Silver Collar Read online

  “If you like,” she called back. How could he sit there with the TV at full volume and still be able to hear her pull the zipper on her fleece? “You have a leash for him?” she asked. “I wouldn’t want him wandering off. He was lucky I found him last time.”

  Norm appeared at her elbow, sucking his teeth in thought. “Use a bit of rope,” he said. “No point buying him a collar and leash if he’s bound for the pound.”

  In the end, Emily didn’t need a rope. The little dog seemed almost timorous of the dark, and quite content to amble around the woods behind the house keeping close to her. It was a chilly night. Winds from the north brought in cooler air, and the cloudless skies gave a fresh crispness to the stars above. They hung silent witness in the dark, their constellations holding a million stories and countless secrets. Emily stood and looked up at them until her head spun. She could understand how ancient man worshipped the stars and modern man craved to walk among them. They shivered with the promise of knowledge far beyond any celestial dream of man. Emily ached with her own questions, and thirsted for her own answers. Was Luc still alive? And why was she so fretful about it when in the first place all Emily had wanted to do was harm her? Perhaps Luc was looking up at this same canopy of stars, though hopefully with Canadian soil under her feet.

  Emily surrendered her weight to a young cedar, and with her eyes still heavenward, gave in to a primitive need to rub her cheek against the trunk. The smell of bark was a balm, its roughness pulling the itch out of her skin. Without a second thought, she squatted and urinated at its roots. She moved on to a basswood and raked her palms along its surface, punch drunk on the scents of the night forest. The earthy musk of damp loam hung heavy around her. Bracken fern split the air with its sharp acidity softened only by the sweeter underlay of thimble and salmon berry. Above her, the maple leaves rattled and fir needles hissed in the rising wind.

  Wilbur wandered over, plopped down near her feet, and gave her a soulful, prophetic look.

  “What do you see, little buddy?” She reached down and rubbed his silky ears. In answer, he leapt to his feet and headed for the distant porch light and home.

  “Ah. You see supper,” she said, and followed.

  *

  Luc was thick with mud again, but she was certain she had dug the entire corner clean. She could now account for all of Emily’s surgical instruments, including the fabric pouch. She had also unearthed a bundle of spare clothes, a whole clutch of silver arrows, and the thermos. The arrows now lay at her feet gleaming dully in the faint moonlight. She looked at the huge mound of earth and shattered cabin before her. If there was anything else left in there, it was well back and under more mud than she cared to lift.

  No key though. She could have missed it, but she doubted it. She had gone through that corner of the cabin like a sieve.

  Luc slouched off to the river to wash away another ton of mud and consider her next move. She lay back and let the water stream over her and contemplated the constellations, every one of them a childhood friend. She had been a clever pup. One of the smartest Little Dip ever had, in her opinion. She knew she had been Aunt Sylvie’s favorite. And then it all turned to crud and they had sent her away. Sent her whole family away, and they had never forgiven her. She knew they hadn’t. Her parents had soon grown ill and died, and Ren…

  Well, Ren had tried her best to get away from her, too.

  Luc rolled onto her belly and swam a few strokes. This maudlin behavior was not going to solve her current problem; namely, this stupid silver collar. She felt like a fool wearing it. Where was the damned key! Why hadn’t she found it? Of course, a light item like a key and chain could be washed away anywhere. But it had last been on Emily, and Emily had been in the corner. It was also possible Emily had found the key already and kept it hidden. That’s what Luc would do if the tables were turned, and Luc always deemed what she would do to be an excellent measure of others’ actions. The irony was she had let Emily go. Then again, there was only one place Emily could run to.

  With a grunt of pleasure, Luc dived under the swollen waters. Weed tickled her flanks and steelhead trout zigzagged before her, silver flashes through the dark current trying to avoid the lazy swipe of her claws.

