“Maybe he did something to her.”
“No, Owl would know. Candle would tell her. I think it’s something else, but I don’t know what. I know I don’t like it. We could always count on Candle to keep us safe. Now we can’t. I don’t think we can, anyway. I don’t think she’s getting those warnings anymore.” He pursed his lips. “That’s another reason I think it’s a good thing we have Cat with us. She’s almost as good at sensing danger as Candle.”
Chalk sniffed. “Yeah, she was great back there when Krilka Koos and his militia found us and took Logan Tom away. She sensed that one right away.”
Fixit did a slow burn but managed to keep himself from taking the bait. “I’m just saying,” he repeated, and went silent again.
SPARROW HAD BEEN WATCHING CANDLE, too, and was harboring many of the same thoughts as Fixit. She was sitting with Owl and River, but they were busy talking about what to do to replenish their diminishing supplies and paying no attention to her. So she got up and walked over to where Candle was petting Cheney and sat down beside her. She didn’t say anything right away, just reached over and joined the little girl in stroking the wolf dog’s shaggy head. Cheney, who looked asleep but wasn’t—same as always—was ignoring both of them. But with Cheney, you couldn’t always tell. He might actually be enjoying the attention.
It was Candle who spoke first. “I’m glad Cheney’s back,” she said quietly. “Aren’t you?”
“I’m glad all three of them are back,” Sparrow answered. “It didn’t feel right when they were gone.”
Candle nodded. “Do you think Cheney missed us?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
“I think he did. I think he knows we’re his family, and when he isn’t with us, he misses us.”
She spoke in short, breathy bursts, as if struggling to get it all out. She didn’t sound at all like the Candle that Sparrow knew. “I think you’re probably right, peanut,” she said.
Candle didn’t look happy with this. “I just wish he’d do something to let me know for sure.”
Sparrow ran her fingers through her spiky blond hair. She had cut it short a day earlier, tired of dealing with longer hair. But it needed a wash. She needed a wash. For that to happen, of course, she needed water, and there wasn’t any for baths. There was barely enough for drinking.
“Why don’t you try to go to sleep now?” she suggested.
Candle looked at her, her gaze intense. “Sparrow, do you think the other kids still like me?”
Sparrow stared at her in shock. “Of course they like you.”
“Don’t say it just because you think I want to hear it. Tell me the truth. Do they?”
“Candle, why wouldn’t they like you?”
The little girl didn’t say. She just ducked her head, looked at her feet, at Cheney, and then off into the darkness as if the answer was out there somewhere. “Just because.”
“Has someone said something?”
Candle shook her head.
“Done something?”
Another shake of the moppet head.
“Then I don’t understand. Why would you think that, all of a sudden, for no reason, they don’t like you?”
“What if there was a reason?”
Sparrow thought she knew what was coming, but she didn’t want to be the one to say it. Candle needed to do that. Speaking the words was the first step toward coming to terms with what they meant.
“What sort of reason?” she asked.
Candle shrugged. “No one needs me anymore.” She was still looking at her feet as she paused, not finished, but not ready to continue, either. “You know.”
Sparrow reached over and put a hand on her chin and lifted her face so that they were looking right at each other. “No, I don’t know. You have to tell me.”
Another long pause. Then, “I can’t sense when we’re in danger anymore.”
There it was. Out in the open. Sparrow breathed a sigh of relief. Now maybe she could do something about it. She reached out for Candle and hugged her close. “Oh, Candle,” she whispered.
Then she backed away so that they were looking at each other again. “My mother told me something once. I was just about your age. I thought my mother was the most wonderful person in the world. I loved her, but I admired her even more than I loved her. I wanted to be her.”
She smiled. “You know this. I’ve told you before. Anyway, I was worried that it wasn’t going to happen, that it didn’t matter what I wanted. I was small and not very good at anything. I told her this. I said I didn’t think I would ever be like her, not even a little bit. This is what she told me. She told me that we don’t know who we’re going to be or what we’re going to do when we’re still children. She told me we don’t find that out until after we’ve grown up. So you can’t ever know what’s supposed to happen until you get there.”