I always wondered what it was like on the Outside.”
“It’s pretty different from here,” said Prue. “So no one’s ever been—to the Outside? From here?”
“Not that I know of,” was Penny’s answer. “Way too dangerous.” She walked to the bed frame and began turning down the hem of the quilt. “How’d you get in here?”
“I just walked in,” answered Prue. “But I guess I wasn’t supposed to be able to. Something about a boundary?”
“Yep,” said Penny. “There’s a thing called the Periphery; keeps us safe from the Outside. You can only get through if you’re, you know, from here.” She paused and thought for a moment. “But you’re not from here.”
“Definitely not,” said Prue.
The two girls stood quietly in the room, each privately considering that paradox.
“So I heard you lost your brother?” asked Penny finally.
Prue nodded.
“I’m real sorry to hear that,” said Penny. “I have two brothers at home and I hate ’em to death sometimes, but I can’t imagine what I’d do if they ever left.” Suddenly fearing she’d overstepped her bounds, Penny retreated to the doorway with her satchel of cleaning supplies. “Is there anything I can get for ya, miss?” she asked.
“No, I’m good,” said Prue, smiling. “I don’t suppose you know how soon they’ll come for me, do you? I mean, regarding any news they find out.”
Penny smiled sympathetically. “Sorry, dear,” she said. “I don’t know nothing about what goes on down there. I just clean up.”
Prue nodded and watched as the girl walked out into the hallway and closed the door behind her. Crossing over to a mirror that sat atop an ancient-looking vanity, Prue tousled her hair and stared at her reflection. She looked tired; there were bags under her eyes and her hair was tangled with bedhead. She stood there and let time slowly cascade over her, thinking of her parents and how devastated they must be, she and Mac now two days gone. She bet they’d been reported as missing to the police, and a search team would be assembled, combing through the parks and alleyways of St. Johns and downtown Portland. She wondered how long it would be before they gave up, declared them missing, and their pictures started showing up on the backs of milk cartons and in the foyer of the post office. Maybe, in time, they’d take old school photos and digitally age them like she’d seen on TV, creating a weird approximation of the influence of age and time on a young girl’s face, a baby boy’s toothless smile. She sighed heavily and walked from the mirror and into the bathroom, grabbing a towel and the bathrobe on her way. Maybe a hot bath would cure everything.
CHAPTER 10
Enter the Bandits; An Ominous Note
Hold to the line! Keep in formation!” barked the Dowager Governess as she stalked back and forth behind a long line of coyote soldiers who were installed at the edge of a deep, wide wash. Curtis struggled to keep pace. The sides of the wash fell gradually away from the ridgeline, allowing several distinct rows of the soldiers to find their ground. The first row was made up of fusiliers, armed with muskets, who were crouched in the tufts of maidenhair fern that blanketed the slope. Directly behind them was a long row of archers, their bows at the ready, the ground at their feet bristling with the fletching of thei
r arrows. A third, wider row stood behind these two ranks, and these were the infantry dogs, the grunts who were sparking with anticipation at the battle ahead, yapping at one another and nervously stamping the ground with their hind paws.
“Make way for the cannons!” shouted a soldier, and Curtis looked behind him to see a row of cannons—ten at least—being pushed up the rear hillside above the clearing where the soldiers’ camp was made. Each cannon had four soldiers laboring over its movement, the unruly forest floor an uncooperative surface for the cannons’ heavy wooden wheels. When they finally arrived at the rear row of infantry, the coyotes shuffled out of the way so that the cannons could be placed, every fifteen feet or so, at the highest point on the ridge. The soldiers who had pushed the cannons collapsed when they reached their goal, only to be yapped at by their commanding officers and shoved into formation.
While Alexandra stood apart and upbraided a sergeant whose column was in disorder, Curtis crept through the rows of soldiers (intoning “as you were” to every soldier who turned and saluted) to the front of the line. Arriving at the row of archers, he peered behind their shoulders, trying to catch a glimpse of the enemy that would warrant such an impressive display of military might.
The far side of the gully was empty.
Curtis looked to either side of him, down the seemingly endless row of coyotes that populated the hillside, at the soldiers as they stared with steely eyes at the ridge on the other side of the wash, and wondered what they could possibly be seeing that he wasn’t. He looked back at the far side of the gully and squinted. Still nothing; only trunks of hemlock and oak sprouting from a mossy floor of fern and salal. He whispered to the nearest archer next to him, “So who are we fighting?”
“The bandits,” replied the soldier before adding, “sir.”
Curtis nodded knowingly. “Okay,” he whispered. He still couldn’t see anything.
A moment passed.
“Where are they?” asked Curtis.
“What, the bandits?” asked the soldier, clearly uncomfortable having an officer speak to him this way.
“Yeah,” said Curtis.
“They’re in the trees, over there, sir,” said the archer, pointing to the far hillside.
“Ah, okay,” said Curtis, still unclear. “Got it. Thanks. As you were.” Muttering excuses, he pushed his way back to the rear of the formation and found the Governess speaking to a small group of officers. When she saw Curtis, she turned and smiled.
“Curtis, just in time,” she said. “We are about to begin our advance. I was thinking of depositing you in one of these high tree limbs, that you might have a better view of the battle. Would you like that?”