Page 19 of A Land So Wide

T hey came out of the trees in the north.

From the clearing , Greer observed, watching the darkness follow the same trail they’d just taken. Though the shadowy mass was thick and absolute, there was a strange undulation within it, the individual movements of thousands, like a murmuration of starlings.

Starlings! she thought, mind racing.

But they weren’t birds, Greer noted, catching none of the chirps and calls that would be expected with such a swarm.

She closed her eyes, listening; it was unlike anything she’d ever heard before.

There was a soft swish of wings cutting through the air, flapping and fluttering, but this was oddly muffled, multiplied too many times.

“What is that?” Lotte Morag dared to ask, horror and wonder hitching in her voice.

No one responded. There were no answers. Only dumbstruck awe and rising dread.

The flapping of wings grew louder. How many things could fly so close together, in one huddled mass? It was like a wall of darkness barreling down on them. It was like…

It was like her dreams, Greer realized. The way pieces of the sky shattered apart to swoop down over Mistaken and—

The thought that followed was too terrible to finish. “We need to run! Right now!” Greer screamed, startling several children near her. “Run home! Run to safety! You need to—”

But the first bits of the swarm were already upon them, blotting out any remaining twilight with the dense concentration of so very many bodies.

The screams began as townspeople turned to flee, fighting to outpace the intruders, swatting at furred bodies and papery wings when they could not.

“Moths?” Greer had one moment to vocalize her confusion before several of the winged insects fell upon her.

They were large—bigger than both her hands put together, even with all fingers spread wide—and the silvery color of moonlight. Dark stripes ran along the giant wings, and Greer might have found them striking had they not been picking their way over her body with disgusting heft.

Burdened by the roar of so many wings, screams, and wailing, Greer was struck senseless, unable to move, unable to think. Her head throbbed, feeling as if it were about to split apart.

Ian Brennigan’s voice managed to cut through the chaos, spurring the townspeople to action. “Get home!” he hollered. “Get home, Mistaken!”

People began to run in all directions, fleeing the onslaught. Some slipped and fell, causing others to stumble, trampling them. The air was thick with confusion and shrieks. It was too dark to see, too loud for reason.

Greer couldn’t tell which direction she went; she only knew she had to get away.

Stumbling blindly through the madness, she kept her hands out before her, desperate to make sense of her surroundings.

More moths flocked to her, batting at her fingers, her face.

A jolt of pain shot down her spine as someone ran into her, wrenching her shoulder backward.

“Sorry, I’m so sorry,” the person fumbled. “I can’t get them off me. Oh God, please, get them off me!”

Greer could just make out the figure of Callum Cairn pitching back and forth as he slapped at winged creatures clinging to his coat, crawling over his face, tangling in his hair. He tripped, fell down an embankment, and rolled out of sight.

Greer changed course, heading away from the hill, and struck the side of a granite boulder.

Momentarily stunned, she ran her hands over the rough surface before picking her way to the leeward side.

She could use the rock’s size as protection while the swarm blasted through the valley.

If she hunkered low enough, she could be out of the worst of it and figure out her next step.

Greer knew this boulder, knew where it was in relation to the rest of the town. She could picture its position on her maps and, using her internal compass, could visualize how best to get home.

A moth struck the boulder above and floundered down, landing on Greer’s head.

She’d lost her knitted hat somewhere in the confusion, and could feel the insect’s legs tussle through her hair as it fought to free itself.

Swallowing the shriek demanding to be set loose, Greer batted at the moth, trying to dislodge it.

But it caught on the yarn of her mittens and began to crawl under the sleeve of her dress.

Its body was tufted with fur and felt muscular and meaty and so terribly wrong against her sweep of exposed skin.

Greer’s screams joined the others echoing across the cove, and, as if in response, the sound of the swarm altered. The muffled swish of papery, powdery wings pitched sharper, like wind cutting across something webbed and leathery. Greer froze as she heard the first volley of clicks and chirps.

Bats!

One dove from the sky, snatching up a moth Greer hadn’t even known was on her shoulder. The sound of crunching, struggling bodies filled the air as more bats plunged down, their claws grasping and grabbing.

