Chương 22: Chapter 21 - The Cabin

Kappa was uncomfortable with the idea of me sitting in the hollow while I sketched. He tried to drag me out. When that failed, he threatened to bite me. I called on Conrad for help. Conrad said he was on Kappa's side and if I didn't get out of there, he would threaten to bite me.

I was ninety percent sure that Conrad wouldn't do something like that, even as a threat, but I was one hundred percent sure that he could drag me out by force, so I found a tree outside the hollow with large, semi-dry roots and a comfortably angled trunk, sat down, and started drawing. Kappa hopped around me, making nervous noises and occasionally peering over my arm to see what I was doing. Conrad kept watch.

I'd been practicing my art skills since late December, but I wasn't fast at sketching, and I felt compelled to get the image as accurate as possible, so I lingered over the work. By the time I looked up, the quality of the daylight—as meager as it was—had changed.

"Crap!" I sat up. Conrad was five or six feet away, scanning the swamp. He turned when he heard me. Kappa, who'd settled down beside me, jumped and started sniffing around to make sure everything was okay.

"Why didn't you wake me up?" I wailed as I snatched up my backpack and fumbled with the zipper.

"You weren't asleep," Conrad said. I threw my sketchbook and pencil in the bag.

"You know what I mean!" I waved my hand around as I tried to think of the term for it.

"Stupor! I was in a stupor."

"You mean a trance?"

"One of those two! You have to, like, prod me when I get like that. How late is it?" We were still without phones, but Conrad was willing to guess.

"I think it's near dinner time." I threw the pack over my shoulder, picked up Kappa, and rose to my feet. Conrad was looking at me with a strange expression. Part of it was a scowl, and part of it was a frown. The other part I couldn't figure out, but it made his ears droop in a way that made me feel profoundly guilty.

"I-I'm sorry." I swallowed and looked down at the rubber boots of my waders.

"I'm chewing you out when it was totally my fault." Conrad shook his head and gazed back out at the swamp.

"It's not your fault."

"But—""You want to talk about fault? First you have to convince me that someone did something wrong." He sloshed over to me and Kappa. Even in these shallow waters, Conrad's jeans were soaked up to his knees, and all we could do was pray that his leather work boots would hold up until we got back to the mansion. It'd be too much to ask for Fort Rive to stock a similar pair in his size. More guilt dribbled into my chest, but it came with a huge dose of fondness.

"You're amazing, Conrad. You know that?" I said.

"Thank you for helping me with all this." I glimpsed his brief smile before it disappeared.

"Did you get your vision down?" he asked.

"I have a good start to it," I said.

"Good." His scowl returned.

"Then we need to get out of here." Kappa gave a single firm nod and let out a humph to go with it. Conrad put Kappa on his shoulders and started walking. His long strides ate up the distance. With his fast pace, it wasn't long before I lost him in the trees. Yikes, I thought, he must really want to get out of here. I ran to catch up. When I reached his side, I had to do a quick jog every few steps to stay with him. That was… unnerving.

Yes, this place was spooky, but when we were in the swamp, Conrad usually tried to keep me beside him or in front of him so he could see if I was in any danger or about to do something stupid. Now I trailed behind him. The only times I could catch my breath were when he stopped to look around. The way he stopped was weird too.

There were looking-around stops where he would slowly come to a halt and let his eyes move over the scene, but sometimes he'd jerk back with no warning, and his head would whip around to focus on nothing at all. During one of the jerk-whip stops, he whispered, "Do you hear that?" We were still in the quieter part of the swamp. All I could hear was a faint noise in the distance that might have been birds calling to welcome the twilight.

I strained my ears for a second, trying to listen for anything more significant, before realizing how ridiculous that was.

"Isn't your hearing, like, a hundred times better than mine?" I asked. Conrad frowned.

