ACROSS THE STARS
Chapter Twelve
Rosé leaned over the side of the
cart, looking at the rutted dirt road ahead of them. It was growing late, the
shadows lengthening, but she knew where they were and how far they were from
the estate. With every landmark they passed—every stream, rock, meadow, and
tree that she had played amongst as a child—they grew closer to home.
“Rosé!” Ruth tapped her daughter
sharply on the shoulder. “Don’t lean out of the cart that way. It isn’t safe.”
“Mother, we’re almost home…”
“And I still don’t want you
falling out of the cart, nor do I want you sticking your head out where any
predator can leap on you.”
“Mother…”
“She’s right, Mistress Rosé,”
Maira interjected. “One bad jolt and you’d fall. And there are predators in the
Arcadian wilderness…and this is the time when they start coming out to hunt.”
Rosé sat back in the cart, her
expression unhappy. They had been cooped up in the cart for almost thirteen
hours, with only a few brief breaks from time to time. Sometimes she felt like
she could walk faster than the cart moved, and though she recognized the wisdom
of both Ruth and Maira’s words, she was eager to be home. It had been far too
long since she had been to the wilderness estate—almost a year—and after all
that had happened, she longed for the peace and remoteness of the place where
she had spent so many happy times as a child.
She wondered what might have
changed—if the servants were the same, if the gardens were as beautiful as she
remembered, if Buguiness still regarded her as the leader of his pack. It had
been so long since she had been home, the caline might very well have found a
mate and started a pack of his own.
When the cart finally creaked to
a stop inside the gates of the estate, Rosé restrained herself from leaping out
of it until Jack, Maira, and Boult had gotten out, Boult moving to unhitch the
cabils from the cart and Jack and Maira making a quick but discreet check of
the area to be sure it was safe.
When they returned, Ruth and Rosé
finally emerged from the cart, Ruth instructing the two Jedi to take their
bags, continuing the pretense that they were the Bukaters’ servants. Rosé
glanced at Jack and Maira, seeking assurance that it was all right to go ahead.
At their nod of assent, she hurried forward, walking toward the front entrance
of the house and whistling a series of notes.
Maira and Jack stiffened as a
high-pitched yelp came from the garden behind the house. They instinctively
reached for their lightsabers, wondering why the Force hadn’t allowed them to
sense the threat, as an enormous creature with a thick bristle of black fur on its
back and long, protruding fangs came racing out of the shadows and headed
straight for Rosé.
Ruth waved to them to put their
lightsabers away, and a moment later it became apparent why they hadn’t sensed
a threat—the creature raced to Rosé, tail whipping, and leaped up on her,
placing its front paws, claws sheathed, on her shoulders, opening its jaw
fully, and encompassing her head with its mouth. Her sun hat flew off and
landed on the ground a couple of meters away.
“Buguiness!” Rosé flung her arms
around the caline as he greeted her, tail still wagging. She shrieked as he
leaned on her, nearly knocking her over, and began to lick the sun cream from
her face and ears.
Finally, Rosé succeeded in
freeing herself from Buguiness’ overenthusiastic greeting, but not before he
had licked off the last of the sun cream. Sniffing for more, he got down,
rubbing against her for a moment before he turned to inspect the other humans.
Buguiness gave Ruth a cursory
sniff, acknowledging that she belonged there, but not paying much more
attention other than a quick attempt to lick her hand in search of more sun
cream. Rosé’s firm command and Ruth’s moving her hands behind her back stopped
him. He glanced at Boult and the cabils, snorted briefly and licked his chops,
then turned to inspect the two strangers.
“Just stand still while he
inspects you,” Rosé told Jack as the caline circled him, sniffing. Jack did as
she said, not wanting to provoke an attack. Finally, Buguiness completed his
inspection and growled slightly, indicating that while he didn’t consider Jack
a threat to his mistress, he didn’t fully trust him, either.
When he turned to inspecting
Maira, his reaction was different. After sniffing her for a moment, he began to
wag his tail, then jumped up on her, almost knocking over the startled Jedi
Knight, and encompassed her head with his mouth.
“Buguiness! No!” Rosé and Jack
both rushed forward to defend Maira against the caline, but he continued
wagging his tail and began licking her face enthusiastically, ignoring both the
lightsaber-wielding Padawan and his mistress, who grabbed his lower jaw and
tugged in an effort to get him to let go.
