DISCLAIMER: I own nothing, including my cat, who—despite his longstanding agreement to like me more than my father—still does not respond to anything other than treats. A notable quotable from this part was " smeyer WHAT'S GOOD," and if you can guess where it is, I owe you a grilled cheese sandwich.
Chapter 9: Of Wolves And Men
Mama appointed herself head of the werewolf-welcoming committee since she was the only one who wasn't afraid to be alone with me. It didn't take long to learn that she ran the entire operation. She decided to start me off working in the kitchen, where she could keep an eye on me. I got to know her before the others, though the Ashwood family often swarmed like bees in a hive, particularly at meal times.
I jumped at loud noises, bared my teeth when interrupted during a meal, and generally acted on edge. I felt out of my element being in large groups after so many months on my own in the woods. I was more of a shadow among the family, following their rhythms and learning their ways.
This was a cause of concern for Buck. I noticed him watching me out of the corner of his eye when he got within a few feet of me. I overheard him telling the younger kids not to bother me. That was a good thing. If they kept me away, I would be less dangerous to them. I wanted to be as little of a burden on them as possible; that way, when I left, they would hardly notice I was gone.
On my second morning at the farm—after sleeping nearly sixteen hours—I took three of Mama's chocolate chip muffins and went out to survey the property. Buck and Noah left early to get a new sow for the orphaned calf from their neighbor, who had a cow that had given birth to a stillborn overnight. I wandered through the fields, trying to catch a whiff of the bloodsucker I'd smelled before. The trail was stale at first, but then it grew stronger, leading me to the barn.
The smell had gotten worse as I got closer. It wasn't the same as the leech I'd smelled the night before; it was more like spoiled milk. My stomach churned, trying to get rid of my breakfast. As I got closer, I could hear the sow wailing bloody murder. I balled up my fists to try and keep them from shaking.
I paused at the entrance, listening. I heard the click of a shotgun being loaded.
"We have to put her out of her misery," Buck said.
"I thought you said she was dead?" Noah's all-too-familiar voice asked.
"She was," Buck insisted. "I could've sworn by it."
The cow moaned. The sound was like a rusty metal door being opened.
"You have the silver bullets?" Noah muttered.
My vision became blurry. My whole body was shaking like a leaf in the wind. I gnashed my teeth together and closed my eyes, trying to eliminate the red haze in front of my vision.
"I don't think this was you, son," Buck replied. I heard another click as he turned the safety off.
"What makes you so sure?" Noah retorted with a bitter note in his voice.
"She wasn't torn up like the ones from back then," Buck explained. "Hardly any blood left to speak of, like it'd licked her clean."
"Then what did it, then?"
There was a moment of silence, and I almost peered around the corner to see what was happening before the shotgun bang rang out across the fields.
I jumped, nearly phasing right there. Before I could tell them to, my legs ran off into the woods, where I was finally able to burst into a wolf. To both my delight and horror, I was alone in my mind. Paul and Brady were in the periphery but so sound asleep that not even my blood-curdling mental scream woke them up. There was no buffer between me and my thoughts.
Running harder, I tried to distract myself. Surely, there was no way I could process this in such a state of shock. I tried to go back to the state of mind I'd been in when I lived as a wolf—to run until the only thing I felt was the burning of my feet and my sandpaper throat—but as I came to the boundary line of the Ashwood property, my paws ground to a halt so suddenly they'd dug shallow holes in the riverbed.
I growled, trying to gather my strength, but whatever invisible force held me back did not relent. I closed my eyes in frustration, shaking my head to clear it.
We can't leave, the little part of me who had accepted my fate whispered.
I was right, of course. I couldn't abandon my imprint—especially with some deranged bloodsucker on the loose making a meal out of his cows. But, still, I thought, there must be some way to avoid this whole nightmare.
You know there isn't, the traitorous little voice hissed in the back of my mind. Isn't this what you wanted? A reason not to return?
I pawed the ground nervously. Not like this, I barked.
There was a difference between freedom and belonging to another. Though I grudgingly loved Noah, I couldn't let him know yet, fearing he would use it against me.
I'm not sure how long I stood there. The cloudy skies grew darker, and off in the distance, lightning struck the flat expanse of horizon, followed by the rush of water as the sky released its deluge. Eventually, Noah and Buck showed up nearby with the sow's twitching body. They were driving the tractor and carrying the carcass with a shovel extension attached to the front. Its head had been blown off but was wrigglingly oddly as though trying to line itself up with the rest of its body. Leah recognized Buck's movement as he pulled the handle, and what was left of the cow fell haphazardly into the river.
My nose scrunched up in a scowl. I was going to have to swim now. Great.
I waited until I couldn't hear the hum of the tractor's engine before diving into the ice-cold water, grabbing the larger pieces stuck on a protruding branch attached to the riverbed. I didn't worry about the tiny crystal shards breaking off. They wouldn't amount to much, anyway, even if they did find a way to wiggle themselves together. I imagined a tiny, pale mosquito glinting in the sun above the water, and then it vanished.
I dumped the pieces of the bloodsucker-cow—for lack of a better term—a few feet into the trees, hoping the leaf cover would allow a fire. I dumped the pieces on a small pyre of ash branches, adding whatever wasn't soaked in the rain to keep it burning. Luckily, this forest was nothing like La Push—the rain was already starting to slow down, and the accompanying boom of thunder after each lightning strike kept taking longer to reach me. The tree's umbrella of foliage had salvaged most of the tree's thick, sturdy base, with dried leaves and twigs littering the forest floor.
Phasing back into a human, I sat under the tree until the purple fumes smoldered into char, then swept up what I could into a small leather pouch I kept in the pocket of my overalls.
After that, I stayed in the kitchen, obeying Mama's orders. She had me chop vegetables, stir things on the stove, and, most importantly, she used me as a taste tester. She didn't explicitly tell me to sample the food, but I did anyway. After the third inconspicuous spoon lick, she asked me what I thought. I nodded enthusiastically, and she smiled back with moons in her eyes—or at least in her black glasses.
Mama Ashwood was—first and foremost—in charge.
She was also an overflowing cup of love and understanding. Every action was giving—she gave food, favors, kisses, you name it—and never asked for anything in return. Of all the Ashwoods, I was least suspicious of her. She sensed my reluctance to talk about myself, so she filled the heavy silences of the day with chatter about her family.
"Buck is my brother's youngest," she explained one day as she scrubbed a copper pot in the sink. "My brother, Eustace, had two boys and a girl with his wife, Retta, before she died. Broke poor young Buck's heart."
"What about Buck's brother?" I wondered.
We were alone in the kitchen; Buck and Noah were in the fields, the kids were in school, and Diana had taken the babies to a playdate. There was a strange serenity in the silent kitchen, usually full of life and noise, now standing stock-still. Even the dust mites stopped swirling in the sunbeams from the window.
Mama stopped scrubbing, her eyes becoming far-off and misty as she stared at the plants on the windowsill.
"He was broken, too," she murmured. "But in a different way."
She went back to scrubbing. I went back to stirring and told myself I wasn't curious. I was a terrible liar, though, even to myself.
"And the girl?"
Mama raised an eyebrow, tilting by the waist to face me.
"Yes?"
"What happened to your niece?"
"You assume something 'happened' to her," she replied mockingly. "She got married and had the beautiful twin boys living here."
