The Silent Strength of Stones (20 page)

“What if I can’t tell?”

“You don’t have to be prescient. Wait a sec. I wonder if you are prescient. Do you have prophetic dreams? I wonder if I’m already totally screwed up because I fetched somebody who’s not even
Domishti
.”

“I don’t think I have prophetic dreams.” I had had strange dreams while sleeping on Father Boulder, but they hadn’t predicted the future.

“Doesn’t matter. You’re a student of human behavior. If you
can
tell, when I order you to do something, that it will make me look stupid, it’s okay for you not to do the thing. You were right about this one.”

“You’re not as embarrassed as I am.”

“I’m not embarrassed at all, but it .might have confused Megan. Look, Nick. I chased you first.”

“What?”

“I spied on you before you spied on any of us. I went into the store to find you because you smelled so interesting. I don’t even want people, but I wanted you. I think the Presences had something to do with all this. I didn’t know I wanted another little brother until I found you.”

The air was cooling as the sun seeped away. I looked at him in the fading light, and he smiled. He roughed my hair. “I wish I knew another kind of binding.”

“There’s something I know.” I felt much calmer now that he had redefined everything so it was safe. The fierce wild love I felt for him had confused me. It was completely different from the way I felt about Willow, but it was just as strong, or stronger. I knew it was mostly about relating to him as a wolf, and I hadn’t been able to figure out how it would translate into relating to him as a human person, until now.

Blood brotherhood. That would work.

“Really?” he said.

“I’ll explain it to you later.” We had reached the road. I looked at the store. The neon beer signs glowed bright as dusk settled around us. There was a CLOSED sign in the front window of the store.

“Wait, Nick,” Evan said.

“What? I have to start dinner.”

“Sit down.”

I dropped to the dirt, and he squatted beside me.

“It’s time to remember now what I told you to forget before.”

“What?” He had told me to forget something? And I had forgotten it! Maybe this wasn’t such a hot relationship after all.

“Your mother’s here.”

It came back to me. I remembered the spinning panic I had felt, dizzying as the whirl of a top, when I couldn’t stop long enough to make sense.

He gripped my shoulder. “Listen. You’re safe. You’re okay. You’re still mine, at least for now. Whatever it is about her that scares you, I’ll do my best to protect you from it, okay?”

“Scares me?”

His eyebrows rose. “What would you call it?”

“Scares me,” I said, tasting it, trying it for a match with what I felt. “Why should I be scared of her? All she did was leave.”

He stared at me a moment, then pulled me into a clumsy embrace, startling me. What? What? He pushed me back before I could tell him to cut it out. “I wish we still had that
skilliau
,” he muttered. “It was a good one for calm. Remember to breathe, okay? I’ll be there.”

“Maybe we won’t even run into her,” I said. I pushed to my feet and he rose beside me.

I led Evan around back of the building and peered in through the window in the kitchen door. The lights were on, and so was the radio; I could hear country-western music faintly through the door. Granddad was sitting at the table, studying that morning’s paper. Pop was nowhere in sight.

I glanced toward the motel and saw that a dusty station wagon was parked next to the office. Someone checking in for the night; Pop would be busy. I opened the kitchen door and held it for Evan.

“Hi, Granddad,” I said.

He looked up and smiled at me. “Have a good day, son?”

“Mostly. Granddad, this is my friend Evan.”

Granddad held out his hand. “Pleased to meet you,” he said.

“Thank you, sir,” said Evan, shaking hands with him. “Likewise.”

Granddad held his head sideways and stared at Evan for a long minute. Evan stood quiet under his scrutiny.

“You have a look about you,” Granddad said.

I examined Evan sideways too. He looked like a wiry guy—plenty of muscles, but not bodybuilding muscles, flatter and tighter somehow—pretty tall, maybe chilled, though his swimsuit was dry and he didn’t look goose-bumpy. In this light his body hair wasn’t as bright or apparent as it had been under the sun. His face still looked something other than strictly human. His eyes were spooky looking, the yellow of goats’ eyes or cats’ eyes. He raised his dark brows as if asking a question.

“A look of what, Granddad?” I said.

Granddad’s gaze wandered. “A boy needs a dog,” he said. He shook his head and looked at the newspaper.

Creepy. “I’ll be right down to start dinner, but I need to find Evan some clothes first. You hungry?”

“Got rats gnawing in my belly.”

