“So now there’s a semitrained Crow cutting everyone’s hair?” Meg’s voice rose. She pictured a cartoon drawing of a Crow cutting someone’s hair, wildly waving the scissors while snips of hair flew everywhere. The image looked ridiculous enough to make her feel calmer.
“It wasn’t careless,” she said. “I couldn’t see what was happening, but the movements felt deliberate, even thoughtful.” The slight tug of hair being lifted, the sound of the scissors. Had the Crow become so absorbed in the movement, in the way the shiny scissors opened and closed, that she hadn’t wanted the experience to end?
“Well,” Merri Lee said after a moment. “Your hair is a solid black now. Not even a stray orange tip anywhere. And on the bright side, your hair will be easy to care for this summer.”
Meg hesitantly brushed a hand over her head. Different. Everything would feel different; all her routines would need to be adjusted.
“What?” Merri Lee asked. “You’ve got a look on your face like you just realized something.”
“I’m not sure. I need to use the bathroom.”
“Do you have a spare pad of paper? I’ll pick up a notebook at the Three Ps later that we’ll keep in here for our notes.”
“That drawer.” Meg pointed. “I have an extra pad that fits the clipboard I use for deliveries.”
She went into the bathroom, keeping her eyes focused below the level of the mirror. She studied her hands, the familiar shape. The familiar scars. Then she rested her fingers against her face and looked in the mirror. Fair skin with a hint of rose in the cheeks. Gray eyes. Black hair, eyebrows, eyelashes.
Today this is my face. This is the face Simon recognizes as Meg.
She lowered her hands. No panic this time.
She couldn’t recall any training images of a person being surprised by having a haircut. Now she had the image of her own face in the mirror, shocked and unprepared for the physical alteration. And she had Merri Lee’s story of a similar action that had shaken a person’s sense of herself.
As Meg left the bathroom, she glanced at the under-the-counter fridge and realized she hadn’t had lunch yet. If Merri Lee hadn’t eaten either, maybe they could call Hot Crust and have a pizza delivered. Pizza was comfort food, wasn’t it?
She crossed the threshold, glanced around, and froze. “No.” She rushed to the CD player on the counter, knocking Merri Lee aside, and moved the stack of CDs from the left side of the player to the right.
Merri Lee took a step back. “Gods above and below, Meg! What’s wrong with you?”
Meg pressed her hands on the stack of CDs. “You can’t move these.”
“I was just making a little room on the counter!”
“You can’t change the constant things!” Meg screamed.
Merri Lee stared for a long moment. Then she stepped forward and placed her hand over Meg’s. “Calm down. The CDs are back where they belong. Breathe, Meg. Just breathe.”
Breathe. She could breathe. Simple. Routine.
“Will you be okay if I go into the back room and get us some water?” Merri Lee asked.
Meg nodded.
Merri Lee hurried out of the room, then hurried back in carrying a bottle of water and two glasses. After pouring the water, she handed a glass to Meg. They drank, avoiding eye contact, staying silent.
“Okay,” Merri Lee said. “I guess it’s time to ask some questions. You’ve been here four and a half months. Things change in this office every day, and you haven’t freaked out until now. Was the haircut the trigger? The one thing too many? If you can’t tolerate things changing, how have you survived? How do you survive? We need to figure this out.”
“It’s just a bad day,” Meg protested weakly.
“Yeah, a bad day and the shock of the haircut. Emotional overload. I understand that, Meg. I do. Just like I understand experiencing information overload, when you just can’t take in anything else. I even understand being a bit obsessive-compulsive about your things. But you pushed me aside and screamed at me. Which I guess is better than breaking down, because at least you’re still interacting with me. And that’s the point. You’ve done so much, and so much has happened to you in the past few months, and today—today—you reached your limit. But Simon said those other girls are breaking down every day, and they’ve been out of the compound less than a month. What about other girls who want to leave, who want to live outside and are faced with trying to cope?”
“I don’t know how to help them.” Tears stung Meg’s eyes.
“Yes, you do, but what you did to help yourself you did instinctively. Now Meg, the Trailblazer, has to figure out what she did so that we can tell the other girls.”
Brushing away the tears, Meg took another sip of water.
“The constant things can’t change,” Merri Lee prompted. “What makes something a constant thing?” She studied the stack of CDs. “Always five? But not the same five? And always to the right side of the player?”
“Yes.” Meg looked around the room. “I expect things to change in the sorting room because that’s what happens here. That is the function of the room. Things go in and out, but the room stays the same. The table is always in the same place. So is the telephone and the CD player. The pigeonholes in the back wall don’t move.”
“What about when you’re at home?”
“I have a routine. I follow the routine, just like I follow the roads in the Courtyard when I’m making deliveries.”
“And when the routine is disrupted? Like the times when our Quiet Mind class was canceled?”
“I feel . . . uneasy . . . until I decide what to do instead.”
“Constant versus change. A limited tolerance for change within the constants. And feeling stressed when routines are disrupted.”
Meg recalled images of expressions and decided fear was closest to what she saw on Merri’s face. “You know something.”
