Shadows of Sherwood (37 page)

Shower

Tucker came down from the choir loft moments later and found Robyn standing in the same spot, looking after Merryan.

“You okay?” he asked.

Robyn supposed he'd heard everything from up there. There was no point in answering. Clearly nothing was okay.

“How's Laurel?” she asked. Tucker's bleak expression told it all. They climbed to the church house, where Laurel lay on a thin mattress on the floor of one of the old offices.

Robyn retrieved one bottle of pills from the bulging pack. Tucker brought a tin cup of water from the kitchen. Robyn shook Laurel's shoulder to wake her. They helped the younger girl sip and swallow the pill.

Robyn held up the rest of the bottle. “This should be enough for her, right?”

Tucker nodded. She poured the rest of the stingbug medicine bottles onto the floor. “I want to stay with her,” she said. “Can you get this down to T.C.?”

“Happy to,” he answered. They both looked down at Laurel as she curled back into herself and slipped off to sleep again. Tucker gathered the pills into a plastic bag.

As she walked with Tucker back to the sanctuary, Robyn said, “I don't think Laurel and I can go back to the place we've been staying. Is it okay if we . . . ?” She let her voice trail off.

“You want to stay here in the church?” Tucker grinned. “Are you asking my permission? You know I don't actually live here, right?”

Robyn was surprised. “You're always here.”

“I work a lot,” he says. “And it's close to T.C. People there need me from time to time.”

“So we can stay? You don't mind?”

Tucker shrugged. “I've always thought that churches were meant for whoever needed to come to them.”

Robyn wondered if he felt the same way about the moon shrine. She still wanted to be close to it. Something in there called to her, on a deep level.

“You just have to be very careful that no one sees you coming or going,” Tucker said, as he headed for the exit himself.

“Yes,” Robyn agreed. She glanced through the stained glass above the altar at the moon shrine courtyard. She wanted to go out there, and yet the thought of looking upon
the glowing curtain seemed too heavy and painful right now.

Instead, while Laurel slept Robyn explored the run-down old church, looking at every fixture like a treasure. Whole walls were missing in places, but it would suit her purposes just fine. There was running water in the kitchen, and in two bathrooms. One was on the second floor, near the kitchen, and the other was in the basement, along with an old staff locker room with shower stalls. Robyn used the toilet in each room, just because she could. It was a far cry from squatting in the woods.

She pulled out the hologram sphere. “Breath, blood, bone,” it said. Taunting her. She wanted to play it again, to feel the closeness to Dad. To hear his message.

Alone in the basement quiet, she pressed the sphere halves together and waited for Dad's image to appear. She stared expectantly into the space above her hand. Nothing happened. No matter how she held or squeezed or rubbed the halves, nothing.

The new wire must've made matters worse, not better. Robyn tightened her fist and fought the urge to fling the thing across the room. Frustrated and sad, she tried again to think about what she knew. Shrines, like the one in the courtyard. Elements that came from the moon lore: wind, water, earth. One who can lead us . . .

Robyn set the hologram sphere aside and looked at herself in the mirror over the sink. The glass was stained and smudged and dirty, but she was even more so. Her hair was
a fuzzy mess. She hadn't been sleeping with her silk cap. Not to mention all the running and ducking and diving through the woods. Her braid might have started off as a tight and hardy thing, but it could only take so much torment. Wearing the beret had helped a little bit, but her scalp was itching. It was time to wash her hair.

Robyn removed the rubber band from the tail of her braid and began to unwind it. Soon her hair was free, flopping and swelling in a misshapen dome around her head and shoulders.

The shower had working toiletry dispensers mounted on the wall, which was a blessing. The water flowed warm and Robyn scrubbed herself clean. She soaked her hair and combed the thick, snarled strands with her fingers. Getting the tangles undone would be easy; it just took time. But Robyn was nervous about trying the braid all by herself.

