Shifting Shadows: Stories from the World of Mercy Thompson Page 28

  “I like greenhouses,” she said.

  Ah—not a lie. Refreshing in a child of, what? Twelve or thirteen, he thought.

  “And no one would look for me here.” There was a little pause. “I am sorry for trespassing.”

  He heaved a sigh and turned off the switch at the business end of the hose, which would temporarily shut down the water. “And I am sorry I am a responsible adult—at least today. I must insist we telephone whoever is watching out for you so that they do not worry.”

  He looked at her for the first time. She was scrunched in the corner of the building, sitting on an upended five-gallon bucket. She was bundled up in one of those jackets that made everyone look like marshmallows even though the temperature was still fairly mild for early fall in Montana. He had not bothered with a coat when he headed out of his house. Her arms were wrapped mutinously around herself, so maybe the marshmallow effect was for something other than warmth. She’d been staring at him until he looked at her, but she couldn’t hold his gaze and shrank back farther in the corner.

  “Do you know who I am?” he asked, curious. He was pretty sure that the Marrok, their Alpha, warned all the youngsters away from the big bad wolf.

  She nodded. “You’re Asil. You’re the black wolf I saw on the last hunt. I can smell it.”

  It had not been a moon hunt, those he no longer allowed himself; if the moon’s song was disturbing to those who were young, it dug in deep to those who were as old as he was. But he’d participated in the last training hunt, a few weeks ago. He was dark brown, not black, but he allowed that at night the difference was subtle, so he decided to let it pass.

  She’d known nothing about being a werewolf when she’d come to Aspen Creek two months ago. She was learning to use her nose. She was also afraid of him, which normally he wouldn’t mind. But he didn’t like scaring children.

  “Pack is different from the real world,” he told her. “No one in the pack will hurt you because the Marrok will not allow it. Other wolves you have to be wary around, but not pack.”

  She raised her eyes to him.

  “I can tell you are afraid,” he advised her gravely. “Otherwise, I would not have said anything. I will not hurt you. Nor will anyone in the pack.”

  “You are dangerous,” she said. “I’m not the only wolf afraid of you. He warned me specifically to stay away from you.”

  And so she, having been warned, had decided to hide in his greenhouse. It was not an atypical reaction for an adolescent.

  He nodded gravely. “Yes, I am dangerous. The Alpha doesn’t talk just to hear himself speak. But I do not mind that the other wolves are afraid. To you I will say that there is no need to fear me or my wolf. I do not hurt women without grave cause and never children.” He could promise so much, he was almost certain. When he could not, then it would, indeed, be time to end his existence.

  “Pack is safe,” she said, trying to believe it.

  He sighed. “At other times and places you might have cause to worry about harm coming to you at a pack member’s hand. But in this time and place the Marrok has let it be known that you are under his protection and out of bounds for the usual snarls and dominance fights that come from being a werewolf. No one in the pack will defy him—and so you are utterly safe.”

  “He is treating me different?” She sounded as if she wasn’t sure whether that was a good thing or not.

  “You are different,” Asil told her. “And this pack is different. The Marrok has collected a bunch of misfits who are not suited to most packs, and that is combined with the newest wolves—next month is the month when the Marrok Changes those who wish to be werewolves.” Idiots, every one of them. “Some of us are very dangerous, so it is necessary for the Marrok to draw this line. Do you understand?”

  She nodded.

  “And so it is that you do not need to be afraid of me.”

  “What about Charles?”

  Asil laughed. “Everyone is a little afraid of Charles except Anna.”

  Her lips curled in a smile. “I got that, yeah.”

  “So whom do I call to inform them you are here?” Asil asked. “This is not negotiable. Someone worries over you.”

  She shrugged, unhappy again. He’d heard that her father had been sent back into the real world because his fear of her wolf was interfering with her ability to control herself. Neither she nor her father had been happy, but even the most experienced werewolf had trouble with a terrified human about. The idea that she even could control the wolf was very, very new to her, and real control was months if not years away. He didn’t know whom she was staying with now.

