A Night in the Lonesome October Part 21

"Yes."

"Had he a special place he kept it?"

"Yes."

"Would you go inside and check and tell us whether it's still there?"

"Why should I?"

"There might be something you'd like from us one day -- a few sc.r.a.ps, the chasing away of a predator. . . ."

"I'd rather have something right now," he said.

"What's that?" I asked.

He leaped, but instead of falling he seemed to drift down to land beside us.

"I didn't know you were a flying squirrel," Graymalk said.

"I'm not," he replied. "That's a part of it, though."

"I don't understand," she told him.

"I was a pretty dumb nut-chaser until Owen found me," he said. "Most squirrels are. We know what we have to do to stay in business, but that's about it. Not like you guys. He made me smarter. He gave me special things I can do, too, like that glide. But I lost something for it. I want to trade all this in and go back to being what I was -- a happy nut-chaser who doesn't care about opening and closing."

"What all's involved?" I asked.

"I gave up something for all this, and I want it back."

"What?"

"Look down at the ground around me. What do you see?"

"Nothing special," Graymalk said.

"My shadow's gone. He took it. And he can't give it back now, because he's dead."

"It's a pretty cloudy day," Graymalk said. "It's hard to tell. . . ."

"Believe me. I ought to know."

"I do," I said. "It'd be a silly thing to go on about this way, otherwise. But what's so important about a shadow? Who cares? What good is it to you up there, anyway, jumping around in trees where you can't even see it most of the time?"

"There's more to it than that," he "explained. "It's attached to other things that go away with it. I can't feel things the way that I used to. I used to just know things -- where the best nuts were, what the weather was going to be like, where the ladies were when the time came, how the seasons were changing. Now I think about it, and I can figure all these things out and can make plans to take advantage of them -- something I could never have done before. But I've lost all those little feelings that came with the kind of knowing that comes without thinking. And I've -- thought -- about it a lot. I miss them. I'd rather go back to them than think and soar the way I do. You understand about magic. Not too many people do. I'll check on the sickle if you'll break Owen's shadow-spell for me."

I glanced at Graymalk, who shook her head.

"I've never heard of that spell," she said.

"Cheeter, there are all kinds of magical systems," I said. "They're just shapes into which the power is poured. We can't know them all. I've no idea what Owen did to your shadow or your -- intuition, I guess, and the feelings that go with it. Unless we had some idea where it is and how to go about returning it and restoring it to you, I'm afraid we can't be of help."

"If you can get into the house, I can show it to you," he said.

"Oh," I said. "What do you think, Gray?"

"I'm curious," she told me.

"How do we go about it?" I asked. "Any open windows? Unlocked doors?"

"You couldn't fit in through my opening. It's just a little hole, up in the attic. The back door is usually unlocked, but it takes a human to open it."

"Maybe not," Graymalk said.

"We will have to wait till the constable and his men are gone," I said.

"Of course."

We waited, hearing the puzzlement over the unnatural remains of the three repeated many times. A doctor came and looked and shook his head and took notes and departed, after deciding that there was only one human body -- Owen's -- and promising to file a report in the morning. Mrs. Enderby and her companion stopped by and chatted with the constable for a time, glancing at Graymalk and me almost as much as at the remains. She left before too long, and the remains were sacked and labeled and hauled away in a cart, along with what remained of the baskets, which were also labeled.

As the cart creaked away, Graymalk, Cheeter, and I glanced at each other. Then Cheeter flowed up the bole of a tree, drifted from its top to that of another, then over to the roof of the house.

"It would be nice to be able to do that," Graymalk remarked.

"It would," I agreed, and we headed for the back door.

I rose as before, clasped the k.n.o.b tightly and twisted. Almost. I tried again, a little harder, and it yielded. We entered. I shouldered the door nearly closed, withholding the final pressure that would have clicked it shut.

We found ourselves in the kitchen, and from overhead I could hear the hurrying of someone small with claws.

Cheeter arrived shortly, glancing at the door.

"His workshop is downstairs," he said. "I'll show you the way."

We followed him through a door off of the kitchen, and down a creaking stairway. Below, we immediately came into a large room that smelled of the out-of-doors. Cut branches, baskets of leaves and roots, cartons of mistletoe were stacked haphazardly along the walls, on shelves, and on benches. Animal skins occupied several tabletops and were strewn over the room's three chairs. Diagrams were chalked in blue and green on both ceiling and floor, with one prominent red one covering much of the far wall. A collection of ephemeridae and of books in Gaelic and Latin filled a small bookcase beside the door.

"The sickle," I said.

