The Centaur Wars: The Beast Makers, #1

By Roz Evans

A captivating adventure and a spectacular journey...

Rule one: don't trust the centaur.

Sixteen-year-old Dee knew something was imprisoned beneath the old motel, but she never expected this. The centaur is shackled. He's injured. He's furious at being captured by humans. And he's exactly what she's spent her whole life searching for.

Rule two: don't talk to the centaur.

Dee needs answers. Her family has a dark, dark history and she has to know why. She's grown up beside a forest with mutated creatures that modern science can't explain: flying newts. Winged snakes. However, a centaur is far beyond anything she's spotted in the trees.

Rule three: don't free the centaur.

If he wasn't chained he'd have killed her already. But Dee strikes a bargain with the human-hating centaur: in exchange for his freedom, he'll give her answers.
His herd is murderous. Even worse foes lay beyond the haunted forest. But the epic voyage Dee embarks on leads to far more than the source of winged snakes, as she uncovers the greatest secret ever hidden from humankind… if she can survive it.

 

A rollicking modern fantasy, perfect for those craving action, pet sea serpents, and plenty of witty banter.

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Roz Evans
• Release date: Nov 24, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201103613

Book preview

1

The Empty Shackles

BREAKING AND ENTERING into one’s own place of residence should have been easy. After all, Dee knew the old motel well. But just because she’d grown up in the ramshackle Lucky Plover didn’t mean she knew how to get inside without using the front door.

Dee peered through the vent.

At fifteen, she was neither particularly coordinated nor experienced in criminal activity. She’d never been good in a crisis. However, she was determined. And right now, she thought something in the darkness beyond this vent was dying.

She listened, straining her ears.

Nothing. No sound.

Dee frowned. Maybe she’d been wrong. Maybe there was nothing trapped in the crawl space beneath the motel. But if there was nothing trapped in the crawl space, then her mother wouldn’t be guarding the trapdoor that led down to it.

Fog unfurled from the nearby forest. Creepy. This forest wasn’t called haunted for nothing.

She lifted her phone, and dialed.

Jen?

"What?" The sound of squalling toddlers echoed through the phone speaker. Jen sounded irritated. Babysitting.

I need to borrow Peanut.

‘Borrow?’

I’ll bring him back in a few hours. I’m just... wishing I had a cat right now. They can sense ghosts, right?

Dee. What are you doing?

Right now, I’m sitting in front of a hole. At least, it would be a hole, when she figured out how to unscrew the vent cover that blocked it. With luck, Dee could fit through the opening beyond, which led through the concrete foundation. I just thought a cat might… sense something, before I go down there.

Jen considered. They’d been best friends since grade school, when they used to sneak away to the bog at the edge of town and search the reeds for newts. Now—in their sophomore year of high school, fifteen years old going on sixteen—not much had changed, except that they’d gotten better at searching the bog. The haunted forest disgorged all sorts of curiosities. The bog seeped straight out of the trees.

Jen’s voice burst out, "Ouch. Julian! Spit that out! Roman, no, put that down! Ugh. I’m babysitting the twins and my uncles won’t be back for hours. You’ll have to get Peanut yourself. My parents aren’t home, but the house is unlocked. The cat carrier’s under my bed. Dee. What ‘hole’?"

Footsteps crunched nearby.

Dee leaned warily out from behind the juniper bush. The footsteps came from someone walking on the sidewalk in front of the motel. Not her mother. Good. The motel office windows glowed with light. Her mother was probably still there, with her chair rolled directly over the trapdoor that led down to the crawl space beneath the long motel. Guarding it. The crawl space was accessible only via the trapdoor.

Except, of course, for these occasional vents, evenly spaced around the concrete foundation. The vents lay just above the level of the lawn. They were meant to release radon, or humidity, or something. Dee was beginning to doubt she could fit through one. At the very least, she could fit her face inside and look around.

I think my mom has something trapped down in the crawl space.

And even Dee, who’d grown used to the haunted forest howling behind her backyard, knew better than to crawl into shadows at night without caution. Not even to rescue some trapped creature.

Peanut was a savvy cat.

‘Trapped?’ Like, something alive?

Right.

Your mom never goes near the bog.

No. She didn’t. Dee’s mother was well-dressed, tall and willowy, and she straightened her hair perfectly every day. Dee had long ago given up trying to be anything like her mother. Her own hair was a frizzy afro, and she was neither tall nor willowy.