"Yeah. You're right." He hesitated, then said as he set off again, "Never mind." As he was looking around during the next stop, something occurred to me. Since when does Conrad look around when he's charging somewhere? I glanced up at him. His fuzzy brow was furrowed, and his scowl was deeper than ever.

"Um…Conrad?" The wolfman didn't seem to notice.

"Conrad?" Still no response. I raised my voice.

"Conrad!" He finally looked at me.

"Were you calling my name?"

"Um, yeah!"

"Sorry. I didn't hear you." He didn't…hear me? Before I could ask him what the heck was going on, he lifted Kappa from his shoulders and held him out.

"Can you take Kappa for a minute?"

"Sure." I grabbed the bog-monster under the arms and pulled him to my hip.

"But—" Too late. Conrad walked off a few paces. Since they were his paces, he wound up about fifteen feet away.

"Is Conrad okay?" Kappa whispered.

"I am not sure, little man," I whispered back. Conrad's head turned as he slowly scanned the swamp in front of him, his nose raised. He took a few steps to the left, stopped, then walked back the other way—stopping again after only a few feet. His weight shifted as he wavered. Without a word, he turned and came back to us. He wrapped his arm around my shoulders, pulled me close, and put his head between my head and Kappa's while tucking his nose so it was only an inch away from my neck.

I could feel the air move over my skin as he took a long breath in.

"Conrad," I said, "you're kind of freaking me out." He raised his head again to look behind himself, out at the swamp.

"I've lost the scent."

"What scent?"

"Your scent— our scent. While you were drawing, I-I got…turned around. Somehow. I was trying to follow our scent back until I could figure things out, but…it's gone." Those last two words were muttered with a pinch of awe sprinkled over a dumpster full of confusion.

"So you took a huff of me and Kappa in case you'd forgotten what we smelled like?" I said. His arm dropped from my shoulders. That was a relief. It was a bit much with Kappa, and the backpack, and his arm.

"I thought I might be smelling things," he said. At last I could identify and appreciate that final part of the unhappy emotion that had made his ears droop; it was a flavor of nervousness that I was entirely too familiar with. A slow grin spread over my face.

"Conrad Bauer, are we lost?" His ears wiggled around with embarrassment, and he studied the water where his feet would have been if he could've seen his feet.

"I think so." I laughed.

"Most people wouldn't find that funny," he grumbled.

"I am not most people." I passed Kappa to him.

"And I think it's hilarious. The unflappable Conrad Bauer—map-man extraordinaire! —has met his match in the Sauvage Preserve. Did you know your ears do this cute wiggle-waggle thing when you're nervous?" His eyes narrowed.

"Right," I said.

"You don't get nervous. Would 'uneasy' be a better word?"

"Mera," he chided. Kappa looked back and forth between us.

"Lost?" Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

"Yup!" I said.

"I'll bet you're as unfamiliar with the concept as Conrad." I took a deep, satisfying breath of fresh swamp air, pulled my shoulders back, and puffed out my chest.

"Don't worry, guys. I know what to do." I was going for the cartoon-hero tone—the one they use when they announce, "Don't worry. I'll save the day!"

"You know where we are?" Conrad asked with an insulting amount of skepticism.

"Oh," I made a face, "not a clue. But this is your first time being lost—while I am a certified expert." I cracked my knuckles.

"First things first, does anyone know which way's north?"

"The light's too dim," Conrad said.

"I can't tell where it's coming from." Kappa looked like he didn't even know what the word "north" meant.

"Then, as the certified expert," I said, "I can tell you that we're not only lost—we are very lost. What about the lurker who was following us?"

"He left when we got close to the place you had your vision," Conrad said.

"And we're on our own." I adjusted the straps on my pack and started off.

"Follow me." Conrad was a step behind.

"Where are we going?" I pointed in front of me.

"That-a-way!"

"Do you know what's in that direction?"

"Hopefully not the hollow we were just at, but if you think about it, the hollow can only be in one direction. That leaves three-hundred and fifty-nine other degrees that aren't in the direction of the hollow, so, statistically speaking, I'm probably doing fine."

