by Melissa Haag
The four nodded and got to work.
“Can everyone else grab the furniture and move it out to the yard? The stove and the old refrigerator can stay in here.”
While we all worked together, I made sure to stay close to Charlene. I wanted her to start feeling safe around me.
Within minutes, the room was cleared of everything but the odd items and the bags. She and Mary sorted through some of the oddities and found several old window frames still with whole glass.
“If they don’t fit, I thought we could cut the glass to work in some of the windows here,” Mary said.
“Perfect,” Charlene said with a smile. “Anton could probably do that since he helped us before.”
The joy I felt at seeing her smile again died quickly at the sound of Anton’s name.
Mary shook her head. “He left yesterday. There was no point in staying. He already had his chance.”
“Then why is...never mind,” Charlene said with a quick glance at me.
Mary grinned. “I’ll see if someone else is willing to come in and help with that.”
“Before you do that, what’s in the bags?”
“Clothes,” Mary said.
“From the junkyard?”
“Yeah. Just as we were coming in, some church group was leaving. They had a sale and brought what didn’t sell along with some of the stuff they didn’t think was good enough to put out. We took the bags before they hit the gross stuff. Wini said that even if some of the items are stained, spare clothes are better than no clothes at all.”
How much clothing could a human possibly need, I wondered as I looked at the bags.
“Let’s carry these outside before we check out the furniture. Maybe someone will be willing to help us sort the clothes.”
Gregory and I did most of the carrying. Once they were outside, she explained how she wanted the clothing sorted. Male vs. female. Adult vs. child. As I listened, I realized the clothes weren’t for Charlene. They would be for any of our kind when they came to sanctuary. I doubted the female clothing would get much use beyond what Charlene and Mary would wear.
Once the willing males were working, Charlene started sorting through the furniture. Badly broken items were to be used as spare parts for mildly broken items. The repaired pieces were then passed to another table where they were painted. I moved things when needed but stayed close to Charlene and listened to her.
Charlene’s knowledge as she walked around answering questions, surprised me. What amazed me more was the way she had everyone working together.
When she and Mary went inside, Gregory, Grey and I followed. The room was once again empty, except for the stove, metal chest, and the three dressed rabbits on the table.
“Dad and Paul went hunting,” Mary said when Charlene looked at them.
“The rabbits are perfect. We should be able to make a stew for the group outside.”
Gregory and I shared a look while she moved to the pump. She wanted to cook for them? For us?
“Do you know how to get that stove working?” she asked Gregory.
“Winifred said it shouldn’t be too hard. We’ll need to set it near an outside wall. There’s a pipe that has to go from the back out of the wall so smoke doesn’t fill the room. Winifred thought she could walk us through it.”
“We’ve seen enough stoves to figure it out,” Grey said.
“Excuse me,” a voice called.
I turned and saw a Mated pair standing in the doorway. Seeing the heavily pregnant female shocked me. Females expecting cubs never came out. They stayed hidden in their dens because it wasn’t safe in the human world for them.
“We heard about the changes here,” the male said, meeting my gaze. “My Mate wants to stay until the cub is born if that’s all right.”
They wanted to stay here?
“Of course,” Charlene said, moving toward the couple. “My name is Charlene, and this is Mary.”
The man glanced at me again before looking at Charlene. I looked at her, too. She’d done this. The changes we’d all thought dangerous had brought an expecting Mated pair to sanctuary’s door.
“This is Ann, and I am Leif.”
“Mary, would you be willing to show Ann and Leif to one of the fixed rooms, and maybe Ann would like to pick a few things out from the stuff you brought back.”
News of this will spread, Gregory sent me.
It would. And as hopeful as this event was, I had no idea what that would mean for me and my chances of winning Charlene.
Mary happily chatted with Ann as the three left the room.
Charlene turned toward me.
“How long will it take to hook up that stove? Ann will probably want a hot bath, and that stove will make the job a lot easier.”
I could no longer challenge the way she took charge. Ann and Leif’s appearance had helped support Winifred’s theory. We needed Charlene.
“We need some kind of pipe to vent the smoke,” I said.
“Gregory, did you see any pipe at the junkyard?” she asked.
“We brought some back,” Grey said. “It should be around here somewhere.”
“See if you can find it and get the stove working. I’ll keep fixing lunch.”
Charlene’s motives confused me. I’d thought we were making this place better for her. Instead she was gathering clothes for more of my kind, worrying how to feed everyone over winter, and welcoming Mated pairs. I liked all of it, but I couldn’t figure out why she was doing any of it.
I watched her carry the pot to the fire then wrap the rabbits in a shirt. Her moves were focused and filled with purpose when she tossed the shirt wrapped carcasses into the water.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Making a broth for a stew base. My mom never used a shirt, but it should work the same and keep the little bones out of the stew while adding flavor.”
She turned to look at the rest of her supplies.
“This won’t be ready until closer to dinner. I don’t know what to feed everyone for lunch.”
I moved to her side and turned her away from the table.
