“Ohhhh,” she breathed. She took a few steps over, leaned forward, and pulled festive red and green plastic away from a basket with some pears, apples, and other fruit. The basket had been half emptied. “You’re our charity auction thief.”
All the items were here. The snack basket was also partly empty, and the towels and soap had clearly been used. Maggie would have felt more smug about being completely right if shehadn’t simply felt bad for the poor girl, who was now looking even more frightened.
“I didn’t mean to be a thief, I swear.” The young woman was nearly in tears. “I didn’t want to take food from the restaurant, that people actually needed, so I figured these things would be okay because no one needed them and they were already being given away. I thought maybe later, if I had money, I could donate it where it was going to go anyway.”
Maggie’s heart went out to her. She knew all too well what it was to do things she regretted, and to want to make amends.
“No one’s going to punish you for taking things you needed,” she said gently, though inwardly she was crossing her fingers that Hester and Mauro would also see it that way. “What’s your name?”
“Cara,” the young woman whispered, slowly uncurling. Maggie guessed her age at early to mid twenties, but she seemed very shy, or maybe just intimidated.
“Hi, Cara. I’m Maggie, this is Sam, and she’s Charlie.”
“Hi!” Charlie said. “We got lost in the snow. Why are you here?”
Maggie had already guessed why Cara was here, but Cara confirmed it, murmuring with a downcast gaze, “I didn’t have anywhere else to go.”
“For the holidays?” Charlie asked, horrified.
“Or at any other time.” Cara smiled a little, slowly unbending somewhat. “What are all of you doing out here?”
“We got lost,” Maggie said. “We were trying to find a—uh—” She realized abruptly that she didn’t actually know how much Charlie wanted her dad to know about what had actually happened with the necklace.
But Charlie took the lead. “I lost something important to me.” She shot a sideways glance at her dad. “I didn’t want to admit I lost it, and I—I lied about that, but I wanted to fixeverything, so I went out to find it. And they were trying to find me. That’s all.”
Cara brightened a little. “Oh, this is a terrible long shot, but the thing you were looking for—is it this?”
She reached into her pocket and brought out a glittering handful of jewelry chain with winking red gemstones.
Charlie gasped aloud, and Sam made a soft, startled sound. Maggie felt her magpie stir briefly with its usual lust for shiny things, but it settled down almost immediately.
“That’s my necklace!” Charlie darted forward to grab it. “Where did you get it?”
“Yeah,” Sam said, low and a bit ominous. “Wheredidyou get it?”
Cara shrank back a little. “I didn’t take it, I swear! I found it on one of the trails, while I was out looking for something I could graze on. I brought it back with me because I figured it might be valuable and it would just get covered up with snow and lost completely.”
“Well, we’re glad you did,” Maggie said. Sam remained quiet, evidently not completely convinced.
Charlie, meanwhile, was in rapture, running the chain through her fingers over and over before clutching the necklace to her heart. “Thank you, thank you! I’m so glad you find this. I was so worried. It was my mom’s, you know.” Putting the chain over her head, she asked, “What do you graze on? Are you a deer? I’m a mountain goat.”
“Charlie!” her dad exclaimed. “You don’t just ask people that. Ortellpeople that.”
Maggie thought Charlie was right that Cara was a shifter, though. They had already speculated that the thief was able to shift. Cara looked down again, flushing.
“We’re all shifters,” Maggie said quietly. “It’s okay to tell us.”
“I’m not sure if you’d believe me if I told you. It’s easier to show you. I need to take my boots off first.”
She slipped her feet out of her boots.
“Just your boots?” Charlie asked, intrigued. “Do you only shift your feet?”
“No, it’s just that I can shift with my clothes, but not boots or purses or anything heavy.”
“You can shift with yourclothes?” Her eyes went round.
The only shifters Maggie had heard of that were able to shift their clothes were dragons, but it was simply a rumor, not something she had seen firsthand. So she was prepared, not without some nervousness, for the possibility of Cara shifting into a dragon.
