by Sonja Bair
I stepped forward, holding a beautifully made, small wooden box which Elin had created for me of recycled building materials from around San Luis Obispo. The use of salvaged wood to make something incredibly beautiful seemed appropriate to the occasion. “We all come from different backgrounds; none of us were born or raised in SLO. In fact, to quote Philip, we all are misfits. I like that term. Misfits—we missed fitting into our previous location. But now that isn’t the case—now we have come together to make something new and beautiful. We fit. That being said, we each bring a unique history with us, full of good and some not-so-good experiences. To make this pack work, we need to dedicate our past knowledge and wisdom to creating and maintaining the pack. To symbolize the dedication to share our background, we have asked you all to give a small token of something that represents your past. David, would you go first?”
David stepped forward, opened his hand, and showed us his token— a small, flat white disc. It took me a second, but then I placed what it was. A poker chip.
“I dedicate this poker chip to our pack collection. To me, it represents my family since, before he died, my father and I, along with my brother and occasionally my mother, would play poker. It was always a no-holds-barred, cutthroat game, complete with swearing and yelling. But it was all a show. After it ended, we laughed and hugged and, if possible, loved each other more. It was the best of times. But the poker chip also reminds me of the worst of times. When I went up against Robert and Maria, I was staking all I had on overthrowing them. And at first, it appeared that I lost it all. But Pedro and Philip dragged me back from the brink of death and Freya introduced me to life again. Now, I’d say I won that gamble. So here’s to family, taking risks, and winning.” He dropped the chip in the box.
I handed the box to David and pulled my own token out of a pocket. It was an acorn. “I dedicate this acorn to our pack collection. This isn’t just any acorn; this is an acorn from a very old oak tree in Sweden which has been named The Oak of Kvill. The tree is thought to be over one thousand years old and is more than forty-three feet in circumference. I gathered this acorn when I was a kid spending summers in Sweden with the Flock. As a kid, I merely thought it was a cool find, but it means more to me now. It symbolizes my roots in Sweden, which go back a thousand years, at least. But it also symbolizes how you can take a part of your history and plant it somewhere else. I carry in me the long and beautiful traditions of the Alva, but I can also grow to be my own person and create new traditions.” I dropped the acorn in the box and turned to Pedro.
Pedro brought forth a pocket knife. He told us how, during his childhood years, he had grown up in rough circumstances. More than once, he had used this pocket knife to draw blood in fights. Against the odds, he had escaped that situation, gone to college, and returned to help other adolescents struggling like he did. Many times, he had almost thrown away the knife because of the bad memories—but each time, something stopped him. Over the following years, he came to understand that a pocket knife had many uses other than fighting enemies, and some of those uses were very constructive to himself and others. And now he dedicated that pocket knife and the scores of memories, both good and bad, to the pack.
We turned to Philip, who pulled out a stethoscope. Previously, he had told me that he had wanted to be a nurse from an early age, but it was against his very traditional werewolf father’s wishes. Philip explained this situation to the others, but ended by saying how wrong his father had been since his skills in medicine had proven to be invaluable time and time again in the sometimes violent world of the werewolves. Although he didn’t mention it, I thought the stethoscope was deeply symbolic in another way. Philip was blessed with the ability to hear the heart of the pack. Many times he had said exactly the right thing or listened to me as I groused about the latest problem, and I knew he did the same for others in the pack. Perhaps, in fact, he was the heart of the pack.
It was Gina’s turn now, and I had no clue what she would present us. I had informed her of this part of the ceremony, but she had been mum on her choice of tokens. She hesitantly reached into her pocket and brought something out in a closed fist. It took her a few seconds before she would open her hand. She held a chess piece—a queen, if I remembered the game correctly.
“I like chess,” she said simply. The rest of the pack continued to look at her expectantly. “Okay. I like chess and this was one of the few things that my parents didn’t throw out when they were trashing all my possessions. I think the piece rolled under my bed or something and I found it when I was packing to come here. I guess that’s pretty symbolic because in chess, the queen can basically move anywhere she wants. That’s like me. I get moved from place to place, but I stay the same throughout.” She dropped the piece into the box and stepped back.
The dedication of our past completed, we moved on to the dedication of our resources. Each member of the pack placed a folded receipt recording their donation to Habitat for Humanity. David and I had talked it over and decided that the sacrifice of assets shouldn’t be something silly and wasteful, like burning money. Therefore, we asked that each member donate to a non-profit supporting housing for the homeless. It seemed like an appropriate cause, seeing as we were establishing a new home for our pack. Having taken money out of my slim savings to donate, I would have to tighten my budget for the next month or so, but it felt right. Gina hadn’t had a cent to her name, so I had loaned her twenty dollars.
The final part of the ceremony was the part I was most nervous about. We had pledged our past and our resources to the pack, and now we were to dedicate our physical selves. It was all symbolic, of course, but it still made me queasy. David took out a knife. It wasn’t anything fancy, only a small hunting knife of some sort. Philip, ever the medical professional, handed David a sterilizing wipe to clean the blade. Giggles threatened to break out of me. Sterilizing wipes at a werewolf pack dedication ceremony—how bizarre this whole situation was. I coughed, trying to push the giggles away. David caught my eye and winked at me. I think he knew what was going through my head.
