In The Distance, A Blood Moon

Chapter seventy - The Mole Rats

Jeremiah...

The Wolves did not linger. The children scattered into the dark like smoke passing through the leaves. David had felt the pull to join them. Jeremiah had seen it in the way his ring brother had leaned toward them as they left. Neither of them could take their eyes off the human beings crawling across the garden, burned free of their clothing for long. They reminded him of mole rats. He'd seen photographs in a book.

At the tree line, out of easy sight of the humans who might still be able to see, they bore witness. Both their stillness and Mother Nature sheltered the two of them. David signaled a question with his hands and stopped mid-gesture. Jeremiah couldn't understand. They'd been submerged in different worlds. Jeremiah'd been tracking these damaged creatures online instead of in the flesh.

"Why do they want to be us?" David asked Jeremiah quietly. "They make such a big show of rejoicing in their existence, bragging to each other about it. Consuming the world in fistfuls. They are gluttons."

Jeremiah shook his head. "It's not us they want to be. They want to be themselves, but also better, bigger, faster. Have you ever read any of the stories they have made up about us?"

A woman began screaming for help from the gap where the staircase had been torn free. Jeremiah recognized her yellow hair and sparkling dress. He took a step backward, retreating into the woods further. David moved with him.

Jeremiah wondered if the black-clad staff had disabled the attendee's cars before they left. Had they paused in the parking lot to cut wires or disconnect batteries? There had to be at least one vehicle he could start.

*

Rig...

Rig did not know how long they sat together in the night, witness to the sad and the holy, separated by the living earth. He felt acutely aware of her. Snow. The hole was a forge of heat, casting light in all directions. He did not turn his face toward her, even though all of his senses were open. In a low voice, he asked her, "Why have you come?"

"My cousin and I were riding the perimeter. I came on foot while he left to report to the skeleton crew at middle camp what was happening." She turned her wrist, and her phone caught a fractured reflection of the flames. "I let them know it was a burial. The mountain will leave them be."

Rig rubbed his fingertips together. He shouldn't look at her. She was a Bear and an underage one at that... but he wanted to. Those pale ice eyes had burned into his memory. When his body responded to the vision of her that rose, he felt a wave of disgust. By all rights, if he and his brother were to take on a woman, it would be a Wolf from a good bloodline, not some backwoods country, Bear. Plus, his brother was older, so it was expected that he would be the one to choose their partner. The spell of longing would pass when he returned home, and everything was familiar again. Spending so much time among the Bears was making his head soft. "And you... why have you remained?"

"Terry is my friend." Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her hand move to the sack she had placed on the ground. "I'd like to leave my water." Her voice cracked as she asked, "Is it... David?"

"No." The girl looked vulnerable, so pale she was a slice of moon, slim, a cut in the air. "Terry's mother lay down her life to cross the restless souls lingering at the Bell house. Her body is being rocked to sleep in the flames." Snow's fingertips pressed to her chest. Rig couldn't stop himself from asking, "Was David your lover?"

Her face contorted in a way that clarified that such a thing was unthinkable.

"He is like a brother to me." She stared at the flames. "I am grateful he isn't the one burning, because I am not ready to erase his face from the world."

Rig forced himself to turn away from her vulnerability, oddly glad she was there in a way that brought him confusion. "I am keeping watch." He took a breath to still himself. "I will tell them you were here."

Red was the only one to register the girl's presence. He'd turned his wary glance away when he recognized Snow.

She lingered. After long minutes, Rig asked. "What? Is there something else?"

"Joe is... Heartbroken I think." With the next downward thrust of the solid branch, a loud crunch echoed through the clearing. "Would they come if we asked them to?"

Rig looked at her, shocked. "After what that family has known with your people?"

The girl winced. "I know it is too much to ask." She twisted her hands together. "I love him. He carries the burden of what happened to their family as a crushing weight."

She met Red's gaze across the clearing and bowed her head. "The cost was high and couldn't have stopped what was coming. The harm that was done was a mistake." Her delicate earrings quivered as she swallowed. Forest fawn. Earth sprite. Pretty, pretty, Bear. "I have regrets."

Rig wanted to reach for her and comfort her. Instead, he shook his head to dispel the longing. The strangeness of his response to her unsettled him. He forced himself to turn his focus back to the fire. The silence built between them, coating the ground like fresh snow. The moon had shifted in the trees before she rose, and like a shadow, slipped back into the woods she knew so well.