by Holly Hook
“It's not that simple, Sprout.”
“Don't call me that.”
“You will always be a Sprout.”
“Shut up. And we were here first. This is our territory now.”
“It's still difficult. More of them are likely on their way. If there's one, more always follow.”
Another chair scrapes and footsteps follow. The two of them might move to the front door, so I tiptoe off the steps, daring to make a noise as I walk back to the car. But the door doesn't open, and I reach the end of the long driveway, get in, and drive away.
Enemy wolves: confirmed.
They must be the ones who attacked Olivia. And they want to destroy my home. If they attacked one person, they might do it again, and this time these wolves might kill. Or they could infect and grow their numbers. Cayden says that doesn't always happen, but it still could. Horrible possibilities swirl through my head and get larger the more I think about them.
Though I'm just down the road from Cayden's house, I almost miss turning into my driveway. Aunt May is still missing, so I check out her work schedule up on the fridge. My mind spins with other ideas. The werewolf book still has sections I have yet to discover but haven't read yet due to staying busy with the play and the store.
There must be other ways to kill werewolves other than feeding them Wolfsbane. Silver comes to mind. Cayden won't return until I help him. Though I still feel horrendous about my stunt, I can't let him fall victim to these Baltic Wolves, whoever or whatever they are. If these monsters attack people who associate with the Lowes, then they might go after Cayden himself once they can't find any more targets they can use to get to him.
Aunt May will work until closing tonight. That gives me time to do more reading without her interrupting me—though what difference will that make? The two of us have drifted further apart on an ocean of worry, and her raft seems to have a million leaks. But evil werewolves in the area forces me to cast thoughts of keeping the store aside.
Wolf Men and Shapeshifters is still lying under my bed though a very thin layer of dust has formed on the cover since I opened it last. Since confronting Cayden about his secret, I haven't looked at the book, and now I realize it's because I don't want to associate him with the brutal, hand-drawn images of vicious wolves in the pages. Until overhearing Wyatt and Remo, I dismissed those terrifying images as paranoia and maybe an overactive imagination.
Those pictures might carry truth, and that terrifies me.
Fishing out the old volume, I open it, flipping to the Defenses and Protection chapter. A hand drawing of wolfsbane opens the chapter, and I flip through with sweaty palms. Silver, of course, gets a mention right away as one of the few things able to kill werewolves, who have superior healing and strength. I read old text about silver bullets with the ability to deliver a killing blow to a transformed werewolf, and silver swords and daggers on another page, capable of inflicting wounds that werewolves can't easily heal. I shake my head. Someone has circled parts of the text and drawn a pencil star next to the passage about silver bullets. It's almost faded now, but I rub my finger across it and lift the book, trying to see if there's anything else drawn there. Has someone else consulted this thing out of need?
And where the heck do I find these weapons?
Musty pages and dust invade my nostrils and I sneeze, dropping the book to the bed. It lands on its back and a couple more pages turn, revealing an old-fashioned pistol complete with said bullets lying beside it. A caption just below it reads Sterling Silver Bullets, Limited Supply, 1947. It's almost like I'm staring at an ad. What is this book—a catalog for would-be werewolf hunters? If Noah were with me, he'd make that joke. Only, I have the sense this company is not in business anymore.
But then I focus on the pencil-drawn name on the top of the page.
Alexa Sterling.
Alexa.
My mother.
My mother, who kept her own last name after marrying my father. She owned this book about werewolves and killing them when Aunt May said this came from one of many yard sales.
Sterling—
Silver.
I rise from the bed and snatch the book before I realize what I'm doing. Checking the driveway below to make sure Aunt May hasn't returned, I leave the room and eye the attic door. I can pull it down and climb up. To top it off, I have hours to search before Aunt May gets home. As I stare, my heart races. No one has ever told me what's up there, and the silence has terrified me out of exploring. The fear of sadness has kept that door shut most of my life, keeping me out of my family story.
