Moonlight spilled between the swaying moss, but even in the splashes of pale light, the horse was nowhere to be seen. We pushed farther into the woods, until my skin burned with bites and scratches. Koa thrust out an arm and lifted the lantern. We were standing at the edge of a large clearing, at least an acre in size—a gentle rise of sandy grass laced with an intricate fretwork of low stone walls that bisected each other in random patterns. Behind the lines of stone rose a building whose walls were almost completely intact. There was no roof on it, and the walls pointed jaggedly toward the sky; scattered along the side facing us, I saw a few high windows and one crumbling arched doorway. The mission ruins.
Somebody had built a campfire in the middle of this outside courtyard area, and the blacked remains were ringed with logs. So strange, I thought, that people would want to roast hot dogs and marshmallows in front of a spooky old Catholic mission. Where actual human beings had been murdered.
“She went in there.” Koa pointed toward the rising jagged walls. I tried to see something, anything, in the darkness.
My arms and legs prickled as I swept my gaze over the rubble. It couldn’t be safe in there, back in that dark warren of rooms. The foal could knock stones loose, topple one of the precarious stone walls. We needed to get her out. I stamped the ground absently, trying to lessen the needling sensation.
“What are you doing?” Koa whispered. “Stop it.”
I shook my hands, trying to get the tingling to stop. “It’s this thing I’ve got. Makes my hands and feet tingle sometimes. And go numb.”
“What is it?”
“Nothing. Just something from stress.”
“A doctor said that?” He was fully focused on me now. Great.
“I’m okay. Let’s just find her.”
We made our way through the strange maze of stones—which resembled a life-size, arcane board game laid out by a giant—until we came to the main structure and a high arched doorway. I gazed up.
“She’s probably in there,” he whispered, handing me the lantern. “But we should flank her. You go left. Sneak in from the side, if you can. I’ll go in the doorway, and we’ll meet at the back. Take it slow so you don’t spook her.”
We separated, and I crept around the edge of the crumbled wall. It was almost entirely intact, and I doubted I’d find any way in. Just then, I saw a small opening, only about three feet high, like a miniature doorway. I crawled under, then grabbed the lantern.
I was in a cramped room, a cell, really, with hard-packed dirt floors and a single window at least three feet above my head. The roof was gone, and when I looked up, the blanket of stars dizzied me. I brushed my fingers along the wall—plaster over stone, I thought.
I imagined the priests who’d come here, compelled by a divine cause. What priest had lived here in this tiny cubicle? Had he known his mission was doomed? That he’d be hacked to pieces, his blood pooling in this house of worship, his head decorating a pike?
I raised the lantern and moved to the adjacent room. It was a duplicate of the last one, and there was no sign of the foal, so I kept going. Creeping around stone corners, switching back through crooked passageways and narrow rooms, ducking in and out of gaps in the walls. I’d just stepped into what looked like a wider, more open corridor, when I heard something—the rustle of an animal or a person, maybe—and froze.
I thought of the scraping sounds outside my balcony. The way it had seemed something was making its way up the wall to the roof. It could’ve been anything up there, looking down on me. Watching.
Raccoons. Or ghosts.
No one had mentioned a third option—some unwelcome trespasser, sneaking around the island, spying on me.
The spell was broken by a gentle whicker and velvet nose at my back, and the next instant, Koa appeared. Maybe it had been nothing at all.
Back at the shed, Koa and I secured the temporary stall with stacks of more junk and bungee cords. Koa refilled her milk pail, and when the foal dunked her face in, we headed outside.
The pinpricks were still going like gangbusters. I realized I was feeling them all over now, even along my chest and down my torso. And I had a pounding headache to top it off. I stretched, and something cracked ominously in my back.
“Feels late,” I said.
Koa looked at his watch. “Nine thirty. You okay?”
“Totally.” I stopped rubbing my hands.
“The neuropathy’s still bothering you?”
A physician’s assistant. I’d forgotten. Of course he knew the real word for it. But tonight had been great—fun, actually. What I really, desperately didn’t want was for it to turn into a doctor’s visit.
“I’m good,” I said cheerily.
“You writing tomorrow?”
I nodded. “I’m really behind schedule.”
“Sounds good.” He adjusted his stance. Looked at the ground.
“Sorry for bringing complete and utter chaos upon your home,” I said. “And also for calling you a dick.”
He smiled. My nerves were jangling now, but it wasn’t the neuropathy. On impulse, I grabbed hold of his hand. It was big and warm, and his fingers automatically curled around mine.
“Thank you,” I said. “For what you did.”
“What was that?” he said.
“The foal,” I said.
“Oh.”
I leaned toward him. I could’ve sworn he’d begun to move too, to lean toward me, then he stopped.
“We shouldn’t,” he whispered.
“Why not?” I whispered back. “You worried what Doro would think?”
He was inches from my face and looking at me intently. I felt dizzy, and I wondered if it was what I was seeing in his eyes or just my exhaustion. And in spite of his words, he wasn’t moving away. He was so close I could feel his breath caress my skin, see the new growth of whiskers as it ran along his jaw and up his cheek.
“Something about me you should know,” he said in a measured voice. “I don’t care what anyone thinks.”
I raised my eyebrows. “I’ve never met anybody like that. Any other secrets?”
He didn’t answer. His eyes dropped down to my lips.
My phone jangled against my rear end, and we both jumped.
“You should get that,” he said and spun away.
It rang again. “Go ahead,” he said, waving.
I pulled the phone out. “Hello?”
“Very nice, Megan. VERY. FUCKING. NICE!” my mother screamed from the other end. I bobbled the phone, accidentally triggering the speaker, and it fell to the ground. The name Frances flashed, superimposed over the picture of Ursula. Koa’s eyebrows shot up.
“You are the . . . sort of human . . . !” she shrieked amid the static. “I hope you know that! The kind who . . . LIE and FABRICATE and . . . ON HER FAMILY NAME for a paltry, pathetic fifteen . . . a TRAITOR . . .”
I snuck a look at Koa. His eyes had widened considerably, his mouth agape. I scooped up the phone, clicked off the speaker.
“Hi, Frances,” I said. “I don’t think our connection is very—”
“No,” she snapped, and, maddeningly, the line went perfectly clear. “No excuses out of you. You’ll be interested to hear, I found your little friend, Asa. The little sycophant Edgar hired, who betrayed the both of us. While Edgar was on his deathbed, I remind you, this mongrel was going behind his back and pitching this abomination of a book. While the man was dying.”
“He said he was your assistant.”
“He was,” she snapped. “Until he decided to start a war and become a nothing. Because that is what he is going to be when I get through with him. A nothing.”
I was quiet.