Chapter Four
Harper walked to where she had seen little Marcus laid out, but she already knew that his body would have washed away from its original place after the storm. She just hoped it wouldn’t be too far away.
To her surprise, someone was already with him.
There, standing over Marcus’ body was his grieving mother. She looked exactly like him; same deep mocha skin, the same wide nose, the same sad eyes. She barely acknowledged Harper as she walked up, but she didn’t seem to mind having her there. The two shared a friendly silence as the jungle around them clicked and hummed. Some big fat flies buzzed past them, but both women let them fly in peace.
Marcus had had several visitors, by the look of him. He was surrounded by large, flowered branches and had a pillow of leaves under his head. He was lightly covered with a blanket of little blossoms that were sure to be gone by morning, but it still had the intended effect. He looked at peace and at one with the outdoors. Like a little forest spirit returning to the earth.
“I’m so sorry for your loss,” she said softly to the mother beside her. She didn’t respond. Instead, she bent down to put a few more small flowers on her son’s body.
“He never hurt anyone,” she said hoarsely. Harper realized with a start that the woman had been weeping all night and lost her voice. “He was always smiling, always upbeat. Even when we were so poor and digging through the garbage in the streets. Nothing got him down. He just loved the sky, the sun, his family. He was a special little man.”
“I wish I had known him better. I’m sorry to say we never spoke. But,” she turned to the mom, “I want to help. Is there anything at all that I can do?”
“According to the whispers in the trees,” the woman said, raising her eyebrows, “you intend to find Marcus’ killer.”
Harper gulped and nodded, doing her best to look determined. “Yes. That’s what I want to do. What I will do. This kind of thing cannot stand. It would be one thing if he’d had an accident, but I checked. He was nowhere near a bridge and even if he had been -”
“I know,” the woman said, holding up a hand. “His father did all the same things. Talked to a lot of the people who saw Marcus last. Even his little friends. Everyone confirmed that nothing strange was going on. So,” she went on, looking deep into Harper’s eyes, “that means he must have gotten involved with something that he was keeping secret.”
“A secret?” Harper felt her blood run a bit colder.
Marcus’ mother nodded. “The best I can figure,” she said, “is that just as he was on his way home, he must have heard something, seen something, found something, anything, that he was not meant to see. And someone got scared that this innocent, trusting little boy would talk.” She hiccuped a little cry and looked up the sky. “And they were right. Marcus couldn’t keep a secret for more than a minute. He told his brothers and sisters everything. Every single detail of his day.”
Harper moved a little closer and tentatively pulled this stranger in for a hug. The woman resisted for a moment, then collapsed against and let out a deep and shuddering sob. She shook against Harper’s frame, almost falling, so Harper pulled her in a bit tighter, holding her with as much strength as she could muster.
“So I need to figure out who’s keeping secrets around here,” Harper said matter-of-factly in a soft voice. “Then we’ll know what happened to Marcus.”
Her new friend pulled away and looked at Harper doubtfully. “You really think you can do that?”
Harper thought for a moment, twisting up her mouth. “Where had Marcus been playing the evening he passed away? What we he up to?”
“His friends told us they were all playing a round of Humans Versus Shifters in the trees, but I know that means they were in the part of the forest near his friend Shep’s house.” She turned and pointed West to a little neighborhood of treehouses. “You could start there.”
Harper smiled at her and managed to inspire a smile back from her sad friend. The expression clearly pained her, but she fought through it.
“Okay, then,” Harper said. “That’s where I’m headed. Can you tell me where Shep lives?”
“Oh,” the woman replied, “everyone knows Shep. Just ask around and you’ll find his house. He’s a popular little guy.” Harper could hear a touch of affection in the woman’s voice, her son’s friends were all she had left of him. The half-shifter wondered if Marcus’ mother was missing her noisy house. No time to ask, there was work to be done. She turned to go and then stopped.
“I’m Harper, by the way.”
“I know who you are.”
Harper gave a tight smile. “Right. I should have guessed. Can you tell me your name?”
The woman thought it over, uncertain if she wanted this young, would-be detective addressing her by her first name. Then she shrugged and said, “Dahlia. My name is Dahlia.”