"I haven't met her, though, have I?"
"No, you wouldn't have," she mused, returning absentmindedly to her fingers.
She was worse than Billy Black. All I got from her were riddles. But something was off about her. It might've had something to do with the rumors or the naked, exposed feeling I got when we were alone together, or maybe it was her scent—the rich, earthy smell, with notes of incense, more overpowering than other scents—. Still, I was certain Mama Ashwood was not entirely human.
"Well, what happened to her, then?" I urged, trying to learn more about the dynamics pushing me through the household.
I did not soon forget the way her face morphed. Her opaque black glasses slid down her nose, revealing her eyes, milky white with cataracts and no visible pupils. My stomach lurched in terror when she stood up to her full height, towering over me even though I had been at least three feet taller than her two seconds before. She reached out a limb, grasping me with elongated fingers, her rough skin like tree bark. Behind me, the clock with a cat face rang three times above the stove.
"Your number is almost up, girl," she rasped. This was not her usual voice; it was more profound, more resonating. I could feel it in my bones. "You ask for answers I cannot give yet will not tell me what you are."
My eyes were stinging, but I dared not blink. I forced my hanging jaw to close. Whatever Mama was—I could only guess—she knew what I was. She wouldn't have revealed this side of her to any random human. Perhaps she could smell me, too. Didn't the bloodsuckers say we stunk up a place?
As suddenly as it had come on, Mama Ashwood returned to her former height. The room brightened as her shadow lifted, the illusion broken by her peal of laughter. The dust mites floating on the sunshine wafting through the open window over the sink resumed their lazy circles.
"Ah, but I don't need to frighten you any more than you already are," she sighed. "You don't mean harm, little wolf. You're just trying to find your way home. You'll get there, sugar; you'll get there. Just keep goin'."
A plant on the windowsill stretched a long, flowery vine and patted me twice on the head before returning to its place in the sunshine.
For a moment, I embraced lunacy. It wasn't so bad once you got used to it. First, it was shape-shifting werewolves, then bloodsucking vampires, and now it was a witch. I felt like a magician on a stage pulling a never-ending handkerchief out of my sleeve. For my next trick, I thought idly, I'll draw a unicorn out of my ass!
"Leah, lovey," Mama called me back from the edge of sanity. "Try this." She had to get on her tip-toes to lift the spoon past my shoulder.
I looked at her from the corner of my eyes. If I squinted, I could still see where her wrinkled skin resembled tree bark. I leaned forward and tasted.
"Well?" She insisted. "Whaddya think?"
I smacked my lips. "Needs salt."
"Bah!"
Mama grabbed the salt shaker and shook it over the pot of boiling liquid, then dipped her spoon back in and held it up for me again.
"What is it?" I asked, and it seemed a reasonable question.
"It's no witches brew, Miss Leah," she clucked in indignation. "It's a roux for mac n cheese. Now, lunch is in an hour, and the whole family is home for summer break, so we gotta feed eleven people, plus me and you. Hop to it, girl!"
I'd never been skilled in the kitchen. My version of cooking was popping something in the microwave. Mama learned this quickly and assigned me to "slicing and dicing," which suited me perfectly because I got to hold the knife. I hoped the rest of the family would take the hint and steer clear of me.
It worked for a few days, but then Diana started coming near me, too. This was more out of necessity than acceptance. Mama Ashwood saw it as her sole duty to feed everyone who passed through her kitchen. Cooking for thirteen—fourteen, if you counted me as two, which was fair—was no small task. This number, while daunting by itself, was nothing compared to the number of people coming and going through the house. Neighbors, friends, the Mayor—a first for me—constantly parading across Mama's kitchen counter. She could've given Emily a run for her money. I was no match for the amount of baking and cooking Mama did daily, and we both knew it. Buck had warned Diana to keep her distance, but I was no help, so she was needed in the kitchen. Eventually, Mama corralled her into cooking with us while the babies were napping.
She eyed me with a wary expression. "Do you know how to fold the eggs in?" She asked, her gaze darting down to the bowl in my hands.
I looked up, my mouth hanging open in surprise. Diana had been extremely strict about keeping the babies away from me, even going out of her way to get them out of the house during the day. I wasn't even sure what their names were. As a result, she had never addressed me specifically, and I'd never spoken to her before.
"I taught her well," Mama chirped, saving me from responding. "Why don't you work on the filling, Di?" She suggested.
Diana must've decided I was harmless after that because she let the babies sit at the kitchen table while we worked. This may also have been out of necessity. The babies were attached to her at the hip.
There were two. The youngest, a girl they called Rosie, was maybe a few months old. The older boy, Thomas, was going through his terrible twos. Diana spent much time sitting across the counter from me with her shirt half-off, the baby latched to her breast, and a screaming toddler tugging on her shirt. I watched, wide-eyed, as she tried to be heard over the constant wailing from one—or, more often, both—of the infants.
She often kept up a stream of consciousness aloud while she did this. Once I'd gotten over the shock of the chaos, I listened, trying to learn more about the strange family I'd found myself living with.
"Susanna is frying my brain," Diana complained. "She won't stop asking me for a make-up kit. 'All the girls at school have one,'" she mimicked. "At the risk of sounding like a cliché, I think if all the girls at school jumped off a cliff, she would, too."
Mama snorted. "She's twelve, Di. Cut her some slack," she suggested.
Diana huffed. "Did you have a make-up kit when you were twelve, Leah?" She asked me.
I blinked, trying to remember what I'd done when I was twelve years old. It felt like three lifetimes ago.
"I don't think so," I finally replied after a pregnant pause.
"See?" Mama gloated, flicking her spoon at me. "I told you she could talk."
I ended up liking the babies more than I cared to admit.
Rosie was my favorite. I'd always wanted a baby sister, and I liked to think she enjoyed it when I held her because I was warmer than everyone else. When Diana came home and took her, she squirmed and shrieked until I had her again.
I could've done without Thomas. He was constantly throwing tantrums and breaking the sound barrier with his screams. Mama kept him busy; she had a way with the fussy toddler.
"He just wants attention," she told Diana once. "He feels lonely since the new baby."
I could sympathize with that, if only distantly. I was five when Seth was born. Of course, I'd felt the loneliness, but I was more mature about it. Or, at least, that's how I remembered it. My mother might've said differently.
Mama showed me how to recognize the signs of an impending tantrum; the little boy's ears would glow red, his fists balled up at his sides, and he glowered at the offending subject for about fifteen seconds before he started wailing. To avoid the detonation, we made a mad dash for a distraction.
Most of the time, we didn't make it. Sometimes we did, and often, he'd scream anyway.
Diana left them with Mama and me while she went to town for supplies. She had gone with the rest of the family, so it was just us, and the house was unusually quiet. Mama trusted me more than Diana did, so she instructed me to hold the baby, letting me sit and give her a bottle.
Thomas and I came to an understanding when Mama left me alone to watch the babies while she took a shower. Rosie was sleeping in the crook of my elbow, Thomas was winding down for his nap, and the flurried air of activity came to a halt. I sat back on the soft, plush couch, letting the toddler rest his head on my knee.
Without warning, he grabbed my hand and placed it on his head. "Play wif my hair," he commanded. "Like Mama."
My hand froze on his forehead. Lightly, so as not to burn him with my scalding skin, I ran my fingertips against his scalp. His eyelids fluttered shut. After a moment, his breathing evened out. I rested my hand on his head, petting it the way I might a particularly cuddly cat.
