Chapter 71 #12
She twittered softly. In her current form, she could read typed text or the block letters she and Faulkner had used before Ashley set up a laptop for their poetry efforts, but it took effort because bird’s eyes weren’t really built for reading.
“ ‘Dear Rahele,’ ” Lucas read. “ ‘I’m not being cheeky. Miss Betsy says this is the proper way to begin a letter to a friend, and she knows about stuff like that.’ ”
Oh really? Luring Faulkner into a “friendship” by dangling knowledge in front of a curious crow? The hussy.
She realized Lucas had stopped reading. Probably because she’d been twittering her opinion in his ear.
She preened a couple more of his hairs in apology, then poked him with her beak to encourage him to continue.
“ ‘She takes care of the library here and has offered to help me find books about things I want to learn. And she is going to teach me cursive. That’s not swear words but a fancy kind of writing.’ ”
Okay, maybe not a hussy. This Betsy person sounded more like a favorite aunt. Or a grandmotherly type who would look after Faulkner and bake cookies. Yes. Much better.
“ ‘I can’t tell you where I am, but I wanted you to know that I’m safe.
I have my own little house, and I’m looking into finding work because everyone needs to contribute something to the community.
I might even be able to get a puppy, which would be a lot of work but would also be fun.
I hope you’re taking daily flights around the safe part of the park and having fun being a lark.
The world looks so different when you’re in a winged form, and you’ll never have this chance again because humans can only do this once.
It would be a shame to waste the time you have to be something else.
“ ‘Your friend, Faulkner.’ ”
His printing was a little wobbly, even her bird eyes could see that, but that could be because he was still learning to use hands and fingers again.
His words made her think. He sounded younger than she’d expected, and yet…
experienced. And his assurance that he was safe was a sharp reminder that Rachel Nightingale wasn’t the first person the Arcana had helped to disappear.
Faulkner, too, had had his reasons for making that choice.
Lucas folded the letter and slipped it back into the envelope. “I’ll put this in the file box with the other papers we’re keeping for you.”
Rachel rubbed her head against his cheek, then sidestepped to the end of his shoulder before flying back to the room with her perch and cage.
When Mia Skov came to give her some supervised outside time, she hopped on the woman’s hand instead of needing to be coaxed.
Receiving Faulkner’s letter had lifted a heaviness that had weighed her down.
He was right. She should store up sensations and experiences while she was in this form.
She might never write another book to publish, but she would write again.
Maybe Rahele would write some stories about a crow who solved crimes with the help of a human detective.
With that thought in mind, Rachel flew and twittered and poked around in the grass.
But she still refused to taste a worm.
54
Geographically, it made no sense. The Isle of Wyrd just wasn’t that big, and driving on a road that went through the static exterior neighborhoods of the island shouldn’t take a full day.
They had stopped at three static neighborhoods—which was a word that didn’t remotely resemble what she had seen—to stretch their legs and ask about the missing people.
When they reached a town that Jack said was halfway through the circuit, she showed the photos up and down the main street before ending up at a diner for lunch and a pit stop.
“Does the uncanny play wackadoodle with time as well as geography, or is the town retro on purpose?” Beth asked when they were back in the car. “Because it looks like photos I’ve seen of towns from fifty or sixty years ago.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Jack said as they drove out of town.
Sure he did, but that was probably another of those things you weren’t told until you signed a confidentiality agreement and got your very own decoder ring.
Beth looked out the window at the pasture rolling by and the…“Holy…! That’s a purple cow!”
“The sunlight on the brown hide probably gives it a purplish hue.” Jack’s tone was bland, bland, bland.
“Bullshit! That’s a purple cow—a whole herd of purple cows—like in the Gelett Burgess poem.” Had Burgess written the poem after he’d somehow stumbled across this neighborhood in Wyrd?
“You didn’t have any complaints about the burger you ate for lunch.”
She turned in her seat to stare at him. “I thought the ‘purple burger’ was called that because of the purply lettuce they put on it.”
Jack’s grin was wickedly amused.
Beth studied him. “Is there a neighborhood on Wyrd where pigs can fly?”
“I’ve never seen a flying pig.”
Which didn’t really answer her question.
