CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Jessie

Their mother rallied in the afternoon, coming back to her senses. She chatted and played with her children as if time were not running out. Maybe that was the key to making the most of it: put the important stuff first—family and friends. Then worry about the details that made up most days.

Pietr curled me into his lap and we listened to her tell the story of how she and their father had met.

“I had only just left Eastern Europe, running through the wild remnants of state forests and national parks, driven west for no better reason than my desire to watch the sun set off the western coast. Where precisely I was and when, I do not know—what did I care for any political limitations like boundary lines? I ran most of the year as a wolf, proud and free and sometimes hunted”—she shrugged like it was only a game—“until one early morning I ran across the tracks of another oborot.

“I was astonished, and a bit frightened because the only other of my kind I had known were my parents and one oborot who had nearly killed me when I was newly changed. I decided I would sniff this one out, find his lair, and determine if he was a threat. I tracked him an entire day and night until I found a place his scent was thick as mushrooms after a rain. A place at the edge of the most beautiful forest I had seen in leagues. It no longer quite lived up to its legend as the Schwarzwald—the Black Forest—but it was shadowy and pine filled and beautiful. At its edge the oborot’s scent was heavy as if he passed by frequently. And there it was. A human’s house. A small but pretty cottage with flowers in the window boxes. Well maintained and wild all at once. So I slunk around the small fenced yard, rubbing my body along the wood so he would have no choice but to catch my scent. And then I went to the forest to wait.

“That night I heard his call—a beautiful noise so much more soulful than human song. I could not help myself. I threw my head back and answered, wanting to know immediately if he was friend or foe.

“But instead of coming to meet me, his call died away and I heard nothing until the next night. Again he howled, I replied, and he fell silent. It was as if he was wondering about me, curious but afraid.” She glanced at her children’s expressions. “I know you do not remember your father as a plotter and a planner, but he was. That was how he had lived so long among humans without notice.”

She shrugged. “He acted and lived as they did and only entered the woods out of necessity. But I ruined his tidy little life,” she said proudly. “The next night he did not howl. I thought it strange, so I put up the first cry. I waited and tried again. Then I heard them. Hunters. Bumbling through the forest, they came with lanterns and flashlights and dogs. I raced away, evading them, but in the darkness I heard a whimper.

“I could not help it. I turned back toward the little town where his cottage was, listening. I heard it again. I sprinted and there he was, his foot in a trap and already trying to heal by growing into the gruesome metal teeth. As a wolf, there was nothing I could do for him, but as a woman … It was strange, trying to change after so long.

“I had to remember what I had been, had to remember my human face and human eyes—things I’d long ago glimpsed in streams and in the single mirror in my parents’ home. It took longer than I’d hoped and my hands were so clumsy.…

Cat caught her breath—she had complained before about clumsy human hands.

“But I pried the jaws apart with a stick, and yelping, he tore free. I changed and together we ran from the hunters and their dogs, muddling our scent through the pines and streams, until it was nearly dawn and it seemed safe to return to his house. I slept the day away in his bed, while he did the normal, human things that eluded me.” She shrugged and stretched, yawning widely before she returned to a proper-appearing position, seated at the edge of the couch. “What shall we have for dinner?” she asked.

I looked at Pietr. Nudged him in the ribs.

“Mother, you will take the cure tonight?” Pietr tried.

She looked at us each in turn. “Da,” she said. “I think perhaps I will. May I have dinner to wash it all down with?”

“Of course,” Cat said. “Anything you want, Mother.”

Jessie

We were all gathered at the table, Mother at its head. Dmitri glowered at Pietr from the table’s far end—I’d heard them arguing about there being little time to accomplish certain jobs. Dmitri wanted Pietr away from his mother as much as he wanted him away from me.

No connections. No family.

“A toast,” Pietr’s mother suggested, noting the wineglass before her, filled with the cure. We raised our glasses in response. “To brave young men and women who give a bit of themselves so others may profit.”

She looked at me.

Glasses clinked and she drank. She wobbled a moment, the remaining cure sloshing in the glass Pietr caught and set down carefully, before taking her hand.

“This may get messy,” Max warned Amy.

“Mother?” Pietr asked.

“Da,” she said, her eyes sparkling. “Have I told you the tale of how I first met your father?”

We stiffened.

“I had only just left Eastern Europe—running through the wild remnants of state forests and national parks, driven west for no better reason than my desire to watch the sun set off the western coast.” She trembled.

“Pietr,” Cat warned.

“Mother,” he whispered, moving to stand beside her, wrapping her in his arms.

She shivered. “Where, precisely, I was, and when,” she continued, her voice falling away to a whisper, her eyes unfocused, “I do not know—what did I care for political limitations.…” She smiled. “He was such an amazing man … just like my boys.…”

With a shudder, she collapsed out of the chair, falling limp into Pietr’s arms. Her chest stopped rising and falling, the glow fading from her still-open eyes.

Pietr stared at me, mute. “Mother…?” His knees gave way beneath him and he tumbled to the floor, dragging her body onto his lap.

Dmitri rose, solemn and cool. “Her time is over. Now yours begins,” he said to Pietr.

Shaking, Pietr cried, “Do you not see this?” He lifted her body, her head lolling to the side, hair falling across her face. “She was as much our future as our past!”

I ran to him, my chair tipping over and clattering behind me. Wrapping my arms around him, I held on.

Around us, Cat and Max and Alexi pressed in close, crouched or kneeling.

“Oh, God,” Pietr whispered, cradling her in the crook of his arm and tenderly moving the hair back from her face. “You tell them, Dmitri—tell your masters—tell your dogs—” Shaking free of my grip, he set his mother reverently down and took the wineglass from the table. “Tell them there are no more werewolves in Junction”—he downed a dose in one large swallow, grinning at Dmitri with bloodstained teeth. “That time”—he grabbed Max’s mouth and forced it open, spilling the last of the cure into his mouth and along his face—“is over!”

He jumped to his feet and grabbed the stunned Mafioso. Dragging him to the front door, he shoved him into the cold outside. “Our deal is ended. I have nothing left to give you. We are all just men here, Dmitri, damaged, damned, and dangerous men. Leave. Do not come back—there is nothing to come back for. There are no werewolves in Junction,” he repeated.

The door slammed and I watched him sink to the floor, quivering as the pain of his final change overtook him.

From the dining room I heard Catherine, sobbing, and Max as he gagged and coughed and spit.