Wild Sign (Alpha & Omega #6)(28)

She followed him toward another clearly marked building behind the post office and a dozen yards downhill. She hadn’t noticed it before, but like the post office, there was a sign hung on the wall that read The Lavatories. There wouldn’t have been a real need for signs in a town this small. Someone must have enjoyed making them. Maybe the same someone who cut the lumber they’d used for their buildings.

“The Lavatories” was twice the size of the post office. There was a ladies’ entrance and a men’s, and each of them had two curtained stalls with composting toilets inside. Anna’s experience with composting toilets was nonexistent, but Charles didn’t flinch at opening them up and examining the waste receptacles—which were empty. All of them.

“Either whatever happened occurred just after they emptied the compost,” commented Charles, replacing the last one, “or they emptied them out themselves in preparation for dismantling the camp.”

“You think they knew they were abandoning camp?” Anna asked.

He shrugged. “It’s too early to tell. But I do think four composting toilets are not enough for forty people. They’d fill up with waste too soon. They require a little time to decompose.”

“Maybe some of them had their own?” suggested Anna. “Or maybe there are other lavatories hidden in the trees somewhere?”

He nodded.

“Where next?” Anna asked. “Cabins, tent remains, or yurts?”

“Let’s check out that big yurt,” he said after a moment’s thought, indicating the building he had in mind with his chin.

The yurt he’d pointed out was at the far end of the town. And as they walked, he said, “If someone were abandoning a town, what would they take with them?”

“Not wooden buildings,” Anna answered promptly. “Or composting toilets. If you don’t care about the environment or leaving the forest a better place for you camping in it—” Another of her father’s adages. Come to think of it, he probably knew all about composting toilets, Anna decided. “Then the tents are pretty easily replaced. Though people using composting toilets are probably not the sort who leave their junk all over for someone else to clean up.”

Charles nodded and stopped by the big yurt. The outer fabric was forest green, a little darker than his shirt. He touched it.

“Sturdy,” he said.

They walked around the yurt until they reached the far side, where the door faced the forest rather than the town. It was real wood and hand carved, with the trunk of a tree running up the hinged side, a raccoon peering around the edge with comically wide eyes.

A post had been buried in the ground beside the front door with fingerpost direction signs on it. One sign pointed toward the rest of the town and read Wild Sign 20 feet. Another, just below it, read Adventures ? mile. The one at the bottom of the post read Tottleford Family Yurt. There was a pair of eye hooks on the bottom of that sign holding another that read Right where you’re standing.

It made her feel wretched. It wasn’t looking too promising for the residents of Wild Sign—and she liked the Tottleford family, liked the mysterious sign maker, too.

Anna couldn’t help herself—even knowing no one was here, she knocked at the door. No one answered.

The door had no doorknob and it didn’t just push in. Charles examined it for a minute, then pulled on a leaf set among the other leaves carved into the left-hand side of the door about knee height for Charles. It came loose, attached to a piece of twine threaded through from the other side. She heard a board slide.

“Pioneer trick,” Charles said. “Though usually it’s just a string all by itself. If I let the string go with the door shut, the latch will fall back down. It’s not a lock, just a way to keep the door closed.”

He pushed the door open, but stopped suddenly and put out a hand to keep Anna back.

“Witch,” he said in warning.

Anna could sometimes feel magic—though not like Charles. She was a lot more aware of magic in her wolf form; her wolf was better at accessing pack magic, too. She trusted her mate’s judgment and waited while he did whatever he felt he had to do to fix matters. The air was musty, but she also caught the faint smell of herbs and the various scents of an active household.

“It’s safe enough, I think,” he said to Anna. To the room he said, “We come seeking answers, no harm to this home or the family it encompassed.”

He tilted his head as if listening for something, then walked on in. Anna couldn’t tell if he’d gotten an answer or not.

She’d been in a few yurts before but never one this large; the interior was at least as big as their living room, dining room, and kitchen at home.

The floor was made from closely fitted planks, and shoulder-high movable partitions constructed of wood and fabric separated off rooms. In the bedroom area, there were four hammock beds, one larger and three smaller, as if for children. In another space, a kitchen-type station was arranged on a section of wall. A large bucket stood by a canvas camp sink, with a dipper hooked over the rim of the bucket. The camp sink drain slid through the fabric side of the yurt to the outside. A half-size fridge proved to be clean and empty—but still cooling.

“There is a farm of solar panels somewhere near this yurt,” Charles said, though she hadn’t thought he was paying attention to what she was doing. He’d pulled back the curtain on a small private area, which turned out to be a bathroom with another composting toilet. “The report made note of them.”