Healer (Shifter Island Book 5) (8 page)

Jed came back into town to find some of his packmates looking at him oddly, then quickly scurrying away. Not out of fear—he could pick up nothing like that in their scent—but rather a sense of regret.

As if they’d heard some news they couldn’t bear to face him with.

But he had news of his own. He felt more certain that ever that he and Deborah were meant to be together, in spite of all the obstacles that had been placed in their path. What he was meant to show the pack was his strength and perseverance, his willingness to commit to something important and fight for it until there was no breath left in his body, if it came to that.

He could only hope that the gods had told Deborah the same thing.

He supposed she was at home, if she’d shifted back into human form around the same time he had, although it was possible she was taking a little extra time to roam through the woods so that she could settle her thoughts and decide what she ought to do next.

At first, he was tempted to seek her out immediately. Then he thought it might be better to put his best foot forward, to display his love and respect for her by looking and smelling his best.

So, trying not to frown at the way his packmates kept ducking away from him, he hurried back to his house. There, he spent quite a while bathing his hair and skin with cold water and some of Rosa’s handmade soap, and then chose the nicest-looking shirt and jeans from his closet. He had no mirror in the house, but when he was finished, he thought sure he looked as presentable as he was likely to get.

He changed his mind moments after he had stepped back out into the roadway that threaded through the settlement.

One by one, his packmates were still avoiding him.

Exasperated, he grabbed the closest one by the arm and reeled him in. “What is all this?” he demanded. “What’s wrong?”

The man—a young one Jed barely knew—tried to shrink away, but Jed held on tight.

“Jed.”

It was Rachel, hurrying along the road in his direction. Certain that she, at least, would answer his questions, he let the young wolf go, shaking his head as the near-stranger disappeared around a corner.

“What is it?” he asked as Rachel came closer.

“Deborah.”

Jed’s heart thumped hard against his ribs. “Is she all right?”

Rachel glanced back over her shoulder, then turned to face him again. “She came back from Isolation very upset, asking for Gregory. She said something had told her that he needed her, but no one’s seen him. We’ve been scouring the settlement for him for almost two hours, but we haven’t found him.”

“You think he’s hurt?”

“We don’t know. I—I’d rather think he’s just hiding somewhere, nursing his grievances.”

Jed thought that over for a minute, wondering what Gregory had to do with people all but shunning him, then realized what the answer was. “You think I drove him away. That he’s gone off to hide in the woods because I’m trying to take his father’s place and his mother won’t turn me away.”

“It’s a possibility,” Rachel admitted.

There was one more piece to fit into the puzzle. “That’s what she believes, isn’t it? The healer. She believes I drove her son away.”

Rachel shrugged apologetically.

“How long ago did she come back to the settlement?”

“Several hours.”

Jed looked around, but he could see no sign of Deborah. He hadn’t really expected to, but a lot of unexpected things had happened recently—along with a lot of things that didn’t make sense. Why would the gods have urged him to pursue her if they’d told her to shun him in favor of her son? By the seas, it was no wonder people wouldn’t stop and talk to him.

“Where is she now?” he asked quietly.

“Looking for Gregory.”

He thought Rachel might be anxious to run off and help, but she stayed where she was, looking more rueful than he’d seen her since all that trouble with Luca a few weeks ago.

That prompted a new thought.

“Where’s Micah?” he asked. “Does Daniel still have him under watch?”

Rachel was confused for a moment, then shook her head again, clearly startled. “What? No. Yes, of course he’s under watch. You don’t think Micah did something to Gregory, do you? Why in the world would he do that?”

“I don’t know, Rachel. I don’t know much of anything any more.”

She waited for him to say something more, and when he didn’t, she patted his arm briskly and stepped away. “I need to help look for Gregory,” she explained. “I imagine the healer is out in the woods somewhere. You can pick up her scent easily enough, I’m sure. But it might be better if you—”

“Found the boy first?”

“This is all very hard for him, Jed. I hope you can understand that.”

He watched her move quickly away, and then, when she was gone, moved out of the road so that he was no longer blocking the paths of his packmates. Most of them seemed to be going about their everyday routine, and finally, a couple of them nodded in acknowledgment of his presence.

Should he do that too? he wondered. Go about his normal routine? He could certainly help search for Gregory, but what would he do if and when he found the boy? He couldn’t imagine that the boy would be willing to talk to him.

He leaned against the rail fence surrounding the schoolyard, half-listening to the voices of the children playing nearby.

