He had to catch his breath for a moment to not drown in the wash of emotions that swelled inside.
After the meal came the presents. Koko and Hakan had each gotten him something small. Mia and Cameron gave as if it were Christmas. Damien barely opened his mouth beyond saying thanks. He concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other.
They turned off the lights, and Cameron came out of the kitchen with a cake. The air turned to song. Damien sat there, staring ahead, head and chest full.
He stared at the candles as the song ended.
There wasn’t a single realistic thing he could think of wishing for that he didn’t already have.
The swell died down. The dining room and kitchen were cleaned up. Olive was taken home.
Damien lay on Hakan’s bed. He felt like an overstuffed suitcase. He concentrated on not bursting apart.
“Good day?” Hakan asked.
“Yeah,” Damien responded softly. “The best.”
**********
Life turned normal.
Yes, there were werewolves and nightmares and the ebb and flow of anxiety. But there were also routines and friends and growing up. Damien was almost part of a family. Not quite, but almost.
After Damien’s fifteenth birthday, Koko started hanging out with Olive and Damien at school.
“I can’t believe you like that character,” Olive scoffed, taking a drag of her cigarette. They were ensconced below the school bleachers, enjoying the spring air warmed by the nearing summer.
“She’s badass!” Koko protested.
“She’s a straight-up douchebag.”
“You’re a straight-up douchebag.”
“No arguments there, but it doesn’t change the fact the she’s one too. You’re in love with a douchebag.”
“I am not in love with—”
“Hey!” A man’s voice cut through Koko’s denial. The three of them turned to see one of the teachers approaching the bleachers.
“Shit,” Olive said, throwing her cigarette on the ground. She stumbled to her feet and bolted, Koko following close behind.
Damien was rooted to the ground.
He watched the angry teacher bend below the stands and come towards Damien like it was happening to someone else.
“What are you doing here?”
“I’m—”
“Is that a cigarette?” the teacher asked.
Damien remained silent as the teacher bent to inspect the offending object. The cigarette burned with incriminatory wisps of smoke.
The teacher turned to Damien, grabbing his arm. “Come on,” he said, pulling Damien up.
Damien followed.
It had been a while since he had gotten in trouble. Not since the McKenzies.
Everything was blank and still inside him.
They had only walked for a few second before Olive ran towards them with a halting, “Hey!” The teacher stopped walking, pulling Damien to a stop.
“Olive,” the teacher said in a tone filled with a sarcastic, What a surprise.
“Yeah. Me. Damien’s got nothing to do with it. It was my cigarette,” she said. A protest lumped inside Damien’s throat.
“He was there, wasn’t he?” the teacher replied.
Olive scowled. “So?”
“So, you’re both coming with me.”
“He didn’t even—!”
“I wouldn’t make this worse if I were you,” the teacher warned.
“Fine,” Olive bit out after a moment. “But let go of his fucking arm.” She knocked the hand away from Damien before the teacher could follow the order. He opened his mouth, looking incensed, but then his eyes flicked behind them.
“The third musketeer. Let’s go, Koko. You’re joining the field trip.”
Damien turned to look at Koko’s approaching form, her face stony. His stomach dropped.
The four of them walked in silence towards the principal’s office. The teacher sat them down outside the room and told them he was going to call their parents.
“Foster carers, genius,” Olive snapped.
The teacher clenched his jaw. “Foster carers, then,” he repeated. The lack of apology was noted.
“This is bullshit,” Olive said when he left. Damien didn’t reply. There were no words in his head. There wasn’t anything in there at all.
They were taken into the principal’s office together. Despite Olive’s attempts, they weren’t given an opportunity to speak. They were sternly reminded of the no-smoking-on-school-grounds policy, followed by a rant about the dangers of smoking. They were given detention as a warning for future suspension if it happened again.
“What about—did you call our parents and carers?” Koko asked.
“They have been informed, and a letter will be sent home with you,” the principal replied.
Damien shut his eyes for a moment.
This was it.
The rest of the day was a haze. Olive stopped him between lessons, holding his arms.
“Dude, I’m sorry. But it’s gonna be okay. Your foster carers are okay, right? They’re not gonna do anything weird?”
“No. They would never.”
“Okay, then. You’re good. It’s gonna be fine. Stop…looking like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like…just, it’s fine, Damien. Don’t freak.”
“I’m not,” he said. He wasn’t feeling anything at all.
Damien wondered where they would send him next. It would be Oak House, if he were lucky.
Mia was the one to pick them up after school, expression stern.
“We’ll talk when we get home,” she told them, tying the noose around Damien’s neck. Hakan looked at Koko and Damien, frowning.
“What happened?” he asked Damien, not bothering to whisper. Damien shrugged. Hakan looked at Koko, who made a tell you later gesture. Hakan’s frown only deepened.
When they arrived at the house, Hakan was sent upstairs as Koko and Damien sat on the couch. Mia sat on the coffee table, facing them.
“Okay. What happened?” Mia asked. They remained silent. “Guys. Explain.”
“It was nothing!” Koko burst out. “We were hanging under the bleachers.”