I wondered if Mariah or Pop had given him any lunch. Come to that, it had been a long time since breakfast, and Mom’s arrival had spooked me out of getting myself a lunch. I had rats gnawing in my belly too.

I got a bag of potato chips out of the cupboard, poured it into a big stainless steel bowl, set it in front of Granddad, then got him a can of Coke from the fridge. “I’ll get you something hot real soon, Granddad.” I grabbed a handful of chips, threw them into my mouth, and chewed them just enough so they would fit down my throat. I grabbed a second handful and offered some to Evan, who shook his head.

Granddad ate some chips and nodded, looking back at the paper. He was still nodding gently as we went up the stairs.

I led Evan up to the attic. Pop hated waste; he saved everything he had ever owned. He was taller than I was, and in earlier years had been skinnier than he was now. There were trunks and suitcases and boxes that held clothes in the attic. Maybe some of Pop’s castoffs would fit Evan better than anything of mine could.

I pulled the chain on the hanging light bulb and looked around. Evan lifted his head and sniffed, his eyes wide. Dust was heavy everywhere except near one big steamer trunk with a bowed lid. I knelt and looked at footprints that made a trail through the dust. Bigger than mine; bigger than Granddad’s. Must be Pop’s. Curious, I headed for the trunk, tested the lid. It was locked.

“There are things in there,” Evan said.

“Eh?”

“Things,” he said. “Strange things.” He stretched out a hand, held it above the trunk a second, then pulled it back.

“How strange? What kind of things?”

“Something with a touch of
skilliau
,” he said. “A pledge, I think.”

“Pop has something with magic in it?” I thought about that for a minute. It didn’t make sense. “I wonder when he comes up here,” I said. Maybe while I was minding the store or maybe after we had all gone to bed.

Imagine Pop having a secret and me not even knowing about it. I didn’t spend much time watching Pop because I figured I knew him so well that nothing he did would surprise me. Now I was surprised. I wanted to open the trunk and see what made him tick. How could he have something with magic in it? I had been thinking this over, and I was pretty sure my magic heritage came from Mom. Even though Evan wouldn’t touch the trunk, I reached for the latch again. There might be some way I could tease it open. Maybe if I talked to it in the right tone of voice. Failing that, I could straighten a paperclip and—

Then I had a strange thought. Pop had a secret. Maybe Pop needed a secret.

“Leave it,” I said to Evan, but mostly to myself.

I opened one of the other trunks where I vaguely remembered having looked when I was younger, probably right after Mom left. I had been looking for traces of her then, thinking that something horrible must have happened to her. Something or someone had stolen her. It was the only explanation I could understand, at first. I had thought maybe she left a note or a map or something. I had searched. In this trunk I had found only abandoned clothes, but that was good enough for right now. The trunk with strange things in it was new.

I found some bib overalls. I had never seen Pop wear overalls, but he must have at some point. These ones showed wear at the knees, some dark oily stains on the stomach where it would have been natural to wipe your hands off after doing a dirty job, and hand-stitched repairs near the pockets. He must have carried a lot of heavy awkward things in his pockets. I pulled the overalls out of the trunk and held them up to Evan, who was still stroking the air above the locked trunk, his eyebrows lowered in a frown of concentration. The overalls looked like a decent fit.

“Come on. Try these on. I have to make dinner.”

He looked at me, one eyebrow up, a faint smile quirking his mouth.

“Please,” I said. “Look, Pop just started trying to trust me, and I’ve already let him down, I really need to get downstairs.”

He took the overalls and slipped into them, with some confusion about how to fasten the shoulder straps, so I did it for him, and showed him that he could close the buttons at the sides if he wanted to.

“I like these,” he said, pushing his hands down into the pockets. “They don’t bind anywhere.”

They looked odd on him; maybe that was just because I still felt like a boy dressing his dog in a sweater, or maybe anything normal would look odd on him. I closed my eyes for a second and then looked at him from a fresh perspective. Decided I was right: anything normal would look weird on him. He might look all right if he was in a black body stocking with spiky silver armor over it, Or maybe in one of those bright, wild ski outfits athletes wore in the Olympics. All right, but never normal.

“What?” he said.

I shook my head. “It’ll have to do.”

“I like it better than most clothes.” He studied the bib, popped open a snap on one of the tool/pencil pockets. “Lots of places to carry things,” he said.

“Yep.” I turned back to the clothes trunk, dug out a worn plaid flannel shirt. “Here’s a shirt, for if you get cold. You put it on under the straps.”