Mama returned, in a fresh muumuu, with a bright silk bandana holding her hair back from her face. She raised one eyebrow as the other side of her mouth turned up in a smile.
"Look what the cat dragged in," she joked, gliding over to the other side of the couch.
I smiled sheepishly. "He told me to play with his hair."
"He must trust you." She nodded, her face suddenly thoughtful. "Children often see below the surface, to the person inside. They're excellent judges of character." Her smile broadened, splitting her entire face into two wrinkled folds. "He must see you as you are; a girl, not a wolf."
Mama Ashwood knew more than she let on. There were several more instances where I thought she would reveal my secret in front of everybody. Her sharp eyes were cloudy with cataracts, like a fogged-up window, but she still managed to see everything, even through those thick, black lenses she always wore.
I remembered what the man in Jack's bar had said about her being a witch. Admittedly, it was easier to believe once I met her. While she had appeared dangerous once, it was impossible to resist her charm. She was charismatic, the kind of woman you were drawn to like a magnet, a woman who could read you instantly and tell you the answers to questions you hadn't known you needed to ask. I saw how a large, strong family could grow from this woman—like branches on a tree, or spindly river tributaries, creeping like capillaries into a lake.
Once I was trusted enough to hold the baby, the other kids became curious about the freakishly tall girl living in their gable room.
It started with just the girls. They spent most of their time in the garden, picking the trees and tall vines clean of their bounty. When they came back halfway through the day, Sarah, the younger one, came bounding in with her small basket, while Susanna, her older sister, carried a two-gallon bucket in each hand.
At first, they dropped off their spoils and ran upstairs to wash up. Then, they peered over the stove as we boiled glass jars in Mama's giant pot. Afterward, they helped us stuff their harvest into the jars and seal on the lids.
For some reason, Susanna and Sarah started sitting in my doorway and watching me get ready for bed. When I caught them, they hid behind the corner but continuously peered around again, undeterred. Finally, one night, after struggling to sleep with their eyes on me, I sat on the bed with a sigh.
"What do you want?" I growled.
Susanna's nose was the only thing I saw as she replied. "Sarah wanted a bedtime story."
"No, you did," Sarah argued.
"She said she'd heard all of mine and wanted a new one," Susanna continued without acknowledging her sister.
"I don't care," I breathed, falling into the bed and closing my eyes. "Go away."
I waited. There was no sound of footsteps. With a groan, I opened my eyes and found them in the doorway again, their knees under their chins with expectant looks on their faces.
"If I tell you a story, will you go away?"
"Yes," Sarah promised.
"Fine," I grumbled, lying flat on my back, staring at the ceiling.
The girls scuttled their butts up to the side of my bed. Sarah sat down against the end, where my calves hung off the edge. Susanna settled in closer, resting her head against my hip. I bristled against the contact at first, but she persisted.
"Once upon a time…." I trailed off, racking my brain for a story. "Once upon a time, there was a princess, and she was the Chief's daughter, and she lived with her tribe and trained to become the next Chief."
"Was she pretty?" Sarah interjected.
"No," I answered. "She was hideous."
"It's not a good story if the princess is ugly!" Sarah whined.
I sat up too quickly, making them both jump. "Do you want to hear a story or not?"
After a moment of silence, I fell back into the bed, fixing my eyes on the ceiling again.
"She was hideous," I repeated. "But she was brilliant, learned things quickly, and soon rose to the top of her class. She was so bright and clever that even though she was ugly, she had a perfect boyfriend. When her father asked her whom she wanted to marry, she said she would marry her boyfriend. But he refused. He was in love with another girl from the tribe, who was beautiful. The princess decided she no longer wanted to marry anyone. The end."
"That's it?!" Susanna cried, standing up from beside the bed. "That's not an ending. That's not even a story."
"Who're you?" I snorted. "The story police?"
"Tell a real story!" Sarah demanded, slapping her open palms on the floor.
"I already did. Now go," I insisted, turning to face the wall.
Luckily, the girls had school during the day, or else I would've lost my mind. I started nodding along with Diana when she complained to Mama. Her more extended rants, however, were reserved for the twins.
"I can't handle those boys anymore!" Diana exclaimed one morning as she swept into the kitchen. "I mean, seriously?" She demanded, holding out her arms to display their latest experiment of putting dye in the hand soap.
The twins were notorious for their pranks. They didn't mess with Mama, but everyone else was fair game. They were hardly ever seen alone, always with their heads together—whispering, plotting. They had yet to be caught. Even when found at the crime scene, they were so slippery and resilient enough in their vehement denial that even the witnesses started to doubt themselves.
The twins were too fast for the rest of their human family to keep up with.
Luckily, I was faster.
When I caught them trying to sneak a brownie on my chair, I grabbed them both by the ears and dragged them outside, slamming the door behind me and locking it. Later, Diana noticed their absence at dinner. When asked, I shrugged and told Buck to look under his seat, where the twins had left a brownie I'd conveniently forgotten to remove.
I learned to tell the difference between them as the weeks ticked by. Ezra had a freckle on his neck and a devilish smirk even when being perfectly well-behaved. Nate hardly ever spoke, quickly making him my favorite. Nate and I quickly formed an allied silence, in which we nodded at each other and left it at that. Ezra must've decided I was more trouble than it was worth to prank, or both of their heads together were smart enough to figure out I was not one to mess with. Either way, I had no trouble with them; some of their pranks were funny.
I stayed away from the teenage boys as long as I could help it. Having already been privy to the minds of a baker's dozen, I'd seen all I wanted to know and more about that particular breed. Worse than that, the taller one—Elijah—reminded me too much of Seth, with his gangly, sinewy build and black, wild hair. I observed them from afar before allowing them within a few feet of me.
Though Noah had warned me that they were both "pretty dumb," they reminded me of George and Lennie from Of Mice and Men. Elijah was large, almost as tall as I was, and seemed endowed with a surprising amount of brute strength, but in a slow, blundering way. Jonah, though he was mousy and two years younger, possessed an odd aura of responsibility and often could be seen catching Elijah up to what the rest were doing.
Elijah got curious about me during dinner on my third night staying in the gable room. His blank, open stare was unnerving while I ate. It only took a brief glare from Jonah to make him stop, but the slow boy's curiosity snowballed down the slope of his mind until it finally hit him smack between the eyes.
Elijah inched closer in my peripheral vision. I ate faster, trying to finish before—
"Eli, no!" Jonah cried.
Elijah's fist balled around a piece of my shirt, his thumb running against the fabric.
"Soft," he murmured.
I jumped up, kicking the table, sending food flying into people's faces. With a guttural snarl, I pounced on Elijah, wrestling him to the ground.
The giant laughed, batting me away like a cat playing with a mouse. He still had my shirt in his hand.
It took Buck, Noah, and Diana to pull us apart, but afterward, I knew I didn't have to be as careful around Elijah as I was with the others. His was sturdier stock. I suspected he was older than he seemed.
I questioned Diana the next day. We sat in the kitchen as usual, husking corn for Mama Ashwood. As the older woman bumbled back and forth between the counter and the stove, I tried to be casual with my inquiries.
"How many children do you have?" I asked.
"Too many," she grumbled, then smiled. "Why do you ask?"
