*
Jenni Crowgard returned to her apartment in the Green Complex early that evening. The Crowgard had spent the day together, mourning the loss of Crystal, not dissimilar to the way the humans had gathered to mourn the loss of Lawrence MacDonald.
Will the Crows open Sparkles and Junk tomorrow? Meg wondered. Or will they abandon their shop in the Market Square?
Feeling awkward, she knocked on Jenni’s door . . . and tried not to stare when the Crow answered.
Jenni’s black hair, usually shiny and well groomed, hung dull and unkempt around a face drawn by grief.
“I have something for you and Starr.” Meg held out a small decorative box, one of the items Julia Hawkgard had picked up for her.
Jenni took the box and stared at it for a full minute before lifting the lid. She poured a few dimes into one hand. “Shiny,” she whispered. “Coins aren’t always so shiny. Crystal liked shiny coins. She kept them in a bowl on the counter.”
“I know. That’s why I polished these. I thought you could add these to the bowl in her honor.” Meg stopped. “I don’t know how to help, and I want to help.”
“You helped. You warned Simon, but we didn’t listen when he said we had to leave. There was so much shiny, so many treasures to look at and touch, we didn’t want to listen. He had to wait, had to argue with us, and that gave the humans time to attack.”
“Those men had planned to attack the terra indigene. It wasn’t your fault, Jenni.”
The Crow poured the dimes back into the box. “Doesn’t change things. Crystal is dead. MacDonald is dead. And we have learned, again, that humans can’t be trusted.”
The anger in Jenni’s eyes chilled Meg. “Jenni . . .”
“Our Meg can be trusted. Our Meg would not betray us.”
“No, I wouldn’t. Neither would Merri Lee or Ruth or the other humans who work here.”
Jenni shrugged. Meg thought that was a very bad indication of how angry the terra indigene were about this latest clash between themselves and humans.
“Merri Lee and Ruth wouldn’t betray the Crows or any of the terra indigene,” Meg insisted. “Neither would Debany or Kowalski. They wouldn’t.”
Jenni stared at Meg. Then, finally, “Crystal being killed in that place. It wasn’t their fault either.”
Meg nodded, relieved to hear that much of a concession.
Jenni hesitated, then stepped back to close the door. “Thank you for the shinies.”
“You’re welcome.”
Rubbing her arms, Meg returned to Simon’s apartment—and wished she could believe that nothing was going to happen.
CHAPTER 52
Earthday, Maius 27
The girl waited for Jackson or Grace to fetch the dishes from her evening meal. Earlier in the day, she had opened the shutters that covered her window, wanting more light. A screen covered the window, and white paper was tacked outside the screen, preventing her from seeing anything. But she had heard them talking, growling. Upset.
Something bad had happened. Simon, the other Wolf she had drawn in that picture she’d made for Jackson, had been hurt. And because the bad had happened, something else would happen.
The girl looked at the drawing she’d made that day. Storm clouds and lightning. Cars full of people driving away from the storm. But on the other edge of the paper, something waited for the cars and the people—something she couldn’t picture in her mind, something her hand refused to draw because it wasn’t meant to be seen. It simply was.
And it, unseen and terrible, waited for the people in the cars.
Hearing a sound outside her door, the girl shoved the drawing under her bed before Jackson walked in carrying a mailing envelope. He placed the envelope at the foot of the bed.
“Meg, the Trailblazer, said we should take pictures for you to look at.”
New images? She was ready to look at new images.
“Thank you.” She must have said the right thing because he nodded and picked up the dishes she’d left on the desk.
She waited a minute. Then she carefully lifted the envelope’s flap and removed the photographs.
Her breath caught as she looked at each one, drinking in the images.
“Not in order,” she muttered as she rearranged the photos. “Need to be like . . . this.”
A place. All the photos were different images of a wonderful place. But . . . where? Her old keepers used to identify images. How else could she tell someone what she saw when she was cut?
Nothing written on the backs of the photos, so she turned the envelope over. Carefully printed on the front was one word: Sweetwater.
The girl spent the rest of the evening listening to the Wolves howl as she studied the photographs.