Alone in the Wild(84)

The point is that those girls should have been my people. Except I was a half-Asian tomboy from the suburbs, and they were all white, elegant, and city-bred. I felt like a gawky country girl stumbling into a debutante ball.

That’s how Felicity looks sitting beside Sebastian. She follows his story stone-faced, her gaze locked on him in a look of barely concealed panic. Not so much transfixed as held captive, fearing if she moves a single muscle she’ll reveal herself as a teenager from a very different planet than the one this self-assured and animated boy clearly inhabits.

When Sebastian sees me, he smiles and stands with “Hey, Casey,” and I swear Felicity deflates in relief.

“I was keeping Felicity company while she waited,” he says. “Talking her ear off with my boring stories.” He flashes a smile her way. “Sorry.”

“Yes.” Color rises on her cheeks. “I mean, yes, you were keeping me company. No, your stories were not boring.” She flails a moment, as if struggling to find the girl I met the other day, the one who’d been equally self-assured in her natural environment. “I came to talk to you, Casey.”

“And now you can,” Sebastian says. “You’re free of my awkward hospitality.”

“Yes.” Another mortified flush. “I mean, yes, she’s here, and yes, you do not need to stay with me any longer. Thank you for keeping me company. It was very kind.”

He grins. “My pleasure. I will leave you in Casey’s capable hands.”

He jogs off, and Felicity watches him go.

“How … old is he?” she asks tentatively.

“Nineteen. He’s our youngest resident.”

“Oh. I am eighteen. Angus is twenty, and that boy seems … older, but he didn’t look it, so I thought … I suppose that is how boys are, down south.”

“Not exactly,” I say. “Sebastian is a special case, but I’m glad he kept you company.”

“He was very entertaining. His stories were funny.” She takes a deep breath, throwing off any lingering discomfiture, and turns to me. “I have information you want. I would like to trade for it.”

I glance around. Dalton’s taken Storm to get her stitched up at the clinic, and he’s left me to this.

“All right,” I say. “Let’s go into the police station—”

“I would prefer to stay outside.”

“May we at least leave the town square? Everyone can hear our conversation here.”

She nods, and we begin walking.

“You found a baby,” she says. “That’s why you came to my grandfather. You didn’t tell me that. You should have.”

“Edwin had already told us where to find the baby’s parents.”

“He lied.”

“So we discovered,” I mutter. “The clothing came from the Second Settlement, not the trading family he sent us to.”

“Did you speak to the traders?”

I nod.

“And what did you think?”

“You were right. Not the sort of people I care to do business with.”

“They can trade fairly. The problem is that we only use them when we must, and then they know how badly we need their supplies, so we pay far too much. Grandfather would prefer not to do business with them. He’d rather do business with you.”

“Understandable. We’d rather do business with him.”

“Good.”

She slows to look up at a decorated pine towering over us. I imagine her assessing not the beauty of the object, but the relative wealth that it requires—the expenditure of both time and goods.

“It’s the holidays,” I say. “Time to celebrate the solstice.”

She nods. “We do that as well. We do not string berries in trees, though.”

“The birds will appreciate them.”

She snorts. “The birds that come for those will not be good eating.”

Apparently she thinks our decorated trees are luring dinner. I’m about to say not everything is about food, but fortunately, I do nothing so thoughtless. For settlers, everything is about food—or shelter or basic survival.

“People enjoy seeing the birds,” I say simply.

“You sound like those from the Second Settlement.”

I glance over at her. “I thought you didn’t have contact with them.”

She shrugs. “That is my grandfather’s way. It is their elders’ way. It is not our way.” She pauses to watch a few residents race by, sliding on the packed snow and laughing like children. She shakes her head. “It is different here.”

“They’re just on lunch break before their afternoon shift.”

“So you met the Second Settlement,” she says. “What did you think of them?”

“Interesting.”

A snort. “That is one way to put it. They have ideas. Odd ideas. They won’t trade with you, though. Not the way we will.”

“I got that impression.”

She nods, satisfied. “My grandfather should have let you go to them. There’s nothing to fear. He just worries.” She looks at me. “I would like a gun.”

“So you’ve said. But right now we’re still busy trying to find this baby’s parents.”