"Did you… y'know, like, give birth to all of them?" I struggled, my cheeks flaming up.
To my relief, she laughed. "Are you kidding? You'd need a helicopter to airlift me out of here if I'd gotten pregnant for all these kids we're raising."
"You adopted them?"
"Yes, some of them," Diana sighed, combing her fingers through her burgundy hair. "They all seemed to find us, one way or another, and we've taken every one of them in as our own."
"You didn't go looking to adopt them, then? They just showed up?"
"Well, let's see," Diana pressed a finger to her chin. "Our first was Noah, who came to live with us right before we were married," she began. "And he was our only for a few years until Jonah and Elijah came along. They'd escaped their father on a train and traipsed right through the whole wilderness before stumbling onto our farm. I found them in the berry bushes one morning—nearly gave me a heart attack! Just the sight of them." She shook her head and clucked her tongue. "I knew they would need a bath right then and there."
"Then I had Susanna, who was our first biological child. That's why she's so spoiled. That, and her older brothers treating her like a China doll her whole childhood." Diana rolled her eyes. "So, we had Sarah a couple of years later, which humbled her, if you can believe it. At that point, we had five children under eighteen and three under ten. I was already near the end of my wits—if I had any left. Then the twins came to our front door with a message from Buck's brother-in-law. So, we took them in, too."
"What did the message say?" I interjected while she drew in a breath.
She leaned closer, lowering her voice to a whisper as Mama walked by. "Buck's sister died."
The kitchen was gravely silent as a cloud passed before the late spring sun.
"Once you get to seven children, you stop counting," Diana joked, lightening the suddenly somber atmosphere. "But then we got pregnant with Thomas, and I knew there would be another after him." Diana looked fondly at the baby bouncing up and down—in a contraption they called "her jumpy chair"—on the living room floor. "Nine has always been my lucky number."
"Thirteen's your lucky number, Di," Mama corrected from her perch on the stove, stirring something in a large copper pot. Witches' brew, Quil called it.
"My lucky number is zero," I joked.
Diana laughed. Mama didn't. Her sharp nose turned to point at me, the long folds of skin on her face flapping against each other.
"Your number is almost up, girl," Mama threatened. I recalled her resounding voice from my first day in her kitchen. "Pay attention to what you're doin' there." She hobbled over to the end of the counter, grabbing an ear of corn out of the bucket of water we'd been tossing them into when we were done husking them. "This one's still green!" Mama exclaimed.
"Sorry."
"I was distracting her," Diana admitted. "Trying to explain why we have so many kids."
Mama snorted and turned to the sink. "I'm still wonderin' that myself, Di. I'm ready to retire!"
"Most of them weren't my fault." Diana held her hands up in surrender as Mama fixed her with a stony glare. "I mean, would you have turned out Jonah and Eli?"
"Not on my life!" Mama exclaimed, picking up a bowl and running a sponge over the rim.
"And the twins?"
"They're family, Diana," Mama sighed. "And you know I love 'em, despite what y'all put me through." She crossed herself. "Lord, give me strength; I love 'em."
Diana shot me an exasperated expression. "She's so dramatic," she hissed under her breath.
"I heard that!"
My "soft spot" for Noah, as it came to be known, was infamous in the house. If one of the kids wanted me to do something for them, they never asked me directly. They sent Noah, their loyal servant, to suggest it to me. He had called me to the front porch one day, and I came running, only to find out Susanna wanted me to see a play she and Sarah were putting on.
If he asked, I would be helpless to say no.
This frightened me. I'd always been a bit of a rebel. My mother called it stubbornness; my teachers called it a problem with authority; Quil called it "Leah-tude." My issues had only gotten worse with Sam ordering the pack around all the time. But now, I'd become a good little soldier, taking orders from my imprint. I valued my freedom and found myself resenting him for taking it.
It wasn't his fault. I was much more harsh than strictly necessary, refusing to talk to him for a whole day. The way I saw it, he'd betrayed me by handing me over to the estrogen foundation of the house. It stung the same as when the pack would leave me behind with the imprints.
I couldn't stay mad at him for long. After Susanna complained to him about my disastrous bedtime story, I woke up one morning to find him working on my door. The door was opposite the window, casting Noah in half-shadow, so I could only see one of his dimples. He was kneeling next to the door, a screwdriver in one hand and my doorknob in the other.
"Sorry," he muttered, noticing my intrigued stare. "I didn't mean to wake you up."
"It's okay," I whispered, sitting up slowly. My voice was higher than usual, lighter, like a caress. I barely recognized it. "What are you doing?"
"I'm putting that lock on your door."
"Huh?"
He turned his head so I could see both of his grinning, dimpled cheeks. "Your one condition, remember?"
I shook my head. "Right. Yeah."
"It's okay," he responded, turning back to his work, the other half of him obscured in the door's shadow. "I forget things, too, sometimes. Especially when I'm low on sleep." His eyes glanced over at me and then back to his hands. "I heard you come in last night—or this morning—and it woke me up."
"Sorry," I sighed, leaning back onto the pillow. "I was patrolling," I explained absentmindedly, my eyes closing.
"Is that what you call it?" He laughed. "I guess that's a good word for it. Didn't Buck hire you to be some sorta guard dog?"
I grimaced, my eyes still closed. "Something like that."
"So," he said after a pause, his voice louder than before, startling me awake before I'd realized I was asleep. "Have you found what's been killing the cattle yet?"
My eyes fluttered open. He was gazing back at me, his face filled with an emotion I couldn't identify; it was almost fearful, longing, and something else. Time slowed to a crawl as I held back the flood of words on my tongue.
"Not yet," I breathed.
He looked away. "Is it weird for me to say I hope it takes you a while?"
It took me a moment to understand what he meant. When I did, a smile broke out on my face, try as I might fight it, my lips twitching with the effort. Finally, too tired to do anything else, I gave in to the giddy butterflies let loose in my stomach.
"That's not weird at all," I mumbled, closing my eyes again.
I wasn't sure I hadn't dreamed him up when I woke. My only evidence was the new lock on my door. Still, I couldn't pretend to be mad anymore. We kept giving each other fleeting glances until he became brave enough for one of my notorious one-sided conversations.
"Hey, Leah?" They always started; I didn't speak unless specifically addressed.
"Yes?"
Noah paused. I didn't blame him for being surprised when I replied. In fact, I preferred it that way. Why should he expect me to follow his every whim? He had no idea what sort of wolf magic bound us together.
This was another reason for not telling him. Though desperately wanting to word-vomit everything onto him, I fought against the impulse. How did I know I could trust him? He was, in the end, a stranger. A stranger with a secret. Something deadly, something killing cattle, something Mama wouldn't tell me about.
I was desperate to learn Noah's secrets but didn't dare ask.
After all, I had secrets, too.
Denial is a girl's best friend, Paul commented one night.
I'd shifted to run a patrol over the property. I'd been careful, only phasing in the dead of night under cover of the bordering forest. Trees zipped by as I covered the expanse of land in less than two minutes.
I thought that was diamonds, Brady corrected.
Both of you idiots are wrong, I informed them. Pancakes are a girl's best friend. And I'm not in denial.
If you aren't into him, then why are you trying to take care of his little 'coyote' problem? Embry snickered.
I'm always down to kill a bloodsucker, I replied.
Bad-ass, Collin appraised.
