“Sheriff Yamah called me. He stopped by the shop thirty minutes ago, but you didn’t answer the door.”
“I never heard him,” I said quickly. “I’ve been working back in the storeroom. What did the sheriff want?”
“He wanted to make sure you were all right.” He sighed. “Well, at least now I know you’re safe. I’ll see you at the bus stop. Be careful.”
“I will, I promise. Bye.” I hung up the phone and hugged myself with my arms. “The sheriff came by the shop while we were gone. He called Trick.” A wave of anger came over me, and I knocked a pile of tally sheets to the floor. “I can’t even spend a few hours with you without my brother ruining everything.”
“Catlyn.” Jesse came over and put his arms around me, and touched his forehead to mine. “Nothing is ruined. We will be more careful and stay in the shop. The tunnels are not important. Being with you is all I need.”
“I’m glad you feel that way, because we’re not going to be able do anything but sit in this shop all winter break and look at each other.” A yowling sound from the back of the store made me cringe. “God, not again.”
We went to the back door, and as Jesse turned on the outside light I looked through the small square window. Dozens of stray cats had swarmed into the alley, and were mewling and milling restlessly just outside the shop’s door.
“Marvelous.” I knew my anger had drawn them here; felines responded to my thoughts, and when I was angry, formed my own little private furry army. When I reached to unlatch the bolt, Jesse stopped me. “Jess, you know I have to go out there and send them away or they’ll stay here all night.”
“I know, but not yet,” he said, and touched my temple. “If you are to gain control of your ability, you must practice using it. This is a good opportunity. Give them a command with your thoughts. Tell them to sit.”
I felt silly as I closed my eyes and did what he asked. All felines in the immediate area, please sit. When the yowling stopped I glanced through the window and saw five young cats sitting on the doorstep, and the rest staring up at me. “It didn’t work.”
“Try once more,” Jesse urged me. “Remember, they have limited minds. Keep your command simple.”
This time I kept my eyes on the cats as I thought a single word: Sit.
Every cat in the alley dropped their hindquarters. A couple of thin, scruffy-looking toms turned their heads and hissed at each other.
Quiet, I thought, and the cats fell silent. “It’s working now.” I didn’t like it, either. “Why does it have to be cats? Why not polar bears, or killer whales? Why not Dobermans?”
“Vampires do not dwell in the Arctic or the ocean, and they frighten dogs.” Jesse nodded toward the cats. “All felines are hunters, and even the smallest and most domesticated retain some of their feral nature.”
“You mean they’re all natural born killers.” I closed my eyes. “Like me.”
“We are who we choose to be,” he said softly. “I died a mortal, and my murderers tried to bring me back as a vampire. I may never be human again, but no one can force me to kill. You know this because you have made the same choice.”
His calmness made me feel ashamed of my self-pity party, which I decided it was time to end. “I think that’s enough practice for one night.” I looked out at the cats, and as soon as I thought Leave they scattered in all directions. “I’ve still got to go through one of the bins in the storeroom. Want to help me sort out the old scary books?”
Jesse did even better than that; he set up a table and two chairs behind the back bookcases where we could work without being seen from the front of the shop. Then he carried out the first bin and began unloading it. I rolled up my sleeves and got started on the first tally sheet for the collection.
After he set down the first stack of books, he leaned over and gently touched the abrasion across the back of my wrist. “You hurt yourself.”
“It’s just a rope burn. Rika ran off the other day, and I had to catch her.” I told him what had happened, and added, “I know Trick bought her just because she’s pregnant and we all need to practice foaling, but I’m not sure it’s worth all this trouble.”
“Horses are herd animals, and we are not,” Jesse said. “Until we gain their trust, they see people as what we are: predators.”
“You’d think by now she’d have figured out we don’t want to eat her.” I set down a stack of books and frowned. “You’ve raised a lot of horses. What do you think could be wrong with her?”
“From what you’ve told me, she is afraid, not lazy,” Jesse said. “Has she made a place for herself among the other horses?”
“Well, Sali’s our lead mare, and Rika seems to be okay with that. I mean, she doesn’t challenge her or pick fights.” I thought for a minute. “She knows Jupiter is our alpha horse, but she’s never shown any respect to him. Jupe is pretty patient, but eventually he’ll go after her to bring her in line. And she hates Flash, which is weird because he’s the master of avoidance.” I shook my head. “Mostly what she does is run away, which is not normal for a pregnant mare. She runs like the farm is a trap, and we’re monsters, and she wants to escape.”
