CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

Wulfecombe

Clare left Levi sleeping in the darkness before dawn and quietly headed downstairs. A trail of animals followed her. George jumped up howling when he heard her, and she hurried over to give him some reassurance that it was only her. "Let's have breakfast, shall we?" He slurped a soft tongue over her inner wrist, and Clare bent to kiss him. "You're the sweetest thing ever," she murmured, pulling his ears through her hands.

George had been blinded by an accident with cooking oil, and his nose showed the scar tissue of that terrible day. It had fully been accidental, but his owners hadn't wanted to bother with a blind dog and asked to put him down. Instead, Levi adopted the sweet being, and he'd lived with them for nearly a decade. His world was the farm, and he knew where things were by smell and feel.

"Come, sweet," she said now, and he followed her into the kitchen. She fed everyone—cats and dogs and rabbits. The goats and ducks and geese were Levi's realm, and he'd take care of them when he got up.

As she started the kettle for her tea and pulled out a cutting board to start the vegetables, she felt a sense of something . Not quite a warning, but an alert as if the weather was going to turn. High seas ahead. She lifted her head and tried to gauge what she might need to do to prepare, but there was nothing more than the whispering sense of things on the verge.

Which was the natural way of the world, of course. Everything was always on the verge. She moved her senses over the beings in her world to see if she felt anything amiss—Levi, upstairs sleeping, with his sore back. Was it more than that?

No. And not the children, none of them. Sage and her baby, also fine, but—

Something. Something connected to Sage, then.

Was it the bones they'd found in the housing estate? She pressed a hand to her belly, gauging vibrations. Unclear. Maybe the bones, maybe not, but definitely something to do with Sage, her finally settled, happy daughter.

Protect her, she prayed.

Then she firmly planted a podcast in her ears, blocking out swirling strangeness as she chopped onions and turnips and potatoes and put them in to roast for a soup.

She sent out protective prayers, an umbrella over all the people she loved. Be safe. Be happy. Be well.