Secrets wait. Juicy secrets. Terrifying secrets. The book confirms it. The attic is the only place in the house I can find anything new. Now's the time to face it.
I take a breath, stand on my toes, and grab a hammer from the basement. Removing the rusted nails and then pulling down the door is harder than I thought, and not just because of what I fear waits. The door sticks, betraying that no one has budged it in years. But the time to stay out of things has passed. I'm butting in.
On the fifth yank, I rip the door down with a horrendous squeal, banging the ladder into the floor. Dust swirls. I cough. Gripping the book in one hand, I climb with the other and stick my head into forbidden territory.
Like all attics, there are tons of musty boxes stacked on top of each other, some of them rotting from moisture and heat. Light pours in through a round window draped in spiderwebs. I always joked our house had a Cyclops eye. For the first time, I'm on the other side of the monster.
I open box after box, digging through old tax papers with my parents' names on them, and some yellow ones with my maternal grandparents' names—Sterling—as well. Nothing interesting comes to light. No dealings with the silver bullet company, nothing. Unless my family ran the company, and the name wasn't just a coincidence?
A lump forms in my throat when I find more boxes of my old baby clothes, fossils from a life with a full family I never knew. I'm just about to give up when I spot another stack of boxes in the corner, one that lies under some old clothing that looks as if it came from the eighties.
I creep over, squeaking boards and navigating secrets. After clearing off the clothing, I open the top box, a cardboard one labeled as organic bananas.
And inside sits what looks like a small wooden coffin. I blink, but it's not. It's a polished chest engraved with one word: Sterling.
Just below my family name is the engraving of a sword, complete with silver leaf.
I grasp my necklace. Our family tradition.
Swallowing over the dry lump in my throat, I remove the heavy chest from the banana box and place it on a bare spot on the floor. Kneeling in dust, I crack open Pandora's Box.
And then I see why it's heavy.
An antique pistol that matches the one in Wolf Men and Shapeshifters. Bullets, brighter and shinier than most. Knives with gleaming, silver blades. A full dagger with a jagged edge. A small glass vial carries the label wolfsbane, and it's stuffed with dried roots. And a yellowing envelope rests underneath it all, sealed with wax. Boxy, masculine writing on the front reads Alexa.
A chill covers my skin. Sterling. Silver. A werewolf's weakness. This stuff belongs to my family. My stomach turns as I think of these things being used on werewolves like Cayden, but I turn my thought to these Baltic Wolves, the ones Remo and Wyatt said were savage. These weapons are for them. The pistol and the knives have to be because I refuse to believe otherwise. The bullets will find the real monsters, not the Lowes.
I'm from a family of werewolf hunters. Maybe when I sprinkled that herb on Cayden's lunch, I wasn't too far off my legacy.
Am I part of this after all?
Aunt May told me nothing—just that Mom and Dad died in a car accident during a blizzard. Not that Mom might have hunted werewolves. What if the truth of their deaths is something far more terrifying than slipping off the road and into a deep ditch?
My hands seek the answer. Ripping open the envelope and peeling away the wax
seal, I find a folded piece of paper inside, covered in the same boxy writing. Shaking, I hold it up to the light.
Alexa,
I regret my health will not allow me to see Brianna grow up, so let this letter carry my regrets.
Your name means 'protector of humanity' and you have upheld it well and no doubt will continue to do so. For generations, we have defended the people of Breckenridge against the werewolves who have tried to invade our locale, and though it appears we have tamed them for the time being, we can never let down our guard. Our name has been Sterling for as far back as anyone can remember and you can never allow it to fade. Our tradition dictates it must always pass down to the next generation, regardless of marriage and gender. The word strikes fear into a Savage Wolf's heart and must never vanish from the earth.
It makes my heart happy that Garret and his sister May have taken our name and accept our legacy. Their actions give me hope for a brighter future, a peaceful future, but our fight is not yet over. It is your duty to teach Brianna the way of the Hunter so she may one day join her ancestors in the fight to protect humanity from those who would destroy us.
