She shook the shirt, trying to dislodge the melancholy and hold tight to her anger. At least there was strength in anger.
The child started crying again, his snivel rising into a lusty wail.
“Hush, now, hush,” she said, walking out into the room.
But the boy stood at the door on tiptoe, his fingers turning the latch.
“No, Elbert. Don’t open that door.” She ran across the room to stop him. But he was uncannily quick. He threw open the door, the hinges she’d repaired squalling at the force behind the swing.
Elbert glanced over his shoulder, eyes wide with fear and tears. Then he bolted out into the night.
Mae paused on her doorstep, every nerve of her body telling her not to go into the darkness. “Elbert!” she called. “Come back! Elbert!”
He was still crying, his plaintive voice carrying on the cold air to her. And just as likely carrying for any beast or Strange creature tripping the dark. She scanned the night for him. There—just the slightest blur of his white shirt in the darkness, like a dim lantern bobbing off across the field toward the forest. The forest where the Strange man had first appeared.
Mae grabbed up her shawl, her holster and Colt, and the Madders’ gun. The child would be eaten alive, torn apart by Strange like that man, if she didn’t catch him in time.
Loath to leave the safety of her cottage, she could not abide by letting the boy run to his death. She whispered a prayer, and ran out into the night. “Elbert,” she called, loud enough surely the child could hear her. “Come on back now, Elbert. It’s not safe out here in the dark.”
From the sound of his crying, he was ahead of her, a bit to the left, and running fast to the forest.
He should be too tired to run so fast, should be too scared to do much more than curl up and hide. But the boy had gone senseless. Fear was probably the only thing that had kept him alive these two nights on his own. And it looked like it was going to be the thing that got him killed.
Mae could catch him faster on the mule, but if she took the time to run to Prudence, the boy would be lost for good. Again.
She wouldn’t let that happen.
Something stirred ahead, toward the forest, then was silent. Mae recited a spell of protection, kept the shotgun high, and hurried that way.
She found Elbert just inside the forest. He was lying facedown in the sparse grass. Not so much hiding as just lying very, very still. She knelt beside him and gently touched his back.
“Elbert,” she whispered. “We need to go now.”
The boy did not move. He was so still, so stiff, it was as if he were carved from wood. She didn’t know if he was breathing. Had he fallen? Had he hurt himself?
Moonlight slipped loose from the clouds, revealing a dark red stain matting the hair on the back of his head.
“No,” she said. Mae brushed her hand over his head. He was bleeding. He was also still breathing, shallow and hitching, but enough. He still lived. But this wound would be more than she could tend on her own. He needed the doctor in town. Quickly.
She set the shotgun down to pick up the child.
“Witch,” the wind whispered.
A hard chill ran down her spine. The voice sounded like the Strange. The same Strange she had shot. The same Strange she thought she had killed.
“I am the one who killed your man,” the voice said. “And now I will kill you.”
A beast growled from between the trees. Mae saw a flash of fang and claw in the moonlight. A wolf! She scrabbled for the gun and fired, sending one more precious bullet and an orb of gold light that bent the trees like a hurricane force.
In the split-second aftermath of the shot, the Strange screamed and a wolf snarled in pain as if that single shot had struck both creatures.
Mae did not wait for her eyes, half-blind from the gunshot, to clear. She snatched up the boy and the gun and ran.
No time to reload. No hands to reload now that both were full of boy. Her heart pounded hard, fast. Her house was just ahead. If she could make the house, she could set the boy down, load the gun, fire the Colt.
The boy whimpered and grew even heavier in her arms.
Mae bent under the sudden increase in weight and nearly lost her balance. She scrambled to keep hold of the gun, hold of the boy, and hold of her feet beneath her. The child cried out, even though he was fainted away. Mae caught herself on one hand and one knee, then shifted the shotgun for a better hold to lay tight across the boy’s back.
The child startled away from the touch of the Madders’ gun, yelling for all his worth, his voice a shot of pain bursting up through the night.
And beyond his voice, she heard a wolf growl.
If she turned, the wolf would be on her, would strike her, hitting the child in her arms first, killing him. Then her.
Run, run, run. Faster. The door was just a few yards, a few feet, a few steps.
The boy stopped struggling, most likely fainted again from his wounds, boneless and heavy as an ox. Mae’s blouse was wet with blood, her arms aching and shaking. The gun slipped from palm to curve of finger to fingertips in her sweaty hands. She was losing her grip on it.
The wind picked up, the Strange voice riding the air. “Glory be. The witch is free. Now I shall take what I see.”
Steam blasted across her back as a hand slammed her into the door, nearly crushing the child, and knocking the wind out of her. Mae gasped to get air in her lungs, her ears ringing from the blow.
Hands, fingers, hard and cold and sharp as blades, tore the back of her dress, tore her flesh, tugging at the gun, her hair, the child.
Mae yelled and yelled and somehow pushed into the house. She lost hold of the gun, but kept the child safe in her arms. She ran to the bedroom, unminding the open door. She lowered the boy quickly into the bed, groaning at the pain across her back. He woke and clung to her, holding her down by the neck like a rock on a rope, a pain-rigor smile on his face, his eyes wide and glossy, bloody spittle on his lips.
“Let go,” Mae said. “Elbert, let go. I’ll be back. You’re safe. You’re safe now.”
It took some force to pry the boy’s hands from around her neck. He was holding tight. Too tight. She was sure she left bruises on his little wrists, but she finally unlatched his grip, though his fingernails scratched a necklace of blood around her neck.
She turned, dizzy with pain and fear. She had to get the boy to a doctor. He was wailing in agony even now. But she had to kill that Strange first, and the wolf. Mae drew her fully loaded Colt and crossed to the door.
No Strange in the doorway. No wolf.
She was sure it was the same Strange as before, even though she knew that could not be possible. What sort of living thing put itself back together when it had been blown to bits?
She stood a yard or so away from the doorway. The Madders’ gun was out there, beyond the wooden step. Jeb’s trinkets along the wall hummed, perhaps lending what protection they could. Such a small hope against the hulking weight of the night that breathed and shifted, a living, brooding thing just beyond her door. Creatures waited for her out there. For the taste of her blood.
Mae whispered a spell, a protection, a blessing of magic and light to surround her home and all within it. The child’s wail grew louder.
She kicked a stool in front of the door so it couldn’t slam shut behind her; then Mae Lindson fired her Colt into the shadows beyond the door, and rushed forward. She bent, and grabbed for the shotgun.
From the screaming in the night, she reckoned the bullets had found a target.
She moved the stool and slammed the door. Mae threw the lock and reloaded both guns, her hands shaking, blood streaming down her back and neck. The Strange pounded the door, hinges she had just repaired already groaning under the assault.