Chapter Two
It happened just after the bridges and nets were completed. The boy was discovered early in the morning by some little ones playing on the base level of the forest. They had thought it was a friend, pretending to be asleep to set them up for some joke, but then they went closer and touched his foot.
“It was like ice!” the youngest cried. “I touched him but he didn’t feel real. He felt like ice.” Tears streamed down his face as he hiccuped through his tears. “I don’t understand!”
Tina, the wolf shifter who now ran the reading school, held the boy close. “Let’s find your mom, okay? I bet she has a big hug and some yummy bugs for you. Do you know if she’s at your house?”
He shook his head and his lack of knowledge made him burst into a whole new round of tears. Tina pulled him into her arms again and looked up at Harper, who was standing next to her, observing. She looked up in total confusing. Above her were Grey’s nets and bridges, but she saw no holes, no loss of integrity in the structure. As far as she could tell, there was no place for this boy to fall through. The openings between steps and between knots in the nets were far too small.
Was someone trying to make Grey and his designs look bad? It was possible. Harper wouldn’t put it past The Alliance to set the body here in hopes of getting everyone off the bridges and walking along the forest floor. The simple act of going down to this low level would make them all easy prey.
The little one who was still awash with tears looked up at a nearby sound and started to cry even louder. “Mama! Mama!”
His mother ran to him, scooped him up in her arms and held him close. “I thought it was you,” she whispered, shaking with relief. “Oh, my darling. For a moment I thought... It doesn’t matter. You’re safe. Mama’s here.”
The two held one another as Tina and Harper carefully approached the body. By now a small crowd had gathered.
“Did he fall?”
“Did a bridge give out?”
“He’s a shifter. What animal is he?”
“Flying squirrel. They don’t do too much falling. Great balance.”
“We should all avoid the bridges until we know exactly what happened.”
The murmurs about the bridges being dangerous made Harper jump into the mix. “There’s nothing wrong with the bridges. This body was put here to make us all afraid. I’m sure this is the doing of The Alliance.”
Everyone gave her a doubtful expression and looked up, searching just as she had for some sign of a broken connection or an opening left a little too large. Like her, they found nothing.
“You’re sure they’re all fine?” A female cat asked her. Harper nodded. “Alright, then,” she said in a sing-song voice. “Go ahead and cross that one. That’s where he most likely fell from. See if anything happened.”
Harper gulped. The bridges were still new and she was still acclimating to them. The furthest she ever went was to Tina’s house and that was only a few quick steps away. The bridge they were all looking at was much longer and higher.
“Okay. I will. Just to show you that the bridge is not the problem.”
No one responded, just looked at her with inscrutable faces. For a moment she prayed someone would join her on the bridge, but the all looked content to allow her to be the next to fall to her death. “Looks like Grey was right,” she thought. “We’re all becoming colder and colder.”
She made her way over to a nearby pulley and yanked on the bell cord to get herself pulled up. Several children peered down at her and she waved up. The whole group ran over to the pulley to raise her, but their tiny hands and bad timing made for several quick elevations followed by sudden lurches. Harper did her best not to throw up on the crowd below that became smaller and smaller as her lift went higher and higher into the branches.
From the vantage point at the top, it was hard to see the crowd but she had a clear view of the suspected bridge. It was the longest and highest that Grey had designed and was meant to be both a short cut and a place to lookout for any oncoming dangers. Harper’s fear of the swaying, stretching pathways had kept her off of it.
As she stared at the bridge, she started to hear yells from below, but everyone was too far down and she couldn’t make out the words. She leaned over a guardrail and instantly the ground below her became a giant green blur. She squeezed her eyes shut, berating herself for the childish mistake; she’d known her whole life not to look once she was up high. Come on, Harper. You’re smarter than this.
Taking a deep breath, she stepped onto the hanging bridge and gasped as it swung wildly to one side. Harper rode out the terrible moment with her eyes shut tight, not daring to breathe. She nearly toppled right off, but the structure righted itself and she was able to regain her balance. Breathing deep, she allowed a little daylight through one of her eyelids, then opened her eyes entirely.
Focus on a spot, she told herself. Then just walk one foot at a time until you get there. You can do it. Just one foot and then the other. She tried again, this time remembering to keep her back straight and her steps even, rolling from heel to toe as she moved. Right, left, right, left... So far so good.
Just ahead of her, Harper saw something that made her stomach turn. It looked black and rotted, as if it were just on the verge of falling apart completely. This particular brand of rot was unlike any that Harper had ever seen - it seemed to be moving slightly. She knew she would have to take a closer look, which would mean crawling at least for a little while, but best not to think about that until it was absolutely necessary. In the meantime, she would just keep walking.
The black mess inched closer, but again she was perplexed. This rotted section seemed to be made of many tiny parts, all of which were a deep, intense black. What was it? Keeping as much weight as she could to the opposite side of the bridge, she held tight to the sides, ready to drop and swing to her death. Wow, she thought, I must be really into this guy if I’m putting myself through all this.