  When she didn’t tell him, he took out his cell phone and called the Marrok.

  “Asil?” said Bran.

  “I have Miss Kara here in my greenhouse,” Asil said. “She is restless, and I think an afternoon of potting plants might suit her better than sitting in a desk with thirty children who are scared of her.”

  She looked up at him, surprise on her face, as if she weren’t used to someone defending her.

  “Of course,” said Bran. He sounded tired. “I should have thought of that. You are willing?”

  Able is what he meant. It was a good question. Asil was very old, and his wolf was given to fits of rage, both of them nearing the end of their very long life. He tested his wolf, who seemed perfectly happy with an afternoon in the greenhouse with an unhappy adolescent.

  “I think it shall be delightfully entertaining for both of us,” he told his Alpha.

  Bran laughed. “All right. Bonne chance.”

  Asil disconnected.

  “Who was he wishing good luck? You or me?” She sounded wry.

  “Knowing Bran, it could be either of us,” he said. “But it is probably you because he knows me. I do not need luck to deal with one young wolf.”

  He put her to work deadheading roses because there wasn’t much she could do to screw it up. In his hothouse, with deadheading, he could keep roses all year long, though most of them he eventually let go dormant in the winter for the health of the plant.

  It was early fall yet, so the rose section of his greenhouse was filled with flowers and heady perfume. He wished for the great gardens he’d grown in Spain, but most of his beauties would not live through a Montana winter without protection. He made do with the greenhouse and some hardy specimens planted near his house, where they were sheltered from the worst of the weather.

  “Why roses?” Kara asked.

  “Why not?” he said lightly as he mixed potting soil with his favorite concoction of rose food.

  “Why not orchids or daisies or geraniums?” Her voice was thoughtful. “My mother has a greenhouse, and she grows all sorts of flowers.”

  “I have many different flowers here,” he told her. “And I grow vegetables.”

  “Most of the greenhouse—all of this room and half of the other one are all roses,” she said.

  He opened his mouth to give her the easy answer, the one he used for everyone. He knew roses. It was better to be an expert in one thing than a dabbler in dozens. But he thought better of it.

  “We all know about your trouble, do we not?” he said. “Your life has been spread out for total strangers—even though we are pack, we are still, right now, strangers—to look at and make judgement calls. You are not allowed secrets anymore—and we all should have things that we may keep to ourselves.”

  Her mouth tightened. “It’s okay. Hard to hide that my parents are separated because my mother is scared of me, and my father is mad at her about it. Hard to hide what I am.”

  “All true,” Asil said. “But here I think you need some secrets in return. So I will tell you something about me that no one else knows.”

  “Okay.” She hesitated. “But what if I forget it’s a secret and tell someone?”

  “It is not a harmful thing,” he
said. “Only a tender thing that is hard for me to talk about. You are welcome to shout it on the streets—though I would rather you did not.”

  She nodded.

  “I am very old, and once I had a mate,” he told her. “She was everything to me. I would have filled her arms with jewels or gold if I could have. I would have destroyed the world for her—I was young and dramatic, you understand.”

  Kara’s eyes widened. “You meant that. That you would have destroyed the world for her—it wasn’t just exaggeration. The Marrok is teaching me to smell when people lie or tell the truth.”

  He gave her a formal nod. “Indeed. Being dramatic does not mean you do not have honest intentions. But destroying the world would not have saved her. She said, once, shortly before she died, that roses smelled like happiness. Whenever she smelled a rose, she thought of the day we met.” He brought a bloom up to his nose. “And after she told me that, I also think of that day when I smell roses.”

  He cleared his throat and brought their conversation out of murky water. “And it is also true that with roses I am a genius, there are no others who breed roses such as mine. Why would I not choose to share my genius with others?”

  “Okay,” she said. “And I won’t tell anyone the other reason. It is private.”

