Sprite
Chapter 49

Pup crouched over the entrance to Norah’s cave, blinking curiously in the semi-darkness. He could sense no movement from within the cave, but this was the right place, according to Earl, whom he’d stopped to see as soon as he located the moved village.

“What are you doing?”

Pup sprang to his feet, guilty at being caught spying. He hadn’t heard anyone approach. It was the sprite girl, Norah, who should have been in her bed sound asleep at this late hour.

“Norah?” he questioned, grinning easily. He jumped down. “I was going to wait until morning, but . . .” Pup shrugged his shoulders apologetically. “The truth is, I wanted to see you.”

“Me?” Norah stepped back, clutching a bundle of cloth to her chest, and belatedly Pup noticed that was all the covering the girl had on—she wasn’t wearing anything else! His eyes narrowed as he realized her deep red hair was plastered to her body.

“Where were you?” he asked briskly, all pleasantries forgotten. Neistah had been right to send him if this girl was sneaking off alone into the woods at night. “No, don’t answer that. I can see you’ve been swimming. Quick, get inside before someone sees you.” Pup pushed her forward and scrambled in behind her, averting his eyes so he wouldn’t see more than he should.

Norah spilled into her living quarters and quickly slipped her multi-colored gown over her head. She moved as far as she could towards the back wall, drawing up her knees to her chest. “Is something wrong? Where’s Will?” she asked, her eyes wide with apprehension.

“Neistah sent me,” Pup said, raising a finger to his lips in a signal to keep her voice low. “He thought you could use my help, and I see that you do.”

“What? I do not!” protested Norah. “I just went for a quick swim, that’s all!”

“By yourself. At night. When there are hunters—and worse—abroad.”

Norah flushed. “It’s easier to go at night than having to explain why I’m not freezing,” she muttered, glancing sideways at him. Pup wore the uniform common to all Neistah’s Sprites—shorts and nothing else. But his fur gleamed golden in the faint moonlight that streamed in through the narrow entrance. It reminded her of Will, who also had a natural immunity to the cold. “You’re sure Will’s all right?” she asked again. “He didn’t come with you?”

“If he had, wouldn’t he have gone straight to his blonde lady?” Pup asked cynically. “But no, Will did not come. Only me.”

“Oh.” Norah looked away. “But I’m fine. You can see. Tell Neistah I’m being careful like he told me. I don’t need any help.”

“What is Neistah to you?” Pup asked softly. It was the same question he had asked Neistah.

“What do you mean?” Norah whispered, although her face flamed. She knew what everyone thought—that she and Neistah were lovers, because he had brought her here, and because they were obviously the same kind.

Pup gave a low chuckle and moved closer in the cramped space. “Are you one of his or one of ours? You look like one of his but you act like one of us.” He gave her his easy grin. “I’m hoping you’re more ours than his. I’d like to get to know you better.”

Norah’s eyes widened and she sucked in a deep breath. “I don’t know what you think you know,” she began, “but I’m no different than anyone else here---“

Pup laughed, and leaned forward to place a quick kiss on her cheek. “I hope so,” he agreed, still amused. “But Neistah obviously doesn’t think so.” He scrambled outside, poking his head in for one last grin. “I’ll see you around. Next time you want to go swimming in the middle of the night, I’ll go with you.”

With that, Pup disappeared. Norah cupped her face where Pup had given her a kiss. If he ever figured out she was the girl he had met in the forest that time he was captured by hunters, he might change his mind about her. Was she really so different now? Norah no longer hid her mutations—if she were honest with herself, she no longer believed they were mutations at all—but underneath it all, she was the same girl she always was. What did Pup mean—one of Neistah’s or one of theirs? Theirs being the changelings? Or humans in general? The truth was, Norah didn’t know either.

There was no sign of Pup the next morning, and Norah was reluctant to mention that she had seen him, both due to the circumstances of their late-night meeting, and also because she didn’t want to distress Roselle by telling her Pup was back, but not Will. Maybe Pup had left already to report back to Neistah.

To get her mind off it, she took her girls out on another adventure. They were getting good at moving silently through the woods in their long skirts and bare feet. So far, the weather had been holding, and although the nights were cold, the days warmed up considerably. Soon enough, the human changelings would no longer be able to venture out in their variation of “Sprite” attire. Norah was not looking forward to winter in Earl’s camp. It would be so tempting to have Neistah bring her back to the other world, the one that was perpetually warm and beautiful and full of wonderful places to swim. Her hand crept up to clasp her teardrop pendant. She sighed. No, she had asked to come back here. This place was where she belonged.