Annoyed, Buguiness took one last
swipe at Maira’s face with his tongue, then sat down and looked quizzically at
Rosé.
“Are you okay, Master?” Jack
turned off his lightsaber, but kept it in his hand, looking at the beast
sitting contritely Rosé’s feet suspiciously.
Maira wiped her face with her
sleeve and nodded. “Just a bit…surprised, is all,” she assured him. “I don’t think
he was trying to harm me.”
“I don’t think so, either,” Rosé
interjected. “I think he was greeting you like a member of his pack. That’s
very strange, because calines are very suspicious of strangers, and even
amongst those he knows, he’s only ever greeted me and Father that way.” She
paused, thinking. “Perhaps we have a similar smell…though with all the time
I’ve spent with Mother, he’s never given her more than the slight
acknowledgment that she exists and is not a threat.”
Maira looked uncomfortably at the
caline for a moment before Jack spoke up with his opinion. “Maybe it’s because
you’re both Force-sensitive. Some creatures are more attuned to the Force than
others.”
“But why didn’t he like you,
then?” Rosé asked. “He doesn’t think you’re a threat, or he would have attacked
you, or at the least, stood and stared at you, watching every move to be sure
you didn’t do anything to threaten me.”
“Maybe because Master Maira is a
woman? Some animals are more comfortable with women than with men.”
“But he liked my father, and
greeted him that way whenever he returned here.”
Jack shrugged. “I don’t know,
then. Maybe—“
A yowl from the forest outside
the gate interrupted him. Buguiness sat up, his ears swiveling in the direction
of the sound.
“I think we should go inside
now,” Maira decided. “Something is evidently hunting out there, and although
the gates are locked, it doesn’t hurt to be cautious.”
Ruth nodded in agreement. “You’re
right. I’ve seen tracks inside the gates on occasion, and they weren’t from Buguiness
nor any of the livestock.”
Rosé nodded reluctantly, not
wanting to go inside quite so soon but acknowledging the wisdom of both Ruth
and Maira’s word. She, too, had seen strange tracks on occasion, and in spite
of the presence of Buguiness and the two Jedi, she had no desire to meet one of
the predators that made their homes in the forest.
As they started toward the house,
Buguiness hung back, running to the gates and issuing a snarl of challenge to
the unknown creature in the woods. He followed them, then stopped, looking
puzzled, and raced back to the gates, sniffing at them and running halfway back
to the humans before returning to the entrance to the estate.
“Oh, no.” Rosé’s voice was so
faint that it was almost inaudible. Tears filling her eyes, she whispered,
“He’s looking for Father.”
Buguiness abandoned the gate and
ran up to Rosé, nudging her with his nose and looking towards the entrance
anxiously.
Rosé crouched down to the
caline’s level. “Oh, Buguiness, he’s not here.” Her voice was choked. “He’s not
coming back.”
The caline didn’t appear to
understand. Ruth looked at her weeping daughter and went to one of her bags,
pulling out an ornate urn and loosening the lid slightly before handing it to
her daughter.
“I don’t know if it will help,
but let him smell this, Rosé. Perhaps his strong sense of smell will let him
know who these ashes once were.”
Rosé nodded, burying her face in
Buguiness’ fur for a moment before taking the urn. “Look, Buguiness,” she
whispered. “This is all that’s left…if only you’d been there to protect him, it
might have been different.”
The caline growled uneasily, not
knowing what to make of the somber atmosphere or his mistress’ tears. He
sniffed the urn she offered him, his growls growing louder until, with a yelp,
he broke free of Rosé’s arms and raced back to the gates, sniffing frantically
and yelping loudly, his tail puffed out and standing stiffly.
Sobbing, Rosé handed the urn back
to Ruth and leaned against her, allowing her mother to embrace her. “He knows,
Mother. He knows.”
Indeed, it did seem that
Buguiness understood what had happened, for after sniffing and pawing at the
gates a moment longer, he sat down, raised his nose to the sky, and let loose a
bone-chilling yowl that members of his species seldom uttered except at the
death of a pack member.
Rosé continued to sob at the
sound, resisting her mother’s efforts to lead her into the house. Only after
the caline stopped yowling and ran towards a heavily wooded part of the estate
did she finally allow the others to lead her inside.