But the benefactor’s special messenger had known what she was going to do today. After all, he’d helped her with this charade. So all she had to do was convince him that getting banned from the Courtyard had been part of her plan all along.
CHAPTER 21
On Moonsday morning, Meg opened the office, prepared her clipboard, and breathed a sigh of relief. After Darrell’s dismissal and Asia’s public banning, all the humans who worked for the Others had been edgy, especially the humans who worked in the Market Square and would have a harder time escaping if the terra indigene turned savage. But with the exception of more patrol cars driving past the Courtyard, Firesday and Watersday were ordinary workdays. Earthday had been an enjoyable balance of chores and a long, fun romp in the snow with Simon and Sam in their Wolf forms. The romp had tired her out so much, she fell asleep while they all watched a movie that evening.
And Simon didn’t say a word about her using him as a furry pillow.
She still wasn’t sure why Darrell wasn’t supposed to visit the Green Complex. He had worked for the consulate, after all. Surely there was more sensitive material in that office than whatever could be observed in the dark about the outside of buildings.
Except Darrell had brought Asia, who really wasn’t allowed to be there.
Meg gave her arms a brisk rub, relieved when the prickling under her skin subsided. Going out at night to look at the Green Complex was odd, but she’d seen plenty of training images of someone sitting in a dark car, watching a building. Obsessed ex-lovers. Stalkers. Police. Asia didn’t fit any of those labels, but Meg thought the other woman was impulsive enough to jump at a chance to see any part of the Courtyard. And since Asia had been so curious about Sam, maybe she’d hoped to get another look at the puppy.
Did Asia know Sam lived with Simon at the Green Complex? Meg shook her head, unable to remember. Well, it didn’t matter anymore. Asia was gone and Darrell was gone, and neither of them had been part of her vision about men dressed in black.
Giving her arms a final rub, she dismissed thoughts of Asia and Darrell and went about her day. She chatted with Harry when he came in with his deliveries, laughing at his jokes even when she didn’t understand them. She spent several minutes trying to convince Nathan that he couldn’t have entire boxes of dog cookies and had to choose which kind of cookie he wanted for a snack. When he insistently pointed a big paw at each box, she ended up giving him two cookies of each flavor, which he took back to his Wolf bed to crunch.
Around midmorning, she got tangled in a bizarre game of tug between Nathan and Jake. She didn’t know which of them had brought in the length of rope as a toy, but the Wolf, still lying on the bed, had his teeth in one end of it, and the Crow had his feet clenched around the other and was madly flapping his wings. Her mistake was thinking she could break up the game by grabbing the rope right in front of Jake’s feet. Suddenly Nathan was on his feet, wagging his tail while he growled at her, and Jake’s caws sounded suspiciously gleeful. Because the floor was a little snow-slick and her shoes didn’t have enough traction, she was pulled from one end of the room to the other and couldn’t figure out how to let go of the rope without falling on her butt.
She got out of the game only because Dan walked in with a delivery and started laughing so hard, he almost dropped the packages. After signing for the delivery, she retreated to the sorting room and pondered what game the Wolf and Crow really had been playing: tug the rope or trick Meg into playing with them.
It said something about human resilience that a week after Nathan had been assigned as the office’s watch Wolf, most of the deliverymen were accepting of his presence, if still justifiably wary. A few tossed a “Hi, how’s it going?” in Nathan’s direction before they took care of business with her. Only one company had a new driver coming to the Courtyard, replacing the man who had refused to enter the office the first time he saw Nathan.
Once the mail was sorted and packages going out to terra indigene settlements were properly tagged for the earth-native trucks, Meg peeked into the front room. Jake was on the counter, fluffed up and dozing. Nathan was on his back, paws in the air, also snoozing. At that moment, they didn’t look like much security, but she knew they’d be awake the instant they heard footsteps or tires in the delivery area.
Leaving them to their morning nap, she headed for the back room. The ponies would be here in half an hour, and she wanted to be ready.
When she stepped into the room, a sickening rush of images filled her mind. Old hands, young hands, male hands, female hands, dark hands, pale hands. All reaching for something and . . . Shrieks of pain. Cries of anguish.
Meg stumbled out of the back room, shaking. Was she sick? Was she going insane? Was this what happened to cassandra sangue when they didn’t live in the compounds? Was this why they had originally been brought to live in such isolation? Maybe this was the reason the girls were allowed so little personal experience, why their lives were so sterile.
She rubbed at her arms, at her legs, at her belly, at her scalp, wanting to dig and scratch and claw until the painful prickling went away. It had never been this bad, and she had never seen actual images before a cut.
But there had been that moment on the road the other day when she had slipped into a vision without cutting.
Bracing her arms on the sorting table, Meg fought to think.
Sensitive skin. She had overheard the Walking Names once when they were reviewing the value of the girls. They said prophecies from her were the most expensive because her skin was so sensitive, it became attuned to the visions even before she was cut. She just had to be around something connected to the prophecy.
And Simon had speculated that this prickling was a sign her instincts were waking up because she was living and doing and experiencing for herself instead of seeing the world as labeled images.
Was the prickling under her skin not only a warning but also a measuring stick? A little tingle that was annoying but faded quickly indicated a small choice that wouldn’t have major significance, while the harsher, painful buzz . . .
Meg returned to the back room, staggering as the images flooded her mind again. But she couldn’t figure out what was causing the reaction.
“Something there,” she whispered, fleeing to the sorting room. “Have to do it. Have to cut out this vision hiding in my skin.”
But she needed a listener this time, because whatever was struggling to break through was too big for her to endure alone. And she was scared that she wouldn’t be able to sort out the images of the prophecy, wouldn’t be able to recognize the warning or put the pieces together.
Who to call? Not Simon. He’d be angry that she didn’t call him, but he’d be angry about the cut too, and she felt certain that they didn’t have time to argue.
She tiptoed to the Private door. Jake and Nathan were still napping. She closed that door as quietly as possible and turned the lock. Then she called A Little Bite, hoping that whatever guardian spirit looked after prophets would guide Tess’s hand to answer the phone.
“A Little Bite,” Tess said. She sounded cheerfully annoyed, which meant the coffee shop was busy.
“Tess? It’s Meg.”