“And?”
“And nothing.”
“So that cigarette was a figment of Mr. Edison’s imagination?”
“There might have been a cigarette involved.”
“Olive, I presume, unless you’ve figured out the trick to rid yourself of the smell,” Mia said.
Koko and Damien fell silent again.
Mia sighed. “I expected more from both of you.” The disappointment in her voice cut through Damien in a sudden stab.
“We didn’t even do anything!” Koko protested.
“Yes, you did. You both knew that Olive shouldn’t be smoking, especially on school grounds. You joined her, and in that act broke the rules right along with her. You are complicit, Koko, both of you. Life isn’t only about your own actions, but the ones you participate in tangentially. The ones you allow. There are two types of evil in—”
“Oh my God, Mom! Evil? That is so extra.”
“You might think I’m being overdramatic, but your actions matter, Koko. The little things pile up. You can’t make excuses and pretend you are not part of the world around you. You are partly responsible for what happened today, and it’s disappointing to me that you’re not owning up to it. If it really was only Olive, then maybe she’s not someone you two should be spending time wi—”
“No.” It took Damien a moment to realize the word had come out of his mouth. “I…sorry. But. She. She’s just…she’s good. She’s a good person. We broke the rules, and that’s bad. But she’s good. She’s good.” He didn’t know how to explain it further. Olive was rebelling against things that Mia and Koko couldn’t understand, not fully.
Silence fell. Damien hunched into himself.
“You’re right. I’m sorry, that’s not what I meant. I just…I want you to be able to s
tand up and say something when you see something that isn’t right.”
“Oh my God, Mom, it was smoking, not murder.”
“It’s smoking, and then it’s drugs, and then theft, and then—”
“You cannot be serious!”
“I am being very serious. I’m not saying that’s what’s gonna happen in this instance, but behaviours escalate if you don’t challenge them.”
“We—”
“Koko. Do not test my patience. I know smoking is not the end of the world. Listen to what I am saying. You got detention today. Next time, it would be suspension. Whether you like it or not, continuing with the behaviour you showed today could affect your lives. It doesn’t matter if smoking is a big deal or not, if you think it is or it isn’t. The school system will punish you nonetheless. Do you understand what I’m saying? You need to be aware of the context you live in, whether you agree with its rules or not.”
“Oh, so we should just do whatever society says? If it’s, like, you can own slaves—”
“Koko. Enough. You can tell the difference between a rule that is oppressive and one that is simply constrictive. Children cannot be allowed to smoke willy-nilly! And you comparing that to the allowance of owning slaves is completely out of line,” Mia said.
Koko didn’t reply, looking down.
“You are both grounded. No machines for the rest of the day. You’ve gotten detention, so be thankful I’m not extending the consequences further. But, trust me, that won’t be the case if it happens again. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” Koko bit out. Damien remained silent.
“Damien?” Mia prompted.
Damien swallowed. “Am I leaving?” he asked quietly.
There was a moment of confused silence.
“Leaving where?” Mia asked.
“Leaving…going back. To…Oak House. Or wherever.” There was a moment of stillness, before Mia’s hands wrapped around his where they rested on his knees. Damien twitched in surprise but didn’t pull away.
“Damien.…No. Of course not. You’re…there are very few forces strong enough to make you leave our home. Your home. The only one I can think of right now is if you ask to go. You can misbehave, you can get caught smoking under the bleachers, you can be angry and sad and anything in between, but you are part of this home. You’re not going anywhere,” Mia said softly but emphatically.
Damien’s eyes burned.
“Okay,” he said simply.
He was too old to cry about this. Sometimes, he felt like life had weathered him into a shape beyond his years. Others, it was like he was stuck at ten years old, with fears that belonged to another age.
“Come here,” Mia said, pulling him into a hug.
“As if anything could keep you away from us, doofus,” Koko said. Damien choked on a laugh against Mia’s shoulder.
“Damien, I love you very much. We all love you. You must know that,” Mia said.
Damien felt all the air in his chest be squeezed out. “I…” He couldn’t say it, it was too big. And, yet, “I love you too.” The words came out of the core of him.
Mia squeezed him tight. “Unless you want to go, we are not letting you go,” Mia said quietly.
Damien closed his eyes and tried to believe her.
*****
“I guess you heard all that?” Damien asked as Hakan’s door closed behind him.
Hakan shrugged, sitting cross-legged on his desk chair. “Sorry. I just…wanted to make sure nothing serious had happened.”
“That wasn’t serious?”
There was a pause. “I get that it was serious to you.”
“But not to you.”
“Well…you got caught smoking. Not even that—caught near someone who was smoking. Like…I mean, I get that you don’t like getting into trouble.”
“You make me sound like a square.”
“Okay, grandpa.”
“Shut up,” Damien said, throwing himself on Hakan’s bed. There was another stretch of silence.
“You know we’re not letting you go, right?” Hakan asked quietly.
Damien stared at the ceiling. “I get that you guys believe that now. But…you don’t know.”