"Your solution is to pick a random direction and start walking?"

"Yes, sir!"

"This is reckless."

"It beats staying here. Daniel Vance is the only person who even knew we were thinking of coming here, and this area is the one place in the swamp he won't go. Besides, I know the swamp has to end somewhere, so as long as we move in a mostly straight line, we might get out before it gets dark." I looked around.

"Or dark er. Kappa, do you think you can walk for a while? You're going to get sleepy. That's when you'll need the ride."

"Kay!" Conrad put his arm up by his head. Kappa grabbed onto it, and Conrad swung him down. He landed with a splash.

"Eat what you can!" I called as Kappa scampered ahead. Under my breath, I added, "One of us might as well get dinner."

"Is there a reason you want to be out of the swamp before dark?" Conrad asked. My brows pulled together.

"Maybe I've been listening to too many stories." I looked up at him.

"Whatever happens, don't let me run off to play with a bunch of dead children."

"What?"

"Wait. Those are supposed to be the lurkers. Or not. You know what? Never mind. Let's blame the horny alligators." We didn't make it out before dark. After the sun went down, I got to hear my first alligator bellow. It was a low, guttural rumble that sounded like a growl coming from the titan whose mouth served as the gateway to the world of the damned.

When Kappa heard the bellow, he blitzed back to Conrad, climbed him like a tree, and announced that he was too sleepy to take another step—which was surprising, considering his eyes were open much wider than normal. I couldn't blame him. I would've done the same thing if Conrad had a second set of shoulders. Conrad said, "If we find any kind of safe area, I think we should stop for the night." A safe area? In this swamp? Not likely.

"I thought you could see in the dark!" I cried. He'd actually said that he saw better than humans did in the dark. That was an important distinction, but I was only stretching the truth a little bit, and my desperation was mounting.

"It doesn't matter," he said.

"Right now I don't trust half of what my eyes are telling me." With that ominous statement, we trudged on. A few minutes later, the crowd of trees in front of us thinned. My heart leapt when I saw an empty space beyond them, but it wasn't the edge of the swamp. It was the edge of a large clearing. Trees surrounded an open expanse of murky water with a dry patch of land in the center. On the small island was a house so old and ruinous it made Vance's shack look like a palace.

The lanky structure leaned on its supports, looming over the nearby water. The walls were made of wooden boards with crumbling edges, and the hint of dark grain that ran through them appeared black in the twilight. There were square holes in the walls that might have been windows. I was too far away to tell if there was any glass in them, but I doubted it. A board walkway ran straight out from the rotting front porch.

For the first twenty feet, the boards were in a similarly terrible shape, then the walkway suddenly ended, as if part of that one board and everything beyond it had decomposed while the rest remained. Without consultation, Conrad and I stopped beside the last line of trees to stare at the building. He leaned toward me.

"In front of us, is there—""A terrifying cabin that looks like it was probably built by the legendary crazy old swamp man and could give us tetanus even if the whole thing was made of wood?" I said.

"Um. Yeah?"

"I see it too. Kappa?" Kappa, who was still sitting on Conrad's shoulders, let out his loudest discontent hum yet.

"I'll take that as a yes," I said. We stared some more.

"Thoughts?" Conrad said.

"It reminds me of something," I said. Conrad and Kappa both looked at me. I caught the movement out of the corner of my eye—I wouldn't have seen it otherwise. I was too busy watching the cabin as I tried to puzzle out what I was seeing. The concept was haunting my mind, but it was so indistinct it made me feel like my eyeballs had picked up the whiff of an idea, the way a nose picks up the faintest trace of a familiar smell. I said, "I think it's protected by magic."

"Can you see it?" Conrad asked.

"Not exactly? But…yes." Conrad faced forward again. A second later, he said, "Come on," and stepped into the clearing.