Dee said, She’s guarding something.

What?

I have no idea.

What does it sound like?

Like nothing. It’s silent.

There was a distinct pause, as Jen rolled her eyes.

Dee knew perfectly well that it was not the wisest decision to kneel in the mud, on a stormy night, while the haunted forest oozed fog a mere hundred feet behind the motel yard. But she knew her mother. And her mother had been acting erratic, lately. Strange. Very strange.

Rain dripped off the roof and slid down her coat collar. Mud seeped through her jeans.

Fantastic.

Jen said, "Dee, you’re about to fail Chemistry. Even a mutant lizard makes noise. Go inside, do the Chemistry homework, and then tell me all the answers so I can pass too. The twins keep screaming, I can’t study here. Julian. Spit that out."

No sounds came through the vent. No suspicious signs at all. Except that her mother’s desk used to be on the left side of the motel office, and it had now been pushed to the right side. The only possible reason would be to conceal the trapdoor that lay on the right side of the floor, which her mother now sat over with her office chair. Twice in the past week, Dee had seen her mother asleep at the office desk, as if she’d been spending nights there instead of climbing the outdoor staircase to their living quarters above. She’d been more secretive than usual. For her mother, that was saying something.

The dusty crawl space usually held nothing more exciting than cardboard boxes, old winter coats, spare linens, and boxes of the tiny shampoos and lotions which the motel rarely used, because the Lucky Plover Motel—rundown and ramshackle—rarely had guests.

Dee frowned toward the office windows. From her current spot behind the prickly juniper, no one could see her. Light spilled from the rear office windows, illuminating the lawn and stray tendrils of fog. If Dee leaned sideways, she could peer around the motel’s corner, to the cracked pavement of the parking lot and the road beyond. One yellow streetlamp illuminated their motel’s sign. The Lucky Plover sign showed a beach plover clutching a clover in its beak, the small bird’s head at a jaunty angle, its paint peeling.

The neon letters below blinked ‘Vacancy.’ The parking lot was empty. No vehicles passed on the road. She couldn't ask for a better time.

She said, Thanks for Peanut. Bye.

"Dee!" Jen’s voice stopped her, before she hung up. You’re not going near the forest, are you? Stay away from the trees. People are saying it’s worse than usual.

As... far away as I ever am.

Her bedroom window overlooked the trees. Her bedroom was on the third floor, in the small living quarters built over the motel. Dee watched the forest often. This forest had moods, just like the nearby sea had fits of temper, and right now it was in a bad one. Wind gusted across the lawn. The fog swirled away, but as soon as the air stilled more mist seeped from the trees.

Her phone made a dubious noise.

She and Jen might have grown up bravely searching the bog beside the forest—because if anything interesting happened in this town, it always had to do with the forest—but even they never did it in a storm or after dark. The sky was black. Clouds covered the stars.

Be careful, Jen muttered.

---

PEANUT THE CAT was a one-eyed stray who’d discovered Jen’s room, discovered Jen’s bed, taken up residence, and never left.

When Dee walked the three blocks to her friend’s house, Jen’s parents weren’t home. She found the cat carrier in the garage, found treats to bribe Peanut, and the cat—a pragmatic monster, after life on the streets—strolled calmly into the carrier to devour the food.

He yowled like a madman when Dee carried him out of the house and down the street.

He still yowled when she hid behind the self-storage units across the road from the motel.

Quiet, Dee whispered, You’re perfectly comfortable in there.

Her mother’s office light was still on. Her mother’s silhouette was just visible, seated behind the desk. Dee ran across the street, cat carrier thumping against her thigh, and crawled behind the juniper.

The vent lid was held in place with four rusty screws, each with a straight slot for a screwdriver. She should have brought a screwdriver. A quarter did not fit. A dime did. Dee twisted the dime, awkwardly, pressing the coin's edge into the screw slots, unscrewing them one by one. The vent lid fell forward into the mud. A rough, rectangular opening led into the crawl space beneath the motel. Musty air gusted out. It smelled of old boxes and gravel. And, if she sniffed, faintly like a… stable. Odd.

She listened.

Nothing.

Then, behind her, the forest gave a faint and eerie howl. She could have sworn she heard something in the dark crawl space… rustle. Dee pointed the flashlight beam through the hole. Boxes. Her old tricycle, leaning against a support post. More boxes, stretching away into the dark.

Hello?

