Re: The Woods: Pesha/Tandy
The protection spells that Billy had cast around the perimeter of Atticus’ property altered him to the approach before his ears: a slight tug at invisible threads that raised his chin, redirected his gaze to the spot on the road where a tall figure was looming out of the late-day stretch of darkness. Good timing, in the sense that it was getting harder to see the words on the faded yellow pages of King, which he dog-eared and dropped on the seat of the camp chair as he rose and looked up.
And up, and up. The guy who had to be Tandy was at least a full head taller than Billy, who had busied himself with slotting another cigarette between his lips. He lit the end without a lighter; just a finger’s press against the edge of paper and tobacco. A couple of months ago, he would have needed a lighter. He wouldn’t have known that someone was coming up the road unless he’d seen it right away. But the book that he’d found in the Capital when he’d gone to investigate the ruins of the building where he’d been held with Atticus — the grimoire, as he’d come to think of it — had given him back the vrajitoare, alighting it into a blaze that Billy’d never had before.
“Tandy?” He assumed as much, given how far out they were and the purpose with which the guy was striding over the grass towards him. He reached down to grab the backpack that had been slung down at his feet and hiked it over one shoulder, with the faint rattle of wood and bone. He’d been out collecting in the woods today. “Pesha.”
Because Billy was using the nickname, for now. No sense in attaching his real name to anything inherently illegal if he didn’t have to, right? He smiled around the smoke that dangled from his mouth, jerking his head in the direction of his trailer where it was parked behind a couple of bald cypress trees and some wild fern. A curl of smoke trickled up from a chimney towards the back of the repurposed bus, possibly disguising the fact that Billy’s skin smelled like a campfire under his clothes.
He didn’t look to see if the guy followed, just hopped up the wooden steps propped outside the open door to the bus and disappeared inside, before he had a thought. “Watch your head,” he warned, calling over his shoulder. The trailer was double-decker height inside, but the doorway hadn’t been built with giants in mind so much as school-age children.