“How?”

“Take the straps down. Come on.” I tossed him the shirt and headed for the door, let him out first, went back and turned off the light, then clattered down the stairs after him toward the sound of country-western music.

When we reached the kitchen Pop was still not there. A tightness in my chest loosened a little. Granddad had eaten all the potato chips, and he still looked hungry. I gave him a banana, starting the peeling process for him. I checked out the fridge and the cupboards even though there was nothing I hadn’t put there yesterday. Couldn’t make sandwiches two days in a row, but I needed something quick. I got out spaghetti noodles, put a big pot of water on to boil, and dumped a jar of marinara sauce into a saucepan to heat. I checked the freezer and found some sausages, started them thawing and frying. Turned around to find Evan watching me.

“What?” I said.

He gave me half a smile and shook his head. “What else do you do?”

Like there was something special about cooking? Or maybe he was talking about something else. I glanced at my watch. It was almost six-thirty. We usually ate around now. Where was Pop? Not that I wanted him to show up any faster than he was going to, but what would he say about Evan? What if he said, “Another mouth to feed? Forget it!”

Whatever time Pop arrived, he’d be expecting dinner, ready. Thinking about speed healing, speed mind-altering, I asked Evan, “Can you make water boil any faster?”

“Sure.” He came to the stove and put his hands on the sides of the big pot before I could yell at him not to.

“It’s hot!” I said.

“Sure,” he said, rubbing the metal. I didn’t smell burned flesh. Suddenly the water was boiling, great domes welling up from the bottom and bursting at the surface.

“Uh,” I said.

Evan let go of the pot and smiled at me. “Sign fire.”

Like I knew what that meant. I swallowed. “Thanks.” I opened the package of noodles and dumped them into the furious water, set the timer for eight minutes. I rinsed and chopped up lettuce and tomatoes for salad, added canned olives and grated cheese. The sausages sizzled and smoked and smelled delicious. I turned them over with a fork.

Granddad had left his banana peel on the table among the newspapers. “Gotta do setup,” I told him. He backed his chair away from the table and I cleared it and wiped it clean, then put down place mats, silver, napkins. Got the guest chair from the closet and unfolded it.

The back door opened and Pop breezed in, followed by Mom.

My throat tightened. I set the chair at the table and tried to smile at my parents.

“Smells good, Nick. I hope you’re making lots. I brought company,” Pop said, then glanced at the table. “Oh, good. How’d you know?”

I pointed a thumb at Evan.

Pop’s eyebrows rose. “Oh! Who’s this?”

I swallowed, and said, “My friend Evan.” My voice squeaked. How was I going to not recognize Mom? And what if Pop kicked Evan out? I had never brought a guest to dinner before. Neither had Pop, at least not since Mom left.

“Evan, again?” Pop glanced around.

“Yeah. Weird, isn’t it? We left the wolf in the woods for now.”

“Interesting coincidence,” he said. He cleared his throat “This is Susan Fox. She’s staying at the inn. Just thought I’d offer her an alternative to Mabel’s. Susan, this is my son, Nick, and his friend Evan.”

Susan. Mom’s name was Sylvia. I held out my hand and she stepped across a distance and gripped it, and a million memories flashed through my brain—I was nine and her hands stroked my back after I’d coughed and coughed, her fingers warm and her voice singing something that touched my throat more than my ears and relaxed it; I was five and wanted to chase a ball across the park because I hadn’t caught it when she threw it, but I ran toward it and smacked into a wall that wasn’t there and fell, and when I turned around, I realized I was too far away from Mom, a hundred feet, a year away, farther than I’d ever been before: I had to wait until she came closer before I could go after the ball; her hand against the side of my face after I’d drawn a picture, at six, of our family, with her outlined in yellow and Pop outlined in green and me without any colored outline at all; I was three, and she held me in her lap and stared into my eyes a long, long time, until I felt like she had stared me right inside of her; my hand cupped around the green rock and her hand curled around mine, and her whispering, “Hold on tight, hold on tight,” until light leaked from our nested hands; the press of her lips on my forehead in a good night kiss, night after night, and the whispered words, “May the night hold you gently”; the first time she took me down and introduced me to the lake, dipping her fingers in, touching them to her mouth and then mine; the tight grip of a hug after I had fallen down on asphalt, my bike spinning out from under me, my arm and elbow scraped and bleeding ....