Tin Swift(12)

That wasn’t right. Wasn’t the natural way of a town.

They should ride on, ride around this puzzlement. There was death and dying here. And the Strange lurked nearby, maybe the Holder too.

But with night coming on and rain drenching them through, they needed a place to rest. If Vicinity had suffered some kind of sickness or disaster and cleared out months ago, there would still be supplies they could scavenge and a roof and walls against the cold and rain.

Instinct might tell him to run. But reason told him they should check the town first, and ride on by only if there were actual signs of danger.

Cedar clicked his tongue and turned Flint back to rejoin the others.

Bryn Madder was on the little roan, forging the trail, with Rose and Mae right behind him. The bulky wagon brought up the rear, clattering along like a crazy circus sideshow all its own. Cedar didn’t know if Wil rode in the wagon or if he had gone out hunting, as was his habit just before sunset.

“Lovely weather we’re having,” Bryn said when he caught sight of Cedar. The brass monocle over his eye had just a glass lens now. Bryn rubbed the rain off it with the cuff of his shirt. “You find us some place a little drier to stop, like maybe beneath Niagara Falls?”

“Town just up a bit,” Cedar said. “Vicinity. Looks empty. Stinks of the Strange, maybe more than that.”

Bryn’s quick grin split his beard. “Sounds about right. You do have a way of stumbling into the most interesting of predicaments, Mr. Hunt.”

He maneuvered his horse—well, the dead man’s horse—past Cedar, following the trail like he was clopping along in full daylight. A second later, Cedar heard the click and scratch of a match as one of those green globe lanterns the brothers always carried caught flame.

Bryn tied the glass globe to the saddle, secured so the globe sat snug near his knee. From the clever positioning of mirror-polished metal inside that glass, the globe gave out a brighter and wider circle of light than any lantern Cedar had seen. And since it took such a wee flame to throw that much light, the thick glass wouldn’t warm to the touch for a long while.

Rose rode up to him, Mae right beside her. Rose had a lead line on Mae’s mule. He didn’t know when the girl had decided to do so, but he was grateful for her thoughtfulness. Mae must be deep enough in the thrall of the voices calling her home that she didn’t know what Rose had done.

“Did I hear you say the town’s ahead?” Rose asked wistfully. “That’s about the sweetest thing I’ve heard for weeks.”

“Might be trouble,” Cedar said.

“What sort?” Rose asked, glancing at Bryn riding off with a ray of sunshine tacked to his saddle.

“The town looks deserted. And I smell the Strange.”

Rose shrugged. “You always smell the Strange, Mr. Hunt. You’re made for it. Why, I’d bet if there was a bogey or ghooley in a ten-mile range, you’d know it.”

“I would. And I believe there is. So keep your gun handy.”

“Always do, Mr. Hunt.”

Mae didn’t say a single thing. She just sat her saddle, fingers working against each other like she was shucking peas from a pod. Her eyes were glassy, dazed, her lips pale. Full caught in the madness.

One thing was sure. When they made it to the sisterhood, and the witches gave Mae back her slipping mind, Cedar was going to sit down with each and every one of those women. No one should be driven from their good sense because of an old promise. A promise based on fear.

Mae had mumbled plenty during the three weeks on the trail. Pleading to the voices in her mind, maybe pleading to the memories of her past. Saying she wasn’t evil. Saying magic didn’t so much go bad in her hands as just set things to happening in the most final of ways. Her magic leaned toward curses, the making and breaking of them. Leaned toward vows and binding things and people together.

The sisters had turned that sort of magic on her, and bound her to the soil of the coven. So if ever she strayed too far from the sisterhood, she’d have to return home.

No matter what was in her way—weather, mountains, or madness.

Mae might not complain of the fine cruelty of such a binding, but Cedar wondered if maybe the sisters really didn’t want her home. Were maybe working hard to make sure she died trying to get there.

The wagon rattled up, Alun in the high driver’s seat. He’d traded his kerchief for a battered sombrero, the wide brim keeping most of his bulk dry beneath it. The pipe clenched in his teeth drew cherry red and the sweet smoke of tobacco rolled circles under the brim.

Cadoc Madder must be inside the wagon.

“Trouble, I hear, Mr. Hunt? Or town?” Alun called out.