Page 38 of A Land So Wide

G reer spent the morning following the sound of the river, climbing up and down embankments, always heading toward the rushing water.

As the elevation rose, slowly, gradually, the landscape shifted.

Trees were no longer plentiful and didn’t grow to astounding heights.

The ground beneath her hardened, turning rocky and treacherous, and her feet bore the brunt of the unforgiving terrain.

By midday, they were in agony, and her joints had begun to ache as well. Her knees felt swollen, and the tops of her ankles throbbed.

She stopped to adjust her boots’ lacing. The bows had come undone, and she’d nearly fallen, catching her stride on the loose leather cords. Her pack swayed precariously as she bent over, threatening to pitch her down the steep incline, like an ungainly turtle.

Greer double-knotted her laces and got ready to straighten. She pressed her hands to the ground, and was about to shove back with all her might, letting the momentum of the heavy rucksack work in her favor, when she spotted a sliver of footprint, just beyond the spread of her fingers.

She instantly recognized the shape of the track and almost fell over, letting out a sound of surprised relief.

Ellis’s right boot had a crack in the inner middle of its sole, where the tread had worn thin and split.

His footprints cut sharply through the trail she’d been taking, and with the thin, rocky soil, she’d almost missed it.

“Ellis?”

How old might these tracks be? It hadn’t snowed since her first night in the woods. When had he come through?

With a groan, Greer removed her pack, allowing her aching shoulders to have a moment of respite while she stretched and drank deeply from her canteen.

She ate a bit more bread, looking down the trail Ellis had come from.

He’d been much farther west, and she wondered what had drawn him that way after his first night’s campsite.

Hessel had implied that the sacrifices were whisked away after setting foot over the border, but here were Ellis’s tracks, miles and miles from Mistaken.

He’d walked here. On his own.

There were no prints accompanying his, no guide to show him the way. Did he know where he was going, or was he simply acting on instinct?

And the Bright-Eyed…

Was it stalking him still?

She followed his tracks for the rest of the afternoon, until they led her to the river.

Greer let out a whoop of excitement.

It was wider than she’d expected and looked deep. Its dark waters frothed with little white-tipped eddies. The current was surprisingly fast.

Greer stood along its bank, acutely aware that the sky above her was beginning to dim. Hidden behind a scattering of slate gray clouds, the sun was sinking with dangerous speed toward the horizon.

Another day gone, and Greer still hadn’t found Ellis.

Her eyes shifted back and forth along the riverbank as she tried to plan out her next move. Ellis’s tracks were at her feet, and there were more on the other shore, as if he’d merely hopped over the offending rapids with a great leap.

Perhaps it wasn’t as deep as it looked.

Greer poked through the undergrowth, looking for a long stick. She leaned out as far as she dared—falling in so close to sunset, with no campfire prepared, would be a death sentence, no matter how effectively Noah Finn’s coat kept away the cold—and stabbed the branch into the swirling depths.

In an instant, the water swallowed it up all the way to her hand and jerked the stick away with terrifying strength.

There was no way Greer could ford this river on foot.

“How did you do it, Ellis?” she muttered, walking up and down the bend, trying to spot his trick.

Eventually, she gave up, resolving to work it out in the morning. There had to be a series of rocks hidden just beneath the rapids’ surface. She’d see them when the sky was bright and would cross them when the day was warmer.

Till then, she needed to find a spot to set up camp.

Downstream from Ellis’s tracks was a little berm, sloping up from the river’s edge. The ground was softer there and less rocky. She searched the area for other tracks. It wouldn’t do to set up along a game trail, but this one seemed clear enough.

Using the last of the day’s light, Greer searched for kindling. Once her fire was going, she opened the pack and withdrew her cloak and the blanket Noah Finn had left behind.

She’d tried to not think of him throughout the day, tried to not wonder if he had family somewhere who would notice his disappearance, who would miss him.

She tried to not conjure theories on where he’d come from, where he’d gone, and how it had happened.

She tried, she tried so hard, not to remember the way his eyes had caught in the campfire, the faint red glow of them.

She hadn’t known a person’s eyes could shine like that.

But even that had not been able to save him.

He had to have been taken by a Bright-Eyed.

