But that wasn’t going to fatten his wallet.
“Her choice,” Jimmy said. Sissy had stopped being useful, so there was no point thinking about her unless things soured so much here that he really needed to find her. As he walked away, he added, “She was never family anyway.”
Meg locked the Liaison’s Office and strolled to the Market Square to spend her midday break with Sam. She wanted to hear about what he’d learned in school and about the new Wolf Team book. She wanted to think about something besides Sierra Montgomery and how everyone was stirred up over her departure.
The prophecy cards she’d selected that morning hadn’t told her much—bus, east, and the third card, the result, was a picture of a village. And Simon didn’t have anything to add when he came into the office minutes after she’d turned the cards. He just confirmed what she already knew. And neither of them had any thoughts about the village because the village card didn’t indicate if the place was human, Intuit, or Other.
All the prickling and buzzing and reading of prophecy cards hadn’t ended in a big dramatic moment or some significant event. Sierra had made her choice and left quietly—and yet that choice had negated the prophecies Meg had seen about Sierra and her children.
Sierra was free, and Meg could enjoy her time with Sam.
As she reached the archways that formed one side of the square, the Courtyard bus stopped. She recognized several of the Hawks and Crows who got off the bus. Some were reporting for work in the stores; others were there to do a bit of shopping in human form. The last ones off the bus were Jane Wolfgard, Sam . . . and Skippy.
Since Jane carried a mesh bag full of books, it was easy to guess she was heading for the library.
“We almost missed the bus,” Sam said, rushing up to greet her.
“It would have been a long walk from the Wolfgard Complex if you had,” Meg replied.
“It’s a long walk for human legs,” Sam agreed. He looked at her through his lashes. “But not so long for Wolf legs.”
He was fishing for something, and she had a good idea what it was. “If you came to the Market Square in Wolf form, you wouldn’t be able to shift and look human because you wouldn’t have your clothes, and you can’t shop in the stores if you’re naked.”
“You could carry the clothes for me.”
She braced her hands on her thighs so they were eye to eye. “Do I look like a packhorse?” Seeing the spark of mischief in Sam’s eyes, she added, “Before you answer, remember I’m the one who has money to buy a treat.”
“Roooooooooo.” Skippy gave Sam a pleading look followed by a hard nudge, making it clear he understood the connection between Meg, money, and treat.
Sam returned Skippy’s nudge and grinned at Meg.
“I have to pick up a couple of things at the general store,” she said, leading the way. “Then we can go to Meat-n-Greens for something to eat.”
“I like looking in the general store.” Sam slipped his hand into hers. “There’s a lot of stuff in there that we can buy. But not as much stuff as the Crows have in Sparkles and Junk.”
Thank goodness for that. For someone like her, the Crows’ shop was a visual explosion. At least the shelves in the general store, which was run by Hawks and Owls, were organized and orderly. Even so, she’d learned to limit herself to one or two aisles during each visit to avoid being overwhelmed by all the different things that could be purchased.
Meg stopped at the door of the general store and looked back at Skippy. “Lots of stuff but no food.”
The juvenile Wolf stared at her for a moment, then moved off to explore all the scents left by the Courtyard’s other residents—and look for anything edible that someone might have dropped or left on a table unguarded.
“We’re not allowed to pee in the square, remember?” Sam said when Skippy sniffed around a large flowerpot and started to lift a leg.
Skippy looked like he really wanted to leave a “Skippy was here” mark on the flowerpot, but he obeyed Sam and moved on.
Meg couldn’t say why it pleased her so much that Sam was the leader of the puppy pack—which included Skippy as well as the human children—but it filled her with pride. Sam and Robert had had a couple of scraps in order to settle who was leader, but now they were friends who often went off to explore on their own—at least as far as they were permitted to go in the Courtyard—leaving the girls to play games that didn’t include mud, dirt, climbing trees, or examining partially eaten remains of various kinds of prey.
Meg wished she’d been there when Simon and Pete Denby had laid down the rule that no one who was in human form could eat raw scraps of prey—and no puppy of any kind could try to light a fire like humans did in frontier stories in order to cook meat scraps that had been out in the hot sun for who knew how many days and were not fit to be eaten by human or Wolf.
Of course, the terra indigene had never interacted with human children until now, so Robert’s “interest in the icky” and his somewhat faulty knowledge of frontier living were an education for everyone. Which was why Ruth was researching frontier life as depicted in nonfiction accounts rather than the admittedly more fun fiction that was written about a time that was long gone. Well, maybe not that long gone if you were among the people who were resettling Bennett or the other towns in the Midwest Region.
“I’ll be over here,” Meg said, releasing Sam’s hand as she headed for the aisle that carried the soap and shampoo. None of the personal items sold in the Courtyard were scented—at least not enough for a human nose to detect—but they were made with different ingredients. Now, in the heat of summer, she preferred the yellow soap and shampoo because it felt more invigorating and left the lightest scent of lemon on warm skin. Or maybe she just imagined the scent because of the association of lemon and yellow.
She had picked up what she needed and was walking along the far end of the store, looking at a couple of endcaps that displayed different items each week—an exercise that allowed her to see other things the store offered without seeing too much—when she spotted two youngsters she didn’t know. Must be Cyrus Montgomery’s children. But what were they doing in the Courtyard unsupervised?
The boy was touching things on the shelves. The girl stood next to him, looking up and down the aisle. When she saw Meg watching them, she whispered to the boy, who slipped something into his pocket before they hurried toward the door—and toward Sam, who had been standing at the other end of the aisle, also watching the strangers.
The boy looked older and bigger than Sam, but the leader of the puppy pack stepped in front of the door, blocking it in what was a clear challenge.
The pins-and-needles feeling filled Meg’s lower lip. She hurried to the checkout counter near the front of the store and dumped the soap and shampoo. The Hawk behind the counter ignored her, his eyes fixed on the two boys squaring off at the door.
“You didn’t pay for that,” Sam said. “You can’t take things from the store until you pay for them.”
“Get outta my way, freak,” the boy said.
Sam bared his teeth and growled. “Nobody steals from us.”
“Boys,” Meg began.
“Fucking freak!” The boy gave Sam a hard shove and bolted outside.
Sam went after him, grabbed the back of the boy’s shirt.
The next thing Meg knew, they were rolling around outside, punching each other. She rushed to the door, but the girl was there, pushing at her, getting in the way while she tried to get outside and stop the fight.