Strong and determined: that was what the gods wanted him to be.

But determined about
what
?

He was almost annoyed when he spotted Micah off in the distance, walking toward the gathering house with one of Daniel’s guards close at hand. Now,
there
was a young wolf whose life had gone completely of course—and it had begun years ago, when his parents were lost to the sea. Before that, he’d been cheerful and happy, a delight to be around, as kind and generous as any child Jed had ever seen.

Much like Gregory had been, before his father died.

Was that the problem? They had no sire to guide them? Micah had lost his mother too, but Granny Sara was as capable a mother as any female in the pack. So it had to be the lack of a father.

Or was it something else?

But this wasn’t accomplishing anything. Feeling as annoyed at himself as at anything or anyone else, Jed pushed away from the fence and strode down the road in the direction Micah had taken. He caught up with Micah and his guardian easily, and gestured for the guard to step back and allow him to talk to the island’s most infamous wolf.

Its most infamous lost boy, Jed thought.

Micah peered at him with a mixture of what seemed to be curiosity and disdain. “Good day to you, carpenter,” he muttered.

“And to you,” Jed said.

He tried to remember if they had ever had a conversation before, if they’d spoken more than a few words to each other. Finally, he recalled talking to a group of students about the pleasures of carpentry—how fulfilling it was to take a pile of building materials and turn them into a structure, either a new home for a family or something that the entire pack would be able to use. Micah had been one of those youngsters, he was almost sure. Not that the talk had done much good; Micah had never developed a desire to do anything constructive. The best he seemed to be able to do was staying out of other people’s way. And now he needed a guard to help him do even that.

A guard, to keep him… from disappearing.

“Do you know of a place where a young one might go to hide?” he asked Micah.

Micah frowned deeply. “Why would I know someplace like that? This island has no secrets, they tell me. Why would I know one?”

“Because there’s a boy who’s gone somewhere to hide.”

“Sniff him out.”

“Maybe you can help.”

Shaking his head, Micah looked off down the road. He seemed to want to be disdainful and dismissive, to send Jed away thinking that Micah wasn’t worth any of his time, but as Micah turned his head, Jed saw something in his eyes: a deep sadness, and resignation.

“Micah,” Jed said.

Again, the younger wolf shook his head. The guard frowned a little, but Jed waved him off.

“Please,” Jed urged. “The boy is only twelve.”

He almost added that Gregory was likely to do something foolish because he was upset and wasn’t thinking clearly. But that might be too much of a reminder of what Micah himself had done. The two things weren’t really comparable; Gregory had simply run off to be by himself, and Micah had stabbed another wolf nearly to death. It was best to avoid pushing the conversation in that direction, if he truly wanted Micah’s help.

“You were well-known for exploring the island,” Jed said in a friendly tone. “Finding places no one was familiar with. Didn’t you make some maps? I seem to remember that. I think one of them is in the schoolroom.”

“I like maps,” Micah muttered.

“Could we take a look at them? Maybe there’s a place—”

Micah closed his eyes. His head sank a little; he would have been looking at the ground if his eyes had been open.

“You didn’t come to see me when I needed help,” he whispered. “But now you want me to help you.”

The despair in his voice was a terrible thing to hear.

“I’m sorry, Micah,” Jed said.

He wanted to say that they had all tried to help. To an extent, it was true: the entire pack had extended their sympathies to Granny Sara on the loss of her daughter and her daughter’s mate. They’d assisted Sara with everything they thought she might need. She and young Micah had been smothered with attention for weeks.

Then, the life of the pack had gone on. Over time, Sara had returned to her daily routine. She’d accepted her loss, although her grief was still very evident even to those who spoke to her only rarely.

The boy, Jed thought.

No, they hadn’t properly cared for the boy.

Obviously.

“I’m truly sorry,” Jed said. “I know that changes nothing, but I regret not offering my friendship to you. We aren’t close in age, and I wasn’t—I knew nothing about being a father. I thought someone else would be better suited to—”

“Did you?” Micah asked.

“Yes. I—”

The younger wolf lifted his head and looked piercingly into Jed’s eyes. The golden glow that marked the presence of his wolf was very evident in his gaze, and the wolf was very plainly angry.

“Everyone else thought the same thing,” Micah said sharply. “Do you know how that feels?”

He took a step toward the guard.

Then he stopped and turned back to Jed.

