Wolf card. The telephone/telegraph key card. And a card that showed heavy surf striking the shore.

“I don’t know what this means,” Meg said. Then Water walked in from the back room, leaving wet footsteps on the floor.

The Elemental said, “I have a message for the Wolfgard.”

“Give me a minute,” Simon replied.

Water nodded and left.

“I guess Water is supposed to give you the message,” Meg said.

“Huh.” Simon studied the cards. “You’re getting pretty good with those things. Do the prickles go away after you choose the ones that answer a question?”

She nodded. “Unless there is more that can’t be seen with the cards.”

“So you don’t have to cut anymore.”

If he believed that, he would be more upset when she did cut. “Using the cards doesn’t produce the euphoria.”

“They also don’t cause pain or leave a scar,” he countered.

The new scar along her jaw bothered all of the terra indigene more than the other scars she’d added since living in the Courtyard. The cards released prophecies but did nothing for the craving that was entwined with the addiction to cut. Still, she had resisted using the razor for almost four weeks.

“Don’t keep Water waiting,” she said.

When he went outside to talk to the Elemental, Meg returned the cards to the drawer.

No, the cards didn’t help with the craving for the euphoria. Nothing but cutting could satisfy that.

Prickles filled her fingers. She ran her hands over the cards in the drawer until she found the one she needed to see.

She studied the card. Studied it and studied it.

A man and woman, standing close together in a garden under a full moon. Except the moon was shaped like the symbol for a heart.

Uneasy, Meg put the card back in the drawer. Romance? No. Men... Bad things had happened in the compound, things that were veiled in her memory but remembered by her body. So that couldn’t produce anything like the euphoria.

Could it?

She closed the drawer and tried to ignore the light prickles that felt more like fingertips brushing the skin on the inside of her thighs.

•••

Simon carefully slit open the box of books, pulled out the packing slip, and checked off the copies of each book before putting them on the shelves in the stock room. Everything he’d ordered before the storm suddenly showed up, making him wonder if railcars that were carrying merchandise for the terra indigene had been left on a siding somewhere. Now it was advantageous to ship merchandise to the Others because any properly sized train that had an earth native freight car had a better chance of safely passing through the wild country. “All freight or no freight” seemed to be the new motto.