Nothing moved.

She opened the door of the cat carrier. Peanut took one look at the mud and backed away. His good eye squinted.

Well? Dee watched him. Anything? What do you sense?

Surely if it was dangerous, or haunted, he’d look worried. Cats had instincts. This cat had lived on the streets. Ex-strays probably had excellent instincts. Peanut just looked annoyed.

She reached for his collar. Come on, get closer. It’s just a little mud. Lightning spiked across the sky. A torrent of rain pelted the motel. The cat dug in his claws. "Come on."

She was terrible with animals. Maybe if she’d had pets growing up, she would have been better. But her mother didn’t allow animals. No cats, no dogs, no nothing, no exceptions. Animals were mysterious, and Dee never knew how to handle them, so she mostly treated them like people.

"Just look inside—and make sure—there are no ghosts."

Peanut tensed, launched himself from the cat carrier, and leaped straight over the mud without dirtying his paws. He jumped through the open vent hole. A dull thud echoed below. Peanut’s claws scrabbled away between the storage boxes.

Dee stared.

Oh, no. She stuck the flashlight through. Peanut!

His eye blinked at her from the gravel floor. When she held out her hand he hissed in refusal.

Water dripped onto the empty cat carrier. Less than five minutes, and she’d managed to lose him. Great. Maybe if she left to get him cat treats, and came back to lure him out…

Deep inside the crawl space, metal clinked.

Dee froze. That noise came from beyond the cat. It might have been the clinking of chains.

Her heart pounded. Ghosts did not require chains. Since ghosts were incorporeal, they probably could not be imprisoned, either. Would a lizard be chained? Maybe this was several lizards. She and Jen had found some strange mutated creatures in the bog. The mutations were blamed on a long-ago chemical spill; neither of them believed it. Still, Dee couldn’t imagine what would be so valuable or intriguing that her mother would lock it up in the dark and keep it hidden for days.

She thrust her head through the hole. Hello? Can you hear me?

Not that a lizard would answer. What was she supposed to say, to a small mutated creature trapped in a crawl space?

Nothing moved.

Then, faintly, a single clink.

That does it, Dee muttered. Something was trapped down there in the dark. If she knew her mother at all, it was not being treated well. Dee reached under the juniper and pulled out the two gallon jugs of water she’d filled. Then she sat in the mud, inched her legs through the hole, and got her hips stuck. Wonderful. She squirmed. She wriggled. She squeezed forward, snagged her sleeve on rough concrete, and tumbled down between cardboard boxes.

Dust puffed around her.

The crawl space was long, about the height of her chin. The ground was gravel. The walls were concrete. The ceiling overhead was the floor joists of the motel: dusty beams, with electrical wires and plumbing. The Lucky Plover Motel had ten rooms in a straight line. This long, gloomy space beneath them seemed endless.

Dee raised her flashlight and crept forward. She counted the plumbing. Those big pipes overhead must lead to toilets, one for each room.

Ten... Nine...

Her mother had said there was a leak beneath Room Seven. She’d called the maintenance man. Ullock Voose, sewer maintenance specialist, had shown up in grubby overalls to fix it. Fine. That was ordinary. Except that her mother had somehow gotten a gash on her forehead, and her limp had worsened, all from a mere incident with a leaky pipe. Suspicious.

Room Seven. Here.

Dee swiveled the light. A wad of black duct tape circled a pipe that ran between the floor joists; the wad of tape dripped rhythmic plips of water toward the floor. She frowned. If that was how a maintenance specialist fixed a leak… she swiveled the light across the nearest boxes. Winter coats. Spare sheets. None of the boxes had air holes punched in them, or scrabbling noises inside. There were no cages. Nothing stirred.

She lowered the flashlight, feeling oddly disappointed.

It was good that her mother wasn’t trapping small creatures in her free time. Of course it was good. Her mother did not like animals, but she did like rare and valuable things. If she’d found some creature that none of the local universities had ever seen before, she might have held it for ransom or studied it herself. Her mother had studied biology in college. She'd specialized in dissection.

Once, Dee and Jen had found a newt with wings in the bog.

It was a bright orange newt. It had wings like a bat and a belly that inflated like helium to float through the air. Impossible. But Dee had seen it, and so had Jen: the newt levitated before their eyes. Dee had shooed it back toward the forest. The newt had bobbed away into the trees, weightless. The thought of her mother trapping something like that…

Behind her, Peanut meowed.

