Circles in the Stream (Avalon: Web of Magic #1) (2 page)

“Emily!” her mom shouted. “I need your help, do you hear me?”

Emily looked up. Shaking, she fumbled around the supply cabinet for a hypodermic, trying to get it out of its wrapping. Somehow she managed to measure out the dose of tranquilizer her mother called out to her. The cat twisted hard, letting out an awful cry. The pain lanced into Emily’s chest, making her scream. The needle fell to the floor.

The cat was up on its feet, snarling. It turned to face Emily. Glaring through its one good eye, it bared razor teeth and crouched to strike.

Sadness overwhelmed Emily, deep and empty like nothing she’d ever known.

As if in a dream, she slowly moved forward.

“Keep away from it!” one of the cops shouted.

The cat looked straight at her. A hard glint of steel flashed from its gold-green eyes and Emily felt a rush of feelings wash over her: rage, hate, pain, fear and… something else… something Emily recognized instantly. Loss.

She stared at the cat. It’s all right, you’re with friends. We want to help you… Had she spoken out loud?

The cat’s expression calmed, the feral glow fading from its eyes as its muscles relaxed. Emily looked up to see her mother pulling a needle from the cat’s side. The animal slid to the table, fighting to keep eye contact with Emily.

Leaning her head in close, Emily heard a whisper, a single word…
“Home.”

A hand was on her shoulder, pulling her back. It was her mom, her grip firm but gentle.

“Thank you, officers. We’ve got everything under control now.”

“You’re sure you’ll be okay, Doctor?” one of them asked.

“This is what we do,” she replied, pulling on surgical gloves. “Where did you find this animal?”

The older of the two policemen shook his head. “We didn’t find it. She did.” He jerked his thumb toward the far corner of the room. “Out at the Ravenswood Preserve.”

For the first time Emily noticed the dark-haired girl who stood watching, black eyes wide against tanned skin. Where had she come from?

Carolyn turned to the girl. “Any sign of what might have done this to her?”

“No.” The girl’s long dark hair fell over her face as she edged toward the door
.

“You did the right thing, calling for help,” Carolyn assured her.

“Yeah...” The girl was out the door in a flash
.

“Emily, get scrubbed. Andrea’s gone for the day, so you’re assisting. You know the burn drill: soak, clean, and cover.” The officers had left, and her mom was all business now.

But Emily was frozen again.
Home.
She was sure she’d heard it. But
who
had said it?

“Emily!” Carolyn set down the steel trays. “What’s the matter with you? Let’s go! Now!”

Emily willed her legs to move. Her hip hit the side of the exam table, making it spin on its wheels. “I …can’t…I…” she faltered.

“If you can’t help, then get out!”

Carolyn was already dousing sterile bandages with ice-cold alcohol and laying them over the worst of the burns. Emily looked from her mom to the cat, then stumbled out of the room in a daze.

Tears streamed down her cheeks as she walked out onto the hospital’s covered back porch. What had happened to her in there? She had
wanted
to help—she really had! How could she have frozen up like that, at a critical moment, with an animal’s life on the line? Never before had she acted like that—so clumsy and powerless. She hated it!

She walked into the backyard, trying to calm her breathing. She caught a glimpse of the black
-
haired girl running across the fields toward the forest. Something ran alongside her. It looked like a big gray dog. Emily shook her head, thinking about those awful burns. What could have hurt an animal like that? And what kind of animal was it, anyway? It looked like a leopard—but leopards didn’t live in the Pennsylvania woods...
out at the Ravenswood Preserve
... Is that where it came from? Suddenly Emily shivered as a strange feeling swept over her. It felt like something horrible was approaching…something evil
…

“Boo!”

With a shriek, Emily wheeled around—and found herself staring into the laughing face of Kevin Deacon, the fifteen-year-old who worked part-time at the hospital, cleaning out cages and caring for the animals. “Kevin, you idiot! Don’t ever do that again!”

Kevin just laughed some more.

“I’m not joking!” Emily turned away so he wouldn’t see how upset she really was.

