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“What? You mean, poke inside their heads? No. Of course not.”
“Then how do you know whether this is love or mere lust?” He seemed honestly perplexed.
“It’s pretty obvious.”
“Is it?” He sighed. “I suppose it is for you. I must resort to less delicate means. I have filled myself with their memories and feel what they feel. Yes. It is love.”
I whispered the word, “Duh.” I don’t know if Messenger heard me or not.
Night had fallen, turning the forest around us into a place of eldritch fears, a fairy-tale forest wherein might lurk witches with interests in gingerbread and plump, flavorful children. The headlights cast irregular circles of light on the macadam but did not reach beyond the ditch to our right or the tangle of weeds to our left.
“And what do you think of that? Of love?” Messenger asked me.
“Okay, that’s getting—”
Suddenly his insinuating voice, that whisper that always seemed to be directly into my ear, became strident. “Understand something, Mara: You will answer my questions. You will reveal everything to me and hold nothing back.”
It was said with undeniable authority. His tone was not pleading nor was it cruel. He stated it as a simple fact, as though it was beyond question. And as he spoke, he seemed to grow, to become a foot taller and as much wider, and a cold, dark light shone from him.
Then he returned to his normal size, although how could I know what was normal for this creature?
“Understand that I ask you questions out of respect. In the hope that you will understand that you must . . . that you may . . . trust me. I can as easily enter your mind as the minds of any of those we meet. But if you are open and honest with me, Mara, I will not do that.”
I was feeling that I’d been pushed around just about enough. And I was readying a devastating response when—
“Look out!”
At the same instant the car swerved sharply and there was the sound of impact. Stiff rubber and unyielding steel on flesh.
And a frantic, squealing sound that went on and on, rising, falling, a visceral cry that spoke wordlessly of pain.
Emma pulled the car to the side, almost into the ditch, and jumped out, followed immediately by Liam.
The squeal came from an ancient dog, gray in the muzzle, with shaggy, tan fur. The dog, a mix of who knew how many breeds, dragged itself sideways, trailing blood, to the side of the road and lay there, panting, unable to go farther.
“Oh, God!” I gasped. The dog’s side was ruptured. Its fur was ever more matted as blood seeped out.
“We have to get it to a vet!” Liam cried as he dropped down beside the dog. “Oh, we’re so sorry, boy, we are so sorry.” He stroked a clean patch of dry fur behind the dog’s left ear.
“We can’t!” Emma cried. “My dad!”
“This dog is messed up; we can’t leave him here like this,” Liam argued, but already I could see the way he blinked, doubting his own certainty.
The dog mewled. It was not urgent. It was not a plea for help. It was sad and accepting. The dog neither knew that it was dying nor that it might yet be saved. It only knew pain and that its legs would no longer raise it up off the pavement. His tail moved once, twice.
“We have to get out of here,” Emma fretted. She went around to the front of the car and moaned upon seeing a dent, a bloody dent, in the right front bumper. “Oh, my God, oh, my God. I have to clean off the blood and get home right now!”
She was close to panic, and Liam left the whimpering dog’s side reluctantly and went to comfort Emma.
“Someone’s going to come by and see us here,” Liam said, glancing nervously down the road. “If they do, they might pull over to help. Then we’re out of luck. But we can’t leave him suffering like this.”
“We could drop him off somewhere and drive off.”
“Carry a bloody dog in the car? What if we get pulled over? What if the car breaks down? What if there’s a security camera at the vet? We have to . . . to put him out of his misery.”
“Maybe if we left him, someone else would come along.” Then she surrendered. Her shoulders sagged and she shook her head, not in denial but in rejection of her own desperate plans.
The dog made a soft mewling sound, then a yip of pain.