“I don’t know anything yet. We need to get Mr. Wolfgard’s permission to do a few experiments before I’ll feel easy about telling someone else what I’m thinking. But if I’m right about why the blood prophets on Great Island are having breakdowns, all the cassandra sangue who left captivity are in serious trouble.”
CHAPTER 4
Thaisday, Maius 10
Taking a seat at the low table in the Business Association’s room, Simon studied the index cards Merri Lee had created from the visions Meg had seen, then handed them to Elliot, the only other person in the meeting who hadn’t already seen them.
Girls and silver razors and roadkill. Why were the girls on the roads alone?
All right, Meg had traveled alone from the Midwest all the way to Lakeside, but she’d traveled by train and bus. She hadn’t been walking beside a road where she might get hit by a car and be left to die like a raccoon or deer.
But she had walked the streets in Lakeside part of the time. At night. In a snowstorm. By herself.
Even puppies weren’t that dumb or that foolishly brave.
Meg wasn’t usually dumb or foolish. But she had been desperate when she ran away from the Controller, and other girls could be as desperate to get away. And yet . . .
“This feels wrong,” Simon said. “Even if the humans are angry with us for making them say where the blood prophets are being kept, why would they let girls they considered valuable just wander off? That feels wrong.”
“You think Meg made a mistake?” Henry asked.
“No.” But maybe we did. We don’t think like humans, so maybe we made the mistake. “Meg saw this as something we need to deal with, but the only cassandra sangue within reach of Lakeside are Meg and the girls living on Great Island. None of them are in danger of being roadkill.”
“Meg and those girls aren’t in danger,” Vlad agreed. “But we received the warning, so we’re the ones who can send the warning to the rest of the terra indigene. I sen
t out an alarm to the Sanguinati. They’re already searching for any girls who appear lost or abandoned. And they’re looking for any females lying next to a road or in a ditch. I also talked to Jenni Crowgard. She’s asking all the Crowgard to search for blood prophets—and Starr and Crystal flew out to tell the regular crows. They’ll spread the word among their own kind and will tell the Crowgard if they notice anything new in their territories.”
“While you were dealing with Meg and Merri Lee, I called Joe and Jackson Wolfgard, telling them about these two visions,” Henry said. “I also contacted some of the Beargard and Panthergard. Wolves, Bears, and Panthers will spread the alarm to the rest of the terra indigene in their regions and start searching. For now, that’s all we can do.”
None of them mentioned the one other thing they could do, didn’t mention the one pack who hadn’t been told about the warning yet.
“What else?” Simon said, nodding at the index cards Elliot set on the table.
“Within minutes of this controlled cut, we had answers to three of the things the terra indigene should watch for,” Vlad said. “Meg herself is the Pathfinder and Trailblazer. Just after Merri Lee brought me those index cards, I watched humans pound FOR SALE signs in the lawns of two houses across the street from the Courtyard.”
“Doesn’t mean those are the correct signs,” Elliot said.
“But it’s likely they are,” Vlad countered.
“Yes, it’s likely, considering the accuracy of the prophecies Meg has shared with us,” Elliot conceded. “Just like NWLNA is most likely an attempt to discriminate against any human who is willing to work for us or with us. When I met with Mayor Rogers yesterday, I saw a proposal for adding a symbol to the identity cards—a symbol that would tell other humans if a person was a ‘Wolf lover.’ Rogers acted flustered that I had seen the proposal and gave me all kinds of reasons why this would benefit the city and help smother unrest.” Elliot gave them all a toothy smile. “I asked him if the identity cards of all the humans who have had sex with one of the terra indigene would carry that symbol since they had certainly earned the designation. Judging by the way his face changed color, I’m guessing at least one member of his family has taken a walk on the wild side. Not something a politically ambitious human would want known.”
Henry frowned. “Instead of trying to justify stamping the identity cards, he should have said it was government business. We don’t get involved with how humans govern themselves.”
“We don’t get involved until their squabbling becomes a threat to us,” Simon said. “But we have provided assistance to humans who were persecuted because they didn’t fit in with the rest. That’s why the Intuits and Simple Life folk mostly live on land we control instead of living in human-controlled towns.”
“I think Rogers left that proposal in plain sight to gauge my reaction,” Elliot said. “But I also noticed a logo on a letter that hadn’t been hidden well enough under the other papers on his desk—a letter I don’t think he wanted me to see.” He removed a piece of paper from his jacket pocket and set it on the table. “That’s a rough sketch of the logo.”
It looked like a jumble of lines in a circle until Simon realized it was an attempt to turn letters into a symbol. “Humans First and Last movement,” he growled.
Elliot nodded. “I’ve heard whispers about secret handshakes, and this symbol is being displayed in all kinds of stores and businesses. There’s a human in Toland going around speaking about what humans deserve, stirring up the rest of the monkeys and trying to convince them that they can exterminate the terra indigene and take control of the world.”
“They might be able to kill the shifters living in the Courtyards, or even some of the shifters living in the land that borders a human town or city,” Henry said. “But they’ll never take control of the wild country. They’ll never take control of Namid. The rest of the terra indigene will see to it.”
