Chapter Seven

AUTHOR'S NOTE: If you get tired of waiting for new chapters, the entire book is for sale on Amazon in print and on Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/Skinwalkers-Distant-Thunder-Adam-Bolander-ebook/dp/B0D128VD9V?crid=24W41CTHT7EDC&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.KfDW2-M5NGa2qL0wxty7rQc5lxHh_f-10YwlqipBh4g.UFzNpMAr6R_3JpGzb6Wjyoivt59NgZ3InddvCwBhnOI&dib_tag=se&keywords=skinwalkers+distant+thunder&qid=1730566075&sprefix=skinwalkers+distant+thunder%2Caps%2C135&sr=8-1

Chapter Seven

"Come on, you son of a…" Fey grumbled, striking another match and throwing it on the pile of kindling she'd spent the past four hours building. It consisted of about a dozen damp sticks and a handful of the driest leaves she'd been able to find. A pitiful amount, but after being bombarded by rain for who knows how long, it was the best she could do.

The match hissed when it touched the wet kindling, and Fey felt a surge of hope when a thin trail of smoke wafted upwards—and then it went out, just like all the others.

"Damn it!" she yelled, kicking the pile of sticks in frustration and scattering them across the already filthy cabin floor.

"Calm down, Fey," Glenn said gently, sitting cross legged nearby. He patted the floor next to him, and Fey grudgingly sat down beside him. They had found this abandoned cabin less than a mile from the crash site. It was in bad shape, but Fey wasn't sure if that was from age or if the recent storms had accelerated nature's reclamation of the tiny structure.

The sky was still dark, and growing darker by the minute. A gentle rain fell now, drumming a soothing rhythm on what remained of the roof. What wasn't soothing was the occasional boom of thunder, but at least that meant the storm—and by extension the thunderbird—was far away.

Fey sighed, picking up one of the twigs she'd been trying to light and idly twirling it between her fingers. "Sorry. I guess I was just hoping that one freaking thing would go right today.”

"The night will be warm, and the cabin will give us what shelter we need," said Glenn. "We'll be fine without a fire for one night."

"It's not the cold I'm worried about," said Fey. "It's the…"

Her voice trailed off, and she looked over to where Zave was sitting across from them. The young man was trying to appear calm, but the way he constantly shifted his weight, throwing nervous glances at the setting sun, made it clear he was the farthest thing from at ease.

It would be dark in just a matter of minutes, and then poor Zave would be at the mercy of his phobia. Fear of the dark. She had mocked him for it when they'd first met, a fact that now made her blush with embarrassment. At first she had assumed it was pure cowardice, a soft fear for a soft man, but now she knew better. This wasn't a fear like what Fey felt when she confronted something dangerous. It wasn't natural or sensible. This was a wound in Zave’s' very psyche—and an open wound at that. As soon as the sun went down and darkness claimed the forest, Zave would be overcome by sheer, mind numbing panic. Terror that would have turned Fey's hair even whiter than it already was. It didn't matter that the darkness couldn't hurt him, or that there was nothing hiding out there in the shadows. The only thing that could make it better was light. Light to drive away the night and bring back the day, even if it was only a small island of daytime in a sea of midnight.

Light that Fey had failed to procure, making what Zave was about to go through all her fault.

"Instinct."

Fey couldn't help but jump when light burst from Glenn's eyes. That light traveled up to his antlers, which started making faint cracking and popping noises. Taking one in each hand, Glenn easily pulled them free. His Instinct immediately began the task of regrowing the lost horns, and a few seconds later it was as if nothing had happened.

Curious, Fey looked down at the antlers in his hands. He hadn't reshaped them, though she wasn't sure why he would have. Then again, she wasn't sure why he would take this pair off in the first place. What she did notice was that these two were yellowed and brittle, almost sickly.

"Glenn?" she asked, confused and more than a little concerned.

Without answering, Glenn set both antlers on the floor and cupped his hands over them. The sounds of rain and birdsong faded into silence. Fey couldn't even hear herself breathe. Then Glenn said something that, to Fey, sounded like her ears were popping, and the antlers burst into flame.

It was a modest fire. It produced almost no warmth, and a stiff breeze probably could have blown it out. Still, it was light, and Zave relaxed visibly staring into its dim, flickering depths.

Fey looked at Glenn, who suddenly looked exhausted. "You didn't have to do that," she said softly. "I know how much using magic takes out of you."

He shook his head. "Perhaps we should all take a page from Zave's book and be a little more wary of the darkness."

Fey found she had no argument for that.

"I didn't know antler could burn," Zave said, looking up from the fire.

"Not very well," Glenn admitted. "I had to weaken those ones, make them so thin they were barely more than rotten twigs. But they'll burn slowly and should last through the night."

Zave sighed in relief. "Thank you."

The three of them sat in silence for a while. Before long, Fey found herself watching the young human man. Glenn had said he wasn't human, and Fey trusted him. These visions he'd started having definitely weren't human. And yet, looking at him like this, surrounded by people who were even less human than he was, she couldn't help but think of him as human.

Suddenly he went stiff. "I see them!"

Fey leaned forward. "Who?"

"Clueless and the others!" he exclaimed. "They're alive! Or, at least they are in the future…which I guess means they're alive now too. I'm still trying to figure out how these damn things work!”

"What do you see?" Glenn asked, his eyes suddenly awake and alert. "What are they doing?"

"They're waking up," Zave said slowly. "They were all asleep somewhere underground. Maybe a cave or something? But now they're getting up and…a door is opening…someone's coming inside. I don't recognize him, but…"

He hung his head with a groan of defeat.

"It's gone. I'm sorry."

