“Does that help?” she asked.
“It helps.”
“Will you tell me why you’re angry and sad?”
He glanced at Merri Lee, then looked at Meg and whined softly. “Some of the blood prophets have left the compounds. You saw them walking by themselves near roads. And some of them . . .”
Meg understood then why Merri Lee wouldn’t tell her what she’d seen that morning. “I saw images that indicated some of them would die.”
“Yes. But the terra indigene are searching for the girls now. So are the police. We’ll find them, Meg. We will find them and get them to a safe place.”
How many girls had she seen? “Where will you take them?”
“To Intuit villages or terra indigene settlements,” Simon said. “Whatever is closest to the spot where we find them.” He paused. “What should we do when we find them?”
What would have helped me if I had been alone and frightened, if I had been found by strangers?
“Images,” Meg said. Merri Lee and Ruth nodded vigorously. “Tell the girls what is happening. Tell them how they will get from where they are to where they’re being taken. We all have general images about traveling. Tell them the sequence so they can recall the training images that match. Then, if you can, show them a picture of the room that will be the safe place.”
Her arms suddenly prickled so badly they burned, but she didn’t dare rub her skin. Simon would recognize the warning of prophecy. So would Ruth and Merri Lee. They knew she shouldn’t cut again today, having cut herself this morning, and Simon was already upset. She didn’t want to think about how he would howl and growl if she pulled out the razor a second time in one day.
“I have to go,” Simon said. “The rest of the terra indigene need to know these things.”
“So do the police officers involved in rescuing the girls,” Ruth said. “You should call them too.”
He bared his teeth to show he didn’t like someone giving him an order, but the teeth stayed human size, so he must have thought Ruth was right. That was probably the real reason he growled at them and said, “You write this down for the Guide.”
Before they could protest, he walked out of the sorting room and slammed the back door as he left the office.
“Well . . . ,” Merri Lee sputtered.
“I guess we should start writing The Dimwit’s Guide to Blood Prophets,” Meg said.
After a moment, Ruth nodded. “Yes, we should. And I think we should find someone who can draw so we can add a cartoon Meg pointing out important items.”
“What?” Meg yelped.
“The cartoon Meg could be named Meg Pathfinder,” Merri Lee said. “And she could provide Trailblazer Tips that other girls would find useful.”
“I don’t think we should call it Dimwit’s,” Ruth said. “Maybe just The Blood Prophets Guide.”
“Yes,” Meg whispered. The painful buzz under her skin faded to a light prickling in her fingertips. Then that, too, was gone. “A guide for the girls as well as the people trying to help them.”
“All right.” Merri Lee clapped her hands. “Let’s see if we can use the computer in the Business Association’s room to write up these first notes. Who should we ask for permission? Vlad or Tess?”
“Whichever one we find first?” Ruth said.