The others let their songs echo and fade into the forest as they waited.
Joe looked at each of us in turn. His eyes lingered on me the longest.
His song was deeper than it’d ever been before. I felt every single emotion (hurt pain love oh god why why why) he put into it and it was all I could do to keep from flying apart.
There in the forest, under a new moon and stars that lied, we sang our pack home.
THINGS MOVED quickly after that.
The next three days were a whirlwind, the Bennett house filling with people I’d never seen before. They went with Joe and Mark and Elizabeth and Gordo into Thomas’s office and disappeared for hours, wolves all. They whispered quietly to each other, the ones I didn’t know. They eyed me as Carter and Kelly lay curled around me, still shifted, whining piteously as their feet kicked in whatever dreams they had. I didn’t let these strangers intimidate me. I stared right back.
I only got bits and pieces.
Richard had gone underground.
Robert Livingstone hadn’t been found.
Osmond, though.
Osmond had been a surprise. No one had expected him to switch sides. He too was gone.
It rankled them, the wolves. To know now that they’d had a traitor in their midst. Especially one as high up as Osmond. I didn’t blame them. But I certainly didn’t trust anyone I didn’t know in the Bennett house. I got the impression they were having a hard time trusting each other.
Elizabeth wouldn’t let me go back to my house. She said it wasn’t right. Not now. Maybe not for a long time. I stayed in Joe’s room. In his bed.
But Joe was never there.
They said it was a burglary gone wrong. That my mom had come home and interrupted someone at the house. I had an alibi, of course. I was with the Bennetts. The Bennetts, who everyone respected. Who everyone was in awe of. The town might not have understood them, but they understood the way they looked. The wealth they had. The things they’d done for the town.
The coroner said it looked as if my mother’s throat had been slit with a serrated knife of some kind.
I told the police we didn’t have anything of the sort.
It must have come from the intruder.
And where is Thomas? the police asked.
Away on business, Elizabeth said. Out of the country. Will be for months.
Later it would be said that Thomas died of a heart attack overseas.
But for now, he was just gone.
When will he be back? the police asked.
Hopefully soon, she said.
Somehow, her voice remained even.
Outsiders couldn’t see the cracks.
But I could.
MY MOTHER was buried on a Tuesday.
There was nothing special about Tuesdays, but it was the first day we were able.
The town mourned her along with us.