He chuckled, rusty and dry. It was a sound I didn’t hear as often as I’d like. “Cheeky,” he said. “I’m not that old. At least not yet.” His laughter faded. “I worry about you. And I know you’re going to tell me not to, but that won’t stop me. I’m not going to be around forever, Robbie, and I—”
I groaned. “Not this again. You’re not going anywhere anytime soon. I won’t let you.”
“I don’t know if you’ll have much say in the matter.”
“Yeah? Try me.” I was uncomfortable with the idea. He was so fragile. So breakable. Humans generally were, and I couldn’t stand the idea of something happening to him. He was a witch, sure, but magic could only do so much. I’d asked him once what would happen if he took the bite. I told him we could run together when the moon was full, and he’d hugged me close, rubbing my back while he told me that witches could never be wolves. Their magic would never allow it. If he was ever bitten by an Alpha, he said, the wolf magic and witch magic would tear him apart. I never asked him about it again.
He squeezed my hand. “I know you would do much for me—”
“Anything,” I corrected. “I would do anything.”
“—but you need to prepare. You can’t become stagnant, Robbie. And that means you need to start thinking about what lies ahead. It’s that something more you just spoke of. And as much as I wish I could be with you forever, it won’t always be this way.”
“But not anytime soon, right?” I asked quickly.
He rolled his eyes, and I loved him for it. “I’m fine. I’ve still got a few tricks up my sleeve. It’s nothing you need to worry about.”
“That’s funny, coming from you.”
He frowned. “Don’t think I don’t see how you’ve turned this conversation around on me.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“I really hope you don’t expect me to believe that. What was the dream about this time?”
I turned my head away from him. I couldn’t look at him when we talked about this. It felt strangely like betrayal. “It was the same one.”
“Ah. The wolves in the trees.”
“Yeah.” I swallowed thickly. “Them.”
“The white Alpha?”
“Yeah.”
“What do you think it means?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know.” It could mean anything. Or nothing at all.
“Did you recognize it?”
I shook my head.
“And there were others.”
“A lot of them.”
“And they were howling.”
Singing, I almost said, but caught it at the last second. “It’s like they were calling me.”
“I see. Was there anything else? Anything different?”
Yes. The gray wolf with black stripes on its face, carrying a stone in its jaws. I’d never seen it before. I pulled my hand away from him and rubbed the juncture between my neck and shoulders. “No,” I said. “Nothing else.”
I thought he believed me. And why wouldn’t he? I was always honest with him. He would have no reason to think otherwise. He said, “You’ve always struggled with finding your place. It could be just as simple as a manifestation of wanting somewhere to belong.”
“I belong here. With you.” The words tasted like they burned. Smoke and ash.
“I know. But you’re a wolf, Robbie. You need more than what I can provide. These bonds you’ve made with the pack… they’re temporary. To keep you from turning Omega. It’s a strain on you. I can see that, even if you can’t.”
I smiled tightly as I turned back toward him. “It’s enough for now.”
He patted my knee through the blankets. “If you’re sure.” He didn’t sound convinced.
“I am. I didn’t mean to wake you.”
He laughed again. “Sleep is an elusive thing for me these days. It happens when you get older. You’ll learn that one day. It’s late. Or depending on how you look at it, early. Try to get some rest, dear. You need it.”
He stood with a grunt, his knees popping. The sleeves of his nightclothes pulled back on his arms, revealing old tattoos that seemed dull and faded.
He was at the door when he stopped and glanced back over his shoulder. “You know you can talk to me about anything, right? Whatever you tell me, it would stay between us.”
“I know.”
He nodded. I thought he was going to say something more, but he didn’t. He closed the door behind him, and the floor creaked as he walked down the hallway of our small home toward his bedroom.
I listened for his heartbeat.
It was slow and loud.
I turned over on my side, arms underneath my pillow, my chin resting against my wrist. My bedroom’s only window opened on a lonely stretch of woods.
The dream was already fading. Where once it felt vibrant and alive, it was now mostly translucent. I could barely remember the taste of sap on my tongue.
I listened to Ezra’s heartbeat as I closed my eyes.
I didn’t dream again that night.
it was enough/quiet as a mouse
Near the Canadian border and at the edge of the Aroostook National Wildlife Refuge—a mixture of an old- and new-growth forest that never seemed to dry out—was a town forgotten by the human world.
And it was better that way.
From the outside, Caswell, Maine, was nothing. There was no major highway for miles. The only way one would know Caswell had a name at all was an old sign along a two-lane road. The sign was faded red, held up by two posts with chipped black paint. Gold letters said WELCOME TO, and white against black said CASWELL. Below these words was EST. 1879. At the bottom was a small painting of a tree with a farmhouse and silo set in the distance behind it.
Anyone who found their way to Caswell (usually by accident) would see old farmhouses and streets without a single traffic signal. There was a small grocery store, a diner with a blinking neon sign that said WELCOME, a gas station, and an ancient movie theater that showed films from days gone by, mainly grainy black-and-white monster movies.
That was it.
Except it was a lie.
No one lived in the old farmhouses.
People worked in the store and the diner and the gas station. Even the movie theater.
But none of them stayed in Caswell.
Because just outside of the nothing town was Butterfield Lake.
Large walls surrounded it on all sides, the stone at least four feet thick and reinforced with rebar.
Inside those walls was a compound.
And it was here that the most powerful pack in North America—and possibly the world—resided.
I didn’t live in the compound. It made my skin feel electrified. I didn’t like it.
Off Butterfield Lake was Woodman Road, made of dirt and gravel. If you followed Woodman Road all the way to the end, you’d come to a metal gate. And through the gate, deeper into the woods, was a small house.
It wasn’t much. It’d once been for loggers who had harvested the trees through the middle of the twentieth century. There were two bedrooms. A small bathroom. It had a porch with two chairs on it. The kitchen was efficient enough for two men, and that was it. That’s all it was.