Electronic communication in Cel-Romano is limited or nonexistent. In fact, smaller villages are more likely to have working telephones than what’s left of the industrial cities. But service is erratic since many of the telephone lines running through the new veins of wild country were torn down and can’t be repaired.

That is the information that has reached us. Best guess from what I can piece together? Veins of the wild country will continue to spread throughout Cel-Romano, isolating people on smaller and smaller pieces of land. Some communities will survive, may even thrive, while other places will wither until they, and the people who lived there, are nothing more than a memory or cautionary tale.

Take care, Douglas. I hope Lakeside is one of the places in your part of the world that continues to survive and thrive. I’ll stay in touch as best I can.

—Shady

CHAPTER 6

Thaisday, Messis 9

Meg put her carry sack in the back of the BOW, then stepped back and smiled at Simon. “I want to walk to work.”

“But I need to get to the office early today.”

“Which is why you need to drive the BOW.” Okay, that wasn’t quite true. Even in human form, Simon could easily walk to the Market Square and get to Howling Good Reads in plenty of time for his early meetings. But he couldn’t get there on time if he kept to her walking pace. “I want to look at the garden and see what vegetables we can pick, and I just want to move this morning.”

He sighed, a sound that held so much disappointment that Meg almost relented. She enjoyed going into work with Simon, liked the companionship. But she didn’t want to go to the Liaison’s Office early—and she didn’t want anyone with her as she approached the Market Square, just in case whatever had triggered her distress yesterday was still there. The job fair was over, so she should be fine, but Simon would be unhappy if she had another panic attack, and she didn’t want him distracted from helping the remaining people who were waiting for a decision about whether they were going to Bennett.

“I’ll be fine, Simon.” When he continued to stand beside the BOW, she added, “I’ll let you know as soon as I reach the office.”

What would Merri Lee or Ruth do to convince a male to go along with her plan?

Meg walked up to Simon, went up on her toes, and licked his cheek. Okay, Merri or Ruth would have given him a human kiss, but judging by the surprised and pleased look in his eyes, he didn’t care about that.

He ran a hand over her short black hair and gave her a light scritch behind her ear. Then he got into the BOW and drove away.

Feeling independent and competent and free, Meg left the Green Complex and walked on the grass to reach the big kitchen garden. Along with the Green Complex’s residents, she and her human friends had been harvesting vegetables for the past few weeks. They’d picked a bit of this and that during Sumor, but now it seemed there were all kinds of vegetables that needed to be picked every day—and whether it was true or not, it felt like she was picking zucchini every day. The peppers were growing and almost ready, and there would be fresh corn soon. It was fun to come out here and see what was flowering and what was getting ripe and . . .

What was that?

White and red. And a patch of brown over there. And . . .

A couple of days ago, she had startled a young rabbit grazing near the garden. She hadn’t meant to; she just hadn’t seen it. But when it moved, it had dragged a hind leg. Had it been hit by a car? The complexes weren’t built that close to the city’s streets, but animals did cross the streets looking for food. Julia Hawkgard told her dead prey was often found on the grass beside Parkside Avenue—animals that had been moving from the park to the Courtyard or the Courtyard to the park. But Parkside Avenue was on the other side of the Courtyard. An injured rabbit wouldn’t cross all that land.

Meg approached cautiously, her stomach already doing little flips.

White bone stripped of muscle but still connected with ligaments—and still attached to a furred foot. The patch of brown turned out to be a hunk of fur. And the red . . . Was that the bunny’s backbone?

Meg backed up and screamed when she hit something.

Big hands held her up. Henry’s voice rumbled above her head. “It’s just a rabbit, Meg.”

“Someone ate the bunny.”

“No one in the Green Complex. Not all the hunters who look for food in the Courtyard are terra indigene.”

“Do you think Simon . . . ?” He ate bunnies. So did Sam. So did all her neighbors except maybe Tess and Vlad, and she wasn’t sure they hadn’t. Even she had eaten rabbit a few times. But it had been cooked. And nothing on her plate had looked like that.

“None of your friends ate the rabbit,” Henry said.

“How do you know?”

“They wouldn’t have left bones and scraps where you or the female pack would find them.” He put his arm around her shoulders and led her away from the garden.

“He had an injured leg,” Meg said when they reached the Courtyard’s main road and started walking toward the Market Square.

“That made him easy prey.” They walked in silence for a minute before Henry said, “Why did Simon leave you behind?”

“I wanted to walk to work. Wanted the extra time to approach the Market Square.” Meg sighed. “If I’d gone with Simon, I wouldn’t have seen the bunny, the . . . backbone.” Seeing the leg bones hadn’t been so bad, but the image of the backbone would stay with her.