“…so many…cannot be understated. Cannot be understood. We don’t know what caused this, but—”
“It’s obvious what caused it,” a voice shouted from the back of the group. “The Stones did this. The Stones have moved!”
Hessel’s eyes darted to the nearest rock. Its red luminescence danced like a trapped creature testing the limits of its cage, searching for a way out.
When Hessel spoke again, his voice was noticeably cowed, quavering with strain. “It does appear that is the case,” he admitted. “But we don’t know why. Or how. At daybreak, we should—”
“I’ll go.”
Greer heard the words ring out before realizing she’d spoken. She sensed those around her turn her way. She could feel the weight of their stares at her back, heavy and uncomfortable.
“I could go.” She straightened her spine, trying to bolster herresolve. “I have my maps. I can check the positions of the other Stones against them. If they’ve shifted, I’ll know.”
Her father began to shake his head, but Ayaan stepped forward, stopping him.
“What happened here tonight may not be an isolated incident. If other Stones have moved, we need to know where. There could have been others caught like…” His gaze fell on Fiona’s hand. “We need to understand the new perimeters. We’ll need maps. Who else but Greer could do all of this?”
Hessel’s gaze drifted over the gathered townspeople as he considered this. Finally, he nodded. “Go at first light. Take others with you. No one…no one,” he repeated, raising his voice as an order to the entire group, “is to go anywhere alone until we understand what happened.”
Two young women beside Greer took small steps back, as if she might reach out and wrangle them into helping her. Others shifted, their gazes studiously looking anywhere but in her direction. Greer glanced to Ellis, and he nodded, a silent promise passing between them. They would stick together, no matter what.
“How?” someone deep in the crowd called out. “How could they have moved?”
Hessel’s weary eyes roamed over those gathered, searching for who’d spoken. “I don’t know.”
“It was the Benevolence, wasn’t it?” The crowd parted now, revealing Meribeck Matthews, an older, widowed woman, wrapped in several shawls and a mulberry scarf. “The Benevolence have moved the Stones. They’re the only ones with the power to—”
“We don’t know that,” Hessel said, swiftly cutting off the woman’s troubling accusation.
The group swayed, shifting on their feet as the idea settled heavily over them. Faces clouded with doubt. Worry marred the smoothness of brows. Greer didn’t want to believe it possible, didn’t want to know what it meant that the Benevolence had moved the Stones. Was the truce broken? Was the Benevolence’s protection over?
She thought of the map Ellis had bought for her, abandoned intheir headlong sprint from the barn’s roof and undoubtedly lost. She remembered the river that she would never see, and an echo of her earlier wanderlust rang inside her.
If the truce was over and the border had fallen…
Curiosity burning bright, Greer made her way to the closest Stone and raised her head, preparing to test the border. Her heart hammered with an irregular pulse, hope and horror fighting to claim dominance.
Disappointment crushed through her as her hand met with the invisible resistance; it made her fingers ache, break out in a rash of pins and needles, like a limb long fallen asleep and beginning to wake. She leaned against the Stone with her full weight, but it was like fighting against a swell of waves too powerful to swim through. She could go no farther.
“Something angered them,” Meribeck shouted, drawing Greer’s attention. “Someonecaused this.”
Greer frowned. Only that afternoon, Louise had stalked off, blasphemous notions spilling from her lips, loud enough for anyone to hear. Anything.
This couldn’t be Louise’s fault.
The events were unrelated. They had to be.
“Please, God, let them be,” Greer murmured, her heart aching.
Her words formed into little puffs of breath in the dark, frigid air. They rose up and were carried away.
Away from the gathering.
Away from the field and all its bloody stains.
Away from even the hold of the flickering Stones, traveling out into the great night sky, where they were swallowed up, unheard and unheeded.
8
