Her voice was meek, nothing like the devil-may-care tone Leo was growing accustomed to. He had determined to not look at her anymore, thinking lack of attention might drive her away. But something in the way she spoke the question made him look around once more.
She stood several yards behind him now, huddling into herself so that she seemed even smaller than before. Though he could not see her face, something in her stance suggested . . . fear? Or maybe nothing that strong. Maybe just worry.
Leo licked his lips and frowned. She looked like she was about to run away, and inexplicably he realized he disliked that idea. Annoying as she was, she was company. Not the stalwart cohort he had always envisioned, but company even so. It was only right for an adventurer to have a companion.
Leo motioned sharply with his arm. “Come on, keep up! You’re going to slow me down.”
She remained still several moments, then shook her head.
“Come on,” Leo repeated. “There’s nothing to be scared of. I’m good at fighting monsters! That is, I beat my cousin at wrestling all the time, and I know how to take care of myself.”
Still no response.
“If I leave you behind, it might come eat you,” Leo threatened. Threatening seemed like a good idea; someone that small was bound to be scared into submission. “You need to stay close.”
Her gloved hands reached up to touch the edge of her long veil, wringing it nervously so that water dripped to the dirt. “It’s not . . . You shouldn’t look for the monster,” she said in such a quiet voice that Leo had to step closer, and she was obliged to repeat herself a few times before he understood.
“Why not?” he asked.
“Folks say it’s bad luck. Bad luck to even see it.”
“Not if I defeat it in battle!”
“The monster won’t fight.”
Leo’s frown deepened. “How do you know?”
“I just . . . know.”
Then the girl vanished.
3
IT HAPPENED IN A BLINK. One moment she was there, the next . . . gone. Leo stood openmouthed, staring at the empty place where she should have been.
“I say.” He gulped. “That is . . . I say! Where are you?”
The wind stirred the leaves, which dropped their burdens of water on Leo’s head almost spitefully. But he didn’t notice. He turned this way and that, casting about for the girl. Then he cursed, “Iubdan’s beard! Why didn’t I think of it sooner?”
This high-country bumpkin was much more likely to know about the mountain monster than Foxbrush or the Hill House servants. She lived out in this wild country after all, didn’t she? And she’d probably heard stories that even Leanbear hadn’t.
Leo shook his beanpole with frustration, then plunged into the foliage off the path, scrambling uphill as fast as he could go. He hadn’t the faintest idea which way the girl had gone, so thorough was her disappearance, but she couldn’t have gone far.
The vegetation thinned the higher up he scrambled, and soon even the trees were little more than scraggly bushes. Leo climbed nearly straight uphill as far as the terrain permitted, still without catching a single glimpse of the girl. He called out now and again as he went, “I say! Girl, where are you?”
She didn’t respond. Leo had left the path far behind. Not that he cared; nor did he care that he hadn’t the first idea how to get home, so intent was he upon his quarry.
But thin air and soggy clothing soon took their toll. Leo used his beanpole as a walking stick, clambering up the mountainous terrain, still calling out to the girl without response. He thought perhaps he hated girls. Little ones anyway. He’d always figured they were all like the girls who visited his father’s house, all the pretty little Starflowers and Daylilies and Dewdrops, so dolled up in flounces that he couldn’t have told them apart for the world, filling the air with their silly giggles and games.
This girl was nothing like any of them, which made her even stranger. He didn’t pretend to understand the girls back home, but at least he was used to them. They wouldn’t go disappearing on a chap on a mountainside in the rain!
Huffing and puffing, Leo was both too hot and too cold out on that mountain. He sweated under the coat, but his wet face and hands stung every time the wind blew. At last he stood on top of a lichen-covered boulder that looked very much like an old man’s head with either bad hair or a still worse wig. He stopped to catch his breath and looked about himself for the first time.
He had come much farther than he’d thought.
The forest was far down the mountainside, and he stood exposed among the rocks of the higher slopes. This mountain was not the highest in the range, but Leo was certainly higher now than he had ever before climbed. Not high enough to see anything beyond the tree line, however, save more trees. The sister mountains loomed menacingly above him, like giants with disapproving faces. Out here in the open, Leo felt very small indeed. The sun was starting its downward dip, and he realized that he would likely be out after dark.
If he made it home at all.
“Iubdan’s beard!” he growled, turning to look down the way he had come. Or the way he thought he had come. It all looked the same from here.