After looking at all the cards, Meg shook her head. “None of them feel wrong.”
Ruth reclaimed the card with the bars of gold before they collected the rest of the cards and put them back in their box. “That was the landscape deck. This deck is called cityscapes.”
Meg hugged herself while Merri Lee and Ruth sorted the cards into categories.
“Meg?” Merri Lee said.
The calves and thighs of both legs burned, burned, burned—the prelude to prophecy. Meg clenched her teeth and held one hand above the cards, moving slowly from one category to the next. Her hand buzzed painfully when it brushed against the last category. She pushed those cards to one side, then backed away from the table until her hand stopped buzzing and her legs stopped burning.
Merri Lee and Ruth looked at the cards and then at her.
“Meg?” Ruth said softly. “Why did you set these aside? They’re all cards that show skylines of different cities.”
Burned, burned, burned. She’d had the same sensation above her ankle when she’d seen the prophecy of Nadine’s shop burning. If she made a cut, if she saw . . . No. She didn’t want to see what was going to happen in those places. And she didn’t want her friends to carry that much of a burden of knowing.
“Meg?” Merri Lee said. “Why did you set these cards aside?”
She shuddered and swallowed hard. “I don’t think we’ll need them.” Her stomach rolled. “I can’t look at anymore today.”
She ran to the bathroom, but once she was out of the sorting room, her stomach settled. When she returned, the cards were put away, the decks set out in their boxes on the counter.
“We didn’t want to put them away,” Ruth said.
“But we can,” Merri Lee added.
“I made a note on the deck that was too fantastical for you, and on the deck that wasn’t of interest, as well the two decks we’ve looked at. And there’s one other deck that might be too fanciful to be useful.”
Meg nodded. “We can look at more tomorrow.”
Her friends exchanged a look.
“I don’t need to cut,” she assured them. That was true in a way. She didn’t need a cut, but she craved the euphoria that came from cutting. “I just need some routine now.”
“Anything we can do?” Ruth asked.
“No. Thanks.”
“Should we tell someone about what you said about not needing those cards?”
“We don’t know anything for certain.” When the Controller had cut her for his clients, she hadn’t known what she’d seen and certainly hadn’t had any say in who was told about the prophecy. “If you tell someone . . . make sure you tell them we don’t know anything for certain.”
They nodded. Promising to return during the midday break and have lunch together, Merri Lee and Ruth went out the back door of the Liaison’s Office.
Meg opened the Private door and studied Nathan, who looked too casually sprawled on his Wolf bed under one of the front windows. She’d bet a week’s pay that he’d been leaning on the counter, listening to everything they’d said so that he could report to Simon.
She watched the mail truck pull into the delivery area and felt relieved that she would have something routine to do for a little while. Before the mailman stepped out of the truck, she said to Nathan, “Make sure you tell Simon we don’t know anything for certain.”
CHAPTER 22
Moonsday, Juin 18
The six remaining bison weren’t as docile by the time Simon, Jackson, two juvenile Wolves, and Jerry Sledgeman reached the River Road Community. As soon as Simon and Jackson lowered the ramp on the livestock truck, the bison trotted away from the houses and the creatures who stood on two legs but smelled like Wolves.
“Do you want us to watch them?” a voice asked.
Simon looked at two Sanguinati males who had drifted close to them in their smoke form before taking human shape.
“Yes,” he replied. “It will be helpful to keep track of them.”
The two males shifted back to smoke and flowed in the direction the bison had taken.
Simon watched them as the other four juvenile Sanguinati joined them. At least bison watching would give them something to do.
Jackson studied the land. “Back home, the land stretches out and you can see a long way. Here it won’t be as easy to keep track of a herd.”
“You may want to purchase a couple of all-terrain vehicles that the farmers and livestock wranglers can use,” Jerry said. “Steve wants a couple of them for the cassandra sangue campus along with a couple of small carts that can be attached to haul gear or feed.”
“Or the humans could use horses,” Simon said.
“If you want horses, you should talk to Liveryman. But you’d need to build some kind of shelter and a place for feed. The ATVs could be stored in the old industrial building.”
“Some of these houses will belong to terra indigene. Most will not have a car and the garage will be empty. Wouldn’t a garage be big enough for a horse?”
Jerry scratched the back of his neck. “I’m not saying it wouldn’t be useful to have a couple of horses here, but you’ll do better to build a structure meant for a horse than to try to refit a garage into a safe stall. You could store feed in a garage if you put wooden pallets on the floor to keep the hay dry, but that will attract mice that will get into the house through the attached garage. I suppose you could get a couple of cats.”
“The Panthergard don’t usually eat mice because it takes a lot of little rodents to make a meal,” Simon said. “But there are other terra indigene who would eat mice.” If the Others promised to consider them nonedible, maybe having a few domestic cats living in the community would reassure the humans. With the way humans hoarded possessions where mice could nest, cats that lived with humans would find hunting in a house easier than an Owl would. Maybe there were spare cats on Great Island?
Horses, cats, and all-terrain vehicles. More things for the list the next time he talked to Steve Ferryman.
“Anything else you need?” Jerry asked.
Simon shook his head.
“Almost forgot.” Jerry opened the passenger door of his truck and pulled out a carry sack, which he handed to Simon. “We have tennis courts at our community centers, both on the island and the mainland part of Ferryman’s Landing. Don’t know if any of your folks play the game, but Ming Beargard saw Pam Ireland throwing a tennis ball for her dog, and he thought you might like a few of the balls for the youngsters.”
“Thank you.” The Wolves already knew about this kind of ball. Bouncy—and soft enough that it didn’t hurt a pup if he missed the catch and got conked on the head. But he didn’t tell Jerry that this wasn’t a new thing for the Lakeside Courtyard. Besides, these balls could stay here for the Wolves who would settle in the River Road Community.
Jerry drove away, turning north on River Road to head back to Ferryman’s Landing.
Jackson reached for the carry sack. “Can I see one of those?” He studied a yellow ball, squeezed it, then threw it.
The juvenile Wolves watched the yellow ball disappear in the long grass.
“You’re supposed to run after it and bring it back. That’s the throw game,” Simon said.
Jackson threw another ball in the same direction, and this time the Wolves raced after it. After finding both balls, they trotted back to Jackson, who threw the balls again.
Simon watched his friend and felt excitement bubble inside him. Jackson throwing a ball was part of the prophecy Meg saw for this community. “Roy Panthergard is going to resettle here. A female might be coming with him.”