by Sonja Bair
I knelt down by her. “Now will you tell me your side of the story? There is more to the story than you only being a bad daughter. What happened in Denver?”
Gina wiped away her tears and hiccupped twice. When she turned to face me, her eyes were large with pain. “I never wanted to cause my family any trouble. Really. And I miss them so much.”
I rubbed her back and waited. One final, large tear rolled down her face.
“It started when Rex and I were fifteen. I had a dream about my biological parents. We never really knew much about them. Our adoptive parents had us since we were about two years old and neither Rex or me have memories of life before then. My parents said they found us alone by a river in a forest. How weird is that? Anyway, I had this dream that my biological parents were royalty—you know, a king and a queen—and my brother and I were royalty, too. We were all happy in the dream.” Her eyes unfocused as she lost herself in the memory. We were both silent for a moment.
“When I told my mom and dad about the dream, they got angry and told me to forget it. But, I don’t get it, it was a dream. Why would they get so angry? And then the next night, I had the same dream. I didn’t tell my parents about it, I only told Rex, but he told our parents. I think he was trying to get me in trouble, and it worked. They told me I was infecting my brother with crazy ideas and that I was getting airs. They told me that they were the Alphas of the pack and they were in charge. Yeah, obviously.
“But the dreams wouldn’t stop. Almost every night, I dreamed about these other parents, but I couldn’t tell anybody about them. And then the dreams started to change. Now, instead of dreaming of a happy royal family, this dream kingdom started to have problems. People started to burst in flames. It was horrible. Every night, I had these visions of normal people walking around, but I could see this little glowing spark inside their bodies. Nobody else could see it and I would warn them about it, but they would only laugh at me. Then the little spark would flash bigger and bigger and then their whole bodies would be on fire. Their faces would melt into these pools of liquid flesh and their bodies would be glowing these hideous colors of red and orange and then their whole body would collapse into a pile of ash. And the people would scream and scream the whole time, but there was nothing I could do to help them.
“I tried to tell myself to stop having the dreams, but how do you do that? I tried not sleeping, but that doesn’t work either. I ended up being this horrible mess. I was always exhausted. My grades went in the toilet and I was getting in lots of fights with everyone. At first, my mom and dad were worried, but when I told them about these new dreams, they went crazy. They really didn’t seem to care about the fire and dying part; they were still upset about me dreaming I was a queen or something. They turned my brother against me, too. They told him that I was trying to cause problems and break up the family. I tried to tell him I wasn’t, but they were more convincing than I was, I guess.
“Then, after some months of these dreams, their concerns kinda became a self-fulfilling prophecy—I did start to turn against them. I still wasn’t sleeping well and with their constant harassment, I just lost it. I didn’t listen to them anymore and in front of the pack, I told them how stupid some of their decisions were. The strange part is that I never would have thought to challenge their leadership until they pushed me away. But after I started to push back, then I couldn’t stop. I wouldn’t listen to anything my family said. I started to question everything, and I saw a lot of problems with the pack hierarchy. Then one day, Rex told me that the family was going to disown me. And I really lost it. I went out to the garage and grabbed the sledgehammer; if they were going to take everything away from me, then I would take everything away from them. I only got through smashing up Rex’s room before my dad pinned me down, but I would have smashed up the whole house if he didn’t...”
Wiping her runny nose on her sleeve, she hiccupped again and then fell quiet. The silence hung heavily in the air, and I kept rubbing her back. How does one react to a story like that? My first thought was to rant and rave about how horrible her parents were, but I could tell that, through all her anger and the pain, she still loved her family.
“That sounds incredibly painful,” I said.
“Yeah. But I’m over it now, so it’s okay.”
My mouth fell open. Was she serious? Her shoulders started to shake slightly, then her whole body trembled and she started to laugh. It was a loud and uncontrollable laugh that somehow registered between manic giggles and desperate guffaws.