  She was not a chatterer. The rest of the afternoon she worked quietly at whatever task he gave her. Someone, probably her mother, had taught her that, which made her more useful than he expected.

  When Devon came, as he did sometimes, she didn’t look at the ragged old gaunt wolf or talk to him—though she kept a little closer to Asil than she had been. Devon settled on the ground with a sigh and didn’t look at Asil or Kara, either.

  Devon was not as old as Asil, but like Asil, he was on his last years. If Asil were being honest, which he didn’t always choose to be, Devon was a lot closer to the end than he was. In all the time Asil had been in Montana, he’d never seen Devon use his human form. Like Asil, he sometimes shadowed the pack’s moon hunt, but he never participated. Devon’s presence in the pack spiritual weaving was dark and murky.

  Several years ago, he’d started to come to Asil’s greenhouse. Usually, he’d sleep for an hour or two, but with Kara there, he just curled up and rested. His head turned away from them both.

  “Bran says,” Asil told Kara as they began to clean up, “that all wolves need company. Devon is worried that he’ll hurt someone, so mostly he stays by himself. Me?” He told her grandly. “I am the Moor. He does not have to worry about hurting me. So he comes here.”

  Devon got up, shook himself forcefully, stretched—and then gave Asil a look.

  Asil raised his eyebrows and opened the door so the wolf could leave. When he was gone, Asil looked at Kara, who was biting her lip nervously. He’d scared her again, and he meant only to twit Devon.

  “Because I like you,” he told her, “and because he cannot hear me, I’ll let you in on the real reason Devon comes here. He was once a gardener almost as good as I.” Devon, under a different name, had grown roses that rivaled Asil’s own a hundred years ago. “The Alice Vena rose in the corner”—he gave her a mock-disappointed look—“the burgundy rose next to the ‘stripy’ ones, as you call them. That Alice Vena descends from one of his roses. Devon misses his flowers and comes here to remember.”

  That was true—and Devon would probably rather not have anyone but Asil know it. But it was also true that if Asil had not been so much more dominant, or if Asil had been the least bit afraid of him, Devon could not come for his little visits without risk of bloodshed. But Kara would be safer if she thought Devon was just here for the roses. Fear was not useful when keeping company with the oldest of the wolves. And Kara’s safety had become important to him.

  “You will come here to me tomorrow,” Asil said as she put her coat back on. “Bring your schoolbooks, and you can teach me what they are doing in school since I was last in a schoolroom—which was several centuries ago. We shall make breakfast and prepare my outdoor gardens for the cold that is coming. You shall do this until after the moon is done with her singing, yes?”

  “All right,” she said.

  “Do you need a ride home?” he asked her. “There are no school buses from here.”

  “I’m staying at the Marrok’s house until he finds a better situation for me.”

  Asil grimaced in sympathy. “Let me know if Leah troubles you.”

  Kara frowned at him. “She’s been very kind.”

  “Really?” Asil took the notion of kindness and the Marrok’s mate and tried to put them in the same room together, but they wouldn’t fit. Maybe she had other rules when she dealt with children? He found that unlikely. “If that changes, feel free to let me know. In the meantime, I will give you a ride today—and you can catch the school bus in the morning and run here from school.”

  “Run?”

  He nodded. “It will do your wolf good to get rid of some of that energy.”

  • • •

  Kara taught him algebra and science and he taught her how to bed down plants with straw to protect them from the storm. He did not go on that moon hunt, as he had not gone on any since he’d moved from Spain to Montana.

  But he shadowed them, making sure she was all right, even as he called himself an old fool: Bran would not allow harm to come to her any more than he would. Devon, who had come one more time to lurk with the roses while Kara taught Asil Montana geography, ran beside him for a mile or two before heading off to go wherever Devon went when he wasn’t in Asil’s greenhouse. Asil should have left as well—Kara was doing fine—but he didn’t. All the self-directed imprecations in the world could not make him go home until she was safely back at the Marrok’s home.