“But the seed has been planted,” Elliot argued. “The humans in Lakeside’s government have already forgotten the consequences of attacking us, despite Mayor Rogers’s predecessor being among those who were killed in retaliation. They look at Talulah Falls and refuse to believe that they and their city could end up the same way.”
“What did you tell the mayor about the proposal?” Tess asked.
“I told him the terra indigene would not object to being able to identify human allies as long as we can also identify our enemies. If Lakeside’s government decides to brand some humans as Wolf lovers, then the terra indigene will demand that every person supporting the Humans First and Last movement will have a similar stamp on their identity cards, because we do not wish to support businesses owned by such humans or supply those businesses with raw materials to make their products. Not that the humans who owned or worked in those businesses would want raw materials from us.”
“Secret handshakes and symbols.” Vlad shook his head. “I received an e-mail from Stavros just before this meeting. Some companies in Toland now require their employees to join the HFL movement in order to keep their jobs—and they won’t hire anyone who refuses to join.”
“This HFL is like a sickness spreading among the humans,” Henry said.
Tess’s hair began to coil. “When one kind of sickness spreads through a population, other kinds of sickness tend to follow.”
A shiver of fear went through Simon as he remembered the other name for Tess’s form of terra indigene: Plague Rider. He almost yelped when his mobile phone rang. “What?” he snapped.
“Simon? It’s Meg. Merri Lee and I need your permission to take some pictures. Ruth has a camera with one of those memory cards that holds pictures, and Lorne says he can print out the pictures from the computer in Three Ps.”
He frowned. “Pictures of what?” She sounded . . . odd. Excited and scared. Like a young Wolf the first time he joined the pack to hunt bison.
“Things in the sorting room, mostly. And maybe the area behind the office. It will help us do what you asked us to do.”
“All right, but those pictures don’t leave the Courtyard.”
“Okay.” Meg hung up.
“Meg, Merri Lee, Ruthie, and Lorne are going to take pictures,” he said in response to all the questioning looks.
“Why?” Henry asked.
“Part of understanding the cassandra sangue.” He continued before anyone had a chance to ask him what that meant. “The terra indigene need to find out if ‘Wolf lover’ is a term only used in Lakeside, or did the HFL movement create that brand to cause trouble throughout Thaisia?”
“I told Grandfather Erebus about Meg’s prophecy,” Vlad said. “An order has already gone out to all the Sanguinati to report any ad for employment or rental property that includes NWLNA in the description. That should tell us if the term is local, regional, or has infected the entire continent. It should also give us an idea of which businesses are owned by members of the HFL movement.”
“Not many Sanguinati in the Midwest and Northwest regions,” Henry said.
“Not that many in the Southwest either,” Vlad replied. “We’re better suited to the coasts and the larger human cities.” He looked at Simon. “I’ll give you a copy of the e-mail I sent to the Sanguinati. You can adjust the wording and send it on to the gards who keep watch over the other human places.”
Simon nodded. He’d contact Joe and Jackson. They would spread the word among the Wolfgard.
“By the way,” Vlad said. “Per Grandfather’s instructions, the Sanguinati will refer to humans who belong to the HFL movement as Venom Speakers.”
“And who is supposed to explain to the Snakegard that it wasn’t meant as an insult to them?” Elliot grumbled.
“I don’t think they’ll be offended, because the name is a warning to all terra indigene that the words these humans speak are dangerous and shouldn’t be dismissed.”
“All right,” Simon
said. “This is a start to identifying our enemies among the humans in every city. Any thoughts about the vegetable garden Meg saw in the visions?”
Vlad told them about Kowalski and Ruthie being forced out of their new den and not being allowed to plant their share of the garden for food.
“Then we’ll take care of our human pack, the true Wolf lovers,” Simon said. “We’ll offer them some of the bounty that can be found in the Courtyard. If they share the work, they can share the food.”
“Food grows everywhere on this land,” Henry said. “Sharing the work would mean giving the human pack access to most of the Courtyard and its residents. Risky for us, and risky for them.”
“Sharing the work doesn’t necessarily mean gathering the food or catching the meat,” Simon countered. “Humans preserve foods in jars and make things out of fruit that can be stored and eaten during the winter. The Intuits and the Simple Life folk have been doing that kind of trading for generations, and all of us benefited. Maybe the Wolf lovers are the next group of humans who should be helped, for our sake as well as for theirs.”
He waited while the rest of the Others in the room thought about it.
“We can expand the Green Complex garden to feed a couple of humans,” Henry said as Tess, Vlad, and Elliot nodded their agreement.
“A dozen humans,” Simon said. “We’ll expand enough to feed a dozen humans. If they don’t like what we can offer, they can fend for themselves.”
“Which dozen people did you have in mind?” Tess asked.
He shrugged, but they could guess he was thinking of the other police officers who were making an effort to know the terra indigene.
Ruthie and Kowalski were being driven out of their den because they were smart enough to work with the Others. What could the Courtyard do about that?
“Captain Burke’s friends.” Simon spoke slowly as he thought through the plan. “The ones the terra indigene rescued and brought to Lakeside. The humans selling the houses across the street wouldn’t know them. They could look and report.”