by Terra Wolf
Maggie shook her head. “No, Candy. It’s not you.”
“Then what did Beth do? I’ll kill her for you while we’re out tonight if you want.”
Maggie laughed. “No, Beth is fine. It’s not her either – it’s not important.”
Candyce stared at her, silent. Candyce was three years older than Maggie, and her face was nearly identical to a young Karen Talbot.
“Is it because of Mom?”
Maggie stopped dead. Maggie no longer offered such a term to Karen Talbot. Karen’s response to discovering her adopted daughter wasn’t a bear was to spurn her. She demanded Maynard do the same.
She’s not what they said she was. The only reason the Talbots took her in was to have another female. She should be banished.
Maynard refused, watching helplessly as his wife left him as punishment for choosing family over tribe. Despite leaving him, Karen honored his wish – that he be the one to tell the tribe when the time was right. Maynard knew as well as Karen how the tribe would react when they learned the truth.
Not a bear, not a Talbot, not of the tribe.
Maggie had been on borrowed time for a decade now.
“Why do you ask that?” Maggie asked.
Candyce shrugged, her black hair cascading over her left shoulder. “Because something happened back then, didn’t it?”
“What do you mean?” Maggie asked, growing nervous.
“Come on, Mag. Mom left afterward and you’ve never shifted with anyone else since.”
She’d never shifted at all. Damn it, would Candyce turn on her too if she knew.
“Look, whatever happened, it’s ok. Mom is an asshole. You’re my sister. Whatever happened, you’ll always be my sister.”
Maggie’s throat grew tight, but she fought to steel herself against it. “You don’t mean that.”
Candyce’s eyes went wide. “Bull shit I don’t. I don’t care if you tried to rip my face off when you turned, you’re my family. I’m not like Mom. I might look like a Holden, but I don’t behave like one.”
Maggie shifted on her pillows, scanning the room as though she might find someone hiding behind her dresser. Holdens and Talbots were the same as far as Maggie was concerned – she’d disappoint them both, equally.
She swallowed. “Can you promise never to tell anyone?”
“Come on, bitch! I’m itching to get out there,” Beth called from the hallway.
Candyce rolled her eyes, giving an exasperated groan. “I’ll be there in a sec, damn it! Shove off!”
Beth stuck her tongue out at them and disappeared back down the hall.
Candyce turned back to Maggie, ready to hear whatever secrets Maggie possessed. The moment had passed.
“Go. She’s only gonna get worse.”
Candyce reached for Maggie’s hand. “No, come on. I’m here. Tell me what’s up.”
Maggie shook her head, taking a deep breath. “It’s fine, Candy. It’s a bit too heavy for tonight. I’ll tell you tomorrow, alright?”
“You sure?”
Maggie nodded and squeezed her sister’s hand back. Beth hollered further complaint from the front door, inspiring Maynard to holler his own disapproval from the kitchen. Candyce stood, making an irritated face, and snatched Maggie’s book from the doorway.
She threw the dog-eared paperback back to Maggie. “First thing tomorrow, yeah?”
“Yeah,” Maggie said, catching the book in both hands.
Candyce disappeared down the hallway, scolding Beth as they slammed the front door behind them. Maggie lay in bed, listening to the sound of her sister and cousin laughing outside, their voices growing fainter as they walked away from the house, heading for the woods.
Maggie never told her sister her secret. Candyce never came home.
Three
“Did it ever occur to you that I might want a say in this?” Deacon hollered, pacing back and forth across his living room.
Patrick’s pleased expression didn’t waver, only infuriating Deacon more.
“And what if I refuse?”
Patrick scoffed. “Oh nothing. You’ll just start a war.”
“For fuck’s sake, Gramps!”
“Watch your language,” Patrick said, but the tone was almost dismissive. He was too pleased to be angry, it seemed.
“I have a life in Boston. I have -”
“Bull shit, you have a life in Boston. You hate it there, and we both know it.”
“I don’t hate it -”
“When was the last time you shifted?” Patrick asked.
“Last night!”