Turning to me, she gasped between laughs. “I’m so over it… Not a problem anymore… I’m cool.”
“Clearly,” I said, shaking my head in amazement.
By the time she stopped laughing, she was holding her side and wincing.
“How come it hurts when you laugh so hard?” she asked, wheezing.
“Laugh demons poke you in the side with their pitchforks.”
And she cracked up again. My response wasn’t that funny, so I chalked her reaction up to leftover emotion and waited for it to be released. After she quieted down, Gina looked better than I had ever seen. Although her face was blotchy, she had a healthy color in her cheeks and there was a spark of life in her eyes.
“How about now?” I asked. “Do you still have the dreams?”
She shrugged. “Yeah, they haven’t gone away. But the stress from constantly fighting my parents isn’t there anymore, so that helps. So I’m not as exhausted anymore.”
“But your parents will be coming in two weeks. How do you think that will go?”
“I guess I’ll try to stay out of their way. They don’t want me around and I don’t want to be around them, either.”
“I know we aren’t your family and we can never replace them, but we want you around. David, Pedro, Philip, and I like having you as a packmate.”
“Thanks. Can we get pizza tonight? I’m starving.”
Ah, life with a teenager, I thought. From deep discussion to food in a half a second.
“Sure. Let’s get pizza,” I said with a smile, but underneath I was still trying to process her dreams. Now wasn’t the time, but I wanted to think about it for a while and then ask more questions. Her parents had reacted much too strongly for the dream to mean nothing.
Gina invited David to join us for pizza. Although I didn’t ask, I thought she did it because she wanted to reach out to the other authority figure in her life right now. Whatever the reason, David accepted her invite and beat the delivery guy to our house.
We sat outside to enjoy the beautiful sunset. I prompted them to tell stories of life as a werewolf, and they enthusiastically complied. Both had gotten into more than their share of mischief as younger weres, but Gina would win the prize for early childhood chaos, probably because of the double trouble of twindom. I was puzzled by the loving patience demonstrated by Gina’s parents in her younger years versus the story of her being disowned and sentenced to death. Something didn’t feel right about the stories I was hearing. Shelving my questions for now, I reached for another slice of pizza. But all the pizza was gone.
“Dudes. Who took the last piece?” I asked, huffing in faked anger. “Not cool.”
Both Gina and David instantly pointed at each other.
“Definitely Gina,” David said with a smirk.
“What? That’s so not true. David ate it.” She looked horrified at the accusation.
“Don’t listen to her. I barely had any pizza. I’m practically famished over here. Look, I’m wasting away to nothing.” He lifted his shirt and caved in his belly. My guess was that he was trying to create a hollowed-out belly as if he were starving, but it just wasn’t possible. Instead, his stomach was rock hard and the muscles formed all these beautiful ridges across his abdomen.
Poking him in the stomach, I said, “This is not the belly of a starving man. Put that thing away.” Poking him was a big mistake. Not only did I have a visual knowledge of how fabulous his abs were, but I now had a tactile confirmation as well. I sw
allowed roughly and tried to refocus on the situation.
“Look at his plate,” Gina said. “The crust is still there.”
Thank you, Gina, I thought, for being able to stay on topic. I dragged my eyes off David’s stomach as he dropped his shirt. Grabbing the incriminating crust from his plate, he stuffed it in his mouth and glanced up at us, eyes wide and innocent. He shook his head and mumbling through a mouthful of pizza, “Poor girl. Not only did she take the last piece, but now she is having hallucinations.”
I looked over at the poor girl. Her head was tilted slightly back, her eyebrows were furrowed, and she was frowning slightly. I decided to let her off the hook.
“It’s okay,” I said, patting her hand. “David’s a known kleptomaniac. He doesn’t realize that he steals things. He especially likes to take people’s socks. You know all those socks that turn up without a match? It’s David.”
Peering over at David, I saw his face light up in a big grin. “How else am I going to make all the puppets for my shows?”
