I looked up at the stars, trying to pick out constellations. Astronomy is the natural science that I know the least about. I could find Orion and the Big and Little Dippers, but that was as far as I went. My time in the woods was more usually spent turning over rocks than gazing up at the sky.
Probably for the best, given how hard it is to paint a good night sky in watercolor.There’s something about the glow of stars that simply doesn’t want to translate into paint. You can take the most spectacular night sky ever seen and on paper, it just turns into a sheet of muddy blue-black flecked with little white dots.
I heard a distant door slam and ducked hastily behind the tree I’d picked out. Light splashed around me, casting brief, fantastic shadows before moving on, then footsteps went past. I waited long enough for the sound to fade, then scurried after.
Definitely Halder. I could make out the familiar slumped form silhouetted against the lantern. He was moving quickly but kept throwing glances over his shoulder. He didn’t slow down or swing the lantern around though, which made it seem more like a nervous tic than an actual attempt to spot pursuit. Still, I moved from tree to shrub to tree, trying to stay in coverin case he decided to actually stop and look. Fortunately, sound couldn’t betray me, because the frogs were making a deafening racket, intermixed with the shrilling of katydids and the short, sharp chirps of some insect that I didn’t know but that Halder probably did.
We reached the clearing that contained the Kents’ small, neat house, and Halder hastily dimmed the light down to a firefly glow. He moved cautiously around the side to the chicken coop, holding the lantern so that it didn’t shine into the darkened windows. I halted behind a loblolly pine and waited.
A whippoorwill called monotonously in the woods. Halder fumbled with the latch on the coop.
Something moved on the porch. I froze. So did Halder.
Claws scraped the boards as the old hound stood up, stretched, and came ambling down the steps.
Don’t look in my direction, I prayed.I’m not here. I’m not.
He took a few steps toward my tree. I saw a flash of moonlight on white teeth as he yawned. Surely he must be able to smell me. If he came up to me, I had no idea what to do. Hold very, very still and hope that Halder didn’t come to see what had attracted his attention? Try to run?
Oh please, please, go away, I can’t pet you right now…
Then Halder got the door open and the old hound turned, attracted by either the sound or the movement of the light. His tail wagged amiably as he went toward the chicken coop.
Light gleamed through chinks in the boards, and a moment later, my employer emerged, holding a groggy chicken tucked firmly under his arm. The dog came up and sniffed at the dangling feet with great interest.
Halder reached into his pocket, pulled something out, and tossed it to the hound. Suddenly all business, the dog caught it neatly in midair and trotted back to the porch. I heard the creak as he flopped down and began chewing.
Very clever.Cleverer than I had been, certainly. I’d known thedog was there, but I hadn’t even considered that he might give me away.
The light bobbed through the trees as Halder went back the way he had come. I gave chase, hearing the occasional puzzlederr-err-errrk? from the hen. I felt a pang of sympathy for the poor chicken. I didn’t know what Halder’s plans were, but I suspected the bird’s future was extremely limited.
The gunpowder shed loomed ahead. I slipped back behind the shrubs and waited. Halder set down the lantern, took out his key, and unlocked it, then picked up the lantern again and stepped inside.
He didn’t shut the door behind him. He shouldered through some kind of drape and let it fall, cutting off both the light and a last, worried cluck from the chicken.
I swallowed hard. Did I dare get closer?
No! Stay here where it’s—well, notsafe, obviously, this is all a terrible idea, but if you go any closer you are absolutely going to get caught, youknowyou’re going to get caught—
The problem with anxiety is that you get so good at tamping down that inner voice that sometimes you ignore it even when it’s right. Halder had only spent about five minutes in the shed last time. I should definitely stay where I was.
Stop, stop, what are you doing, stop!I told myself as I slunk across the open ground. The moonlight was just barely strong enough to make out folds of material in the doorway. I touched it cautiously. Heavy oilcloth. Very heavy. Weighted at the bottom too, it felt like, and stiffened along the edges, forming a barrier just inside the arc of the door.
Okay, now you know what the drape is made of, for all the good it does, now you’re going to turn around and go back to your hiding place…
It occurred to me that there was no light coming from around the edges of the drape. I leaned closer. It was certainly heavy, but it couldn’t possibly seal so tightly that light couldn’t get out,could it? I didn’t hear anything from inside. The shed was so small, surely I should hear Halder moving, shouldn’t I?
He wouldn’t just be standing there in the dark, in total silence, holding a chicken. That made no sense.
None of this makes any sense!
Crouching down, I plucked the edge of the drape and lifted it a tiny fraction. Light failed to spill out from underneath.
My courage would likely have failed me at that point, except that I heard Halder’s voice, much farther away than expected, saying, “Worked a treat though, didn’t it?”
It didn’t sound like he was in the tiny shed. It sounded like he was across a room and at the bottom of a flight of stairs. And who was he talking to?
Fear warred with curiosity and lost. I lifted the corner even higher and peered inside.
