. . .

Bethany practically backs into her. It’s only the utter silence where Lucy is, the unswaying of the branch she stands on, that gives the Lucy-beast away.

Bethany elbows at her, hard. Lucy dodges but staggers. Bethany squints.

“That’s right,” she says, recognizing the girl under her hat. “You’re on the prophesy track, aren’t you?”

Lucy snorts. She tosses her head. “I,” she says, “am the evil prophet of —”

She doesn’t get to finish. Bethany moves in such a fashion that if Lucy finishes that sentence, she will fall and break her neck.

Lucy snarls. She opens her mouth. She tries to start again.

She will introduce herself. Then she will speak an evil prophecy. Then there will be only blood and death for Bethany, as she will have foretold —

Bethany is looking at her. Bethany is intending at her.

Lucy howls.

She gulps back the evil prophecy. It roils in her wolf-gut. That path leads to disaster. What about . . .

Bethany moves, just a little.

Lucy, tangled up in prophecy and forebodings, throws herself from the tree and hits her own head hard on a wayward branch.

<< – 10 –

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