"It's not their fault Cutler made an offer," he continued.

She nodded, but he was foolish if he didn't think his sister took pleasure in her messenger duties.

"Besides," he whispered, "I said no." He pulled away a few inches to look into her eyes. "Didn't I?"

She shrugged. "Maybe, but you and I both know this won't be the end of it." She looked down the corridor toward the vestibule and sighed. "I have to go." She gave him a peck on his cheek. "We can talk more later. Okay?"

He squeezed her shoulder and went back to their guests. Katie's whispers started echoing like Liberty knew they would. She turned and walked away. Though she hadn't been back for over a decade, Proem found its way to her time and time again. If she had the choice, she'd cut ties completely, forever. Sadly, they were invisible and it made it impossible. She sighed. It was only a couple of days a year. She just needed to suck it up.

A sliver of light peeking out from the guest chamber made her stop. Liberty pulled back the curtain. Adrian, propped up on his elbow, lay on the cot.

His appearance hadn't changed much in the year since she'd seen him lasta"his small frame still looked like he could use a few poundsa"but his demeanor certainly had. Used to be hard to keep focused on him, he flitted about a room like an energy tempest, told cooking stories to everybody and anybody. This new Adrian was unrecognizable. She squinted. If she could see his aura now, she bet it would be dark and swirling.

While Sasquatch, Liberty cold see all auras, human and Sasquatch. But while human, she could only see other human auras, and only when tuned in to thema"just like all Sasquatch. Still, she thought she had his pegged.

The photo book lay on the blanket at his side. His shoulder-length, dark brown hair draped around him. She couldn't see his eyes, but he seemed captivated. "Adrian?"

He looked up, swept the strands behind an ear. "Yeah?"

She pointed to the book on the blanket. "Would you mind putting that back where you found it when you're through?" Old Adrian had a habit of misplacing things, and the pictures were all she had left of Sage. She wasn't willing to take the chance on the new Adrian.

He blinked, but didn't say a word. She couldn't tell if he intended to answer her, or maybe he'd gotten the hidden meaning of her question and decided not to. She didn't wait around, gave him a curt nod and turned away, pretended she hadn't seen the tears welled up in his eyes. She left for the surface without another word.

Liberty cracked open the wooden hatch a few inches and peered out. Fashioned of thick, pine slabs, draped in thick moss and covered with dead pine needles; the door's movement went undetected beneath the copse of fir trees. The view from inside the hatch showed her destination, an empty clearing in the distance.

Second nature forced her to wait, listen, and absorb the scent of the woodland. She remained still for a few moments longer. Detecting nothing amiss, she flipped the hatch fully open and vaulted her body up and out of the shaft.

The transformations hadn't affected her since her mother's death. She knew of worse matters to fear, though bugs still gave her the creeps.

She closed the hatch, crawled out from under the brush, stood, and looked toward the open s.p.a.ce. Right before the clearing, near the edge of the woods, lay another concealed door. That one, covered in loam and field gra.s.s, led into a bypa.s.s running a few hundred yards in length. Halfway through the tunnel was a ladder the led up to the kennel, but if you went past the kennel entrance, all the way to the end, it led into Mitch and Ellie's bas.e.m.e.nt. There wasn't a ladder to enter the house, but rather a door beneath the cellar's staircase. Mitch put the bypa.s.s in himself, right after Liberty and Nathaniel came to live in Montgomery Woods.

Her life, a series of little jaunts, depended on finding good cover. A few hundred yards, then down. A few hundred more, then up again. It exhausted her at times, the whole up, down, and dodge dance. But what were their alternatives? The hunters never grew weary.

According to Mitch, the majority of the seekers were happy with a visual, perhaps a snapshot to show to the world, but the rest wanted a kill, a furry hide to drag back to their pick-ups. They wanted to make a call to whatever agency paid top dollar for proof of the elusive Bigfoot in the woods, yearned to sell their story for millions.

According to the news outlets, to which Mitch made it his business to pay close attention, no Sasquatch had ever been captured. But that didn't mean they weren't killed on occasion. Like her mother. And before her, a Proem elder. Liberty had to consider they may have killed her daughter as well, even without a body.

The hunters would never admit to it, though. They left bullet-riddled carca.s.ses in the woods, hightailed it back to wherever they came from, and told themselves over and over they weren't crazy. They knew what they saw. Not a human. Liberty bristled at the injustice.