  Feeling totally refreshed, Luc climbed back up the riverbank. She had a brace of trout for supper and a sturdy nest to gorge them in. Full of renewed determination, she strode over to the broken down cabin and the stash she had unearthed. She scooped and clawed as many items as she could into her arms, cramming objects into an unruly heap against her wide, furred chest. It might take two runs to get all her booty back to her new hidey-hole, but with the Garouls chasing their tails to the north, she had time to settle in properly. She’d take every item to her nest and arrange her treasure all around her. Then she would eat her fishy supper, and afterward, she could give everything a well-needed lick and sniff. Some things still had traces of Emily on them.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Luc was settling into her new home nicely. Her new favorite things were scattered all around her and had given her hours of pleasure examining each one for traces of Emily. Now she lay well rested and content sprawled across her nest, the morning sunlight dappling her warm fur. It was a good way to start the day, she decided. Luc could wear her wolfskin a long time, much longer than most wolven who changed back during sleep. But then she had grown up this way in the wilds of nowhere. She knew she was as good as feral. Ren was always rhyming on at her about it. Ren and her stupid traditions and stupid almanacs. Some use it had been when the virus came along and the young ones began to grow ill. Where was the mighty Garoul almanac then? Useless piece of pulp.

  She scratched at the collar around her neck. It was a prime example of almanac nonsense. Emily had hoped it would subdue a werewolf. That it would make Luc weak when in fact it did the opposite. It had made her strong, strong enough to shake off the virus and escape the Garouls. Interesting.

  She tapped out a little tune on the metal band. It was time she was in control of the collar. First, she needed the key, and it would do no harm to take back that almanac. Stupid as they may be, Garoul almanacs should not be in human hands. With a new plan in place, Luc stood and stretched her claws up into the heart of the tree. She embedded them in the trunk and tore at it until her shoulder and arm muscles were tight and pumping blood. Leaves whisked across her forearms and tapped and tickled at her muzzle. The smell of sap was strong and invigorating. It was a glorious sunny morning after the downpour of the last few days. The entire forest was drunk on sunshine. And Luc was, too.

  She had survived the hunt and was holed up nice and secure, and she had a new course of action. A course of action that involved Emily Johnston, and somehow that felt right and relevant. Content she was no longer rudderless, no longer at the mercy of the virus, or fate, or the Garouls, and especially not a scrawny redheaded hunter, Luc climbed down from her aerie and struck out for Lost Creek.

  *

  Emily rose early after a night of violent dreams that left her feeling rattled. Her mind was muddled with images she could no longer fully recall, but which left a jagged imprint on her nerves.

  Sometimes her medication did that to her, made her hyper alert so her subconscious became a churning morass of anxiety. At other times, the blessed times, it knocked her flat out, pushing her down into a dark, dreamless pit, asphyxiating in its stillness, as cloying as black tar when she reemerged to face the morning. She was far too agitated after these last few days to even hope for a decent night’s sleep. Her skin felt tight with worry, and fretfulness furrowed her brow and crawled across her scalp.

  Emily tossed aside the twisted bed sheets and headed straight for the shower. A blast of hot water would revive her and get her brain working again. A long day stretched ahead of her. She needed to get back to her books and see what she had overlooked or miscalculated. The silver collar had not worked as expected. In fact, it had been a complete failure. She needed to bury herself in Garoul lore, as if she ha
dn’t spent enough time there already, and try to understand where she had gone wrong.

  Emily’s bedroom window overlooked the woodland to the rear of the house. This side of the forest was the last to catch the morning light. It lay in shadows until the sun crested the roof of Uncle Norm’s house. Now the dawn mists swirled and eddied around the trees as fluid as tidewater. Dew still clung to the stems of low-lying wiregrass waiting for the sun to burn it off. It would take maybe another hour before sunlight would penetrate the gloom. Meanwhile, a soft, soapy brume curled along the forest floor. Slender aspen and shivering ash rose eerily out of it like the ghostly masts of sunken ships. Chokeberry and bitterbrush lurked in incoherent, menacing silhouettes at the base of trees.

