They never found Joe.
BUT AT home, things needed to change. Elizabeth still hadn’t shifted back and I was worried the day would come that she wouldn’t be able to anymore.
Mark was getting quieter and quieter. He spoke only when spoken to, and then it was only a few words before lapsing back into silence.
Tanner, Chris, and Rico didn’t know what to do. They were pack, but they didn’t understand what that meant. After the initial burst of newness, of the joining of their threads to ours, the excitement wore off. Elizabeth didn’t run on the full moons. Mark was just as inclined to disappear.
I walked through the woods, sunlight filtering through the trees.
It’s going to break soon, Thomas said, walking at my side.
“I know,” I said, even though he wasn’t really there.
Something needs to change, my mother said, running her hands along the bark of a Douglas fir.
“I know,” I said, even though she was buried in the ground six miles away.
They were right, these ghosts. These memories. These few things I had left.
An Alpha isn’t decided by the color of his eyes, Thomas said as I picked up a pinecone from the forest floor.
Do you remember when he left? Mom asked. You stood in the kitchen and told me you were going to be the man now. Your face was wet but you said you were going to be the man. I worried. About us. About this. About you. But I believed you too.
And she had.
Both of them had.
I found myself in front of the house.
The old house.
It looked as it always had.
I stood there for a long time.
Eventually, there was a nudge at my hand.
I looked down.
Elizabeth watched me with knowing eyes.
I said, “We have to change. This isn’t working. Not anymore.”
She whined.
“I know it hurts,” I said. “I know it’s easier for you. Like this. Now. But we can’t do this. Not anymore.”
She nudged my hand again.
I looked back up at the house.
She waited until I was ready to speak again.
She was good like that.
I said, “I need to go inside.”
I said, “I want you to go with me.”
I said, “And when we come back out, I’ll want to hear your voice.”
I said, “Because it’s time. For both of us.”
She followed me into the house.
ROBBIE HAD somehow removed the stain from the wood where she’d died.
It looked like it always had.
In my room, things were mostly the same.
I trailed my fingers along my bookshelf.
I pulled out the Buick shop manual she’d given me on my birthday a long time ago.
Inside was a card.
What do you call a lost wolf?
A where-wolf!
This year will be better.
Love, Mom
I didn’t know if I was dreaming or awake.
I put it back and wondered if I had soap bubbles on my ear.
Elizabeth watched and waited, never leaving my side.
I cried. Just a little. A few tears that I wiped away with the back of my hand.
I stood outside her door, hand on the doorknob.
I had to gather all my courage. I’d faced down Omegas. Osmond. Richard.
But this was harder.
Finally, finally, I opened the door.
It smelled like her. But then I knew it would.
It was faded, but it was there.
Motes of dust caught the sun.
It was like before, after my father.
When I left the room, the door remained opened.
“I MEANT what I said,” I told her. “We leave here, I hear your voice.”
She looked from me to the front door, then back to me.
“It’s hard,” I said. “And it will be for a long time. But that’s why we have each other. Why we have a pack. We need to start remembering that again.”
I held out the quilted blanket for her to take, to cover her nudity should she choose to. I wasn’t going to push any harder than I already had, because I was worried it’d be too much.
She stared at my offering for a long time.
I thought maybe I’d failed.
But then she reached out carefully and took the quilt between her teeth. I let it slip between my fingers.
She dragged it along the floor and around the corner.
I heard the shift of bone and muscle. It sounded painful after so long.
There was a sigh.
I waited.
There was a shuffle of feet.
Elizabeth Bennett stepped around the corner, eyes tired but more human than they’d been in a long time. Her lightly colored hair fell along her shoulders, the quilt clutched tightly around her.
When she spoke, her voice was dry and raspy.
It was a wonderful thing.
She said, “I don’t mind being lonely when my heart tells me you are lonely too. Do you remember?”
“Dinah Shore,” I said. “You were dancing. You were in your green phase.”
“That song,” she said. “I told you it’s about staying behind. When others go to war.”
I played my part. “Staying behind or getting left behind?”
“Ox,” she cried, “there is a difference.”
SHE SHIFTED back
You did it, didn’t you?
no she wanted it
You did it, Ox. Trust me on that.
you need to come back
joe
are you there
JOE
SOMETIMES SHE smiled. Sometimes she looked very far away.
Mark had hugged her when we came back to the house the day she shifted back. They hadn’t really spoken, just clung to each other for what seemed like hours.
She didn’t cry.
Mark did, though.
He’d said, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
Not for the first time, I thought everything my father had told me had been bullshit.
Robbie was in awe of her.
“Don’t you know who she is?” he’d hissed at me.
I did. “She’s Elizabeth.”
“She’s a legend.”
Tanner, Chris, and Rico fumbled through their introductions, blushing furiously as she kissed each of them on the cheek, lingering and sweet.
I made fun of them for that later. They blushed again.
I didn’t know if she tried to call Joe or Carter or Kelly. I didn’t know if they felt her better than I ever could. I told her what I knew, how long it’d been, the vague responses I got.
She’d nodded, looked off into the distance, and said, “We should do dinner on Sunday.”
So we did.
Because it was tradition.
Elizabeth stood in the kitchen, sashaying to a song playing lowly on the old radio. I didn’t think it was Dinah Shore. I thought maybe that would hit too close to home right now.
Mark and Tanner were on the grill outside, even though it was cold. Rico and Chris were setting the table.
Robbie looked unsure as he stood along the edge of the kitchen, near the doorway.
“Ox,” Elizabeth said. “Are you finished with the onions?”
I said, “Yes,” and handed her the bowl they were diced in. Because we were pretending that everything was all right.
“Thank you,” she said, and she smiled. It was a shadow of what it used to be, but it was there. She was stronger than I’d given her credit for. I wouldn’t make that mistake again.