Kevin’s mischievous smile faded. “I heard some awful noises a minute ago.” He brushed a lock of sandy hair from his forehead. “Some animal hurt pretty bad, huh?”

He could be such a jerk sometimes, but Emily had to admit that he did care about animals. “Yeah.”

“Your mom’s a great vet.”

“I should have—I mean, yeah.” Just go away and leave me alone!

“I saw that girl running away as I rode up. What was
she
doing here?”

“She found the animal, a cat
.
” Emily sniffed, calming down a little
.

“That girl’s really weird.”

“What do you mean?” Emily asked
.

“She lives in the woods! At the Ravenswood Preserve
.
”

“She
lives
there?” Emily eyes widened.

“Yeah, well, if the town council has anything to say about it, Ravenswood is going to be shut down.”

“Why?” Emily asked.

His blue eyes sparkled as he edged closer to her. “It’s haunted.”

Emily laughed. “Haunted? That is so juvenile.”

He shrugged. “Hey, the place used to be amazing. Old man Gardener collected all kinds of animals. We used to go there as kids, feed deer, peacocks, even monkeys. Now no one goes there. They say a monster roams the woods…”

Emily snorted. “C’mon, Kevin, get a grip.”

Kevin glanced back at the clinic. “Look, I don’t know what happened to the cat in there, but from the screams and the look on your face, it’s bad, right? It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that it was probably attacked by the same…
thing
…that’s already killed a couple of dogs.”

In spite of herself, Emily shivered. “Why don’t they just talk to that Gardener guy who owns the place?” she asked.

“He disappeared,” Kevin whispered. “Just upped and went one day, vanished. Spooky, huh?”

“So who takes care of all the animals?”

“His caretaker, I guess. Some old woman. People say she’s a witch.”

“
Kevin, stop it,” Emily shook her head. “There are no such thing as witches.” She was getting goose bumps.

“My friend Tyler saw a ghost about three weeks ago, right near the Rocking Stone.”

“The what?”

“The Rocking Stone, it’s been here forever. It’s an Indian monument, like a lighthouse for ghosts.”

Emily was trying not to let his ridiculous stories get to her.

“Something’s in those woods,” Kevin said slowly. “That place should be condemned.”

“What would happen to the animals?” Emily asked. But Kevin was already on his way into the clinic to begin his chores.

Emily looked out to the west, where the dark clouds had broken. The sun was setting behind the forest, sending up a fiery glow.

“I don’t believe in witches, monsters,
or
ghosts! I’m not afraid.” But somehow she was.

E
MILY FOUND HER
mother in the lab, examining something under a microscope. At the sound of Emily’s footsteps, Carolyn looked up, concerned.

Emily paused. “How is—?” She stared at her sneakers. She couldn’t complete the question, afraid she’d already seen the answer on her mother’s drawn face.

“She’s alive,” Carolyn told her. “Heavily sedated, but stable.”

Emily burst into tears. “I’m so sorry!”

“Shh, okay, it’s okay, sweetheart,” Carolyn said, wrapping her arms around her daughter.

“I didn’t help you… You needed me and I froze!” Fresh tears ran down her face.

“Honey, it was pretty intense,” Carolyn reassured her.

Emily pushed away from her mother and squared her shoulders. “I need to see her.”

“Okay.”

Emily walked to the door of the recovery room and, after a moment’s hesitation, opened it. Inside, the room was quiet, the shades drawn, the walls lit softly by a small lamp. The cat lay in a spacious cage. An intravenous needle was taped to its shoulder, connected by a tube to a bag that contained fluids and antibiotics. The cat was almost entirely wrapped in bandages. Its breathing was labored and shallow.

Emily knelt beside the cage. “You’re hurt so bad,” she said. “I’m sorry I didn’t help. Please don’t die... please.”

As Emily spoke, the cat’s breathing slowed and became more even. Its one good eye was halfway open and looking at her.

“I’m right here. I won’t leave you,” Emily promised.

The cat closed its eye and fell back asleep.

