Page 85 of A Land So Wide
He sighed and, with a helpless shrug of his shoulders…changed.
Greer gaped, unable to say anything, unable to put words to what she witnessed, unable to even gasp.
Noah Finn was there and then was not.
In his place, towering above her, was a Bright-Eyed.
It wasn’t the same one who had attacked her last night. Greer noticed differences, both subtle and overt. The Bright-Eyed who’d gone after her along the river had stretched out its talons, showing off four long jointed toes ending with razor-sharp claws. Finn—her mind balked to use such a label, but wasn’t sure what else to call him—had two claws missing.
Two toes, he has two toes,Greer realized, matching them with the prints she’d seen, first on the hunting excursion with Louise and then at the camp on her first morning in the wilds.
“It was you,” she said aloud. “You’ve been following me all this time.”
“Not always,” he refuted, and his voice was so different now, rounding deeper as it filled a chest cavity so much larger than Finn’s had been.
Than Finn’s is,she corrected herself, and her head spun with the utter conundrum of Finn as a person, alive and not dead, and Finn as a Bright-Eyed, hulking over her now.
As if he noticed her discomfort, he shivered, his entire body shaking with tremors, and changed back to his former appearance.
“You’re a monster,” she accused unnecessarily.
He sighed. “You’re not well. Let me help you,” he said, starting toward her again, and she nearly tripped over herself in an attempt to retreat.
“Stay away from me. I have…” She fumbled in her skirt for her knife, but it wasn’t there.
“I didn’t take it,” he said quickly. “You lost it in the river. I told you that was a terrible place to keep it.” He shifted on his feet, working his way closer without taking actual steps.
“You’ve been following me, watching me,” she said, countering his movement as she circled the fire, trying to keep the flames between them.
“Yes.”
Greer let out a snort of disbelief. “That’s all you’ve got? ‘Yes’?”
“What should I say?”
“You should…” A wave of vertigo washed over her, so strong it nearly brought her to her knees. Her head was disconcertingly heavy, and it felt almost impossible to remain upright. A sharp whine rang in her ears, growing in intensity until it was as if the Bellows were going off in her mind. “You should…” She clutched her head and wailed. “What did you do to me?”
“Nothing! The rocks…You fell…You need help.” He held out his hand, stepping closer.
Greer didn’t want to take it. She didn’t want anything to do with him, but another round of unsteadiness seized her, and she grabbed him to keep from pitching forward.
With more care than she would have given him credit for, Finn helped ease her onto a log. She pressed her fingers against his steadying arm, wondering at the flesh beneath his sleeve. It felt so terribly human.
With gentle touches, he moved her chin, tilting her head to look over the gash with appraising eyes. “Tell me how you feel.”
“Angry,” she admitted, and he had the audacity to laugh.
“I mean your head.”
“It hurts.”
“Can you be more specific?”
“No.” Greer knew she was being childish but was past the point of caring.
He sat beside her, and she wanted to cringe from the utter normality of it. He didn’t feel monstrous. He felt like a man.
“No one knows you can do that,” she said, the conversation feeling strange and surreal. “In Mistaken. There are so many stories about the Bright-Eyeds, but…none of them say anything about…” She paused, unsure of what to call the transformation. “That.”
