Author: Megan Shepherd

“Hello?” I called again.

Only the howling wind answered. What lurked out there, watching?

I heard the scraping sound again, just outside the window. Inches away. My body went rigid. Something screamed inside me to run, but I gritted my teeth, ready to thrust the shears into those watching eyes. Hungry to do it.

Alice was forgotten. It was only me and the monster and the rolling thunder. Tap tap tap. Coming from so close. The thrill made my blood flow backward. I was ready. I squeezed the bars, knuckles white. In the pit of my stomach I knew that not even iron bars would keep us safe from the thing outside.

The wind howled, blowing cracks and wrinkles in the dark clouds. Faint moonlight broke through and glistened off three long, black claws on the other side of the bars.

Stretching close enough, almost, to graze my fingertips.

Thirty-one

A JOLT OF FEAR nailed my feet to the floor. The claws found the stone windowsill, grazing gently, scraping at the rusty bars. Then three slow, sinister taps. Tap, tap, tap. Asking for entrance.

My heart crashed and throbbed, trying to break free of my ribs, pulled toward that monster in the night like rivers to the sea. I was hopelessly bound to the thing outside.

I leaned even closer, my trembling fingers a hair away from the glistening claws. I felt a deep, pulsing need to know the nature of the beast still hidden in shadows.

Alice screamed. The spell broke. I blinked, looking at the claws that were even now reaching for me. I slammed the shears into the longest one. It split down the rigid seam, shattering at the point. I dug the shears harder until I wrenched it off. The beast howled. The claws were pulled back into the darkness, save for one that fell to the floor.

“Miss, get away from the window!”

I crawled over the bed, fast as I could, and collapsed beside her. The wind whistled, calling me back. I fought the urge and pulled Alice into my arms instead. “It’s gone,” I said.

“It’ll return!”

“It can’t get through the bars.” My chest heaved. I wanted to tell her we were safe, but the lie wouldn’t form. “Get back on the bed, Alice. Finish your needlepoint.”

“I can’t! Not with the monster out there!”

I cocked my head. Something about the way she said it: the monster. Not a monster. As if she had a certain one in mind. Jaguar had said the same thing. I gave her a sidelong look, wondering if she knew something more than she let on. “Try.”

She could tell I was serious. We climbed back onto the bed and I picked up my milk goat and stabbed it with the needle. The men should return soon. They had rifles. Horses. We just had to wait it out.

I kept stitching, stiffly, until she picked her needle up, too.

“You called it the monster,” I said slowly.

Her hands shook. She didn’t look up.

“Did you mean Jaguar? The one they called Ajax?”

She bit her bottom lip. Her needlepoint had apparently become endlessly fascinating.

“What aren’t you telling me, Alice?” The edge to my voice slapped her. The harshness of it startled even me—I sounded so much like Father.

“Not Ajax, miss,” she said softly. “Ajax was friends with Montgomery. They could have been brothers they way they went on. He used to tell me stories. I’d never be afraid of Ajax.”

My needlepoint fell into my lap, forgotten. If she wasn’t afraid of Ajax, then why was her voice shaking?

“Jaguar isn’t the one killing the islanders, is he?”

Her lips pressed together. It was enough of an answer.

I grabbed her wrist. “Then what is?” She shrank back. I hadn’t meant to scare her. I wanted to protect her, but I couldn’t do that without the truth.

“I can’t say, miss!”

“Why not?”

“It’s listening! It’s always listening. It’ll kill me if I tell.” Her eyes welled with tears. She was so young—a child, really. A kind person might have patted her hand and told her everything was all right. I dug my nails into her palm instead.

“What do you mean? What’s listening?”

“The monster!”

Something scrambled on the roof. Something big. Fast. Tiles crashed to the ground outside.

My breath froze. Alice cried out. I pulled her close, a finger against her lips. We both looked upward. It was right above our heads. The walls had to be twenty feet high. What kind of creature could scale a sheer wall? Another tile fell. Then came a thump in the courtyard. My head jerked toward the sound.

It was inside the compound.

I closed my eyes. My heart hammered wildly. The men were gone. The guns were across the compound in the barn. We hadn’t even any proper locks on the doors. All we had was my wits.

“Alice, I want you to crawl under the bed.” I knew, somehow, that hiding from it was useless. But at least she would feel safer.

Her eyes were riveted on the door. “They can’t open the latches unless they have five fingers,” she said. “The doctor said so.”

There was conviction in her voice. She believed in him blindly, just like his beasts did.

I scowled. “He said they couldn’t get past the walls, either, and that was a lie.” I bit my tongue before I said more. I’d only scare her. He was deluded into thinking himself a god, so adored by his creations that they’d never turn against him. But animals were animals. And there was only one way of dealing with a bloodthirsty wild animal: kill it before it killed you.

I picked up the shears in one hand and the lantern in the other. “Stay here,” I said.

“Miss, don’t go out there!”

But I already had the door cracked open. “Montgomery keeps ammunition and rifles in the barn. I’m going to try to make it there.”

Outside, rain poured off the roof into puddles. A lantern hung by the salon door, dimly lighting the courtyard. The tomato plants looked like skeletons in the shadows. A set of slippery tracks staggered across the mud, too muddled to count the number of toes. Leading to where, I couldn’t tell.

“Keep the door closed,” I said. “And stay under the bed.”

“Wait for the doctor and Montgomery, miss, please!”