An hour later, while still pondering the existence of purple cows, Beth saw a flash of color in the woodland.
“Jack, slow down. I think I saw something.”
Jack glanced in the rearview mirror and hit the brakes. Beth scrambled out of the car and moved toward the man who was running down the road, waving his arms to attract their attention. He had to be one of the people who had gone missing recently—one of the people she was trying to find.
“Beth, wait!” Jack shouted.
She glanced at Jack, then realized he wasn’t looking at the man. He was looking at the sky—and the humongous bird that was focused on the running prey.
Beth drew her weapon and shouted, “Get down! Get down!”
Jack opened the back of the vehicle, flipped the lid on one of the coolers, and took out a large object wrapped in brown paper. He pulled out a knife from somewhere and stabbed the paper a few times.
Blood began dripping onto the road.
“Stay near the car,” Jack said as he moved to the middle of the road.
Beth moved with him but kept to the side of the road. She stopped a few feet away from the man on the ground, raised her weapon, and aimed at…
Standing, the bird would be as tall as she was. That was freaky enough, but…It had a woman’s face. The beak was there instead of a nose and mouth, but it was still a woman’s face on a giant bird’s body.
Beth clicked off the safety. Please go away. I don’t want to shoot you. Please go away.
Jack whistled and made an underhanded throw with both hands, sending the blood-dripping package into the air.
The bird snatched the package out of the air, banked sharply enough that a wingtip would have hit Jack if he hadn’t ducked, and flew away.
Beth held her stance a few seconds longer. Then she lowered her weapon and clicked on the safety before her hands began to shake.
“I told you to stay near the car,” Jack snapped.
“I’m a cop,” Beth snapped back. “My job was to protect the civilian and back up my partner. I took up a position that would allow me to do both.”
“You couldn’t have shot her.”
“Because a nine mil wouldn’t have enough firepower?”
“Because she comes from another branch of Arcana, and a conflict between branches would cause no end of problems.” Jack glanced at the sky.
“We’ll discuss this later. Make sure your weapon is secure before you approach him, but let’s get him in the car and get out of here.
If she has a nest nearby, she’ll be back for more meat for her chicks. ”
Shuddering, Beth secured her weapon and helped Jack haul the man into the back seat.
Jack removed a bottle of water from the storage area, handed it to Beth, then said quietly, “I have some sandwiches in another cooler, but we’ll wait on that.
Don’t talk to him. Don’t engage and get distracted. We need to stay focused on this road.”
Beth opened the cap on the bottle, handed it to the man, then got in the front with Jack.
“Thank you,” the man said. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” Beth replied before she stared straight ahead.
Jack said nothing. He just drove with a fierce kind of focus—and glanced in the mirrors often enough for Beth to wonder just how fast those birds could fly.
They found another of the missing men sitting in the middle of the road, petting the gravel and crying.
Beth and Jack hustled him into the vehicle and secured the seat belt.
Before she could reach the front passenger door, Jack closed a hand over her arm. “That’s all we can do today. We have to get these two on the last ferry and across the river before the sun goes down.”
She almost asked why the men couldn’t stay at the hotel in Destiny Park. Then she understood. Whatever else these men had seen that had shaken them so badly, the Arcana didn’t want them to see the truth about the ones who lived around Destiny Park.
“Is there some kind of medical personnel who could give them a quick checkup, maybe give them a sedative to help them when they cross the river?” she asked.
Jack nodded. “When we reach Destiny Bay, we’ll have cell phone service.
You contact the police and tell them to meet the last ferry—and bring an ambulance to take those two to a medical facility that can deal with mental trauma as well as physical injuries.
I’ll contact Lucas and let him know we’re bringing in two of the missing humans. ”
He gave her arm a comradely squeeze before circling the vehicle and getting in the driver’s seat while she got in on the passenger side.
Beth hadn’t noticed him removing the key from the ignition when they’d gone out to help the second man, but she noticed now when he inserted the key and started the car.
She looked over her shoulder at the men.
One was still crying softly. The first man they’d rescued…
Something wrong with his eyes. She wasn’t sure what she was seeing, but he was off in a way that made her uneasy about him sitting behind Jack.
“You should buckle your seat belt,” she said.
The man didn’t answer her, but he obeyed.