Page 33 of Strange Lights

Finally, Calvin clears his throat and says, “Maybe we should get some sleep. I’m sure she’ll be back soon. She’s probably found Doug and Dave by now.”

His reasonable tone of voice makes me want to punch him in the face. I make a noncommittal noise and refresh my email mindlessly.

The familiar whoosh of my notification sounds. It’s my mysterious but reliable source. It’s short, not attachments, only a few words long. I picture someone hiding, frantically typing out the words on a phone, desperate to send them to me with no regard for punctuation. I picture someone typing them out meticulously, intent on taunting and confusing me. It eats at me, not being able to tell which picture is the truth.

Subject: the sky is falling

ladybird ladybird fly away home your house is on fire your children are gone

ladybird ladybird fly away home your house is on fire your children will burn

I read the eerie words a second time.

“What’s wrong?” Calvin says sharply, but I can hardly hear him over the ringing in my ears.

Is it a threat? A warning? If the sender is who I think it is, maybe it’s a taunt.

Calvin comes around the table, leans over me to read the words on the screen, claws extending from his fingertips and digging into the tabletop as he breathes the words out loud into my ear.

“What a creepy thing to write,” he says. “Does it mean something to you? ‘Your children are gone. . . .’”

As he mumbles the words to the lullaby, it hits me. “Eldi. Eldi. Eldi! She’s outside⁠—”

I’m moving before I understand what I’m doing. Pulling on rain boots because there’s no time for laces, racing out the door and blindly into the dark forest.

Calvin is right behind me, fully changing into his werewolf form to lope gracefully alongside me. He catches me as I stumble over a root.

“Eldi! Eldi!” I call for her frantically. I need a flashlight; I need a plan, but there’s not enough time to⁠—and there’s too much light suddenly. Spotlights, shining only a short distance away, tracking something.

Eldi. They’re hunting her.

Calvin knocks into me, shoving me down and out of sight as a beam sweeps through the surrounding woods.

The rhythmic thrumming of helicopter blades passes low, wind skimming the treetops overhead, whipping up a swirl of leaves and forest floor detritus around us.

I shove myself back to my feet, running for the lights, following the helicopter. I’m hyperventilating now. My lips and fingertips tingle, and I force myself to take a long, shuddering breath. A branch whips across my face. I can’t tell if the warmth running down my cheek is blood or tears.

I spot her as we come to a gap between the trunks, darting along the tree line at the opposite side of a large meadow.

“Eldi!” I scream as helicopters hover, spotlights unrelenting. It’s as bright as day.

I can’t tell if she hears me over the noise of the helicopters, but she sees me and runs straight toward me as fast as I’ve ever seen her.

Dark, masked figures drop from the helicopters, land in the spaces between us, cutting us off. I was right not to trust Zara’s offer⁠—she has betrayed me after all. How stupid I was to assume I’d thrown her off our trail. There’re too many of them. Too much distance between us.

It doesn’t matter. I’m getting through them to Eldi by any means. I’ll kill them before I let them take her. I’ll kill them all before she gets her hands on her.

Calvin tackles me to the ground again. He’s abruptly human shaped. Shouting something in my ear. I struggle upward, but he has his arms locked around me. A moment later, I understand why.

Eldi. It’s too late.

Nets whip through the air. Eldi falls, trapped but fighting hard. It takes a half dozen of the figures to control the nets containing her. The kind of nets that I know are too strong for her to escape, made to hold creatures even more powerful and vicious than her.

I fight Calvin just as hard. But he transforms, and I can’t fend off a werewolf. If I can only get to her, if I can at least go with her⁠—

“Mama.” Her eyes lock on mine as she mouths the word.

And then she’s gone, wrapped tight, shoved into a heartbreakingly tiny cage that disappears into the belly of a helicopter.