Page 90 of Shifters Reckoning

South and East, Toward Wolf Moon Cave

After the Beaver Moon

Abrick of dread sat in the back of my throat. No matter how often I swallowed, it wouldn’t disappear. I rummaged in the back seat next to the snoring Jasper and retrieved a water bottle. A long drink of H2O didn’t get rid of the rock either. Great.

The day had dawned red, pockmarked with angry clouds from the night before. The sunrise didn’t give me the same joy it usually did. No thoughts of a fresh slate, no thoughts of the magnificent wonders the day might bring…

To the south, at least for a while, there were still roads, and Dr. Wise drove them like a woman who’d been pointed south in her heart since the afternoon she’d found the cut marks.

“You doing okay?” I asked. “Want me to drive a little while?”

Jasper snorted in the back seat but went back to sleep.

“No.” She kept both hands on the steering wheel of the Subaru, her glasses down her nose, the razored pages laid out on the dashboard in plastic sleeves like a map to a country that had been carefully erased. “I’ve got the coordinates in my phone.”

Each mile we drove, the landscape changed, sinking toward sea level. More than that, though, the land seemed to grow older, but I couldn’t tell if it was real or imagined. Maybe we were slipping into another plane, or maybe I was seeing through multimorph eyes, identifying the landscape from previous iterations of the emergence. Perhaps I was the one slipping into another plane of existence, an alternate reality that occupied the same space but a different time. Whatever it was, it went on for hours, and it was fucking surreal.

Jasper woke up and stared out the windows without speaking.

Gas stations had grown sparse. Then power lines disappeared as the pavement turned to gravel, until Dr. Wise eased the Subaru onto a dirt logging trail that gave out entirely.

With a grimace, she killed the engine. “This is as far as this car goes,” she said, “which is farther than I thought I’d make it.”

“We go on foot. You didn’t even get to use your power-up,” I quipped with a weak grin, trying to lighten the mood.

“I can’t go much farther if the pages are right about the difficulty of the climb. May use it yet.” She said it without a shred of self-pity, calmly narrating the end of her own usefulness. “I’ll navigate you to the mouth. After that it’s up to you, Emma. It was always going to be you.”

“Aye, it’s always been up to her,” Jasper added. He squeezed my shoulder. “Did ye sleep at all on the drive, lass?”

“Not really. Too wired.”

“As I suspected,” he said. “What’s fer carryin’, Doc? I’ll carry hers.”

The three of us climbed out of the vehicle into country that had stopped pretending to belong to this century. At least for me. Dr. Wise pointed out bags, and Jasper loaded them onto his back and shoulders. He only allowed me to take the small one.

Quietly, we began the hike to the cave.

The distance had diluted my bond with Logan, but the barrier didn’t falter. I’d built it too well. Now there wasn’t even the sense of a wall to press my hand against. Just distance. Just the trace of where he’d been. I hadn’t realized I would miss the wall.

“I’ve never worked out the magic of not perspiring,” Dr. Wise commented, more than an hour later, wiping sweat from her upper lip.

I frowned. “Don’t think I’ve ever noticed not sweating. I’ve seen Logan sweaty often enough.” Mostly when I made him hot and bothered. But I didn’t add that aloud.

“It’s a skill all shifters seem to eventually exhibit at will.” Her glasses flashed my way. “At will, dear. Your mate chooses to glisten.”

I barked a laugh, the first one since we’d left Six-Mile.

“Ma, are we there yet?” Jasper mimicked a whining child. His grin split his face.

“Almost there,” Dr. Wise answered.

“Ye’ve been, haven’t ye?” Jasper asked her.

“Many years ago.”

“How ’bout ye, lass?” he asked me.

“Once.”