Oh, look, thought Freddy, some of the terror is anger after all. She was not a little girl.
She expected one of the old men to reply. Unexpectedly, it was Ling who spoke. “Let us go,” Josiah translated, “and save yourselves some honour.”
The brother who had spoken before laughed. “The mother of a murderer speaks of honour?”
“Qiao was fighting for his life,” said Ling. “Four of you ambushed him. He barely got away. You know this.”
“We know nothing,” said the brother. “We know Qiao killed our brother and ran away with the fox woman. We know you consort with spirits and demons. No one will cry for your family when we bury you in the woods.”
“And we will,” said another of the brothers. “You’re few and weak and unarmed. Go ahead and run; it won’t take us long to find you.”
“Perhaps,” said Ling, “but we consort with spirits and demons, remember?”
“Do we?” whispered Freddy.
Josiah gestured to the right, into the darkness of the forest. “It’s irritating, but she can never resist a good entrance cue.”
A woman was melting out of the pitch-black woods. Freddy dimly registered that there was someone else behind her, but it was the woman herself who drew the eye. Though she was dressed in the same basic style as the others in the clearing, from what Freddy could see in the leaping light of the fire, her clothes were much finer. Freddy thought she could glimpse decorations and colours. The woman’s hair fell loose to her knees. She bowed daintily to the brothers, hands hidden in her sleeves.
“Time to run.” Josiah seized Freddy’s hand and pulled her into the forest.
The next bit involved a lot of running and tripping over things and bashing into trees and blundering around with other panicking people as the pain bounced back and forth through her aching head and the heart-rending screaming continued constantly behind them. Freddy dropped her keys. It was Josiah who stopped to pick them up. “Clearly, these things are useful. What’s this?” he said as he continued to drag her along.
Freddy said, “What’s what?” Not that far away through the trees, someone was shrieking words that Freddy was chillingly certain were the prehistoric Chinese equivalent of, “Oh, please, God, no!” or possibly just, “Aaaaargh!”
“On your key ring. Is this a little flashlight? Do you have a little flashlight on your key ring?” he demanded.
“What? I don’t know. Maybe. Do I?” said Freddy, who was having trouble remembering her own name at the moment.
“You do,” said Josiah. “Do you ever mention anything important ever?”
A small light sprang to life. Someone cried out nearby, and Josiah called something to the others.
“It’s all right. They think I’m supernatural anyway,” he said, “and they know Qi is. Let’s get them to some sort of shelter.”
“Right,” said Freddy, “wherever that is.”
He paused, barely visible in the glimmer from the flashlight. “That was a good idea with the keys earlier. We could’ve all used the knife, but maybe not in time.”
He had never truly complimented her before. She found herself jerking out a nod, not very graciously. The moment passed, and they headed deeper into the forest.
10
It was not a comfortable night. They spent it huddled together against a cliff face that couldn’t really be called “shelter,” though they never did get too cold. There was a stream nearby, so at least they weren’t thirsty any more. The brothers eventually fell silent, but that seemed more ominous than the desperate screaming.
Freddy fell asleep. It had been a long time since she had slept, though she had lost track of just how long. She probably had the world’s worst (or only) case of time-travel–induced jet lag. Sleeping on the ground with a bunch of prehistoric people she had only just met was not how she would normally have chosen to spend a night, but she didn’t seem to have much choice. Her last thought before sleep took her was to wonder why Josiah and Ji weren’t squished up with the rest of them, though she did suppose someone had to stand watch.
*
“Wake up,” said Josiah.
Her head was pounding. She didn’t know where she was. Then … she did. The world rocked on its foundations for a moment before steadying.
Freddy sat up and blinked out at the morning. Ling and the old men were only just rousing. There was a new person, too, a boy of fifteen or sixteen with his arms around Ling. Qiao, maybe? Josiah and Ji stood together in the growing light, looking identically bored. Ji wore his hair very long, but he was otherwise Josiah’s exact double, as Heimdallr had been.
Freddy said, “Did you sleep?”
“No,” said Josiah. “I never do. We’d better start moving if we want to get back to the village before people start fainting from hunger.”
Ji was saying something to the others. Freddy pulled herself up. “You never sleep?”
“Colossal waste of time,” said Josiah.
Freddy shook her head, but things had been strange for a while now. The news wasn’t as surprising as it would have been yesterday or, well, several thousand years in the future. Besides, it wasn’t just that, was it? My eyes always water sympathetically when I look at him. I’m not sure he ever closes his eyes at all, even just to blink.
Josiah said, “Also, I need to keep an eye on Qi, don’t I?”
“I think you lost sight of her a bit last night,” said Freddy.
He jerked his head up and down in an irritated nod. “They see her as a fox spirit here. She’s taken on the role enthusiastically. Fox spirits are sort of like fairies in your mythology, and not the nice type with wings made of flowers. She doesn’t always behave herself.”
There was a question Freddy had been wanting to ask since last night, but she kept … not asking it. She thought she might have been a bit afraid of the answer.
Josiah had noticed. “The brothers aren’t dead. If she killed them, she couldn’t torment them any more. She’ll have scared them silly, though. It’s best not to think about how.”
“She’s dangerous,” said Freddy before she could stop herself. She tried to think of Qi and Cuerva Lachance as the same person, but it wasn’t easy. Were they really living next door to that?
“Of course she’s dangerous,” said Josiah. “She doesn’t follow rules. How could she not be dangerous?”
“But I help sometimes, too,” said Qi from overhead. “Hello, curly-haired one.”
She dropped out of the tree in which she had been sitting and bowed to everyone, her cherry-red tunic and long black hair fluttering in a breeze Freddy couldn’t feel. The old men shrank away, clinging together; even Qiao edged behind a tree. Ling simply bowed back.
“You almost forgot about us, didn’t you?” said Josiah.
“Of course.” Qi did Cuerva Lachance’s birdlike head tilt. “There was a deer. With antlers! But Qiao kept following me around and squeaking. Are you here for long this time?”
“I’d rather not say,” said Josiah with a cagey glance at Freddy.