lights moving along from here”—his finger traced a line—“to here, before disappearing.”
“There’s no road there,” I said. “Look at your maps. There was no road there when I was a young— when I was a child, and there’s no road in your satellite maps. Not even in your flyover drone thing, the RVAC.”
Rick shuffled papers and found a printed view of the camp. “Remote-viewing aircraft. And you’re right. No road. So what’s over there?”
A peculiar tingling swept through me, a knowing, a coming together of possibilities that smacked of all kinds of reasoning and settled into a hunch. “The Stubbins farm. The drone—the RVAC,” I corrected, “that took photos of God’s Cloud’s property didn’t go past the property to other farms, did it? You believe that HST took sanctuary in Knoxville, maybe with some nonaligned or disaffected or former church family. The Stubbinses, they sound like good candidates to have offered their property as sanctuary. And the place you saw lights moving?” I said to the cats. “That’s near the boundary of the Stubbins farm.” When I stopped talking, the house was quiet for a long stretch of time, marked by the faint creak of the windmill out back. Rick lifted his eyes from the satellite map and met mine. His were glowing greenish gold, a supernatural glow that spoke of the werecat he couldn’t shift into.
“Could be something. The feds will be happy to hear it, when we get back to someplace with a signal. Okay, people,” Rick said, folding up the map and turning off his laptop. “Nell’s out of power, and dawn comes fast. Tomorrow, we need to gather as much intel on the Stubbinses as we can. In the morning, Paka and Occam, you’ll shift again and we’ll rig you with radios. You’ll go back as close to the Stubbins farm as possible and get intel. If Nell’s right about a faction of the church being involved with the Human Speakers of Truth, then maybe the Stubbins farm is a possible location for HST and our three missing abductees.”
I noticed that he didn’t include my sister as a missing girl. Something inside grew tight and hard at that omission. With one major exception, the local law enforcement had always felt that God’s Cloud’s girls brought whatever happened on themselves. Protection wasn’t offered to us. “I thought radios didn’t work on Nell’s property,” T. Laine said.
Rick answered, his tone without emotion, “Jane’s crew found a way to rig a system, short-term and short distance. I’ve got similar equipment in the van, so I’ll park here”—he pointed to a road on the map—“and set it up. But we have plenty of time to work it out in the morning. Let’s get some shut-eye.”
* * *
Though I was intensely aware of all the noises in the house, I did manage to get some sleep in the four hours before I had to get up. It felt abnormal to not have cats on my narrow bed, but they had deserted my blankets for the beds of the big-cats. It felt even more odd to feel the purrs of cats reverberate through the floors; were-big-cats often purred in their sleep, it seemed. Everything felt unfamiliar in every way, and my dreams were chaotic, visions of running across my garden and through the woods, chased by vans that purred like cats. And more horrible dreams where I raced into a room to save Esther. And was too late.
* * *
It was difficult getting dressed for the day in silence that allowed my guests to sleep on. In my small nook, keeping my thoughts clear and calm so as not to wake Tandy, especially, I dressed in the clothes that had dried overnight in front of the woodstove, clothing appropriate for a repenting churchwoman—gray skirt to my calves, heavy leggings, black boots to my knees, covering all the skin between hem and boot. Chemise, two layered pullover shirts, a sweater, and a coat. I was hoping that I could force my daddy to go with me after Esther this morning, or I’d go after her myself if necessary. I also needed to show Sister Erasmus the men in the photos, the ones in the SUV and Boaz from the shooting. I needed to get in and out easily even if it meant lying blatantly about everything. I wasn’t good at lying. I wasn’t good at any of this. But I had one chance to get in, get Esther, learn something, and get out.