Oh, good. She set down one gallon of water to hold out her hand. Come here, kitty.

Peanut ignored her. He watched the empty air behind Dee. His single eye narrowed.

Very slowly, she turned.

Deep in the gloom—behind the boxes of winter coats—a thick strip of metal was bolted to the concrete. Chains dangled from the metal. The chains were as thick as her wrist. They ended in shackles on the gravel floor.

The shackles were empty.

Her throat constricted. There had been something here. She was too late.

The nearest shackle twitched.

Dee froze. No way. Oh, that would explain it. That would fascinate even her jaded mother. Dee and Jen had found lizards with feathers, and a squirrel with a scaled tail, and a floating newt, but this...

She inched forward. She extended the flashlight to prod at the air behind one shackle. The flashlight’s tip nudged something, soft but substantial.

Dee jerked backward.

Oh, wow.

Invisible.

She counted the shackles. Four, five… six.

Invisible six-legged lizard, she breathed.

A faint snort came from the empty air.

The ground was not wet, beneath the tape-wrapped pipe. The droplets vanished in midair, glittering through her flashlight beam and then disappearing. As if something invisible had its mouth open, drinking them. Clever.

Wow.

She lifted the gallon jug of water. Invisible six-legged lizard. No way.

Easy, lizard. Thing. Whatever you are. I brought you water. I should have brought a bowl, sorry, but if you’re smart enough to drink from a leaky pipe, you can probably figure out how to drink from a jug...

Peanut hissed. In front of her, the shackles spread wider.

Dee hesitated.

"How big are you?"

The rear shackles slid back, further and further, until the chains snapped taut. It was longer than her. Dee couldn’t resist; she prodded with the flashlight again. Definitely solid. It really was invisible. Was this a leg?

The shackles winced.

A gravelly voice spoke, low and furious, above her head: "I am sick of being poked and prodded."

The voice was close. Dee swung the flashlight beam up, toward the air that had spoken. One shackle rose. Another shackle swung straight at her. Dee panicked, and reacted with her usual lack of finesse: she hurled the gallon jug of water. Hard.

Thud. Something cracked against the concrete wall.

And then, in a blink, he was visible.

There was no lizard. There weren’t even scales.

A man’s torso leaned against the concrete wall, with a horse’s body sprawled on the floor. He clutched his head with one shackled hand. A smear of blood marred the concrete. The fallen jug of water tumbled away. His hair was dusty. Ribs showed beneath his loosely-woven shirt. His horse flanks heaved, as his long horse tail thrashed across the gravel. Dee didn’t move. She didn’t breathe. Impossible.

His human torso met horse withers in a seamless fusion of skin and hair.

Impossible.

Centaurs did not exist. Not here, or anywhere else.

She was very certain centaurs did not exist.

All four of his legs were shackled, and his legs—his legs were—

She felt sick.

He shielded his face from the light with one hand. Blood trickled slowly down his temple. She lowered the flashlight beam. His face contorted in a grimace.

"Get out."

Dee looked in his eyes and shuddered. She’d always felt she saw too much in other people’s eyes, which must not be normal, or everyone would be as uncomfortable with eye contact as she was. Frustration and anger, joy and hope: she saw it all, as if she looked through people’s stares and slid into their skin. It was uncomfortable. Inconvenient. She’d seen pain and despair before, but never like this.

His eyes knocked the air from her chest.

"Ouch," she gasped.

His fist clenched. He swung toward the spot where her voice had spoken.

Later, Dee would never be certain if he’d tried to hit higher or lower, before the chain stopped him. Had he wanted to decapitate her, instead of merely shoving her? Had he wanted to snap off her head? The chain snapped taut and all his fist could do was strike her: hard, impossibly strong, so fast his arm blurred. Dee flew backward. She slammed into a support post. Pain seared her shoulder. She’d never been punched before. She’d never been hit, not violently, not ever. Her ears buzzed. Her heart pounded so fast it hurt, spasming in her chest. She dragged herself away, shaking. She pulled herself out through the vent hole and collapsed in the mud. She shoved the vent cover back in place. She twisted just one screw back in. Her fingers were numb. Her hands fumbled.

Peanut. The cat was still down there. Beside her, rain spattered the empty carrier. Dee sat, stunned.

A centaur.

That was not even close to possible, but she'd seen him.

And his legs…

If she thought about it here, she was going to throw up.