Cheeter sprang atop a small table, landing amid herbs. Turning, he leaned forward, hooked his claws beneath the front edge of a small drawer. He jiggled it and drew upon it. It began to move forward to this prompting.

"Unlocked," he observed. "Let's see now."

He drew it farther open, so that, rising onto my hind legs, I could see into it. It was lined with blue velvet which bore a sickle-shaped impression at its center.

"As you can see," he stated, "it's gone."

"Anyplace else it might be?" I asked.

"No," he replied. "If it isn't here, it was with him. Those are the alternatives."

"I didn't see it anywhere out back," Graymalk said, "on the ground, or in that -- mess."

"Then I'd say that someone took it," Cheeter said.

"Odd," I said then. "It was a thing of power, but not really one of the Game tools -- like the wands, the icon, the pentacle, and, usually, the ring."

"Then someone just wanted it for the power, I guess," Cheeter said. "Mostly, I think, they wanted Owen out of the Game."

"Probably. I'm trying to link his death to Rastov's now. It would be strange to consider the killer as one player, though, with Owen an opener and Rastov a closer."

"Hm," Cheeter said, jumping down. "I don't know. Maybe. Maybe not. Rastov and Owen had some long talks very recently. I got the impression from listening that Owen was trying to talk Rastov into switching -- all his liberal sympathies and his Russian sentiments could have been pushing him in a revolutionary direction."

"Really?" Graymalk said. "Then if someone is killing openers, Jill could be in danger. Who else might have known of their talks?"

"No one I can think of. I don't think Rastov even told Quicklime -- and I didn't tell anyone, till now."

"Where did they talk?" she asked.

"Upstairs. Kitchen or parlor."

"Could anyone have been eavesdropping?"

"Only someone small enough and mobile enough to manage the squirrel hole upstairs, I suppose."

I paced slowly.

"Are Morris and MacCab openers or closers?" I asked.

"I'm pretty sure they're openers," Graymalk said.

"Yes," Cheeter agreed. "They are."

"What about the Good Doctor?"

"n.o.body knows. The divinations keep going askew for him."

"The secret player," I said, "whoever it is."

"You really think there is one?" Graymalk asked.

"It's the only reason I can think of for my calculations being regularly off."

"How do we discover who it is?" she said.

"I don't know."

"And I don't care -- not anymore," Cheeter said. "I just want the simple life again. The h.e.l.l with all this plotting and figuring. I wasn't a volunteer. I got drafted. Get me my shadow."

"Where is it?"

"Over there."

He turned toward the big red design on the far wall.

I looked in that direction, but could not tell what it was that he was trying to indicate.

"Sorry," I said. "I don't see -- "

"There," he said, "in the design -- low, to the right."

Then I saw it, something I had thought simply an effect of the lighting. A squirrel-shaped shadow overlay a part of the design. Several upright, shining pieces of metal were contained by the shadow's perimeter.

"That's it?" I said.

"Yes," he replied. "It is held there by seven silver nails."

"How does one go about releasing it?" I asked.

"The nails must be drawn."

"Is there a danger to the person who would draw them?"

"I don't know. He never said."

I reared up and extended a paw. I touched the topmost nail. It was somewhat loose, and nothing unusual happened to me. So I leaned forward, seized it with my teeth and withdrew it, dropping it then to the floor.

With my paw, I tested the remaining six. Two of them were obviously loose. These I seized, one after the other, and pulled them out with my teeth. They gleamed upon the floor, real silver, and Graymalk inspected them.

"What did you feel," she asked, "as you drew them?"

"Nothing special," I said. "Do you see anything about them that I don't?"

"No. I think the power is mainly in that design. If there is to be a reaction, look to the wall for it."

I tested the remaining four. These were tighter in place than the ones I had drawn. The shadow-outline was now undulating among them.

"Have you felt anything special while I was about it, Cheeter?" I asked.

"Yes," he replied. "I felt a small tingling at each place in my body that seemed to correspond to the place in the shadow from which the nail was removed."

"Tell me if it changes," I said, and I leaned forward, took hold of another nail, and worked it back and forth with my teeth.

It took about a half-minute to loosen, and then I dropped it to the floor and tried the other three in succession. Two seemed seated fairly tightly, and one about the same as that which I had just drawn. I took hold of the looser one and worried it till it, too, came free. By then, the shadow was shrinking and expanding regularly, as if it were flapping in the third dimension of thickness with parts of it becoming imperceptible to me each time this occurred.

"The tingling is not going away," Cheeter remarked. "I'm beginning to feel it all over now."

"Any pain involved?"

"No."