His words warmed my icy cheeks, and my lip flooded with blood as I bit it, feeling my eyes shine. The red coat, his blue coat, and the cyan glow of a dark day on snow painted a strong image in my mind of us standing here under the tree. It captured itself as a memory, and I knew that no matter what grew between us, I would always think of this as that sweet moment I saw the real Luther. I would hold on to that, as tight as I could.
“We should get back.” He cast his eyes downward from my prying gaze and seemed to grow smaller in front of me. “A storm is on the way.”
The sky gave no indication of such, but then Luther was a much older wolf than anyone alive today, and I knew to just trust it when a wolf said the weather was changing. I couldn’t feel it myself, but I could feel the strange tingle of dread coming from Luther.
“Will you come back to my room—read one of my stories?” I asked, and a part of me actually wanted him to. On one side, the strategizing me was testing the waters and mapping out this future where I was on his arm, not locked away; and on the other side, the stupid, malleable young girl inside me was trying to fall for him—despite how deeply evil she knew he was. If the stories weren’t enough—marrying little girls, killing families—the ‘something’ about him screamed it from the mountains. So when he agreed to return to my room, I was filled with an equal mix of dread and excitement.
***
He was in my room. I couldn’t believe it. He, who I had grown up hearing about, wondering about. He, who I had dreamed about ever since my parents and I decided I would be put forth for Selection. He, who I had married and still knew nothing about. He was in my room, right across from me at the marble dining table, flipping through page after page of my first ever novel.
A breath of consideration lifted his chin and he looked at me, slowly closing the final page over. “You have had no formal training?”
I shook my head.
“Speak when you are spoken to,” he demanded harshly.
“Um…” My voice croaked because I hadn’t used it in so long. “Um, no. Only what I learned at school.”
Luther laid the handwritten novel flat on the table and sat back, pushing it gently away with two fingers.
“What’s wrong with it?” I asked, sliding it closer to me. It still smelled like him—an ancient scent of lavender and roughly cut sandalwood mixed with paper and ink. “Don’t you like it?”
“Just the opposite, in fact.” A fist sat at the entrance of his mouth, narrowed eyes sitting on my face. “You have quite a talent, April.”
I couldn’t help but smile.
“You can wipe that look off your face,” he said, standing up. “It means nothing. It can mean nothing. Talent or none, you will never publish a book.”
But the look didn’t wipe off my face. Not even a little bit. Luther could never understand. I was young. Modern young. And so I had an aurora of hope and possibility teeming around me like a second soul from the day I was born. Nothing was ever impossible. Not if it was true: if my little book was actually good.
He jumped involuntarily when he looked to find me suddenly at his side, loose sheets of paper in hand. I didn’t wait, or ask, I just threw my arms around his neck and hugged him. “Thank you.”
“Why are you thanking me?” he asked, trying to pry me away. “In fact, why are you embracing me? I just told you no.”
“Yes, but you also said you liked it.” I finally let go and took a step back, eyes going to his chest—to where I felt the solidity under my body as I’d hugged him. He worked out. He had a very good physique, and that malleable girl inside of me got a sudden and very raw rise of adult emotions—like nothing I’d ever felt. Primal urges. The kids at the bonfire talked about it—the attraction of wolf to wolf. Of wolf to alpha. It was real. And it was awesome.
Luther exhaled heavily and shut his eyes, shaking his head.
“What is it?” I put the novel down, stepping in to him to feel that… pressure again. “What’s wrong?”
His hand lifted slowly to my shoulder, moving down smoothly over the length of my arm. “You are a remarkably sweet girl, April.”
I took that to mean I was in his favor, but I wasn’t going to push it by making him aware of it just yet. It had to be a secret—even from him. If I pointed it out, it’d be like he was standing on a rope over a cliff and then suddenly realized he was afraid of heights. He could not be made aware that he was falling for me.
“You know, I kinda think you’re pretty sweet too,” I offered instead.
Wrong thing to say. He whipped his hand back and cold eyes opened in place of the warm ones, that bi-polar bear surfacing again. “This has gone too far.”
“What has?” I asked, eyes pleading as he backed away.
“This is why I cannot be friends with my wives, April.” He opened the door. “I cannot allow this.”
“Allow what?”
“Take this as a warning, Miss Redwood.” He stalked briskly closer, leaning so it looked as though he towered over me, his eyes and voice like the cold edge of a knife. “If you make another attempt to win my heart, to so much as even befriend me, I will have you tied naked in the courtyard and flogged. Do I make myself clear?”
I tried to speak, but only a squeak came out. In the bathroom Max barked loudly, sensing the same awful tension in the air that I could feel. I just nodded instead, about to cry, and covered my mouth as Luther left my room, slamming the door.
Part Three: Chapter Six
Now You Can Fly
When another near-full moon came around, there was only one person I trusted to look after Max while I was out on my run. He probably didn’t need a sitter, but I wasn’t willing to risk getting on Luther’s bad side when Max chewed up the toilet seat again.
