Linger

Right in front of me, among a throng of bare midriffs and sweaty arms thrust into the air, there was a guy who didn’t move. Illuminated sporadically by the strobes and lasers, I was fascinated by how he stayed still, despite the press of bodies all around him. He held his ground and watched me, his eyebrows drawn down low over his eyes.

When I looked back at him, I remembered again that scent of home, far away from Toronto.

I wondered if he was real. I wondered if anything in this whole damned place was real.

He crossed his arms over his chest, watching me while my heart scrabbled to escape.

I should have been paying more attention to keeping it in my chest. My pulse sped, and then my heart burst free in an explosion of heat; my face smacked against the keyboard, which wailed out a pulse of sound. I grabbed for the keys with a hand that no longer belonged to me.

Lying on the stage, my cheek setting fire to the ground, I saw Victor giving me this withering look, like he’d finally noticed that I’d missed my cue.

And then I closed my eyes on the stage of Club Josephine.

I was done being NARKOTIKA. I was done being Cole St. Clair.

CHAPTER SIX

• GRACE •

“You know,” Isabel said, “when I told you to call me on the weekend, I didn’t mean for you to call me so we could go tramping through the trees in subfreezing temperatures.”

She frowned at me, looking pale and oddly at home in these cold spring woods, wearing a white parka with a fur-lined hood that framed her slender face and icy eyes, a sort of lost Nordic princess.

“It’s not subfreezing,” I said, knocking a clod of soft snow off the sole of my boot. “All things considered, it’s not bad. And you wanted to get out of the house, didn’t you?”

It really wasn’t bad. It was warm enough that the snow had mostly melted in the areas where the sun could reach, and it was only under the trees that patches remained. The few degrees of extra warmth lent a gentler look to the landscape, infusing the grays of winter with color. Though the cold still numbed the end of my nose, my fingers were snug inside their gloves.

“You should be leading the way, actually,” I said. “You’re the one who’s seen them here.” These woods that stretched behind Isabel’s parents’ house were unfamiliar to me. A lot of pines and some kind of straight-up-and-down, gray-barked trees that I didn’t know. I was sure Sam would’ve been able to identify them.

“Well, it’s not like I’ve gone jaunting in the woods after them before,” Isabel replied, but she walked a little faster until she was caught up with me and we were walking side by side, separated by a yard or two, stepping over fallen logs and underbrush. “I just know they always appeared on that side of the yard, and I’ve heard them howl in the direction of the lake.”

“Two Island Lake?” I asked. “Is that far from here?”

“Feels far,” Isabel complained. “So what is it we’re doing here? Scaring wolves away? Looking for Olivia? If I had known Sam was going to squeal to you like a little girl about this, I wouldn’t have said anything.”

“All of the above,” I said. “Except the squealing bit. Sam’s just worried. I don’t think that’s unreasonable.”

“Right. Whatever. Do you think there’s a real chance Olivia could’ve changed already? Because if there’s not, maybe we could take a morning stroll back to my car to get a coffee somewhere instead.”

I pushed a branch out of my way and squinted; I thought I could see the shimmer of water through the trees. “Sam said it’s not too early for a new wolf to change, at least for a little bit. When it gets to be a warm snap. Like today. Maybe.”

“Okay, but we’re getting coffee after we don’t find her.” Isabel pointed. “Look, the lake’s up there. Happy?”

“Mmm hmm.” I frowned, noticing suddenly that the trees were different than before. Evenly spaced and farther apart, with tangled, soft, relatively new growth for underbrush. I stopped short when I saw color peeking out of the dull brown thatch at our feet. A crocus—a little finger of purple with an almost-hidden throat of yellow. A few inches away, I spied more bright green shoots coming up through the old leaves, and two more blossoms. Signs of spring—and, more than that, signs of human occupation—in the middle of the forest. I felt like kneeling to touch the petals of the crocus, to confirm that they were real. But Isabel’s watchful eyes kept me standing. “What is this place?”

Isabel stepped over a branch to stand beside me and looked down at the patch of brave little flowers. “Oh, that. Back in the glory days of our house, before we lived here, I guess the owners had a walkway down to the lake and a little garden thing here. There are benches closer to the water, and a statue.”

“Can we see it?” I asked, fascinated by the idea of a hidden, overgrown world.

“We’re here. There’s one of the benches.” Isabel led me a few feet closer to the pond and kicked a concrete bench with her boot. It was streaked with thin green moss and the occasional flattened bloom of orange lichen, and I might not have noticed it without Isabel’s direction. Once I knew where to look, however, it was easy to see what the shape of the sitting area had been—there was another bench a few feet away, and a small statue of a woman with her hands brought up to her mouth as if with wonder, her face pointed toward the lake. More flower bulbs, their shoots bright green and rubbery-looking, poked up around the statue’s base and the benches, and I saw a few more crocuses in the patchy snow beyond. Beside me, Isabel scuffed her foot through the leaves. “And look, down here. This is stone under here. Like a patio or something, I guess. I found it last year.”