Harper walked into the part of the forest Dahlia had indicated and noticed that the trees were a bit thinner here, meaning that they were younger. This new forest grew in a manner very different than forests of the past. Now trees shot up thin as arrows and then gradually expanded month after month. Once they reached a certain circumference they slowed down significantly and only expanded about an inch a year. The new, aggressive growing pattern made it fairly easy to plan treehouses. If a tree was still thin, the floor just need some leeway between the tree and the inner circle. Nets were placed underneath the opening in case anyone’s foot slipped through and then the nets were taken away as the tree filled in.
As Harper gazed up at all the trees above her, she saw lots of nets hanging down just over her head. This was a very new neighborhood.
As she walked, a group of young boys screamed past her, their tiny spears raised over their heads as they charged at some imaginary enemy.
“Got you!”
“Die! Die! Die!”
“You’ll never get away! You’re our prisoner. A ha ha!”
She watched as they stabbed and swatted at the invisible monster and then eventually got tired. She walked up as they teased one another, shoving each other to the ground.
“Hi boys.”
They glanced up, looked at each other to see if anyone knew this strange woman, but they were each equally mystified. They quickly went back to playing and ran away from her.
Huh. Okay. She would have to try again. What did kids want to hear from adults? She thought about it as she walked and then stopped as the same three boys came careening around a corner and straight for her. Seeing their homemade spears in their hands, she got an idea.
“Stop right there, you enemies of the state!” They froze. Good. “I’ll have no more of this horrible war. I’ve sent all my forces home and from now on,” she stepped her feet apart, put her hands on her hips, “you’ll have to deal with me - President Bachmann.”
“Hey,” the tallest boy said, puffing up his chest, “we’re not playing Shifters Versus Humans. We’re playing monster in the forest.”
“Well,” Harper said hunching over and making claws with her hands, “guess what? I was trying to trick you, but as you can see,” she pretended to rip off a mask, “my human face was only a disguise. I am the monster!”
The boys screamed and ran, glancing over their shoulders to make sure she was right behind them. The boys took her on quite a chase and she was tired long before they were, but she pushed herself to keep going. She was positive the tall one was Shep and she needed to talk to him.
“Ha ha ha! Silly children! Don’t run from me - just get into my pot where I can boil you up!”
“No! Don’t eat us!” they shrieked, all of them clearly enjoying the idea of being someone’s dinner. She grabbed the smallest one and picked him up by his waist.
“Help! The monster’s got me! She’s got me!” He kicked and wiggled, but he was so small that she managed to keep a hold of him.
“I’ll give you your friend back if you’ll tell me one thing,” she said. All three stopped and waited to hear what she would say next. Good, she had their attention. “The boy I really want is Shep. Is that one of you?”
The bigger boy pointed to the little squirmer in her arms. “You’ve got him already.”
“Oh.” This turn in events threw her for a moment, but she quickly recovered. “Yes, I knew it was him! I am triumphant!” She pretended to take a bite out of his head and Shep did an imaginary death in her arms.
“Hey,” she said, breaking character, “anyone hungry?”
Soon the group was sitting on some of the bigger roots in the ground and munching on some fruit together that Harper had picked for them. She had hoped the three of them would shimmy up a tree and do it for her, but they’d been content to sit and rest while she did the gathering. She didn’t complain; she needed them on her side. She had already gotten their names, Shep, the smallest, Tyler, the tallest and Van, the quiet one.
“Shep,” she said to Shep before he could finish his snack and run off, “I saw Marcus and his mom today.”
“Marcus died,” he informed her. He seemed okay with the idea, but he also gave the impression of not really knowing what it was to have died. Harper waited to see if he had anything else to say but he was finished talking.
“What did Marcus like to play?” she asked them.
“Humans Versus Shifters was his favorite,” Tyler informed her. “He was always the president.”
“Wow. That must have been fun. Were you playing with him the night before he died?”
They nodded and went on eating. She thought hard about how to handle this next part. She needed to ask it in a way that would keep their attention and make them want to keep talking.
“You know,” she said to all of them, “I have a very special job. I solve mysteries.”
“What’s a mystery?” Shep asked.