She looked up. Not quite time. In her huffy state she'd left a little too early for her job at the kennel. The doors wouldn't be locked, they never were from the tunnel side, but Mitch had forbidden them to exit the woods before full dark.

It hadn't always been that way, but since Ellie pa.s.sed away, he'd gotten strange, somewhat distant, and even grown a little cold. Everyone dealt with grief differently, but he'd even given Becky, Liberty's only other human friend and co-worker, the same limitations. She wasn't allowed in the farmhouse at all anymore, except for the bas.e.m.e.nt. And all of them were permitted there. After dark, of course.

Becky said he was afraid Ellie's stuff would be disturbed and he wanted everything of hers left alone. The way it was.

Liberty headed north toward the small creek, instead of returning to the cavern. She'd had enough of Katie for a day, and even though Gabriel and Adrian were more congenial, she wasn't in the mood.

Early October nights were pleasant in Fairfield, low humidity, cool breezes, and the nocturnal creatures hadn't fallen into their winter lethargy yet--their presence evident in rustles and low chirps. Even at most twenty miles from Proem, the weather seemed milder here.

She inhaled, exhaled. No visible mist. Her aura throbbed, a mixture of dark blues and greens, no shock there. This was going to be a tough week, no doubt. Nathaniel's family. Ellie and Sage's anniversaries.

She just needed to get through the next couple of nights with Nathaniel's family and Mitch, and save the hardest for the end of the week. That day she'll handle one minute at a time. Hard to believe Sage had been gone a full year already.

She stopped and braced herself against an old fir. It seemed beyond comprehension. Maybe the creek wasn't a great idea after all.

She headed back. So she'd arrive at the kennel early. Would Mitch even know the difference? She hated her c.r.a.ppy att.i.tude, but it was true. Worse came to worse, she'd hang out in the tunnel.

Thunder boomed overhead. The critters shifted in the darkness. Squawks and other warnings echoed through the woods. Rain was on the way to wash away the days' scents. But until then, lucky her, she'd smell every creature that had pa.s.sed through the area.

One invaded her senses a minute from the clearing. Down low and to the left, a rabbit cowered in the hollow recess of a stump. She caught a whiff of fox. No doubt the little guy had skittered inside to save its hide. From the smell, the predator had moved on to an easier meal hours ago, but the bunny was too frightened to come back out.

She dropped down, bustled, and reached a thick, furry arm deep into the back of the hole. She snagged it by the scruff and pulled it out. She released it off to her right, in a patch of fern, grateful to be rid of it. Cottontails smelled rancid. Way too much adrenaline for her tastes.

She looked up at the moon, saw night had fallen, and headed for the clearing. Reaching the second hatch, she crouched low, did a quick scan, and then grabbed a stick that appeared to be naturally jutting out from the soil. The hatch opened.

She closed the hatch to the bypa.s.s behind her, dropped down into the shaft, slipped on a pair of barn boots, and started to make her way down the tunnel. She headed for the ladder halfway in, the one leading to the trap door in the kennel's bas.e.m.e.nt.

The bypa.s.s was reinforced with wooden beams, on both the ceiling and walls, at four foot intervals. The s.p.a.ce wasn't pitch blacka"a bulb installed near the ladder stayed lit around the clocka"but from this end the yellow glow looked like little more than a candle flame. She hurried toward the focal point, rubbed her arms for warmth and comfort.

"Brr," she whispered. She hated being naked all the time. Other Sasquatch didn't seem to have an issue with it, but it made her feel especially vulnerable. Especially in small s.p.a.ces. Dark, cramped s.p.a.ces.

The rubber soles of her boots scuffed the dirt floor, and she felt herself relax a little more with each step. Thirty-eight beams down, nearly a hundred to go. The light ahead swung, blurred. She stopped. Every muscle in her body tensed in preparation to turn and bolt.

No problem. If needed to, she would. She listened to the sound of her own breathing. In, out. And something else. She c.o.c.ked her head and watched the light try to hypnotize her.

The bulb swung hard again, and as it did, a shadow pa.s.sed in front of it. She took a careful step backward, stopped. The noise came again, TaaTaaTa, followed by a whoosh and the swinging light.

c.r.a.p. A bat had somehow found its way into the tunnel. And since she was in human form, couldn't even bustle her way out of the situation.

"Bat, bat, come under my hat, I'll give you a piece of bacon," she recited a tidbit of nursery rhyme she'd learned as a girl, attempting to ward it off.