As she reached the black spot, she realized she could hear it. It was clicking and whirring at odd intervals. Slowly, slowly, she lowered down onto one knee and took a closer look.
“Bugs!” She looked around for someone who could join in the minor victory, but there was no one up in the trees with her. They were all on the ground with that poor boy. She checked her enthusiasm and carefully looked to see if this new discovery was the cause of any damage.
As far as she could see, the bugs had been drawn to that particular spot by the leaves still on the vines, but they seemed to have no interest in the strong, rope-like stalks. She let out a sigh of relief. Grey had spent several days learning about the different vines in the jungle to make sure these would be free of predators who longed to much through them. He’d been certain he’d chosen the right one when he first started drying and braiding this particular strain. Harper watched the bugs as they walked over one another, moved in an odd, collective shape like a cloud made of antennae and exoskeletons. One appeared to look back up at her, stretching it’s antennae up as far as it could to read the air around her, to feel any information that might have fallen from her.
“Are you eating our bridge?”
The bug didn’t answer, but it did appear interested in the question. Harper tilted her head at the tiny creature with curiosity. Was it possible the latest evolution of insects had language?
“Any chance you saw how that little boy down there died?”
To her shock, the bug seemed to shake it’s head back and forth as if to say no, then went on about its business. She stood slowly and looked up to find herself being watched. There, at the other end of the bridge was Larissa with her little enigmatic smile that disarmed everyone day in and day out. The shock of her appearance made Harper desperately grab at the rope bridge all over again.
“So,” Larissa said, leaning out her window frame, “what did your bug friend have to say? Has he solved the mystery?”
“Larissa. You scared me.”
The thought of being terrifying just made Larissa giggle; I'm horrifying, how funny. The past few years had been good to her; her stick-thin figure had given way to a curvy, beautiful shape and her face had filled out to complement the rest of her. She preferred her perch high above the world, but as a fossa she could easily run straight down her tree and onto the forest floor if she was in the mood for a run or a hunt. The shifters liked to say that she lived up there so that she could look down on everyone else, but Harper knew that Larissa was just odd. She didn’t see the world through the same lens as everyone else.
“What are you doing? I thought I was the one with all the strange habits.” As if to illustrate her point, Larissa put a bare foot up on the window sill and splayed her toes so far apart that her human foot became a whole other thing.
Harper blinked at the odd act and tried to gather herself. “Oh, right. There was an accident. A little boy fell and the poor thing didn’t make it. There’s a theory that the bridges are the problem.”
“Mmm... Poor thing.” Larissa repeated Harper’s sentiment almost as if she didn’t understand it. Harper waited for her odd friend to continue, but Larissa seemed to have no other thoughts on the matter.
“Anyway,” Harper went on, “I’m just up here checking for any sign of damage.”
“No damage up here. I would have alerted Grey immediately if any bridges were crumbling. They’d kill us all.”
“Did you see anything?”
Larissa stood and waved her in. Harper gladly unfolded her knees and made the last of the journey to Larissa’s porch. To her surprise, the young fossa didn’t invite her in but rather brought two rough chairs out to the porch and sat in one and then put her feet up on the second. Her guest was left standing awkwardly. She nearly said something, but then decided it wasn’t worth it.
“I didn’t see anything except that little one gliding down on a lift,” Larissa informed her. “You can tell your boyfriend that - everything he has made us is safe and well designed.” She leaned back in her chair and looked Harper up and down. “Your man has really come into his own, hasn’t he? Designing, building, leading. I’m not sure where we’d be without him.”
Harper looked down and smiled a bit. “Yes. He’s really thriving out here.”
“But what about you?”
“Hm?”
Larissa scowled at Harper’s innocence. “Don’t pretend you don’t understand the question. What about you? You can’t sit at home playing housewife all day for the local hero. It would be madness. You have to have your own claim to fame. Carve out your own niche.” She leaned forward, putting her feet on the porch and her elbows on her knees. “What burns in your heart, Harper Bachmann?”
Harper gulped. She’d felt herself going numb little by little, surrounded by creatures who seemed to gather energy from the forest and the clear blue sky. She didn’t dislike any of this new environment, in fact she liked it very much, but she felt no effects from it. It didn’t feed her in any way beyond the literal. Her soul had gone dormant.
“I don’t know. I haven’t spent much time thinking about my heart.”
“You think, and you don’t even know you think this but you do,” Larissa began, cryptically, “that you can’t have anything in your heart. Because, after all, your father was our oppressor. Then, he died a horrible death. A death he deserved, certainly, but it was still horrible. How are you supposed to feel? What are you supposed to do with your life? Maybe if you don’t do anything you won’t have to feel or suffer or cry a single tear.” She sat back, taking a long look at her visitor. “But I can tell you one thing I know without a doubt, Harper. That’s no life. A woman has to have a purpose. A lack of one will drive her to insanity. This, I know.”
With that, Larissa turned her attention to a little bird that had landed on the railing of the porch. It tweeted at them, cocking it’s little head as if it were asking them about this and that. Harper watched it with a smile on her face as it hopped around and peered at her with big, soft eyes.