The boys had told Sam about how my shifting habits had become erratic and kept him appraised of the bloodsucker situation as he slowly gave up being a wolf. He'd been looking for an excuse to cut down since Emily was due any day now. It hurt me to know I made him so uncomfortable; however, I was relieved not to share my mind with him anymore.
I'd taken all the thoughts of Sam, locked them in a little drawer at the back of my mind, and thrown away the key. I didn't come all this way to think about my feelings. It wasn't my fault I'd shot myself in the foot with the imprint ball and chain.
At least Noah was different from the other imprints; he wasn't always trying to take my free time or shoving his nose in my business. He was as tolerable as imprints came.
That was faster than I expected, Paul snorted. Embry, you owe me ten bucks.
Crap. What about ten on 'not totally disappointing'?
What are you morons betting on this time? I wondered.
I immediately regretted it. The rabbit hole within the pack mind called the pack bet—a binding contract between brothers—could've filled multiple novels and several tell-all articles. At any point in time, at least ten bets and a laundry list of who owed what to who was running. It constantly changed, as different bets were made while others were won or lost, and I often lost track of the arithmetic.
But if I weeded through the numbers, I could find what the bets were actually on—something not as well tabulated as the money placed on specific outcomes. Paul and Embry had a running bet on words I'd use to describe my imprint. Paul had bet five dollars on "tolerable," while Embry placed ten on "not entirely shit-brained."
Has anyone ever told you how insufferably annoying you are?
No, but I am always told I'm a ten out of ten, Paul replied, remembering a recent time when Rachel's twin sister, Rebecca, had come to visit and told Rachel he was a "whopping ten."
Then, Jake's voice, like a splash of water on a sweltering day, came into the pack's conversation, interrupting my bonding time with Paul.
So, what'd I miss?
Bella the Beluga, I snickered to myself, seeing her protruding stomach in Jake's mind.
Hey! He protested. She's—
Beautiful, of course, I assured him. But I've never been able to picture her fat. It looks weird.
More to love, Embry defended Jake. C'mon, Lee, we don't make fun of your hick imprint.
He's not a hick, was my automatic response. Well, he's my hick, I added after a moment of thought.
And Bella's not fat; she's just pregnant, Jake declared.
Fine, I huffed. But I know she agrees with me.
That's not the point, Jake argued, though I could see I was right in his own memories.
I think it's funny how you two are such good friends. Didn't she used to hate you, too? Paul asked.
Leah hates everybody at first, Jake snorted. It's her way of reaching out to people.
I can't believe I'm gonna be an uncle, Quil thought. I mean, I can barely take care of myself; imagine having to take care of a baby.
Luckily, nobody's asking you to, I snipped.
It's scary, Jake agreed. I don't know how I'm gonna handle it. What if I fuck it up? Like, we put a nail in the wrong place in the roof, and then it collapses—
Before you give us all a pack panic attack, Seth interrupted, can we talk about that leech you smelled, Leah?
Don't start with this again—
Are you sure you don't want some backup out there?
I'm sure.
I'd been meticulous about not knowing where I was. I knew where things were, of course, and my general surroundings, but I never read signs; I looked away on the rare occasion we passed a map or a road sign. Even if I wanted to tell them where I was, I couldn't. This was my excuse for not sounding the alarm on the leech in the first place. The last thing I wanted was to bring the whole pack to the ranch. There was no evidence that this leech was killing humans. So far, it had only killed animals, which reeked of the Cullens. Sam had not given me orders—he had barely been a wolf in weeks, all his attention solely on Emily towards the end of her pregnancy—but an edict was handed down by Jake instead.
Don't move against the parasite yet, Leah, Jake cautioned, a timbre to his voice I'd never heard before. We don't know its intentions or its allies. There could be more than one, and then you would be too far away for anyone to help. His voice became desperate. Don't die, Leah.
My hands were effectively tied, though not in a way I resented; more so, it made me feel useless. Thinking about it made my heart feel heavy, so I tried not to dwell in front of people, but at night, when I could not escape it, traitorous tears seeped from my eyes. I started locking my door more often.
Noah's voice in the barn kept rattling around in my head. "I thought you said she was dead?" Had the cow—bitten by a leech, I was sure of it—somehow become a bloodsucker? How would that even work? And Buck had said something about it not being Noah's fault. Did Noah take responsibility for whatever was killing the cattle? Had he met the leech already and somehow survived? Questions buzzed incessantly in the back of my head, like a constant, faint whispering in my ears.
I talked myself into thinking I needed to go and work with the boys out in the fields to get more information. How was I supposed to ensure Noah stayed safe if he was doing God-Knows-What miles away from me? To do this, I would have to get permission from Mama, who was first and foremost in charge.
At the end of my first week in the house, I stood beside Mama in the kitchen, stirring something absentmindedly. She had sidled right up to my side without me noticing and was fixing me with a stern, but not unkind, expression.
"What?" I asked self-consciously when I noticed her.
"You've changed," she muttered, her voice more gravelly than usual. "Have you spoken to Noah today?"
"Noah?" I echoed, my voice shooting up two octaves. "Why?"
Mama's wrinkles folded into a knowing smile. "No reason," she replied, lifting a hand and turning back to the sink, where she snipped the ends off some sugar snap peas growing in the window. I pretended not to notice when the vine stretched like an arm so she wouldn't have to reach over the sink.
"What do they do out there, anyway?" I wondered aloud. "I bet I could do it."
"What? You'll have to speak up, sugar; I'm old."
"Nothing—I mean—" I backtracked as Mama turned to look at me again, letting her black glasses fall down her nose so I could see her dubious expression. "Didn't Buck say he needed a farmhand? Why aren't I out there with them? Because I'm a girl?" My nose wrinkled in disgust. "Like I'm too delicate—"
Mama interrupted with a boisterous laugh, shaking her whole body with amusement. "Trust me," she gasped, still clutching her side. "No one thinks you're delicate."
I sniffed unappreciatively.
"They just… Well, frankly, Buck still needs to adjust to having you here." Her glasses were back in front of her unseeing eyes. "He has grown accustomed to protecting his children from outsiders—Noah especially—and doesn't like asking for help. It is frightening for him, thinking he might not be able to protect his family and having to entrust them to a total stranger. It might help if you told them where you came from," Mama added, raising her eyebrows.
I scowled down at the copper pot. "It doesn't matter," I grumbled into the steam.
"I heard that! It does matter where we come from. It blossoms into where we go."
"So, where I come from determines where I go? I have no choice?"
"No," Mama waved her pointer finger. "It's your roots, dear. How can you grow without them?"
I shook my head, trying to remember why I'd even bothered to ask. Getting answers out of Mama Ashwood was like interrogating a wall. I might as well have asked the dog for all the information I got from her.
Ultimately, it wasn't Mama or Buck who decided I should be trusted to go out and work in the fields—though Mama certainly had the final say—it was Noah.
Noah seemed wary of the danger I presented. He may not have been able to put his feelings into words, but he could sense the "otherness" I exuded. I didn't trust him, either. I had been suspicious since the morning I overheard him and his Uncle in the barn. Plus, Noah still hadn't explained why I found him stumbling out of the woods, naked, with scratches on his face. I felt they were connected somehow, but there were no apparent links I could attach the two incidents with. Instinctively, I knew it was supernatural— how could it not be when Mama was so clearly a witch? This terrified me, so I desperately searched for something mundane to pin all the weirdness on. I was partial to the theory of a hillbilly fight club, but it didn't explain how Mama knew what I was.
