Jennifer Scales and the Messenger of Light by MaryJanice Davidson Page B

good-bye to her parents, she slammed her bedroom window open and jumped out into the cold October afternoon. Moments later, her winged shape slipped up through the clouds.
     
    “Grandpa, you’ve got to call my parents!” She said this as she stormed through the cabin patio doors, reverting to seething girl shape.
    From the kitchen, he poked his head back and smiled. “Hey, Niffer! I’m making up some meatloaf. Lucky for you I’ve got extra, Joseph’s lending a hand at the Green farm down the road again—”
    “Grandpa, you have to call them!”
    He finally paid attention. “Why? They driving you nuts?”
    “No. Well, yes, but—Grandpa, I know about Pinegrove. I know our house is in a town full of beaststalkers, and now that everybody knows we’re weredragons, they still won’t leave!”
    Crawford sighed sadly. “They sent you up here?”
    “Yes. Dad said he has work to do, of all things! And I know Mom won’t leave him. You have to call him and tell him to get up here!”
    To her surprise, he actually chuckled. “Niffer, when your parents tell you what to do, do you always listen?”
    “Well, no, but—”
    “Your father hasn’t followed my advice since he fell in love with your mother.” This came out wistfully. “He was right back then, I learned over time, and the two of them might be right now. You may know about Pinegrove, but I doubt you know everything.”
    Jennifer stomped her foot. “I really wish people wouldn’t keep stuff from me. I’m fifteen years old; I can handle a little family history! Anyway, what could be so important that my parents would stay in that house? It’s just a house!”
    She caught a flash in his gray eyes. “Not every house is just a house, Jennifer. Especially when you lose one. You should have learned that at Eveningstar.”
    It took some time to ponder that, but then…
    “Our house in Winoka used to be yours?”
    He nodded. “The property did. My mother’s farm used to be where that neighborhood stands. She raised me alone, after my father died in a duel with a particularly powerful werachnid named Motega. She found her revenge on him, but a few years afterward, the beaststalkers came to Pinegrove. There were more of us back then than there are now, but an army of beaststalkers is formidable.”
    It was a while before he spoke again. Jennifer stared at the white fringe of hair that surrounded the back of his frail head. She knew enough not to press him for details. He opened the oven door, took out a small pan of meatloaf, and began slicing it.
    “We hid, of course,” he finally continued. “In a secret compartment under the basement. She had dug it long before then, thinking she may need it on occasion. But with the entire town occupied and beaststalkers living literally above our heads, we were trapped. The beaststalker family that moved into that farm never even knew we were there, for several weeks.
    “We thought we would just slip upstairs and out of the house some time when they weren’t in, but as it turned out, it was a family with children, and the mother stayed home with them all the time. Not only that, many beaststalkers spent time renovating houses and obliterating all traces of their previous owners. Even when she took the children away during the day, they had workers knocking down walls, remodeling, and so on. The best we could do was slip up into the basement and get water from the utility sink. That alone nearly got us caught.
    “Having no other option, my mother dug deeper under the basement, making a tunnel that she hoped we could use to escape without alerting anyone. But it was hard work, through bedrock, and we had to do it quietly. I tried to help, but I was little then and couldn’t do much.”
    Crawford had all the meatloaf on a serving platter now. Motioning for Jennifer to get her own dishes, he brought the platter over to the dining table.
    “On the verge of starvation, and her claws crusted in her own blood, Mother