Chương 20: Chapter 19 - Forbidden Black Box

When I got back to our room, Kappa was already asleep in his nest on my bed. He'd had a long day, and while the temperature around here was mild compared to Quicholt, it was still cool, bordering on cold, in the evening. He'd probably hopped into bed and crashed. I gazed down at his snoozling form, feeling affection and a touch of envy. But I couldn't rest yet. I had calls to make. Tomorrow we'd be heading into the swamp again—and this time, we'd be prepared. As much as we could be…

you know, for two people who didn't know a thing about how to get around in a swamp.

"Conrad," I said as I crossed into the room, "can I borrow your phone?" The wolfman was sitting at the small, peeling desk. He'd pushed the chair back so he could slouch in it properly, with his long legs stretched all the way to the wall and his arms crossed. He glared down at the maps on the desk in front of him. Maps? I wandered over.

"Is that the preserve?" He nodded.

"That'll be handy," I said.

"Where did you get them?" He used his nose to point to the plastic black box on the edge of the desk—the one that Kappa had found and Vance had returned to us. Conrad had ripped off the lid. I could see the jagged plastic edges where the hinges had succumbed to the force.

"You opened it without me?!" I cried. Conrad blinked and looked up.

"It didn't occur to me that you would care." Too wounded and indignant to come up with actual words, I sputtered at him. The edge of his lips lifted in an amused smile, making me feel twice as indignant as before.

"It wasn't a Christmas present," he pointed out.

"No," I said, "it was better than a Christmas present! It was a mysterious black box—a forbidden black box—with a lock on it!" I raised my hands to the side of my head, fingers wide, then jerked them down while letting out a loud ugh.

"I'm so disappointed!"

"With the contents, or the fact you weren't there when I opened it?" I scowled at the maps. How practical. And boring.

"Both," I said. Conrad patted me on the arm.

"I'll get you a box to open later. Would that make you feel better?"

"Don't patronize me, wolf-boy."

"What if I put candy in it?" Not only was he still patronizing me, but he was also laughing at me. His amused smile was twice as big as before. On the other hand—candy. I pointed at him, touching the tip of my index finger to the end of his nose in a sharp and menacing boop.

"You better." We turned our attention to the maps. There were four of them. Each one was large enough to cover most of the desk. The water that had seeped into the box had blurred the fine lines that were supposed to show the topography, and the edges of the fold creases were worn into a pulpy mush. The wet paper was too weak to hold together. The top map had split along the folds in three places. Someone had used a red ballpoint pen to draw a rough grid over the map, dividing it into sections.

The first row and half of the second row were X-ed out in weepy red ink.

"Can we use these?" I muttered.

"No," Conrad said. I glanced at him. He was frowning. I hadn't expected such a blunt answer. It's true the maps were in bad shape, but they were better than nothing, and Conrad was good with maps. I'd assumed he'd be able to do something with them. He added, "We should handle them as little as possible." With a sigh he started carefully folding up the maps.

"The count is going to give me an earful."

"Darius? Why?"

"Improper handling of evidence." The maps suddenly seemed a lot less boring.

"You think these are evidence?" I asked. Conrad put the maps back in the box.

"Between the red markings and the fact we found them with a ghillie suit, I suspect that someone was searching for something in the swamp." Oh… Oh! Get a good map of the preserve. Divide it into sections. Sneak around while camouflaged to search each section thoroughly, then mark it off.

"And whoever it was, they weren't supposed to be there," I said. Conrad paused. A slight scowl disarranged his face.

"I think so."

"What's with the hesitation?" It seemed obvious to me. Vance, Brodie, or Ayla wouldn't have to sneak around if they wanted to search the swamp, and they wouldn't leave a package like that laying around. Not only was it against one of the big rules—leave nothing there—but Vance's home was nearby and the two researchers had the yurt. Why would they store something in the hollow of a tree when they could store it somewhere secure and out of the water? Conrad put the lid back on the box as best he could.

"There was a faint scent when I opened the box. I couldn't get anything from it, but something about it felt familiar." No wonder he'd hesitated.

"Are you talking about a human scent?" I asked.

"I think so." That was…thought provoking.

"How sure are you?" I asked. Conrad pushed the box to the corner of the desk.

