Charlie Morrison's Arc

Chapter 10 of 14

Charlie sat on the porch steps and looked at the body in the ferns. The tracker's blood had soaked into the moss at the edge of her yard. Dawn was two hours off. Fern had warned her that fae scouts walked the tree line before sunrise, and a corpse on her land would mark her home as unclean. The court would not favor a house that could not keep its own ground. She had no shovel deep enough, no time, no plan. Her guardian lay beside her, calm, watching the trees. A man walked out of the pines and into the clearing. He was tall, muscular, in jeans and a button-down shirt. Charlie stood up. Her guardian did not move. He did not lift his head, did not growl. He watched the man cross the yard the way he watched Fern. Charlie looked at the man's face and stopped breathing. His eyes were the tracker's eyes. Grey, ringed dark, wolf eyes in a human face. The tracker was dead in the ferns behind her. She could see the wet shoulder from here. "You saw him die," the man said. "I know. Look again." "Who are you?" "David. Your grandmother knew me. Your wolf knows me." He nodded at her guardian. "Watch, so you believe it." He stepped back onto the grass and dropped to one knee. His shape folded. Fur came up along his arms. His shoulders pulled forward. In three breaths a grey wolf stood where the man had been, the same wolf that had guarded her porch, the same wolf now cooling in the ferns. Then he rose again as a man, brushing his sleeves down. "That one in the ferns was mine to send," he said. "A body, not a brother. I can wear more than one." Charlie's mouth was dry. "Scouts are coming. If they find him—" "They will find nothing." David walked past her to the ferns. He knelt beside the corpse and set both hands on its chest. He spoke three words she did not know. The body sank. The moss closed over it. The blood on the leaves lifted as a thin grey smoke and was gone. The ground was only ground. Charlie stared at the clean earth. "Why help me?" "Your grandmother asked, long ago. I owe the debt to you now." He looked at her. "The mark on that map you carry. I know the hand that drew it. When you come back from town, we speak." He walked to the tree line. Before he reached the pines he was the grey wolf again, and then he was gone. Charlie sat down on the steps. Her guardian pressed against her knee. The yard was clean. The scouts would find nothing. But someone she had never met knew the mark, knew her grandmother, and would be waiting for her when she came home.