The creatures weren't bothersome aboveground because they tended to shy away from Sasquatch. But here? She was naked and her hair hung halfway down her back. She'd heard the stories. How the critters like to nest up in your hair. Though Liberty knew better than to believe it, she shuddered. No, thank you.

She scolded herself for forgetting to put a clean robe at the entry. She'd removed it nearly a week ago to wash it in the kennel laundry, and every time she'd left work for the day, she neglected to take it with her. She'd get in the tunnel and instead of just turning around and going back for it, she'd tell herself to remember it next time. If she had the robe now, she'd at least be able to pull it up over her hair and run for the ladder.

She reached up and gathered her hair and twisted it tight into a low bun. With a hand around it to hold it in place, she started to run for the ladder. She'd lost count of the beams but was no more than twenty yards out when the bat made another pa.s.s and managed to shatter the bulb.

For the millionth time in her life, she cursed her existence. Her ancestors. Nature. A normal person didn't have to skulk around in the dark, naked.

She steamed as she reached out her free arm and felt along the earthen wall so she wouldn't b.u.mp into it. Nothing like a pity party to pa.s.s the time, though. Before she knew it, her boots crunched on broken gla.s.s.

Now to get into the kennel without letting the bat in, too. She listened, didn't hear anything, and took the opportunity to creep up the ladder. Unfortunately, she'd forgotten the light's pull string and screamed as it snaked down her back.

"Ohmigosh, ohmigosh." She swatted and squirmed and raced up the rungs, opened the hatch so hard it slammed against the furnace.

"Hey, are you okay? What's going on over there?" Becky called out.

Liberty shut the hatch, kicked off her boots, and felt stupid. "There's a bat in the tunnel and the hairy pest shattered the light bulb." She rubbed her hand on the side of the furnace where a new dent had formed, "Shoot. Looks like I dented the furnace too."

"Oh." Becky giggled. "Remind me before you go and I'll get you a new bulb from upstairs."

"Yeah, and remind me to tell Nathaniel to fish that bat out," Liberty pulled a new dress off a hanger and put it over her head. The Becky-supplied wardrobe always left her with a dozen dresses to choose from.

"It's so funny that you're scared of a harmless bat. I mean, come on, it's just a little thing."

"Compared to what?" Then Liberty caught her meaning, "Oh, I get it. But you forget, I'm a little thing down in the tunnel, too. Besides." She b.u.t.toned, zipped up, slipped on shoes, and came out from behind the part.i.tion. "They get tangled in your hair and bite you with dirty mouths."

She'd worked at the kennel for over a decade. It was the perfect environment for a Sasquatch in hiding. The in-ground level even allowed her to remain in human form.

It had been newly built when they'd moved there, and Ellie had been so grateful for her help. Thanked her every night, said she wouldn't have been able to do it all without her. Liberty always thought she should be the one offering the grat.i.tude. For the job, the home, the friendship. For the next best thing to normal.

It had been a hopping place, never without what Ellie referred to as "guests"a"the cats and dogs they boarded, but Mitch had decided to close it after her death. He'd closed up everything after that, it seemed. His heart, his home, his mind.

When Liberty first emerged from behind the furnace, she tuned in automatically and saw Becky's white aura as silky and shimmery as the hot pink blouse she had on.

Becky beamed, looking up from the papers on her desk. "Look at you." She eyed the pastel linen dress she'd chosen and whistled. "Looks way better on you than it ever did on me. You are positively s.e.xy," she purred like one of their guests, making Liberty laugh.

Becky used to wear dresses like the one she'd just put on. When they first met, Becky told her the story of her long-ago family. She was what people around town referred to as *jerked-over Amish'. A term meaning she used to be Amish, then crossed over to the English side when she got older.

Becky, Mitch and Ellie were the only white auras Liberty had seen. True to her mother's vision, she'd found each one of them trustworthy. Sarah had neglected, however, to mention the auras would be a.s.signed to humans. Nevertheless, Becky and the Montgomery's had been good to her and Nathaniel, and for a time, Sage. They'd become her family and a link to the world she longed to be a part of.

Liberty looked down at herself in the hand-me-down linen dress and said, "You know d.a.m.n well this wasn't yours. I bet you haven't stepped foot in a dress like this since you left home."

Becky had run off at sixteen, convinced her parents were hiding something since they clearly, according to Becky, sucked at Amish life. She drove past their old house a few years later. Saw the place was boarded up, the yard overgrown with goldenrod and thistle, and the mailbox nowhere in sight. No wonder they hadn't returned her letters.