Luther, apparently, wouldn’t be coming with me this time, and I’d have the two ugly henchman on my tail, literally, so I wasn’t free to run anywhere I wanted; and yet there was something so profoundly freeing about being in wolf form that none of it mattered to me. Not tonight.
When I came out from my closet, Max and Theo were still lying on the floor where I’d left them, playing like two puppies. Theo wasn’t a dog person last month, but I think Max had managed to convert him.
“Has my father come to see you?” Theo said, picking Max up to cuddle him. He bit Theo’s hand playfully, giving it all he had, but was still no match for the wolf.
“No. Why?”
“His previous wife Anne is due to have her last child any day now. Once it’s born, he will call you to his bedchamber to complete the union.”
“Great,” I said sarcastically, sitting down on my bed. “Just when I was starting to think he hated me enough to never touch me.”
Once, I feared the completion of our union, but now I saw it as a way to get closer to Luther again, to at least be in the same room as him. I just wasn’t sure I could forgive him for threatening to flog me, though—for meaning it. My head was still spinning from our last moment spent together, and as much as I looked forward to that intoxicating feeling of the primal connection I’d felt that day, my feelings were still a bit raw and hurt. Despite that, and as messed up as it was, I knew I needed to forgive him and try to find a way to love him for the sake of my future.
“It had to happen sometime, Red.” He put Max down and laughed a bit when the heavy paws spread too far apart on the slippery floor, taking Max down with them. “But, for what it’s worth, I think you won him over.”
Yeah, for, like, two minutes. And what good did it do me? As soon as he realized we were getting along, he fled. “How does winning him over make anything better?”
“Because he hasn’t cared for someone since Freya. I know he told you about her.”
“That was the wife from the time period we’ve all been stuck in since she died, right?”
“The very same.” He smiled, reflective. “Maybe you can change his heart, Red—bring him into this century.”
“What if I don’t want to?” Anymore.
“But you told me not to try to win his affections.”
“And yet you seem to have done just that.” He motioned to the puppy, as though he was proof.
I sighed, offering Max my silk slipper when he came to my foot. He chewed on it a few times and then laid down, head on his paws, exhausted. “He threatened to strip me naked and flog me if I tried,” I told Theo.
He cleared his throat, an awkward silence dangling in the air. “Right. Uh…”
“You don’t need to say anything. Just forget I told you.”
“You would do well to take your own advice, Red. He won’t hurt you. He has had plenty of opportunities to punish you for insubordination, and yet he has not taken action. Perhaps you frightened him—connected him to emotions he has not felt in a century,” he suggested, and he was dead right. That’s exactly what had happened. But that didn’t make it okay. “Now, on a more joyful note, where will you run tonight?”
“Wherever the goons let me.”
“Goons?” He laughed.
“Flotsam and Jetsam.” I jerked my head to the door, as though they were out here, even though they weren’t. Yet. “Why won’t Luther run with me tonight?”
“He’s a private man. He prefers to keep this time sacred.”
I guess I could understand that, especially since he’d been forced to show me a more vulnerable side of himself when he cried in agony as he turned last time. “Does that happen to you?”
“What?”
“Do you Shed?”
“Yes.”
“Does it hurt?”
“Yes.”
“Do your sons Shed?”
“No.”
I bit my lip. “So... will my sons?”
A flash of sadness flickered in his eyes for a brief moment. “I do not know. You are mortal, so most likely they will not, but one can never be certain.”
I lay back on the bed, sprawling out. “I don’t want to have children if that’s going to happen to them.”
“You don’t have a choice.”
“I do,” I said passively, studying the details in the ceiling. “Luther can’t force me.”
“He can, Red. And it wouldn’t be the first time.”
“What!”
He shook his head, sighing. “Look, you are his wife. He won’t tolerate disobedience. At the very least, if you threaten his bloodline by refusing to reproduce, he can threaten people you love.”
Yep, then there was that. I sighed too. “My life sucks, Theo.”
“Yes,” he said, standing above me with Max in his arms. “But tonight it doesn’t have to—just for a while.” Theo grabbed my hand and made me get up. “Now go,” he added. “I’ve given up my night in wolf form so you can run and forget everything for a while, not so we can stand around talking about the inevitable.”
His kind face softened a little more when I smiled at him. “Thanks, Theo.”
“Any time, my darling stepmother.”
I laughed, putting on my bine-rune and giving Max’s head a rub before I left.
***
A post-run morning felt like how Mom described a hangover. I groaned when Katy came in, cursed the Sunday delivery, and pulled the covers back over my head. Tonight would be the last phase of the full moon, another chance to run, but right now I felt like I could easily sleep through it.
I stuck my finger in my mouth, feeling the furry sensation, and groaned, recalling the taste of the rabbit I ate last night. It seemed like a great idea at the time. Now, I just felt dirty. And kind of murderous.
“Come on, up we get.” Katy whacked my leg through my covers, bustling about my room. “Time to be human.”
Even Max didn’t agree. He lifted his head only enough to growl at her as she tried to shoo him off the bed.
“His Lordship will expect you to be on your best behavior today. There’s talk he may call on you tonight—if he decides to stay at the mansion.”
