Hunt for the Lost: Chapter 2
Edited by Jacob Hardin
May glanced at the floor, seeing the nuts scatter. The bowl spun, emitting a hollow echo. The Shifter that had introduced himself as Leokah stared at her with his mouth open. She didn’t flinch as he snapped out of his paralysis and hunched over to scoop the bowl up.
“Your sister’s a Lost?” Adelle asked once she finished biting her lip.
May sighed. “You probably don’t want to help now.”
“Wait,” Jakob interjected. “What kind of Lost?”
“We don’t really know.” Her brother admitted, speaking for the first time since Leokah’s accident.
“I’m still down for this little adventure.” Adelle began walking toward the desk at the other side of the room. She beckoned the others to follow. They all came up behind her as she waited for the innkeeper to appear. “It just makes this a little harder.”
“No kidding,” Leokah agreed. “Finding a Lost is much more difficult than finding a lost human.”
Natalie ground her teeth before speaking. “I still want to help.”
“Nat—”
“I’m gonna help them find their sister, Leokah! You can go back to pecking corn off the mill floor if you want to but I’m not going to sit by and do nothing.”
The girl’s cousin raised an eyebrow. May wondered if they would fight. She had heard that Shifters were almost as violent as the Lost. However, Leokah blew his breath out in a long sigh and then nodded.
“I’m staying with my cous, then,” he said.
“What about you, scaly?” Adelle asked.
Jakob gave her a disapproving look. “I want five acres of Mt. Thunder, yeah. Let’s do it.”
Adelle nodded, her long hair bouncing around her face. She extended a fist.
Sensing the solemnity and seriousness of the ritual, everyone except May and her brother put a hand atop the first. She kept her palm at her side and shook her head minutely when her brother started to add his own to the stack. When it was four layers thick, Adelle let her own hand drop back to her side.
“We’re all in this together now,” Leokah said to no one in particular.
“Thank you,” May repeated, looking at the young girl, Natalie, as she did. She didn’t know what it was, but the kid seemed the most normal of the four.
Presently, the innkeeper stepped up to the other side of the wooden desk. “Can I help you?”
“Two rooms, please. Three in each. Accommodations for six total.” Adelle said politely.
“I can count,” the older man spat. “Sixty rounds.”
Adelle pulled a pouch from the bag that hung at her waist. She unbuttoned the pouch and dropped six large coins on the counter. The man gazed at them for an extended second.
“Problem? Did I miscount?” Adelle asked derisively.
The man grunted, scraped the coins off the counter and into his gnarled old palm, and then pointed to a hallway beside the fireplace. “Last two rooms down that hall.”
Adelle turned and never looked back. Jakob smiled widely at the man as he slunk past, following the dragon Shifter. Natalie thanked the man and received a scowl in return.
May stepped up to the counter. “Thank you, sir,” she said, smiling kindly.
“You’re welcome, young lady.” His wrinkled face broke into a similar smile. “You sleep well.”
Leokah scowled at the innkeeper as he strode past. His face conveyed perfectly his anger at the man’s contempt for his little cousin. May did feel unsettled at how nice the man had been to her and how rude he had been to the others.
Was it just because she’s a Shifter? May wondered.
She moved quickly to catch up with the others. The fire popped loudly as she went past. May dashed to the end of the hall with a last look back at the dining room. As she passed, she noticed a stranger about her own age sitting at a table, unoccupied with any task besides quiet observation.
There was a door on each wall, except the third one, which had a window. Through the window’s frosty panes, May saw that the east stars were high in the sky. The carpet in the hall squished beneath her shoes with a soft, pleasant sound as she stepped up behind the four Shifters.
Adelle opened the last two doors and peeked inside each room in turn. After a moment of consideration, she announced the sleeping arrangements.
“Girls in here, boys in there.” She pointed at Leokah and Jakob, then at the opposite door.
“I think Seth and I should stay together,” May said defensively, not wanting to leave her younger brother to the whims of two Shifters.
“We don’t bite,” Natalie protested.
“He might,” Adelle argued, nodding toward Jakob. “But if he does, I’ll Shift right here in this inn and shake him till he’s as limp as. . . Well, as limp as a dead snake,” she said with a laugh.
Jakob narrowed his eyes. “She snores, so good luck getting any sleep. I promise I won’t bite.” He seemed irritated that Adelle had implied he was dangerous.
The party stood there between the two doors while May considered the situation. She didn’t sense any malice from the four strangers, but she was inherently distrustful of Shifters. She had been raised in a human-only community, so the only Shifters she saw were in animal form or sneaking onto her father’s land at night. She didn’t have a high opinion of them. They weren’t even fully human.
“He can stay with you for the night,” May sighed, putting a hand on her brother’s shoulder.
