The voice did not sound pleasant. The words had less a tone and more a texture that was best summed up as bristly pinecone. It dragged out each word the way Grin the Brown hauled off her kills through tall grass, both accompanied by the same dry-brush noise. Then, as if the words and the reality of a disembodied voice speaking to her from out of the shadows weren’t enough to cause alarm, Minna began to growl. The wolf rarely made any sounds. She was an individual of few words, but when she spoke, wise were those who listened. Growling for Minna was tantamount to a declaration of war. Whatever was out there, Minna did not like it.
“Who are you?” Suri asked.
“I don’t have a name anymore. I don’t need one. And you don’t have the right to ask. You are a thief. A bone is missing from my pile, and I want it back. Don’t try to deny it. I followed your scent. Now give it to me.”
“Okay,” Suri said, peering into the forest and seeing nothing. “I’ll get it.”
Suri had put the bone inside her cottage and set out to retrieve it when a thought poppedinto her head: Not a good idea. Don’t turn your back on it. You’re in danger. Be careful. All of this was crammed into her mind in the instant it took to begin a pivot. She stopped and noticed the branch of a cedar tree moving. Suri looked closely, but the leaves and the growing darkness conspired against her. She saw nothing. After that, she walked backward.
Don’t trip. Whatever you do, don’t fall. If you do, it’ll be on you in an instant.
Messages flooded her head as if she were downstream from a busted beaver dam. Maybe Elan spoke more when Suri was in trouble, or maybe Suri was just more attentive when scared. Either way, Elan had never been this chatty.
It will be on me in a second? Suri didn’t like the sound of that. What will?
She forced herself to move slowly, dragging her heels to check for obstacles. Minna moved with her. She, too, backed away. The wolf had also likely heard the warning. Maybe it was the big ears, or how close she was to the ground, but Minna always heard Elan better than Suri, making the wolf wise beyond her years.
Suri found the bone where she’d left it and carried it outside. “Want me to just throw it to you?” She asked this because all other alternatives gave her gooseflesh.
What kind of thing keeps bones? Even Grin doesn’t do that. She eats them. Maybe that’s what’s going on here. The pile could be like a squirrel’s storehouse of nuts, but . . . it’s spring and there are a lot of bones—human bones.
“Don’t be rude, child,” the grit-on-a-cat’s-tongue excuse for a voice replied. “Bring it to me.”
“That’s okay. I think I can tell where you are. I’ll toss it.”
“You stole the bone. Forced me to come here. Have the decency to return it in a civil manner. I don’t want to be rooting around in the brush to retrieve my property.”
Decency? Suri found the word an odd choice. They were, after all, talking about a human bone, which brought up an interesting thought. “Where’d you get it?”
“From a very handsome young man, a beautiful fellow with a lovely face. Bring me his bone.”
Minna’s ears twitched, and she growled again. Her lips pulled back this time, showing fangs.
It’s moving. I don’t know how I know, but I’m sure. The owner of the pile is coming closer.
The thought that the Bone Hunter might be invisible was more than a passing concern. Lots of things in the forest were impossible to see. The breezes for one, and leshies could never be spotted in the daytime, and Gale, himself, was always no-show. If the Bone Hunter was like them, Suri was in trouble.
That was another idea that popped into her head, and with it came her own conclusion that the handsome fella with the pretty smile hadn’t just fallen over and died. He had been killed by the Bone Hunter, and now all of his bones were on the pile. His skull would be there, and was likely a jawless one that she had been frightened by.
Perhaps the Bone Hunter doesn’t just want what I took. Maybe it is after a new skull. And why did I just think itinstead of him?
“You don’t have to be afraid,” the Bone Hunter said. “It won’t hurt.”
“What won’t?” Suri asked. She didn’t really want an answer. Who would? She only wanted the thing to keep speaking, so she could guess where it was.
The Bone Hunter didn’t answer.
“What won’t hurt?” Suri asked again, louder. Still, no answer.
Run! Elan hadn’t just slipped this thought into her head; the idea had exploded as if every part of the world were screaming at her.
“Minna!” Suri shouted before bolting up the trail.
She didn’t really have concerns about the wolf. Minna was fast and proved it by passing Suri, leading the way in the growing dark. The sun might not have fully set outside the forest, but within the Crescent, night came quickly, and with it fell a darkness that was nearly absolute. Suri didn’t know where to run. Tura would be her best hope, but she hadn’t seen which direction the mystic went. At that moment, Suri relied on the wisdom of Minna and followed her blindly down the path.
When at a full run in the forest, few could catch Minna, and unfortunately, that included Suri. Soon after the race began, Minna outdistanced her sister, and the white wolf faded into the darkness. Before long, Suri grew tired. Not so much that she couldn’t run, but enough that she could no longer sprint.
She slowed down.
It’s catching up.
This was another warning she assumed came from Elan because it didn’t make any sense. Minna was ridiculously fast and could run without stopping for hours, but Suri wasn’t a slug. A deer, or even Grin the Brown, could catch her, but nothing that spoke of decency could. If Suri was tired, the Bone Hunter must be exhausted.
It isn’t.
A ridiculous thought. If Suri had more air, she would have laughed, but . . . I laughed before and suffered from bee stings for nearly a week. What will be the price this time?
Apparently it didn’t matter, as Suri couldn’t go any faster. She knew she was going slower and slower.
It doesn’t get tired.
This was a miserable thought. Her head was full of awful things that day.
What am I going to do?
This was a homegrown notion. She knew because it arrived with a degree of panic caused by the understanding that she didn’t know the answer. Worse yet, Suri didn’t think there was a solution. Not a helpful one, at least.
Puzzle it out.
“What?” In her utter shock and disgust, Suri spoke the word out loud, wasting valuable air.
Of all the times to be cryptic!
Suri was rapidly running out of breath and speed, and she was also losing light. The trail she followed, which was less a path and more a vaguely eroded gap in the underbrush, was disappearing, and like Minna, it would soon be gone altogether. Trees on either side were phantom shapes. If she hadn’t known the route like her tongue knew the back of her teeth, she would have taken a fall by now.
It will be on me in a second.
Suri still hadn’t managed to answer the question of what it was.
Puzzle it out.
Suri wanted to scream but couldn’t afford the breath.