"Bu—hey! Wait!" He didn't wait. I splashed through the water to catch up. Conrad said as he walked, "If the cabin is protected by magic, then it's probably one of the safest places around."

"Safe from what?" I said.

"Not the crazy old bone-chewing man who probably built it! It's a cursed place, remember?" The wolfman shook his head.

"You have been listening to too many stories." He turned to me.

"First, you don't know for sure that this is that cabin."

"How many crazy old men do you think live in this swamp?"

"Second, I am a hell of a lot less worried about some magician than I am about staying outside after dark." That shut me up. There was something powerful about Conrad's blunt statement. It chilled me to realize that there were things in the world that could worry a six-foot-nine, two-hundred-and-seventy-pound wolfman.

"Okay," I said, "but you're going in first. And if you see anything that looks scary, beat it up."

"That's why you brought me," he said. Since we were coming in from the side of the cabin, we didn't bother with the walkway. Conrad passed Kappa to me when we reached the small front porch. The whole cabin was dark and silent, but Conrad took off his soaking boots and crept up to the door on padded feet. He had to bend to get his ear low enough to listen through the space at the top of the door left by the decaying boards.

The door's handle was nothing but a warped branch, fixed to the door to give people something to grab. When Conrad pulled on it, the top part crumbled off in his hand, but he got the door open. The hinges let out a horrible screech, then broke. Conrad swore as the weight of the door dropped on him. I smothered my nervous laughter. Kappa didn't bother to. Conrad lifted what was left of the door and put it to the side before turning to us.

"I don't think anyone's home." In my most innocent voice, I said, "Wolfmen aren't stealth hunters, are they?"

"Do you have a flashlight in that backpack?"

"Dang it!" So much for being prepared.

"Stay here," Conrad ordered.

"I'll check the place out." When he slipped inside, the darkness of the house swallowed him. I put Kappa down on the porch, hoisted myself onto the boards, and picked up Conrad's boots. They felt twice as heavy as normal, either because of the extra water they'd soaked up, or my exhaustion. Or both. Conrad came back and stood in the doorway.

"It's empty. I don't think anyone's been in here for at least a decade." He glanced behind him.

"Maybe a century." Kappa snuck inside on all fours, keeping his body low to the ground.

"Be careful of slivers!" I called. Conrad took his boots from me as I walked inside.

"Can you see any active magic?" I gazed around the one and only room in the cabin.

"All I see is a lot of dark. Geez, this place is bare." I dropped my backpack on the floor and started fumbling with the fasteners on my waders. When I'd put them on that morning, I didn't know if I was supposed to wear my jeans under them or not, but they were big enough that I could, and I was glad that I had. After slogging through the swamp all day, my shoulders were sore. I wanted out of those waders so bad that I might have stripped even if that would have left me in my underwear and socks.

As I took off the waders, Conrad said, "Can you normally see wards?"

"Only when something's trying to get in that isn't allowed in." I paused as my mind caught up with the question.

"No, wait. I can also see them for, like, half a second when Olivia is setting them up. They look white then."

"So you don't know what kind of spell is protecting this place?"

"I'm afraid not." I looked around for a hook to hang my waders on but gave up almost instantly. There might have been a hook blending into the wall, but I wasn't in the mood to try to find it in the dark, and if I was lucky enough to find one, it would probably rip out of the wall the moment I put any weight on it. I laid the waders out along the edge of the room. When Kappa was done investigating the cabin, he came over and tugged on my jeans.

"Nest?" I sat on the floor next to him.

"Are you getting sleepy?" He nodded.

"I'm sorry, buddy. I don't think there's enough stuff in here to make a nest, but I have your raincoat in my backpack."

"It's not soft!" I sighed.

"All right. If you promise not to tear it up, I can lend you my hoodie." From near the door, Conrad said, "It's going to get cold, Mera. You should keep your hoodie. Kappa, you can use my flannel shirt." I was about to object on the basis that Conrad was wet, so he was more likely to get cold than I was, but then I remembered the whole fur-coat thing.