There’d been no other prints in that clearing save his and Greer’s. Whatever had stolen him away had come from the sky, swooping and snatching like an owl after a marmot.

She couldn’t imagine the strength it would take to pull a grown man from the ground. It made her think twice about wandering off to look for juniper berries for some tea.

Greer scanned the skies overhead but saw nothing. The clouds were thick and low, and she worried that another snowfall would come and cover up Ellis’s tracks once again.

Across the river, up along the ravine, small flickers of light caught her attention. For a moment, she thought it was fireflies, dancing in a grove of trees. But their time of year had long passed.

So why did she see lights now?

It was a pair of dots, there one moment, then gone the next, then appearing farther downstream, then up again. Almost as if…

She remembered Noah Finn’s eye-shine with a sudden, queasy recognition.

…something was pacing back and forth.

Something was watching Greer.

Pretending she hadn’t spotted them, she took one of her collected sticks and poked at the bonfire. She waved at the smoke, as if a breeze had blown some in her eyes, and shifted seats, giving her a better vantage while hiding behind the wall of flames.

Greer watched the eyes; they shone a bright amber.

They were high off the ground, at least six feet, and moved back and forth with an easy grace.

There was no stumbling, no dodging around tree roots or dips in the land.

The languid repetitiveness reminded Greer of the feral cats allowed to roam the mill’s outbuildings to keep down the population of rodents who might otherwise nest in the wood chips.

Greer wanted to believe it was a deer drawn to her fire, or even a bear, standing on its hind legs as it decided whether she would make an easy prey. But a bear would lumber back and forth. And a deer wouldn’t pace.

Greer was certain it was the creature who’d been following her. The creature taunting her. The creature with two toes.

A Bright-Eyed.

Despite the cut of the wind and the air’s chill, Greer felt a bead of nervous sweat trickle down her back. Last night, she’d made an offering to the Benevolence, and whatever had taken Noah Finn had left her in peace.

She had no such gifts or gratitudes now.

Greer rummaged through her pack, looking for something, anything that might appeal to the Benevolence. The last of her bread was already stale, and the remaining jerky looked so meager, she feared they’d be more insulted than honored to receive it.

When she hazarded another glance toward the trees, she noticed that the Bright-Eyed was now stock-still, its amber-orange eyes shining directly at her, watching with interest.

“I see you,” she began, startling herself as her voice broke the air. She had not known she was going to address it, had not planned on acknowledging its presence. But the words fell out easily. Even more surprising still was her tone. She sounded bold and confident. A woman without fear.

It blinked but said nothing.

“Were you in the woods last night? What do you want from me?”

The eyes shifted, disappearing for a moment.

“Answer me! I know you can!” Greer shouted, smacking her mittened hand against the stump she sat on.

The Bright-Eyed’s gaze flashed in her direction, then lowered; it was crouching down, readying to race toward her, on four legs, not two.

It took off, leaping skyward, and the air filled with the sound of flapping, leathery wings.

It caught a gust of wind and sailed even higher still.

Flying over the tree line, its dark shape was visible in stark relief against the gray light of the dying afternoon.

Greer’s breath caught as she saw just how big it was, saw the curve of its massive wings and dangling limbs. Its muscles were lean and sinewy—a monster built for speed and strength. Curved talons, inches long, hooked out of bony toes with too many joints.

Those toes—fingers?—were now headed toward Greer as the Bright-Eyed drew in its wings, turning itself into a streaming bullet, diving with lethal speed.

Greer ducked toward the protective heat of the flames, but the Bright-Eyed still grazed by, snatching at her hat.

It let out a high, keening whistle, mimicking the pitch of the wind. Slicing by for a second pass, it came close enough that Greer could smell it, musky, with a wild tang that reminded her of peat moss and bog water.

Though it zipped by too fast for her to make out its face, Greer could feel its eyes on her all the same, sharp and appraising. She could hear the low chuckle rumbling in the back of its throat, its laughter like a loon’s tremolo.

“You’re such a long way from home, little Starling,” it murmured, diving in once more to spin around her, a confusing cyclone of membrane and limbs. Its long claws reached out and swiped at a loose lock of her hair, shearing it off.