Dee hid the cat carrier further beneath the juniper. She crawled out across the back lawn. The motel was long and single-story. Above the office, a house jutted up, with two levels of living quarters. She and her mother lived there, in the steep-roofed upper levels reached by an outdoor staircase that led from the parking lot up to their kitchen.

Dee pulled herself up the staircase.

She reached her bedroom, up on the third floor. She locked the door. She collapsed on the floor, shivering.

A long time later, Dee still had not moved.

A distant door slammed.

Her mother’s uneven footsteps limped up the stairs, from the kitchen. She stopped outside Dee’s bedroom.

Her mother’s footsteps thudded on every other step because she wore a peg leg, wooden, old-fashioned, with a smooth round stone in the tip. Her mother never told Dee what accident stole her leg. And when Dee asked, or suggested there were better prosthetics, modern prosthetics without a smooth stone that skidded in the parking lot when it rained… her mother changed the subject.

A tap, on the door.

Drucilla? Have you eaten?

Breathe.

To Dee’s amazement, her mouth formed words. Yeah. I ate after school.

She pressed her hands over her face. It didn’t help.

Are you feeling well?

Breathe.

She couldn’t think. She kept seeing his legs.

Algebra homework, Mom! It’s giving me a headache.

Her mother’s voice sounded normal. Utterly, completely normal. Relaxed. Well. I got your favorite hot chocolate, and I’m heating water in the kettle. I know how cold your room gets on stormy nights.

Dee stared at the door. She could picture her mother standing on the other side, bemused, calm, unnervingly serene, dressed in a long flowing skirt with the peg leg just visible beneath it.

Her mother took a few steps away, the peg leg thunking on every other stride, then paused.

The kettle will be hot in five minutes, she called back.

It was their tradition. Tea and hot chocolate, while they curled up on the couch wrapped in quilts. Dee liked to watch raindrops slide down the glass.

She shuddered.

A centaur. Three of his legs were broken. Both forelegs. One hind leg. A sledgehammer lay in the gravel of the crawl space, its metal crusted with dried blood. She’d seen it all at a glance. Now the image was seared on the backs of her eyelids, as she huddled on her bedroom floor. Someone had broken his legs above the shackles, as if to keep him from escaping.

She'd heard of research vans coming to take away occasional small creatures. She'd heard of universities offering rewards, for any new varieties of species. But this...

He'd turned invisible. She'd seen it. And he'd spoken, with a human face and human eyes. A centaur.

Impossible.

Mom, she whispered, covering her face with her hands. "What did you do?"

2

Restless Spirits and Mutant Amphibians

SCHOOL THE NEXT DAY was bright and crowded and normal, and Dee walked through the halls in a state of shock. A centaur. Maybe she’d imagined it, last night. No. She hadn’t imagined it. He was hurt. Trapped. He also might have snapped her spine in half, if the chains had not stopped him. Her teachers lectured; Dee barely heard. She held her pencil over her notebook in History but forgot to take notes. The Civil War. Important. They had a test next week.

Dee gazed out the window.

At lunch she sat at her usual table in the corner, by the door, facing the lunch line. Jen sat beside her. Beka and Fariza sat across from them. It was always just the four of them. This was the only time of day they all looked forward to. Beka preened and put on fresh lip gloss at every new group of guys that strolled through the door, particularly juniors and seniors; Fariza read a book and pretended not to notice. Jen belched often, and occasionally they discussed Biology, and mutated species. A year ago, when Dee and Jen found the flying newt in the bog, it had occupied their lunch conversations for weeks. After that day Dee had tied to look up ‘flying amphibions’ and ‘newts with wings’ and ‘animals that levitate with internal gases.’ She’d found nothing. No reports of similar sightings. Today, the other three talked and Dee barely heard.

She spun her tater tots in slow circles. She’d expected to find something like a flying newt, in the crawl space.

Broken legs.

The sledgehammer. The dried blood on the sledgehammer. His broken legs. In the brief seconds she’d seen it, Dee had been too shocked to really see, but now her brain had spent the whole morning digesting the scene, and a thousand alternatives arose and discarded themselves in her mind. Should she call the police? Maybe, but they’d take him to a lab. He. He was no animal. He’d spoken. The black vans that came to this town had various university logos, from several competing university biology departments that eagerly took away any strange frog or salamander or bird that wandered from the forest. The black vans had no windows. It was always done quietly, but Dee’s backyard bordered the forest, and she saw. Most people in town probably didn’t even notice. It never made the news. Some of the creatures they took should have made the news. She’d seen one van take a toad the size of a basketball, as it sprouted spines like thorns.

