Faerie Winter - Janni Lee Simner [23]
There was an extra set of prints in the snow that hadn’t been there before, beside the child’s prints and Matthew’s and mine. Only a few yards away, the new prints turned toward the forest. I put my hand to my knife’s hilt and retraced my steps. I heard no one, but the prints in the snow couldn’t lie. Whoever had followed me, his or her steps made no sound. The only people I knew who could walk that quietly were Karin and Caleb and—
“Johnny, get out here. Now.” I kept my voice low, not wanting to attract the woodpecker’s attention.
Someone coughed softly behind me. I spun around, drawing my knife and taking a step back as I did. Johnny stood there, grinning. “You are predictable, Liza.”
I closed the distance between us without lowering my blade. “I told you not to do that.”
Johnny shrugged and hunched down in his jacket. His knife hung from a belt underneath it. “You also told me to reveal myself.”
I sheathed my knife and stalked past him. “Go home.” Surely he had better things to do than make trouble here.
I didn’t hear him following, but I saw, this time, when Johnny came up beside me. “Funny thing—I’m actually heading the same way you are today.”
“Hilarious.” A dragonfly thrummed ahead of us down the road, clutching a firefly between its legs. The dragonfly’s wings shone green, while the firefly pulsed a colder yellow. “Brianna won’t be happy to find you missing.”
“And you’re supposed to be so good at paying attention.” Johnny slipped out of sight between one breath and the next. “Anyone can tell it’s a relief to my mom when she can’t see me. My magic makes things easier for her.”
The firefly shimmered. Its yellow light licked the air and caught the dragonfly’s veined wings, running along them like liquid fire. The larger insect quivered. There was a small, bright flash, and then the dragonfly dissolved into lacy ash.
The firefly flew off, still glowing. I focused on the path and Matthew’s tracks. If Johnny chose to go walkabout, that was no concern of mine. I’d waste no more breath on it.
The snow grew softer and wetter, and the brown patches of dirt and leaves grew more frequent. As the afternoon temperature edged above freezing, I put my gloves and hat into my pockets. Clouds thickened around me, and a crow’s harsh caw cut the air. I scanned the forest but saw no sign of the black birds. Crows blended readily into the dull winter trees, as if they had stalking magic of their own.
The crow called out again. Crows were scavengers, with little skill for bringing down prey, but they’d been known to peck out the eyes of live animals from time to time. I came to another spur path, the one that led to Clayburn. Matthew’s wolf prints and the child’s boot prints both turned onto that narrower trail. Matthew had stopped running. His steps were more deliberate, rear paws placed carefully into the tracks left by front ones, as if something had made him cautious. Beside his prints, the child’s showed no such hesitation.
I moved my hand to my knife as I followed them, knowing that Matthew wouldn’t have left the road without cause. Gray ash dusted the snow. A burned smell crept into the air, with a cooked-meat edge that reminded me of Ethan’s burns. Matthew would have smelled it sooner than I did. Had he gone to investigate? I slowed my steps. I hoped that if Johnny was still here, he was being careful, too.
A shard of white bone poked through a patch of snow. More bones lay exposed against brown earth, burned flesh clinging to them. Human bones: a thigh, a shattered kneecap, two fingers. My hand tightened around the knife’s hilt. The bones were too small to have come from adults.
I heard Johnny draw breath between his teeth, though I still couldn’t see him. More burned bones littered the path and forest as I walked on, most already picked over by scavenging birds or dogs. I gagged on the scent of dead flesh. Had Ethan’s magic killed them, just as it had killed Ben? Had I made a mistake, leaving Mom