After the blade was clean, David grasped the knife blade in one hand and the handle with another, then gently sliced the skin on his palm. Setting the knife down, he clenched his cut fist until blood dripped out and onto a clean white cloth. He placed the cloth in the box and then passed the knife to me. Philip cleared his throat and held out another sanitizing wipe. The giggles came back, but I got myself under control in a few seconds. The blade was sharp enough that it hardly hurt to cut my palm and squeeze a few drops of blood out onto my own cloth, but I was glad to be done and pass the knife on to Pedro. Each of the pack donated a few drops of blood to the wooden box—after thoroughly cleaning the blade each time under Philip’s critical eye—and the ritual was completed.
We walked back together to the spring and our cars. The day had turned into night and stars lit the sky. The moon was out, however, and lit our way brightly. Happy chatter bounced between all of the pack and everyone, including Gina, seemed to be lighthearted. The ceremony felt good. It felt right. We were a pack and though we were all different—some of us more so than others—we were in this together. That feeling of connection inside me had grown thicker and stronger and now didn’t feel foreign at all. It felt as natural as my own wings.
Chapter 6
Gina was going to catch a ride back to town with David and spend the night at his house with Pedro and Philip to get to know her new pack members better. As I watched the four of them walk to David’s SUV, Philip dropped an arm around Gina’s shoulders and then scrubbed his knuckles against her skull. Ah… the noogie. Classic brotherly love right there, I thought, and smiled. Maybe with these guys, Gina could find the family that she had to give up. I could tell that Philip had already adopted her as a wayward sibling, and Pedro had a ton of experience working with difficult youth. I grabbed the keys from the front seat, where I had dropped them, and headed to one of the most important parts of my family and my life, Elin.
“And the flipping website went down… again. I talked with my developer, but he’s useless. I had some of my usual customers track down my number and get info about the show and that’s nice and all, but with the opening so soon, I need the website more than ever. I’m thinking of firing the lazy bum of a programmer and finding someone else, but I’m worried that I’ll lose more time doing that than getting on my current guy’s case and just pushing through until the event.”
She paused long enough that I could insert a noise straddling the line between agreement and sympathy, and then she was off again. The stress of having a fancy exhibit down in Los Angeles was growing daily and although her husband, Drew, was taking most of the brunt of the constant worrying, I tried to support her as well. The opening was in about a month and I expected the crazy to only amp up until then. After the opening, all of us would have a big party, relax, and try not to mention to Elin how mad she went.
The one-sided rant about her website continued until I grabbed two wineglasses from her cabinet and poured generous servings of a local Syrah for us both. She took a long swallow from her glass, shook her head as if to clear her thoughts, and turned to me. “Oh, so can you be my date?”
“I believe you’re already married and, besides, you’re my sister, so I think dating would be unwise. But why do you ask?”
“Gina didn’t tell you about the Chamber of Commerce shindig?”
“Oh, that’s why you called. Gina said you asked about something, but she forgot what it was.”
“Really? How could she forget about it when she asked a bunch of questions?”
I shrugged, remembering my vow to give her the benefit of the doubt. “She has a lot going on right now. Probably just slipped her mind.”
Elin tapped her beautifully manicured nails on the table. How on Earth did she keep her nails so perfect? She welded and used power tools on a regular basis, for goodness sake. She got the natural and carefree beauty but I got the Alva gene. Fair trade-off.
“Okay,” she said after a pause. “She has been through some rough waters lately. How do you think she’s going to integrate into your pack?”
Smiling, I filled her in on my predictions of Gina eventually fitting in well. Staring down into her wineglass, Elin swirled her wine and frowned slightly.
“What, you don’t think she’s going to fit in?” I asked after the disapproval radiating off her eventually overcame my enthusiasm.
“You know her better than I do.”
“You aren’t getting away with that answer. Seriously, why are you going Debbie Downer on me right now?”
“I get a bad vibe from her.”
“You talked with her for all of ten minutes on the phone.”
“That’s right. And I also admitted you know her better than I do.” Tense silence filled the room for a minute, then Elin set her wineglass down on the table and sat back in her seat, looking me right in the eyes. “No, sorry. You’re my sister and I love you, so I can’t keep quiet. I feel like she can tell a good story and get people to feel sorry for her. I don’t think she’s quite the martyr that she is portraying. And since you have the biggest heart around, especially for kids, I think you need to be very careful around her.”
“And you got all of this insight from a phone call?” I didn’t know why I was feeling so defensive about Gina; I’d had similar thoughts earlier, truth be told.
“Never mind. I knew I’d get in trouble for saying anything. But please keep an open mind, okay?”
“You need to keep an open mind too.”
