Shadow Rites

I didn’t know what had happened in the aftermath of the cemetery, except that I had found my fully human form and been taken home. At some point, I had been fed by Edmund. Clearly I had been showered and someone had somehow gotten me into my jammies.

I remembered the smell of magics and Angie Baby. And later, the sound of angry voices. I remembered Leo, on the other side of the door, sounding concerned and then sounding irritated, saying, “She should be told that the witches signed the accords. We are aligned. I must tell her.”

And Bruiser’s voice as he told his once-master that he couldn’t come into my bedroom, couldn’t wake me up, and that was final. And Eli, telling Leo, “I’ve already informed Jane. She said, ‘Ducky,’ and went back to sleep. No, you can’t wake her. No, I do not work for you. I work with Jane. No. No.”

At the sound of the confrontation, I had smiled in the dim light.

I remembered food—soup—being spooned into my mouth. Water through a bendy straw.

I also remembered pain. And the respite from pain.

And now I was awake, feeling stiff and sore and deeply rested. And there wasn’t any reason to put it off really. Either I was healed or I wasn’t. And if I wasn’t, I’d have to shift into Beast a few times, and maybe into some other animals, to find the parts of me that went missing when I bubbled time so much in the last week.

I pulled my arm to me and placed my open, healed fingers on my abdomen. I had skin, not pelt. I slid my hands up and down, discovering that I was my usual human shape and size. The hole in my side where my external oblique muscles should be was . . . better. Not so deep. Not painful. But I wasn’t totally okay.

And I still had a dark mote of power inside me, attached to my heart, one that would kill me if I tried to rip it out.

But all in all, things were pretty okay, considering.

The door cracked open and the scent of Angie, Little Evan, and Brute filled the room. “Aunt Jane?” Angie stage-whispered. “You still sleeping?”

“You still weepin’?” Little Evan echoed.

“Shhh. Mama says we can’t wake her up if she’s still sleeping.”

I chuckled softly and said, “I’m awake. Come on in.”

“Aunt Jane’s awake,” Angie shouted to the rest of the house. “She’s not dead!”

“She not dead!” Little Evan said.

“You woke her up, didn’t you?” Bruiser said.

“No. Uncle Bruiser! She was awake.”

“No, Unca Buse!”

The three, and a werewolf, traipsed in. My mattress moved like an earthquake as Brute leaped up. The kids took his action as permission and followed, Angie snuggling into my left arm and EJ into my right. Brute claimed the bottom half of my bed, on top of my feet, but he was werewolf warm and I didn’t mind.

I smelled my honey bunch at the door and knew without looking that he was standing there, watching us all. Smiling. Yeah. I could smell his smile. How cool was that?

A moment later the grindylow jumped up on the bed and raced around like a furry, fuzzy green ferret, chittering madly, before she leaped onto Brute and burrowed into his hair. I had wondered where the creature slept.

I closed my eyes and might have even gone back to sleep if Eli hadn’t forced me up and out of bed, by the crafty device of putting a steak on the grill out back and leaving the side door open. Evil man. But then I realized that if I added steak to the picture, I would be the happiest person on the face of the Earth. So I gathered up my godchildren and my menagerie and rolled off the bed, seeking the rest of the Yellowrock Clan.