by Drew VanDyke
“Really? That’s like, right around the corner.”
“But Blood Moons only happen once or twice a year. There’s about six months between. So, I was thinking about waiting a year. Give Will time to get acclimated to his new lifestyle.”
“Lifestyle? Ugh. I hate that word. Dad used to use that term to describe Elle and me. A lifestyle is about what kind of wine you like, not about sexual preference. Otherwise I’d have to ask when the all shifters around here are coming out of the closet. Because that’s gotta be a new minority frontier. Puts a new L in LBGTQIA…are there any more letters lately?”
I stuck my tongue out at her and she reached over with her pointer finger and touched it, zapping me.
“Ow!” I said around a mouthful of numb-tongue. “How’dyoudothath?”
“It’s a secret,” she said and she left me silent as she answered her phone, which had begun to ring.
When she came back, Amber said, “Well, that was weird.”
I gave her the “continue” sign.
“Rhonda wants to come visit over Halloween.”
“That’s not like Dad. He hates Halloween. Especially Halloween in Knightsbridge.”
“No, not Dad. Just Rhonda.”
“Really, what for?”
“She swore me not to tell Dad, but she’s coming for a convention.”
“Huh.”
My sister momentarily put on her City Manager’s Department hat. “Ashlee, the only convention in Knightsbridge over Halloween is for the Street Witches.”
“Since when is Rhonda interested in small town neighborhood watches led by people who want to keep downtown tourism viable and cruising Main Street safe for their teenagers?”
“You might as well know.” Amber looked around as if making sure nobody could hear us. “Though the Street Witches is a real community organization, a number of them are also real witches. The charity work happens, but it’s also a cover for the Wiccans, the Goddess Worshippers and the Magick practitioners in our midst. Elle and I have been assigned to provide oversight. We’re bringing in Adam’s firm for security, too.”
“But that means?”
“Our stepmother’s straying from the party line, which would be to have nothing to do with people like that.”
“What? No, really? ” No wonder she wants to keep her interest from my Dad. “Didn’t see that one coming.”
Now, let me tell you about our father’s wife.
Rhonda came into our lives after all the kids were grown. It was eight or nine years after Mom’s death and Dad had begun dating again, to mixed results I might add, after year five.
So, when he went looking for a new life-mate while Amber went to college and I bummed around Europe for a year, he wasn’t looking for a mom for his children. He was looking for a help-meet, as the Bible says. Which is great, because Rhonda loves him and wants to make him happy. Us? Not so much. While she has exquisite taste for her demographic and despite the overabundant love for all things pueblo, she isn’t the easiest person to be around.
And…up until this point, I’d never seen her take any initiative. She usually followed my father’s lead – and in Dad’s world, God is a dude, all three pieces. Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Not The Dude, of course.
Back in high school I’d once postulated that the Holy Spirit must be the feminine part of the Trinity and if humans were truly made in the image of God, “Male and Female created He them,” then it was just as valid to call God “Mother” as it was to call him “Father.” That didn’t fly any farther at the dinner table than it did in my evangelical Christian school, but I thought I’d made a good argument.
Anyway, back to Rhonda. To think that she was interested in pagan religions at best, or mastering the dark arts of wicked witchery at worst…well, this was the type of situation us supernatural siblings needed to keep an eye on.
“Halloween, huh?” I said. “That’ll make for an interesting holiday. Or, you could say no.”
“And lose this one chance to win the wicked step-witch of the Southwest over when I have it? Oh, hell no.”
“You know it’s a losing game you’re playing there.”
“Guess we’ll find out,” my sister finished for me, and then turned away, mumbling, “At least she and I will have something in common to talk about for once.”
I wondered at this, but I figured I’d find out later. Not my circus, not my show.
Chapter 2
So here it was Will’s first MoonFall and I wasn’t allowed to be there. I know, right? But Jackson said it wasn’t good for Will’s first change to be around me. Something about a lycanthrope’s first moon fever usually caused the human personality to be subsumed and the only thing left was wolf, which meant they were going to have to run herd on Will anyway and didn’t need little ol’ me as a distraction.
