of my frantically shaking him. I was surprised that worked. He’s
weaker than I thought.”
Beck slapped his cousin on the shoulder. “It’ll be fine now.” He
turned to his horse and released the saddle on its back. With an easy
strength, he hefted the heavy saddle with one arm and smacked the
horse’s rump with the other. “Go on now, go rest.” The great beast
lumbered off to wherever it went to rest.
“You haven’t seen him.” Dante rushed after Beck. “He’s worse
than ever. I don’t know if you can bring him back.”
Meg followed the small procession, trying to take in her new
home as she hurried to keep up. It looked like a farm out of the shire
from Lord of the Rings, if the inhabitants had averaged six and a half feet and let everything fall down around them.
The front yard was badly in need of attention. There was a small
flower garden, but whatever had grown there lost the battle against
invading weeds. There was also an odd-looking motorcycle leaning
against a fence. Meg noted the bike proudly boasted a Harley
Davidson logo.
Bound
103
Beck sighed as he looked at the garden, completely ignoring the
bike. There was an air of unsurprised disappointment about him. “I
suppose the vegetable garden is the same.”
“Worse.” Dante’s boot kicked the dirt where there should have
been flowers growing. “Flanna and some girls from the village came
and saved what they could. She said she would preserve the
vegetables and make jelly from the strawberries, but that was all she
could promise.”
Beck nodded. “I’ll be sure to thank Flanna in the morning. Her
family is good to us. We’ll need every bit we can salvage if we’re
going to make it through the winter.”