Lia tried to push the blinds further apart and get a better look at the man in the truck on the side of the road. She couldn’t get a good look at him from this angle though, and Gran wouldn’t let her open the curtains in the main room. She could see enough of the shape to know it was a man, but that was all. She could see Mr. Rogue better. He was standing outside the truck and had been talking to the stranger for a long time. Sometimes he looked pretty shaken by whatever it was the stranger had to say. Her hearing was really good, but they were just far enough away that she couldn’t hear them clearly. Giving up, Liana flopped down on the soft woolen blanket that covered her bed and pulled out the note that Ellie had slipped into her pocket as she headed for the door with Gran. She’d realized right away that she’d have to be alone to read it, otherwise, Ellie would simply have told her or given it to her right out front, not slid a note so quickly and cautiously into her pocket while hugging her goodbye. It had to be something Gran wouldn’t like. She carefully unfolded the note. It was not written in Ellie’s normal, graceful cursive, but seemed to have been hastily scribbled out on some scrap of paper. It looked like math homework on one side, and but had been crumpled and nearly torn in two, then the note scrawled on the backside without her having even bothered to flatten the paper out first. It must have been a last-minute idea. Excitement built in Lia as she wondered what bit of mischief she and the girls were going to get into now. Sometimes they had the best adventures! Always ones Gran wouldn’t approve of, though Mr. and Mrs. Rogue always seemed to think it was just good fun. Excitement turned quickly to confusion as she read the letter.
“Dear Lia,First, please believe that I have always been uncomfortable keeping this secret from you, but my parents insisted it was for the best. Please don’t hate me for it.There are a lot of things that you don’t know enough about right now. Please stay indoors until we can be alone with none of our family around. I will try to explain what’s going on. Stay away from that wolf! Stay away from strange men. Stay extra far away from Albert. He’s dangerous and will be more dangerous now that he has seen you with a wolf. Please, Lia, I wouldn’t ask if it weren’t important.Love ElliePS: Stay inside after sunset! No exceptions.”Liana crumpled the note and tossed it in her recycle bin. That was so not helpful. The last thing she needed was one of her best friends getting bossy about her curfew. Why would Albert be more dangerous just because a wolf had managed to find its way to Nova Scotia and wound up in her yard?But obviously, she wasn’t the only one who had heard the adults whispering downstairs. The Rogues wanted Gran to let her out at night. Gran was still determined that it wasn’t safe, but for some reason had said it might be for the best, at least for now. There was some talk about the wolf she’d seen and then Ellie had started asking questions about the wolf too and she’d lost the thread of the conversation from below.Lia flopped down on her bed and looked lazily up at the wooden ceiling. Why was everyone making such a big deal about one wolf walking through the yard? Sure, there hadn’t been wolves here in ages, but surely they could travel every bit as far as a lost dog. Maybe further since they would know how to feed themselves and not expect dinner served in a dish every night.“Tired my little one?” Gran asked from the doorway, “I’ve brought you some chamomile tea to help you rest. After last night you really should go to bed early.” Lia didn’t have the energy to argue, even though she knew the tea was likely something stronger than chamomile. She just sat up and took the mug. Her gran sat on the edge of the bed to chat with her while she sipped the tea.“David says the man in the truck outside was from the Department of Natural Resources. Several people near here had concerns about that howling wolf you and Albert heard, so he came to investigate the reports.” Lia looked at Gran skeptically, sensing that the words weren’t exactly honest ones. “They haven’t been able to find any trace of the beast though!” Gran changed the tone of her voice, sounding unnaturally chipper. Probably trying to hide the sound of deceit, Lia thought. “Hopefully he’s gone far away! David told the officer that you'd heard it, but didn’t see anything. You didn’t, did you?”“I already told you I saw the wolf, Gran. He was big and black.”