A centaur wouldn’t even fit in one of the vans. They’d have to bring a trailer. Calling the police would probably get the centaur hauled away, and there was no telling if his broken legs would be treated or if he’d simply be… what? Studied? Dissected? Locked up?

"Well? Dee?"

Dee jerked her head up. What?

Fariza raised an eyebrow, above her book. Today her glasses were purple, the same color as her head scarf. I told you she wasn’t listening.

Jen leaned close, slid her tray beside Dee’s, and began swapping food. "I’m taking your tater tots. Here, have my applesauce. We were saying, what did you find? Lizard? Snake? Newt? Also, where’s my cat?"

Fariza turned a page in her book, sniffed, and said: Restless spirits and mutant amphibians have no correlation. That makes no sense.

She turned another page, but she was listening. Fariza could digest two streams of information at once, or three, or four. She could probably read two books simultaneously, if she had another set of eyes.

Dee opened her mouth and… hesitated. Should she tell them? They'd help. But they wouldn't be quiet about it. Four teenage girls were a lot noisier than one.

I’ll... bring Peanut back soon.

Jen turned suspicious. Did you lose my cat?

No. He’s… Dee's gut twisted. He didn’t like the rain dripping through his cat carrier. He’s in my room, on my bed. I gave him tuna.

Lie.

He’ll throw it up on your pillow, Jen said. Give him chicken.

Right. Okay. Yeah.

Her best friend waited.

Jen’s brown hair was scraggly, her skirt had stains, and one fingernail had dirt crusted beneath it. Jen’s mother was a manicurist. Her father styled hair. They owned salons, both were impeccably dressed, and Jen kept her nails dirty to spite them.

Dee. If you say you didn’t find anything, you’re lying. Spill it. What’s your mother hiding?

I, uh…

Beka sliced a hand through the air to silence them. She pulled out her lip gloss. "Quiet. Junior guys approaching. Pause. Do not talk about snakes and newts. Talk about the game last night. Please."

Beka secretly found their discussions fascinating, Dee was sure, though she’d never admit it.

Jen opened her mouth—

"Ssh! The last touchdown! Go!"

Dee went back to pushing her food around her tray.

She couldn’t tell them. If her friends trailed her loudly back to the motel…

All her mother's subtle insinuations over the years suddenly became vividly real. Her mother was dangerous. Not to her. She’d never hurt Dee. But her mother was evasive and eerie, unsettling, and she could be vicious, sometimes. The motel made no money, none at all. Dee had spied and found the paperwork. And yet, her mother somehow drove a new car, and got Dee a new phone every Christmas.

Whatever her mother did in her free time, Dee had been warned in no uncertain terms to stay out of it.

Beka slumped in her seat, pouting after the group of juniors passed. He never looks at me.

Dee shoved a green bean against her glass of milk. She answered automatically, thinking of ghosts, and forests, and black vans: They all look at you, Beka.

"Not him. He always looks at you. Bernard Voose."

Dee winced. That particular junior did always watch her, though she’d never spoken to him. She looked up just as Bernard was turning back to glance at her. Light brown skin. Messy black hair. Worried eyes, kind and nervous and warm.

Dee usually avoided meeting people’s eyes.

He blinked in surprise. Then he ran into someone, and turned his attention forward again, navigating toward the lunch line. She heard him talking—about cantaloupe and bacteria—having a worried conversation with the boy next to him.

Jen said, thoughtfully: Huh. He really does watch you, Dee.

All the time. Dee would rather have him see Beka and ignore her.

She returned her attention to her green beans. I’ve never even talked to him.

Beka cast her a meaningful glance. "Maybe you should?"

What?

Talk to him. Beka held out her lip gloss. Want some?

Uh. No?

At the end of the lunch line, Bernard glanced over his shoulder and studied her again. He was a year above her. There were a hundred people in this lunch room. Dee felt a spike of irritation. She didn’t like being stared at. Bernard took a seat, and when she glanced over later he was still watching her. He hadn’t taken any food. He kept his coat on, and had his backpack slung over one shoulder, as if he planned to leave to eat somewhere else. She snapped her attention to the tabletop, as her skin heated.