Suddenly, Larissa’s strong hand swept out and grabbed the little thing, plopping it in her mouth before it could tweet a single protest. A small flurry of feathers floated in it’s wake after it was firmly in the fossa’s mouth and being chewed and crunched into nothing more than a memory. Harper’s jaw fell open and as the bird’s deep red blood dribbled out of her host’s mouth.
Larissa caught her staring and wiped at her lips with the back of her hand and then swallowed. “Don’t avoid the question, Miss Bachmann. When are you going to start living your life?”
“Well,” Harper tried, still shaken by Larissa’s sudden kill, “I guess I’ll start by figuring out who killed that little boy and how.”
Larissa nodded slowly and then a deep burp came from her. She opened her mouth to let out the terrible sound, releasing a few few more feathers in the process. “Good. Very good. Maybe then the others will stop whispering about Grey’s taste in females.”
“What? What are you talking about?”
Larissa didn’t seem concerned about Harper’s panic. She just shrugged and stood to collect her things, conversation and visit officially over. “You know. Whispers. Don’t put too much stock in them. They’re here and then they’re gone. Better get back.”
Harper stood while Larissa when back inside and closed the door behind her. “Bye, nice talk,” she muttered to the door, then moved over to the latch in the porch floor so she could head down to solid ground. Larissa’s lift was one that could be operated by the person riding it, so she slowly lowered herself as carefully as she could. When her swing touched the earth, she stepped off and felt the ground pitch forward, she’d been in the air so long.
With a hand on a tree trunk, she stood still while the crowd slowly noticed her and then gathered around her one by one. They waited patiently, eyes wide with hope that this had simply been a fall and no other sinister thing.
She disappointed them all with the shake of her head.
“Nothing?”
“Nothing. Everything above us is perfectly intact. All I found were some bugs eating leaves, but they aren’t touching the vines. Also, I spoke with Larissa. She saw the boy lower himself down on a lift. It wasn’t a fall.”
Faces around her drooped in pure despair. If this event had been the result of anything other than a fall, that meant that somewhere in the jungle was a predator out to kill children. And with so many places to hide in the trees and the foliage, it could be literally anyone, shifter human or a whole new thing altogether.
“Don’t worry,” Harper said, straightening up and allowing her chest to swell for a moment. “It’s okay. I’m going to find who did this so we can bring the culprit to justice.”
She paused, certain this announcement would be met with accolades and cheers, but she heard only silence. Harper looked around and saw herself surrounded by doubt. Didn’t they think she could do it?
“Um,” a female wolf chimed in, “is Grey going to help you? He knows everyone. And he’s so smart.”
“So am I. I was privately educated for eighteen years.”
This got her a round of eye rolls. No one liked hearing about her days of luxury back when she was the president’s daughter, a true Bachmann, encased in her palace in the mountains.
“Well,” the pretty wolf tried again, “maybe you could just ask him. You know. Can’t hurt.”
Realizing that she would have no emotional or verbal support until she had at least the suggestion that Grey was working with her towards solving this mystery, she relented. “Yeah. You’re right. And he is very intelligent. And he knows everybody. He could be a great help.”
The wolf gave a relieved “Yeah,” as she smiled and nodded at her new saviour. The rest of the crowd joined her and patted her on the back for her sound decision to ask her boyfriend for help. It was all she could do to keep from screaming. She felt her incisor teeth extend, ready to bite off their hands. She forced a smile and breathed. Not today.
Later that night, Grey came to the burial of the poor, dead boy. By then, his family had been located and gathered at the central square, the only clear intersection left in the city, for a kind of funeral.
The boy was the first to die in the new jungle. Everyone had felt so lucky to be alive as nature renewed itself and experimented with new flora and fauna that to see death staring them in the face was a shock. Life in this new place was generally happy and had a kind of floating lightness to it. To see this dark, heavy thing in their beautiful community of trees left them all speechless with shock.
Together, they listened to the boy’s mother sob. She didn’t cry softly, her cries seemed to be ripped from her one by one, each more painful than the last. Harper remembered once hearing a friend of her father’s say that it was every parent’s nightmare to bury a child. She could see at that moment that it was true.
The boy’s short, muscular father moved forward to say a few words.
“My son Marcus was a beautiful, spirited creature. He was a beautiful flier, a wonderful storyteller, a genuine person. This world will be a darker place without him.”
He reached over to his wife but she batted his hand away, the very thought of affection making her cries louder. He glanced over at Grey who took over.
“At the parent’s request,” he said somberly, “our dear Marcus will be left to the jungle. They ask that no one disturb the body so that the plants may reclaim his body as our sacrifice for this new home we have found. Please respect their wishes.”
One by one, each mourner approached the parents and hugged them or shook their hands gently. As Harper touched the weeping mother’s hands, she didn’t make any promises or proclamations, Instead, she made a fierce and silent promise to herself.
“I’m going to find Marcus’ killer. I will. I will.”