Greer ducked, crawling across the ground as bits of antennas and twitching legs fell over her. There was a horrible pulse in her head—too much noise, there was too much noise—and she sobbed as she made her slow trek toward the trees, toward home, toward even the smallest hope of safety.

But she couldn’t get away from the bats. There were hundreds of them. Thousands. Tens of thousands. It felt as though the entire world was nothing but wings and fangs and claws and teeth.

As the number of moths dwindled, the bats began to turn on one another, lashing out at their own kind.

Greer’s thoughts filled with the terrible wet sounds of bellies slashed open and wings sheared off.

She heard the screams of the smaller prey, their rasping, rustling death rattles as they tried in vain to escape.

She heard the screams of the larger bats, triumph roaring through them, victorious monsters of the night.

And she heard the screams of the townspeople, of Mistaken, of her very self, as blood fell like rain down from the black night.

Somehow, Greer made it home.

She trudged up the cabin steps on shaky legs before crashing against a porch post. Her clothes were torn and foul with a mess of sticky stains she did not want to contemplate.

The last of the bats swooped overhead, chasing after the remaining prey. Mangled bodies lay in twitching heaps, seized in death torments all across the cove.

Greer didn’t understand the waste of it.

None of the bats had fed.

It was not the urge to hunt that had spurred them into going after the moths or their own wretched brethren. The surviving bats had enjoyed themselves, relishing the destruction they wrought, driven by nothing but feverish bloodlust.

Greer ran a weary hand across her face. She knew she needed to go inside, knew she needed to clean herself, but couldn’t find the strength.

Her head didn’t feel right—her thoughts loose and disjointed—though she was unsure if it was from injury or the sudden absence of sound after such prolonged turmoil.

She studied the sky with heavy eyes. Millions of tiny lights pricked the void, occasionally blotted out by a pair of murderous wings.

Greer had always thought of the stars as friends, the same dots faithfully shining year after year, letting her know exactly where she was in her tiny corner of the universe.

But now they looked icy and indifferent.

They didn’t care.

They couldn’t help.

As she watched, soft waves of light formed, streaks of pulsing reds and azure blues. They surged and ebbed and returned, slithering with serpentine grace, undulating in dancing arcs and swirls.

Sky lights on Reaping night.

It had always been considered a lucky sign, a foretelling of good things to come. They should have been beautiful, but now the lights reminded Greer of the flickering caught within the Warding Stones, and she looked away, unable to bear the brilliance.

Why was this happening?

Mistaken had given so much, freely and without reservation.

Why hadn’t it been enough?

Greer wanted to cry as she thought of all the work she and Martha had—

Shame burned her as she realized that, in her haste to flee, she’d run without giving anyone else a second thought. The attack had happened so quickly, there’d been no time to think of others, and now Greer felt sick as she worried about all of the people she’d forgotten.

Martha.

Her father.

Louise and Mary and all the Beaufort siblings.

Ellis.

Her stomach pitched.

What had happened to Ellis?

She tried to push away the spiral of anxious contrition. Those moments with the swarm had been utter madness. People running, lanterns smashing. It would have been impossible to find anyone in such turmoil, and Ellis was more than capable of taking care of himself, of his family.

But Martha…

“Martha?” she called out uncertainly. “Father?”

She shifted, trying to stand, but the change in momentum was too much for her head.

Greer pressed her temple against the post and willed the world to stop turning.

Noises came in and out of focus, and she was acutely aware that her hearing had diminished.

The world was hushed and still. Such quiet was a sensation she was wholly unused to, and the wrongness prickled at the back of her neck.

People had scattered in all directions to escape the moths.

People had fallen. People had been trampled.

What if Martha, what if Hessel, had been among them?

What if they were lying in the dirt now with broken bones, crying out in agony, and, for the first time in her life, Greer couldn’t hear them?

“Get up,” she ordered herself, grinding her teeth with determination. “Go find them.”

With a groan, she pushed herself to standing and staggered down the porch.