"It's all right," Glenn said, leaning back against the decrepit cabin wall. "I just needed to know they'd made it through the rest of the day."

"You make it sound like you knew they were alive," Fey said in surprise. She had spent the whole day worrying about Clueless and Norrin—not so much about Ember—but she hadn't wanted to bring it up while Zave and Glenn were still recovering.

"I did," the deer-walker said. "At least, I knew they had survived the plane crash."

"How?" Zave asked. "More magic?"

Glenn nodded, then pulled a little wooden carving of a stag out of his pocket. With a jolt, Fey remembered the one he had given her before the attack, and to Zave, Clueless, and the others too! She had left hers in her pocket when she’d discarded her clothes, having more important things to worry about than what she’d assumed was mundane whittling, so she leaned over to look at Zave’s.

"Oh no," the young man exclaimed. In the dim light, Fey could see that a big black crack now marred the wood. "Mine broke! I must have fallen on it or something during the crash. Glenn, I'm sorry."

"All of them are broken now," said Glenn, holding his up as well. Fey let out a small gasp when she realized it was cracked the same way as Zave’s—not just the place, but the size and shape of the crack too. "It's a complex enchantment, but one that I was able to perform before we left the nest. We were all supposed to die in that crash. Instead, these carvings took our place. It only works once, and it took so much energy that I doubt I could do it again if I tried, but in the end it was worth it."

"We all survived," Fey said slowly, "because these carvings died for us."

"I knew we would need them eventually," Glenn said. "But even I didn't expect it to be this soon."

With a sigh, he tossed his carving into the fire. After a moment's hesitation, Zave followed suit. It felt wrong to Fey for them to simply destroy something that had given its life—such as it was—for theirs. But then again, if it really had saved her life, the least she could do was send it off with some manner of respect, and cremating them in her old alpha's antlers seemed as good a way as any to do that.

And then Zave asked the question that had been on Fey's mind ever since she'd rescued them from the plane crash.

"So, what exactly is a thunderbird?"

Glenn frowned, a shadow of concern passing over his face.

"A thunderbird," he said slowly, almost reverently, "is one of the Mythspawn. Creatures for whom magic is as much a part of them as our blood and bones are to us. The thunderbird is the essence of a storm, perhaps you could even say its soul, given physical form. Native American legends spoke of them creating storms, with thunder in their wings and lightning in their eyes, but the truth is that they didn't create the storms, they were the storms. Wherever they flew, they brought their storms with them the same way your soul brings your body wherever you go.”

"Are they always this aggressive?" Fey asked.

"No and that's the strangest part of all this!" Glenn exclaimed, sitting forward. "They're known for being neutral spirits, only helping those who helped them first, and only harming those who have harmed them. For one to just attack us like this…what on earth is going on?"

Seeing her old alpha so confused sent a horrible chill down Fey's spine. Glenn was supposed to have all the answers, all the knowledge, all the solutions. For him to be this utterly bewildered felt…unnatural, somehow.

"But all of this is beside the point," Glenn said, waving his hand curtly and making the fire flicker. "Fey…Zave…thunderbirds aren't supposed to exist!"

Fey blinked in surprise, then turned to Zave, who looked equally confused.

"The way you were describing them just now sounds a lot like you already believed in them," she said.

"And maybe it's because I'm new to all this," Zave threw in, "but after spending the last week living with skinwalkers and running from wendigos, you could tell me Santa Claus was real and I'd believe you."

"Neither of you understand," Glenn said with a sigh. "And that's nobody's fault but mine for keeping these kinds of secrets to myself. Explaining everything would take too long, so I'll leave it at this: thunderbirds did exist, and so did lots of other Mythspawn. But over time, the magic that made up so much of what they were just…faded…and they went with it. They couldn't exist without it just like a fish couldn't exist in a world without water. The fact that one is out there flying around right this moment is…"

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Somewhere far away, thunder rumbled.

"It's troubling. Very troubling."

"So what do we do?" Fey asked.

"Our mission hasn't changed. We find the others, and then get to the meeting at Skinwalker Ranch. The other packs have to know about this. I'm almost afraid that by the time we get there, the other packs will already have their own similar stories to tell."

"Is this…" Zave began, but then he shook his head and looked down at his lap.

"What is it, Zave?" Fey asked. "You can tell us."

Zave looked at her, and Fey felt a pinch of emotion when she saw the trust shining in his eyes. Even after the way she'd treated him over the past week, even after what she'd done to his and Clueless' relationship, he trusted her. She was the only person he could trust.

And she didn't deserve it.

"First the wendigos come back after hundreds of years," he said hesitantly, "and then we find out that they've been looking for me this whole time. Now this thunderbird reappears out of nowhere and attacks our plane. It seems like too much of a coincidence. Could everything that’s happened be…my fault?"

"No!" Fey exclaimed forcefully enough to make Zave jump. "None of this is your fault, Zave! You're as much a victim of all this crap as the rest of us! Don't you dare think even for a second that you caused any of it!"

Zave looked at her, his eyes wide and afraid. "But how can you say that when—"

"She's right," Glenn butted in. "This isn't your fault, Zave. But," he gave Fey a sidelong glance, "that doesn't mean that you aren't connected to everything somehow."

Zave wilted like a flower under the desert sun. "I knew it."

"Don't waste your energy feeling sorry for yourself," Glenn said sternly. "If you can accept that you're a part of this even if it isn't your fault, then you'll be able to focus on what's important."

He reached out to grab Zave's shoulder, and the look he gave him, with the fire reflected hauntingly in his eyes, was enough to make Fey's fur stand on end.

"Putting a stop to it all."

NEXT CHAPTER: 12/25/24