“What?” I sat up, cold with that sudden waking.
“Mm-hm.” She nodded, opening my curtains. “On account of Miss Cooper having had her babe last night. A girl, poor thing.”
“What’s wrong with it being a girl?”
“His Lordship don’t like the girls, Red. Remember? Everyone knows that.”
“Oh, right.” I pouted. That poor baby. “Katy, what happens with the baby gir—”
We both started at the hard knock on my door then. Katy, hand over her thumping heart, laughed as she opened it. A stony man with a big nose stood there. I took it by his weird suit and the high angle of his chin that he was the butler. He pushed a brass tray into the room and Katy took a letter from the top, closing the door after.
“What is it?”
“Mail.” She handed it to me, leaping out of her skin when I flew off the bed to snatch it.
“It’s from my mom!” I ripped it open, tearing the top as I did. When I drew it from the envelope, I had to hold the torn bit of paper back on awkwardly to read the first words:
April,
I want to tell you that I’m fine—that I haven’t missed you and this house isn’t empty and hollow now that you’re gone—but that would be a lie. I know you miss me too and I know I should be telling you to be strong, so be strong. I’m happy that you’re happy.
I got the letter Luther sent; he told me you’re doing fine. That he got you a dog! So I know you’re happy now, if not before.
I’m doing fine too. Aside from missing you. I just started a new job at the local hospital, so no more long commute every day. Yay! I work with a lot of old people, but they’re so calm and sometimes so reflective. I feel like I’ve learned a lot about life in just the past few weeks there.
It’s hard to believe you’ve been gone for two months.
They told me not to write you for the first few months, but they have allowed it on this one occasion due to the circumstances. I’m not just writing to tell you I love you, April. I saw Alex in the churchyard yesterday.
My heart skipped a beat. I could picture his face so clearly now after seeing his name written down, but it shattered when I read the next words:
I’m sorry, sweetie. George died.
“No.” I dropped the letter, my flesh going cold all over my body. I didn’t need to read the rest. I didn’t want an explanation or a reason, and yet I felt I knew already. The seizures. The seizures took him.
The rage and sadness built up inside of me until it made my fingers into fists. I ran for my bed and buried my face in the pillows, gasping for air as the weight of the news bore down on me, crushing my lungs.
“Red, are you all right?” Katy asked.
I couldn’t get the words out. Alex’s face kept flashing into my head, as if all these months forgetting what he looked like had damaged my brain, and now it was all I could see. Poor Alex. How could George have left him like that? How could he get through this without me?
I needed to be there. I just needed to be with him right now, and there was nothing in this world that could make that happen.
As I bawled my eyes out into the pillow, I heard Katy pick up the scraps of paper and then gasp. A second later, she climbed onto the bed beside me and put her arm across my back.
“I’m so sorry, Red. This is awful news.”
***
After a while, my pillow wet and my toes numb with cold, Max’s heavy paws pressed the backs of my legs and he scampered up my body and sat on my butt, making me laugh for a moment. And in that moment, as I forgot my pain, I remembered the strange birds again.
“He can fly, you know?” I told Katy.
“George?”
“Yes.” I rolled over, much to Max’s disgust, and wiped my cheeks as I got up. Outside the day could not have been grayer, as if maybe it was crying for George too. But there, swallowing the sky in a black flock, birds gathered over the sun.
Maybe it was a sign. Maybe it was a random occurrence—just birds out hunting. But
if Alex had taught me anything, it was to take the randomness of life and find the magic in it. No, to believe the magic in it.
George became just a memory for me the day I left. I knew I would never see him again, but somehow, knowing he was no longer in this world was more unbearable than knowing I’d never see him again; and yet somehow, knowing where he went made me feel lighter.
I ran to my desk and took out my inkpot and two quills, meeting Katy by the window and handing her one. We didn’t say a word to each other then. I put my wrist against the wall and drew a bird, and Katy did the same, both of us working in companionable silence until the morning sun sat higher in the gray sky. Each bird I drew, for me, was a memory I had of George—bringing a smile as I left it there on the wall, a permanent reminder of a life that once was.
George was gone now, but he still mattered to me. Alex still mattered, and I hoped that I still mattered to them. I wanted to go to Alex and tell him that I was sorry—I wanted to remind him that George could fly. That he never had to come back to the ugly world again. And that was a very small consolation to be taken from such a tragic death, I know. George could have had a good life and I hated my thoughts for trying to find any positive in this. Truth be told, there were none. None at all.
“Do you really believe it?” Katy asked, laying her quill down and wiping her inked hands on her apron.
“Believe what?”
“That George is with the strange birds now?”
I wanted to, but as I walked to the windowsill and looked outside, the tears of truth blinded me for a moment. I had no idea where George was. Those worlds were only stories, and they all seemed so far away now that I wasn’t sure any of them even happened. I wasn’t even sure Alex was real. But the pain was. Knowing George was gone and knowing I couldn’t be there, that was real. Death was real. Were the strange birds real?
Red: The Untold Story Page 17
