles away toward her RV. Callum vanishes back into his tent.
“What’s happening?” I ask.
“Fenris,” Flannery hisses, as if she hates even the word. “Took one of our girls, seems.”
My lips part in surprise. “He could be with them,” I say, ignoring her as my heart rate rises. “Kai could be with them. He might be a wolf now; he won’t know what he’s doing. Flannery, I have to—”
“You have to do nothing,” she answers. “If he’s a wolf, if he’s got a little girl out there, you really want us to go easy on him just because he used to be your boyfriend? And besides. You said Grohkta-Nap took him. Her guards don’t take girls like this. Hers are tame.”
I’m about to respond—though I’m not sure how—when Callum pushes past me and Flannery. He brushes his hair back with one hand and slings a rifle over his shoulder with the other, takes a few steps forward—
“Callum!” Flannery says, and there’s a desperation in her voice that surprises me. He stops, turns back, and looks at her. The eye contact seems to break whatever pain was rising in Flannery’s eyes. She shrugs a little, glancing at the ground. “Bring one back alive, and we’ll add it to the menagerie.”
Callum laughs and shakes his head, but he can’t totally hide the nervousness in his voice. Then he turns, running to the hunting party. Finally, the group moves forward as a single unit, determined, strong. I can’t help but feel a strange twinge of jealousy—when Kai went missing, the cops, my mother, the neighbors—they barely even listened to me. Flannery watches them disappear into the trees; she reaches down and wraps her fingers around her knife enviously as the last one disappears.
“What happens now?” I whisper.
“Well…” Flannery says, turning her head toward the center of camp. The other Travellers are gathered there, children in the center of a circle. They’re all on their knees, and I hear one word louder than the rest—Grohkta-Nap. They pray for her protection, her grace, her will to bring Keelin back. Flannery looks back at me, studying me for a moment, and I find myself hoping we’ll join them. I want to be a part of this. I want to do something to help.
“Follow me,” Flannery says, then turns and sprints away from the others. I follow, swallowing my disappointment. We cut around behind the RV, till the noise from the center of camp gets quieter and quieter. We’re headed toward the trees, and it makes my hands tremble. We come to a stop by the menagerie.
“We should get inside,” I say, panting. “I’ve seen the Fenris, Flannery, and I don’t really want to again.”
“This lot is the best alarm system in the camp,” Flannery says, motioning to her animals. They’re stretched out in the sun, lazily flicking their ears. Their legs are caked with mud from where the snow became water and soaked the ground.
Flannery ducks into Wallace, emerging with a bag of cheap dog food. She empties it into the pens; most of the animals ignore it. Flannery leans over the fox’s pen and extends her fingers toward it; it shies away, making an angry hissing noise at her. She stretches her hand farther, and the animal suddenly lunges, its teeth nearly grazing Flannery’s palm. She yanks her hand back to her chest.
“Did it get you?” I ask, bouncing my eyes between her and the tree line.
“Nah,” Flannery says. “It never does. Keeps trying, though. It’s getting stronger.” The last word rolls off Flannery’s tongue in a voice that sounds like Brigit’s.
“Why not let it go?” I ask in a pleading voice. “All of them. They’re miserable.”
“Because,” Flannery says, looking at the fox a little admirably. “If they can survive me, they can survive anything.”
“I know how they feel,” I mutter.
“You think you know what it is to be trapped, Ginny?” Flannery says, shaking her head as if she pities me. “Who has you locked up?”
“Um, you, for one.”
“Yeah, but really,” Flannery says, rolling her eyes as if I was kidding. “Trust me. These animals and me, we know more about being trapped than you’ll ever know.” She pauses and looks back at the fox. “But one day we’ll be strong enough to bust free.”
I frown, almost uncomfortable with how sane Flannery just sounded. I’m about to speak, but I get cut off—something deep in the forest howls. The animals tense but don’t panic. Flannery’s face becomes hard.
“That far off already…” she says under her breath.
“Do the men that went after them always come back?” I ask, taking a step back, away from the trees.
Flannery chews her lip and looks at me. “Usually.” She pauses, staring at the forest. “Sometimes it’s too late for the girl.”
I nod, wanting to say something, but I can’t find the words. Flannery takes a few steps closer to the trees, her arms to her sides as if she’s approaching a cliff. She closes her eyes, waiting, waiting, daring something to snatch her. When nothing happens, her arms fall, and she shakes her head and turns around, looking irritated. I can’t stop the sigh of relief from escaping my lips.
“If she dies, we’re supposed to be happy for her. Grohkta-Nap wanted it,” she says, giving me a hard look. “And if she lives, we’re supposed to celebrate Grohkta-Nap, too. And if she takes one of our boys to be on her guard, well… then we’re suppose to really celebrate. She always takes the best ones. The most handsome or the most clever or the most talented. Once we saw one of our boys with her, after she’d made him…” She pauses. “Different. He’d forgotten us. Even forgotten how to speak Shelta. But most of the time, we just never see them again.”
