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“You thought I was full of shit”

“I siain”

I bark a laugh

“In any event, your work is done” She waves out toward the ocean, glea beyond the patchwork expanse of fields and pastures I realize what she’s really gesturing to is the road that runs along the cliffs, bridging the Patches and the village Then she waves over her shoulder at me and starts up the hillside

I give her a

I was right—exertion helps Being in this valley, in a strearass between the foothills—that helps, too The fog at my feet, the mist on my skin—I feel…relief

But I know it’s te worked out with her Clonidine, if nothing else I don’t want to offer her ot to win her over

The slope she’s hiking up is steeper than the one we just ca up alongside several steeple-like spires Off-the-cuff, I’d put this peak at maybe two thousand feet Behind it and back some distance is the infamous volcano—formally known as Queen Mary’s Peak I can’t see it for the clouds

I shieldanyway? Trying to escapesheep? I wonder what’s on the other side of this peak; I don’t know the landscape yet

I decide she’s probably heading to the high ground to have one ht Does she know ?

I don’t want to spook her, so I hang back as she cli maybe forty yards between us And I watch her I watch the way she gathers her hair, braiding the loose strands even as she weaves around boulders and navigates the river-like runoff that’s flowing down around the deeper gulches I watch the way she hefts her pack up higher on her back, stopping for a second to do so with the strap

When she reaches the top of the grassy slope and the bottom of the rockface thatraindrops Then she turns slightly to look over her shoulder, her face turned toward the Patches

Looking for me?

Maybe

I pull out the infrared binoculars Mac sent with me and watch as she flares red and yellow That’ll be ot to hand these off as proies, maybe help her herd a few more sheep As alk back toward the Patches, I can broach my dark topic