Page 32 of A Land So Wide
G reer woke to a world of blinding white.
Snow had fallen as she slept, nestled away in her layers of wool and pine boughs. The fire had gone out, doused by either the falling flakes or Greer’s inattention.
She sat up, muscles aching in protest.
She needed to get the fire going again.
She needed to eat.
She desperately needed to relieve herself.
Stumbling from her makeshift bed, Greer found a spot downhill and squatted.
The clouds had cleared after dropping their inconvenient drifts, and the sky was a soft silver, heralding the approach of a new day.
The snow wasn’t particularly deep, but it covered every trace of Ellis and would make tracking him nearly impossible.
She considered it a small favor that the snow would make it just as hard for Hessel to follow her.
If he was following.
If he hadn’t thoroughly washed his hands of her after yesterday.
After the scream.
In the cold light of this stark morning, Greer had nothing to distract her thoughts from that scream.
Taking a deep breath, she pushed out the most ferocious noise she could.
It was a cross between a snarl and a growl, but it was nothing compared with the deafening blast that had torn out of her yesterday, setting the world to tremble and throwing an entire person a quarter of a mile back.
How had she done it? Where had it come from?
She’d never felt anything like it within her before: an all-consuming, all-powerful, indignant righteous rage.
Greer couldn’t have held it in if she’d wanted to, and in that moment, she had very much not wanted to.
She’d wanted it out, wanted it free to push and shove with more force than she’d ever been capable of. She’d wanted to be heard.
But it wasn’t natural.
It wasn’t right.
If everyone could scream like that, the world would descend into chaos. It would end in a fury of sound shaking the very core of the earth apart.
Dark thoughts pounded in Greer’s mind.
What was wrong with her, that she could make such a mark with only the quiver of her voice?
No one else could hear like she could. No one else could scream like that.
Greer wished Ailie was with her. Ailie, her mind only ever half rooted in the here and now. Ailie, always dreaming up stories and sad songs in which anything was possible, in which the sound of a girl’s voice could bring a mountain down.
Greer wished she could nestle into the crook of her mother’s shoulder and whisper all these terrible worries. Ailie would laugh and press a kiss her to her forehead and assure Greer that everything was fine. That Greer herself was fine. She’d have an answer for it all.
Without Ailie, Greer returned to the campsite, stewing in her worries. She ate a few bites of the bread and a little of the jerky. Her stomach protested, but she ate anyway, knowing she’d need energy for the day to come.
As she ate, she studied the map.
There was a river a little way from where she estimated she was.
The muffled haze in her ears had faded in sleep, and Greer could pick out the soft rush of water some miles away, its current too fast to have frozen yet.
It would make sense for Ellis to have gone toward that.
Without a map—his own left for Greer—the river would be the easiest landmark to locate.
She traced the river’s path northward, following the way it cut through the foothills, winding down from the mountains.
Despite everything, a thrill of delight shot through her as she imagined hiking its length.
Every step she’d take on this journey was one step farther from Mistaken, farther from anything she’d ever known. She’d catch up to Ellis, and then…
Her fingers spread across the width of the map, wonder stirring her blood.
They could go anywhere. See anything. See everything .
They could find what lay beyond the edge of this map, and the map after that, and the map after that. They could explore the entire globe if the fancy struck them. They’d have their beads and they’d have each other. Nothing would stop them.
Greer repacked the bag, but slipped the knife into her skirt pocket. She kept out the map, too, and clutched the compass with a fierce grip.
Ignoring the lingering ache in her shins, Greer stood. She was ready.
It wasn’t until she turned to stamp out her fire that she noticed the tracks in the snow.
They were on the far edge of the campsite, as if whoever—whatever—had made them had wished to remain in the shadows, away from the fire’s glow.
They were big.
Bigger than the pads of a lynx or a wolf. Bigger even than the tracks Greer had once seen of a rogue grizzly bear, and those had made dinner plates seem small.
Like the marks Greer had noticed in the woods with Louise, these prints boasted only two toes.
She followed their progress around the campsite, gnawing at the side of her cheek as she took in the muddled mess of them near the lean-to.
Here, the marks were pressed in deeply enough to mix with the earth beneath.
Whatever made these tracks had stood there a long while, swaying from foot to foot.
It watched me sleep, she realized hollowly, her throat tightening with dismay.
This creature had stood scant feet away from where she’d rested, and she—the woman who heard absolutely everything—had not noticed.
Greer remembered the strange sensation she’d felt last night, when she held out her hand, hoping to feel Ellis also reaching for her. Fingers had slipped around hers, squeezing tight—she was certain of it now—but it had not been the hand of her beloved.
“Who’s out there?” she called loudly, boldly, the way you were supposed to when confronted by a predator.
You were supposed to make them think you were every bit as strong and powerful as they were.
You were supposed to convince them that you could put up a fight.
You were supposed to show them you were not to be messed with.
Far from home, with nothing but a little dagger and a dull hatchet, Greer did not feel formidable.
She did not feel strong or—in that moment, staring at the tracks beside her exposed lean-to—particularly brave.
But she would not give that away. She could not let the creature—Benevolent or Bright-Eyed—suspect.
So she hoisted her pack and set out for the river.