“It sounds as if she is obeying her survival instinct,” Jesse said, sounding thoughtful. “Horses respond first to danger by running from it. Something is prompting her to flee. When you determine the trigger, then you can understand her fear.”
“Everything seems to scare her.” I sighed. “Gray has been trying to train her, but she’s not responding.”
“You should perhaps take her back in the barn to work with her. She will be enclosed there, and cannot see an avenue of escape,” he advised. “I would use a bridle with a smooth-mouth snaffle and a short rein. Don’t try to make her stand still; that will only aggravate her nerves. Work her from one end of the barn to the other, and see how well she can turn on command. When she does turn, ease up on the reins, and she will know she has performed correctly.”
We’d all assumed Rika knew her turning cues, something taught when a horse was saddle-trained. Even if she did know them, I saw the wisdom of repeating the cue training; horses always followed their noses. “Plus she can’t charge forward if all she’s doing is turning in circles.”
“Exactly. Once she lowers her head to rein pressure, and turns on cue each time, then move her outside. Use a round, empty pen and don’t hang anything on the railings. Make sure it has dry ground that offers good footing. Horses have no depth perception, so even a small hole or puddle can appear to them as deep as a mine shaft.”
It always amazed me, how much Jesse knew about horses. Of course he and his parents had been breeding and training them for more than a century. “Thanks for the advice.” I wished I could ask him to come to the farm to look at Rika, but that could never happen. “Hopefully we can get her trained before she delivers, or we may have to take her to the vet to foal.” I saw he had opened one of the books and was reading the title page. “What do you think of the creepiness collection?”
“Julian must have spent a great deal of money to build it.” He glanced in the bin. “Most of these appear to be older than I am.”
“That’s why they’ve survived so long.” I picked up a slim volume on ancient astrology and admired the gilded edges. “They really made them to last, back in the day.” I realized something and giggled at myself.
“What is so funny?”
“I was going to ask you what your sign is,” I explained. “That’s also known as the oldest and lamest pick-up line in the world.”
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I was born on June nineteenth.”
“I think that makes you a Cancer.” I opened the astrology book and thumbed through it until I found a chart. “Nope, I’m wrong. You’re a Gemini.”
“Indeed.” He leaned close and waggled his eyebrows. “What’s your sign, pretty girl?”
I laughed. “I’m an Aquarius, you lecher.” I read through the different notations on the chart. “This says we’re both air signs, so I think that makes us compatible. Let me check.” I flipped through some pages to the section on Aquarius, and stopped as a folded note fell out. I opened it to see Julian Hargraves’s name printed at the top, followed by some writing in an unsteady hand:
Born January 27th
Seattle Wash
NMR
I read it twice before I handed it to Jesse. “I guess Mr. Hargraves looked up his sign in the book, too. Kind of a weird coincidence, though.”
“Why is that?”
“Well, it’s just that my birthday is January twenty-seventh, and I was born in Seattle.” I frowned. “Hang on. Trick read the obituary to me from the paper. It said that Julian was born here, in Lost Lake.”
Jesse gave me a troubled look. “He was.”
At ten o’clock I left the bookstore and walked down the block to the bus stop. Jesse couldn’t go with me, or let anyone see him leaving the shop, but he promised to watch over me. I didn’t realize he meant that literally until I sat down on the bench at the park stop. Across the street I spotted a tall, slim shadow jumping from the roof of one building to another.
I held my breath as he walked to the edge of the building across from the park and stood there looking down at me like some dark guardian angel.
An older woman carrying some shopping bags came and sat on the other end of the bench, and we exchanged tired smiles.
Jesse, someone is going to see you, I thought as I deliberately stared at my sneakers.
I do this all the time, Jesse thought back to me. After dark, people never look up.
They’ll look if you slip and fall on your head. The sound of the bus coming down the road made me turn my head, and I saw two people standing at the corner. One was Mrs. Johnson, who was staring at me again. The other was a tired-looking man who was talking to her. I couldn’t hear what he said, but when he tried to take her arm she shook him off, turned and walked back to her shop. The man followed her inside.