"I'm not, Mera. That scent must have been close to two weeks old. Even in a place with this much moisture in the air, that's old for a scent." He walked over and lowered himself onto the small couch, I followed him across the room but stayed standing. He continued, "It smelled like a person, but maybe it was some kind of soap or perfume that humans use. When it's that faint, it's hard to tell. If I smelled it again, I would recognize it, but until then—I think it was a human scent, and it felt familiar.

That's the best I can do." This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. A grin—without any prior authorization—managed to sneak onto my face. Conrad saw it.

"What?" he demanded. I shrugged.

"Oh, nothing. But it's nice to know I'm not the only one who struggles with unreliable powers."

"There's nothing wrong with my nose," Conrad insisted.

"It's the scents that are unreliable."

"Of course. That must be what I meant." I dropped onto the couch beside him, kicked off my sneakers, and pulled my legs up so I could sit crisscross applesauce. The couch was too small for me to do that without getting in Conrad's way, but I solved the problem by ignoring the fact my leg was laying over his. Call it packmate privilege. We were used to sharing the small couch in the TV room back at the mansion.

"If it was a human scent," I said, "and it's familiar, does that mean it could be someone you've met?" My highly prejudiced bet was on Ayla Davids.

"I doubt it," Conrad said.

"Vance and Brodie both assumed the box was ours. That's pretty good evidence that it wasn't theirs. And it wasn't the motel manager. I can still smell her in the room."

"What about Ayla?" I said while mentally preparing the warrant for her arrest.

"I would have recognized her scent." Rats. I started fidgeting with my fingers.

"But you do think whoever left the box was involved with the missing object?" Conrad took his time before answering.

"I think it's possible," he said, "but I also think that it's strange that they would come back to the swamp if they'd already found what they were looking for."

"Huh?"

"I think the scent on that box is close to two-weeks old, but it couldn't be much older than that or I wouldn't have smelled it at all. The lurkers have been going out since January. If the person in the ghillie suit had found what they were looking for, why would they come back?" I thought about the comment Conrad had made way back in the swamp, about how the thief might have taken it without knowing what they were doing.

"Maybe they weren't searching the swamp just for that," I said.

"Maybe they were searching the swamp for…something else, or they were looking around in general, like a beach-comber. They happened to find the object, thought it looked neat, and"—I clicked my tongue and made a snatching motion—"picked it up." Conrad frowned and shook his head.

"You don't think so?" I asked.

"It's possible," he admitted, "but the way they broke the preserve down into sections—that seemed like more than a casual search."

"How far do you think they got in their search?"

"Not far," he said.

"They seemed to be moving from the front of the swamp, closest to the road, back toward the interior. They hadn't reached the first of the lurker's sentry points." A chilly apprehension slipped over me. The lurkers. What would've happened if the person in the ghillie suit had made it as far as the lurkers' home? Had it already happened? The thought almost made me wish that it was someone we'd already met—like Brodie or Vance.

At least they knew about the lurkers, and they weren't bumbling around the swamp, ignorant, looking for god-knows-what… Like we were. I groaned.

"We really need to figure out what that stupid object was. Or is?" I shook my head and made a face.

"Whatever. Was it actually important? Or do the lurkers only think it was important? —because if I'm looking for some rock that they've decided is their god, then I'll… I'll…" You'll what? my brain said. I'd work myself ragged to find it and return it to them. It didn't matter how exasperated or irritated I was; even if I was looking for some worthless rock, the lurkers cared about it, and that was the problem. Conrad had one arm over the back of the couch.

He bent his elbow so he could rest his hand on the back of my head. It was a casual, comforting gesture. When I felt the fur around his palms and finger pads tickling my scalp, my frustration quieted.

"You're right," he said.

"If we could learn more about whatever's missing, it might help us understand how and why it went missing." I squeezed two of my fingers with my other hand. He went on, "What do you want to do, Emerra?" I gazed at the wolfman, suspiciously, out of the corner of my eye.

"Why are you asking me?"

"Because you're in charge."

"Ha! Whoa." I crossed and uncrossed my arms a few times to assert the full negative of my answer.

"No. Whoa-no! Are you crazy? What on earth makes you think I'm in charge?"

"I'm here as your guardian, remember?"

"And I'm here as Kappa's caretaker, remember? If anyone's in charge, he is!" The bog-monster in charge raised his head by an inch and let out a croaky screech to inform me that I was being too loud. I whispered "sorry," and his head dropped back to his nest. When I turned to Conrad, he was giving me a flat, dead-pan look. The corner of his mouth closest to me was lifted slightly, as if to say, "Are you really going to go with that?" I huffed.