“Charlene, we’ve fed ourselves our whole lives. You only need to worry about feeding yourself.”
Her eyebrows lifted.
“You need to stop thinking like that,” she said. “Each individual only thinking about themselves...it’s not helping. Winifred and Mary said your race is dying. Stop looking at your little groups as isolated families and start seeing the big picture. You all need to work together to find a way to survive. If you want to survive.”
She studied me a moment.
“Don’t you see?” she said with increasing frustration. “It’s not you who will suffer the most, but the generations after you if you don’t change your ways.” She turned back to the table. “I need to get something ready for Ann to eat.”
My fascination with her wasn’t just the pull anymore. It was Charlene. I’d never before met a human so…giving.
“Whether you know it or not, you were meant to come here,” I said. “We won’t change on our own. But maybe you will change us.”
I moved away to keep helping Grey and Gregory with the stove while watching her sort through the food.
Once the stove was ready, we lit a fire for her. Grey and I went outside to look for pots to hold the water she wanted to heat for Ann’s bath. While we were out there, I asked Henry if he and Paul could hunt again.
“They ate the rabbits?”
“No, Charlene is using them to cook dinner for everyone. She wants something to cook now for the expecting female.”
He was silent for a moment.
“My mate was like that. Caring about everyone. It’s how she died, Thomas. Keep an eye on Charlene and the new wolves who enter the camp.”
His troubling words weighed heavily on my mind as he turned and jogged to the woods.
That made me think of the family we found I sent to Grey who was beside me. Do you think something similar happene
d to his female?
I don’t know. You should have Gregory ask Mary about it…see if she had a sister.
I sent that message to Gregory then continued the search for something to hold water.
Well before the Mated pair returned to the kitchen, we had three steaming pots on the stove and a pheasant roasting on the fire beside a pot of rice which Charlene stirred. While Ann and Mary talked quietly near the double doors, Leif joined us by the window. We were watching the males outside continue to sort and repair the items in the yard.
“How long until the cub arrives?” Grey asked, looking at Ann.
“A few weeks. Less than a month, most likely. Thank you for allowing us in your territory.”
“Our territory?” I said, confused.
“We asked which pack was holding it. The male I spoke to said it was you,” he said, looking at me. “Since the other pack of three was listening to you.”
The other pack of three had to be Henry, Paul, and Mary.
“You’re welcome for as long as you’d like,” I said.
“It’s a relief to have some trusted males to help watch over her,” he said, lowering his voice. “That’s why I agreed to come.” He nodded toward the other corner of the room, away from the window. The heat was almost unbearable, but we moved with him to hear what he had to say.
“A few days back, we heard a courtesy howl. Normally, I go to check alone but Ann’s been more nervous because of the cub and wanted to come with me. The male was sick. Bones jutting from his patched fur. When he shifted to his skin, he looked even worse. He asked for permission to pass through my territory. The scent of his grief was overwhelming. I granted him permission to pass through, wanting him gone, but Ann felt pity for him and shifted to her skin to offer him food. He took one look at her belly and started crying. He was looking for his Mate. He said she was pregnant like Ann and had just disappeared. He was trying to find her. “
“Disappeared? No scent trail? What about their bonded link?”
“There was a trail, he said. But it was mixed in with other males. He thought someone took her. He tried reaching out to her, but…there was nothing.”
No one spoke. Nothing meant she was no longer alive.
“Did he report it to an Elder?”
Leif nodded.
“We’ll watch out for each other,” I said, setting a hand on his shoulder. Females were too precious not to protect. I glanced over to the stove to look at Charlene, but she wasn’t there. There was a pile of clothes inside the door. Just then, two males came in carrying a table, followed by a male with several chairs.
“I better go check on Charlene,” I said, as Mary slipped out the door. “We’ll all work together to keep an eye on the females.”
Leif nodded his thanks.
Outside, I spotted Charlene and Mary near a table that held a pile of different metal objects. They were watching some of the males move the pieces from the table to a spot near the path that lead to the road.
“Does anyone think we can build our own ladder? Something tall enough to reach the high windows so we can start boarding them up?” I heard Charlene ask as I walked toward them.
Several males disappeared into the trees, and Charlene turned toward Mary.
“We need more dishes. Bowls and spoons first. If we work together, we should eat together.”
Mary agreed and yelled out loud enough for the men in the trees to hear that they needed to find a bowl and spoon if they wanted to eat with Charlene.
From the trees, a thunderous crash echoed into the clearing, making Charlene jump a little as I joined them.
“Just the ladder,” I said.
She jumped again and spun to look at me.
“Where did you come from?”
“Inside,” I said, grinning at her startled expression. “What’s next?”
She tilted her head to study me, a very wolfy movement, and I grinned wider. If she was rubbing off on us, we were doing the same to her.
“When it’s just your pack, what do you do every day? What’s your routine?”
“We tend to sleep most of the day. At night, when it’s safer to move around, we scout the area and hunt.” I didn’t explain that my pack needed to move around only at night because of what we typically hunted.
