by R. Lee Smith
Nona did not reply.
“I know they buried all of us,” he went on. “I watched them do it, that scary little bitch and the goat-guys and the werewolves. They cut our heads off and dumped us all in the pit. I saw them.” He looked curiously around at the nothing. “I wonder if they’re still here. Walking around, I mean. Like me, you know? Only we can’t see each other, so we’re all, like, together alone.”
“Why are you talking to me?” Nona asked. “What do you want?”
“I don’t look too bad yet,” he remarked, not as if he were ignoring her, more as if he hadn’t heard her speak at all. “I mean, yeah, I don’t look great, but I’m not, you know…runny or anything. Guess it’s too cold. But I sure ain’t looking forward to the thaw, I’ll say that much right now.”
Nona started walking. The toy soldier didn’t follow her. She could hear him muttering to himself as she left him, and when she glanced back (hating to do it, knowing he’d be rotting away and running after her or whatever zombies do when you dream about them), he was still staring down at the ground, the shadows on his face turning his eyes to the sockets of a skull.
Nona walked, her feet crunching through the crust of the snow, but she couldn’t feel the cold. If the dream had a good side, that was it. She walked until the plains rolled away and she was suddenly standing in, of all places, the playground park where she used to go after school way back when she was a kid and didn’t feel like going home just yet. Not only was it daytime here, but it was a warm, sunny, summer day. She walked as the playground slowly filled up with the images of laughing kids, as the sidewalk took on skaters and dog-walkers and people talking on phones, as the road behind her began to shush and growl with traffic. She reached the corner and stopped to wait for the light without thinking about it. It wasn’t like you could get hit by a car in your dr—
Two flat pops cracked out in the air.
Nona spun toward the sound, the broken half of her knife flashing out, ready for the van this time, ready to kill.
But there was no van, only an old Buick rattling out one more pop of backfire before it pulled away.
“You’re going to be looking for that van for the rest of your life, you know that, don’t you?”
Nona’s back stiffened. She turned slowly and without lowering her knife, to stare into June Stockton’s sadly smiling face. She looked exactly the way she remembered from the day June had turned around and walked away: wind-tussled hair, cold-chapped cheeks, her torn summer clothes flapping loose around her narrow waist in this grey autumn wind. There was even a little snow dusted over the tops of her scuffed shoes. It sparkled cheerily in the sunlight, but didn’t melt.
“Are you dead?” Nona asked. She was a little proud of how steady her voice sounded.
“How should I know? You’re dreaming, remember?” And while Nona thought about that, June stepped up on the curb beside her and looked out at the traffic. “Did you really think you could just go home? That your job would be waiting? Your home? Your breakfast dishes still sitting in the sink with nothing but a couple stale crumbs on the plate? Honestly?”
Nona didn’t answer.
“The world doesn’t hold still for our petty problems, honey. Things change. So do people.” She gave Nona a sidelong, elvish sort of smile. “What do you think I used to do back on Earth?”
“I don’t know.”
“I was a cop.”
Nona stared.
“For six years,” June stated, nodding. “Top of my class in firearms and self-defense, if you really want to know.”
“Really?”
“Maybe. Maybe I was a firefighter.”
Nona could feel herself starting to frown.
“Sure, that sounds pretty plausible. I have a nice, well-toned body and I talked to you like I know how to talk to people in distress.” She held her arms out and turned around to show it off. When she faced Nona again, she wasn’t smiling anymore. “I could have been a lot of things, but what I was when you met me was a captive who did whatever she had to do to survive another day. People change, Nona. And whether you want to admit it or not, you’ve changed too. Life on Earth isn’t waiting for you and even if it was, you could never fit back in the hole you left behind.”
Nona wrenched her staring eyes away and fixed them on the crosswalk sign. It told her not to walk.
“The funny thing is, you could actually be a lot happier there than you ever were here.”
“I was happy,” she snapped.
“No, you weren’t. Mostly because you were determined not to be. You’ve convinced yourself that no one likes you and therefore, you don’t like people and, shockingly enough, that attitude has made you a thoroughly unpleasant person to be around. Maybe you thought that anyone worth having for a friend would make an effort to like you in spite of all that, but people need a reason to try.”
Nona shot her an angry glare.
June held up both hands, palms outward, smiling. “You can’t kill the messenger. I’m already dead. Do you want to hear something funny?”
“No,” said Nona. She wished the light would change, but it stayed stubbornly showing her a red palm. She turned around and started walking in the other direction.
June followed her. “Several people have tried to be your friend, in spite of how difficult you make it. Do you remember Tanya Casatelli?”
Nona flinched, then thrust her chin forward. “No.”