"Well!" Great argument, Emerra. He'll never know what to say. He ignored my outburst.

"You're also a seer," he said, "and one of only two people who can communicate with the lurkers."

"That doesn't mean I know what to do!" I whined.

"Neither does anyone else. It might as well be you guessing." I drew my knees up to my chest, put my arms around my legs, and went back to squeezing my two fingers. My next words came out as a whisper.

"What if I guess wrong, Conrad?" My whisper was swallowed by the quiet room. Conrad said, "Then you would have done your best in an uncertain situation. Isn't that good enough?" An unrelenting hand squeezed my stomach, making me feel ill, pushing that sense of nausea up into my heart. That might not make a lot of sense, but that's what it was—I felt heart-sick. The pain of it oozed into the rest of me, making my whole body stiff.

In my head there was an empty space where my brain still made room for bad memories that were so old they'd already faded to nothing but an ache. But, oh, how they could ache. I'd done my best before. It hadn't been good enough. Conrad put his hand on the side of my head and nudged it toward him with his fingertips. It didn't hurt, but it was forceful enough to send my sulky thoughts tumbling like a bunch of blocks.

"Nope," he said.

"None of that. We have to work on this problem first. You can host a pity-party later." I laughed, then tried to glare at him.

"You're like a really mean therapist. You know that?"

"Scratch my invitation to the party."

"Maybe I will!" If he was hurt by my threat, he didn't show it. I took a deep breath and forced myself to relax. Conrad was right. Whether I thought my best was good enough or not, it was all I could do. It was all that anyone could do.

"Do you think you could trace that box back to who owned it?" I asked.

"If you're asking if I could smell them out, I don't think so," he said.

"I'll keep a nose out for the scent everywhere we go, but there's no trail to follow, and I can't go into town to try to find them." I sighed.

"Okay. I'll talk to Gladwyn. If this town is small enough, someone might remember who bought the ghillie suit. I wanted to call him anyway. Tomorrow we can ask Ayla and Brodie if they've seen anyone sneaking around the swamp or if they have any idea what object the lurkers might be looking for."

"Do you think we'll be able to talk to them?" Before that moment, it hadn't occurred to me how spoiled a person could become by something like reliable technology. Not only had I spaced getting their contact information from them when I had the chance, but they spent most of their weekdays in a place called "the dead zone." Ugh.

"We can stop by the yurt before heading out into the swamp," I said.

"Do you want to check out the place the lurkers asked Vance not to go?" Conrad asked.

"I want to go there before they get the chance to ask me not to." I rubbed my eyes. Why were they so tired? It wasn't like I'd kept them open for longer than normal. Conrad paused, then lowered his muzzle in a single nod.

"Good."

"You approve?" I shouldn't have felt so surprised. It wasn't like this case was overflowing with leads. We weren't grasping at straws—we were grasping at the shadows of straws. Conrad said, "If there's a place that the lurkers don't want Vance to go, it makes sense that it'd have something to do with the object they don't want him knowing about." Oh, thank god. That did kind of make sense.

"But you know we might not find anything," Conrad warned. I made a pssssh noise.

"Might not? I thought that was guaranteed. Aren't we looking for something that's gone?"

"Which means that even if our guess is right, and that is where the lurkers were keeping the object, we may not be able to tell." My teasing mood bled away.

"I know. But maybe we'll get lucky…and find a clue." I'd been about to say, "and I'll have a vision," but I couldn't bring myself to do it. I'd been having visions more often, but they weren't something I could rely on. If I said it out loud, some bad-luck gremlin might overhear me and jinx the whole trip. I put my legs down and forced myself to my feet.

"Before we set out on any impossible missions, I need a shower." I staggered toward the bathroom.

"Don't you need to make a call?" Conrad asked. I did an about-face and tried to keep the exhausted swaying to a minimum.

"First I'll make a few calls. Then I'll take a shower." I walked over to my bed. My phone wasn't there. Kappa was on my bed. Oh, right. My phone was in my pocket. I pulled out my dead phone, stared at it for a second, then let out a loud sigh and put it on my nightstand. By the time I turned around, Conrad already had his phone out. His elbow was once again resting on the back of the couch, and he was holding his phone up in his raised hand.

He didn't bother turning his head to look at me, but I could still see the faint smile at the edge of his muzzle. I walked behind the couch and snatched the phone from his hand.

"I can't believe you want me to be in charge."