We were halfway there when Mud whooshed out a breath and stated, “I ain’t never ever having no babies. They make people crazy.”
I chuckled unwillingly. I didn’t really want to laugh at Esther, but Mud had a point.
“And you’un—you—know what she’s gonna do, don’tcha? She’s gonna call every hour all night long, not able to sleep, keeping you awake, complaining about funny noises the house makes as it settles, complaining that werecats are hunting in her yard. And they will be, you know that, prowling in the woods, caterwauling, what with it being the full moon. There’s the cars on the side of the road,” she pointed out.
She was right about the werecats, but I said nothing, not even correcting Mud’s grammar. I fully believed my younger sister was right and I’d have calls all night.
But for two hours there was nothing, not a single call. Mud, the dog, the cats, and I ate popcorn, watched a Disney movie about Aladdin, and went to sleep early, our home feeling like our home again. Just ours.
It didn’t last.
At two a.m., Esther called my cell, in high dudgeon. “You’un get your’nself down this hill to my house right this minute,” she demanded. “You’un need to talk to the trees.”
“The trees?”
“Get on down here and see for your’nself.” The call ended in a huff I could feel through the airwaves.
I shoved the cats off me, got up, dressed in jeans, boots, and a T-shirt with a sweatshirt over it. I clomped up the stairs and looked in on Mud, who was sleeping, limbs sprawled across the covers. Back down the stairs, I checked the banked coals in the stove, which were keeping the house a little too warm tonight, and cracked a few windows to let out some heat. Satisfied that the house was safe, and that I had no other legitimate reasons to dither, I stared at my PsyLED gear and debated taking my official weapon. This was a private issue, not a law enforcement one—I hoped—so I settled on John’s shotgun, loaded it with ammo big enough to take down a deer, and trudged outside.
The night air smelled of woodsmoke, winter foliage, fresh-cut hay from somewhere, and chickens. Putting my hand to the earth, I inspected the property, discerning only creatures who belonged, including a leap of werecats off on the church boundary eating a deer they had taken down. I paid them no mind, looking for unexpected or strange things. Found none. Mud was safe, so I got in my car.
I passed Unit Eighteen’s cars as I drove down the hill and was surprised to see FireWind’s car too. I hadn’t counted the cats, but he must be with them. That was interesting, especially as Soulwood was treating the new cat like one of the weres. I would have to pull all the info about the hunt out of Occam come morning.
I eased down the hill, whipping the wheel into my sister’s drive. I braked, the tires grinding in the gravel, the house illuminated by headlights.
The house was . . . different. Crazy different.
The horizontal logs had put out roots, long, sinuous roots, trailing and draping to the ground, thickening into trunks. They were also growing up, becoming tall like saplings, and out, like living siding, with branches all sprouting leaves. Not the dark green leaves with red petioles of the vampire tree, but burgundy, five-pointed leaves, edges serrated like maple leaves, growing in pairs, one pair one way, the next pair the other, so they appeared in a round fan. The leaves on the bottom were huge; near the tops of the new trees, which were still sprouting, they were smaller. The treetops curled, rising above the roof, where they spread out, forming what looked like an unopened tulip-blossom-shaped framework. A roof of living wood.
Vines with the same leaf positioning were growing all around the trim on the windows and around the doorway like decorations. Saplings had sprouted around the periphery of the house. Every branch and twig was flowering bunches of pretty, tiny white flowers. Like a fairy house.
“Oh. Dear,” I said aloud to the night.
I parked on a gravel area where no saplings grew and got out. I left the shotgun. There was no need for it. I kept a flashlight in my glove compartment and I turned it on. The bright beam tossed images of intense illumination and deepest shadows, bouncing off the window glass.
My sister opened the back door and waddled onto the stoop.