“Oh yes, I remember now. Well, you can’t have been the only one, so it doesn’t matter. No need to talk to the DNR, they know all about it now. Marie is going to send Ellie and Elsie over to have a lesson in herbs tomorrow. I was thinking about teaching you all how to make an immune-boosting tincture. What do you think?”“Sure. Or maybe one to help with memory? We’ve all got exams coming up.”“Oh, that’s a good idea! I think I have everything I need for some of that one too. Did you know the trick is to improve the blood flow to your prefrontal cortex? That will boost memory every time.”“Mmm’kay” Lia answered, already drowsy and not really paying attention. As she slowly sipped at her tea, she recognized the flavours Valerian, Lavender, and Passionflower in with the chamomile, as well as something she didn’t recognize, but she was just groggy enough to not really care what it was. “How long will I sleep?” She asked, knowing that her Gran had slipped something in the tea to ensure she stayed put for the night, not sneak back outside, but she no longer had the energy to be upset with her for it.“Just until morning love. You’ll feel much better tomorrow, I promise.”“Sure Gran,” she said yawning, “so long as I’m up in time to do some school before Ellie and Elsie get here. I can’t leave it all to the last day. The essay on the rainforest...” She yawned again, “conservation efforts...illegal...new laws” she mumbled closing her eyes and sinking back into her pillows for a good night’s sleep.Mark wiped his face and stood up from the table, calling out “Black jeep coming in fast!” Everyone in the pack house froze, catching the image from the mind link. Then they jumped up, rushing to the windows to see what was happening or to the door to get to their posts. Jake’s long strides got him to the front steps quickly. He mind linked with Jake, sharing the full image along with the scents that the border patrol had sent to him.“Is it the one you told me about from the buffer zone?” Mark asked, “That Lone Wolf’s ride?” Jake nodded. Most black jeeps would look, smell and sound the same, but somehow he was still certain this was David’s.“Seems like it, but there must be something wrong. Just yesterday David said he didn’t have any use for the bush, now here he is coming fast, apparently all alone.”“They’re Lone wolves, that would make them alone by definition,” Mark scoffed in disgust, his dislike for the idea of lone wolves obvious.“I suppose. But they’ve been there for a deca
It had only taken a few more hours for the two Rogue girls to wake up feeling perfectly fine. They had been able to heal themselves completely, not needing the parental bond to help at all. Mother Luna had said it would be safer for David to wait and see rather than jumping right in, just in case any of them still had traces of the toxin on them. Neither of the girls remembered anything about their poisoning, even after they were told the words that Lia had mumbled as she’d fallen back to sleep. No matter how many times they went over it, nothing seemed to indicate how the women had been poisoned. The Rogue sisters knew what wolfsbane looked and smelt like, as well as how to handle it safely, but neither remembered having seen it that day. It wasn’t one of the things they’d been in the attic to collect.Jake sat in a chair by Liana’s bed, as far away from her as his wolf would allow. He didn’t want her to wake up and be scared by seeing a stranger beside her bed. His wolf had argued th
Ellie and Elsie suddenly burst into the room, their mother right on their heals. “Lia?” Elsie dropped to her knees on one side of the cot and Ellie on the other. Damned if he could tell which of the girls was which. Usually there was a way to tell with twins but he really couldn’t see any difference between these two.“Come on Lia, we know you’re waking. Open your eyes.” The other begged.Marie sat on the cot by Lia’s hips and held her hand. “Come now, sweetie. We feel you stirring. Open your eyes.” David had followed his girls in and stood beside Jake now. “So...Lia’s wolf talks to you, but she doesn’t know it exists? And Selene’s wolf is completely silent?”“Selene’s wolf has chosen to be silent. She spoke to us when we first met her but stopped not long after Lia was born. I don’t think her wolf talks to her anymore either, or if she does Selene completely ignores her. Lia doesn’t really link with us the way other werewolves do, but my girls can usually tell how Lia’s feeling. Not