Patrick snorted, softly. “And before that?”
Deacon paused. He knew exactly how long it had been. “Three months.”
“That’s unnatural, Deacon. You don’t belong in the city. No Fenn does.”
“Well it doesn’t matter, Carissa’s in Boston.”
“Ha! Right! Now that you’ve brought that up,” Patrick said, rising from the couch to saunter into the kitchen and check the coffee pot. When he found the last cup cold within, he began dumping out the spent coffee filter and brewing another pot. The degree of comfort his grandfather showed in his house – a house that in truth still belonged to Patrick – was now grinding his nerves to dust. Had he someone less frightening in his wake, Deacon might have thrown a punch.
Patrick poured the grounds into the coffee brewer. “That girl isn’t your fate, and we both know it.”
“You don’t know shit!”
Patrick’s eyes went wide. “Really? Well, I do know I can’t smell her on you.”
Deacon’s mouth dropped open. “I live in the same -”
“You know I didn’t mean like that. Tell me, son. When was the last time you two were intimate?”
“That’s none of your fucking -”
“Been longer than the last time you shifted, hasn’t it?”
Deacon took a step toward his grandfather, but Patrick simply turned toward the kitchen sink, filling the coffee pot with water.
“I’m doing you a favor, son. Besides, the clan needs this.”
Deacon clenched his fists. “Needs what? Needs me to be sold off to some Talbot girl like a fucking mule.”
Patrick shrugged, laughing at his own joke. “More like a stud.”
“I fucking hate you,” Deacon said, turning for the living room. He was slumped down on the couch, staring at his phone when Patrick reappeared a while later with two cups of coffee. When Deacon refused the cup, Patrick set it on the table before him and took a seat in the recliner.
“Look. I went through hell to get this set up. It’s what’s necessary for the clan.”
“You’ve got Kirk and Joe having a baby in, what? A month?”
Patrick shook his head. “You know as well as I do, that baby has just as much a chance of being a norm as it does being a bear.”
“75% chance, they said.”
“No. It’s 50/50. Terry and Deedee just got lucky. We need a Mama bear. I can’t take any chances. I’m getting too old to worry about this shit.”
Deacon almost growled at his grandfather. It was well known amongst all bears that a Bear father had only a chance of passing on the bear genes to his children, but a mother – a mother would always give birth to a shifter, every time.
“You don’t know, Kirk’s baby could be a bear,” Deacon said, desperate to change a decision he knew was no longer Patrick’s to change.
“True, but we won’t know for sure until the kid is eighteen. I might not be around long enough to see it. We might get lucky there, but given we’re not sure if poor Catherine can even have children anymore -”
“What?”
Deacon held his breath a moment. Catherine Calhoun had been the reason he and John survived their ordeal with Bodie Calhoun, but she’d paid the price. Deacon’s heart ached to think that Catherine might suffer the loss of motherhood because of him.
Patrick took a sip of coffee, taking his time to savor it before he spoke. “John hasn’t tol
d you?”
Deacon shook his head. He was surprised. John told him everything. “I’m surprised he told you.”
“He didn’t. I have friends at the clinic. I have my ways of learning what I need to know.”
“For fuck’s sake,” Deacon said, slumping into his seat. He’d lost steam at this news.
“Not a day goes by that I don’t wish your Aunt Alison was still here. She was meant to be a mother, that woman. Just like your Mum.”
Deacon frowned at the thought of Alison Fenn, Blackrock Elementary School teacher and without question one of the sweetest women to ever walk the Earth, until Bodie Calhoun hunted her down one night and shot her. This wasn’t the first time he thought of what life would’ve been like with Alison still in the world – all the cousins that were never born because his Aunt didn’t live long enough to find her mate.
Deacon straightened up. “Shit, what are you sayin? Gracie! Gracie’s kids will be bears, guaranteed.”
Patrick snorted into his coffee. “Yeah, if she was ever going to have kids. That girl has never so much as dated a man. I’m pretty sure she’s like Tiernan, anyway. Rug muncher or whatever you kids call it -”
“Thanks, Gramps. Asshole.”
