CHAPTER 24
Despite Earthday usually being a day of rest for both humans and terra indigene, the next morning the guests crowded into the front part of Howling Good Reads. Henry and Vlad stood behind the counter while Tolya and Stavros Sanguinati floated near the ceiling in smoke form. Tess leaned against the doorway between HGR and A Little Bite. Simon waited for the four females—Merri Lee, Heather, Ruthie, and Theral—to join them.
Walking in from the stockroom, the girls hesitated when they saw the crowd of terra indigene, but they came forward when he wagged a finger at them. He’d called all of them last evening, telling them to come in for a full day’s work and he’d explain at the meeting this morning.
Before he could say anything, they pulled notebooks and pens out of the carry sacks they seemed to haul around everywhere. Meg carried a purse when she went to the office or the Market Square, but it was small and didn’t hold anything of particular interest. He knew that because he’d looked. But these sacks were big enough to contain all kinds of curious things, and he wished he’d poked his nose into one before now to find out what it held.
“Today we’re all participating in a special assignment,” Simon began.
The four girls opened their notebooks to a clean page, wrote the date at the top, then looked at him expectantly.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Bobbie Beargard hunch her shoulders, shifting her body into a preattack stance. He noticed how many of the other terra indigene guests also stiffened.
If only one of the girls had done it, none of them would have thought about it. But all four? Was this something that was supposed to be done during a meeting? Did everyone have notebooks and pens, or only females? Was this a secret human thing, a subtle indication when making a deal or trying to buy merchandise that the other person wasn’t really human? If the human teachers the terra indigene paid—and paid well—to teach them how to interact with humans were omitting pieces of that training deliberately, what other ways had they been lying to the Others?
And most important, who could they ask when asking made them vulnerable to deceit?
Simon eyed Ruthie and thought he had the answer to that.
“Mr. Wolfgard?” Merri Lee said, glancing at all the terra indigene. “You were going to tell us about the special assignment?”
“The man who came here yesterday was …” Simon faltered, not sure how to explain since he didn’t want to tell them what would happen when the Others found their prey.
“Someone hired him to procure blood prophets,” Merri Lee said with a simmering anger that made everyone brace for an attack. “He tried to hypnotize Meg into believing she needed to come with him.” In contrast to the simmering anger in her voice, her eyes looked haunted. “He was a bad person.”
“Yes,” Henry, the Courtyard’s spirit guide, said with quiet authority. “He was a very bad person who would have brought harm to many other girls and their families. Meg’s warning to hide the children stopped him from taking anyone from Ferryman’s Landing.”
Merri Lee hadn’t killed Phineas Jones any more than Meg had. But their defensive attack had prevented the man from escaping, and being captured had ended with him dying by his own hand. Simon didn’t think it was as simple for the human female to accept as it was for the Others.
“We need to find a man called the Controller,” Simon said. “He runs the compound where Meg was held, and he keeps a lot of other girls there and treats them as property. He was the one who called Meg cs759 because property doesn’t need a name. We believe he’s responsible for manufacturing the drugs gone over wolf and feel-good—and for making the tainted meat that caused so much violence and death in a Midwest town. So what we’re all going to do today is help Meg figure out how she reached Lakeside and how she reached the Courtyard.”
As he watched them absorb the words, he understood some things about his employees. Heather was definitely a bunny, and while she was a good worker, he didn’t think she’d be staying much longer. Theral was so new he couldn’t decide whether her uneasiness came from trying to understand the Courtyard as a whole or this assignment. But Merri Lee and Ruthie? He saw a bit of Wolf in them, just like he saw in Meg at times. They understood that the Controller wouldn’t live a day after the terra indigene found him.
Maybe Merri Lee wasn’t having as much trouble accepting Phineas Jones’s death as he thought.
Before he could explain the actual assignment, Merri Lee looked at him and said, “Pictures. Meg needs photographs, drawings, maps, names of towns—images that she’ll remember seeing on the journey to Lakeside.” She turned to Ruthie. “She doesn’t always see in a direct way. Sometimes the answer is by association.”
Ruthie nodded. “So we want to start broad and then keep narrowing the focus.”
The next thing Simon knew, Merri Lee and Ruthie were dividing up the tasks and scribbling notes about who was going to do what—including handing out assignments to the Others.
<Aren’t you supposed to be in charge?> Vlad asked, amused.
<Shut up,> Simon growled.
The terra indigene were assigned land—plants, animals, water, distinctive features of each region—while the girls would check the human locations.
“What can we use for reference?” Ruthie asked.
“Any of the books in the store or in the library,” Simon replied. “Just indicate in some way the books from the store if we need to reshelve them later. You can use the big tables in the library and work with Meg at the sorting room table in the Liaison’s Office.”
“I’ll get a Lakeside map and talk to Meg,” Merri Lee said.
“Can I use the computer in the library?” Ruthie asked. She continued without waiting for Simon’s agreement. “I’ll check the train and bus schedules and see what might have been coming into Lakeside and from where. But first I’ll ask Meg if she remembers any town names.”
“There can be more than one town with the same name,” Theral said.
“Yes,” Ruthie agreed. “But not all of those towns would have a bus or train link to Lakeside. Not directly, anyway.”
The girls looked toward the rack of maps that stood opposite the checkout counter. It was usually within easy sight of whoever was at the counter. Today there was a crowd of earth natives standing in the way of anyone who wanted to reach the maps.
Smoke flowed along the ceiling, then drifted down toward the rack. An arm and hand took shape, along with enough of the face for Simon to identify Stavros when the Sanguinati selected several maps and handed them to Alan Wolfgard, who gave them to Charlie Crowgard, who passed them on to Simon, who gave them to Ruthie.
After murmuring their thanks, Merri Lee and Ruthie headed for the back of the store, followed by Theral. Heather looked over her shoulder at all of them before hurrying to catch up to the other girls.
The other humans.
<She won’t be staying,> Vlad said, sounding regretful.
<I know,> Simon replied. <When the time comes, we’ll do it the human way. We’ll flip a coin to see who has to fill out the paperwork.>
He collected one copy of every magazine the store stocked, which wasn’t many since the terra indigene didn’t find magazines all that interesting and the human customers didn’t like paying the nonrecycling fee he tacked onto the price. Now, though, he would consider whether magazines would provide a useful reference for Meg. He’d have to talk to her about that.
Should he pick up a notebook at Three Ps so he could write such things down? Why did he need to write them when he could remember them?
Damn humans. He was second-guessing himself, wondering if he’d really passed for human as well as he’d thought all these years.
Wondering why it mattered now.
After he handed out the magazines, most of the Courtyard’s guests took their assignments into A Little Bite, where they could use the tables and get a drink.
Alan wandered over to the shelves of children’s books and selected several before he joined Joe and Jackson at A Little Bite. Vlad went upstairs to deal with paperwork. Henry and Bobbie headed for the Market Square shops to see what might be helpful.
That left Simon alone with Charlie.
Going behind the counter, Simon reached for the stack of orders from the terra indigene settlements. If Heather was going to quit, he needed to get a start on these.
“Whispers from across the water,” Charlie said quietly.
Simon began separating the orders into stacks that would go on the same earth native delivery truck. “Whispers of what?”
“War.”
He looked up, giving Charlie his full attention. “War” was a serious word because war reshaped the world. “You think the humans over there are that foolish?”
“Enough of them are.”