Becky snickered. "Don't make a wager with the daughter of a high-stakes gambler." She winked, made a gun out of her hand, and pretended to fire it at Liberty. "You'll lose every time."

Becky laughed, the sound hearty from a woman so slight. Becky's features were delicate. Her nose, eyes, mouth, and even ears, were doll-sized. Topping it all off was short, spiky, blond hair.

"Oh, wait." Becky stopped laughing. "Before I forget, Mitch said when you arrived I was to tell you he wanted to see you right away."

Mitch was one of the reasons Liberty left the cavern in spite of her guests. There was no doubt the anniversary weighed heavy on his heart, Liberty knew it did on hers. "Yeah, you remember what's coming up don't you?"

Becky nodded. "Hard not to, right? I sat with him for a bit after he ate his dinner. We shared a few stories."

Becky loved Ellie, too. It'd be hard to find anyone who didn't. Becky said Ellie was like everyone's mom, and Liberty agreed. When Ellie died it felt almost the same as when she'd lost her own.

"What's he like today?" Liberty asked, trying to prepare herself. The cancer had progressed rapidly the past couple of months. Used to be you'd never know he was being eaten alive. Now, the disease had started to gnaw away on the exterior. Nipped at him a little at a time.

"All in all, I'd say pretty good. He's coughed up some phlegm, but other than thata" Becky didn't seem to know what else to say.

Liberty gestured toward the shaft. "Guess I'll go then?"

"Oh." Becky remembered. "Need me to get the bulb?"

Liberty contemplated it, then shook her head. "I think I'll be all right. At least I'm dressed now." She took a quick look around for an article to cover her head with, settled on one of the animal'sa"thankfully cleana"bath towels.

"Okay then," Becky said with a sigh, pushing herself away from the office desk. "I'll meet you over there." She turned and headed for the stairs to the upper level.

Becky always took the high road to the farmhouse. As far as Liberty knew, she'd never been down in the bypa.s.s.

Liberty opened her mouth to ask if she wanted to come with. The bat would more than likely steer clear if they were together. But she closed it again at the sight of Becky's footwear when she got up from the desk.

Becky was an impractical dresser, she'd said so herself, blamed it on her suppressive childhood, and today proved to be no exception. She had on a pair of shiny brown boots that began above her knee and ended in what looked to be five inches of rebel spike.

Liberty shook her head. No matter how much she dreamed of being human, she'd never wear those. They looked painful and Liberty imagined it'd be like trying to pick her way around the woods with a thorn stuck in her heel.

She'd let Becky get a head start. Liberty stood on her tippy toes and watched Becky through the windows set high up in the bas.e.m.e.nt walls.

Exiting the kennel's first floor entrance, Becky paused under the security light, looked up to the dark sky, and then dipped her head a little in an attempt to evade the sprinkles coming down. Becky made her way toward the farmhouse at what she would probably say was *a good clip.'

Liberty would say it was like watching a turtle jog.

Chapter Two.

Mitch's bedroom was located on the lower-level of the farmhouse, at the end of a short hallway off the rec room. After Ellie had died, he'd taken his son's old room.

Liberty and Becky discussed it between themselves once and figured the separation must be too painful, too powerful in the master bedroom. So if he chose to stay in another room, it was like he didn't have to face it.

The location was convenient. At least she and Nathaniel were able to visit without Mitch, sick as he was, attempting to make it down the cellar stairs. He couldn't now, anyway.

Liberty crossed the threshold of the room and stopped short of the bed. Her breath caught. Only a month ago, Mitch had looked strong and healthy. Now he lay there sunken and pale, last year's flower wilted on the vine.

His once bright, white aura was now milky, dull, and streaked with gray. His eyes moved under closed lids and she guessed he dreamed of better days.

She took a deep breath and the sweet scent of honeysuckle beneath the thick chlorine disinfectant calmed her. Smoothing the pleats on her dress, Liberty paused for a moment before crossing the room and pulling up a bedside chair. The old wood creaked as she sat and Mitch opened his eyes.

"Liberty? That you?"

She slid her hand across the blanket and rested it on his leg. "Yeah, it's me. How do you feel today?"

He squeezed his eyes shut and scrunched up his face as though he experienced a sharp pain. Liberty made a face, too, felt her stomach twist to see him in obvious discomfort.

He finally let out a ragged breath. "Fair enough."

She looked toward the door jamb where Becky was leaning. Liberty raised her eyebrows. This was a good day?

Becky shrugged as if to say, He looked good a minute ago.