Happy birthday, they sang to me, a chorus washing over me.
My mother didn’t sing.
My father didn’t either.
They watched.
Thomas said, “You’re almost a man now.”
Elizabeth said, “He loves you, you know. Thomas. He can’t wait for you to be his witch.”
Abel said, “This is your family. These are your people. You are one of us.”
Mark said, “Can I talk to you for a moment?”
I looked up, mouth full of white cake with raspberry filling.
Mark stood next to the table, shuffling his feet. He was fifteen, and gangly. His wolf was a deep chestnut brown that I liked to run my fingers over. Sometimes he would nip at my hand. Other times he would growl deep in his throat, his head near my feet. And one day, weeks from this moment, he’d stand before me, sweating in a tie.
He still insisted I smelled like dirt and leaves and rain.
It didn’t bother me much anymore.
He had nice shoulders. He had a nice face. His eyebrows were bushy, and when he laughed, it was rusty and sounded like he was gargling gravel. I liked the way it crawled deep from his belly.
“You should probably keep chewing,” Rico whispered to me. “Because you have cake in your mouth.”
Chris squinted at me. “It’s also on his chin.”
Tanner laughed. “You have frosting on your nose.”
I choked the cake down, glaring at them.
They smiled at me.
I used a napkin to wipe my face. “Yeah,” I said. “You can talk to me.”
He nodded. He was sweating. It made me nervous.
He took me into the trees. Birds called. The leaves twisted on the branches. Pinecones littered the ground around us.
He didn’t speak for a long time.
Then, “I have a present for you.”
“Okay.”
He turned to look at me. His eyes went from ice to orange, then back again. “It’s not the one I want to give you.”
I waited.
“Do you understand?”
I shook my head slowly.
He looked frustrated. “Dad says I have to wait before—I just want you to be my—argh. One day I’m going to give you another present, okay? It’s going to be the best thing I could ever give you. And I hope you’ll like it. More than anything.”
“Why can’t you give it to me now?”
He scowled. “Because apparently it’s not the right time. Thomas could do it, and he—” Mark shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. One day. I promise.”
I wondered at them sometimes. Thomas and Mark. If Mark was jealous. If he ever wanted what Thomas would become. If he had wanted to be Thomas’s second instead of Richard Collins. Mark’s mother had died giving birth to him. One moment everything was fine, and the next she was just… gone. Only he remained.
Sometimes I thought it was a fair trade. I wanted him here. I had never known her.
I never told anyone that. It felt wrong to say the words out loud.
Mark said, “I brought this for you instead.”
In his hand was a little piece of wood. It had been carved by a clumsy hand. It took a moment for me to see what it had been shaped into.
The left wing was smaller than the one on the right. The beak was squarer than anything else. The bird had talons, but they were blocky.
A raven.
He’d carved me a raven.
It looked nothing like the one on my arm. My father had been meticulous, his magic being forced into my skin, burning its way underneath and into my blood. It had been the last thing and had hurt the worst. I had screamed until my voice broke, Abel holding my shoulders down, his eyes on fire.
Somehow, I thought this meant more.
I reached out and traced a finger along a wing. “You made this.”
“Do you like it?” he asked quietly.
I said “yes” and “how” and “why, why, why would you do this for me?”
He said, “Because I couldn’t give you what I wanted. Not yet. So I want you to have this in its place.”
I picked it up, and how Mark smiled.
“WHERE ARE we going?” I asked Mom again as we passed a sign that said YOU’RE LEAVING GREEN CREEK PLEASE COME BACK SOON! “I have to—”
“Away,” my mother said. “Away, we’re going away. While there’s still time.”
“But it’s Sunday. It’s tradition. They’re going to wonder where—”
“Gordo.”
She never yelled. Not really. Not at me. I flinched.
She gripped the steering wheel. Her knuckles were white. The sun was in our faces. It was bright, and I blinked against it.
I could feel the territory pulling at me, the earth around us pulsing along the tattoos. The raven was agitated. Sometimes I thought it would one day just fly from my skin into the sky and never return. I never wanted it to leave.
I pushed my hips up so I could reach into my pocket.
I pulled out a little wooden statue and clutched it in my hands.
Up ahead, a covered bridge led out of Green Creek and into the world beyond. I didn’t like to go out into the world very much. It was too big. Abel told me that one day I would have to, because of what I was to Thomas, but that was far away.
We didn’t make it to the bridge.
“No,” my mother said. “No, no, no, not like this, not like this—”
The car fishtailed slightly to the right as she slammed on the brakes. Dirt kicked up around us, the seat belt pulling at my chest. My neck snapped forward, and I clutched at the wooden raven in my hand. I stared at her with wide eyes. “What happened—”
I looked out the windshield.
Wolves stood on the road. Abel. Thomas. Richard Collins.
My father was there too. He looked furious.
“Listen to me,” my mother said, voice low and quick. “They are going to tell you things. Things you shouldn’t believe. Things that are lies. You can’t trust them, Gordo. You can never trust a wolf. They don’t love you. They need you. They use you. The magic in you is a lie, and you can’t—”
My door jerked open. Thomas reached in and unbuckled my seat belt, then pulled me out of the car as neat as you please. I was shaking as he held me, my legs wrapped around his waist. His big hand was on my back, and he was murmuring in my ear that I was safe, you’re safe, Gordo, I’ve got you, I’ve got you and no one can take you away again, I promise.
“All right?” Richard asked me. He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. It never did.
I nodded against Thomas’s shoulder.
“Good,” he said. “Mark, he was worried about you. But I suppose that’s what happens when someone takes your ma—”
“Richard,” Thomas growled.
Richard raised his hands. “Yeah, yeah.”
My mother was shouting. My father was talking to her quietly, jabbing a finger pointedly but never touching her.
Abel didn’t say a word, just watching. And waiting.
“SHE’S SICK,” my father told me later. “She has been for a long time. She thinks—she gets these thoughts in her head. It’s not her fault. Okay? Gordo, I need you to understand that. It’s not her fault. And it’s not yours. She would never hurt you. She’s just… she’s sick. And it makes her do things she doesn’t want to do. Makes her say things she doesn’t want to say. I’ve tried to help her, but….”