“Now gentlewolves, you need to remember as you see this that Selene was barely fifteen when this memory was made. The room is dark, so there aren’t any objects in the background to gauge his size from. She said she had been living in this room for several months before her first escape. This memory is what happened after he found her.”The faces of all three main drew into pained scowls as Marie began to share the images from Selene’s memory with them. A dark room slowly took form in their minds and a bone-chilling cold caused them to begin to shiver almost instantly. The smell was muted at first, the images hard to make out as though they had walked from outside on a bright, sunny afternoon into a darkened room. A large shapeless figure loomed high over the original viewer. Most of his shape was just a black mass, long, stringy hair in the shape of the head was the only thing that made it look human. From the vantage point of the original set of eyes, he seemed at least three feet tal
Lia took a deep breath, filling her nose with the relaxing scent of sun-warmed pine needles and fresh air tinged with the dampness of a light rain. It was as though a sun shower had just washed over the yard and she was dozing in a lawn chair under a tree in her yard. She felt a gentle breeze coming and retreating like breath through the hair on top of her head She could hear a steady thumping, like the bass of a song beating out a steady rhythm through earbuds that must have slipped from her ear as she slept, just far enough away that she could make out the rhythm, but not hear the tune. She felt warm and tingly from head to toe. Perfectly happy and comfortable. It must have been a good dream, she thought vaguely. She decided to try to go back to sleep and dream it again. Rainbows spread across her closed eyelids and she sighed happily.“Home,” she whispered softly, snuggling into the warm, pleasant scent with a smile on her lips. Suddenly the sweet-smelling warmth that enveloped her
“The smell?”“Well you know how Gran has always given me smells to learn?” Lia said, “It isn’t always a herb or flower. There is one scent in particular that she never named, but she told me it was pure evil, the worst kind of danger and I should always be afraid of it. If I smelled that smell, I was supposed to get to your place as fast as possible. The strange thing was, I sometimes caught a whiff of it at your house, which was confusing because why would a scent I should run from be in what was supposed to be the safest place? But I guess if she wanted me to stay away from werewolves, she would have taught me to stay away from some smell almost every werewolf has, but that smell would also be in your house at least sometimes if you were all werewolves.” She shrugged, looking from one girl to the other to see if she was making any sense.“You’re taking this a lot better than I expected.” Ellie said.“It’s been years since you thought all the werewolf tales were anything but silly sto
Lia sat cross-legged on the library floor, leaning back against the base of the overstuffed sofa and flipping through the children’s books and werewolf chapter books for young pups. Ellie and Elsie had left a while ago, promising to be back soon. All these stories about the moon goddess were so captivating! Why had her grandmother told the stories so differently? Here the goddess is seen as a protector of werewolves and the guardian of the earth! That is so much more consistent with the healing properties of the plants picked by moonlight. They say she watches over people and influences their moods and choices to keep them safe. Gran always said that Eric had too much energy during the full moon. She obviously knew the goddess effected moods, but had never once shared that information. Then there were some about the goddess match making and planning the destiny of werewolves, trying to bring peace and unity to all. She is always making happy unions and granting fertility to worthy wolv
Jake’s heart skipped a beat as he looked down into the crystal blue eyes of his intended. They were the same colour as the water around a glacier, with a darker, almost violet ring in the center of them. He remembered her mother’s wolf, then looked at the thick, shinny white hair that was cascading over her slender shoulders and realized her eyes would be blue as ice water and her fur as white as snow. His wolf growled in appreciation. Jake didn’t realize he’d actually made a noise until Liana’s eyes widened and she stepped back in alarm.“It’s alright, Lia,“ David said reassuringly, “When a wolf rumbles like that it’s sort of like men whistling from a construction site, but it isn’t considered rude among werewolves. Once a female has found her wolf she usually really enjoys hearing that sort of appreciation from a male. It makes her feel pretty and cherished….or so my wife tells me.”“I’ve heard you do that before,” Lia said accusingly, her attention still fixed on Jake. “I’ve heard y