“Do you know what it’s like to see everyone else happy and content, when you’ve lost everything you had?” he demanded. “Yes, I had a warm bed and enough to eat, and my grandmother has always been very attentive. She’s dear to me, but she isn’t my mother. She isn’t my father.”

With his breath coming in shallow huffs, he waved a hand in the direction of the sea. “They died out there, in the water. Every time I closed my eyes, I imagined them out there, being swallowed up by the sea. I saw the water eating them up. I can hope now that they were together when they died—that they could see each other and say goodbye. But when I was small, all I could think was that the sea was a great, terrible beast, and it had eaten them whole. It had stolen their breath and pulled them down into its great maw, never to be seen again.”

His gaze bored through Jed like an auger.

“Yes, I’ll help you,” he said finally. “We’ll find the boy. But only if you promise that everyone won’t dismiss this tomorrow. That you won’t go back to your lives and assume that someone else is solving the problem. That you won’t assume that someone else cares enough that you don’t need to.”

For a very long time, Jed was stunned and silent.

Then he said very softly, “I’m sorry, Micah. I truly am.”

“Don’t be sorry,” Micah snapped. “Be the answer to the problem.”

Deborah searched until long into the night, until she was so tired she could barely stand. More than a dozen of her packmates, all eager to assist their healer, had searched along with her, and she began to think she couldn’t stand one more, “We’ve found nothing yet.”

The island wasn’t that big. Where could he possibly be?

She thought of the times she’d romped and played with the others her own age, how they’d found little secluded spots and called them their own. Other children used those same spots now; they’d never really been a secret. She went to them one by one, hoping that one of them would reveal her son curled up sound asleep, but each of those places was empty.

“You should rest, healer,” Aaron told her. “We’ll keep looking.”

He wanted badly to be with his new mate; she could see that in his eyes. For that matter, they all had other places to be, other things to do. Gregory was certainly all right, in no danger. She tried mightily to convince herself of that, that he was simply hiding because he was angry with her. She’d done that herself half a dozen times during her childhood. She had no right to ask so many people to keep looking.

But he’d called out to her. Had cried out,
Mother!

Hadn’t he?

Stepping awkwardly, she turned her ankle a little and gasped in pain. Shaking his head, Aaron guided her over to a rock and helped her sit down. She tried telling him that nothing was wrong, but he knelt in front of her and tested her ankle with a light touch.

“It’s not broken,” she told him. “Just twisted a little.”

“You really should rest.”

She tried not to look at the ground. The dirt there might be soft, and if it wasn’t, Aaron could guide her over to some moss, or a bed of pine needles. He was certainly strong enough to carry her home, but that was the last place she wanted to see.

Her son wasn’t there. No one was there. It would be far too quiet for her to bear.

“Let me bring you to my parents’ house,” Aaron offered. “My mother will make you some tea and sit with you.” When she didn’t answer, he said, “To Granny Sara’s, then. Or anyplace you name. Just tell me.”

She tried mightily to stand up, but her body wouldn’t cooperate. Even her eyelids were refusing to stay open.

“Healer,” Aaron said gently.

He was gathering her into his arms: one arm underneath her thighs, the other across her back. Her head swam as he lifted her, and she clung to him a little, sure that she was going to tumble to the ground. She’d never in her life felt so weak, so out of control.

Then, somehow, even though she was sure only a few seconds had passed, she found herself lying on a bed, with a pillow that smelled of her dear friend Sara tucked beneath her head.

The scent made her stomach roll.

She groaned and pressed her hand to her mouth. Every inch of her body felt raw and abused, and for all her knowledge of cures and potions and poultices, she could think of no way to make it stop.

Something cool touched her forehead.

“Sshh,” Sara whispered.

It was a damp cloth, and Sara used it to sponge the heat and sweat from Deborah’s face and neck. Then she pushed up Deborah’s sleeves and bathed her hands and arms. When she was done, she tucked a warm quilt over Deborah’s trembling form.

“Sleep for a while,” she said. “I’ll wake you if anyone has news.”

Sleep? No, she couldn’t sleep. Mustn’t sleep, not while Gregory was out there somewhere.

She groaned and tried to sit up, but her head swam again and she collapsed back onto the pillow. She reached for Sara, but her friend didn’t seem to be nearby. If only she could see clearly…

“She’ll be all right,” Sara said. Her voice was low and cautious; she seemed to be speaking to someone on the other side of the room. “I think she just needs to sleep. She’s running a little bit of a fever, but—”

“Should I fetch something from her house? Or get one of her helpers?”

