Page 46 of Silver Linings

“What the hell?”

Cold grew in the pit of my stomach. Those sounds seemed to be coming roughly from the southwest, where Welling Glen was located.

Oh, no.

“They’ve already started,” I said.

Ben stared back at me. “Who’s started what?”

“Northwest Pacific,” I told him, hoping he could hear the urgency in my words. “They came out here and started clearing under the cover of darkness. They probably thought if they could present us with a done deal, then we’d give up on trying to stop them.”

“Bastards.”

I heartily agreed with that sentiment. However, calling them names wasn’t going to fix anything.

No, we needed to get over there and stop them before they could cause any more damage.

“We have to go,” I said.

No arguments from Ben, who’d already bent to pick up his flashlight and backpack. “What are we going to do?” he asked as we began to move through the woods toward the source of all those ominous sounds.

“Whatever we have to,” I replied grimly.

Chapter Fourteen

Ben wasn’t about to comment on the strange coincidence that had led Sidney to the very spot where he’d found the new Ogham letter carved into a tree. Enough odd things had happened around here that he figured he’d just have to roll with it and try to analyze the situation later when he had a chance to slow down and really think.

If he ever got the time for that sort of thing.

Now, though, he was hurrying through the forest with her a few paces out in front, neither of them quite running, as if they knew tripping over a tree root or a stump or boulder would put them right out of commission. He kept his flashlight’s beam fixed on the path ahead, which helped enough to keep them from running into any obvious obstacles.

Despite their urgency, he couldn’t quite stop himself from wondering if their cooperation now meant she was still mad at him but didn’t have the time to indulge her anger, or whether she’d forgiven him enough that she was willing to have him as an ally for the moment.

Possibly a little of both. He was okay with that, because at least she was talking to him and maybe viewed him as a source of possible help. Everything else they could work out later.

The sounds were getting steadily louder. Soon enough, they didn’t even need the noise of the illegal clearing to guide them in, since someone had set up some big light stands, the kind he’d used on several digs that had the kind of budget to afford them. The harsh illumination guided him and Sidney right where they needed to be.

He had a feeling the clearing had already existed before the bulldozers and the woodchippers and the work crews had arrived, since there was a fairly large open spot that once had probably been quite pretty, with grass and the paler dots of some kind of wildflowers. A lot of the meadow had already been destroyed, though, with the heavy machinery leaving deep cuts in the wild grass and pretty thoroughly crushing the flowers.

As far as he could tell, there seemed to be about a dozen people working, maybe a little less. Not a big crew by any stretch of the imagination, which Ben guessed had been deliberate. A small, nimble group would be able to pack up quickly and be out of here without anyone noticing.

Well, except for the part where one of Northwest Pacific’s most vocal critics was already out in the woods and ready for combat.

One man stood a ways from the others and was pointing and shouting, although Ben couldn’t quite make out what the guy was saying over the roar of the engines and that incessant beeping noise, which he guessed the work crews must hear in their sleep.

It seemed clear the guy was the foreman, though, so he seemed the logical person to confront.

Sidney must have performed the same mental arithmetic, since she stalked straight over to him, planted her hands on her hips, and said in furious tones, “You need to stop this right now. What you’re doing is illegal.”

The man looked singularly nonplussed. It was impossible to tell his hair color — or whether he even had any hair at all — thanks to the hard hat he wore, but his eyes were pale and bleached under the bright lights the work crew had set up to illuminate the clearing.

“No, it’s not,” he said, his tone casual. If he was surprised to have a couple of strangers show up at his job site, no one would have ever guessed it from his expression. “Got all the paperwork signed by your mayor. So you tree-huggers will need to back off.”

Sidney scowled, and Ben had to admit he wasn’t favorably impressed by the guy, either.

“Then we’ll need to see that paperwork,” he said, and the foreman only shrugged.

“What, are you with the Sierra Club or something?”

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