“It’s something strange. Something that doesn’t make sense. Shep shouldn’t have died. He should have made it home safe. But he didn’t. No one seems to know what happened. It’s a mystery.”
“He walked alone in the forest at night,” Van offered in his shy voice. “Maybe something bit him.”
“That could be,” Harper agreed. “But the problem is, there were no bite marks on him. Not even from a spider. If something had bit him, we would have seen a mark.”
“Maybe he fell in a hole,” Shep offered.
“Well, perhaps,” Harper said again, “but then he would have hurt his foot or his leg, but his arms and legs were fine. He didn’t have a scratch or a bruise. He only had a strange mark on his head. Like maybe someone hit him really hard.”
This last comment made the boys go very quiet. They all looked at each other nervously.
Shep stood up and wiped his hands on his shorts. “I don’t like this game. I don’t want to play mystery anymore.”
“Okay. Okay,” Harper said, hands up in a surrender. “Can we play Secret?”
The boys looked at one another and then nodded in happy anticipation. This sounded fun.
“Have any of you,” Harper said dramatically, “ever seen anything really secret out in the forest? Something you knew you weren’t supposed to see?”
They each got a little smile on their face. “I once saw someone pooping next to a tree,” the oldest one said proudly. They all laughed and pretended to wave away a bad smell.
“I once found a paper with a drawing on it,” Van said excitedly. “It looked just like a -” he suddenly got shy and started laughing. He ran over to Harper and whispered the words in her ear.
“Like a penis.” He fell down laughing while the other boys stared incredulously.
“What did he say? What was it?”
She laughed and explained. “It looked like something only boys have.” Tyler understood immediately but little Shep was lost. His friend whispered it to him and Shep fell down laughing.
“Ha ha ha! Wow!”
“What about you, Shep?” Harper pried. “What secret do you have?”
His big eyes sparkled and he gave her a big smile. “I know where the men go at night. They don’t know that I saw them but I did. They were talking like this.” He furrowed his brow and made a lot of angry gestures, wagging his finger and putting his hands on his waist. “And they drank something that made them fall down.”
“Really?” Harper wondered at his words. It sounded like some of the local guys had a little secret bar. But that wasn’t necessarily dangerous. However, if they were making powerful enough alcohol it could be that someone got drunk and accidentally hurt Marcus.
“Do you have a secret?” Shep asked her.
“Hmm…” She considered it and finally came up with something good. “Yes. I can do this.” She stood and shifted into her odd, half-animal half-human shape. The boys’ eyes bugged out when she finished. They’d only seen full shifters, never a partial one and this was a big shock to them.
“How’d you do that?” Tyler asked.
“I don’t know. No one else in my family was a shifter so I never had anyone to talk to about it. Until now.”
“Whoa.”
“Cool.”
She went back to her original state, much to the disappointment of her little friends and regarded them seriously. “Boys, I think you’re all very big and very strong.”
Shep puffed up again. “We are.”
“So,” she said, “I need your help. Can you think of anything that Marcus said or did the last time you saw him that was strange or maybe even a secret? Anything at all?”
They looked at each other again, considering the question. Tyler chewed his lip and Harper waited, certain he had something he wanted to tell her.
“There was one thing.”
“Shh!” Shep quickly slapped his friend’s shoulder. “We can’t talk about that.”
“Boys,” Harper said, taking a knee so she could look them in the eye. “What you know might help me with this mystery. You could be heroes. Real life heroes.”
This intrigued them and Tyler looked over at Shep for confirmation. The little boy nodded.
“Marcus had a secret place. He told us about it a couple of times. But, we never went there.”
“Did he tell you where it was?”
They thought for a moment, then Van remembered. “Yes! He did tell me. He said it was under the foster tree. No, the frosting tree. Something like that.”
“Wait,” Harper said, realizing something. “Did he say the fossa’s tree?”
“Yeah,” Van said excitedly. “That was it. The fossa’s tree. What’s a fossa?”
“It’s a very different, very unique animal. And I know right where she is.” She stood to leave and saw their faces fall.
“You don’t want to play anymore?” little Shep asked, his eyes big with disappointment.