“You’re afraid she’ll take Callum,” I realize aloud. Flannery whirls around, eyes flickering dangerously. She yanks her knife from her belt and charges forward. I curl my toes, lock my feet into place, and try not to breathe as she lunges at me. I lift my chin and clench my fists as she holds the blade to my throat.
“It would be an honor for Callum to become one of her guards,” she growls.
“You don’t really think that. You don’t want him to go, to forget you.”
“Shut your mouth, buffer. No one would be angry if I killed you.”
“Why not just marry him?” I choke out, wincing.
Flannery glares at me, pressing so hard that I can’t believe the blade doesn’t draw blood. But then she cusses loudly and pulls the knife away, though she doesn’t sheath it. Her cheeks are red and her eyes are glowing as she turns her gaze to the forest. Another howl; the animals curl into balls now, burying their heads by their haunches. Flannery takes a step toward the trees again.
“It’s complicated,” Flannery says, voice low.
“It seems easy to me. Your mother wants you to get married. You’re in love with him.
Does he not—”
“That’s not it,” Flannery cuts me off. “Look, if I marry Callum, or anyone, it’ll be because I want to. Not because it’ll shut my mother up, or because it’s convenient, or because of some stupid tradition. I’m not using love as a means to an end.”
The argument I prepared while she was talking almost leaves my lips—I loved Kai, but I also loved the idea of what we would do together. Of how his talent would mean me leaving Atlanta, finding a new home. Did I use him as a means to an end, as an excuse not to create my own plans, my own life?
“Tell me about your boy,” Flannery interrupts my thoughts quietly.
“Kai?”
She nods.
“He… plays the violin. He’s amazing at it—he’s better at playing the violin then I’ll ever be at doing anything. But the thing about Kai is underneath all that talent, he’s normal. He’s not arrogant; he’s not waiting to become famous or rich. He just loves playing the violin for what it is.” I pause, because everything I’m saying seems stupid, mundane. “That’s how he loves me—for what I am. Kai makes me feel like myself. Like for the rest of the world, I’m pretending, but with him, I’m real.”
“So what happens if you don’t get him back? You’re a paper doll for the rest of your life?”
“I used to think so,” I say. “Part of me still thinks so. I never pictured a version of my life without him.”
Flannery spits on the ground, rolling her eyes. “Goddamnit, Ginny. You don’t realize how lucky you are. I’m the Princess of Kentucky no matter what. But you can be whatever you want to be; you can do whatever you want to do. You can be… I don’t know. A teacher. Or a drunk. Or both, I don’t know.”
“You really don’t like being the Princess of Kentucky?”
“Of course I like it,” she says, looking a little offended. “It means I’m gonna be queen someday. This is my home. And that aside, it’s my favorite place in the world. I mean, you should see it at Christmas. Everyone turns off their trailer lights at night, and we use all the generators to run thousands and thousands of string lights all over the camp, connected to every single trailer and tent. Like a knot between every one of us. It’s the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen.” She runs her tongue along her teeth and shakes her head. “What kind of leader would I be, though, if I got married just to hold on to the crown tighter? Nah. If I’m not queen enough on my own then… maybe I’m just not queen enough.”
“What would be your first order of business?” I ask, lifting my eyebrows. “I mean, day one. What do you do?”
“Well, I bury my mother I guess, since if it’s my first day that means—”
“Okay, okay. After that. What’s the first non-depressing thing you do?”
Flannery grins wickedly. “I tell all the women here they don’t have to clean the entire trailer every damn day. Or at the very least, they don’t have to mop every day.”
“Every day?” I ask, shocked.
“Most of them,” she says. “And let’s see, second order of business…” She looks toward the woods and drops her voice. “We go after the Fenris. Really go after them. And not just when a girl’s taken, not just when Grohkta-Nap steps in.” Her second order doesn’t surprise me, but the way she says Grohkta-Nap does—as if it’s a joke. My eyebrows lift, and Flannery shrugs at me.
“My mother says you think she’s the queen of the Fenris. That she’s as evil as they are,” she says. “Is that true?”
I exhale. “I don’t know what she is, really. I don’t know how she does what she does. You’re the only people I’ve met since leaving home who already knew about her. That song, Flannery…”
“I’m not singing it for you,” Flannery says, shaking her head. “It’s ours. Besides, I know you just want it so you can use it to find your boy. Grohkta-Nap claimed him, he’s hers—”
“You don’t really think she’s a goddess, though, do you?” I ask, and Flannery stops short. She cracks her knuckles and presses her lips together.
“I dunno. Me and some of the other Travellers our age have our doubts. No one will say it outright, ’course. But… the Fenris take our girls. Grohkta-Nap takes our boys. Seems like the same thing, different name, and some of us are getting tired of it.” Flannery looks at me for a while, then back to the trees. “I’ve walked along the edge of the woods before. Worn all the red I could get my hands on. The Fenris have never taken me.” She drums her fingers across her knife. “Wish they’d try. Maybe then I’d get some answers about Grohkta-Nap. Some vengeance for the girls they’ve taken, too.”
