* * *
By the timewe made it to the pond where the leapers liked to nest, I’d accepted that my mother’s message was something I’d have to face.
Her death wasn’t a new truth, but hope had sharpened the edges of it again.
What worried me more was my brother. If the latest messages from him had been forged, who had forged them and why? And, more importantly, where was he?
Abraham had been silent on the drive, a courtesy I appreciated.
“You can stay in the truck,” I said. “I’ll handle the leapers.”
He opened the door and got out of the truck anyway.
“So far I’ve seen a dragon and unicorn,” he said. “Leapers brings all kinds of thoughts to mind.”
“They’re just pond crawlers.”
I retrieved a bag of apples out of the back of the truck. Leapers didn’t need apples to survive, but they were intelligent, determined little things that would stray far and wide for fruit.
I opened the bag and tossed an apple into the brackish pond.
Abraham leaned against the truck, searching the shadows.
“Up,” I suggested.
He looked up at the trees that overhung the water.
A rattle of leaves was all that announced the leapers.
I tossed another apple into the pond.
“Spiders?” he asked.
“Not quite.”
The leapers lived up to their name and came hopping out of the trees and into the pond with fist-sized splashes. They wrapped their little tentacles around the apples, which were bigger than them.
“Octopuses? Tree octopuses?”
“They aren’t supposed to climb trees, but one of them figured out where the fruit was, and, well.” I shrugged.
“Your father stitched little land octopuses?” he asked.
“Oh, these aren’t his. Or at least I don’t think so. These have been here as long as any of us can remember. Mutated. Teeth. Poison.”
“With a taste for apples?”
“Yes. And they will go miles to find them. Which, in turn, gets them killed and us blamed. Our neighbors don’t much appreciate it when they swarm a tree and scuttle off with all the best fruit.”
“Why don’t you get rid of them?”
I shrugged. “They’re not doing any harm. Well, not much. They are poisonous, so it’s not like you want them crawling up your legs. But they’re kind of cute.” I grinned as one of the leapers landed on an apple and fell off. It draped a greenish tentacle over the fruit, hugging it like it had just found a lost friend.
Most of the little monsters found an apple to hug and bob along with. I finished throwing the rest of the fruit in there. It should keep them out of the neighbors’ crops for a month.
“That’s a lot of apples,” he said.
“Just being practical. If I’m going into the city with you, I want things tied down here so it’s not chaos when I come back.”