I was sure Mama knew Noah's secret, but since she wasn't likely to go blabbing any time soon, I'd have to deduce what it was through the powers of observation.
At least twice daily, I caught myself gazing at Noah's back, memorizing his curve and shape. Mama had to wipe the drool off my face once. Distracted, I learned very little from my sightings besides how my heart skipped a beat and fell into the pit of my stomach when he took his shirt off.
At the end of the first week—after I nearly tore off Elijah's ear for taking the last piece of cornbread—Noah was the only one who could get his hands on me. He carried me outside, kicking and screaming, off the porch and onto the lawn, where he flipped me over onto the ground. My hands snared around his forearms like metal claws, pulling him down with me. I landed with a thud, stunned into stillness. The air had been knocked out of me. During the moment it took for me to catch it, our eyes locked, and I remembered why I could never be angry at him.
"You wanna fight?" He panted. "You can fight me."
My eyes narrowed. "I can choose my own battles," I gasped.
"Well, to get to my brothers, you'll have to get through me," he declared.
From where I was laid out on the grass, he was upside down, his feet above my forehead and his hair high up in the clouds, the sun beaming behind his head like a halo.
The ghost of an old smile pulled up one end of my mouth.
"Okay," I agreed.
I let go of his arms, letting him stand up straight before reaching over my head and grabbing his ankle with both hands. I took him down by somersaulting with my leg straight and my foot pressed against the bottom of his jaw. I hopped to my feet, resting my hands on my hips, raising an eyebrow.
We sparred on the grass often after that, usually waiting until after dinner, though sometimes Mama kicked us out if the table got too rowdy. The boys started betting on how long it would last—they never tried to determine the winner because I always let Noah win. Before I could stop myself, I'd look up and catch Noah's eyes, quickly becoming lost in them. Once I was distracted, I was useless as a fighter. When Buck and Mama saw this, they decided I was tame enough to work out in the fields—as long as I was with Noah.
I learned a lot in a ridiculously short time on the farm. Farmhands, as a rule, did anything and everything. Buck kept me busy, taking me out with them to the fields and teaching me how they kept the livestock. By far, my favorite job was herding cattle.
Buck and Noah drove around the pastures in what they called an "ATV" and what I called a glorified golf cart. It was basically a gas can and a motor, with a tarp roof made from a cut-up tent. It couldn't have been street-legal. Elijah and Jonah squeezed into the back, holding the bar for balance, and lured the cattle with hay.
On the first day I went to work in the fields with the boys, I hung back as they all piled onto the ATV. There was no way I'd fit without my legs sticking out.
Noah realized this at the same time I did and turned to his uncle.
"What about Leah?" He asked.
My name in his mouth sent a shiver down my spine. I shifted my weight from one foot to the other, trying to eliminate the sparks shooting down my legs.
"Oh," Buck replied, leaning around Noah to give me an appraising look.
To my surprise, he laughed.
"Guess you'll just have to sit on Noah's lap!" He exclaimed, slapping his knee and wiping his forehead.
Both of our faces went beet red. Noah turned to glare at his Uncle. Jonah elbowed Elijah in the back and wiggled his eyebrows at the older boy, who stared at his brother with a puzzled pout.
"Her legs are too long," Noah said quickly, his voice high and fast. "I mean—not too long,"—he amended, turning to address me— "your legs are perfect. I mean—they're the perfect length."
Buck leaned over his knees and hooted in laughter. "Yeah," he panted as he caught his breath. "They're just as God made 'em, all right," he agreed.
Noah fixed his baseball cap lower over his eyes, crossed his arms, and leaned against the back of the passenger seat—a repurposed work stool welded into the cart floor—with a huff.
I looked down at my feet. I was barefoot. My heavy boots had gotten swampy with sweat as the sun stayed out later and rose earlier each morning, so I'd abandoned them in the barn overnight, only for the cat to give birth in them. I'd found the sticky newborn kittens and decided their need was more significant than mine. The boots were mostly for show, anyway.
"With such long legs, she should be able to keep up with us. This thing only goes fifteen miles an hour." Jonah pointed out.
Elijah nodded, bobbing his chin up and down. "Good point."
"I'm not some sort of gazelle," I argued, crossing my arms over my chest and exaggeratedly rolling my eyes.
"Could you try to be?" Buck asked.
I narrowed my eyes at him.
"What?" He demanded, holding his hands up in surrender. "You think you're not fast enough to keep up?"
My muscles tensed up at the challenge. I felt the familiar adrenaline spike racing my heart forward, pulling my legs with it.
Buck smiled, revving the engine.
I growled along with it, showing my teeth.
I loped beside the cart until we found the herd. They were huddled around the edge of the fence, chewing with lackadaisical expressions. Their large, wide eyes all fixed on me when we came into view. Jonah and Elijah tried to lure the cows to the cart with the hay, but they wouldn't come within ten feet of me.
"C'mon, Toot," Elijah called out to one of the cows. Toot hung back, not wanting to get any closer. "She's too wild for 'em," he whined, flashing me a judgmental glare.
"Where do you want them to go?" I asked Buck.
"That way," he replied, pointing farther into the pasture, where a shack leaned against a milking pen.
"C'mon, cows," I barked.
One of them moo'ed in response.
Without me telling it to, my body fell into a crouch, my knuckles grazing the sharp blades of tall green grass. Silence bore down on the pasture. Time slowed until I stared down a sow, my teeth bared, trying not to bark.
The cows could smell the wolf in me and reacted instinctively. When I feinted forward, they turned—albeit reluctantly—and started making towards the little hut.
"Like a sheepdog," Buck remarked as we pushed the herd forward.
I laughed nervously, rubbing the back of my neck.
As summer came to a reluctant close and the days became shorter, the Ashwood farm became focused on the harvest. Noah had started getting up earlier to prepare the equipment with Buck. I hadn't realized how much I depended on Noah to be in the kitchen sipping coffee when I woke up until the day I stumbled down the steps and he wasn't there.
"Where is he?" I asked Mama Ashwood with more force than necessary.
She turned her head toward me. She wasn't wearing her glasses, and I could've sworn she looked right at me through the thick film of cataracts over her eyes.
"Buck and Noah are out in the shed, getting the tractor ready," she explained lightly, a smile twitching the edges of her lips. "I'm sure they'd appreciate it if you brought them some coffee."
I trudged out to the shed with three mugs and Mama's white, cracked china carafe, which felt too delicate for my shaking hands. The sky was still dark purple, though light was beginning to poke out above the trees in a red halo over the forest. My feet raced barefoot over the earth, wet with dew.
As stoic and dutiful as it always looked, the barn seemed to be humming with excitement. Attached to it, in the large shed full of farming equipment, the overhead lights were on, illuminating the windows, giving the whole barn a faint, golden glow. I steeled myself as I spotted Noah leaning over a vintage car he'd hauled out of the dump and into the front corner of the large shed.
Noah was just like Jacob—obsessed with anything possessing a metal engine. I had offended him by not showing enough shock and awe when he revealed his "baby" to me. It was a beat-up custom pimp mobile built sometime in the eighties. He called it "The El Dorado," as if referring to the actual city of gold. I couldn't help adoring his admiration of the lumpy hunk of metal, though I didn't see the appeal. It was only a rusty frame with moldy, cracked leather seats and a faint whiff of cigarette smoke. When I phased again, Jacob would no doubt rag on me about it. For now, though, I carried his little quirks with me possessively, like they were precious heirlooms, knowing I would eventually have to give them away to the rest of the pack. For now, I could admire them without prejudice.