Deacon and Patrick both startled toward the kitchen door to see Gracie standing there, a pained look on her face. Patrick was up and crossing the room in an instant, but Gracie was gone.
“Ah, fuck,” Patrick muttered to himself. “There I go again. Putting my foot in my damn mouth.”
“I’m not going through with this, Gramps,” Deacon said, finally finding the courage to say the words he’d been chanting in his head.
Patrick raised an eyebrow at him. “Yeah you are. Clean yourself up nice for tomorrow night. You’re a good looking fella, she deserves to see that.”
“I’m not doing it!”
“Yes, you are, and you know it.”
Deacon glared at his grandfather. “What makes you say that?!”
Patrick moved in, speaking quietly as he approached. “Because you’re the next chief of this clan, and I know you’ll do what’s best for the Fenns, every time.”
Deacon stopped dead, watching his Grandfather grab his coat from the hook and fling open the front door. Patrick had never once let on who he intended to name his successor. Terence had become too gentle since Deidre passed, and Tiernan prided himself on his docile nature. How could he not choose John or Kirk? John was all piss and vinegar, and ready to brawl at a moment’s notice, and Kirk was the eldest and the strongest. Did his grandfather truly see Deacon as the next chief of the Fenns?
“Now, I gotta go find your poor cousin and make this right. I’ll speak with you tomorrow. Wrap your head around it by then. What’s done is done.”
With that, Patrick Fenn closed the front door, and the space felt enormous in his absence.
Deacon waited a couple minutes, listening to Patrick’s truck start up and roll out of the driveway. Then Deacon went to the front door and opened it. Gracie was perched on the porch steps, waiting.
“He didn’t mean it, hon.”
Gracie shook her head, startling at his appearance as she wiped away her tears. “Yeah, he did.”
Deacon sat down beside her on the steps, jostling her shoulders as he pulled her in to hug her.
She frowned. “I don’t know why everybody thinks that. I’m not you know.”
“Not what?”
“A lesbian. Everybody thinks I’m a freakin lesbian, because no guys will date me.”
“That’s not true,” Deacon said, trying to look at her. Gracie turned her face away, shaking her head.
“No. It’s true. I’ve never dated anyone because every guy I like thought I was too -”
Deacon waited for her to finish, but she seemed to be at a loss for words. He finished for her. “Badass?”
She chuckled, then sniffled. “I guess.”
It was a well-known fact among bears that the females of their kind were often stronger than the men. This was alluring to most bears, but to a lot of the norms? Sadly, a lot of normal men seemed to find Gracie intimidating. He didn’t blame them, but he also pitied them. He was sure there were very few women in the world as cool as Gracie Fenn.
“Hey. It’s like my mum always said. ‘Destiny has an easier time finding the people who stick to their path.’”
“What the hell does that mean?” Gracie asked, her tone dripping with sarcasm.
“It means if you pursue what makes you happy, you’ll be heading in the right direction.”
“Right direction for what?”
“Everything you want,” he said.
She snorted. “Yeah? Well, I really want a box of fucking Ring Dings, right about now.”
Deacon chuckled. “Then let’s go get some.”
Deacon kept Gracie company while she ignored Patrick’s phone calls for a few hours, driving around Falkirk’s Seat and Blackrock, aimlessly. They crossed the boundaries of the reservation a couple times, and Deacon found himself staring out toward the water, wondering who among the tribe he’d be betrothed to if he actually went through with the engagement. He thought of Carissa, her morning text still awaiting response. He dreaded the argument that would come, dreaded going back to Boston and leaving Falkirk’s Seat behind. Here he could listen to sound of the waves and lose himself. Here he could shift and roam any time of the day, the woods around the Fenn land stretching for twenty miles in some places. How could he leave this for Boston?
No, Deacon. How could you forget Boston and accept an arranged marriage? This isn’t the Dark Ages, for Christ’s sake!
Still, he stared off at the reservation road, imagining the resulting Kalmud – or worse – that might befall his family if he refused.