“I wish I could,” she responded sincerely, kneeling down. “Bur our friend Marcus needs our help. Even though he’s not here. And I promised to help him.”
“Alright,” Shep agreed, hugging her at the knees. The other boys stepped up to get a squeeze out of her as well. Harper hugged each of them and thanked them for their help. The sun was setting but they still had a ton of energy and she wandered out of the forest, completely exhausted from the physical exertion that all that playing had brought out in her. Who knew investigations could be so demanding?
She stopped on the way out as several male voices drifted towards her. She stopped and watched several adult males make their way into a little dip in the land. She saw candles glowing under a roof for a moment, then something blocked them and she couldn’t see anymore. She could hear them and they sounded raucous and angry, just as Shep had described them.
She was torn - was it better to investigate the bar or go and check out the area around the bottom of Larissa’s home? Both seemed like good moves but neither felt urgent. She checked the sky and saw that she was about to be plunged into darkness. With a big, tired sigh she pointed herself home and walked down the main pathway to her tree. A neighbor lifted her up off the ground and she stopped in to chat for a moment as a thank you. Luckily they had a little dinner left over and she accepted the food gladly, explaining that she’d ended up playing like a kid in the forest that day.
“Huh,” Gloria, her bear neighbor huffed, “and here we all thought you were out helping Dahlia with her son’s case.”
“Oh, I was. I was spending time with Marcus’ little friends. Anyway, I won’t bore you with the details. It was just tiring.”
Gloria crossed her big arms and regarded Harper with a shrewd look. “Something going on with you, little miss Harper? You alright?”
She nodded and got up to wash off her plate. “Yes, I’m fine. I just had a lot of stuff happening at once today. I guess I’m a little overwhelmed.”
To her shock, Gloria’s eyes danced over Harper’s stomach and she lifted her eyebrows as if surprised to see it, like it was somehow different from before. Harper put a hand over herself.
“What?”
Gloria played innocent. “Nothing. Nothing at all. You get some sleep. Like you said, you had a real full day.”
She turned away with a little smile on her face, leaving Harper to wonder at yet another mystery.
The next morning, she woke with an odd sense about her. The treehouse felt softer and fuzzier all around her, despite the fact that it was just as solid as ever. She shook her head, trying to let go of the odd sensation she was experiencing.
“Come on, brain,” she thought, “get it together.” After some breakfast and a bracing cold shower, she felt a bit more clear-headed. She wanted to go and explore around the base of Larissa’s tree and then visit the secret, male hangout. If she could.
Outside the sun beat down and Harper said a little thank you to the shade all around her. Without all of these lovely trees, the whole community would be roasting. Still, the heat made her a bit dizzy and she had to stop and put her hand on a big, pale tree trunk to get the ground to stop pitching.
She was ill. That was it. She’d eaten a sick bug or a rotted piece of fruit and her body was rebelling.
Despite the fact that Larissa’s tree was very close, she soon realized she wasn’t going to make it. She was sweating too much and she felt as if she might vomit. Then, without much warning, the contents of her breakfast revolted and rushed up to her throat. She threw herself forward and let it all out, but it was not a graceful action. Soon, she had humans and shifters all around her, all genuinely concerned.
“Harper,” Tina said to her, very worried, “you look awful! Let’s get you home.”
“I’m fine. Something I a-” Another round of vomit kept the explanation at bay. Tina held her hair back as she finished and spit out the last of it with a poorly aimed shot. It went right on her foot.
Finally, the deluge came to an end and she weakly walked back with Tina, leaning on her the whole way.
“I need to find out what happened,” she said drowsily.
“You don’t need to figure out what got you sick,” Tina reassured her. “Just focus on getting some rest and recovering, alright?”
She was too far gone to explain that wasn’t what she meant. The ride in the lift was treacherous, but her bed was a welcome sight. Tina helped her undress and dropped her clothes on the floor. Harper stepped out of them and then collapsed onto her soft mattress, her eyes closing almost immediately. Tina had gone oddly quiet, but Harper barely had the state of mind to register it.
“Harper,” Tina said quietly, “I think I know what made you throw up.”
But her words went unheard. Harper was sound asleep before she’d even finished speaking.