He put a finger to his lips. “Shh. Stay quiet, but there is something outside the cabin.”
My thoughts tripped and tumbled, and then clumsily righted themselves. I blinked and rubbed my eyes. Jackaby’s silhouette appeared in the doorway, pulling his bulky coat over his pajamas. “You’re certain it’s still out there?” my employer asked in a whisper.
“My hearing is still very good, Mr. Jackaby.” Charlie peered out of the bedroom window into the blackness of the forest.
“What is out there?” I said.
“That is what we intend to find out.” Jackaby pulled the knit cap over his mess of dark hair and stuffed his bare feet into his shoes. “Stay here until we return.”
I shook the last of the fog from my brain. “Well, you already know that isn’t going to happen.” I was out of bed with my own coat wrapped over my nightgown before the men could leave without me.
The three of us tiptoed to the corner of the cabin. Charlie took the lead, silently peering into the darkness. The surrounding wilderness was louder than I would have imagined. I strained to hear anything out of the ordinary, but the clamor of chirping insects and rustling leaves made it hard to focus. The forest itself seemed to drone on in a perpetual low murmur. Charlie held a hand up, and my employer and I froze. Tentatively, he leaned his head around the corner. I could hear it now, just the faintest crackling of leaves. Footsteps. Something was around the corner. Impossibly close—impossibly large.
“Mr. Hudson?” said Charlie.
The trapper stomped into sight, the wide barrel of his rifle dipping to the ground. “Shh.” He held a finger to his bristly mustache and glanced behind him into the woods. “What in the Sam Hill are you folks doin’ out here in the middle of the night?”
“This is my cabin,” said Charlie. “What are you doing out here in the middle of the night?”
Hank looked left and right into the surrounding forest. “Trackin’. Been followin’ trails all night. There’s somethin’ big in the valley for sure, and not just an old bony fake. The prints get pretty thick around here. I lost a good one just outside your place. You seen anything?”
I held my breath. Charlie shook his head. The trapper nodded slowly and shifted his rifle to his shoulder. “Well, sorry if I woke ya. Guess I’d best be headed back, anyway. Y’all be careful. No tellin’ what’s lurkin’ in the deep dark woods.”
“What sort of footprints have you been tracking, Hudson?” asked Jackaby. He was peering into the trees toward the road.
“Dunno. Sharp claws. Real big. Why? You spot somethin’ with them fancy eyes of yours?”
“No. Possibly no. Although . . . Can any of you see a faint metaphysical incandescence radiating just beyond that maple tree?”
“Of course we can’t, Mr. Jackaby,” I said. “Could you describe it?”
“I would say it’s fifty or sixty feet tall, stout trunk. Still largely bare, although I imagine the spring buds are probably beginning to . . .”
“Not the maple, sir.”
“Ah, yes. The aura is faint—shrouded or possibly just residual. It’s terribly familiar. Sort of a . . . how to explain the color . . . sort of a lumpy bluish with a hint of peril. No, that’s not quite right. It isn’t really blue at all, is it?”
Three sets of eyes blinked at my employer.
“Oh, never mind.”
“I got my wagon over that way,” offered Hank. “Yer probably just pickin’ up on leftover Rosie feathers.”
Jackaby looked his friend up and down in the dark. He picked a speck from the man’s fur cuff and nodded. “Yes, you’re probably right. You have something of the same color about you.”
“Hah! Anyone else told me I was ‘lumpy with a bit of peril,’ I might take it as an insult,” said Hudson. “Well, y’all have a good night. Sorry I woke you, but do watch yerselves out here.”