Nodding in agreement, I deadpanned, “He’s also a master puppeteer.”
“Very true,” he said primly, pushing his chin in the air. “I’ve gotten many awards.”
David as a master puppeteer must have been wacky enough to convince Gina we were teasing. She smiled and threw a wadded-up napkin at David. “I hope you choke on that crust. You guys are too much. And seeing as there’s no more food, David, I’m going to Facetime with a friend back in Denver.” She picked up her plate and the empty pizza box and headed inside.
As the door closed behind her, David turned to me. “She seems like a good kid. I wonder what the real story is.”
I filled him in on what she had told me before he arrived. After I finished, David didn’t say anything. A squawking crow filled the silence for a few minutes.
“It feels like there is some truth behind Gina’s story,” he said after a minute. “But why would her parents react like that? It doesn’t make sense.”
“With the Alphas coming to town, we will probably get a better idea of the truth. As much as Gina would like to avoid them, there is bound to be some interaction. We can see for ourselves what the dynamics are.”
As he agreed, I pulled out my trusty notebook. My list of ideas on how the Alva and werewolves could benefit from each other needed help. Showing my paltry list to David, I asked for his input. Over the next hour, we brainstormed ideas to turn a potentially hostile confrontation into something more positive. I was feeling better after we had some concrete ideas on paper.
“My favorite idea so far,” I said, looking at my paper, “is the wine and cheese reception. It’s so ridiculous to imagine all the pissed-off Alphas and Elders standing around with glasses of pinot noir and dainty crackers with a brie spread.”
“At first I thought you were crazy, but the idea is growing on me.”
“How about ice breakers? Should we have party games?”
“The not-so-human knot?” David shook his head. “That may be going a step too far.”
“Hmm, I don’t know. Maybe not the human knot, but something that gets them to interact before the hostility has a chance to turn it into ‘us versus them.’”
“Maybe...”
“There’s this great quote from Abraham Lincoln, ‘Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?’ Let’s make that the unspoken theme of the gathering.”
“Okay, Pollyanna. You keep working on that idea.” He paused and then continued, “I’m glad you’re on my team. No born-and-bred werewolf would approach this meeting like you. Thanks for being part of this.”
I was about to brush off his comment, but his eyes were intense and he continued, “I know you don’t want to talk about it, but I don’t think that it’s an accident that you became Alpha of my pack. You are bringing a new perspective to the werewolf world. You heard Amir and Julia—something is going on in our packs; something is wrong. And the Alphas haven’t been successful in their attempts to solve it. We need to try something new.”
“That’s a lot of pressure you just put on me.”
“I know. I also know how capable you are.”
I felt my cheeks blushing scarlet at all the compliments he was giving.
He leaned over and brushed a finger down my face. “And you are adorable when you blush like this.”
Which of course made me blush more—it’s a terribly vicious cycle. Luckily, a car door slamming in the driveway saved me. I jumped to my feet and fairly ran to the driveway to see who was visiting. David was close behind me.
“Elin! I’m so glad to see you!” My hug was enthusiastic. I hadn’t seen or talked with her as much as usual these last few days. Her crazy life preparing for her exhibit and my school and pack duties had kept us from connecting, although I had filled her in on Denver over the phone last night. I missed our usual closeness, and the previous awkward conversation about Gina felt unimportant now.
“I was in town and thought I’d swing by for a second.”
“I didn’t know that you were going to be in SLO today.” San Luis Obispo was nearly an hour away from her ranch, so if she were going to be in town, she would almost always stop by to see me.
“Didn’t Gina tell you?” Elin asked.
“No. Why? Did you tell Gina?”
“I stopped by earlier, but you weren’t here. Gina said she would tell you. And I tried calling, but you never answered. I was worried about you; that’s why I stopped by.”
I pulled my phone out of my back pocket. It was dead.
