12. Derek

12

Derek

T he badass wolf’s name was Ricky. I was almost disappointed it wasn’t something like Thor or The Rock. And as intimidating as he was in his fur, his human self was rather normal and kind of… geeky. Everything about the entire experience was unexpected.

His wolf had practically skipped over to us—could wolves skip?—and he’d licked the entire length of Wink’s face with a giant, slobbery tongue, right from his chin up to his hairline. As Wink sputtered, wiping the drool off with his coat sleeve, the wolf had shifted, leaving Ricky there in his very naked human form. Even though the temperature was well below freezing, he barely seemed to notice, tendrils of steam coming off him. Was that a shifter thing? Why was I so damn cold then?

“I’m so sorry! I don’t know why he did that,” he’d said, wincing. “This is so embarrassing. We don’t normally greet newcomers in such an unmannered way. ”

“It’s fine,” Wink said, even as he’d scowled. I knew he was keeping his temper for my sake, trying to make a good first impression. “But maybe you could stick to eating the muffins instead.” He’d passed over the Tupperware, and suddenly, we got very popular, everyone gravitating toward the delicious smell.

Ricky had known instantly by my scent that I was a raccoon, and he could tell Wink was something , though he was ultimately stumped, and Wink didn’t feel like sharing. Ricky had probably never met an elf before.

Were these the perks I’d been missing by being out of touch with my beast? Tolerance to cold and a keen sense of smell? I was so envious of these abilities, but I had a feeling there was a lot more I was missing out on, and it made me depressed. Wink wrapped an arm around my shoulders and dragged me into his side, sharing his body heat, as Ricky introduced us to everyone.

There was a pair of bears, a whole pack of wolves, plus one very brave deer who seemed confident in his ability to outrun the predators. “I’d like to see you try to catch me,” he bragged. I must’ve looked worried because Ricky assured me that any hunting would be purely for fun. “We don’t eat other shifters,” he said, and he seemed genuine, so I chose to believe him.

It wasn’t until one senior with reddish-gray hair, his wrinkled skin freckled from years spent in the sun, said, “It’s good to see raccoons coming back to the area. It’s been over twenty years since I last saw one of your kind.”

“What did you just say?” I froze, an electric current zinging through my body, and I clamped my hand down on Wink’s forearm, though it was clear he’d heard too. He turned to look at the man speaking .

The man’s gingery eyebrows rose, then lowered as he narrowed his eyes and pursed his lips, giving me a more thorough inspection. “You look familiar… What were your parents’ names?”

“I… I don’t know,” I admitted. “That’s why I’m here. I was adopted, but I was hoping to find out where I came from.” A few of the shifters exchanged wary glances I didn’t know how to interpret. I itched to snap at them in a feral way I’d never felt before, but the senior beckoned me closer, and so I let go of my irritation and moved over to his side.

“When I was a much younger man, there was a gaze of your kind not too far from here.” I immediately noticed the term he’d used for a group of raccoons—a gaze—and it pinged inside me almost like I’d heard it before, but I knew I hadn’t. He scratched his chin, the rasp of whiskers abrasive, his eyes focused vaguely in the distance. “They kept to themselves, being nocturnal and all. Didn’t have much in common with us predators, but they were friendly enough, would say hi when we ran into each other in town. I can mark it on a map for you if you’d like. Maybe some of ‘em are still there.”

“Thank you, I really appreciate your help.” I pulled out my phone and opened the map app.

The man grumbled a little about how much he preferred a paper map, but he eventually figured it out and tapped the screen. “Right there abouts.”

I looked at the pin he’d put on the screen, and my heart thrummed in my chest, stomach squirming. It wasn’t far at all. When I turned to look at Wink, silently asking for guidance, he nodded at me. “Let’s go,” he said, his steady presence at my side a balm for my frazzled nerves. I leaned into him and breathed in his comforting scent.

We were about to turn back toward the car, but Ricky stopped me with a hand on my shoulder. “Will you join us for the run?” he asked, gesturing to the woods where a few of the shifters were already disappearing between the trees. “You’re more than welcome. You don’t have to be fast to participate. Everyone is welcome.”

I felt a deep longing to take him up on his offer, but I couldn’t bring myself to tell him that I’d never willingly shifted before. “Maybe next time,” I said, smiling stiffly.

“Anytime,” he said, and I could tell he really meant it. He nodded once before turning to join the rest. His body rippled as the shift overtook him once more, until he loomed large and in charge, loping into the woods with a bark and a wag of his tail.

Lost in thought, I let Wink lead me to the car, and he got me settled into the passenger seat this time. He took the keys and climbed in behind the steering wheel. “You don’t have a license,” I said, pointing out the obvious. “Have you ever driven a car before?”

He shrugged. “How hard can it be?”

I held my breath as he turned the key, put the car into reverse, and backed out of the spot, before shifting to drive and heading down the narrow path toward the highway. “Huh. You picked that up really quickly.”

“It’s an elf thing,” he said, as if that explained anything. “Not so different from driving a sleigh.” I found that hard to believe. Were elves just naturally good at everything?

I took a moment to input our directions into the GPS, then sat back in my seat. Choosing to put my trust in him, I stared out the window as the bare branches and evergreen boughs brushed against the car. “I wonder what they were thinking when I said I was adopted. They seemed weirded out by that. Right?”

Wink was strangely quiet. “What?” I asked, turning to look at him. He was frowning, his lips pursed tight. “What?” I repeated .

