Twenty-two – 01

The remainder of January—all two and a half weeks—and the first week of February passed with relative peace and quiet aside from a sudden blizzard that left us trapped in the tents or our rooms for two days before it was safe to venture outside.  After the first week, Thom began to worry.  By the second, J.T., my brother, Phelan, and Thordin had joined him.

By the end of the third week, I’d begun worrying—and worrying something fierce.  It wasn’t like the weeks before Cariocecus attacked, since at least then we’d known it was coming, there had been something to prepare for.

Now, there was nothing but snow and cold and isolation.  We didn’t know who else was out there beyond a group that had scryed on us, a community miles to the south that may not survive the winter, and Thom’s cousin and Neve’s brother out somewhere on the eastern seaboard of Canada.

Cabin fever coupled with paranoia makes for a very difficult existence.

I tried to stay out of everyone’s way, bundling myself in multiple layers and wandering out along the warding lines, checking to make sure they stayed strong.  More often than not, I wandered back to the warmth of camp with chilled fingers and windburn, but it kept me away from the worst of the restlessness that had set in.

Of course, Phelan was the worst.  Laid up as he was, he was the most restless of them all, and Jacqueline watched him like a hawk to make sure he didn’t get into anything that could make his condition worse.  He’d come down with a nasty cold that had more to do with his pushing himself too hard than his injuries.  That cold had left him grumpy and grumbling, almost impossible to deal with.

Spring showed no sign of showing up anytime soon, which didn’t surprise me, either.  What did surprise me was that trouble had taken such a long holiday.

You should be grateful, I told myself every day.  You should be grateful that it’s quiet, that no one’s come to try to kill all of us again.  There’s more than a few things out there that’s keen on killing Phelan at the very least—and probably all of us besides.

It was halfway through the second week of February when chaos reared her fair head again.

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