Beka concluded, at what was clearly the end of a long tirade: "…and so, duh, of course she should go talk to him, have you seen him? Are you blind? There will always be more newts! This is a once in a lifetime opportunity! He watches her! Doesn’t his dad own that car shop? And doesn’t Bernard have, like, five older brothers? Who all look like him? Five older brothers!"

Beka’s voice turned slightly breathless.

Jen chewed with her mouth open, munching on a tater tot. You need a new hobby. She turned. So, Dee? What did you find?

The tight band around Dee’s chest constricted. Nothing. A centaur. I can’t tell you. Black vans—the police—

She needed to figure out a plan that involved him not getting hauled away and dissected before she could even ask how he wound up shackled behind the boxes of winter coats.

A centaur. Shackled under the motel.

Dee couldn’t breathe.

Breathe.

Beka burst out, "She needs a new hobby! Look at her! She’s hyperventilating at the thought of talking to him! All she needs is some practice!"

Bernard’s seat was now empty. He strode away toward the door, backpack over his shoulder. He opened the door, pulled it open… and glanced back to stare at her, long and hard.

Dee's face burned.

Seriously. That was rude.

She snatched up her tray. She shoved back her chair, as the door closed behind Bernard. She looped her backpack over her shoulder. Breathe. She'd figure this out, and tell Jen later, after she had a plan that didn't involve anyone's death or dissection.

Sure. I’ll just go ask him what his problem is.

Dee's voice came out icy.

Beka froze. No, don’t word it like that—

I’ll see you later. Dee walked away. Behind her, she heard Fariza mutter, "Great. Now look what you've done." Dee slid her tray through the window to the kitchens beyond. Steam puffed out from the dish sterilizers. She shoved open the door.

The hallway was empty.

She picked a direction. He wouldn’t have headed toward the classrooms, not when lunch was only half over. Outside, probably. Ten steps later, Dee realized she didn’t really want to talk to Bernard Voose. Maybe she’d just keep walking. She could go out the back door and all the way down to the harbor. She could sit on a dock, hidden in the fog where no one could see her, and listen to the creak of the trawlers on the water. There was always fog on the north side of the harbor, and always fog drifting down the northern coast. Death’s Coastline. The Devil’s Cliffs. No ships sailed to the north, or if they did they came home in a cautious arc, carefully following the twin beams of the harbor’s two lighthouses. Dee loved to sit under the north lighthouse. The light pivoted above her, and every time it revolved all the fog lit up. She could take her algebra homework. Fog made the pages dewy, but the peaceful quiet was worth it. She could sit and—

A figure strode down a side hallway to her left.

Bernard Voose headed toward a side door. He was leaving too.

Dee hesitated. Her feet veered after him, even as her brain shouted in panic, Don’t speak, don’t speak to him, what are you doing!

She called: Hey!

He turned. Her panicked brain short-circuited. Run away!

Dee hesitated. Why do you always watch me?

She’d meant to sound more annoyed and accusing. But he looked so worried—so genuinely concerned, as if he thought she might need help with something—that she just… couldn’t.

Bernard seemed momentarily perplexed. No reason. Just watching, that’s all. Just in case. You know.

Obviously she didn’t. In case what?

A pause. Then he shrugged. We’ll be working together someday. Right? When we take over for our parents. Dad says it won’t be for years, maybe decades, but you never know… listen, I’ve got to go, there’s something I need to —

Why would our parents work together?

His father, as far as she knew, was the town’s Sewer Maintenance Specialist. The car shop was a side hobby. His father fixed underground pipes for a living, or… something like that. Now that she stood this close to him, Bernard’s flannel coat did have a faint reek of sewer. The coat was red-checkered plaid. He had a smear of something bluish across one cheek.

He said, You don't know?

Dee had expected one of two responses: arrogant jock or, far less likely, a shy and sweet explanation about how he’d just watched her because he was trying to get up the nerve talk to her. As if that would ever happen.

This fit neither category. Not arrogant. Not shy. He looked flustered.

She said, What do our parents do?

Bernard scratched at his neck. Hasn’t your mom told you?

About what?

Look, just ask her. It’s not much, not really, except we have to stay in this town. A Voose and a Markappen always have to live by the forest. And there’s the monthly drink mixing, my dad mixes a drink for your mom, but that’s simple enough.

Weird.

They go out for drinks together?

"What? No! My dad doesn’t even like your mom! He says she gives him the creeps. She’s got eyes like yours—not that—not that your eyes are that bad—"

Dee crossed her arms.

