Unbound by Meredith Noone Read Free Book Online Page A

the upcoming autumn equinox, mentioning that she’d forgotten to grow any pumpkins at all this year and she’d have to buy some instead.
    “I’m getting old,” she said. “I can’t remember as well as I used to. I should’ve put them in back in May, but it just didn’t occur to me for some reason.” She smiled to herself. “That’s the nature of things, you know, Ranger? All things get old and die.”
    Ranger stared at her.
    “Even the stars,” she told him. “But the way people think about death these days isn’t really right, did you know that, little wolf? Because you die and then you become something else. Your body goes in the ground, and out pops a tree, or a lovely laurel bush!” She cackled gleefully. “And then we eat the fruit of the tree, and we continue, on and on, forever.”
    The wolf continued to pretend to be paying complete attention to what she was saying, although she had lost him utterly.
    “And so it’s been going on forever. The stars died, years and years ago, and we’re made up of stardust from those stars. Even the gods will die eventually, and then they will become something else, just a little shift in energy, in power.” She sighed. “All things come to an end. Seems like just yesterday that Baba Yaga died. I was fifteen, you know, and I met her before she went.”
    Baba Yaga had been the last of the high spellcasters. She’d been five hundred and three.
    People didn’t get that old anymore.
    The tea was steeped. Madam Watkins fell silent as she put the mugs and the plate of cookies on a tray and carried them through to her little living room, which was cluttered with odd knick-knacks and piles of dusty old books. On the mantelpiece there was a crystal orb on a brass stand, a dozen feather quills in a pottery jar, an assortment of semi-precious stones, and an old iron dagger with an intricate engraving on the hilt. On the side table, on top of a teetering stack of leather-bound tomes, there was the skull of a mouflon sheep, horns intact.
    On the windowsill, she had an assortment of little cactuses in pots, and in the corner was a spinning wheel with skeins of wool still to be spun.
    The whole room smelt like dust and peppermints.
    “Well, here we are,” Madam Watkins said, setting the tray down on the coffee table and taking a seat in a floral armchair.
    Ranger climbed onto the matching loveseat, lying against the cushions.
    “I assume you’re not here for a social visit, then, old wolf?”
    He thumped his tail a couple of times. She seemed to have forgotten the tangent about old age she’d gone off on, which was good because he couldn’t ask questions to redirect her with his mouth full of wolf-teeth instead of human ones.
    “Yes, yes,” she said. “You’ll be here about those poor souls who were killed, then? I’ve already had the Sheriff, three of his deputies, and that nice young detective from Boston come and talk to me about that.” She paused, pensively, reaching for a mug of tea that she did not sip, but instead stared at, considering.
    The wolf chuffed at her to try and prompt her to speak.
    “I know as well as you do why those people are being murdered,” she said, at length. “Someone’s trying to evict the White Wolf of the Woods, and they’re using very dark means to do it. There isn’t a lot those dear police officers could do about it, though – if they went up against that murderer, they would be certain to be killed. This is a matter for the Guardians.”
    The look she gave Ranger then was significant. He withered under it, shrinking into the couch and flattening his ears.
    “I know it’s a frightening prospect, Ranger, but it needs to be done, and you can’t do everything alone. Don’t think I don’t know. You’ve been in town almost a month now, and that’s just about unheard of behavior for you. There has to be a reason, and the reason is the murders. Well, I’m telling you I might not know who’s committing them, but I know