Which meant there wasn’t much for Baz to do as a foreman. Declan made it clear that he didn’t want anyone’s help, Lexie (covered in sawdust and cobwebs) was about as happy as he’d ever seen her, and Fern had turned her attention to giving her cottage such a brisk spring cleaning that Baz halfway expected to see bluebirds twittering around helping her carry stuff.
He was getting used to the layout of the town. It really was very small. Some of the other old buildings that might be fun to fix up were the old livery stable Fern had pointed out yesterday, a saloon that looked like something out of the Wild West, and a boarded-up clapboard church. And there was still the mysterious wishing well to find, if it even still existed.
What he decided to do instead was solve the mystery of the possibly inhabited cabin once and for all.
He thought about bringing some kind of gift—a sort of housewarming present? Reverse housewarming? If there was someone staying in that cabin, clearly they were going out oftheir way not to be noticed; probably they expected to be chased out. He would like to be able to offer something to make himself seem like less of a terrifying landlord come to call, and more of a neighbor.
But he didn’t even know what sort of person he was dealing with. One of the forest shifters? A passing camper? Something else entirely? He’d had the feeling ever since they got here that there was something a bit different about this town. However, anything that left behind a wet bar of soap was no nature sprite.
So he decided to take the direct approach.
Approaching the cabin, he wondered if he was going to find out that the mystery guest had left in the night. The cabin’s door was tightly closed, no sign of smoke from the chimney, a general air of abandonment about the place.
Baz hesitated, then knocked. “Hello? My name’s Baz. If anyone’s in there, you’re not in trouble. I just want to meet you.”
There was no answer.
He tested the door. Technically, it didn’t have a doorknob; instead there was an old wrought-iron handle. But something was definitely blocking it from the inside. It seemed to have some kind of inner latch or deadbolt, which meant there had to be someone inside, unless there was some way of locking and unlocking it from the outside.
Baz examined the door more closely. He noticed a string dangling down, coming from a small slot in the door. It was almost invisible against the weathered wood.
Baz gave the string a little tug. He felt resistance on the other end.
What is this?he wondered.
He pulled harder. There was a sense of something moving, and abruptly, he felt the resistance loosen. The door moved a little on its hinges. Baz gave it a tug, and this time it swung easily.
Aha!he thought. He had read about this kind of thing in books about the pioneer days. There was a latch on the inside of the door, which could be raised or lowered into place from the outside by pulling on a string—a poor man’s lock. When a person was at home, they could make it secure by pulling in the string, and then leave it dangling out when they were gone. It was no good against humans, but would protect the interior of the cabin from marauding bears and other wildlife.
So there was no real mystery here, just a cabin whose last owner had locked it and then went away.
Still, kind of odd he hadn’t noticed the string yesterday—almost as if it wasn’t dangling out then. Could he have missed it?
“Hello?” he said, pulling the door open.
The interior of the cabin was about what he’d expected, one small but snug room. There was a single window with panes of dirty glass above a rough-hewn table, a pot-bellied stove, a wood bed frame and a couple of other pieces of homemade furniture.
And he could instantly see that someone was living here. Not a sylph or nature sprite, but an actual person. They weren’t home right now, but there was a sleeping bag unrolled on the bunk and a pack sitting on a rough wooden chair.
Baz took a quick step backward. “Sorry!” he said reflexively, then got hold of himself. The cabin was clearly empty of its occupant.
But Baz didn’t think they had been gone long. Nothing had dust or cobwebs on it. There was an electric lantern beside the bed, and a portable camp stove, the kind that worked off a small can of fuel, sitting on top of the rusty iron stove. A towel was draped over the back of the chair. It looked as if the owner had just stepped out.
Had the person gone? Had they encountered some kind of trouble?
He heard nothing alarming nearby. The only noises were the cheerful, upbeat sounds of his cousins at work. Lexie had brought a portable music player with her, and he could hear the distant strains of one of the classic rock songs she liked. Now and then came the thump of the air-compressor-powered nail gun.
As he stood there listening, Baz was hit with a sudden, powerful sense of danger, so strong that it made the hairs stand up on the back of his neck. He spun around, searching for anything out of place. He had never experienced anything like it, an urgent awareness that something was wrongnow.
He had heard that it was possible for a clan alpha to sense when members of the clan were in danger. He wasn’t sure if that was what was happening now, or if he even was enough of an alpha yet for it to work, but he did know that something was very badly wrong.
Someone was at risk.
He turned and charged toward Main Street. “Lexie!”
“What are you bellowing about?”
The old forge’s double doors stood open, flung wide to let sunlight in and dust out. Lexie stepped out with a hammer in one hand and a handkerchief tied around her head to keep dust out of her hair. “What’s got your tail in a twist, cousin o’ mine?”
