I let Thomas fill up his plate with chicken and dumplings. He tore into the green beans first, clearly ravenous.
“So, Thomas Downing.”
He swallowed back a mouthful before responding. “Cousin Ellerie.”
“Just ‘Ellerie,’ ” I said, echoing his father. “I’ve never had a cousin before.”
“Nor I,” he said, and again I felt as though I wasn’t hearing his true voice, but a disguise.
“Have you lived in the city all your life?”
His eyes darted toward Ezra, boisterously laughing over something Leland Schäfer had said. “Yes. Mostly.”
“I’ve never been before,” I admitted, and he relaxed into an easy smile.
“It’s quite grand.”
Perhaps this was just the way people in the city spoke, peppering their speech with unfamiliar “quites” and “grands,” so much more affected than I was accustomed to.
“Why on earth would you want to leave all that to come to the Falls?” Bonnie Maddin asked, three spots down. She and Merry were wedged together on a stool truly only big enough for one.
“As Father said—it was time to come home.”
“After being gone so long? Everyone thought you were dead.” Merry blinked at her mistake. “Well, not you—your pa. Has he ever talked about what happened to him in the woods? People have wondered about it for years.”
Thomas’s eyebrows rose. “Is it so strange for a boy to go missing in the forest here?”
“There’ve been many stories about what happened to him,” I said, eager to finally hear the truth as well. “Most people assumed he’d died. Others thought he must have run into the creatures in the woods.”
“The monsters,” Sadie clarified, drawn away from her conversation with Trinity Brewster.
“Monsters? Like—like that?” Thomas asked, pointing to the wolf-thing.
I shook my head. “Different monsters. Older ones.”
“How many beasts are those pines meant to keep?” he asked, his eyes bright with mirth.
No one at the table joined his laughter.
“There—there are a lot of stories,” I said charitably. “Legends.”
“Are you really moving to Amity Falls?” Trinity asked.
He picked up a fried chicken leg, studying its crispy skin, before nodding. “I suppose so. Father is the one with all the plans.”
“Where’s your mother?” Merry asked. Then she cupped a hand over her mouth, aghast. “That was too prying. I’m sorry.”
He shook his head. “Long gone. It’s just been Father and me for years.”
Bonnie clucked sympathetically. “Where will you stay?”
My eyes darted to the farmhouse.
I wondered if we ought to invite them to stay with us. Papa and Mama’s room was empty, and we could try to squeeze another ticked mattress into the loft. They were family, with nowhere to go. It was the right thing to do.
But something held me back from offering such hospitality.
They were family, true, but we didn’t know anything about them.
“I…I’m not sure,” Thomas said, pushing back a wave of hair. “Is there a boardinghouse in town? Somewhere we could let a room or two?”
“The Buhrmans have a room at the tavern,” Merry said, pointing out Calvin and Violet. “It’s usually kept open for anyone too drunk to ride home, but I’m certain they’d let you stay there.”
It was a relief to know she wasn’t keen on them staying with us either.
“That man mentioned seeing a stag….Did any of you see it?” Thomas asked, pushing his fork about on the plate, searching for morsels hidden away in the gravy. He looked up, his dark eyes falling on me.
“We were there when the McNallys brought it in. It was…so strange-looking. It was like the wolf….Its shape was a stag, but nothing else made sense.”
“Have there been others like it?”
I started to shake my head, but Merry stopped me. “The foals at Judd Abrams’s ranch.”
Bonnie nodded enthusiastically. “Abominations, all of them.”
“When it was alive…” I looked back toward the fallen body, studying its grotesque appearance. “Did you notice what its eyes were like?”
Thomas tilted his head. “Yes. We could see him tracking us all last night, two bright spots beaming out of the darkness. They were a strange silver. It wasn’t until this morning that we saw the…full extent of him.”
“There’s been talk around town about a thing with silver eyes. That must have been it.”
“Must have,” Thomas said, his own eyes shifting to the beast.
“What could cause a wolf to look like that?”
He shrugged. “Nature can be quite cruel. But there weren’t any others with it, at least, thank God. Can you imagine an entire forest full of those things?”
“You were awfully brave to go after it,” Bonnie said, propping her elbows on the table to lean closer to him. “If I ever had to venture into those woods, I’d want someone like you at my side.” Her lashes fluttered like the wings of a butterfly, and Thomas turned bright red.
“It—it wasn’t anything,” he stammered.
“Oh, but it was! It was the most—”
“At least that mystery has been solved,” I said, interrupting whatever platitudes Bonnie was about to utter. “Over and done with.”
“Rule Number Two: Tend your land, your beasts, your field, and prosperous bounties the Falls will yield.”
“I just don’t understand,” said Asher Heyword. The farmer’s voice rang through the Gathering House. “It’s like half the crops have just…vanished.”
“You suspect theft?” Amos McCleary asked from his seat at the front. He ran his pointer finger over the carved tree on the top of his cane, considering the room as if he could sniff out the culprit himself. Behind him, through the plate-glass windows, it seemed even the pines leaned in to judge.
The farmer shook his head. “No—the plants are still there, but all the harvest has withered away. Right on the stalk—on the branches themselves. What could do something like that?”
“Disease?” Leland Schäfer suggested, sounding uncertain. The Elder did no farming whatsoever, filling his land with flocks of sheep.