Nine

Baron Dire didn’t dream. Fear scrabbled at the edges of his mind, pulling upright the small hairs along the back of his neck. He distracted himself, sitting with the Wolf before the fire, eating lobster bisque, and playing a game of solitaire. But all the while, he felt as if something watched him…except no, the heavy drapes over the living room windows were pulled tight. Surely the tricky dreaming moon couldn’t see him from where it hung in the sky.

Zilpha’s motorcar puttered down the road leading from the lighthouse. They headed into the night, and Eliza almost asked her to turn back because she’d forgotten something important at the lighthouse of the beach. She patted her pockets, checking to see what she might have missed. But no, she’d brought nothing with her, and so there was nothing for her to have left behind. The feeling intensified. It felt as if something inside her had been knocked out of place by a hard force.

Once at the Jester, Zilpha walked her inside. A few bowls sat on the tables, licked nearly clean by the customers who’d stopped by in the evening. During winter, Pa usually kept the Jester closed. They made enough money three seasons of the year to last the fourth. But sometimes, he opened the restaurant on Friday and Saturday and served stew or chili to those interested.

“Sheriff Olavi called around,” Pa said to Zilpha as he picked up bowls and brought them to the kitchen. “Doctor Landis ruled Kendare’s death a drowning.”

“But I saw Kendare,” Eliza said, confused. “He hadn’t been in the ocean. He hadn’t been swimming.”

“A person can drown in four inches of water,” said Zilpha.

“What about the Wolf? There were paw prints beside his body!”

Zilpha said, “Sheriff Olavi has to put something official on the papers. You have to understand, authorities on the mainland won’t accept ‘bargain’ as a cause of death.”

“Death by Wolf! We already know how he died. He made a bargain, and the Wolf came for him, and now he’s dead.”

Pa and Zilpha exchanged a glance, one that made Eliza mad because she didn’t know how to read it.

“Sheriff Olavi also said that Loretta Parlett decided to hold Kendare’s funeral on Monday. School’ll be canceled again,” Pa said.

Eliza wrapped her arms around herself. She didn’t want to go to Kendare’s funeral. It made her feel strange, knowing he was a part of her family that she’d hardly known, and knowing too that he’d died in a way nobody wanted to talk about. She looked up at Pa, asking, “Is Winnie already in bed?”

He puffed out his cheeks, then let out the breath in one gust, before admitting, “Your sister climbed a tree and is refusing to come down.”

Eliza’s arms fell to her side, and she started toward the back door. “It’s night out! The Wolf could be out there.” Did Pa want her to get eaten? Did he want a second funeral after Kendare’s? How could he leave her up there?

“She’s safe enough,” Pa said. “She’ll come down when she decides.”

Zilpha added, “Wolves can’t climb trees.”

Eliza ran out of the house and into the backyard. She’d seen the Wolf on the beach not even an hour ago! Surely it could be here, now. Why did no one else care what happened to Winnie?

“Winnie!” she shouted, scanning the dark trees for her sister. “Get yourself out of whatever tree it is you’ve climbed up!”

“I was bored,” Winnie’s voice floated down to her. “You were gone, and Pa wasn’t paying me any attention, and I tried playing games, but nothing was fun.”

“So you got yourself stuck in a tree?” Eliza said, locating Winnie at last up the bare branches of an oak tree.

“I’m not stuck. It’s a very wonderful tree, and it’s kept me company.” Winnie patted the trunk.

Eliza reached up to the branch above her, discovering it was nearly out of her reach. Her sister was a squirrel to have climbed it so easily.

“School’s canceled Monday,” Eliza called up to her.

Winnie’s small voice said, “Pa overheard on the party line that Miss Alayna was angry.”

“Gossip,” Eliza said. “She can’t be angry over a funeral.”

Winnie shifted her weight on the branch. “Bri will come back for Miss Alayna, won’t he? She’s having his baby.”

Eliza’s thoughts fell to Filemon, who always wore Bri’s coat as if Bri were dead and not just disappeared to the continent to go to university. “I think, sometimes, babies can be complicated. Besides, Miss Alayna can’t leave the Cape, and if I were Bri, I’d be worried about getting stuck in Fen if I came back. I’d be too scared to try.”

The back door of the Jester slammed shut, and Pa and Zilpha’s voices reached them.

“Get down, would you? Zilpha’s here, and we need to get inside. You know the Wolf comes out at night.” Eliza held up her hands.

“I’m scared, Eliza.” Winnie’s voice trembled, but in a fake, laughing sort of way.

“You know you’re not allowed to lie in our house,” Eliza said.

“We aren’t in our house.”

“We’re on our property.”

“No, we aren’t.” Winnie grinned down at her and pointed a little to her right where their property line butted up against their neighbor’s.

“This isn’t a joke.”

“It’s a little bit of a joke.”

“Winnie, get down.” Eliza stomped one foot, hating how childish and out of control she felt. While the Wolf may have been on the other side of the Cape earlier, she didn’t know how magic wolves traveled. For all she knew, it could leap across all of Fen in one bound.

Winnie’s shoulders slumped. Making as much noise as she could, she pulled herself up so she stood.

An animal howled in the distance. The Wolf. The unearthly sound sank into Eliza’s body.

“Hurry,” Eliza asked, pinpricks rising along her skin.

Win stood with one hand clasped against the tree’s trunk.

“Get down. Now!”

Winnie rose up on her toes, one hand reaching into the open air.

“Winnie!”

She jumped.

“No!” Eliza shouted.

Winnie’s arms and legs stretched out, as if the wind might catch her, catch in her, and push her above the treetops. But instead of soaring up, she fell down. A branch smacked her shoulder, and she screamed.

Adrenaline pumped through Eliza. She ran beneath Winnie. From behind them, Pa and Zilpha shouted and came running. Winnie smacked into Eliza’s open arms with a whump, and they both tumbled to the ground in a painful heap.

Open and closed, open and closed, Winnie’s mouth gaped; she struggled to breathe, but then her lungs inflated, and they did so with a wrenching cry. She gulped in air and let loose terrible tears.

“Winnie. Winnie.” Eliza bundled up her sister, ignoring her own bruised body.

“I wanted…” Winnie sucked in a breath, snot running across her face. “I wanted to see the moon.”

And then Pa was there, wrapping Winnie in his arms and carrying her toward the house.

Eliza rolled to her knees and stood, one hand pressed against the ache blooming in her hip from where she’d landed. Confusion roiled through her.

One, two, three. Eliza held her breath, pushing all her anxiety into her lungs, and stumbled toward the Jester.

Sixty-six, sixty-seven, sixty-eight. She didn’t understand how Dire’s bargains worked.

One hundred and one, one hundred and two, one hundred and three. But she knew that Winnie hadn’t fallen, she’d jumped, and she’d done so after hearing the Wolf howl. She’d tried to leap for it.

Death by Wolf.

Someone had bargained Winnie’s life away. Pa would do anything to get Ma back, and now Eliza knew Zilpha missed her mom too, and that she’d bargained before. Maybe one of them had gone to Dire for help, but the only way to get that help was to give up Winnie. One of them had traded Winnie’s life for a bargain.

Eliza would find out who, and she’d make them trade it back.