  From the corner of her eye, Emily noticed an uncommon movement. She hesitated by the window and gazed out at the hauntingly distorted woodland. What had she seen? Her gaze flickered over everything. Apart from the drifting mist, all was still. And then it rose from out of the vaporous mire to stand upright a full eight feet or more. A huge, shaggy werewolf. It had been hunkered down examining the earth and now stood to sniff the air. The creature looked up toward the house scanning the windows, and Emily stepped back out of sight. Its amber eyes glowed bright in the dark density of its fur. Wide-eyed, she took in its stance, the curve of the muzzle, and the short ears. Then it turned and melted into the surrounding forest as if it had never been there at all. As if such things did not, could not, exist. But Emily knew they did. And she knew that this werewolf was not Luc.

  Had it come for her? Or was it the almanac it wanted? At least her questions about Luc’s safety had been answered. She must have been captured, and the silver collar would have told them that a human had access to the Garoul magic, the Garoul world.

  What could she do? She had brought danger to her own front door. Would Uncle Norm be safe? If she took the book away from here, would they know? Would they follow her? Either way, she had to remove the bait from this house, whether the bait be the almanac, or her.

  Her shower forgotten, Emily threw on some clothes and grabbed a grip bag and crammed the almanac and several of her notebooks into it. She had to get this material out of the house and as far away from Uncle Norm as possible, and hope for the best.

  She pounded down the stairs and made a grab for her light raincoat from the hall coatrack.

  “Where you going this early?” Norm emerged from the kitchen. “And you don’t need that raincoat. It’s gonna be a sizzler.”

  She slung the coat back on the rack. “I need to get to the post office at Covington,” she lied.

  “What about breakfast? I was doing us some pancakes.” Norm sounded very put out at this change in plans.

  “I’ll grab something at the mall.” She headed for the door, bag in hand.

  “What about the dog?” Norm called after her. “Ain’t you taking him to the pound today?”

  She hesitated for a split second. “I can’t today. I’m in too big a hurry.” She didn’t even look back. His hurt expression would have only compounded her guilt tenfold. But she needed to do this to keep him as safe as possible.

  “Okeydokey then.” He sounded positively cheerful. “See you later, Em.” And with a chirpy whistle, he went back to the kitchen. “Just you and me for pancakes, Wilbur,” she heard him tell the dog.

  I’ll never peel that dog off him. Emily started the RV and did a neat reverse turn out of her parking space. The bag sat on the passenger seat beside her as she made her way through the quiet, early morning streets of Lost Creek, heading for the main road out. The sun was already beginning to heat up the day, but to Emily’s eyes, for every patch of sunlight, there was a darker, more ominous shadow.

  *

  Luc found Emily easily.

  The faintest scent caught her as she skirted the small town. Even if she hadn’t been looking for it, it was impossible for her to slink past it. Normally, she would avoid places like Lost Creek in daylight, but she was on a mission, and a sickly sweet chemical smell tugged at her snout and drew her in. Her brain registered the odor as the flowery detergent that clung to the clothes Emily wore. All it took was that precarious link to make her lope toward the town’s western outskirts. If she stuck to the tree line and waited her chance, she might just get lucky and see Emily. And if I see her, I’m grabbing her and making her take off this collar and give me the damned book.

  Lost Creek was a desolate, rundown place, but it was an easy town to negotiate, being so close to the forest perimeter and with not much to keep its residents on the streets for any length of time. Luc vaguely remembered it from her childhood, before her family had been packed off to Canada. She shook that particular memory from her mind. It always made her heart harden, and she did not need that now.

  She avoided the main street, keeping to the alleyways and abandoned backyards. There were many of them, overgrown with weeds and screaming of neglect. The few dogs that were out in the early morning heat stopped barking as soon as she drew near, and they cowered in corners until she passed. Cats too, ran for safety and hunkered down to watch. She made her way across town, yard by yard, alley by alley, street by street, dragged along by her nose.

  In no time at all, she’d zoned in on laundry flapping on a clothesline behind Johnston’s General Store. With a quick glance and an even quicker sniff to make sure no one was around, Luc vaulted the fence.

  The air was alive with the smell of Emily. Her dirty boots on the back stoop were delicious. The cushions of a porch chair where she had rested stank of her freshly washed, coconut-scented hair. Even a dishtowel looped over the porch railings smelled of her…and some nondescript casserole. Luc was thrilled. This was Emily’s den.