Jakob turned and disappeared into the room. A moment later the rest of them heard a muffled thump as he piled wood on the fire, then a squeaking as he laid down heavily on the bed.
“He gets cold,” Adelle said with a smirk, “the poor little rattler.”
“Have a good night. Get some sleep, Seth. See you in the morning.” May hugged her only remaining sibling tightly. Then they parted, and Seth, Leokah escorting him, went into the room. The door closed softly.
“Come on,” Natalie said excitedly. She bounded into the room.
May glanced at Adelle. She was at least a year older than her but she looked even older than that—May would’ve guessed she was between twenty and twenty-two.
“After you, May.”
She stepped past the Shifter and took in the room with a glance. It was a large box with a fireplace on one wall, and windows on either side of it. Opposite the crackling blaze were three beds with little aisles between them. A bathroom connected their room with the adjacent one. Warm blankets were stacked on a chair in the corner, while the beds were simply dressed with sheets and a small pillow each. An oil lamp burned on the table beside the middle bed.
May remembered staying in a similar inn with her whole family when her father had had to travel for business many years earlier. Now her mother was dead, her sister was a Lost, her brother was with two Shifters, and her father was trying not to lose all of his land. Her life had changed so drastically in just a few short years.
The three girls took off their various satchels and cloaks. These they laid on the end of their respective beds. The fire was newly stoked, with wood piled on either side of the hearth, and no one moved to increase the flames. It burned brightly in its container and warmth pulsated from it generously.
May had many questions brimming within her. She had a great many emotions, too, that all surged up at various times to make her grimace and shake her head in order to clear them away. She chose one question to ask, and she picked Natalie as the recipient, since the younger girl seemed more likely to answer honestly.
“Why aren’t you here with your parents?” May sat on her bed and faced Natalie.
The girl’s face fell, and May regretted asking immediately; but before she could apologize to Natalie, a forced smile replaced the sadness.
“When I became a Shifter, or found out I was one, they decided they didn’t want me.”
“That’s horrible!” Adelle said, a disgusted look on her face. “What kind of terrible people would do that to their daughter?”
“I did eat a chicken from our coop when I first shifted.” Natalie admitted, blushing with embarrassment.
“Girl, I nearly killed one of our cows by slamming into it when I fell from the sky because I didn’t know how to use my wings.”
Ignoring Adelle’s interjection, May continued: “I’m sorry your parents disowned you.” She gave Natalie a sympathetic look. She was already feeling different about Shifters, though she didn’t quite know it yet.
“They said I wasn’t really their daughter anymore, since I was also a wolf Shifter. They kicked me away like a dog.” Natalie’s lip quivered as tears streamed from the corners of her eyes. “I am a dog,” she added with a tremor that made her lower her head.
Adelle sat beside the girl and put an arm around her shoulder. “They don’t understand what it’s like to be a Shifter. They don’t know how hard it is.”
“What about your family? Did they throw you out?” May asked Adelle, not really considering being gentle with the girl her own age—she had already shown she was open to conversation and obviously wasn’t sensitive to much.
“Oh, no; my parents are dead, and my brother is off somewhere, doing something.” She spoke evenly, not upset or happy. It was just a fact to her.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” May said. Natalie was forcing herself to not cry, hugging Adelle around the waist.
“I guess it’s easier than having one still alive to remind you that there is someone missing. I struck out on my own once I sold my half of the land and possessions to my brother.”
May knew she was implying that having a father with no mother was tough. However, she was determined to remain strong in front of the younger girl. She felt sorry for upsetting Natalie with her question and was certainly not about to act like she needed sympathy from everyone.
“Let’s get some sleep, huh?” Adelle said suddenly, rising from the bed. She moved to the bathroom door and locked it so that no one from the other room could enter. Natalie looked up, rubbing her arm across her wet cheeks.
May lay down on the bed. Adelle went back across the room and threw a thick blanket onto May’s stomach. A similar projectile hit Natalie while she sat with her legs hanging over the side of the mattress. After a minute of silently staring behind May, the younger girl unfurled the blanket and stretched out under it. Adelle was already asleep in the farthest bed from the fire. Natalie leaned forward and blew out the lantern. The only light left in the room was the orange firelight flickering on the walls.
“Night,” May whispered to the young Shifter.
“Night.”
After a few minutes of the only sound being the wood popping in the fireplace, Natalie spoke again.
She said it quietly, but genuinely. “I really want to help you find your sister. I think some of them are just in it for the reward, but I would help even if the only prize was your sister’s return.”
May was touched by the girl’s sincerity. “Thank you, Natalie.”
The night wore on, the fire burned itself out, and three girls slept soundly in the cozy inn’s back room.