Darla and Twyla were going out of town but I’d have Luken and Elka with me, or Elka at least. Since Luken was male, he might be included in the run.
Anyway, Elle actually offered to sit with me during my change. Of course if she did, she would most likely have the boys bring her La-Z-Boy and a widescreen down into the pool house basement. While we wouldn’t be having any heart-to-hearts, she was good for ear scratches and tummy rubs, I figured.
Don’t ask me how that works, my sister’s partner and my wolf, but it did. I guess it was because she was a dog person. She seemed to find my lupine form easier to get along with than my human.
You know, I never thought about how it might be difficult seeing another version of her partner running around, but Elle was so shut down, I usually couldn’t get a read on her at all. Best poker face on the planet; probably comes from her days as a trial lawyer. It must be unnerving to have Amber in her head all the time. I know it is for me.
It didn’t end up mattering, though; I waved her offer to sit with me off, saying I had it handled. As expected, she just shrugged and went back to her ESPN.
Luken and Elka showed up after sunset. I’d made the change out on the hill behind the pool house and before the moon crested the horizon, and we’d settled in the basement cage. And no, I didn’t lock us in. After a decade of changes I was pretty much in control of what I did when I was wolfed out, which also meant I was totally to blame when I slipped out on the sleeping ulv to go watch my boyfriend on his first turn. I’d fed them well, so they were sated and logy, which made it easy.
I know it was wrong to get near them, but I swore I’d stay downwind of the pack and it only took me about an hour to reach the top of Mt. Rettig and lay down on top of a rock overlooking the men as they stood in a circle in the meadow below me, above the crest of the falls. As they did, Paula, the river goddess who guarded Rettig Falls, sang a Stephen Schwartz number from Godspell, Turn Back, Oh Man, but I was a woman so didn’t think it applied to me.
I know, I know. Talk about ignoring the obvious.
I don’t care what some people say; I love looking at the human form naked in all its glory. Jackson Wolfe, tall and handsome, with dark hair and a natural pelt that matched his fur, reminded me of Hugh Jackman, only he wasn’t as pretty and had more Native American in him. Don’t know how well that translates, but that’s what I’ve got.
Sullivan Kearney, on the other hand, is a much older silver fox, at least in human form. Sully made me think of Sam Elliott, compact form and lean muscles showing his years more than the rest of the brood as he changed.
Small and beefy Dex Watley – I have no one famous to compare – had cocoa-butter skin covered with black curly hair, reminding me of a Latin soccer player until he slipped into his camouflage covering as a wolf. Oh, and the Welsh brothers, Geoff and Neal Blalock, both smaller than Jackson, but built like beasts, with blue-black hair and fair skin, solid in flesh and fur.
And then there was Will, my Will Stenfield, younger than all of them and looking even more out of place with his pale English skin and farmer’s tan. Since he’d taken the bite, he’d sprouted more fur, but he was still the least h
airy of all of them. Even so, they were beautiful specimens, human and wolf alike – though I had yet to see Will slip the bonds of mundanity and show us his new nature.
They had told me that there might be some danger, it being his first turning, but Sully assured me that the pack magic should protect Will from the worst of it.
I sensed a presence nearby and felt the hand of my mother Anabelle, AKA Ghost Mom, settle on my head and scratch behind my ears. When I was lupine, I could pretty much feel her as if she was a live person, but when I was human the most I got was the impression of being caressed by a Jean Nate-scented marshmallow.
“Not the wisest choice, sweetheart,” she whispered in my ear, and I know she wasn’t commenting on my metaphor.
I stifled a whine.
“I know you, and I know why, but I hope you’re prepared for the consequences,” she said as she faded out.
Well, nobody’d ever accused me of being wise, so I stayed where I was and held my breath.