It was Jed. His voice was thick with concern.

“No, I don’t think so,” Sara said. “She’d be happier if you just keep looking for the boy.”

“That tea. She has a special tea to bring down a fever.”

“So do I. Go. Look for the boy. I’ll sit by the bed and watch her. You don’t need to worry.”

“Of course I do,” Jed said.

He wasn’t sick like she was. So this wasn’t the result of Isolation, those hours spent without food or drink. But Jed might well have eaten several meals and drunk his fill since then, and she’d had nothing.

For a minute Deborah was ferociously angry at him for taking the time to eat, to drink, to do heaven knew what all else, all while she was looking for her son.

Why wasn’t he helping? Why was he standing here with Sara?

Why…

“I’ll go,” Jed said. “But I’m going to send Rachel to sit with you. You’ll need someone to run for help if anything happens. She can—”

Sara made a small noise of distress. Then the door opened and closed.

Time seemed to jump ahead again; suddenly Rachel was there, rearranging the quilt around Deborah’s shoulders. She patted and tucked it so much that Deborah wanted to cry out to her to leave it alone, and that feeling grew stronger when Rachel leaned in close and sniffed at Deborah’s cheek.

She let out a small, happy hum, then kissed Deborah just below her eye.

“That’s certainly an answer,” she whispered. “Maybe you should have gone to the gods weeks ago.”

“Zuh…?” Deborah muttered.

She managed to get her eyes open halfway. Blearily, she could see Rachel’s face, could see her friend smiling brightly and happily. That seemed not at all appropriate—not now, not with Gregory still missing.

Was he still missing? Maybe he’d been found…?

“Can you feel it?” Rachel asked.

“Where is he?” Deborah asked, and worked her hand out from underneath the covers so she could grope for Rachel’s. The thought that Gregory might be safe, might be nearby, gave her enough strength that she was able to lurch upright and sit with the quilt spread across her lap. “Where?” she begged, trying to see past Rachel, to see if her son was there in Sara’s house with her.

“You need to rest,” Rachel told her firmly.

“Noooo,” Deborah moaned. “I want to see my boy. Where is he?”

Rachel sat down on the bed alongside her and took Deborah’s elbows in her hands. “You need to protect
this
boy,” she said, then shrugged a little. “Or girl. You need to sleep.”

“What…?”

“Dear one. Healer. Can’t you tell?”

Tell… what?

Then, as if Rachel had shouted it aloud, Deborah knew what she was talking about. All of a sudden, she was aware of a tingling in her breasts, a tightness in her womb, a sense of something
other
inside her that wasn’t the wolf.

“Oh,” she murmured.

Rachel tugged her in closer and kissed her softly on both cheeks. “How wonderful,” she said happily. “What wonderful news.” Then she turned and beckoned for Sara to come close. “The gods have answered you,” she said when Sara too was sitting on the bed. “You can’t have any doubt about Jed any longer. They’ve given you his child to nurture and love.”

“Are we certain it’s Jed’s?” Sara asked dryly.

Rachel scoffed at her. “Of course we are. Here—do you have the special tea for mothers? I have some at home if you don’t. I have it for my new daughter, when the time is right. It’s on the shelf—”

Deborah shook her head.

“What is it, dear?” Sara asked.

It was difficult to form the words. “Have the gods given me this child in exchange for the other one?” she asked in a choked voice. “Have they taken Victor’s child along with Victor? Do they intend for me to start again?”

“No,” Rachel said firmly. “No, of course not.”

“But how do you know? No one’s found him. What if he’s fallen into the sea?” Deborah’s voice broke. “What if he’s
gone
?”

Something seemed to snap inside her, and she began to sob in anguish, certain that she’d never see her boy again—that he’d fallen into the sea, either on purpose or by accident. That he’d gone to join the father he missed so much, the father he both adored and hated, because Victor had left him. The sobs wracked her from her to toe, and she was dimly aware that both Rachel and Sara were trying to comfort her to no avail, and that she was making so much noise that she could probably be heard all the way across the island.

She wept until darkness started to close in on her again, and clung to Rachel and Sara only to have something to hold on to, not because she wanted them nearby.

Through all of it, she could barely feel the presence of the wolf.

Then, when it seemed like days had gone by, that she’d somehow slipped into some other world that was full of nothing but pain, the door opened again and a voice she thought might be Aaron’s said loudly, “They’ve found him!”