Chapter 5 Arden
ARDEN
With darkness creeping between the buildings and the group of newcomers all safely gathered on Main Street and no longer wandering through the town, Arden dared unlock the door and slip out of her cabin.
First she went to the creek and filled a cooking pot and her canteen with water, adding some purification tablets. There wasn’t a lot else that she needed to do. She had a small camp stove and food in her pack to last her for a few more days.
But she found herself drawn to the newcomers and their friendly camaraderie. After watching them and then listening to them all afternoon, she felt a little less intimidated. They seemed nice. Maybe she could go introduce herself.
They had made a bonfire somewhere on Main Street; firelight spilled between the houses.
Arden crept closer, working her way between the houses.
It was almost completely dark now, and she didn’t have a flashlight.
Her heel still hurt a little in her shoe, reminding her that there were a lot of things to step on.
She tried to stifle quiet cursing and mutters of “Ow!” as her jeans legs caught on brambles, and unseen items (old boards, tin cans) shifted underfoot and threatened to give her away.
Finally she found a place where she could look out from a particularly dark pool of shadow and see the whole group sitting around a fire they had built in the middle of the road, the only place that wasn’t covered with long, dry, flammable grass. They were toasting hot dogs on sticks and laughing.
Arden felt suddenly, miserably alone.
This was a bad idea. She wanted to be with a group of people like that, carefree and enjoying a campout under the stars.
Not hiding in the shadows, spying on them.
What would they say if she just walked out of the shadows and admitted she had been hiding from them all day? What kind of welcome did she expect?
But she couldn’t tear her eyes away.
There was Fern, brilliant hair shining in the firelight, laughing quietly as the person next to her (that dark, moody, slightly scary man, not at all scary right now) helped her spear a hot dog on a stick he had just finished whittling to a point.
There was another woman Arden hadn’t seen yet, tanned and capable-looking, with her brown hair in braids. This must be the one who had been talking to Gray T-Shirt beside the creek.
And there he was, Gray T-Shirt himself, the man who had come to her cabin twice now, returned her bar of soap, and captivated her completely.
Now she had the opportunity to look at him as much as she liked.
His light brown hair glinted in the firelight, catching golden highlights.
The tight T-shirt left little to the imagination, from a dusting of curly light brown hair in the cleft of the neck, to the tautly outlined muscles that flexed when he moved.
When the shirt rode up slightly as he turned, there was a tantalizing glimpse of soft-looking skin between the hem and the belted waist of his jeans.
His hands looked big, firm, and capable, even when they were doing something so mundane as squirting ketchup from a squeeze bottle onto a hot dog bun.
“Fern tells me you’ve claimed the general store, Baz,” the woman with braids said.
The sandy-brown head turned toward her. Baz, Arden thought; it had to be short for something. Bastian? she thought. Basquale. Bazjamin.
“I think a proper town needs a hangout spot,” Baz said.
The deep rumble of his voice did something to Arden, quivering in her chest and making her toes curl.
“Do you remember the old country store in Wildcat Forks? It closed when we were kids, but there used to be that corner with the little stove where all the farmers and ranchers would come to drink their coffee in the morning.”
“I do remember that,” the dark-haired man said. Declan was his name, Arden recalled. “Never really saw the point myself.”
Brown Braids, the one person whose name Arden hadn’t learned yet, nudged him with her elbow. “I think you’re gonna have competition, Baz, since Declan’s living in the schoolhouse. We can have coffee in the morning, then lessons on the chalkboard in the afternoon.”
“I am not teaching you idiots anything,” Declan snorted, but he was smiling.
Baz grinned readily, and Arden’s body flooded with a whole new rush of feelings at that expression.
She had learned the difference very well between genuine smiles and fake ones in the past few years.
That was an easy, real smile, and she wanted to spend more time around people who smiled like that.
“Well, I know I’m going to love being the town blacksmith,” Brown Braids said. “Just find me a few horses to shoe.”
Baz pointed up the street with his hot dog stick. “Look in there. I think that long building next to yours is an old livery stable.”
“Could we get some horses?” Fern asked as she transferred her hot dog to a bun.