“Well, it’s just that… shifters are fiercely protective of their young. It’s engrained in their DNA. Even if a parent felt the need to give a child up, whatever the reason, the pack would step up and raise them as one of their own. A pack—or a gaze—is more than a community, they’re a family. For these shifters to meet someone like you, adopted… it just doesn’t happen. My guess is they were thinking…” He trailed off, and I couldn’t bring myself to look at him as my eyes prickled with threatening tears, the view out the window blurring.

“That something bad happened to my family,” I said, voicing what he’d been reluctant to say. My stomach sank like I’d swallowed a boulder.

He took one hand off the steering wheel and reached across the console to set it on my arm. “We don’t know anything yet, and there’s no sense worrying about it until we do.” He squeezed once more, and then took his hand back and let me lapse into silence. I had a lot on my mind, and he understood that I wasn’t ready to talk about it out loud.

The drive felt longer than it was. My thoughts kept spiraling, dragging me deeper and deeper into a funk as I conjured up all the worst-case scenarios. I was barely aware of Wink turning the car onto a rough track, far less used than the last one we’d taken to the shifter run. There were no tire tracks this time, and years of disuse had allowed the forest to reclaim most of it. No matter how slow Wink drove, branches screeched down the sides, likely scratching paint off in the process, but I couldn’t bring myself to care. All that mattered was what we would find at the end of this road.

The sun had begun to dip behind the trees by the time we pulled into a small, overgrown clearing. My breath was choked off, throat tightening in a dangerous way. There was a lone cabin smack dab in the middle, draped in moss, shingles peeling from the roof, its front porch sagging. As sad as it was, though, I saw faded yellow paint and window boxes where someone had likely planted bright, cheerful blooms, and I could imagine how lovely it had once been.

Wink pulled up 20 feet from the cabin and turned off the engine, an unnatural stillness descending on the clearing. We sat in silence for a moment, as if waiting for something to happen. Ever so slowly, the wildlife decided we weren’t a threat. One sparrow flitted up from the gutter and gave a chirp. Then three of his friends joined in. Soon, a whole forest chorus came to life around us, a pair of red squirrels chattering as they scampered along the porch rail, even a deer stepping from the edge of the trees to nose through the shallow snow, looking for early spring growth. I felt something stir inside myself, an awakening of something long forgotten.

“Do you think I lived here once?” I whispered, reluctant to interrupt the quiet.

Wink smiled softly, but when he went to answer, we heard a creak, and my head jerked toward the cabin. The door swung slowly open with a noisy squeak, sending the birds headed for the trees. An older woman stepped onto the porch wearing a threadbare housecoat and slippers, her black hair streaked with silver and piled up on top of her head.

“Well?” she said after a moment of assessment. “Are you coming in or not?”

Wink glanced at me, and when I nodded, he opened the door and stepped out. “We appreciate your hospitality.”

She nodded sharply, not a single lick of fear for these two strange men who had shown up on her doorstep. “I’ll put on the kettle.” Then she turned around and headed inside.

Wink and I walked carefully across the porch, wary of cracks and rotting wood, then pushed open the door that she’d left ajar. She was swinging an old copper kettle over the fire when we came in, then she turned to us with a smile on her face. “It’s been a while since I had any company. You’ll have to excuse the… the…” Her black-eyed gaze had settled on me, and the smile melted away. “Jacob?” she said.

“Uh, no, my name is Derek,” I said, taking a step closer. “But maybe you knew my parents? I-I was adopted, but I think I might’ve been from around here, because I’m a…” I trailed off, unsure of how to continue.

“A raccoon,” she said, filling in the blank for me, and that warmth I felt inside gave another flicker. She closed the distance and reached for my face. “You look so much like your father.”

I struggled to draw breath. “You knew my father?”

“Of course. He was my son. I’m your grandmother.” Tears spilled down her cheeks unchecked. “I thought you were dead.”

I wasn’t prepared for the sob that wrenched its way out of me, and when she opened her arms, I collapsed into them, the two of us crying into each other’s shoulder. I could feel Wink’s emotions, his joy and grief that mirrored my own, but he held back until I was ready.

My grandmother, Fannie Mae, sat us down at the table and made us tea and sandwiches while she told us a story— my story. Fannie Mae had had to flee an abusive relationship with her son Daniel, my father. They’d hidden themselves away here in this cabin for years, fearing that her husband would come looking for her, but he never had. My father was a shifter too, like my grandmother and generations before, but my mother was human. They’d met in town at the grocery store when he’d gone to stock up on supplies one day.

“We had a good life here in our cabin, the four of us,” Fannie said, wiping at her cheeks with a lacy white handkerchief. “But one day, when you weren’t even one yet, the three of you drove into town together. They didn’t want you to grow up so sheltered. They dreamed of giving you the best possible life, which meant town parades, movie theaters, and takeout dinners. They were talking about buying a house. I’m afraid my Danny never forgave me for keeping us hidden away here.” She sighed, her back bowing. “They never came home.”

“What happened?” I asked, bracing myself for the answer I already knew was coming. Wink held my hand under the table.

“A car accident out on the highway.” She stared down into her mug. “I went looking, of course. I was terrified to leave the clearing. I hadn’t been away from this cabin in 20 years, but for my son and daughter, my grandson, I did it. I went out as my beast, and I saw the wreckage, smelled the blood, heard the tow truck drivers talking about what happened to the family…” She closed her eyes tightly.

I reached across the table and took her hand, too cold and delicate in mine. “Have you been here ever since? All alone?”

“I don’t know how to be anything else anymore,” she said, smiling sadly.

“Well, you’re not alone anymore,” I told her firmly.

With those words, I felt something big shift inside my chest, the final barrier crumbling down, and just like a key in a lock, a door swung open, and for the first time, I heard a voice in my head, both foreign and so familiar at the same time.

Hello .