Page 53 of A Land So Wide
As they approached the fence, Lachlan staggered forward, caught on a tree root or perhaps his own foot, and grabbed Greer. “What was that? Is it the monsters?” he gasped, sounding panicked.
Greer tried to shove him away but his hold was firm. “Stand up,” she hissed. “We’re nearly home. Nothing is after you.”
“Greer?” Hessel cried out, lost somewhere in the sea of glowing lights. “Is that Greer?”
“And Lachlan…I think.” Greer recognized the alto of Imogene Davis—Lachlan’s mother.
Hessel fought his way to the front, swinging open the gate. “They’re back!” he confirmed, sounding happier than Greer could ever recall. “Are you both all right? When Third Bellows sounded, and you’d not come back…”
The words left unspoken pricked at Greer.
“We’re all right,” Lachlan said, even as his grip tightened.
“No,” Greer began. “Ell—”
Hessel clapped his hands, drawing the town’s attention. “The last of the couples have returned. Our Hunt is at an end!”
Greer looked sharply to Lachlan, still clutching her arm. Sensing the weight of the town’s eyes upon him, he’d straightened, and his hold now looked more protective than needy. She turned to her father, protest bubbling from her diaphragm. “We are not a couple. He did not claim me!”
Hessel slapped a proud hand across Lachlan’s back. “Well done, son.”
And Lachlan…smiled.
Greer gaped as the curve of his mouth deepened into a wide grin. More men stepped forward, offering out handshakes and their congratulations. It seemed their adoration for the town’s favorite son overrode any reservations they held for Greer.
“Lachlan didn’t find me,” she reiterated, raising her voice. “Lachlan, tell them. Tell them what we saw!” He ignored her. “Father,” she said, turning to Hessel and pulling him from the crowd. “Something horrible happened out there. Ellis is gone.”
For one terrible moment, Hessel did not react. He only stared at her, listening for more, as if her words were not news but confirmation.
He knows.He already knew.
“Gone?” Hessel finally asked, carefully schooling his tone.
“Just after Thirds, Ellis crossed over the border and went into the forest,” she said anyway, wanting to watch him hear it. “He wasn’t thrown back.”
“That’s not possible.”
“I thought that, too, but it happened all the same. And then…” Greer paused, her throat tightening as she remembered the thing in the sky that had followed. “And then a Bright-Eyed went after him.”
She expected him to deny it. She expected him to say she’dmisunderstood or imagined what she’d seen. Hessel surprised her by doing neither.
“You’re certain? It was a Bright-Eyed?”
Lachlan, suddenly aware of Greer’s absence, turned to join them. “I saw it as well. It went after Beaufort.”
Greer marveled at Lachlan’s composure, as if he’d not spent their return journey cowering from every strange noise, every looming shadow. He pantomimed the Bright-Eyed’s girth, the width of its wingspan, then curved all his fingers, approximating talons.
It had four toes, not five,Greer silently corrected, remembering when she’d first seen it swoop out of the clouds.Not two.
“Well.” Hessel let out a long breath. “Beaufort made his choice.”
She let out a short, choking laugh. “What choice? No one just leaves Mistaken. Not after sunset.”
Hessel frowned at her outburst. “It must have happenedbeforesunset. The Bright-Eyed took himbeforeThird Bellows.” His tone was even and reasonable, as though they were disputing nothing more than the price of wheat at market.
Greer shook her head, anger filling her jaw and urging her to snap and bite. “No. No. That’s not how it happened. Ellis left after the Bellows. I saw him. I heard the last horn, and he stepped over the border, and the Stones did not throw him back. And the Bright-Eyed…” She shuddered. “The Bright-Eyed didn’t take him. It stalked after him. Ellis is still alive! Lachlan!” She looked to the young man, waiting for him to confirm what they’d seen.
Instead, he rubbed cloying circles across her back. “She has a right to be upset.” Lachlan glanced to Hessel. “It was all terribly confusing.”