The wolves below began to howl and my ears perked up; something seemed wrong. I could feel the tingle of pack magic like ants digging into my fur and I chewed my tongue, resisting the urge to howl with them.
Will seemed to be having trouble with the change, the smell of fear telling me he was resisting. I knew this was going to happen, I thought. I know visions and premonitions are Amber’s territory, but at that moment I was glad I’d heeded my own doggie intuition. Will needed me.
I stood up to raise a howl, and all the voices of the pack died out as they turned to stare in my direction.
Will’s eyes shifted first and he dropped to all fours. I don’t normally pay attention to anyone’s change but my own, but this was Will’s first, and all I could think of was how incredibly scared he must be.
My heart went out to him and I whined as his body hit the dust and he rolled from fetal position into the most excruciating downward dog yoga pose I’d ever seen. Viscera poured off him as his skin split like cloth, the bloody bones of his spine cracked and reoriented themselves, waves of fur and new skin rushing to cover his form. He gave one last howl and gasp and collapsed.
The rest of the pack had shifted with him, and the wolves came forward to lick his pelt clean and welcome the new cub into their mix. Because that’s what he was. His body may be adult wolf, but his lycanthrope mind was young and new.
He rose on unsteady legs and the pack gave him some room. Then, one by one, they all sat on their haunches and began to howl. And of course, silly me, I howled with them.
Then I didn’t have time to think because Will the wolf joined the other males in a mad scramble up the hill toward me. Thank God experience and maturity beat newbie enthusiasm, ’cause the rest of the pack tore up the hill to surround me and place their bodies between Will and me.
At first, Will transmitted joy at seeing me, anger at being denied his mate, and then he vibrated with need. For what? I didn’t know. Doggie Sex? Hunger and the lust to kill something while its blood ran down his throat? Or something entirely different?
Will’s muzzle leaked fluid and his barks and howls threw slobber all over us. The rest of the pack stood silent, blocking his way shoulder to shoulder, until Will realized he was outmatched. He whined and dropped his head onto his forepaws, his haunches in the air, a typical translation of “play.”
Jackson must have seen something I didn’t, because he vocalized a great coughing growl-bark, which I interpreted as a command to run.
With a howl, Will launched himself into the air and cleared Dex’s body, landing right behind me. And run I did. Thank God I was in better shape than Will, and faster. I was so not going to do the deed with Will his first time out, not until he gained some control and knew I was more than the wolf he currently thought me to be.
Natural wolves were clocked at about forty miles an hour at their fastest and have been known to travel 125 miles in a day. Lycanthropes and lupines? We’re even faster.
So I ran until mountains became sun-dried meadows and became mountains again. I ran until Mt. Rettig blended with the Sierra foothills. I ran until the scent and sounds of pack were far behind me, though they never quite faded. I ran until I knew I’d better circle around or I’d never get back to Knightsbridge before sunup.
When I did, I had a lot to think about as I made my way home.
I had the pack at my door in the morning. Well, Amber’s door. But JR let them in, and though he tried to text me on my cell, I was still passed out from the long night. They brought coffee with them, and God love ’em, they tried to be quiet sitting out on the back patio waiting, but the natural laughter and teasing that happened in pack mentality soon became too loud for my sister to ignore.
Ashlee, get your ass out of bed and get the pack off my property! Amber mind-screamed at me, sending me to the floor and scrambling for the shower.
“I’ll get right on that, Roz,” I mumbled.
Bleary-eyed, I threw on some denim short-shorts and a fire-engine red checkerboard bikini top and stumbled out of the pool house, not knowing how I was going to deal with the fallout of my transgression, but hoping that they would be more distracted by my assets than my disregard for pack law. The rest of the pack was dressed for the heat, so at least we matched.
Jackson looked at me and smirked, turning to Sully with a whisper. The rest of them eyed me like…well, like a pack of wolves. And then they all laughed.
I should have taken it better, but that got me mad, and I opened my mouth to blast them with a piece of my mind.