Remember your name, Alexa, and until we meet again,
Papa Sterling
I read the words over and over, finger hovering just above the ink. My mother's father wrote this letter, and he's talking about teaching me to kill Savage Wolves with silver and wolfsbane. He died when I was a baby, and until now, the thought my father and his sister adopted the Sterling name from my mother's side of the family hovered at the back of my mind. I knew it was unusual, but I never thought much of it. It's not as if Aunt May would answer questions when I asked.
The more I read the letter, the stranger I feel. It's an odd feeling, something foreign, and something empowering.
Not only am I the lead in the play, but I can do something about all of this once and for all. I put the letter back into its envelope. Then I lift the pistol gingerly as I've never handled a deadly weapon before. My mother's initials are carved on the wooden handle. A.S. My other hand brushes the bullets, sending them fleeing all over the bottom of the box.
They're not just any bullets.
Silver bullets.
Chapter Nineteen
Though Cayden has returned to school, he's not there.
Over the next week, I go through the motions. Get up. Drive to school. Walk to my classes. Rehearse. Fit in Grocery shifts and try to make small talk with my aunt.
Cayden walks into class late every morning, allowing me no chance to speak with him. He even moves to the other side of the room after talking to Mrs. Connors to change his seating arrangement, and once the bell rings, there's no hope of me catching up to him. Cayden takes off. His siblings and concern for my safety rule.
And he doesn't show up at rehearsal though I see Mr. Saffron watching the door and lamenting the talent that slipped away. It makes me feel bad for Noah, who's trying his best to be Beast he doesn't think he can pull off. Though Noah smiles when he takes the stage, he shuffles his feet. Olivia's absence has deflated him.
And lunch? The Lowe clan doesn't even show up anymore. Remo or Everly must drive them off campus. They've become Cayden's bodyguards like he's a celebrity, and even after school, I spot Everly and Remo herding Cayden through the parking lot. Even waving earns me nothing but a glare from the two and nothing from Cayden.
Cayden hates this. It's in the way he walks and faces the pavement. It's there in the way he drags his feet in the halls, even when he's running away. Cayden's not his normal, confident self anymore and it hurts me to see the change. It's like I'm looking at a guy who's resigned to a life sentence in a maximum security prison.
If only I could tell him I might help, it could change everything.
My mother's pistol waits under the seat of the Beater. While I feel guilty about even driving it into the parking lot with the weapon hidden underneath, I'd feel even worse not being able to defend myself. If Cayden would speak to me, I'm sure he would agree that I'd need protection against these Baltic Wolves who want to destroy the town.
It's what my grandfather and mother would have wanted. Each day, the fact settles deeper inside me, filling holes and turning into the grain that makes up who I am. But fear remains. My mother would've taught me the art of hunting werewolves. I only have a book as my teacher and it has nothing about actual fighting or shooting techniques. Though I've got a weapon capable of killing them, nobody ever trained me. It's not what Grandpa Sterling intended.
But instead of waiting for Cayden to make the next move, I plot mine. By now, I've read and re-read the entire volume of Wolf Men and Shapeshifters three times. Having Aunt May not be in the store when I pull the volume out of my backpack has helped. If my mother wrote her name above the weapon now under the seat of my car, it must work. Why else would my family make silver bullets?
On Thursday, I stop and check on Aunt May at the store on the way back to our place. Driving down Main Street, I spot two young guys maybe in their twenties I haven't seen before. The dark, swirling water of dread fills me the second my gaze lands on them. They're ordinary dudes: blond, one in a hoodie and the other in a leather jacket, but it's the way they walk that sets me on edge. They stride past the Tourist Center without missing a beat, but before I can get a better look at them, the light I'm at turns green and a car honks at me, urging me to go.
I don't see the guys again when I park at Sterling Grocery. I get out and check the sidewalk and the dirt road to make sure they're not approaching. Once happy, I walk inside and find Aunt May at the counter, ringing up our favorite crabby old lady. Today, she's complaining about some spots on the green beans as I walk up.