She frowned slightly and looked me up and down. The awkwardness hung in the air until Drew walked in the back door. I jumped up and gave him a big hug. He returned a hearty hug and asked how the ceremony went. My shoulders stiffened immediately, but I made a concerted effort to drop them, smile, reply politely, and ask about his day. The topic of Gina didn’t come up the rest of the evening, though Elin and I danced around the topic a couple of times. Each time, emotions on both sides flared up, so we would change the subject. Why the topic of Gina was so inflammatory, I didn’t know, but it worried me.
Time moved much too swiftly, and soon I needed to get ready for the Denver trip. As I packed up a suitcase, I also tried to gather all my badass-ness to intimidate the Denver pack the next day. Unfortunately, although my overnight bag was full, the badass-ness satchel was still pretty light. Neither nature nor nurture had built a thick layer of menace into my foundation. I practiced fierce looks in the mirror, but they only made Gina giggle. While the menacing demeanor was a flop, I counted Gina’s light-hearted response as a win. Trying to extend the goodwill we were feeling toward each other, I challenged her to a game of chess. Since our ceremony, when Gina revealed she enjoyed the game, I had purchased my own set and had looked for the right opportunity to challenge her.
It had been so long since I had played chess that I needed Gina to give me a brief review of the rules. As she talked, some of the intricacies came back, but I could tell she was way over my level, experience-wise. Nonetheless, I am a stubborn beast and even when outgunned, I refuse to go down easy. As we started the game, I could tell that she was taking it easy on me. But when she saw that I was determined to play hard, she stepped up her game. Conversation stopped, and nearly an hour went by until, somewhat unbelievably, I had her in checkmate.
Pushing over her king, she laughed. “That was ugly chess. You didn’t bother with any of the finesse of the game, but went ahead and won anyway. I’m impressed.”
“She plays to win.”
I jumped. I hadn’t heard David enter the house.
“Of course I play to win. What other way is there to play?”
“I agree. But others would purposefully lose to gain favor and then win in the long run.”
“I’d rather gain favor from hard work and honesty.”
“I don’t really care that Freya won the chess game,” Gina jumped into the conversation, “but in general, I think that sometimes you do have to sacrifice small battles to win big.”
Curious as to where she was going, I asked her to explain.
“Okay, well, take that story of the founding of Rome. Romulus had to give up everything—his mom, the castle, his royal birthright. He had to give up all that and live with some scrubby shepherd for years. But then in the end, he created Rome, one of the greatest cities in history.”
“But he killed his brother to get there,” David added. “Would you think Romulus ultimately believed that the glory from founding the city was worth murdering Remus? Was that sacrifice worth the win?”
“Maybe. I don’t know. If the death of one person creates a greater good, isn’t it worth it?” she retorted.
David sat down in a chair and leaned it back onto two legs. From the slight grin on his face, I guessed that he was going to take the counterpoint and force her to defend her position. Gina leaned back in her own chair, mimicking both his position and his grin. A debate was brewing, and both were looking forward to it. As a frequent owner of strong opinions, I could hold my own in a debate, but at the moment, I was more interested in studying my packmates’ arguments and techniques than picking a side.
The sound of my phone ringing in the other room, however, prevented me from going into psychoanalyst mode. It was my mom. “Freya, sweetie. I realize this is poor timing with your issues with the werewolves, but I’m needed for an emergency USN conference.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.” My mom had planned on flying to SLO to use her Ambassador Alma resources and knowledge to help me figure out the situation. Plus, I’ll admit it, I enjoyed having my mom around occasionally. “What’s going on?”
“Two supernatural groups are squabbling over some resources. Toss in some pride issues and then add other groups who fe
el the need to get involved, and now it has blown up into an international fiasco. Ridiculous. I’ll have to go and hold everyone’s hands and soothe everyone’s ego until they calm down enough to use their brains and solve the problem.”
“So politics as usual.”
“Yes,” she sighed, “and as Napoleon said, ‘In politics, stupidity is not a handicap.’”
“How long will you be gone?”
“I need to do some prep work this week in Chicago, visit both supernatural tribes, and then the conference will be in a little over two weeks.”
“So you will be busy for about a month?”
“Probably. And as I said, I’m sorry for the timing.”
“No worries. I can handle the situation fine.”
“The mom in me can’t help but worry. But I saw you develop in the art of politics during your own time at the USN.”
“Grow into politics the way Napoleon meant?”
“No, Freya, I meant it in the best possible way. But please take care of yourself.”
“Of course I will. Now I’m off to drink some expired milk.”
“Freya…”
Chapter 7
Later that evening, David and I awaited Alrik’s arrival in Denver at the hotel bar. A few minutes after sitting down, David started to gently massage my neck and told me to take some deep breaths.
“Are you feeling my nervousness through the pack bonds? The connection to everyone still amazes me.”
“Yes, I am feeling it through the bonds, but the dead giveaway is that you have practically chewed your cuticles to bloody scraps.”
I jerked my hand away from my mouth. In my opinion, everyone is allowed one harmless but disgusting habit, but it shouldn’t be done in front of a roomful of people. Looking up to see if anyone had noticed, I spotted Alrik entering the bar.