“Before you say something you’ll regret, we’re not laughing at you; well I guess in a way we are, but mostly we’re laughing with you,” Jackson said.
“Don’t get me wrong, Ashlee.” Sully sat me down and put a tall latte in my hand. “We love you, but what you did was incredibly stupid and could have ended in non-consensual canine copulation.”
“That was not going to happen,” I spat.
“Only because you happen to be lighter, faster and you have a lot more endurance than the rest of us,” Dex said.
“Fine, I screwed up, but it all worked out. Happy now?”
“Come on. We can’t stay mad at you, not only because you’re so damn cute, but you’re acting just like a teenager, testing your boundaries,” Jackson said.
“Wow, now there’s a compliment guaranteed to warm a girl’s heart. And by the way, when I was a teenager I killed someone, so no, I don’t think I’m acting like a teenager at all.” Okay, I was kinda proving his point right now, I admit.
Jackson sighed. “We’ve all done stupid stuff. We’re incredibly thankful that this didn’t turn out different. We’re glad you’re okay. But what you did was not okay. We don’t draw hard boundaries on pack law unless we have to. I’d like to assume that this is a one-time occurrence. Think about how Will would have felt…”
Will snapped, “Hey, now. Don’t assume you all know what I think and feel. I knew what I was doing.” Then underneath his breath he mumbled, “And you’re not the boss of me.”
Jackson gave Will a little snarl, but let the faux pas pass unremarked.
I sighed. We may not always like the feedback people give us, but relationships are often the best reflection of how we’re doing. I guess the pack’s the best mirror I’ve got to help make me a better lupine, not to mention human.
Chapter 3
After I took a much-needed nap followed by a short crying jag on Will’s shoulder as I licked my emotional wounds, we ended up rolling right into an impromptu barbecue with extended family, including the pack. They volunteered to buy groceries and Elle said she’d do the grilling right there on the deck. I liked this whole idea because it meant I could claim the leftovers when no one was looking.
Our former next-door neighbors Darcy and her daughter Tara came by. Amber had been BFFs with Darcy, and her brother Ollie and I had hit it off, staying best friends until he passed on. I never did see his ghost, which always made me sad; every girl should have at least one gay best friend, e
ven if he’s dead.
Elle stood at the grill making sure that everyone got their meat cooked to order, which for most of us was rare to blue, but there were a few who enjoyed their meat cooked well done. Yuck, ruins the flavor and, even worse, the texture if you ask me. If I had my way, every steak would be seared on both sides then allowed to run to the plate under its own power, dripping. You may think that’s gross, but hey, were-girl here, you know.
I turned to Amber to ask if she needed anything as I made to remove the platter of meat waiting on the grill’s sideboard, in order to fend off the rush of the salivating lycanthropes, when they both interrupted, “Don’t touch the Hibachi!” But I think it was for two different reasons: Elle, because she was afraid that I was going to mess with her grill, and Amber, well, because she liked playing hostess and receiving accolades for her efforts and she hated for me to upstage her by serving the food. Which is fine, I mean, but I wish she would learn to chillax a bit.
I always thought Amber and I were like Mary and Martha. See, in this story, Jesus is visiting the sisters of Lazarus, you know, the guy that he resurrected. Well, there’s this party going on; maybe it was to celebrate Lazarus’ return. Anyway, Martha complains to Jesus that Mary isn’t helping her out because her lazy sister is just sitting at the feet of Jesus, listening to him talk about spiritual things. Jesus turns to Martha and says, my paraphrase, “Martha, you’re way too spun up about stuff that doesn’t matter. Mary’s hanging out with me, and I’m not going to tell her she’s wrong.”
So, good strokes to my ego, but underneath it all the takeaway message I got was this: relationships are what matter, not perfect hostessing, not the externals. Relationships with your higher power of choice, relationships with the people that the gods have brought into your life, family and friends. Like in Project Runway, people are here one day and gone the next, poof. Honor the time you have and share the love.