"Are you sure?" I asked. Conrad was already working on the buttons.

"I'm sure." While he took off the flannel, I pulled out Kappa's raincoat. Kappa refused to let us help him assemble his two-piece nest. He grumbled and murmured to himself as he pondered over the best possible way to tangle up the two garments, tugging here, and tucking there. Conrad, now in his jeans and T-shirt, sat beside me against the wall. Together we watched the master nest-builder work. When I leaned closer, Conrad's arm fur tickled my arm.

"Do you think the lurkers worry about their nests like Kappa does?" Conrad said, "Kappa doesn't usually worry about his nest like this." I gave him a quizzical glance.

"Think about it," he said.

"Back at the mansion, whenever he's tired, he goes to sleep wherever he is." I remembered Kappa curled up next to the stove in the kitchen or falling asleep on the couch next to me, soaking my pant leg. My little ball of bog-monster. Conrad went on, "All winter long, we have to make sure he gets back to his nest at night so he can warm up in the morning." He made a lazy motion toward Kappa.

"I've never seen him like this before." My eyes were on the bog-monster. He was patting out the edges of the nest, trying to make the cavity as round as possible. The moment I heard Conrad's comment, I saw what was wrong.

"He's still agitated," I muttered. Conrad turned his head to look at me, but he didn't say anything. I explained, "He's agitated because he's out of his territory, so he's trying to do anything he can to make himself more comfortable, and he doesn't know why it won't work." Kappa flopped down and curled up on one side, then squirmed around to curl up on the other. Conrad faced forward again.

"It'll be hard on the lurkers if the Torr decides to relocate them." An image of the adorable baby lurkers, lost and fretting in an unfamiliar place, forced its way into my head, and I felt a blaze of anger toward Mayor Gladwyn. It was true that they might have to be moved—but how could he sound so indifferent about it? We needed to find that bowl…lamp…thingy.

"Conrad," I said, "what do you think that bowl is?" I had told him about my vision as we walked. He'd asked a few questions, but he hadn't commented on it.

"I don't know, Mera," Conrad said. He sounded weary.

"I haven't thought about it. My first concern is getting out of this damn swamp before I'm reduced to eating snails." A weak smile pulled up my cheek.

"Or snakes?"

"Or snakes."

"I appreciate your priorities."

"When we get out of here, we can ask around. The way you described it made it sound like it was magic, so someone connected to the Torr probably knows about it." I thought about how deep in the swamp the bowl was hidden, how easy it was to get lost, and how the lurkers had tried to keep it a secret.

"Yeah," I said, my voice full of uncertainty, "probably."

"That's tomorrow's problem." Conrad pushed himself off the floor and went to lay down next to Kappa's nest. Kappa made a happy noise and scooted his nest closer.

"You're going to sleep?" I asked.

"I'm tired and hungry," Conrad said.

"Unless a bunch of food has magically appeared in your pack, I have nothing better to do." I paused, then started rooting around my pack. Hey! I lived in a magical world! Who knew what could happen?

"No luck," I announced.

"Yeah, I figured," Conrad grumbled. I tossed him the backpack.

"Here, you can use it as a pillow." It was no bag of feathers, but it would be better than nothing. Conrad caught the pack in midair.

"Thank you." He held it above his head for an extra second while he considered it.

"Are you sure you don't want to use it?"

"I'm not sleepy yet," I said. I'd hit that ugly numb zone of sleep deprivation when your body works some unholy chemistry to keep you conscious at the cost of a few months off your life.

"Are you even going to try to sleep tonight?" Conrad asked.

"Excuse you! I always try to sleep! I'm just…really bad at it." Conrad let out one of his quiet chuckles and tucked the pack under his head.

"Wake me if a crazy old cannibal shows up."

"Don't worry. I will."