Shadow's Edge

50

“You look like me, but you’re like him, strong and fast and...different. And like him, you’ll be hunted. So you need to learn to pretend to be something you’re not, because I won’t always be around to protect you.”

There was nothing in Jenna’s short time on earth to prepare her for that. Not only the thought that her mother might eventually leave or die or otherwise cease to take care of her, but also the admission that she was like her father, who she worshipped as something close to divine, and the proclamation that she was going to be hunted.

Like him. Her father was hunted. Her body went cold with horror. “What happened to him?” she whispered, terrified her mother might actually tell her this time. But she didn’t. She only took another drink from her glass and turned back to the window. It was a long while before she answered.

“He’s gone, and he’s never coming back,” she said, and Jenna had never heard such anguish in another person’s voice. Her mother drained the final ounce of liquid from the glass, set it on the windowsill, and stared at it, through it, as if she wasn’t seeing it at all.

Jenna sank to her knees on the bare wood floor, shaking so badly her legs wouldn’t support her anymore. Her cheeks were hot and wet, and she realized she was crying.

“Why not? Why won’t you ever tell me what happened?”

“When you’re older,” her mother replied in an eerie, dead tone, still staring at the glass. “I’ll tell you when you’re older.”

That became a promise that was never fulfilled. And now Jenna was flying like the wind through a forest that once belonged to her father, fleeing from the answer to a question that had gnawed and hurt and grown unchecked like a cancerous tumor for fifteen years.

She covered miles of primeval undergrowth until finally she tired.

Drifting down against the rough bark of a sapling, she pooled, exhausted, in a watery plume into a fork in its branches. She listened to the sounds of the forest, leaves rustling, branches creaking, squirrels chattering, the patter of tiny, unseen feet scraping over the dirt below. A red-throated sparrow alighted on the branch above her and began to whistle, feathered belly expanding sweetly in song.

She couldn’t think of what to do. She could hardly think at all. She had wanted answers so desperately, had felt as if the world would be righted if only she knew all the details of her past, if only she knew the why and the how and the when. But even the small piece of information Leander had given her hadn’t helped her world align in any way—it had only served to throw it even further off its axis.

Execution. A very small box. The thought of it made the sparrow blur into a shape she didn’t recognize, a blob of color stark and sharp against the haze. She reared up against the branch, flattened herself over the peeling bark as she lost her balance. The sparrow flew away with a shriek into the forest.

She surged up through the canopy of branches and looked down over the treetops, spread thick and verdant green for miles around. She spotted a crumbling ruin in the distance, just beyond an outcropping of lichen-covered granite, and angled herself down, heading toward it. It was an old stone cottage, with empty windows and a roof half-collapsed, almost reclaimed by the forest.

Covered in climbing ivy and blue trumpet vine, it looked exactly as wretched and forlorn as she felt.

Jenna funneled down and Shifted to woman beside a low, crumbling wall. She hesitated a moment, her senses surging back. Her heart pumped to life, the scent of wild mint and cedar resin filled her nose. A chill erupted over her naked skin as a cool, misty breeze stole over it.

She put a hand on the rough stone wall to steady herself, leaned over, and threw up.

When the last of the heaving was over and she had finally emptied her stomach, she wiped her watery eyes and nose with the back of her hand and spat into the dirt. She knelt there awhile, staring at a small pile of dead leaves on the ground, feeling slime and mud ooze through her fingers, the dull ache of her bare kneecaps against the cold ground.

She filled her lungs with air, forced herself to do it again, and again. When it began to feel as if they would remember to do it on their own, she hauled herself to her feet and scraped the mud from her hands against the rough wall.

The cottage was dark and even cooler than the forest. When she stepped inside she had to wrap her arms around her nude body for warmth. Grasses and ivy had overtaken most of the stone floor, but in one corner opposite the collapsed roof there was a blackened brick hearth, and beside it were a lantern and a rough blanket, folded atop a pillow. Someone else had found refuge here, but long ago—a fine layer of dust covered everything.

Shivering, Jenna unfolded the blanket, shook it out, and wrapped herself in it. It was coarse and scratchy, it smelled of must and rotting wood, but it was thick and warm and fell past her knees. She sank down on the cold stone hearth and felt like a lost pilgrim in some forgotten fable: friendless, soulless, outcast, and abandoned by everyone and every-thing. She looked around at her sad little sanctuary. The crumbling walls, the mossy stone, the shadowed and lonely interior.

Meager though it was, it would have to do. She planned on staying here awhile.