Anne Bishop - Written in Red

She scrambled for the keys in her purse, panting as her shaking hands tried to fit the key in the lock.

Was the man coming up the stairs? Creeping down the hallway? If she opened the door, would he be right there, waiting to grab her?

The tingling in her hands became a buzz that was so painful she dropped the keys. Unable to escape, she pounded on the door and screamed, “Henry! Henry!” Could he hear her? Please, gods, let him hear me!

She felt as well as heard the roar that filled the hallway, followed by a startled cry and the clatter of boots.

Racing to the window, Meg saw the man running across the street, angling for the corner and disappearing from sight. Retracing her steps, she picked up the keys with shaking hands and finally managed to open the door.

Henry stood at the end of the hallway, looking down the stairs. She couldn’t see his expression—the lights from his apartment and hers didn’t reach that far, and he hadn’t turned on the hallway light—but she had the impression he was very angry.

“Henry?” she said hesitantly. “Should I call someone?”

“Who would you call?” he asked, sounding more curious than angry.

“I don’t know. The police? Or someone in the Courtyard?”

He walked back to her door and studied her. Then he shook his head. “No need to call anyone. I’ll take a look around now and talk to Simon in the morning. Keep your door locked, Meg, and you’ll be all right.”

No, she wouldn’t be all right. She couldn’t explain that to Henry, so she closed the door and turned the key in the lock. Then she pressed her ear against the door, listening as she counted slowly.

She reached one hundred before Henry walked back down the hallway to the stairs. As soon as she was sure he wouldn’t hear her, she moved with controlled desperation, changing into jeans and a sweater, packing up a small bag of toiletries, tucking her book, a jar candle, and box of matches into one of the zippered carry bags. She rolled her pillow into the spare blanket from the chest at the end of her bed. Then she put her coat and boots on and held her breath while she turned the key, listening as hard as she could for Henry’s footsteps.

She slipped out of her apartment and locked up, then fled to the back entrance and down the stairs. She hurried to the Liaison’s Office, fumbled to get the door open, and let out a sob of relief when she was inside.

Just as exposed here as in her apartment. Just as alone, since the shops and the consulate wouldn’t be open tomorrow. But no one knew she was here. The low light in the front part of the office was always on and wouldn’t attract attention. Light from the candle would be visible only from the window in the sorting room, and that window looked out on the yard and sculpture garden behind Henry’s studio.

She would be safe here tonight—or as safe as she could be.

Unwilling to turn on the overhead lights, she slipped off her boots, then padded her way to the sorting room, dropping the pillow and blanket on the table before going to the counter that ran under the window. Retrieving the candle and matches from her carry bag, she lit the candle. She didn’t need to cut her skin to figure out the Controller had found her. It was just a matter of time before his man found a way to reclaim her.

Just a matter of time.

Spreading the blanket out on the sorting table, Meg climbed up and got as comfortable as she could on her hard, makeshift bed.

In the western part of the continent, where the terra indigene Grizzlies ruled as many Courtyards as the Wolves, some humans called his first form spirit bear.

Spirit bear moved through the world unseen, but some could sense his passing. Some would know he was there before he took on the tangible shape that had teeth and claws.

Now Henry followed the stranger’s trail until it ended farther up the street where the man’s vehicle had been parked.

Turning back to the Courtyard, he went to the glass door and studied the broken lock as he considered what it meant.

So much fear behind Meg’s door, so much desperation when she screamed his name.

If he hadn’t wanted to be close to the wood tonight, would she have disappeared, leaving them to think she was just another human who had used them for a few days’ shelter? Or would the broken lock on the door and the scent of a stranger stir up Simon and the rest of the terra indigene who lived here?

Turning away from the door, Henry walked up to the corner and turned left, following the boundary of the Courtyard, not sure what he was looking for but letting instinct guide him.

He prowled the delivery area, taking in the scents around the front of the Liaison’s Office and the consulate. The stranger’s scent wasn’t there, but moving closer to the sorting-room delivery doors, he picked up another scent that was fresher than it should be.

Moving around the office to the yard behind his studio, he saw the flicker of light in the sorting room. Taking up the full Grizzly form, Henry braced a paw on the wall and looked in the window.

Meg, sleeping on the sorting table.

Meg, who wasn’t in the apartment where someone would expect to find her at this time of night.

Moving away from the window, Henry called,

Five of them answered his call, landing on the wall that separated his studio from the delivery area.

Allison asked.

he said.

Two of the owls flew off, taking up position on the roof of the consulate. Another flew up to the roof of his studio. Allison and a juvenile male remained on the wall.

Satisfied that he would have plenty of warning if the stranger returned, Henry ambled back to the efficiency apartment, changed to human form, and retrieved his clothes where he had left them in the stairwell. He made himself a cup of strong black tea generously laced with honey, then settled into the rocking chair near the window that gave him a view of the Liaison’s Office. As he drank his tea, he wondered about the female who had suddenly come into their lives.

Throughout the rest of the night, he wondered a lot.

And he wondered what Simon was going to say in the morning.

Simon got out of the shower and rubbed the towel briskly over his skin. He didn’t like conforming to the way humans chopped up days into little boxes. The sun and moon and change of seasons should be enough for anyone. But if he had to conform in order to run a human-type business, he shouldn’t have to think about it on the one day each week when he could live as Wolf from one sunrise to the next.

Earthday was the day of rest, the day the Courtyard was closed to humans so that the terra indigene could run and play and be what they were: earth natives. It was the one day he didn’t have to shift into the skin that was useful but never felt like home.

Because he dealt with humans so much, he needed a day with the Wolfgard, needed his own kind. That was the trap for Others who had excessive contact with humans—if you adapted too much in order to deal with them, you ran the risk of forgetting who you were and you could end up being neither and nothing. That was why even Sam’s distress at seeing him as a Wolf wasn’t enough for him to give up what he needed for himself.

But Henry’s message on the answering machine this morning had him breaking his own rule, since the Beargard had made it clear that it was the Wolfgard in human form that was needed at the studio.