Page 16 of Welcome to Blackbird Hollow
I let her look and keep talking. “Hedgeriders are medial. We walk between worlds. Keep the balance. Deal with Them, if They pose a threat. We keep humans out of things as much as possible, but since Reformation, it’s been getting harder and harder. They’re busier, somehow.”
“This is your…job?” she asks. That empty look still haunts her pretty face, and while I long to know what it means, I don’t ask.
I laugh. “I guess it is. More like the family business.”
Now she laughs, her spark back. It’s not a particularly nice laugh. In fact, she looks more guarded than ever as she leans against one of my built-in bookcases. “So, did your daddy teach you the family business?”
Sarcasm. I can’t tell if she doesn’t quite believe me, or if she’s working on some other theory. That was the point of telling her all this. So she’d reveal something of herself to me. Fallon’s way of getting things out of people sucks, and something tells me that Alice has been through enough.
If she wants to play the guarded game, we can do it. I snap back, “Hedgeriding is matriarchal.”
I pick up the photo on my desk and take three steps across the room to hand it to her. It’s a little worse for wear. Fallon carried it, and our small trove of family photos, in her backpack for months getting here. But the photo’s still clear. Alice’s eyes soften as she looks at it.
I tap the photo. Fallon was a head shorter than me at twelve, but her chin is jutted out, brave and fierce, her braid flipped over her squared-up shoulders. She’s got Cade on her hip and her arm slung around my waist.
The little bungalow in New Big Sur is in the background. Mama took this the month before she died, developed the roll in our basement, like she always did when she could find film. Most of the photos wouldn’t turn out, but the ones that did, she cherished. It’s one of the few nice things I remember about her.
I don’t let myself linger on those thoughts. “That’s my little brother, Cade, and my sister Fallon. Our Mama taught us everything we needed to know about hedgeriding.”
Alice stares at the photo. “Did she take the photo? Your mother, I mean.”
I nod slowly. “She did. It was one of the last she ever took. Our parents are dead.”
“Oh,” Alice says, some flicker of complex emotion crossing her face before she remembers to add, “I’m sorry to hear that.”
I take the photo from her. “Thanks. Fallon’s in charge now. That was her on the phone. She’d like to meet you this evening, if you’re up to it.”
Chapter 9
Alice
“Fallon,” I echo, still looking at the small girl in the photo. I try to imagine what she might be like all grown up, if that fierceness in her eyes has mellowed with age or been sharpened into a terrifying weapon by the whetstone of this world.
Probably the latter. “Must be nice to have siblings,” I offer. I glance up from the photo just as Wyatt shrugs.
“I love them,” he says, “but they’re a lot of work. You an only child?”
“Yeah,” I reply, trying to read the expression on his face. It’s encouraging, almost kind, but he’s seeking—attempting to understand something about me. Surely a Sector agent this deep would have a fully fleshed-out backstory, so that makes me wonder if he genuinely wants to know aboutme. “I always wanted a big sister.”
Wyatt’s expression softens, and he lets out a husky laugh. “They’re a commitment,” he says with a wry smile. “Be careful what you wish for.”
I don’t answer, turning everything over in my head as I look around the room. Twenty or so knives line the wall with military-like precision. The bone handle of a particularly large one is stained with blood. About a hundred sigils are carved into the fresh paint of the big bay window’s casing. An alarming number of them are completely new to me, but I recognize the same one that I spied on the herbal shop and the stairs in the forest. My heart thumps hard against my chest. This allmeanssomething—these threads tie together into something greater. Bigger.
I finally meet Wyatt’s gaze, and to his credit, he’s just watching me patiently. Waiting. Probably expecting me to run screaming or something. There’s nothing predatory in his gaze, though. I was a teen girl during the worst parts of the Reformation, which means I can usually spot that shit a mile away. But I’m still in a strange man’s house in a strange town. I remind myself that Ishouldfeel unsafe, even if my better judgment is betraying me.
“Do I have a choice?” I finally ask. In the wan, misty light leaking through the window, I watch the skin around his eyes crinkle, his dark brows drawing together. “About dinner, I mean? Like…what happens if I say no?”
Wyatt steps back as if I’ve startled him, examining me with an expression that almost looks hurt. “Blythe, what do I look like to you?” he demands with an arch laugh.
He spreads his hands away from his hips, holding both palms up like I’ve just ordered he drop a weapon. The hem of his shirt pulls away from his waistband for a second, and I’m treated to a peek at scarred skin pulled taut over impressive muscles. Heat rises to my face, and I cross my arms.
“You look like a strange man with a bunch of knives in his house,” I say, because it’s the truth. Even if he does make a pretty mean BLT.
“Fair enough. But absolutelynothing’sgonna happen to you if you don’t come to dinner,” Wyatt says, shoving one hand into his pocket, the other rubbing his stubbled jaw. “You just mightnot get all those questions of yours answered. If anything, not coming to dinner is the safer thing. Fallon is…well, you’ll see, maybe.”
I uncross my arms and glance down at the photo again, this time looking at little Wyatt. He’s got a heaviness to him, a serious slant to the set of his mouth that no kid his age should have. I don’t want him to think I’m afraid of him—because I’m not, to be honest, and because something tells me his biggest concern is keeping people safe. It’s weird. I’ll punch a different man right in the goddamn face with no remorse. But this one? I don’t know. I don’t wanna hurt him, I guess.
So, with a long exhale, I hand the framed photo back to Wyatt, my arm reaching over the space he created between us. Our fingers brush as he takes the photo, and I fight to shove away the sudden fluttering in my belly.
