Red Moon Rising

6. rising

Chapter Song: Werewolf - CocoRosie

XX

Jackson is crouched a ways off, staring at the ground with a furrowed brow, and he doesn't look up when I approach.

"Come on, I'm taking you back to town."

"Don't you need to talk to the sheriff?"

"I'm the last person who should be talking right now. Cam and Tasha are the diplomats, not me."

"Never would have guessed."

"Funny. You going to get up now?"

He's still crouched there, not bothering to look at me, but he extends a hand out to me and waves quickly for me to come closer. "Come look at this."

"I'm kind of running out of patience for you, Jackson."

"It's Jack. Come here."

And so I crouch down by him and try to follow where his eyes are narrowed at the earth. "Oh." It's another trap, this one spray-painted brown to blend in better with the bare dirt beneath it. So why not spray paint all of them? What the fuck kind of game is this poacher playing?

"No, really look at it. Notice anything strange?"

Some pine needles have been strewn across it, and a few more have fallen naturally over it, but it doesn't look like it's been out for very long—maybe only a night or two. Again, there's no smell associated with it; we haven't had rain in days so there should be some trace scent, even of some kind of cleaning agent if he tried to wipe his prints away. And then I realize that Jackson isn't looking at the trap, and my stomach flips. I sit back onto the ground and look at him, but he's still staring at the ground, mesmerized.

"What's going on?" I manage.

"I'm not imagining it, right?" His voice is so soft and strange, and when he looks at me there's a glint of excitement and darkness in his eyes.

"What's going on?" I don't know why I say it again. Maybe it's because there's nothing else to say, maybe because there isn't anything to explain the bare patch of dirt around the trap. To set these traps you have to stand over them and push them down, and yet there isn't a single footprint anywhere nearby, only the pressure of the trap in the mud. We stand and search through the dirt and pine needles, and even though mice have made tiny tracks through the soft dirt, there is nothing but our own footprints in the entire area.

"I'd say you have something bigger than poachers to worry about."

I look up as Cam approaches and wave him over to us, pointing uselessly at the ground before me. "Cam, look."

I've already decided not to tell Tom, at least not yet. He finds us strange enough as it is—are we supposed to start making claims about levitating poachers now? What is he supposed to do about a trespasser that doesn't leave tracks? In fact, I'm not going to tell anyone just yet—not my father or any of the runners. It's the day of the solstice and in a few hours our town is going to be flooded with other packs. One thing at a time.

"Let's keep this to ourselves," I suggest quietly, and Cam frowns back at me. "Especially you, Courtland. You've done enough today, you don't need to start spreading rumors of ghost poachers."

"I wouldn't dare," he said with a smirk, rising to brush the dirt from his jeans.

"Your uncle has been looking for you," Cam says finally. "He wants to see you before the ceremony."

I glance between them, narrowing my eyes. "Uncle?"

"Elder Reyes is my mom's brother," says Jackson. So he's related to someone on the elder's council. No wonder he walks around with that air of entitlement.