While Mrs. Fogerty is griping, I debate on asking Aunt May about the things in the attic. The store's busy today, so I have only time to make small talk with her and take off again. On the drive home, a new, dark emotion sweeps over me.
Loneliness.
I can't talk to Aunt May about the box and I can't even approach Cayden. And he'd understand that the things in it aren't for him, and never would be. But would my mother and grandfather and the generations before them? Did they hunt all werewolves, or just the ones threatening humans?
On the way back, I spot those two guys again, turning the corner. Though neither look at me as I roll up to the intersection, the dark water of nervousness fills me at the sight. They continue to walk like Cayden, but the similarity stops there. Both walk and survey their surroundings like predators.
That's it.
Though aware of the old pistol under the seat of my car, I gun it out of there as they cross the road behind me.
What would Mom do right now? Would she wait for them to make a move, or would she shoot first and ask questions later? I can't ask her. When I went up into the attic, I opened a door to more than I knew, though I expected the sadness to hit me in the face. And it has.
After spending the afternoon rehearsing my lines again for Belle, I crash on my bed and go into school the next day to find Cayden continuing his own act. I decide that if I will have the chance to speak to him, I'll fake him out. This period, instead of looking at him and hoping he'll wave, I make a show of not facing him. Instead, I eye the wall. The only chance I'll have to talk to him is if he lets his guard down.
So for the first time in a week, I don't try to contact Cayden. Instead, I immerse myself in a conversation with Noah, Ellie, and Sarah at lunchtime instead of looking at their table. The lift in mood from Noah and the others makes me realize how much I haven't chatted with my friends or laughed at their jokes during these past several weeks. The guilt piles on.
And by last period, I notice that Cayden's let down his guard an inch. When the final bell rings, he takes a few seconds longer to gather his backpack and walk out the door. But I'm already prepared, having packed everything the class before.
Once he races out into the hall, I hit a stroke of luck. The band kids cross the intersection in front of him, parading with instruments, slowin
g him and allowing me to catch up. Cayden stands before the wall of purple uniforms, tubas, and saxophones, trying to find a way to duck through, and that's when I grab his arm.
He faces me for a split second before studying the band kids again. I maintain my grip on his arm. Cayden doesn't wrench away. He sighs.
The door to the choir practice room lies open. I pull Cayden inside, and to my surprise, he allows me. But he won't make eye contact. Instead, Cayden waits for whatever I have to say.
I'll start with the path of least resistance. “We need you to come back to the play,” I tell him. “Noah's okay, but he's not even half the actor you are and Mr. Saffron is pulling out his hair. And that's bad, because he doesn't have any. Even Noah has said he's afraid we will be a flop without you there. The Beast isn't a good role for him and he knows. Nobody else can do it.”
Cayden keeps his gaze on an empty desk and a broken table tucked into the corner. “I can't come back.” An undercurrent of grief in his voice strengthens with each word.
“You want to come back,” I say.
“My duty won't allow me.”
“If your enemies are here, it won't matter if you're in the play or not,” I say. “You don't deserve to have no life because of them. Live like this, and you're letting them win.”
Cayden clenches his fists. I've hit a nerve.
“Letting them win would mean putting you and everyone else in danger.”
“From the sounds, we're already in danger.” I won't tell him about the pistol or the silver bullets. Not yet.
He swallows as if thinking. “Not as much as you would be with me there.” Cayden continues to avoid the sight of me as if I might tempt him too much.
“But you know all the lines and you're the best actor here,” I plead. “We all need you to come back. Will you do it for me?”
“I...I won't...” Cayden rubs his hand through his hair and faces the wall.
The band kids clear, and Everly and Remo approach from around the corner as if they've picked up Cayden's scent. Everly glares when she glimpses us in the classroom doorway. Cayden snaps his gaze up at his siblings.
