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I walk the rows of vines as the sun begins to announce itself on the horizon. Eventually, I’m joined by the growers, a few of whom smile hesitantly as I wish them good morning. I can only imagine what the Radcliffs have said or done to make these people so wary of speaking to me.
As I cross into another section of vineyard, the trees in the distance seem clearer somehow. Crisper. I barely have to squint to see the individual leaves. I find myself noting specific sounds, too, independent from the noise around them. One bluebird’s call over another, the rumble of a tractor over the gnashing of a woodchipper.
Something whispers over my right shoulder. A murmur of feelings rather than words, but the meaning is the same:move.
I feel the object coming before I hear it, and I duck.
An arrow whooshes past me and embeds itself into the ground.
My heart punches at my sternum as every muscle in my body goes taut.
Again, I sense the whisper like a warning, this time to my left. I roll.
Another arrow strikes the ground.
“What the fuck...” On hands and knees, I scramble to the end of the hedgerow and sit with my back to the trellis. My pulse gallops in my head like horse hooves. I try peering over the vines to see if I can tell where the arrows are coming from, but the foliage is too high.
A third arrow comes down a few inches from my foot.
Yelping, I scuttle down an adjacent row until I reach the edge of the field, then start sprinting along the perimeter toward the house. My lungs burn. My side aches like I’m being stabbed. As I approach the manicured lawn, I see Lilliana standing with her back to me.
I slow to a jog and then stop, panting.
Lilliana grabs an arrow from the quiver at her feet and draws the bowstring back on an expensive-looking bow. She’s set up a target a few yards away, in the opposite direction of the vineyard.
She releases the arrow. It hits the bullseye dead-on.
“What the hell?” I say, breathless. “You could’ve fucking killed me.”
She glances over her shoulder at me and shrugs.
“Sorry,” she says, not sounding sorry at all.
I rest my hands on my knees. Lilliana aims, draws, and shoots another arrow, landing it in almost the exact same spot as the first.
“How’d you know to duck the first time?” she asks.
I don’t know how I knew the arrow was coming, but I’m not about to sit down and discuss the possibilities with her over breakfast.
With my heart no longer working to hammer its way out of my chest, I march across the lawn and into the house in search of Edward.
I find him in his office on the third floor.
“I think Lilliana just tried to kill me,” I tell him.
“She’s the top archer on her team, two years running.” He studies the papers on his desk. “Trust me, if she wanted you dead, you wouldn’t be standing.”
“So, I’m target practice, then.”
He glances up from his work and lowers his glasses. “How’d you sleep?”
“Like a baby with colic who wants to go home.”
“But you just got here.” He beckons me to stand with him at the antique cabinet by his desk. “Come, take a look at this.”
“You’re not listening to me,” I say, joining him.
“I am listening. I just think you should see this first.”