“Okay, that explains why I didn’t get your call, but I wonder why Gina didn’t tell me.”
“Tell you what?” a voice yelled out from the front window.
“That Elin stopped by,” I called back. “And are you eavesdropping, Gina?”
“Believe it or not, you guys aren’t interesting enough to eavesdrop on. Your voices carried into the front room. But I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about your sister. I guess I forgot again. My fault.”
Elin stiffened beside me, but I merely shrugged. “I get the same sort of forgetfulness from my students.”
“Maybe,” was Elin’s curt reply.
She linked her arm with mine and walked with me to my back patio. She updated me on the details of her coming show. The curator had several good ideas about how to display some of the less-traditionally shaped pieces, including the grand piano, which she had modified to look like a shark while still maintaining the tone quality. After working with the curator, Elin was now convinced that the show would maintain the feeling of lightness and usability of her pieces while still highlighting the stunning art of her work. The stress which had been consuming her recently must have decreased since her tone was noticeably happier than the last few days.
While Elin and I caught up, David went to the kitchen to pour her a glass of wine. She took it gratefully, then paused to look at him.
“And how are you, David?” she asked.
“Pretty good. Like everyone else, I have been busy with work and other duties.”
“Other duties—like being the only real Alpha in a werewolf pack?” Elin asked.
David cocked his head slightly at her response. “I’m not sure what you are trying to imply. If you are saying that I’m the only werewolf-born Alpha of the pack, then I agree with you. But it seems to me that you are implying something about Freya’s role in the pack. Could you explain what you mean, please?” His reply was pitched perfectly into an innocent question. I would have gotten snappy at Elin’s passive-aggressive statement, but by confronting it head on, he had taken a lot of the emotional charge out of her words. I needed to try that strategy more.
Elin looked a bit embarrassed. “Sorry. That was a loaded and inappropriate comment. But I’m worried about you, Freya. You have gotten yourself into a bunch of trouble recently and I don’t see an easy way out.”
“Thanks for the concern Elin, but I’m an adult now, and I’m a supernatural myself. Trouble comes with the t
erritory.”
“I suppose, but I’ll always be your older sister. And I’ll always worry about you.”
“But you seem more worried than normal.”
“There’s a dark cloud hanging over you. I don’t pretend to have supernatural powers or visions, but my intuition says that you are in deeper than you realize.”
The screen door creaked open behind me, then slammed shut. I turned to see Gina grabbing a porch pillar as she jumped and twisted to land gracefully at least three feet from the porch steps. It was a remarkable display of agility and I wondered if she had some sort of gymnastics training or if it was a display of werewolf ability. I suppose I could be jealous of such skills but the way I figured it, I could fly, and that pretty much trumped anything.
“I thought San Luis was supposed to have perfect weather. What’s this about a dark cloud?” Gina asked, joining the three of us.
To Elin’s credit, her response to Gina seemed genuinely civil. They chatted nicely about school, and everything was pleasant for a moment. Then Elin asked Gina about her plans for the future. I hadn’t asked the question myself since the present seemed like enough trouble for the moment, but I was curious.
Gina wrinkled her nose at the question. “I dunno. SLO seems nice and all, but I don’t know if it’ll ever be home.”
“Shall I remind you that you committed to the San Luis Obispo pack just a few days ago,” David responded in a casual tone, but I could sense the edge underneath. “As your Alpha, I take my role seriously. I have sworn to protect you and care for you. To hear you say that you aren’t committed to this town concerns me.”
“Oh, yeah,” she said with a dismissive wave of her hand. “I know and I’m committed to this pack and all. All I’m saying is that I miss my family and everything I grew up with. I’d like to see them again sometime.”
I heard a faint snort from Elin, but I couldn’t understand what her issue with Gina was. The kid had lost everything she ever knew and was forced to move someplace new. Of course she would miss her old home. And as for her attitude—it wasn’t the greatest, but again, she was a teenager. It came with the territory.