This time, Roselle picked the direction and they followed her single-file up a steep hill and down the other side. There were no small lakes or lazy rivers on this side of the mountain to tempt Norah. She opened up her senses, listening as Neistah had advised her, and was astounded to ‘hear’ something nearby. “Wait,” she cautioned. “Something’s out there.”

Well-versed by this time in emergency tactics, the girls stopped moving immediately, ready to melt into the forest on Norah’s command. She listened for a repeat of what she had ‘heard’ originally, and faintly, faintly, she heard it again. Her eyes widened and her head swiveled around to stare at a spot off the trail. Pup! His thoughts were what had triggered her alarm! He was following them! Still staring at the tree where he sat, hidden, in a high branch, she said, “Never mind, it was just an animal.”

She hung back as the others proceeded ahead, and wasn’t surprised when Pup dropped down beside her. “So this is how it’s going to be,” she said. “Are you going to follow us everywhere we go?”

“Somebody has to.” Pup grinned unrepentantly at her. “How did you see me?”

“I—“ Norah almost told him she hadn’t seen him before she thought better of it. He obviously was not aware that she could sometimes pick up people’s thoughts. “I told you I can take care of myself,” she said smugly instead.

“What are you girls doing out here anyway?” he asked, falling into step beside her.

“We’re exploring,” Norah told him. “Lou wants to search for some of the mutants who escaped from Datro before us, but nobody we’ve met has seen them. I think—“ she lowered her voice, “—I think it may be my fault. Datro’s Sprite brought them to the edge of the forest, but that’s all. I didn’t know what I was doing then.”

Pup raised his eyebrows at her admission that she was Datro’s Sprite. It made sense. “Have you told this to Neistah? You shouldn’t be out here looking for them on your own.”

Norah’s jaw tightened. She didn’t really hold much hope that they would replace anything, but Pup didn’t need to know that. She stalked back to the rest of her girls, and Pup faded back into the woods. Stubbornly, Norah pressed on. If Pup was going to follow her group, then she would show him just how skilled they had become out in the forest.

A breeze picked up and Roselle shivered. “Let’s stop for lunch,” she said, pulling out Norah’s old satchel which, ever practical, Roselle had filled with snacks and a blanket or two. She passed the blankets out to the girls. Trust Roselle not to be blinded by the mystique that went along with being one of Norah’s Sprites.

Norah declined the offer of a blanket, so Roselle wrapped the last one around herself and Lou. They didn’t dare start a fire, not with the woods so dry, and not with the ever-present danger of hunters who might be anywhere.

Nothing in this direction looked familiar. The rolling hills they had hiked over were slowly giving way to a deep valley. They had caught glimpses of it as they crested each hill. Once they crested this last one, they should be able to see for miles.

The sun came out as they were finishing their lunch. Lou threw off her blanket and ran ahead with Marissa and Teeny, two girls about her own age. Marissa’s mutation was similar to Lou’s in that she had too many fingers on her hands, but Marissa’s fingers were fused together with skin that was thicker and less flexible than Norah’s delicate webbing, although she still had full use of her hands. Teeny was just that—very small, smaller than her actual age should have made her, and not likely to grow much larger.

Roselle and Norah packed up the campsite. “Is it safe?” Roselle asked. “You don’t sense any trouble, do you?”

Norah smiled, and shook her head. The only trouble she sensed was sitting in a tree several yards down the path behind them. If he chose not to make his presence known, then she would honor his wishes for now. At least he was seeing first-hand that she didn’t need any help.

Up ahead, Lou let out a shout. Both Norah and Roselle began running. “Look!” Lou pointed to the top of the next range of hills, where a single spiral of smoke wound lazily up towards the clouds. “There’s a fire over there!” As they watched, more plumes of smoke arose, still far enough away that they were in no danger, but where there was smoke, there would be hunters.

“We’d better go back and tell Earl,” Roselle said.

A flurry of leaves stirred overhead and Pup dropped soundlessly into their midst, startling everybody except Norah. Marissa gave an involuntary little scream. He pushed past her to peer over the ridge at the smoke.

“Let’s get moving,” he said tersely, starting back down the mountain.

“Pup? Is Will with you?” Roselle asked. “Did you know about the fire? Did you come for us?”

Pup shook his head to all three questions. “Hurry. It might already be too late.”

Norah stared at him. Too late? But there was no time to think as Pup led them at a run back the way they had come. Thanks to their practice in the woods, none of them fell or lagged too far behind, although Roselle had a firm grip on Lou’s hand and Marissa held onto Teeny’s as they passed their lunch campsite and headed up the next incline.

