Meridian. Part 3

The intermittent sound of running water forced me to pay attention to my feet. A stone bridge loomed ahead of me. It rose, curving above the earth as if it hovered above the influence of gravity. A brook tried to run through the icicles and ice-slicked rocks. Just a bit of water flowed without freezing.

I imagined this place lush and green, with birds and chipmunks in the trees around me. My stomach growled and the sound jerked me back. I shook it off, but then I heard the growl again, and it wasn't my stomach.

I turned in circles, trying to see the growling animal. "I'm not the only one hungry, am I?" I whispered, swallowing hard.

"Arrrrwwwllll."

The sound was terrible and ferocious, so beastly it shook me, vibrating down my spine. I was the rabbit for the wolf. I was the modern Little Red Riding Hood.

I grabbed my bags, hoping they might s.h.i.+eld me from an attack, and stumbled up the road.

Behind me the bushes rustled.

My legs refused to hold me up, they were so petrified. I fell, throwing my hands out in front of me. My knee hit the frozen ground and sc.r.a.ped across rocks hidden by the snow. I felt warmth trickle down my leg and saw the shadow of blood ooze from a gash.

"Ggggrrrrreeeeerrrr."

20ani *I peered into the night, unable to spot the growler. I hauled myself to my feet, abandoning my duffel. I ran, a half stumble, half lurch. I paused, heaving. My hands on my knees, I tried to hear above the rasping of my breath. Footsteps crunched. Closer.

I raised my head. In the distance, I saw the twinkle of lights. I heard voices floating on the wind. As I moved closer, shadows and shapes became things: a woodpile, a cart, a house and outbuildings.

The house was monstrous, with turrets and gables and ma.s.sive chimneys. Light poured from the porch and the downstairs windows, turning the snow to b.u.t.ter. A green Land Rover languished by the side of the house.

"Help!" I shouted, sounding like a mouse with laryngitis.

"She's been waiting for hours -"

"If you'd let me keep four spares, rather than having to repair these -"

"Who keeps four spares?" The lilting notes of a flutelike voice came from behind the SUV.

A low rumble answered it. "Someone who's been getting their tires slashed a lot should think about it."

"They'd simply slash the new ones, too. But you're right. Get spares as soon as possible.

What must she be thinking?"

I turned the corner of the Land Rover and slumped against its side. "Excu -" I couldn't get the words out, so I tried to knock on the side of the vehicle to attract their attention. What little energy I had left seeped through my feet into the snow. My eyes wouldn't stay open for longer than nanoseconds.

They didn't hear me. Then a cras.h.i.+ng came through the woods behind me, and I turned to see a giant wolf launch itself at me. I screamed, I think. I'm not sure.

The wolf grabbed a boot attached to a twill-clad leg that protruded from under the SUV, and began tugging.

A body pushed itself out from under the car. A boy unfolded to a height of over six feet. I glimpsed inky black hair, cheekbones like razors, hands the size of dinner plates. He was so tall my neck complained.

"See, I told you she'd show up." His low baritone grumbled almost like the wolfs growl.

I held on tighter to the side of the Rover. "I -"

"Dear me, she's half-frozen." Bright colors fluttered toward me.

"She could have put more clothes on. You said her mom was going to pack bags with what she needed. Where are they?"

21ani *I swallowed, tried to point behind me as the world tilted, and darkened at the edges. I opened my mouth to speak, but the world went black.

22ani *

Chapter 5.

I dreamed in detail so real that I smelled, tasted, and touched. My parents sat in a frill amphitheater watching me with thousands of others. I was center stage, spotlighted with too-bright lights. If I squinted hard enough, I saw the outlines of individual people in the audience. I felt their collective breath held tight as they waited to see my performance. But I didn't know what I was supposed to do.

I held a harp, then a needle, then a gun. With every blink, the contents in my hands changed.

Someone tried to push me off the stage. I didn't want to go. I fought. Then I heard applause and fell into the orchestra pit, kept falling. I fell through s.p.a.ce so infinite and black and so full of nothing that it felt heavy like liquid steel.

I gasped and opened my eyes. I stared up at a canopy of luxurious blue silk, my breath ragged like I'd been sprinting from the devil himself.

"Easy, little one." Bright blue eyes and platinum hair filled my vision. "I'm your auntie.

You're going to be all right."

