She hadn’t needed to. Rob gave her a warm smile and shook his head.

“I heard that, too,” he said confidentially. “One born every minute, isn’t there? I heard that something happened to them, they disappeared like that Virginia colony of Roanoke. Smart people don’t travel that way. My grandfather, he took me up near that place one time. Showed me a drawing someone had made on a rock—told me that if I saw that symbol, I should take it as a warning, like when you come upon a tree that a grizzly has marked. Something we didn’t want to meet has that territory claimed.”

“What did it look like?” Charles asked.

“Like an upside-down capital V with lines hashed over both sides. I heard that the place where those people put their camp had those marks all over it. Lots of beautiful country around here, beautiful river, good places. Don’t know why people have to go poking hornet’s nests.”

He paused a second, then frowned at Charles with sudden suspicion. “If you folks intend to go hunting for Wild Sign, you’d better have good weapons.”

Charles smiled. “Thank you for the warning.”

Rob shook his head, but he had a smile on his face. “Young people always think they know best.”

“It’s a hazard,” agreed Charles.

* * *

*

THEY CALLED DR. Connors from the gas station. She gave them directions to the cabin where she was staying at an RV park in town.

“The RV park has a cabin,” said Anna cautiously.

“Don’t they all,” agreed Tag with a grin.

“Place like this,” said Charles, “you get creative about making a living—or you move on.”

The town showed signs of struggling, for sure, Anna thought. But it was set down in the heart of the mountains—she could see why people would fight to stay in a place like this.

Tag said solemnly, “You can feed your wallet, or you can feed your soul, but you seldom can do both at the same time.” He took in a deep breath out his open window.

They turned, as Dr. Connors had directed, in front of the Bigfoot statue.

“Do you reckon they got the size just right?” asked Tag, looking up at the scrap-metal giant. “I admit the only time I saw them in their real shape, they looked at least that big to me. But I expect that was more terror than reality.”

“Most men overestimate size,” said Anna, deadpan.

Tag sighed dramatically. “I disappointed her in that department, that’s for sure. She expected someone taller.” He gave Anna a wicked grin from the backseat.

They pulled into the RV campground and drove around until they found the cabin Dr. Connors had described to them, parking next to an aging but immaculate Volvo station wagon.

As they got out of the car, a woman opened the door of the small cabin and stood on the porch, watching them. She was a little taller than average. Her skin was tanned dark and her shoulder-length brown hair was sun-faded and caught back in an indifferent ponytail. She wore cutoffs that actually looked like they had begun life as jeans, rather than having been bought that way, and a gray tank top that showed just how lean and muscled she was. Her bare arms sported a few scars, mostly thin stripes.

If Anna had to pick out a word for her, it would have been “tough.” She remembered ruefully that she’d thought about going in jeans and a T-shirt instead of dressing for a boardroom. This woman evidently had had the same thought and made the other choice—or possibly not worried about it at all.

“Hello,” she said as they approached. “I’m Dr. Connors. You must be Anna Cornick.”

Anna nodded. “This is my husband, Charles. And our—” She hesitated too long and gave Tag time to chime in.

“Henchman,” he said with a grin that widened as Anna frowned at him. At least the sunglasses were nowhere in sight.

She shrugged. “Henchman, Colin Taggart.”

“Call me Tag,” he told Dr. Connors, who did not appear to be charmed.

Well, thought Anna, at least she didn’t run screaming. People who met Tag tended to one reaction or the other.

“We would like to talk to you about Wild Sign,” Anna said.

“There’s a picnic table around the back.” Dr. Connors didn’t give much away with her body posture. Nothing other than hostility. Anna couldn’t decide if the hostility was a normal thing for Dr. Connors or if she was still mad about their opening her father’s letters.

They followed her around the little cabin. Anna took the opportunity of pointing a finger at Tag and shaking her head. His grin didn’t make her optimistic that he’d behave anytime soon.

The picnic table was right next to the back of the cabin, on the edge of a grassy expanse that stretched down between the various RV sites to create a park where guests could cook, sunbathe, walk their dogs, or anything else they’d like to do. Currently, they were the only occupants who weren’t squirrels or birds.

Dr. Connors was staring at the picnic table she’d promised with an unhappy frown. Anna got it. Picnic tables were fine for eating with friends—but they were a little close quarters for strangers. Anna didn’t think Charles or Tag would willingly sit at them the way they were intended anyway, because the table would get in the way of their rising to their feet in case of an attack.

Charles walked to the far side of the table and picked up the bench, carrying it around and placing it opposite the other bench with considerably more distance between them than the mere table had offered. He then made a soundless gesture that invited Dr. Connors to pick her bench.

She took the one nearest the table, Anna and Charles sat on the other—and Tag sprawled out on the grass, as a henchman, presumably, would.

Anna dug into her purse and brought out the letters. Charles had taken photos of them, so they had electronic copies. She handed all of the originals and their envelopes to Dr. Connors. Anna had to half stand to stretch across the distance. Dr. Connors took the letters carefully and set them beside her on the bench, tucking them under one leg to hold them against any chance wind. She made no move to look at them.

If Anna had been easily intimidated by awkward atmospheres, she would have been totally tongue-tied by now. But she’d been playing her cello solo since elementary school, and she’d performed before tougher audiences than a grumpy, antisocial white witch who, according to the FBI report on her, spent most of her time in the jungles of South America. The FBI hadn’t known about the white witch part, of course.

Anna hadn’t caught the scent herself, but Brother Wolf had whispered White witch as soon as the wind blew past them as they had been walking around the cabin.

“We”—Anna gestured at herself, her husband, and Tag, who was playing with a strand of grass—“are werewolves.” Which was something she wouldn’t have told Dr. Connors without Brother Wolf’s information.

The only reason Anna knew she’d scared Dr. Connors was the change in her scent. Anna decided to let Dr. Connors believe she’d kept her reaction to herself. So Anna didn’t offer reassurances.

“Around two hundred years ago,” she said, “one of our kind encountered a being in the mountains northeast of here. He thought it had been killed, but he acquired the land, just in case. Ownership has remained with our pack. And the thing—we have heard it referred to as the Singer in the Woods—was inactive so far as we knew from that time until this. A few days ago, the FBI landed on our doorstep to tell us that there had been an entire town built on our land. Some damn fools apparently decided that a parcel of land in the mountains that was neither federal land nor tribal was a wonderful place to build an off-grid town. They were, as far as we could tell, mostly white witches like you.”

She let the words hit Dr. Connors and then said gently, “And those foolish witches woke it up.”

“I don’t know about all of that,” said Dr. Connors, sounding suddenly weary. “I am out of the country for months at a time, Ms. Cornick. The last trip should have been two months and turned into ten for—” She shook her head. “For reasons that have no bearing on today. By the time I got back, my father had been out of contact for months. That’s not like him. Nor is writing to me every day for the better part of a week. He writes a letter to me every week on Wednesday. My mother, his ex-wife, gets a letter once a month. My little brother gets a letter written on each Thursday.”

She raised her chin and stared straight ahead, swallowed visibly, and said, “Got. We all got letters.”

“In code,” said Anna neutrally.

“In code,” Dr. Connors agreed.