Pup scowled and motioned for the girls to stop just as Norah cried out, “No! Not that way!” She had sensed a hostile presence somewhere on the other side of the hill they were climbing.

“We’re cut off,” Pup confirmed. “We’ll have to go back.”

“Towards the fire?” Roselle asked in disbelief.

“The fire is out now, and there are hunters between us and the camp,” Pup said. “We have no choice.”

Roselle glanced doubtfully behind her. Hills once again blocked off the view. “Are you sure?”

For answer, Pup started moving, scooping up Teeny as he went. With a nervous sigh, the others followed. When they reached the top of the last ridge overlooking the valley, sure enough, the wispy smoke trails had dissipated.

“What about Earl and the others?”

Pup snorted. “You would have gone back to an empty village,” he said bluntly. “Earl would have moved it already. If we could detect the hunters, then so could Earl’s scouts. Don’t worry. They’re safe.”

But we aren’t. Norah looked worriedly at her friends, whom she had dragged way out here. “What if there are more hunters that way?”

Pup grinned, reminding her suddenly of Neistah. “We’ll just have to make sure they don’t see us,” he said.

Despite his bravado, the group moved cautiously down the steep hill. The valley appeared serene, dressed in fall colors. Not too much of the lowland forest had burned. Norah wondered how the fire had gone out so quickly in the dry weather. She ‘listened’ with all her senses in case there were still hunters down there. Pup, too, was on guard; his eyes darted constantly from tree to tree and his bare feet moved as silently as Neistah’s.

Sunlight was waning by the time they reached the foot of the mountains. The air smelled like smoke for a long time before they saw evidence of the fire. “Stay close to me,” Pup cautioned, and this time Norah had no problem listening to him.

There were footprints all over the scorched ground, but no sign of any people. Norah cast out her senses, hoping to pick something up. Regular people were much harder to ‘hear’ than Neistah and his kind.

Pup crouched down, palms flat on the still-warm earth. “Whoever did this is gone,” he announced, adding, “Looks like there was a fight here. There’s blood on the ground.”

If that was so, then where were the bodies? The injured? It looked as if no one had been left behind. Since the fire was out, it was a good guess that the hunters had lost the fight. Were the ones Norah and Pup had sensed earlier up in the hills the survivors of this fight?

Pup straightened out. He pointed towards the dense woods where the fire had stopped. “They went that way,” he said, and promptly trotted off in the same direction, leaving Norah and the other girls to run after him.

“Why are we following them?” Norah gasped as she caught up to Pup. “Shouldn’t we be trying to avoid them?”

“These aren’t the hunters. These are the ones who drove off the hunters.”

Frustrated, Norah asked, “How do you know?”

Pup took a deep breath, thought better of it, and let it out. He shrugged his shoulders.

Before long, they had left the burned area behind them and were running through deep woods. What little light was left disappeared completely, and first Lou, then Marissa, tripped and fell over brush they had not been able to see. Pup called a halt for the night.

Thanks to Roselle’s foresight, they used the blankets to fashion makeshift tents. Norah couldn’t sleep. She waited until everybody else was sleeping before she got up. Unlike the other girls, and even Pup, Norah could see well enough in the dark.

“Where do you think you’re going?” A low voice spoke, and Pup fell into step beside her. “There could be hunters out there.”

“No,” replied Norah automatically. “There’s no one there.”

In the dark, she could still see the surprise on Pup’s face, although he masked it well. “I guess you are one of his after all,” he said thoughtfully, matching her pace. “Where are we going?”

“Maybe I just had to—you know,” Norah snapped, irritated at Pup’s comment. “Can’t I get a little privacy?”

Pup laughed, and dropped back. Norah kept going, having no intention of letting him spy on her. She wished there were a water source around here, but in the same way she sensed there were no other human presences nearby, she knew there was no lake or pond big enough for her to swim in, either.

Norah was so preoccupied with her own thoughts that she didn’t see the obstacle in front of her. She pushed aside branches, looking for a suitable place to do what she’d hinted to Pup she had come out here to do, when she came across it.

Hidden by bushes and vines, it was nearly invisible. Norah gasped out loud, and heard Pup crashing through the underbrush in response as he ran towards her. Fingers lightly tingling, Norah stared in wonder at what she had found.

She knew where she was. In all the forest, there was only one place that had a chain link fence which ran for miles and miles around the property. Norah was home!