I blinked and tried to find myself under the stacks of blankets. My skin tingled and itched.

"Unless we have to amputate your left foot because of frostbite." The lanky giant carried in a tray. He seemed standoffish. Not that I blamed him -we didn't know each other. Yet somehow he felt familiar to me. The aroma of fresh chicken soup with parsley and celery filled the small s.p.a.ce.

Panic must have shown on my face, because Auntie scolded, "Tens, don't tease her." She brushed her hand over my leg. "Your foot is simply a little bitten."

He snorted, not the least bit concerned. "She deserves it, hiking two miles in the snow in a miniskirt."

I didn't realize I gripped the wolf's fur in my right hand until it pushed against my arm. I jerked my hand away.

"Don't worry, dear, she's adopted you. Picky one, our Custos; she doesn't usually like strangers."

"Eats them for breakfast usually. Good thing you got here so late." Only the barest hint of a smile appeared on Tens's lips. His sense of humor definitely needed work.

"Tens!" Auntie admonished him as I pushed myself up to a sitting position. "Custos won't bite you," she told me. "Probably." Auntie fluffed the pillows behind my head, creating a cloud of musty, damp air.

23ani *A fire roared in the hearth, its snap and crackle making me feel like I'd been sucked into a time warp. Auntie drew up a chair and motioned Tens closer. "This is Tens. Meridian, my guy Friday and a stand-up comic on the weekends."

He disconcerted me, made me want to stammer and stutter. He put the tray in my lap and moved away like I was contagious. "Here. Eat."

I realized then that I was only dressed in a T-s.h.i.+rt -not even one I recognized. The thought that this hot guy who couldn't seem to stand me, might have seen me naked sent the blood rus.h.i.+ng to my cheeks. My hand shook and I put the spoon down before I spilled any soup.

"What am I doing here?"

Custos whined and sidled closer to the bed, as if she wanted permission to join me. I felt safer with her than I did with Tens.

"She doesn't bite me." He smirked as he bent down to pat Custos, causing my embarra.s.sment to run even wilder.

"What?" I asked.

"Custos. She doesn't bite people she likes." Turning his back to me, he poked at the fire.

"Great. But what is going on?"

"She seems to like you." He said it in such a way that it made me think he didn't agree with the wolf, or with anyone else for that matter.

"Thanks. I get it. Will you answer me?" I gave up and lifted the spoon with nary a rattle.

Auntie clucked and cooed. "Tens, stop teasing her. Don't mind him, little one. Eat your soup before it gets as cold as you were. Then you can tell us about your adventure. I'm sorry we weren't there to pick you up. I wanted to be."

Tens grunted. He muttered something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like "suicide attempt."

"Tens." Auntie admonished him again, iron lacing her words. This time he sprang to his feet and stalked from the room, slamming the door behind him. He startled me so that I sloshed the soup down the front of my s.h.i.+rt.

"c.r.a.p." I said as Auntie mopped at me. She handed me another s.h.i.+rt I didn't recognize to change into. How long since I'd eaten real food? Days? "Why weren't you there? What am I?"

She ignored my questions and kept up a steady stream of chatter about nothing and everything, as if I'd pressed play on my iPod. I didn't catch most of it because I was too busy trying not to spill more soup. I'd never tasted anything as delicious as that soup, but as much as I wanted seconds I didn't ask. "What's a Fenestra? Where are my parents?" I gave up asking questions after she blithely sidestepped them.

24ani *It was hard to stay irritated, because I felt a calming, almost hypnotic peace in her presence.

She only needed occasional grunts from me to keep talking. Soon. I fell back into that black oblivion.

I woke with the feeling that I'd slept too long and missed an important event. The fire burned low in the grate, but it was bright enough that I saw two piles of clothes stacked on a chair. I gazed around the room. The floral wallpaper could have come straight from George Was.h.i.+ngton's house. The hearth and mantel were glossy white. Antique furniture in varying shades of brown was scattered around the room. The huge four-poster bed felt like a lake.

Velvets and brocades hung about the room, and a stale, seldom-used smell clung to the sheets. I stretched, languid and content, until I spotted my favorite childhood stuffed rabbit propped against the pillows. And several framed family photos perched on the nightstand next to me.

My mother's smiling face brought reality cras.h.i.+ng back. I wanted to huddle under the covers and hope this was all a bad dream, but it wasn't my style to hide -I hoped. Did I even have a style?

