Two more times I slipped through the glade to check. Both times it was still eating and showed no signs of stopping.
I returned to my tree, where I watched the sun crawl across the sky. The day heated up and I stripped off my coat, sweater, and jersey. I made a sling from the jersey, knotted the MacHalo in it, and tied it to a stick, hobo style.
I spent my time alternately worrying about Mom and Dad, trying to convince myself that Barrons had rescued them; Dani being at the abbey and what rash decisions she might make without me there to keep an eye on her; Christian and where he’d gotten off to and hoping he’d found food because I’d never gotten the chance to give him one of my protein bars; and even V’lane, for disappearing and never popping up again.
I couldn’t think of a single thing to worry about for Barrons.
I pondered life, trying to make sense of it, wondering how I could ever have grown up believing the world a sane, safe, orderly place.
I was about to push myself up to go check on my stones for the fourth time when I heard a twig snap.
My head whipped around.
The monster was crouched on all fours, no more than twenty feet away from me.
It stared though the tall grass, head hunkered low, yellow eyes glittering.
Was it done with the boar and hungry for me now?
I grabbed my hobo stick and coat and shot up the tree so fast I think I gouged sod from the earth. Heart in my throat, I flew from limb to limb.
I hate heights as much as I hate confined spaces, but halfway up I forced myself to stop and look down. Could the monster climb? It didn’t look as if it should be able to, with what I estimated had to be four hundred pounds of muscle plus all those talons, but in this world who knew? Especially with the weirdly fluid way it could move.
It was on the ground beneath the tree, on all fours, tearing at the grass where moments ago I’d been sitting.
As I watched, it found my sweater. It pierced it on long talons and raised it to its face.
I gasped. The sweater wasn’t the only thing of mine it had. Tied to its rear horns by a leather drawstring was my rune-covered bag.
The monster had my stones!
When it finally wandered off—with my sweater knotted around one of its hind legs—I descended the tree. After a long, internal debate with myself, I shrugged and began to follow it.
I was furious at the latest turn of events.
Why had the damned thing picked up my stones, and how—with those lethal talons—had it managed to tie the bag to its horns? Wasn’t knot-tying pretty damned evolved for a prehistoric-looking beast? And what was the deal with my sweater?
It realized I was following it, stopped, turned around, and looked at me.
My instincts screamed for me to tuck tail and run again, but there was something strange going on here. Although it bristled with fury, it hadn’t taken a single step my way.
“Those are my stones and I need them,” I tried.
Feral yellow eyes narrowed, unblinking.
I pointed to its horns. “The pouch. It’s mine. Give it back.”
Nothing. There wasn’t a flicker of understanding or anything remotely resembling intelligence in its gaze.
I pointed to my own head and mimed removing a bag and tossing it away. I mimed untying my sweater from its leg to drive my point home. I indulged in a small fit of charades, with many variations on the theme. Nothing. My efforts yielded no more fruit than an interrogation of Barrons would have.
Finally, out of sheer exasperation, I did a little dance, just to see if it would have any reaction at all.
It stood up on its rear legs and began to howl, revealing an alarming number of teeth, then dropped to all fours and lunged at me, over and over again, drawing up short each time, like a dog on a leash.
I went perfectly still.
It was almost as if it wanted to attack me, but for some reason it couldn’t.
It stilled, too, growling, watching me carefully with narrowed eyes.
After a moment, it turned and glided away, muscle and madness.
Sighing, I followed it. I had to get my stones.
It stopped, turned around, and snarled at me. It clearly didn’t like me following it. Too bad. When it began moving again, I waited where I was for a few seconds, then followed at a more discreet distance. I hoped it had a lair that it would take the stones to, and when it left again to hunt, maybe I could steal them back.
I followed it for hours, through meadows and finally into a forest near a wide, rapidly flowing river, where I lost it among the trees.
Daylight ended with disconcerting abruptness on this world.
The sun had been inching across the sky most of the day, but at roughly five o’clock—or so I assumed by its angle to the planet—the blazing ball plummeted faster than the one in Times Square on New Year’s Eve. If I hadn’t been squinting up through the trees at that precise moment, trying to decide how much time I had left to find a place to hole up for the night, I’d neither have seen nor believed it.