“The tengu can’t lie to Tinker domi,” Crow Boy said. “We cannot afford to lose faith.”
“There’s lying and then there’s just not saying anything,” Jillian said.
“Jin isn’t even here in Haven,” Louise said as Crow Boy frowned at Jillian’s statement. “He’s in Pittsburgh talking to Tinker domi. He won’t fly back tonight. It’s four in the morning. He’ll sleep at one of the safe houses in the city. We need time.”
“Time for what?” Crow Boy asked.
“To be ready,” Louise said. She wasn’t sure for what.
Jillian gave her an odd look, obviously unsure if Louise was lying or not.
Crow Boy frowned at the floor, thinking. His left foot scratched at the railing as he considered Louise’s request. “If you had not pulled me out of that cage, saved the Nestlings, and got us all safely to Haven, I would never allow this. You could have left me in the cage — at the hospital — at the hotel — and gone on without me or mine at any time. It would have been easier and safer for you. I have seen you move mountains for the good of my people. You are Joy’s Chosen. While it goes against my training, I will keep my silence for now.”
“Thank you,” Louise said.
Jillian held up her finger. “What exactly are we getting ready for?”
Louise waited for the answer. Whatever truth had battered its way out of her, it was spent. Gone. “I don’t know.” She glanced around the room. The tengu gave them forest camo towels. She picked up a middle-sized one to use as a blindfold. “I might be able to find out.”
“You want to dream walk?” Crow Boy pointed toward Gracie’s bedroom. There were no lights on in it. Their talking hadn’t woken the female. “I could get Wai Sze. She’s the Flock’s dream crow.”
Louise shook her head as she tied the blindfold into place. She wanted to say yes. There was a little niggle in her chest that made it seem like a bad idea. As darkness closed in, the feeling grew. “She would tell Jin. She doesn’t really know me. She doesn’t trust us like you do. She sees us as her husband’s children. Small. Helpless. She will feel like she needs to protect us. She will stop us from doing what needs to be done.”
Jillian caught Louise’s hand and squeezed it tight. “We’ll kick butt and take names.”
Brave words. Jillian, though, was shaking.
Louise took a deep breath. She had only done this once before on purpose. It seemed as if she needed to enter search words to lock in on a vision. Last time it had been like being hit by lightning. What was coming? How did they prepare for it? Why shouldn’t they tell Jin or Gracie? She said that if Sunder found out, everyone would die. Why?
Was this going to work? Could she actually control seeing the future? There was something she was missing. The other times she had focused on their older sister. If magic worked some weird quantum effect on time, then at some distant point, she and Tinker had been within their mother’s body and then a test tube and bathed in their father’s seed. It could have just as easily been Louise that ended up in the salvage yard when Windwolf came over the fence. Tinker could have been the one who became Jillian’s twin…
“Hurry! Hurry! The time is at hand!” It was like plugging into an outlet. Power surged through her, sure and strong. “Clarity’s Vision reaches across time and space! All that she has put in place must come together or perish! Youngest to the oldest, Brilliance must stand against the darkness. Heed the words written by the father. He was guided by Vision. He provides the protection against the danger that comes for them all. When the times come, the youngest will save them.”
Then it was gone.
“Well,” Jillian said after a moment, “that was helpful. Not! What the hell did that mean?”
The power was gone but a stain of the image remained. “Something horrible is about to happen. Everyone is in danger. We have to do something. If we don’t, everyone will die.”
“Do what?” Jillian asked.
“What’s going to happen?” Crow Boy asked.
Louise shook her head. “I don’t know. Something horrible. Something huge. We’re the only ones that can save everyone.”
They sat in silence for a minute, lost before the vision.
“Okay,” Jillian broke the silence. “We’re not going to save the day stuck way up here with no power or tools or anything. We’re going to have to go down to the ground, get all our stuff, and get linked into whatever passes as internet here.”
The drop-down out of the treehouse was scary. Crow Boy took them one at a time. Louise first. It was even more scary than the first big drop on a roller coaster; those were safety tested. She tried not to scream but a squeak slipped out.
“It’s okay,” Crow Boy said. “I’ve got you.”
Louise nodded, not wanting to point out that what made it scary was no one had him. Somehow the trip had been less frightening when her transporter was a middle-aged tengu male instead of the fourteen-year-old. She knew that Crow Boy was stronger than an average human, and as a yamabushi, perhaps even an average tengu. Certainly all the adults treated Crow Boy with reverence. She had seen him, though, bound, hurt, and helpless. He was still a “boy” to her.
“They salvaged everything that we brought across,” Crow Boy said as he alighted next to a well-hidden storage shed. “What we didn’t get in the first trip, they went back for.”
“Everything” included the tall, mottled brown birds that came trotting out of the undergrowth to investigate them. She had made the mistake of letting Chuck Norris and the others pick out the self-driving truck during their rescue of the nestlings. The babies decided to take one transporting a herd of ostriches just because they wanted to see the birds firsthand.
The tall birds gathered around Crow Boy and Louise, cocking their heads to get a better look at the children.
“I swear, they seem even bigger in the dark.” Louise loved animals. It was hard, though, not to be a little afraid as the flock loomed over them.
“They are bigger,” Crow Boy said. “Wai Sze believes that they’re not fully grown; their mottled coloring is more like a chick’s than an adult bird’s. They’ve gained like a foot in height in the last month.”
“A foot?” Louise whispered in surprise. “Ostriches only grow to be between five and seven feet tall. They were all at least six feet tall when we stole them.”
“Wai Sze says that they’re not ostriches; they lack even vestigial wings. She thinks they might be moa.”
“Moa?” Louise repeated. “Moa were hunted into extinction over five hundred years ago.”
“There were experiments being done of injecting moa DNA into ostrich eggs,” Crow Boy said. “It’s possible that these are the result.”
“We stole the only living moas on Earth?” Louise whispered fiercely.
“I’m sure they can make more,” Crow Boy said. “Wai Sze says that because they were so special, they were most likely hand raised. They were fairly tame even when we first found them. Since they made good guard dogs, we kept them close to the camp and they bonded with us.”
He demonstrated by petting one on the neck. “I’ll need to get Jillian.”
In other words “I need to leave you alone with these birds.”
“Okay.” Louise reminded herself that she was supposed to be the brave one. She loved animals — even ones that towered over her and made deep rumbling dinosaur noises. She felt like they were very much alone deep in the virgin forest even though she knew thousands of tengu were asleep high overhead. The only light came from elf shines that drifted through the bracken, which was just enough to make out the barest details.