Carolyn walked into the room and knelt next to Emily. “She’s sleeping. Breathing’s regular. That’s good.”

Emily gave Carolyn a quick smile. She pointed to a patch of spotted fur on one of its rear paws. “What is she, a leopard?”

“I’m thinking maybe a margay, or some unusual kind of ocelot,” Carolyn answered.

Emily stared at it. “What kind of animal could have made these marks?” she asked, flashing on Kevin’s “monsters.”

“I might have guessed a bear,” Carolyn mused, “but only black bears live around here—largely vegetarian and almost never aggressive. Of course, we don’t know what other kinds of bears might live on that preserve.” She shook her head. “But that still doesn’t explain the burns…”

Faintly visible under the bandages, Emily noticed that green glow was still there.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Carolyn continued. “The burns seem to spread out from the claw wounds…but the only way that could be is if…” She shook her head again. “If the claws were toxic somehow. Or—”

“What?” Emily asked.

Carolyn sighed. “The burns may not be accidental. They could have been inflicted by someone.”

Emily gasped in horror. “What kind of a person would do that?”

“It may not be that. There may have been some toxic dumping in that preserve.”

Emily’s eyes widened. “What if other animals out there are in trouble? We have to help them!”

“Oh, no, you don’t,” her mom said sternly. “Don’t even
think
about going into those woods until we find out what—or who—caused those wounds.” She stood and straightened her lab coat. “I was preparing some skin samples to send to the University for analysis.”

“I want to stay down here tonight, with her.”

Carolyn frowned. Emily pressed on. “Burn victims benefit if they’re surrounded by people who care about them.”

Her mother smiled. “All right, I suppose it wouldn’t hurt.”

Emily smiled back.

T
HAT NIGHT, EMILY
dragged her sleeping bag, a careful selection of stuffed animals, and two pillows into the clinic’s recovery room and set herself up as close to the cage as she could.

“I brought you Mr. Snuffles,” she said softly, holding up the orange lion. “See, he’s a cat, too.”

The cat lay sleeping, breathing calmly. Emily opened the cage and placed Mr. Snuffles far to the side, careful not to touch the injured animal’s bandages. Gently she stroked a patch of uncovered fur on her shoulder.

That’s strange, she thought. The cat had two bumps, matching mounds that protruded behind each shoulder blade. They were hard but spongy, like cartilage.

“What are these?” she mused aloud. Could it be a fracture? No, her mom was too good a vet to miss anything like that. And the cat didn’t even twitch when Emily touched the bumps. They must be something else, something normal for this cat.

She closed the cage and snuggled down with her other stuffed friends. She was happy to be doing something for the cat at last. She would watch her all night. But the cat seemed at peace now, and Emily found it harder and harder to keep her eyes open. Finally she couldn’t fight the exhaustion anymore. As her eyes closed, she imagined she heard a thin, distant voice.

“Thank you.”

S
UNLIGHT POURED INTO
the room as Carolyn drew back the shades. “Good morning, Doc. Rise and shine!”

“Mornin’,” Emily mumbled as she tried to untangle herself from her sleeping bag. Finally, she kicked the bag away and stuck her nose up to the cat’s cage. To her great relief, the cat’s sides were rising and falling with deep, smooth breaths. “She looks better.”

“Breathing’s stabilized,” Carolyn confirmed, carefully laying her stethoscope on the cat’s side. She checked the cat’s pupils, then deftly inserted a thermometer. A few moments later she was shaking it back down with a smile. “You’re absolutely right. No fever, and she definitely seems better.” She smiled. “You’ve got the magic touch, Doc!”

Emily beamed. For just a moment, she let herself think she had helped heal the cat. But of course, she knew that was nonsense. Other than her simple presence, she’d done nothing. Still she resolved to stay with the cat until it was really well again.

O
VER THE NEXT
few days, Emily remained at the cat’s side, chatting quietly or reading to her, stroking the spots of unburned fur. Once the intravenous needle was removed, Emily took over feeding her soft food and liquid vitamins.