“So coming here changed your sleep patterns?”
Unsure why she cared about our sleep, I shrugged and watched the males still in the yard. Since coming here, we’d adapted to Charlene’s patterns, unwilling to miss an opportunity to spend time with her.
“Some will leave for brief periods during the day to nap in the woods. We still prefer to hunt at night.” Because, despite Charlene, the danger humans presented remained. And now, it seemed, there was a growing danger from our own kind.
“All right. Then, what we do next is plan.” She turned and looked at the building. “This is going to be a lot of work, but once your kind hear what’s happening here, I think we’ll see more couples like Ann and Leif. We have eight rooms slightly weatherproofed. It would be ideal to replace the glass in the upper windows first to make more rooms habitable. For the rooms that are finished, we should try to have them equipped for whoever might appear. Blankets are a must. We should also try to put in some type of heavy curtain or drapery to keep out the cold.”
I didn’t miss the concern in her eyes when she mentioned the turn in weather.
“You seem very worried about the cold that is still months away,” I said.
“Time moves quickly, and I would prefer not to be caught unprepared. If there are spare furnishings, we can put them in the rooms, too. But my biggest concern is food. We’ll need a lot to keep everyone fed...if everyone is staying.”
“I think that will depend on whether or not you’re Claimed by then.”
She didn’t comment on that.
“Collecting metal to add to our recycling heap will help a bit with money, but we should think bigger. There are a lot of repairs this place is going to need. Any brave souls among you should try to find summer work with builders and carpenters.”
The movement in the yard slowed until even the birds fell silent. I could feel the disbelief and anger coming from some of the males. She seemed to sense it, too.
“We need to think of more than just today or tomorrow. Who knows how to make the windows airtight? Who knows how to replace the shingles when the roof starts to leak? Who knows how to create a wooden bed frame? Who knows how to add decorative carvings to furniture? None of you, I’m guessing. And why should you? Where’s the value in that knowledge for people who sleep during the day and hunt at night? There is no value for those people. But there is value for those who want to spend their winter building things to sell in spring. For people who want more than a life in the woods. For people who want to do more than just exist.”
Several males turned and walked away into the woods.
“You push too far,” I said quietly.
“I’m not pushing at all. I’m questioning your purpose and giving you ideas for possibilities. Only you decide your purpose. Not me.”
She gave me one last look then turned to walk away with Mary. I reached out to Winifred, knowing Mary would have already shared what was said.
How many have demanded she leave? I asked.
Three so far.
And your response?
It hasn’t changed. I’ll continue to encourage males to find jobs and integrate with humans. As for Charlene, she’s a potential Mate. I do have concerns about her intent, but it does not yet outweigh our need for her. None of this would be an issue if she were Claimed and Mated.
I’m working on that. I haven’t given up. The bite should have worked.
You goaded her into it. Humans are different. They need to be handled more gently.
I’m trying.
Try harder. For all our sakes.
I walked back inside and rejoined Grey and Gregory.
“I think she’s right,” Grey said softly.
&nbs
p; “Who?” I asked.
“Charlene. Look at what we did,” he said, motioning to the stove, “because of what we’d learned from our study of the humans. Imagine what we could do if we purposely learned from them.”
“I’m not saying she’s wrong,” I said. “But our hate of humans runs too deep to try to push us toward being like them. Winifred’s been trying that for years and it hasn’t won her any favor.”
Grey looked over at Charlene.
“You’re right. Charlene won’t have won any favor with what she said. But, it works to your advantage. She just thinned your competition.”
* * * *
Grey’s words proved true when only twelve men came inside for dinner. Charlene stood by the pot and ladled out a portion to everyone. Leif, Ann, Gregory and Mary sat together at a table and ate. The females talked and every male in the room listened. Just the sounds of their voices made the meal comfortable.
When we finished, we left our bowls by the sink and went outside with the rest. The tall trees muted the glow of the setting sun, casting the clearing into an early dusk. Gregory, Grey and I stood off to the side, to study the progress.
Zerek, who’d already been working on a tree, came over with two other males.
“Is there a way to make this sharp again?” Zerek asked, holding up his ax.
“Here, I’ll show you,” Gregory said.
He and Zerek started toward the building that held the tools, and the two other males turned toward me.
“While I was out pulling the next tree down, one of the mutts who left approached me,” one said quietly. “He’s trying to gather males who want her gone.”
Her. It was no mystery which female the males wanted to leave. Charlene had angered more than a few with her suggestion of work.
Grey, find Henry and Paul and see if you three can talk to those who are still angry.
He nodded and started north where the pair usually hunted.
“How many were with him?” I asked the two as Charlene stepped outside.
The man turned and watched Charlene walk toward the metal pile at the far end of the clearing.
“There was just the one,” his friend said.
Just then, a large group of furred bodies sprinted from the trees, the lead wolf’s gaze fixated on Charlene. A silent snarl pulled back his lips.