  From the front of the house, she could hear a radio at high volume blaring out the morning news and weather reports. A screen door creaked and Luc slid around the porch corner, her back tacked to the siding. She heard an old man’s voice muttering and then the clip of claws on the porch boards. Luc’s ears flattened. The screen door slammed shut again, and around the corner trotted a small dog. Luc stood still, her claws ready to gut the animal if it so much as squeaked. Instead, much to her surprise, the dog wagged his tail excitedly on seeing her and came over for a friendly sniff. This was strange. He should be alarmed. Luc didn’t have time to ponder; she had to get rid of him before his master came out to join him. Beside her foot lay a florid pink, well-chewed tennis ball, she lifted it and flung it as hard as she could across the yard. The little dog took off after it, his short legs a blur. By the time he returned with his prize, she’d be long gone.

  The passageway upstairs was in darkness. The window shades had been pulled against the harsh noontime sun. In three silent strides, her long legs swallowed the staircase and she was on the landing. Downstairs, the radio continued to blare, and outside, the little dog barked in disappointment.

  Which room was Emily’s? Luc gazed along the narrow corridor with its closed doors. The whole house reeked of her, but one area drew her attention in particular. Here the scent of coconut was strong. It was either the bathroom or Emily’s own room. Luc pushed at the door.

  She slid into a bedroom. It was cozy, with a single bed, warm pine flooring, and walls painted a soft buttery yellow. She was assaulted by the smell of Emily, hard and fresh. It made her so giddy she feared she’d sink to the floor. Luc sucked in all the scents through greedy, quivering nostrils, and soon realized Emily was not wholly embedded in the room and its furnishings. Not like in the little RV, for instance, where her perfume clung to cushion covers, and curtains, and even the plastic tableware. Here it was present, but fainter. This was a temporary lair, but then Emily had said she was visiting.

  The window was open to the sun-filled day, and cream curtains billowed dreamily in the breeze. There were books everywhere, some piled in high, unsteady stacks, others lying open, their pages occasionally fluttering in the breeze. Books smelled of books and not much else. Luc clawed through them all and didn’t find a Garoul alma
nac. That was disappointing, but as she was here, she might as well explore. She turned away eagerly, glad to leave the teetering piles of books behind.

  The pine dressing table caught her attention first. She lifted a hairbrush and stuck her snout deep in the bristles; the smell of shampoo and human scalp assaulted her, along with that underlying sourness of anxiety she had come to expect. The brush oozed it, and it vexed her that Emily was so haunted. She set down the brush, discontented.

  The bed, however, drew her like a devotee to an altar and cheered her up immensely. She fell flat on her back onto its soft blue coverlet and wriggled in delight as her fur grabbed Emily’s sleep scent. The little bed squeaked under her writhing weight, but she did not stop until she was satisfied enough of her own musk had been left on the sheets for Emily’s own delectation. The bedside table held a paperback, hair clips, a box of tissues, and more of Emily’s pills. Luc sniffed them all, intrigued, trying to build up a mental picture of Emily’s bedtime rituals. Then something else caught her eye. Shoes.

  She picked up a dress shoe, buried her snout inside it, and inhaled deeply. First one shoe and then the other. She licked the leather and rubbed it all over her muzzle. She nipped the heels. Nursing the shoes to her chest, she decided to investigate the dresser drawers. She hooked the handle with her fore claw and clumsily slid the top drawer open.

  Inside was a scented treasure trove. Soft sweaters in all colors tumbled toward her and snagged on her claws. She sniffed a few then jammed them back in any old way. The next drawer held underwear that ripped to shreds at her slightest touch no matter how gently she pawed at it. She slammed the drawers shut, hiding the carnage.

  She moved away from the dresser. It was too dangerous to play with, but the laundry hamper was another thing altogether. It was pay dirt. She tossed the contents on the floor and rolled on them, growling softly, throwing towels and T-shirts playfully in the air, enjoying her game. In her ecstasy, it took her a moment to realize the house had become very quiet. She stopped throwing around dirty linen and listened. The radio had been turned off, and her sensitive hearing could pick out the creak of the staircase. Someone was coming upstairs. Luc’s ears flattened. This was not good.