“Know what? What is there to find out that you think would make us, what, kick you out?” Hakan said, frustration bleeding into his voice.
Damien chewed on his lip. “I don’t know how to put it into words, man. It’s just, like…the way of the world. You don’t…you belong here in a way I don’t. It’s just the way it is. You were born into this family. You have a pack bond. It’s like…okay, it’s like your Ousía is tied to your family. That’s a hard bond to break. Mine isn’t. It just isn’t. All I’ve got is words. Do you get how easy those are to break? It’s, like, physics. One thing is stronger than the other, and there isn’t anything you can do to change that. You can tell me all day long that foam is stronger than rock, but it’s not. It just isn’t.” Damien closed his eyes in the following quiet.
“I think that’s a false equivalence, D. Like…take people who, like, okay, like in places where homosexuals can’t get married. Their relationships aren’t less than the heterosexuals who can and do get married. That tie, that contract or whatever, the fact that it’s more difficult to dissolve one than the other, doesn’t actually make the bond of the marriage stronger than the bond of the relationship that doesn’t include marriage. This isn’t rocks and foam. This is—people. We love you, and—”
“Okay. Jesus, stop,” Damien said, running his hands through his hair. He took a deep breath. “I get what you’re saying.”
“But you don’t agree.”
“I don’t disagree with your theory.”
“But—”
“It’s not that easy. I don’t wanna talk about it. It’s just not that easy. I can’t make myself believe. I’m, like, I’m sorry. I don’t know what to tell you. Can we drop it?”
Damien closed his eyes, pressing his palms against them. He heard Hakan sigh slowly.
“I get why…I mean, after everything you, you know, went through, I get that. But. Maybe, you should try talking back to whatever is telling you that this isn’t real, instead of agreeing with everything it says.”
Silence.
If he did that…if Damien did that, and it turned out that he had been right to be cautious all along, he’d be left open. Vulnerable. It was easy for Hakan to trust something that had never broken him. Damien simply knew better.
“Okay,” Damien said.
He had no idea if it was a lie.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Time slipped by. It’d been a long time since it treated Damien so kindly.
Summer arrived with a swell of heat, evaporating the school days into a stretch of freedom.
Damien and Koko were allowed to invite Olive to the house, and the three of them would spend their time hidden in the cave of Koko’s room or out in the forest, seeking trouble and not often finding it.
At seventeen, Hakan had his own group of friends and would often be out with them. Some days, however, it would be him and Damien out in the wild.
They picked a Wednesday to go to one of the further, smaller lakes, unoccupied by other pack members. By the time they reached their destination, Damien was sweating through his shirt and panting. Hakan, and his asshole werewolf Ousía, were barely affected. They stepped onto the long, wooden dock that pierced the circle of the lake, supported on creaky stilts that poked from the water.
“I need to get into the water right freaking now,” Damien said. Hakan looked over to him, smirking. “And shut your face, too,” he grumbled. Hakan snorted, setting their stuff down and taking out their towels.
“Last one in is a loser,” Hakan said, stripping off his shirt.
Damien threw a shoe at him. “You’re on.”
The cool water was a blessing. Damien felt everything in him realign as he threw himself into the deep. He stayed under the surface for as long as his lungs let him, feeling himself float.
>
“Jesus, thought you’d died,” Hakan said as Damien surfaced.
“Drama queen,” Damien said, rolling his eyes.
“First one to the centre wins,” Hakan said, smiling mischievously.
“Oh, yeah, sure Wolf-Man. That’s a fair race. I’ll see you there in thirty minutes. Let the poor human drown.”
“And you call me a drama queen,” Hakan said, but he kept pace with Damien as they swam towards the floating island in the middle of the lake.
There in the water, in the cool amidst the heat, Damien watched Hakan haul himself up onto the swaying surface of the artificial island. Watched his brown skin in the light, the way water streamed between the animal movement of his shoulder blades. His dark hair was plastered to his head, his neck. He looked back and his dark eyes were as bright as the sun.
Damien didn’t know if he was floating or drowning.
These feelings weren’t new. They had been trembling awake for months. But in that sunlit moment, they coalesced into something tangible. Something Damien could feel in the pit of his stomach, a shuddering creature as new as it was ancient.
Damien closed his eyes and let himself be swallowed by the black water around him. The world muffled and lost shape. He waited until the burning in his lungs was worse than the one in his stomach.
He surfaced and gasped for breath.
They made a competition out of jumping from the island and into the water. They swam around the lake and Damien watched as Hakan cut through the water like a human would never be capable of doing. The water swayed into waves around the werewolf, reacting to his force.
When Damien tired, they soaked up the sun on the dock. Damien tried not to notice how the water evaporated from Hakan’s skin. He prayed that, as a teenage boy, he smelt of arousal seventy percent of the time, and any affection that surfaced would be taken as friendship.
Whatever was happening to Damien, its manifestation into reality was impossible. It had to stay hidden, even in this summer sun.
“Man, how can you drink that?” Hakan complained as Damien took a sip of his coke.
In This Iron Ground (Natural Magic) Page 14
