“She’s not here to hurt anyone,” I said without thinking as the hotelier pulled a sawed-off from beneath the bar.
“You with her?” He pointed the sawed-off at me but his finger wasn’t on the trigger.
“She’s also the girl’s mother,” I said, keeping my voice low and soft. “We’re just trying to find our daughter.”
“She’s a Reaper. Came through here last week rattling the windows and yelling at folk. We’re God-fearing people here, ma’am, we bury our dead proper and take no recourse from demons. We have no need for a Reaper here.”
Oh, Raina.I sighed and took a slow step back from the counter, folding the receipt before sliding it into my pocket. “We’re going,you can put away that gun. You’ll want to see a doctor about your heart,” I said.
“It’s just indigestion,” the man said, setting the gun on the bar. He kept his hand on it as though to reassure himself.
His aura and the way he’d been moving said otherwise, but I let it go. People didn’t want us here, and I wasn’t about to start revealing I was a witch to add any fuel to their suspicions.
I walked out onto the porch, keeping half an eye on the proprietor until the door was firmly closed behind me. Raina joined me.
“He doesn’t know anything,” I said, “though you walking around like that sure didn’t loosen his tongue.”
“She was here,” Raina said.
“It’s been ten years. The carnival only used his yard and bought some fodder for the animals. He doesn’t remember Mairi and he doesn’t know where they went.”
“I knew her,” said a soft, high voice. A girl with golden brown skin and wide-set brown eyes in a blue gingham dress who couldn’t have been more than seventeen or eighteen came around the side of the hotel but stopped short of where she’d be seen from the windows. “Meet me on the other side of the station.” She didn’t wait for an answer before disappearing around the side again.
Raina gave me an “I told you so” look but mercifully held her tongue as we made our way to the train station and waited on the far side.
The girl showed up a few minutes later. She looked at Raina with curious, fearful eyes and stepped nearer to me.
“I’m Blythe,” she said. “That’s my daddy’s hotel. I heard you asking about the girl with the horses, the carnival? You look like her. I mean, she wasn’t fat or short but, oh, sorry. Mama says I can talk the ear off an earthworm.” She flushed and ducked her head, her black rag-curls bouncing. “You a witch, too?”
My tired head hurt trying to follow the flood of words, and I nodded without thinking. “We just want to find Mairi,” I said. “You remember her?” The girl couldn’t have been more than eight back when the carnival came through.
“She was really nice. Said her name was May. She fixed my doll, wrapped this special string around her and said some magic words and it was like Ben had never broken her leg right off at all.”
“Blythe,” Raina said, pulling the girl’s attention to her. “Where did May go? Do you know?”
“They went to White Water.” She pointed down the tracks. “Follow the road and stay left, you’ll see it in a couple days. It’s not much now, just the train station and a few folk who stayed after the mines emptied. But May’s friend Alice had a sweetheart there and she married him and they live in a big house. She’d know where May went after the mountain slid down.”
“The mountain slid down?” I asked, dread pitching a tent in the empty pit of my belly.
“The old mine blew—well, part of it. Right when the carnival was there. Half the mountain came down. Missed the town, though. I remember we felt the shaking even from here. Nobody died,” she assured me with a crooked-toothed smile.
“How do we find Alice’s house?” I looked at Raina, but her face was a mask in the gloom, the flames of her eyes unreadable.
“Go into town and follow the small road until you see the creek. After that you’ll see the flowers. You really can’t miss it. Next year I’ll be eighteen and then I can visit Alice. Mama thinks she’s a witch ’cause of those flowers.”
“Is she?” Raina said, amusement lacing her tone.
Blythe shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe that’s why she and May were best friends.”
We thanked the girl and started walking down the roadwithout a word between us. The sun was gone, only a bloody smear of light remained to silhouette the trees.
“Once we’re clear of town, we’ll ride. Nightmare can do two days in a couple hours.”
“We can’t show up at night like this,” I said, rubbing my arms for warmth. The heat of Last Hope was far behind me; the summer nights in this place were cooler with a promise of actual cold riding the light breeze.
“Let’s go up the road a bit and camp till daylight,” Raina said. I was surprised she didn’t argue.
My ears popped again as the Nightmare emerged from the deepening gloom. I wasn’t sure what supplies Raina had, or if Reapers even ate food anymore. Her lean, hard build told me nobody had been feeding her proper if she did.