I kicked at the leaves like she did, and sure enough, my toe scuffed stone. Our true purpose momentarily forgotten, I scraped at the leaves, uncovering a wet, dirty patch of ground. “Isabel, this isn’t just stone. Look. It’s a…a…” I couldn’t think of what to call the swirling pattern of stones.

“Mosaic,” Isabel finished, looking down at the complicated circles at her feet.

I knelt and scraped a few of the stones bare with a stick. They were mostly natural colored, but there were a few chips of brilliant blue or red tiles in there as well. I uncovered more of the mosaic, revealing a swirling pattern with a smiling, archaic-looking sun in the middle. It made me feel odd, this shining face hidden under matted rotting leaves. “Sam would love this,” I said.

“Where is he?” Isabel asked.

“Checking out the woods behind Beck’s house. He should’ve come with us.” I could already picture the curve of his eyebrows, close over his eyes, as he saw the mosaic and the statue for the first time. This was the sort of thing Sam lived for.

An object beneath the bench before me caught my attention, however, pulling me back to the real world. A slender, dull white…bone. I reached out and picked it up, looking at the gnaw marks on it. As I did, I realized there were more scattered around the bench, half buried in the leaves. Pushed partway underneath the bench was a glass bowl, stained and chipped, but obviously no antique. It took me only half a moment to realize what it was.

I stood up and faced Isabel. “You’ve been feeding them, haven’t you?”

Isabel glowered at me, looking petulant, and didn’t answer.

I retrieved the bowl and shook out the two leaves that lay curled in the bottom of it. “What have you been feeding them?”

“Babies,” Isabel said.

I gave her a look.

“Meat. I’m not an idiot. And only when it was really cold. For all I know, the stupid raccoons have been eating it.” She sounded defiant—angry, almost. I had been planning to goad her about her hidden compassion, but the raw edge to her voice made me stop.

Instead I said, “Or carnivorous deer. Looking to add some protein to their diet.”

Isabel smiled a small smile; it always looked a bit more like a smirk. “I thought Bigfoot, perhaps.”

We both jumped as a high-pitched cry, like an eerie laugh, came from the lake, followed by a splash.

“Christ,” Isabel said, her hand on her stomach.

I took a deep breath. “A loon. We scared it.”

“Wildlife is overrated. Anyway, I don’t think Olivia’s near here if we scared the loon. I think a wolf changing into a girl would be a little louder than we’re being.”

I had to admit her theory made sense. And the fact was that I still wasn’t sure how we were going to handle Olivia’s sudden return to Mercy Falls, so a tiny part of me was relieved.

“So we can go get coffee now?”

“Yeah,” I replied, but I moved across the hidden patio toward the lake. Once you knew the mosaic was underneath your feet, it was easy to feel how unforgiving the surface was; how unlike the natural forest floor. I walked over to stand by the statue of the woman and pressed my fingers to my lips when I saw the view. It wasn’t until after I’d taken in the still lake framed by naked trees and the black-headed loon floating on its surface that I realized I was unconsciously mimicking the statue’s look of eternal wonder. “Have you seen this?”

Isabel joined me. “Nature,” she said dismissively. “Buy the postcard. Let’s go.”

But my gaze had drifted downward to the forest floor. My heart sped. “Isabel,” I whispered, frozen.

On the other side of the statue, a wolf was lying in the leaves, its gray pelt nearly the same color as the dead foliage. I could just see the edge of its black nose and the curve of one of its ears rising out of the leaves.

“It’s dead,” Isabel said, not bothering to whisper. “Look, there’s a leaf sitting on it. It’s been there awhile.”

My heart was still thumping; I had to remind myself that Olivia had become a white wolf, not gray. And that Sam was a boy, safely trapped in his human body. This wolf couldn’t be either of them.

But it could be Beck. Olivia and Sam were the only ones that mattered to me, but Beck would matter to Sam. He was a gray wolf.

Please don’t be Beck.

Swallowing, I knelt next to it while Isabel stood beside me and shuffled in the leaves. Carefully plucking the leaf that covered part of the wolf’s face, I felt the coarse fur brush the side of my hand, even through my gloves. I watched the banded gray, black, and white hairs keep moving for a second after I lifted my palm. Then I gently opened the half-lidded eye on the side closest to me. A dull gray eye, very unwolflike, stared at some place far beyond me. Not Beck’s eye. Relieved, I rocked back on my heels and looked at Isabel.

At the same time that I said, “I wonder who it was,” Isabel said, “I wonder what killed it.”

I ran my hands over the length of its body—the wolf lay on its side, front legs crossed, back legs crossed, tail spread out behind it like a flag at half-mast. I bit my lip, then said, “I don’t see any blood.”

“Turn it over,” Isabel suggested.

Gently, I took the wolf’s legs and flipped it onto its other side; the body was only a little stiff—despite the leaf that had dropped onto its face, the wolf hadn’t been dead long. I winced in anticipation of a gruesome discovery. But there was no visible injury on the other side, either.