  October dawned with a heavy snowstorm and strangers who came to Aspen Creek to be Changed. Asil avoided town. He avoided the Marrok’s house specifically, as the inductees—the Marrok’s word for the humans who wanted to become werewolves, not Asil’s—filled the Marrok’s home to bursting. The wolves and, in some cases, the human relatives who had come to support the inductees, took over the small motel in town.

  The Marrok required anyone who wanted to be Changed to come two weeks beforehand. He told them it was so he could make sure they knew what they were getting into. He’d told Asil it was to give Bran one last chance to talk them out of it.

  Asil wasn’t worried about how his wolf would react to all the strangers—not this year. But too many of the humans would die rather than be Changed as they wished, and their loved ones who came here with them would grieve. He had had enough grief and mourning, even secondhand, to last a thousand lifetimes.

  Avoiding town meant driving to Missoula to resupply—which wasn’t a bad thing as Missoula had real grocery stores, bookstores, and restaurants. He ate lunch at his favorite Indian-vegan restaurant because the food was good and because it amused him—an ancient werewolf eating New Age vegan. And it was petty of him, but one of the waitresses was terrified of him and another one was vaguely disapproving—as if she could smell the meat on his breath. He enjoyed both reactions. He always made a point of leaving a big tip.

  The roads were icy, but he was a good driver. Werewolves have very good reflexes, and he’d had years to perfect his ability to drive in the snow. He got home before dark. Once he’d unloaded and stored the results of his shopping trip, he went out to his greenhouse to play. Work. The challenge of growing things in this climate was invigorating—and expensive. He enjoyed the first and had no issues with the latter. He’d been poor—any number of times—but not in the last five hundred years.

  He was repotting an African violet when someone scratched at the greenhouse door and whined. He opened the door and let Kara’s wolf in. She was wet and shivering, but not with the cold. Her eyes were miserable, and she whined at him piteously.

  He’d never seen her take her wolf’s shape when it hadn’t been forced upon
her by the moon’s call. Just last week, he’d suggested that the Marrok encourage her to do so because she wasn’t having much luck controlling her wolf without a more dominant wolf around. But the moon’s call made the wolf more difficult to deal with. Maybe she would have better results if she tried when the moon was in hiding.

  “I told her that,” Bran had responded. “We’ve been trying to get her to attempt a change, but unless the moon forces her, she won’t do it.”

  “You can make her do it,” Asil had told him.

  Here, he thought, kneeling down to pull the pitiful, half-grown wolf against the warmth of his body, is the result of your meddling.

  “Can’t change back?” he asked.

  She moaned at him and shivered again. Partly, he thought, it had worked. It wasn’t a wolf who was looking up at him with such misery. Kara was in charge.

  “No worries,” he told her. “You can do it.” He could force her change, and he would if he had to. But a forced change—like what the Marrok had done—hurt even worse than when the moon called the wolf from human shape. Better if she managed it herself.

  He coaxed her into his rose room, where the sweet scent of his mate’s favorite flower filled the air with memories, and sat on the dirt floor with his back to the foot-high stone wall that edged his raised rosebush beds.

  He patted the ground beside him, and she curled up in a miserable ball, wiggling and restless until finally she put her muzzle on his leg and sighed. He put a hand on her back and sang to her.

  He didn’t have the Marrok’s voice—at various times Bran Cornick had made his living as a bard—but he could carry a tune. He crooned a child’s lullaby his father had sung to him. It wasn’t Spanish, but African, a Moorish tune his father had learned from his grandmother. Like Asil, it was old and worn, the words in a language that no one, to his knowledge, had spoken for a thousand years. Even he had forgotten what the words meant, but the song was for children. Its intent was to let them know that it was the job of adults to keep the young ones safe from harm. When he was finished with the song, he switched to stories he had told his own children; maybe she’d heard them from her parents in happier times.