There was a flurry of ‘tsks!’ both sympathetic and condemning, accompanied by nods and shaking heads.
Bram released his mother’s arms. ‘So Lorrie and Rip are both missing?’
‘Didn’t I just say so?’ Glidden said.
‘Has anyone gone after them?’
From the glances exchanged around the room, Bram could tell no one had.
‘When did all this happen?’ Bram ran a desperate hand through his hair, looking around in confusion.
‘The marks on Melda and Sam’s bodies looked like they’d been made by an animal of some kind,’ Ossrey said. ‘We think the boy must have been dragged away by whatever killed them.’
‘Animals!’ Bram said. ‘Here?’ He looked around again. ‘Has anyone tracked the beasts? Are you saying they . . . had they eaten Melda and Sam?’ Then it struck him. ‘Do you mean to tell me that Lorrie has gone alone, tracking some animal big enough and dangerous enough to kill two adults? When did she go?’
‘Lorrie said something about men doing it,’ Dora Commer said, looking defiantly at Allet and Ossrey. ‘Said they tore up the bodies with some sort of tool to make it look like a beast did it, then headed down the road toward Land’s End. She wanted to follow them at once, but of course we couldn’t let her do that. We thought she was in a panic.’ The woman shrugged, looking guilty. ‘And there was the fire, we had to take care of that. For all we knew the boy had been in the house or the barn and she just couldn’t take the idea. Besides,’ she continued into his silence, ‘if there were men and they’d killed both her parents what could one girl do against them?’
‘We brought her here and put her to bed,’ his mother said. ‘The men had to fight fires in the fields all night, and have been arguing this thing since they got here. When the Lormers were leaving, a little before you got here, they saw the Merfords’ horse gone. I checked your room and it was empty. She’d gone out of the window, wearing some of your old clothing, and she stole your purse from under the bed!’ She said the last as if it was more important than the other news.
‘She’s welcome to it,’ said Bram, ‘if she needs it to find Rip.’
‘I checked her farm,’ Long Paul, the foreman of Glidden’s farm said. ‘I took a lantern, rode out there and checked. No sign of her.’
‘Well, there’s nothing there for her now, is there?’ Jacob Reese’s wife asked, sniffing sadly.
‘We’re going to send word to the constable after sunup,’ said Glidden officiously. ‘It’s their job to deal with things like this.’
Bram looked incredulous. ‘The constable?’
Glidden looked displeased. ‘Doubt much will come of it. No doubt they’ve much more important things to do than be after a girl looking for her brother.’
‘But wasn’t he right there on the minute when it came to evicting the Morrisons from the farm their family had worked forever?’ Dora said indignantly. ‘They jump right to it if you’re a money-lender needing to foreclose.’
At this more arguments broke out and threatened to go on for some time.
Bram watched them in wonder then finally shouted over the uproar, ‘What have you been doing to find Lorrie and Rip?’
‘And what should we do?’ his mother asked, sounding offended. ‘We offered her our home and our comfort and she ran away, with your purse, without so much as a thank you or a farewell. If she doesn’t want us we can’t force ourselves on her.’
He looked at her, then turned to his father. ‘And there’s been no further sign of these so-called animals?’ he asked.
‘None,’ Ossrey said. ‘None before, and none since.’
‘We didn’t find any tracks to follow,’ Long Paul told him.
Bram stared at him. Long Paul was the best hunter in the district; it was he who had taught Lorrie and Bram to hunt. If Long Paul couldn’t find tracks then there were no tracks to find. ‘Doesn’t that strike anyone as odd?’ he asked. ‘The Merfords’ farm is seven miles from any sizeable stands of woods. Any animal large enough to savage a full-grown man and woman would have been seen by someone if it was crossing the fields from the Old Forest or the Free Woods. Unless you think it just trotted down the King’s Highway without a trader, traveller, or horseman noticing it, then it turned down the Old Mill Trail to Lorrie’s farm.’
His neighbours looked at one another in confusion.
‘Well, yes,’ Long Paul said. ‘Not that it signifies. Tracks I mean. Those marks on the bodies were definitely made by an animal’s teeth, Bram. I’d swear to that. The fact that it’s odd doesn’t change the evidence. Could have been a flyer.’ He shrugged.
‘A flyer?’ asked Bram.