Arden’s mouth watered at the smell of the roasting hot dogs. Granola bars and freeze-dried camp food were getting less appealing day after day.
“We can figure all of that out later,” Baz said, smoothly switching gears. “We were going to talk about tomorrow’s plans.”
He was the leader; of course he was. Even from here, Arden sensed a quiet, commanding calm surrounding him, an air of competent authority that felt natural, not overbearing.
Apparently, the others didn’t agree.
“Bossing everyone around again, Baz?” asked Brown Braids. Her voice was playful, but Arden sensed that it wasn’t just fun; there was a serious undercurrent to it.
“We already know what we’re doing anyway,” Declan said.
“Do we? I know we need to do a lot of house repair, but there’s also infrastructure to worry about.
Getting the electricity up and running again.
Fixing the boardwalk and the roads. The paperwork says there’s supposed to be a septic system, so we’d better figure out how much work that’s going to need. ”
“What’s next, collecting property taxes?” Brown Braids asked.
Crouching in the shadow, Arden found herself upset on Baz’s behalf. She could see what he was doing, even if his friends could not. Someone had to be in charge. Someone needed to make the decisions.
But all this talk of fixing up the town clarified a few things for her, and she didn’t like the picture that was emerging.
She had been right the first time. These people weren’t campers or tourists, planning to move on in a few days.
Passing hikers didn’t fix boardwalks and maintain city infrastructure.
These people were planning to stay for a good long while.
Arden couldn’t really understand how a group of people like this had managed to come into possession of the town—unless they were squatters, but they didn’t act like it.
She had assumed that the new owners were rich people or some kind of development company.
Maybe these people were working for the developers?
“I think we should save this talk for tomorrow,” Fern said, evidently the self-appointed peacemaker of the group. “When we finish eating, does anyone want to go check out the creek?”
“Sounds like a good way to fall down a hole in the dark,” Declan said.
“Not if we shift. I haven’t stretched my legs in the woods in a while.”
Shift? Arden jerked upright in a mix of fascination and horror.
Were all these people shifters?
No wonder they had come to this town in the middle of nowhere. No wonder they seemed to have senses that most people did not, recognizing her presence in the cabin.
Suddenly Arden was very glad she hadn’t tried to come out and introduce herself. She retreated deeper into the shadows. What if they sensed her here? Would they be angry?
They can’t possibly know who you really are, she thought, writhing inwardly with shame and humiliation.
The one thing she didn’t feel, to her own surprise, was fear.
Shifters were dangerous, animalistic, feral. At least they were supposed to be. But these people just seemed normal. Approachable. Even Declan’s occasional prickly nature was more like normal peevishness than bestial fury.
Rather than being terrified, Arden found herself wondering what they shifted into.
She was positive, without being really sure why, that Baz must be some kind of large animal. A vision of a large, dark blond grizzly came into her head immediately, an image that startled her with its vivid clarity. It was as if she had already seen it, though she knew she hadn’t.
The others she wasn’t so sure about. She got the feeling that Brown Braids was related to Baz somehow; the two of them behaved like brother and sister. In fact, all of them had the relaxed attitude of people who knew each other intimately.
“Count me out of any shifting that’s going to be happening,” Declan said in a voice that was close to a growl. He ripped a little piece of bark off his marshmallow-toasting stick and tossed it into the flames. “I’m about ready for bed anyway.”
Fern patted his arm. “You can shift here, Deck. It’s just us. No one’s going to know.”
Uh-oh, Arden thought. They didn’t know they had an onlooker. And she had no desire to know too many secrets about these strangers. That would be yet another reason for them to be angry with her if they found her, perhaps violently so.
She couldn’t believe Baz would resort to any kind of violence. But Declan ... she could definitely see him acting to protect whatever his secret was.
“So who’s up for a little exploration?” Fern asked. She stretched her feet out and wiggled her bare toes in front of the fire.
“Hey, guys,” Brown Braids said quietly. She touched Baz’s arm.
Everyone fell silent. Startled, Arden looked where they were looking, but she couldn’t see. Everyone was looking down the street, in the direction of the woods.
What was there? A wild animal?
The hair on Arden’s arms stood up. She crept forward until she could see a human figure standing at the edge of the firelight.