“I don’t know. I think Jesse Walker has the same decks that she sent to me.” Jester slanted a look at the cards in her hand. “Don’t tell anyone about those cards. You should keep them. Learn them. But don’t talk about them with anyone else.”
Meg studied the cards that upset Jester. The creatures walked upright, but that was all they had in common with humans. The cards weren’t intended to convey a blended form of terra indigene. Or if they were, she didn’t recognize the animals these creatures had absorbed.
Separated from the rest of the cards, the drawings frightened her—and made the backs of her legs prickle.
“Promise you won’t tell anyone about these,” Jester whispered. “Put them in with the nature cards and hope you never see any of them again.”
“But these are just something someone imagined.”
The prickle became a burn when Jester said, “Or remembered.”
She realized the Coyote was shaking. Her fingers tightened on the cards in her hands. “They’re make-believe.”
“No. They’re not.”
To: Erebus and Vladimir Sanguinati The remaining terra indigene have left the Toland Courtyard. Some of the Crowgard and Sanguinati will remain near the train station to keep watch and report any suspicious activity or any sign that an unusual number of humans are leaving the city.
I and a few of our kin will watch the ships leaving Toland for a while longer. The Elementals promised to help keep watch—and to warn us when the taste of the storm touches the beaches and fills the air so that we, and other terra indigene along the East Coast of Thaisia, have time to move inland.
—Stavros Sanguinati
Recognizing the superior might of the human race, the Others have abandoned the Toland Courtyard, giving us much-needed acres to grow crops and provide pastures for some domestic animals. Some people think a few acres is not a significant victory. I say it’s the first step in acquiring all the land and resources we deserve.
—Nicholas Scratch, speaking at Toland’s city hall
To: Greg O’Sullivan
Humans were indirectly responsible for our decision to close the Toland Courtyard, but it is not accurate to say humans forced us to leave the city, as Nicholas Scratch would like you to believe. We left because human behavior has made it prudent for us to get out of harm’s way.
—Stavros Sanguinati
To: Simon and Jackson Wolfgard Wolfgard throughout the northern Midwest and Northwest are howling about bison being killed and left to rot for a second time. We have lost more bison from the Prairie Gold herd, and Tobias Walker reported that some cattle have disappeared from the ranch. He says this is called rustling. Since we didn’t find horns or hooves to indicate the Elders ate the cattle, I think Tobias Walker is right but don’t know how to find the thieves. The Prairie Gold Wolves are keeping watch, looking for scents beyond the town that don’t belong to the humans we know. Tolya Sanguinati continues to watch Prairie Gold as well as Bennett. He says there is a bad feel in Bennett—poisonous smiles—and he thinks something will happen soon.
Jesse Walker says nothing but continues to buy extra supplies for her general store. Tolya is lending her money to do this. She rubs her left wrist when she thinks no one is watching. Tobias says that is a sign of trouble.
Has Meg or the Hope pup been itchy?
—Joe Wolfgard
CHAPTER 26
Windsday, Juin 20
Vlad sat back and let Steve Ferryman and Elliot Wolfgard do the talking. Or, more truthfully, let them be the focus of the humans and the terra indigene from Talulah Falls who were attending this meeting.
Maybe he’d never been so close to a source to see how much influence small things could have on the fate of so many. Simon had hired Meg, who was a cassandra sangue. Her combination of childlike sweetness, the prophecies she’d seen, and her desire to learn and live shifted enough of the terra indigene’s perception of humans that the humans working in the Lakeside Courtyard reacted by becoming a little more friendly to the Others. Lieutenant Montgomery’s efforts to forge a connection between the Courtyard and the police also gave both sides more opportunities to interact without hostility.
He saw the results of those actions. The Talulah Falls humans hadn’t brought government officials—if there were any who had survived. They brought a supervisor from the hydroelectric plant and a police captain. Vlad could hear Captain Burke’s influence in the way the Falls captain expressed his concerns about how to keep the peace for the humans who would remain in Talulah Falls, and how to release the humans who wanted to leave. The captain, at least, understood the danger that faced anyone who wanted to flee from the Falls: with the friction building between humans and the Others in so many regions, the towns and cities still under human control provided only the illusion of safety.
But the surviving Talulah Falls residents had worked with the terra indigene, explaining the value of clearing at least one lane of the cars that had been abandoned during the first effort to flee the Falls a few months ago. There were parking lots full of cars that hadn’t been reclaimed—some because the owners had been tourists who had been allowed to leave or had run away in the first chaotic days and weren’t seen again. And some vehicles belonged to people who had been killed outright during the terra indigene’s initial furious response to the explosion that had killed several of the Crowgard.
No one talked about how many humans had died. No one talked about the Harvester who had been brought to the Falls to act as the enforcer and consumed the life energy of anyone suspected of wrongdoing. Instead, the humans presented a list of what they considered vital businesses and industries. The power plant provided electricity for the whole area, including Talulah Falls, Great Island, and Lakeside. It would provide most of the power for the River Road Community. If they could have some reassurance for their safety and that of their families, the men and women who worked at the power plant would remain in the Falls, doing their work to the best of their ability, even making entry-level jobs available to the folks from Ferryman’s Landing to train more workers in all areas of the business.
As far as Vlad could tell, this seemed to be the message the humans wanted to convey: this was their home; they wanted to stay; but they didn’t want to die if they stayed. And they understood that any sign of the HFL movement would mean the end of the citizens and town of Talulah Falls.
From the terra indigene, he heard a different message: they were tired of dealing with humans; they didn’t like feeling enclosed by so many human things; they wanted to go home, go back to limited contact with the clever monkeys. But they also wanted an opportunity to observe humans without the responsibility for so many things they didn’t understand.
In other words, they wanted to play tourist for a day or two in a place like Ferryman’s Landing or the Lakeside Courtyard and then retreat to the land they knew and loved.
<What do you think?> Vlad asked Henry and Ming.
<They see Lakeside surviving and Ferryman’s Landing surviving,> Henry said. <They want to survive too.>
<Yes,> Ming agreed. <I smell no lie-sweat. And Steve Ferryman did not say the words that were the signal that he felt something wrong here.>
An Intuit who was the mayor of his village would have a feeling about any deceit that might threaten his own people.
“The Sanguinati have adapted to living in and around human places,” Vlad said, finally ready to say what Erebus had commanded him to say. “We are willing to take over the rule of Talulah Falls, with the help of other forms of terra indigene.”