Buck was a couple of feet away from Noah, working on a large yellow tractor with a combine attached to its front like a giant, toothy mustache. When I first saw it, I thought it looked like a hunched-over old man and immediately named it Professor Grubble. I hadn't listened to Noah when he tried to tell me the equipment's real name; I was too distracted because he wasn't wearing a shirt when he said it.
They hadn't seen me yet. I crept noiselessly up against the barn door, trying to keep my heart from jumping out of my throat. I caught the sound of their voices through the wood.
"How's the lady situation going, anyway?" Buck asked.
"I don't know," Noah sighed. I pictured him getting oil stains on his neck as he rubbed it. "She keeps giving me these longing glances, y'know? So I know she feels it, too."
Buck chuckled, sounding tired. "Oh, kid, you've got so much to learn."
"It's not like anything can really happen," Noah grumbled, almost too low for me to hear.
"I wouldn't be so quick to rule it out, son," Buck intoned wisely. He groaned the way he did when he straightened himself up. "She might just pounce on you one of these days. I've seen some of those longing glances." He stressed the last part in a teasing tone.
"Ew! Please, if you value my sanity, never say that again," Noah exclaimed. "You know why nothing can happen between us. For one thing, Mama'd never allow it."
"You're underestimating her," Buck argued. "Mama trusts her more than you think. More than I do, actually. Y'know how Mama is. She knows everybody's secrets."
My heart pounded faster than before. They were talking about me; I knew it. My body froze, halting my breath to hear every word.
"But Mama would never trust her enough to tell her about the curse," Noah retorted. "And she would never trust me enough to be alone with her once a month. And I don't blame her!" His voice had become higher, rising in pitch and volume. "I should be kept away from people. For their own safety."
"Now, Noah—"
"I don't wanna hear it. Even if she did—even if she could—" his voice choked off. He cleared his throat before continuing. "It doesn't change the fact that I refuse to pass on the curse. It dies with me."
There was a pause, and silence fell over the barn, interrupted only by the mewling kittens curled up on what remained of my old work boots. The sun stretched its rays over the horizon, raising its arms in a wide yawn, brightening up the farm considerably. The dew was already turning into mist. When it got too awkward to stand there listening any longer, I stepped out from behind the door into the bright light of the shed.
"Hey, Leah!" Buck called out, waving me over.
"Ow!" Noah exclaimed as he hit his head on the hood of the El Dorado.
"I brought coffee," I explained, holding up the delicate carafe with one hand and the three mugs hooked onto the fingers of my other one.
"Here, let me get that for you," Noah offered, taking the carafe as if he feared for its safety in my hands, too. "You slept in," he teased, setting it on the end of a work table with tools sprawled out on it.
"Ahh, coffee," Buck groaned, yawning loudly and patting his chest. "I thought Mama'd never get this out to us. Said she'd be on her way with it in five minutes when we left."
I blushed but didn't explain my tardiness. I had a funny feeling they wouldn't take kindly to me listening in on their conversation.
The rest of the day was spent adjusting to the new pace. Now that we were harvesting, there was less time for "mucking around," as Buck put it. We had to prepare the combine—Mr. Grubble—and the plow, a green tractor with a large rake hooked onto its back, which Buck called "Ole Bess" for some unfathomable reason. I wasn't much help with this except when I could help lift the El Dorado's fender and drag it over to the side. Once the whirring machinery was deemed adequate, we went back for breakfast, after which Buck and Noah poured over maps to try and plan out which fields to reap first.
"Obviously, we start here with the grain," Buck pointed at a square in the right corner of his sheet of paper. "But the corn next to it still has a few weeks left. It's not even five foot yet."
I tuned most of this out. I wasn't very interested in the logistics of running a farm, but I kept tabs on their conversation, straining my ears to hear them mention anything about a curse. I might've listened better if I knew what they were planning to make me do.
We all piled into the ATV. Buck had added another seat between Eli and Jonah for me. I would've preferred to run, but I didn't protest, my throat full of an odd, warm feeling at being included.
"Now, Leah—wait, where the hell are your boots?" Buck cried, his hands still on the wheel as he turned to look at my bare feet.
"They were getting all sweaty, so I left them in the barn," I explained.
"This morning? Of all mornings?"
I paused. "Sure," I agreed. Had he never noticed I wasn't wearing shoes?
Humans were oblivious.
With an exasperated sigh, Buck returned his gaze to the wooded dirt road leading to the outer fields. "You're going into town with Diana to get new shoes tonight," Buck informed me. "But I won't lose a whole day's work just because you're unprepared," he said sternly.
Buck then gave a long, boring speech about responsibility and trust, which made a minimal impression on me. We pulled up to the large shed attached to the barn, and he dangled a ring of keys in front of me.
"What are those for?" I asked.
"The '73 Commander."
"Huh?"
With an exasperated sigh, Buck pointed to Professor Grubble.
"That monster?" I confirmed, pointing at the hulking machine. "No way. I'm not driving that thing."
"Obviously, you're not driving it," Buck said. "Do you even have a driver's license?"
No, I almost answered, not that I'd tell you that. "Then why are you dangling them in front of my face?"
"To show you how trust can get you places," he answered, pressing the keys into Noah's hand. "It's your turn to drive this year, son."
"Thanks, Buck," he said, his grin so broad it looked painful as he grabbed the keys. Driving the combine was a great honor, apparently.
I was given a small, unimportant job, where I couldn't make much trouble, and Buck could keep an eye on me. My only responsibility was to sit in the passenger side of the trailer that drove alongside the combine, catching the grain it sifted out from the whirring innards of its metal frame. Buck instructed me to ensure the grain was going into the open back of the trailer by turning over in the seat and watching through the metal flap in the cab's roof. There was a steady dust spray from the combine spout on my face. It was a bumpy ride, and I was perched rather precariously with my feet against the dash, my knees bent in a deadlock, so I kept getting thrown around the cab. By the end of our first row, I understood why driving the combine was better than riding in the trailer.
Buck seemed to enjoy himself. The engine was too loud to hold a conversation, but he had a proud grin whenever I turned to glare at him. He laughed with glee as we crawled along, bracing himself when the trailer tilted halfway into a hidden ditch. Then he mocked my look of relief when he said we would need to bring the trailer back and store the grain.
"But we'll be coming back for more after lunch!" He hollered over the thrum of the engine.
Lunch was long and large, putting us into a lazy stupor. We meandered onto the front porch and fell into the white wicker furniture. I woke up around two in the afternoon, leaning into Noah's shoulder, his arm wrapped around me. I hesitated to move, closing my eyes and trying to will back sleep—a pointless effort because my heart was hammering in my chest like a drum—before he began to stir.
I drew away from him, waiting until I was removed from his embrace before I opened my eyes. We were facing the driveway on the front porch, sitting on the swinging bench. Mama was smoking a pipe in a rocking chair on the other side of the door.
"Good afternoon, sleepy-heads," she greeted.
Noah groaned, running a hand against his face, not really awake. "Five more minutes," he grumbled.