Bernard’s skin flushed. He shoved open the door.

I have to go.

Dee’s eyes, to be fair, were a light gray that was almost silver in the right light. Next to her dark skin it was a shocking contrast. Her mother had the same silvery eyes, and Dee knew from experience that her mother had an icy stare, almost reflective. But Dee intentionally tried not to look at people.

She said, What do our parents work on?

Bernard had one shoulder against the door. Wind gusted through the gap. "Honestly, Dad won’t give me details. He says I’ll know when you’ve taken over. And when that happens I have to keep you alive at all costs, no matter what—careful, don’t lean against an outlet!"

Dee jerked away from the wall. A perfectly innocent electrical outlet lay beside her elbow. No exposed wires. No cracks.

Bernard let out an aggravated sigh. You could have been electrocuted. This is exactly what Dad said the Markappens are like. Always trying to get themselves killed, no matter how we hard we work to keep you alive.

At that, she stiffened.

He backed out the door. I’ll try not to watch you anymore. See you later. Except I’ll try not to. See you. Right.

The door swung closed.

Dee lunged forward and caught it with her fist.

Wait!

All her life she’d wondered why there were no other Markappens. Just her and her mother. Only two. What had happened to her grandparents? Weren’t there any cousins? Whenever she asked, her mother changed the subject with such speed Dee knew there must be an interesting answer.

She called, Keep us alive? What happened to all the other Markappens?

Bernard backed away along the sidewalk. I really have to go. Something might explode. It needs… stirring. He wiped at his forehead. A smear of orange powder came away on his sleeve, beside the streak of blue. Just ask your Mom, okay? She really should be explaining by now.

He turned away, shoved his hands into his coat pockets, and bowed his head against the wind.

Dee huffed out a breath. She closed the door, leaned against the wall, and shuddered.

"You have obviously never tried to ask my mom a question."

3

Half a Million Dollars

DEE DID TRY TO ASK her mother about tasks, and Markappens, and drink mixing.

That night, when her mother climbed the kitchen stairs to eat, Dee stood with supper waiting, and she swore she would not lose her nerve.

She’d ask exactly what her mother did. She’d ask what she’d be taking over, in years, or decades.

Dee usually cooked. Her mother burned everything, and so when her mother cooked they had things like tuna sandwiches, and peanut butter and jelly, which did not require heat. Tonight Dee made pasta and vegetables with alfredo sauce and shredded mozzarella cheese, and when her mother climbed the stairs, limping up from the parking lot below, Dee had her textbooks spread on the table behind her as if she’d been studying while she cooked. Innocent. A good daughter.

Her mother's uneven footsteps paused on the landing. She was on the phone. Dee heard only the last words:

No, and I told them I’m not interested.

The door opened. Her mother stepped inside, tucking the phone away into a pocket. Her peg leg thudded across the linoleum. The wooden peg leg showed just a few inches beneath her long skirt. Her mother always wore long skirts. The wooden prosthetic was dark, and polished, with faint twining carvings that looked almost like vines. The round stone in the tip was pale, opalescent. It shimmered in bright light.

Dinner smells lovely, Drucilla. Thank you for cooking. How is your headache today?

Dee stepped back until she hit the counter. Her mother’s eyes were silvery-gray, a chilling stare.

Just ask it.

Mom. I wanted to ask—

You weren’t yourself last night. Unnecessary worry is the cause of most headaches. Are you worrying about something you shouldn’t be?

There. That. Her mother always did that. The veiled threats, the insinuations that were really ultimatums… like the time Dee got a pet fish, even though she was forbidden to have pets. Her mother never exactly admitted to taking the fish, just described how painful it would be for a freshwater fish to be tossed into the saltwater harbor, and wouldn’t it be better if the poor fish was never brought home in the first place…

Dee swallowed. Want broccoli with your pasta?

The fish had simply vanished. If this centaur vanished, Dee would never find out anything. Her mother excelled at making things disappear.

Her mother set her phone on the table, screen dark. Maybe Dee could click it on and it might show prior calls, and at least she’d know if the number was local…

Drucilla. Her mother raised an eyebrow. I want you to be safe. You know that, don’t you?

Her mother limped forward and touched her cheek. Dee froze.

Look at me, darling.

They stared at each other, silver eyes on silver. Her mother was tall, slender and beautiful, with hair