Forsaken - An American Sasquatch Tale (3 page)

Liberty paid close attention to her own posture, her expression. No need for word to get back to Proem concerning poor Liberty Brewster, perched on the edge of sanity ever since she’d lost her daughter. Nope. She took a shallow breath. She wouldn’t give it to them.

Nathaniel sat and waited for more, and Gabriel spoke up, “Cutler would like you.” He looked at her, added, “And Liberty, to consider moving back to Proem.”

Katie squirmed, couldn’t stand not being the one to tell the story, and took over for Gabriel. “Not just move back, Nate, he wants you to be on his Council.” She clasped her hands to her chest, said it like Nathaniel would be King. Liberty wanted to choke her. She and Patience really were two of a kind. Upper hierarchy turned them on.

“Oh, no, thank you,” Liberty said before Nathaniel had a chance to answer, her voice as serene as a lake in Pleasantville. “We won’t be moving back.”

“I can understand your hesitation.” Gabriel nodded. “But—”

“I don’t.” Katie glared and raised her voice, “And excuse me, this offer is posed to Nathaniel. I think he can answer—”

Gabriel patted Katie’s shoulder and Nathaniel put his hands up, and waved. “Hey, hey, I think we’ve gotten ahead of ourselves.”

Liberty leaned back, waited to hear the rest, and hoped for her mate’s sake it was good. In the shadows, Adrian flipped through the photo book kept on Liberty’s desk. His chin rested on his hand, unaffected by the conversation.

“We’re happy here.” Nathaniel paused and reconsidered, as if ‘happy’ were the wrong word. “We’ve made a home here and, though I’m honored by Cutler’s proposition, it’s not an option for us.”

It wasn’t a great response--Liberty would have ended with showing them the exit--but it was acceptable. Diplomatic and right to the point. Pure Nathaniel. And probably why Cutler wanted him.

Gabriel hadn’t spoken since Katie had interrupted, but his fingers tapped on a bouncing knee and it looked like he was chewing a hole in his cheek. This man was a far cry from the wild boy he had been in his youth. Had used to be, when they’d all been on friendlier terms.

Even though he and Nathaniel were no relation, Liberty had never registered their strange resemblance before. She studied them. Maybe it was the lighting. Both were tall and muscular, broad shouldered, and had sandy colored hair. Gabriel’s eyes were green, and Nathaniel’s more hazel, but Katie’s mate could definitely pass as her brother from a distance. Liberty wondered if it had been unintentional. She suppressed a shudder.

“Please, be reasonable.” Katie got up and walked toward Nathaniel. “You’ll need somewhere to go.”

Mitch Montgomery, the owner of the property Liberty and Nathaniel roamed, was dying. It wouldn’t be long before he passed, and Katie seemed to know it.

Liberty looked down at her hands, checking to see if she’d disappeared since Katie was acting like she was invisible. Wiggled her fingers. Yep, still solid, so she figured her voice should be heard. She cleared her throat. “Since when is where we live your concern?”

Katie stopped, a mixture of surprise and disdain on her face.

“If, and when,
we
move,” Liberty continued, “it’ll be our decision.” No need to say they’d already found a new dwelling. One even further away from Proem than this one. Liberty stood. “Oh, and Katie? You can pass that little bit of information onto Patien--”

Before she’d gotten the last syllable out, Nathaniel and Gabriel had shot to their feet.

“What’s Patience got to do with this?” Katie asked, a hand on her hip, though her tone gave her away. Too innocent, too sweet. Pink flushed high on her cheeks.

“Please spare me the act. You really expect me to believe she isn’t behind this? Pulling Cutler’s strings? She’ll never change.”

The perfect example of how a woman should behave, Patience had always gotten her way, obviously taking after her father. More so now that her mate was Governor. She had everything, reverence, respect, and envy. Except when it came to Liberty.

Patience had been the real reason Liberty requested a Pardon. They’d left Proem after a fourteen-year-old Patience had stooped so low as to make false accusations against her and Nathaniel. Said they were trying to get rid of her, kill her. Years later, Liberty realized it was Patience who wanted rid of her. No loss there.

Katie gasped and her brown eyes got wide eyed. Good, she’d offended her. Liberty turned to look at Nathaniel. “Sorry, but you know I don’t have time for this.” She nodded at her uninvited guests without meeting their eyes and then looked back to her husband. “I’ll see you in a bit.”

She turned to leave the chamber and noticed the empty desk chair. Adrian had excused himself as quietly as he’d entered.

Nathaniel followed her out to the corridor. “Wait.” He reached out an arm. “Hold up a minute.”

She stopped and he drew her to his chest. He leaned down close to her ear and his stubble pricked her cheek. Feigning the appearance they were having a tender moment, he murmured, “Don’t be angry.”

She didn’t respond.

“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 last—his small frame still looked like he could use a few pounds—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 them—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 space. Right before the clearing, near the edge of the woods, lay another concealed door. That one, covered in loam and field grass, led into a bypass 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 basement. There wasn’t a ladder to enter the house, but rather a door beneath the cellar’s staircase. Mitch put the bypass 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 carcasses 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 passed 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 basement. 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 crappy attitude, 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 passed 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 bypass 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 basement.

The bypass was reinforced with wooden beams, on both the ceiling and walls, at four foot intervals. The space wasn’t pitch black—a bulb installed near the ladder stayed lit around the clock—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 spaces. Dark, cramped spaces.

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.