I recognized my clothes in the piles and realized I'd have to thank Tens for yet another rescue. I couldn't imagine Auntie slogging through the snow for my stuff. I didn't want to owe him anything. I slid to a standing position and wiggled my toes. They were sore and bruised, like I'd sprained them.

I dressed in panties and my comfiest bra, my favorite pair of jeans, a thermal henley, and the red cashmere sweater my parents gave me last Christmas. Not the most stylish outfit.

I'm unusually tiny for my age -unlike the rest of my tall, st.u.r.dy family. I could pa.s.s for an elf. Or a third grader with b.o.o.bs. For a minute I considered changing, until I caught myself thinking about impressing Tens and shuddered. Great. A crush on a man who hates me.

That's self-inflicted pain. If he didn't like what he saw ... well, I already knew he didn't like what he saw. He probably liked exceptionally tall, athletic blondes with fabulous tans.

There was no clock in the room, and my watch wasn't on my wrist. I tugged back the heavy curtains to see if the sun was out, but the pitch-black outside sucked the light from the fire behind me. A s.h.i.+ver danced along my spine. How long had I slept?

Scratching at the bedroom door interrupted my thoughts.

I cracked open the door, my legs wobbly. The snorting snout of the wolf pressed into the opening, wedging it further so she could get into the room. She leapt onto the bed and wagged her tail. Her face bloomed with an almost human smile and she peered at me with questioning eyes.

"I'm not getting back into bed," I said to her.

She sat down, planting her b.u.t.t right on my pillow.

"Nice, thanks." I grabbed a pair of thick woolly socks and jerked them onto my feet. I paused, not sure if I was allowed to leave the room, not sure what prompted me to wonder why I shouldn't.

25ani *The silence in the house was a physical presence. As if a thousand stories were being whispered too quietly to make out the individual words. But I felt the emotion of them. A thousand individual conversations just out of reach. I s.h.i.+vered.

"Are you coming or not?" I pointed to the door and moved ahead of Custos, not glancing back, knowing she saw more than I wanted anyone to see.

26ani *

Chapter 6.

The sconces in the hallway were dim. My skin crawled like it was trying to get away from the shadows. A thick, well-worn flowered carpet stretched down the center of the hallway drawing me along. I tiptoed for no good reason, creeping like an intruder. Feeling as if I was being studied, I kept checking behind me.

Gloomy wood hid corners and paneled the walls. Quilts of all shapes and sizes hung along the corridor. Spiders danced in the creases and dust darkened the molding in drifts. There were no clocks. Paintings graced the walls, partially covered by quilts, as though the subjects felt the wintertime cold.

I kept seeing movement in my peripheral vision, a shadow that spun one way and then another -I was unable to catch it square on. Whatever it was, I couldn't make myself turn my head fast enough to get a good look. Maybe I was losing my mind.

Custos padded along next to me, silent and watchful. She no longer scared me. Her thick caramel fur was dusted with black tips, and a stripe of black painting her in halves ran down her back from her nose to the tip of her tail. She wore a black mask like a bandit and had golden eyes that seemed to glow. Her tongue had a spot of black in the middle, like she'd sucked on a pen.

The farther down the hallway I trooped, the more quilts I pa.s.sed. Stacks of them, as well as pillow covers and chairs with quilted seats. I felt as if I were moving through one of those gla.s.s-beaded kaleidoscopes I'd had as a kid.

I found myself at the top of a ma.s.sive curving staircase. Lights from below flickered through the banisters, creating leaping deer and round-eyed owls along the walls.

Custos nudged me and flitted down the stairs. I followed, happy enough to let a wolf make this decision.

I peeked around a corner into a s.p.a.cious living room. The only quilts here were folded along the back of an antique horsehair sofa. Vibrant emerald velvet wing chairs sat on either side of a marble fireplace. An enormous fir tree was lit with real candles and ancient gla.s.s bulbs in every color of the rainbow. Was it Christmas already?

"Well, if it isn't Sleeping Beauty."

I swallowed, feeling Tens's dislike of me pulse through the room. I wish I knew what I'd done to make him hate me. "I guess that makes you the beast, huh?"

"Funny. You hungry?" He turned and headed down a hallway. Custos trotted along beside him.

"Traitor." I muttered.

27.