her touch, but her touch hovered, forgotten. I felt the downy hairs down my spine prickle in its place.
“That is the sound of irony if I've ever heard it,” Letta said gravely.
For it was. It was no less than the sound of the very thing we had ruled out.
A wardog in the daylight...
By the gods indeed.
F I v e –
The Paper Boy
The rest of that day, we took to huddling restlessly inside. The silence returned, but it was all the more ripe for disturbing, and now we were loathe to make a sound. Dashsund saw our grave faces, and his lightheartedness faltered, wondering. I picked up a scrap of a book page from the hearth and scribbled on it with charcoal:
Wardog.
His eyes did not go wide when he read it, but they flicked up to my face, suddenly reflecting the gravity in my own. I did not need to nod. He was savvy to the implications.
He turned to spread the word, and soon we were all gathered in the front room, paused in our work, where we sat on the dirty floor beneath the laundry. It was strung about the room; we didn't dry laundry on lines in the yards anymore. It had been decreed in the prime of the spreading mischief that it was too dangerous to pose such a casual task outside. And after that, the powder-laden winds that blew in from the city (and the regular dust-laden ones that blew in from any direction of countryside) had made such a task useless, unless performed indoors. Now, it seemed the danger of posing such a casual task outside had been reintroduced.
A damp cold hung in the air around us in that front room, radiating from the articles heavy and dark with water. Viola held an article to her face as if it were her mother's skirts, and Dani wrapped his arms around his bony knees and held them blankly to his chest. It was all he could do to be blank, I supposed. It was that, or be terrified. Terror did not aid anyone in these times. A peep, and it could bring the wardogs down on you – apparently even during the day. Panic, and you could fall right into the many traps laid out across the countryside, trip across the rubble, or falter in song when the weedflowers needed singing.
Or simply die of fright, because each day was riddled with things of terror. It simply would not do to live like that, in fear.
A shadow swept across the curtains drawn over the window, and then chaffed against the house, faltered, rattled the eaves, and then scuttled onto the roof. Scraping, plunking steps made their way over the shingles.
We listened, calculating the telltale sounds.
It was only a buzzard. Normally, they left us alone. There was plenty to pick over in the city. We had heard stories, though, of a few that designated themselves loyal gargoyles to some choice rooftops. Gargoyles biding their time, until a soul under the roof fell sick, or dead, and then a bizarre thing happened.
The vultures came down the chimneys to collect.
And they were not to be deterred.
But after scraping around for a time, the buzzard on our roof spilled back off the edge, and its shadow passed back over the corner of the window and was gone.
My bones creaked as I shifted.
“I'm cold,” Viola said – quietly, but any voice was enough to draw sharp eyes.
“Ssshh!” Letta bade, but rose to go fold herself by the girl. She pulled the wet garment out of the child's hands and drew her away from it, for it was surely not helping. Then she scooted her close and pressed her against her bosom. Dani slowly unbent himself and crawled over to join them, curling up like a dog at Letta's feet.
I watched the light soak slowly down the curtain as the day ticked by. We did not hear anything else in those hours, and soon twilight was dawning in its silver way.
“I must sing,” I announced, breaking the silence.
“But minda...” Enda objected.
“We don't know what's changed,” I said. “I must. You may wait here for me.”
“But, Vanti, how will you find your way back?” Viola asked.
“I will sing with her,” Dashsund said, standing. I nodded.
“As will I,” Letta volunteered, carefully peeling herself away from the children. Looking lost, they shifted to Enda and Henry.
“We will stay with the children,” Enda said.
I nodded again, and my small procession ducked through the laundry to the door.
“Sing strong,”