But I didn’t trust Father’s promises like she did. The monster didn’t obey my father’s rules. It had made it into the compound. It had killed wantonly. It would find us.

“I’ll be back soon. I promise.” I slipped out.

The compound was quiet, except for the rain and the wind. I moved silently, as I’d seen Jaguar do. Toe-heel. Toe-heel. I expected every shadow to jump to life. I could feel eyes watching from some dark place. I tried to tell myself I might be mistaken. In the haze of fear, every noise sounded louder. It might have only been a bird on the roof, or a squirrel.

But the tracks didn’t belong to a squirrel, and no bird could knock tiles off the roof. I held up the lantern, my throat feeling exposed and vulnerable in the light. If it was out there, watching, I was an easy target.

I studied the tracks from under the eaves of the portico. They seemed to go everywhere and nowhere. It was impossible to single out a footprint in the mud and darkness. All I could tell was that they were large.

Very large.

A cry came from the jungle and I leapt. An owl. But it was startling enough to make me dart the rest of the way to the barn, panicked, the lantern light flickering wildly, until I threw open the barn door and closed it behind me, sealing myself inside.

Total darkness. The wind had extinguished the lantern’s flame.

I could hear only the rasp of my breath and the steady drip of the leaky barn roof. Smell only the earthy, damp hay. My eyes fought for a glimmer of light to lock on to. Nothing but blackness.

I felt my way to the wall behind me, pressing my back into the wood. Holding tight to the shears. I told myself not to panic. There was no reason the monster would have gone into the barn. The laboratory was more likely, where it could smell the caged animals, or the kitchen with its mix of odd scents.

Get the rifles, I told myself. I’d been in the barn enough to know where the tack room and gun rack were, even in the darkness. I’d never fired a rifle, but I understood the interlocking parts, the burst of gunpowder. Odds were Montgomery kept them loaded. I would aim and pull the trigger. Even if I missed, it might scare the monster away.

But my feet wouldn’t take me to the tack room. The wall against my back was safe. Standing still was safe. I had an overwhelming premonition that if I moved, I’d be dead.

I would count to five. Five breaths to return to reason.

One.

I gritted my teeth. Listened to the sound of my own breath.

Two.

Beneath the familiar smell of hay, I detected a pungent odor. And yet it, too, seemed familiar. I’d smelled that lingering scent before, recently even, though I couldn’t place it.

Three.

A rustle in the darkness. My breath quickened. I told myself the barn must be full of mice. But I knew better. My hand tightened on the shears. The tracks hadn’t led to the barn, I was sure of it. Wasn’t I? I’d been so frightened that I’d barely been able to process what I’d seen. But there was that smell, stronger now, as if its source was closer. With a gasp, I recognized it.

Damp fur.

Four.

I squeezed my eyes shut. Something crept closer. I heard it in the sigh of the rafters. The shifting straw on the ground. It was too late for guns, I realized. There was something in the barn with me. Something big. Its presence melted into the darkness as if it belonged there. Fear clutched the soft parts of my throat. I told myself there was a logical way to go about this. The chest would be the largest target in the dark. Thrust the shears low, below the rib cage, where they would do the most damage. Duck low to avoid claws and teeth.

Something brushed my hand, something hard but gentle, shocking me so much that I dropped the shears. They clattered into the darkness.

Five.

I leapt for the tack room. I hadn’t a choice. It was instinct now, not logic. I felt a rush of air behind me, like something running. The hairs on the back of my neck tingled. I couldn’t hear anything but the pounding of my own heart. I found the doorway and stumbled inside, feeling blindly along the walls for the smooth metal row of gun barrels. My hand found only wood. Empty holsters.

They’d taken all of the guns.

My hip collided with the corner of the worktable and I winced. I could hear my fear deep in my throat, a panicked whine like a dog’s. I ran my hand over the table, looking for a knife, a hoof pick, anything. My hand settled on a box of matches. I fumbled to strike one against the rough side, and with a spark it burst to life.

I held it high, fingers shaking, eyes searching wildly in the dim light for my pursuer.

Nothing.

I was alone, with only the smell of the match’s burning sulfur and the lingering scent of wet fur.

Thirty-two

I TOLD ALICE, WHEN I returned to the room, that I had found the beast and it was nothing more than an unusually large squirrel. Eventually she managed to fall asleep, but my eyes wouldn’t close for a minute. We both lay on my bed, the monster’s broken claw hidden in the curve of my palm. I put my arm around her, brushing her hair gently like my mother had done for me when I’d been frightened.

Hounds bayed in the distance. The men were returning.

I sat up, easing Alice’s head off my lap, and tiptoed to the door. I’d lit every lantern I could find to chase away the darkness. I squeezed the broken claw to reassure myself the terror of the night hadn’t been my imagination.

Outside, the front gate groaned open. I peeked into the courtyard. The men came in, muddy, exhausted, not even noticing the blazing lanterns. For a moment I felt a bit exposed in only a nightdress, with the storm raging and men returning, but I had bigger concerns. I glanced back to make sure Alice hadn’t woken, and slipped outside the door.

Balthasar brought in Duke with the wagon, the back gate hanging open. One cadaver, swathed in muddy white. Which meant they hadn’t found Jaguar, only another victim. Montgomery and Father struggled to unload the body, but Edward saw me. His gaze was as unreadable as the night stars.