Filed To Story: Alpha's Regret: His Wrongful Rejection
My chest tightens. It’s hard to imagine young Justus, skinning a skunk, while little Annie baked pies. He’s been the bugbear of my life for so long, I’ve never considered that we were both young at the same time. We both had mothers who loved us.
Mabli talks about Alys like she’s not here anymore. “Did she pass away?” I ask softly.
“Yes, during the great sickness.” Mabli’s voice roughens, and the females grow quiet.
“I lost my dam then, too,” I say quietly.
We learned at Moon Lake Academy that the sickness tore through all the shifter packs, and that the wasting sickness was a virus, not a curse, but regardless, we should leave it in the past—don’t dwell or ask too many questions—lest we somehow wake it up by talking about it. We’ve memory-holed the people we lost and the things we did when we were scared.
My heartbeat speeds. It feels dangerous to talk about it here, now. Like I should be crossing my fingers or knocking on wood.
The females shift in their seats. They’re not tensing, although some straighten their spines. It’s more like when Una, Mari, Kennedy, and I are sitting in our living room late at night, and we’ve all had a few tokes or nips of whiskey in our tea, and one of us says something real, and we all let our masks slip for a moment so we can speak and hear each other the most clearly.
“I did, too,” Lelia says, scratching the back of a wolf lounging beside her with her freshly sharpened nails. “Her name was Ryanne. She was a great weaver.”
“And so beautiful.” Mabli’s thin, feathered lips curve, her gaze growing distant. “Her hair was so long and red. Just like yours,” she says to Lelia.
“It was down past her bottom,” Diantha says. “She could sit on it.”
“When she was little, the back would knot up like a beaver’s tail, and she’d holler like you were killing her when you brushed it. Drove your granddam to distraction.” Mabli reaches over and strokes Lelia’s hair. “So soft. So lovely.”
Lelia smiles sadly, her shining eyes rising to meet mine. “What was your dam’s name?”
“Aileen Murphy,” I say. I haven’t said her name out loud in years. No one has.
A strange feeling untangles in my chest. Guilt that it’s been so long. Gratitude that I had reason to speak her name on such a beautiful day with the sky so blue. Grief. Love. Regret.
“She was the best cook,” I say.
The females hum and murmur, a kind of affirmation. Or maybe an amen. I blink, and maybe for the first time, I really see the people around me.
The tremor in Mabli’s hand. Her swollen knuckles, her red chafed skin.
The steel in Elspeth’s spine, how she won’t let herself relax against the back of her chair, and how her eyes are always darting when she hears a shriek from the sycamore, a clang from across the clearing, or the caw of a crow flying overhead.
The dirt under Griff’s fingernails as he crouches by the fire, pokes it with his stick, and pretends he isn’t listening to our conversation.
This is all so strange, but is it that different, really, from home? Mabli’s hands could easily belong to Old Noreen. Griff lingers just like Fallon used to do when he’d drop by for the video games we’d buy for him in Chapel Bell, like he craved the warmth of our company but some grown male voice in his head wouldn’t let him show it.
And isn’t my gaze darting, too, like Elspeth’s, at each shriek, clang, and caw?
“Remember when Justus and Khalil went after that bog worm up by Salt Mountain?” Lelia changes the subject back to Justus’s exploits. This time, everyone chuckles a little more gustily. I guess this one’s even better than the skunk story.
“They really thought they could catch him with a net.” Diantha snorts.
“They did catch his head,” Elspeth says.
“More like they harnessed him.” Diantha’s furry, pointed ears twitch with humor.
“It was a lucky throw, though. I’m sure I couldn’t tell a bog worm’s head from its ass.”
“That beast dragged the both of them around the whole lake at least a dozen times.”
“You couldn’t tell them apart afterward; they were both so covered in muck.”
“And the smell!”
“Oh, Fate, the smell
!”
“It was like they’d rolled in something dead.”
“Like they’d rolled in shit and then in something that died.”
“They had to scrape themselves clean with a putty knife.”
“If I close my eyes, I can still smell it.”
“I smell it in my nightmares.”
“And that bog worm got away clean in the end, didn’t he?”
“He’s up there laughing still, mark my words, telling his little bog worm babies about the time he took two idiot shifters for a tour of the bottom of the lake.”
They’re all nearly falling out of their seats, cackling, their noses scrunched, tears gathering in their eyes. Griff has given up acting like he’s not listening. He’s cracking up, too.
Is this bog worm the same one that Darragh killed a little while back? I heard it was a monster. Should I mention it?
Join in?
Reach out?
I listen for the voice to tell me why I shouldn’t, but she’s silent.
I listen for my wolf.
She’s grinning, her tongue hanging out the side of her mouth, giddy to be in the middle of chatty, happy females and fresh air and sunshine.
I open my mouth.
Before I can speak, Diantha’s strong voice rings out. “I have a story.”
The laughter immediately fades. Elspeth’s eyes narrow, the lines at the corners disappearing. Mabli’s mouth tightens. My wolf gets very quiet, her ears perking.
“Remember when Justus was—what—eighteen or nineteen? And he was out past the red clay camp for some reason, and he came across the scent of humans and some North Border males?”
Everyone’s gaze shifts to Nessa where she’s sitting by the tent flap, keeping an eye on her sleeping pups. A sourness taints the air.
“Diantha,” Elspeth warns.
Diantha ignores her, looking past her to Nessa.
“Go on,” Nessa says, her voice very deliberately even, her eyes cold as ice. I can recognize a mask when I see one. Hers is good. Much better than mine.
“He was alone and outnumbered, but he smelled a female in distress, and he didn’t want to lose the trail, so he stalked them. It turned out to be a hunting party. The North Border males were guides. The humans were the paying customers. Nessa’s brother was the prey. And Nessa was the bait.”
Diantha holds Nessa’s gaze as she speaks, and there’s a challenge in the look, but no cruelty, at least not that I can recognize. Nessa doesn’t flinch, although her face has gone gray. I think this hurts her, but at the same time, I think she wants Diantha to keep going. What is that like? For someone to know your story and tell it for you?
“There were a dozen of them. They tied Nessa to a tree by the top of a hill. They chained her brother, threw him in the back of a truck, and drove away. Justus was left alone with the two North Border males guarding Nessa. How long did it take him to kill them once the truck was gone?” Diantha asks.
“Seconds,” Nessa says. “He cut their throats with his claws like that.” She snaps. Her small, cold voice sends chills up my spine.
Diantha continues, “He freed Nessa, told her to hide, and went after her brother. He tried his best, but he was on four legs, and the hunters had a huge lead and guns and numbers.”
Nessa takes over. “I found a place I could fit between the roots of an old oak by a dried-up stream. It felt like I was there for hours. Every so often, there would be a gunshot, and I would pray so hard for another one because as long as they were shooting, Bowen might still be alive.”
The wolf on Lelia’s lap jumps down and pads over to Nessa, winding between her calves. Nessa’s fingers float down to trail through the fur on the top of the wolf’s head.
“Eventually, there weren’t any more shots. And then Justus came back, covered in blood. Weeping.” Tears stream down Nessa’s cheeks. “He said he was too late.”
“He killed every single one of those bastards, though.” There’s a fierce light in Diantha’s wolfish eyes.
“I wanted to see Bowen. I made Justus take me to him. There was a North Border wolf in the dirt near his body. The wolf was enormous. As big as a bear. His intestines were trailing from his belly. Justus was so young—not much older than a pup.”