"Well, you heard him," Mama gestured over to Noah. "You got five more minutes. Don't waste it, now."
I had stood up by then and was walking over to the door when I froze, remembering what Buck had said that morning in the shed. My eyes narrowed as my fingers tightened over the doorknob.
"I heard you know everybody's secrets."
I wasn't sure what made me say it. Now that it was out, I couldn't think of a single good reason. As the silence between us lengthened, I dared not look up from the doorknob.
"I know your reason for secrecy better than you may believe," Mama finally rasped, and I looked up to see a gentleness I hadn't seen before on her face. "I have many reasons to keep secrets, but family is my most important. Your secret is safe with me, Leah."
I nodded. "And you know what Noah is hiding?"
Her face hardened, so I could not read it. "How can you expect me to keep your secret if I go blabbing to you about others'?" she asked rhetorically. "Your business is your own, and his business is his; whether you choose to tell each other or not isn't up to me."
I walked inside with more questions than answers but with the assurance that—since she obviously knew what I was—she wouldn't tell anyone about my wolf-girl status; I was appeased enough to keep myself from running off into the woods to live as a wolf again. Embarrassment swelled when I thought about our interaction, so I blocked it out, refusing to think about what she'd said, though a small part of me was chewing on what she could've possibly meant.
On Saturday, I was roped into Mama's greenhouse with the little ones, who had missed me since I went to work out in the fields. Diana was grateful for someone to look after them while she was herding Susanna, Nate, and Ezra into town to get new school supplies.
"Why don't Eli and Jonah go to school?" I asked Noah as he tied up his boots at the screen door.
"Oh, well," he rubbed the back of his neck. "Eli sorta, well, flunked out, y'know—he's never been very bright. And Jonah refused to go to school without him. But Aunt Di made him do home-school classes until he got his GED."
"How old is he?"
"Fifteen, give or take." Noah shrugged. "I can't keep track of all these birthdays. I just sign the card."
I watched Jonah through the window with newfound respect as he climbed into the back of the ATV behind his lumbering older brother. There was patience in his eyes that was far too old for fourteen.
Mama's greenhouse was easily accessible through a door off the kitchen; pipe and metal frame held heavy glass squares above the wooden base, where multi-colored plants climbed towards the sun. She often led herself into it while cooking to grab a pinch of something. Five rows, about twenty feet long, grew up towards the ceiling, giving it an enclosed feel, like the roof of a rainforest.
"The ivy is a pain in the ass," Mama huffed, pruners in hand, puckering her lips at the edge of the rock surrounding the doorway. "But I've gotta admire it anyway. It doesn't care what the obstacle is; it just goes right up and over. The wall would still be beautiful without it, but the ivy is right up there with my favorite things in life. I can't let it take the wall down, though, and left unchecked, that's what'll happen." She lifted the pruners onto her shoulder like a bazooka. "It'll bounce back no matter what I do, but I want it to be still healthy when I'm done, not like a lawnmower went over it."
Mama Ashwood's main job in the greenhouse was to get us out of it. "Now, y'all go out and pick me the best ones—only the very best, now, mind," she said, pinching Sarah's cheek.
We went first through the rows of arched trellis. Tomatoes, squash, and melons hung from the top, high above the kids' heads on their raised beds, and the children instructed me to grab all of the ones they couldn't reach. I had to argue a few times, insisting one was way too green to be one of the best, which Sarah—the only one of the younger kids with the ability to speak coherently—claimed had all the tell-tale signs of a good tomato.
"Shouldn't we let it grow, then?" I asked her.
"Well…" she trailed off, looking down at her shoe. "Maybe. But she said to bring her the best. And that one will be one of the best, I bet."
I picked the damn tomato.
When we returned, Mama Ashwood had me help her slice them up, taking out all the seeds and dumping them into a bucket at her feet. We filled up four tables of seedling trays with dirt, then began sticking seeds in each of the little, milk-carton-sized containers, all while trying to keep Thomas from kicking over bags of soil. I could see why Mama needed help.
We started playing with the hose once we were sure at least a few seeds had been tucked into each container. I was supposed to keep it pointed on the seedling trays, but I couldn't keep myself from spraying the boys when they came in from the fields asking about lunch.
I fell into a comfortable routine. Wake up, work, eat, work, sleep, repeat. I was usually too exhausted to think about wolves or bloodsuckers. I'd gotten through the withdrawal phase of quitting my wolf form by taking off on long, rambling runs, sprinting over hills to feel in control of something. I felt clumsy and slow compared to when I was a wolf, but it was better than subjecting myself to the pack's mind. They would've thrown up if they'd heard what I was thinking.
Noah was constantly on my mind. I spent a couple of days hanging back and helping in the gardens or the house, but it quickly became unbearable to be away from him for so long. Even at night, when we were just a few paper-thin walls away from each other, the pull for him had become so strong I could hardly feel anything else. Hence, the need to run.
I felt the pull at the bottom of my stomach, and my bare feet pumped harder against the ground.
I left my boots at the house so no one would know I'd left. I didn't want to be discovered, even as a human, for whatever reason. It didn't stop Mama from knowing where I was. She knew everyone's secrets. She covered for me once when I showed up late to breakfast.
Noah had also noticed my absence. I slowed to a walk the first night he followed me.
"So, this is where you go?" He wondered aloud, two feet behind me.
I turned around. My arms crossed defiantly. "What's it to you?"
"Just curious," he grinned, his casual stride not broken. "You told me you ran patrols. I was hoping I could go for a ride-along."
"It's not that exciting," I informed him. "Usually, I just run along the perimeter."
"Oh."
We were quiet for a minute.
"I want to know more about you," I blurted.
"What do you want to know?"
I thought for a moment. "Did you always want to be a farmer?"
He seemed to think about it. "I guess. There's nothing else, really. It's all I know."
"And you're happy living here with your uncle for the rest of your life?"
His eyebrows came together over his eyes. "What do you mean?"
"I mean, like," I spluttered, trying to figure out where I was going with this. "You've never thought about running away? Starting a new life somewhere else, doing whatever you want?"
"If I left, I wouldn't be able to do whatever I wanted," he replied sagely. "My problems would just follow me. Trust me, it's better here, where I have my family. I can always rely on them."
"What if you couldn't rely on your family?"
He looked down at the ground. I stared forward at the path until his hand brushed against mine, taking hold of it.
"I would have to find someone else to rely on, then," he murmured.
I didn't shake him off. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I felt a release. His touch was enough to relieve the tension in my shoulders. I smiled brightly at my feet, my face getting red-hot.
As August turned into September, Noah joined me every night as I walked the property's boundary line, holding my hand.
It was enough. It wasn't nearly enough. I felt like a ball getting tossed between two schoolchildren. I was desperately, maddeningly, irrevocably in love with him. And he loved me, too. I felt his need as if it were my own—it was my own now because he was me, and I was him—like a fifty-ton dumbbell dropping from my belly button. But I still couldn't reveal it to him. To trust him with that secret felt like meeting him naked in the woods.
Trust, like love, was nothing but a burden. And loving him was more than enough for me to carry.
A/N: I wrote the disclaimer above when I finished the first draft of this, and sadly, Merlin the cat is no longer with us. I am happy to report that he kept his end of the deal until his final hour. Ultimately, he was always brave, true, and sweet, and I will carry his heart with me (I carry him in my heart.)