She could do it, but Dad usually watched and often helped her. She tried to focus on what he had told her when they celebrated the first time she completed it without help. “
See? You don't need anyone but you
,” Dad had said that day.

Maybe he had been talking about more than just the braid. Robyn struggled hard to believe that. All the friends she had just almost made were disappearing. Key had left in anger. Laurel was too sick to do much of anything right now. Scarlet had stolen from her. Even Merryan hated her. Robyn didn't really want to be alone, it was just how it was. And it was easier. No one to worry about. No one to hold her back. No one to laugh with. No one to make her cry.

Robyn leaned into the shower spray and let the water rush over her face. All the water in the faucet, and all the water in her heart.

The familiar braid shouldn't have been any harder than usual, but without Dad to watch and make sure she was doing it right, it seemed harder. Robyn kept second-guessing the twists and loops and crosses. When she was done, she stared into the dirty mirror.

It didn't feel like a victory. It only felt sad.

Mom, Dad
, she thought, her heart twisting.

And just a breath later:
Laurel. Key
.

Robyn dried her face on paper towels from a dusty dispenser. She slid the moon pendant chain back over her neck and patted it close to her heart. She looked at her clean, freshly braided self and realized that not everything she wanted was entirely out of reach. She had gotten the medicine. Laurel was on her way to healing. Maybe Merryan would keep her secrets, after all. Maybe Scarlet would return. And Key had helped her out this morning, even though he was angry with her. They were still a team, even when things got rocky.

If only he would come back.

 

CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

Bitterstalk

Sheriff Marissa Mallet sat behind her desk screen nervously waiting for the video connection to open.

Governor Crown's pale, thin mustached face appeared on her screen. “Sherwood is out of control,” he said, without preamble. Rumors of the medicine heist at Sherwood Clinic had spread far and wide. Through the people of the county, through the web of MPs working all over the city, and apparently right up the ladder all the way to the governor.

“Sir—”

Crown did not wait. “Get your house in order, Sheriff.”

“I'm taking care of it, sir,” Mallet said, with all the confidence she felt. “The situation is well in hand.”

“It had better be.” The connection cut off. The governor had never been a man of many words.

Mallet sat quietly and rubbed her forehead. If this kept up, the hoodlum Robyn would cost her the longed-for
promotion to deputy commissioner. It was time to squash this interference, once and for all.

The intercom light lit up. Her assistant's voice came through the speaker. “Sheriff, there's something you need to see.”

“What is it?” Mallet snapped.

“I'm sending them in.” The intercom shut off and the sliding doors opened. Two MPs entered, holding the elbows of a short, wavy-haired teenage boy. The boy walked calmly between them, not struggling. Not pleading for mercy. Unusual.

“We caught him stealing bitterstalk out in the woods,” one MP reported.

Mallet glowered at them. “And instead of throwing him in jail, you brought him to me, because . . . ?”

The other MP swallowed nervously and stepped forward. “He had this on him.” He tossed a square pad of green sticky notes onto the sheriff's desk.

Mallet fingered the notepad as she examined the would-be thief. Male. Too short. Perhaps a couple of years too old, as well. “You are not Robyn.”

“No,” he said.

“But I'll bet you know where she is. Who are you?”

“Call me Key,” he said.

 

CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE

The Elements

Robyn came out of the shower room, and paused. The formerly still basement now echoed with a slight hum. She heard a voice. It sounded like it was coming from down the hall.

Tucker?

But it was a female voice, she thought. And too deep to be Laurel's. Had someone else entered the cathedral with Tucker?

Robyn tiptoed through the basement hallway. She peeked into the room where the sound originated.

It was a young woman with dark hair that sprung out from her head in ringlets. She sat facing the door, leaning in to speak to a bulky handheld microphone that looked like a spiderweb. She glanced up, startled as Robyn appeared in the doorway.

“. . . Nessa Croft. Signing off. All breath and blood and bone, for Sherwood. Zero four forty.” She clicked a button
on the radio transmitter in front of her and smiled. “Hi, there.”