God damn it, Patrick was right about him. And he was going to be fucked for it.
Deacon picked up his phone and pulled up Carissa’s text.
I’m sorry. I was distracted before I left. Are you free to talk?
Four
Maggie stood at her bedroom window, watching the trees whip about in the wind. A storm was coming – in every sense of the word.
“Did you tell them I might refuse?”
Her father swallowed, his breath coming in labored exhales as he leaned in her doorjamb. “I did. I was told refusal was not an option.”
Maggie’s fists clenched. God damn it, she was thirty one now. They’d left her alone this long, why were they pushing this now?
The last breeding female of the Talbot clan sold to a Fenn for a piece of land.
“We knew this day was coming, my girl. I just wish I’d let you go when we had the chance.”
Maggie frowned. Her father referred to the year before when her baby brother, Theron, left to go to college. Theron was the first Talbot to ever do so, and Maynard had fought on behalf of his only living biological child, standing up to Richard White Eagle in front of the entire council, and winning to gain the tribe’s permission for Theron to go. In the celebratory moments following that decision, Maynard had weighed the notion of allowing Maggie to ‘drive her brother’ to college in Massachusetts, and just never come home.
“Not much they can do if you’re already gone,” he’d said.
Yet, Maggie refused. Even if she wasn’t Maynard Talbot’s blood, he was her father, and she couldn’t leave him. She wouldn’t.
“We could lie, couldn’t we? Say I’ve contracted some horrible STD or something.”
Maynard chuckled, softly. “Shifters can’t catch such things.”
“God damn it.”
Maggie stared out the window as the wind kicked up, watching the trees on her father’s land dance – land that was granted to him by Chief White Eagle in return for pledging one of his daughters to an advantageous marriage once they were grown.
Well, he only had one daughter left now, and sadly, there would be nothing advantageous about this marriage once her new husband discovered she wasn’t as advertised.
“Damn it, the Fenn
s are white men. Since when do the white bear tribes engage in arranged marriage?”
Maynard sauntered into the room, taking a seat in her reading chair. Maynard Talbot was the oldest of the Talbot brothers by a decade or more, and though he was healthy, his age was catching up with him.
Maggie watched him settle in his seat, and frowned. She hated to think he would lose this house because of her.
“The Fenn chief is an old fashioned man. His was an arranged marriage, as well.”
Maggie slumped down onto the edge of the bed. “For fuck’s sake.”
Maynard grumbled at her in Peskotomuhkati. “Speak well,” he said, which was a nice way of saying, ‘stop spewing shit from the mouth.’
Maggie exhaled, pressing her face into her hands. “What am I going to do?”
Maynard shifted in his seat, the bones in his hands cracking and clicking as he moved. He took a long time to respond. “I met this man. He seemed a good man.”
Maggie stared at her father a moment. She wanted to jump down his throat. How could you meet him? What am I, livestock? Yet, she knew her people’s ways. Their numbers were falling. There were no more Allens left now, and with her sister gone, the Talbots believed her to be the last surviving female of her generation. Keep the line alive. That was their only goal – just don’t let the Talbot line die.
“If he’s a good man, then he doesn’t deserve to be fooled into marrying me, now does he?”
Maynard grumbled to himself. “Any man would be lucky to have you, Margaret Light Foot.”
She laughed, sadly. The clock in the corner read 5:04 PM. She was due at the council hall by 6:00 PM to prepare to meet her betrothed. The word ‘surreal’ didn’t even begin to encompass her world at that moment. She sighed, rubbing her hands together against the chill of the air. “Alright, Papa. I’ll put on some makeup then, shall I?”
The council hall was already teeming with activity, many of the Talbot cousins and Aunts and Uncles would be there to celebrate the engagement. Maggie climbed out of the passenger seat of her father’s car and headed toward the tired single floored building where every tribal gathering and council meeting took place. Maynard climbed out of the car, his gray hair braided with two colorful beads at its end, the collar of his plaid shirt buttoned up tight. He looked ready for a serious round of square dancing, but Maggie didn’t have the heart to tell him.
