The flashlight beam swung wildly. Mary-Lynnette flattened herself, feeling her eyes widen. She could see a silhouette against the light-golden hair haloed around the face. Kestrel. Kestrel was standing, facing Mark and Mary-Lynnette, her body tense and still. Listening. Listening.
Mary-Lynnette lay absolutely motionless, mouthopen, trying to breathe without making a soundThere were things crawling in the soft, springy needlebed under her. Centipedes and millipedes. She didn'tdare move even when she felt something tickle acrossher back under her shirt.
Her own ears rang from listening. But the forest was silent ... eerily dent. All Mary-Lynnette couldhear was her own heart pounding wildly in herchest-although ft felt as if it were in her throat, too.It made her head bob with its rhythm.
She was afraid.
And it wasn't just fear. It was something shecouldn't remember experiencing since she was nineor ten.
Ghost fear. The fear of something you're not even sure exists.
Somehow, watching Kestrel's silhouette In the dark woods, Mary-Lynnette was afraid of monsters.She had aterrible,terrible feeling.
Oh, please--I shouldn't have brought Mark here.
It was then that she realized that Mark's breathing was making a noise. Just a faint sound, not a whistling, more like a cat purring. It was the sound he'd made as a kid when his lungs were bad.
Kestrel stiffened, her head turning, as if to locate a noise.
Oh, Mark, no. Don't breathe. Hold your breath-Everything happened very fast.
Kestrel sprang forward. Mary-Lynnette saw her silhouette come running and jumping with unbelievable speed. Toofast-nobody moves thatfast .. .
nobody human....
What are these girls?
Her vision came in flashes,as if she were under a strobe light. Kestrel jumping. Dark trees all around. a moth caught in the beam.
Kestrel coming down.
Protect mark...
A deer. Kestrel was coming down on a deer. Mary-Lynnette's mind was filled with jumbled, careening images. Images that didn't make sense. She had a wild thought that it wasn't Kestrel at all, but one of those raptor dinosaurs she'd seen at the movies. Because Kestrel moved like that.
Or maybe ftwasn't a deer-but Mary-Lynnette could seethe white at its throat, as pure as a lace ruffle at the throat of a young girl. She could see itsliquid black eyes.
The deer screamed.
Disbelief.
I can't be seeing this....
The deer was on the ground, delicate legs thrashing. And Kestrel was tangled with it. Her face buriedin the white of its throat. Her arms around it.
The deer screamed again. Wrenched violently.Seemed to be having convulsions.
The flashlight beam was all over the place. Then it dropped. At the very edge of the light, Mary-Lynnette could see two other figures join Kestrel.They were all holding the deer. There was one last spasm and it stopped fighting. Everything went still. Mary-Lynnette could see Jade's hair, so fine that individual strands caught the light against the background of darkness.
In the silent Bearing the three figures cradled thedeer. Huddling over it. Shoulders moving rhythmically.
Mary-Lynnette couldn't see exactly what theywere doing, but the general scene wasf,miliar.She'd seen it on dozens of nature documentaries. About wild dogs or lionesses or wolves. The pack hadhunted and now ft wasfeeding.
I have always tried... to bea very good observer. And now, I have to believe my own eyes... .
Beside her, Mark's breath wassobbing.
Oh, God, let me get him out of here. Please justlet us get out.
It was as if she'd been suddenly released from paralysis. Her lip was bleeding again-she must havebitten down on it while she was watchingthe deer.Copperbloodfear filled her mouth.
"Come on," shegasped almost soundlessly, wiggling backward. Twigs and needles raked her stomachas her T-shirt rode up. She grabbed Mark's arm."Come onl"
Instead, Mark lurched to his feet.
"Mark!" She wrenched herself to her knees andtried to drag him down.
He pulled away. Hetook a step toward theclearing.
No "Jade!"
He was heading for the clearing.
No, Mary-Lynnette thought again, andthen shewas moving after him. They were caught now, andit really didn't matter what he did. Butshe wantedto bewith him.
"Jade!" Mark said and he grabbed the flashlight.He turned it directly on the little huddle at the edgeof the clearing. Three faces turned toward him.
Mary-Lynnette's mind reeled. It was one thing toguess what the girls were doing; it was another thingto seeit. Those three beautiful faces, white in the flashlight beam ...with what looked like smearedlipstick on their mouths and chins. Cardinal red, thimbleberry color.
But it wasn't lipstick or burst thimbleberries. It wasblood, and the deer's white neck was stained with it.
Eating the deer, they're really eating the deer;oh, God, they're really doing it....
Some part of her mind-the part that had absorbedhorror movies-expected the three girls to hiss and cringe away from the light. To block it out with bloodstained hands while making savage faces.
It didn't happen. There were no animal noises, nodemon voices, no contortions.
Instead, as Mary-Lynnette stood frozen in an agonyof horror, and Mark stood trying to get a normal breath, Jade straightened up.
And said, "What are you guys doing out here?"
In a puzzled, vaguely annoyed voice. The way youwould speak to some boy who keeps following you everywhere and asking you for a date.
Mary-Lynnette felt her mind spinning off.
There was a long silence. Then Rowan and Kestrelstood up. Mark was breathing heavily, moving the flashlight from one of the girls to another, but always coming back to Jade.
"What areyoudoing out here; that's the question!"
he said raggedly. The flashlight whipped to the hole, then back tothe girls. "What are you doing?"