“Why not go after them, then?” I ask seriously.
“You think I’m afraid?” she asks, eyebrows lifting. I shake my head, and she exhales. “Maybe I should. Take a page out of the buffer book, go after the monsters with a cookbook and a pair of high heels.” Flannery kicks at the ground a little before speaking again. “Difference between you and me, Ginny, is you’re chasing after your family. I’d just be running from mine.”
The hunting party returns three hours later, at twilight. They exit the forest shadows of the men who went in—they look tired, sweaty, and hungry. Beaten. Flannery, Brigit, and I are standing at the door of their RV letting news filter back to us. The Fenris were sluggish in the snow, and they ran instead of fighting back. Still, there was no sign of Keelin—though one of the men has a scrap of the scarf she was wearing, the ends frayed and bitten off.
“Come on then,” Brigit says quietly. We follow her to her tent, where she unlocks a large steamer trunk. Inside are three unopened bottles of liquor. She hands one to me and one to Flannery, and holds on to the other herself. Together, we walk to a small black tent, one that’s near the boundary of the camp.
There are dozens of people here, but no one speaks; the sound of feet padding across frost and mud suddenly seems loud and imposing. Inside the tent, I hear crying, but not the loud, hysterical sort. A gentle noise, like a rain that will last for days instead of a storm that will last an hour. There are dozens and dozens of bottles at the front door already, some with silk flowers tied to them, or scarves, or charms. The crowd steps back as Brigit approaches—I see Callum among them, looking grim.
Brigit says something in Shelta—something that includes the word Grohkta-Nap and inspires the others to clasp their hands and look to the sky. She then sets her bottle down with the others; Flannery does the same. I walk up and place mine down, letting my fingers trail along the top of the bottle.
A piece of paper flutters in the wind, stuck under a candle. It’s a photo, I assume of Keelin. I lean in closer to see it, my eyes widening a little. Long blonde hair, sunny face—I remember seeing her.
My heart stops.
She was the little girl wearing Mora’s coat.
Keelin was too young to be taken. They usually want them older—that’s what Callum said. Unless they didn’t mean to take Keelin, unless they thought she was someone else. Lucas said it was strange for them to be around in this sort of cold. I think about the way Mora ran back in Nashville rather than fighting, about the way the Fenris at the rest stop looked at her fur coat in the back of my car. About the fact that the snow slows the Fenris down.
They thought Keelin was Mora.
“They’re chasing her,” I say under my breath. “She makes it snow to slow them down. They’re—”
“Quiet,” Flannery hisses at me, and I go red, dropping my eyes in shame. But there it is, the realization, unfurling inside me. I’m not the only one who wants to find Mora.
No wonder she’s running.
CHAPTER TWENTY
The Travellers are mostly quiet the following day. There’s no music echoing over the camp, no laughter, and every now and then someone paces along the edge of the forest with a shotgun, waiting for a target that never comes. A rainstorm sweeps through in the afternoon, cold and miserable; I fall asleep to the sound of it pelting the RV’s roof.
When I wake up a few hours later, Flannery is at the kitchen table. She’s f
iddling with a music box she’s taken apart, broken into a million pieces; the little plastic ballerina lies on her face on the kitchen table across from where Flannery is sitting. Flannery moves the pieces around as if she means to put the box back together but doesn’t know where to begin. She looks up at me.
“Shoru’s tonight,” she says dully, then answers my question before I can ask it. “Funeral. Well. Sort of. There’s no body, so…” She shrugs and looks back at her music box.
“Should I… do you wear black?” I ask.
“If you’ve got a black dress hidden somewhere, feel free,” Flannery says, and I’m sad she doesn’t grin to punctuate the sarcasm.
A knock at the door; Flannery looks up, confused. She rises and goes to answer it.
“Flannery,” a male voice says.
“Callum,” Flannery says. “What’re you here for?”
“I, uh… came to apologize. No Fenris for your collection, I guess.”
“Yeah,” Flannery exhales, and looks at me. “S’for the best, I guess. Better you be alive and all. I’ll get one someday.”
“You will,” Callum says with enough certainty that even I believe him.
A long silence again, in which I can tell Flannery and Callum are making still, perfect eye contact. Finally, he exhales and moves a bit. “I brought these for you.” I see his arm extend; he’s holding Ella’s shoes. They’re even shinier than before, as if he buffed them.
Flannery’s face forms a strange expression; her eyebrows dip down, her lips part, and for perhaps the first time I see she’s not entirely unlike the girls I go to school with—save the knife. She reaches forward, hooking her fingers into the heels.
“Why’d you want to give these to me?” she asks.
“I dunno,” Callum says, sounding sheepish. “Knew you liked them. And it’s not like there’s someone else I want to give them to.”
“No one else?” Flannery asks immediately, pointedly, and there’s so much weight on the question that even I sink under it. It’s a long time before Callum answers.