“Are you sure? She sat with you at lunch time every day. She tried to talk to you. She knew how it felt to move to a new school in the middle of the year. She knew you were lonely.”
“I was not.”
“You told her to leave you alone and when that didn’t work, you’d get up whenever she sat down beside you. You made sure she felt as small and unwelcome as humanly possible, but she never stopped trying. She could have been your friend.”
“Sure, for, like, three months. Then I moved again and I’m sure she forgot all about me, like I forgot all about her, so what difference did it make, really?”
“What about Josh Anderson?”
“What about him? He was a stalker.”
“I’ll grant you, he was socially awkward, but hey, pots and kettles. My point is, he reached out, repeatedly, and you rejected him. And then there’s Liz Ledderman.”
“She was not trying to be my friend! She was making fun of me! The most popular girl in school wanted a pet loser for her and all her bitch friends to laugh at!”
“Maybe,” said June. “But you didn’t give her a chance to hurt you. You never gave anyone a chance.”
Nona’s jaw clenched. She walked a little faster. “High school was a long time ago.”
“But you haven’t changed much. You’re still storming through life pretending you don’t need anyone’s help for anything.”
“I don’t.”
“Yeah? And how’s that going for you?”
There was another curb in front of her, another crosswalk with another damned red palm pointed at her. She stopped, fuming, and watched the same old Buick hitch and bang by.
“You don’t belong here,” June said, still right beside her. “I’m not going to insult you by saying this has all been a blessing in disguise. What happened to you…and me…was not a life lesson. But it doesn’t have to be the end either. These people you’re with now…you need them, Nona.”
“I do not, goddammit!”
“Oh for crying—It’s not a bad thing!” June took her arm, but it was Nakaroth’s hand on her when she turned around, Nakaroth by moonlight on the raised rock in the clearing at High Pack. “We are not meant to run alone all our lives,” he said.
“I don’t want you!” she said shakily, but didn’t pull out of his rough grip. “I want to go home!”
He smiled, Nakaroth’s knowing smile. “You are home,” he said and leaned close.
She closed her eyes, moaning—
—and the moan woke her up.
She jerked, coughed on the stuttering
tail of her own low cry, and sat up, staring around in confusion. She saw the towering black of trees on every side, the pale shine of the full moon’s light on wet rock, the bulge of wolf-bodies all around her and Heather.
…Heather?
Nona stared without comprehension at the empty span of stony ground beside her where Heather should be for one second or a thousand. Then she was on her feet in the freezing damp air with her broken knife in her hand, trying to look everywhere at once even as she knew it was already too late. Heather was gone.
Movement.
She turned fast, raising her knife, ready to cut, but it was only Nakaroth sitting up on his haunches just out of slashing range. He pointed.
Nona held her knife on him, shivering, but he didn’t move and eventually her guard lowered enough to allow her to glance in the direction he indicated.
At first, she only saw lycan curled together for warmth. As her eyes adjusted to moonlight and her pounding heart slowed, she recognized Burgash, but the lump beside him was too dark to be Ararro…who slept in their den at night anyway, Nona remembered. Burgash took turns human-watching with Telash, Henkel and Metaka, but Ararro always slept in their den, keeping their cub out of the weather.
Now that she was looking for it, she could see Heather’s human dimensions beneath the rumpled outline of the fur that covered her. As she watched, it shifted slightly, bumping into Burgash’s muzzle. He’d been a father long enough that catching a stray punch didn’t even wake him up. He just put an arm around what would have been Ararro’s waist, rested his chin on her shoulder, and slept on.
Shadows gathered at the corner of her eye. Nona’s stupid heart leapt and raced in a fresh surge of adrenaline, but it was only Nakaroth and she knew it. She put her knife away, picked up her furs and sat back down, pretending not to see Nakaroth creeping up on her, but she was strangely unable to ignore him either. She could feel him, not moving or speaking, just being there. It bothered her, but she couldn’t say how.
Another thousand seconds squeezed themselves into the space of one.
Nona broke, thrusting her chin in Heather’s direction and whispering, “What is she doing over there?”
“You disturbed her.” Nakaroth shrugged. “She is easily disturbed, yet I admit you gave her cause this night.”
“What did I do?”
“You were restless. She tried to wake you. You asked her if she was dead. This…upset her.”
Nona looked at Heather, huddled up against Burgash, who now actually had an arm around her, blowing lycan snores into the folds of her blanketing furs. That was going to be embarrassing for everyone if Ararro woke up first and found them like that.
Or maybe it wouldn’t. The rules were different here.
Everything was different here.
Nakaroth passed his claws over that crescent-mark on his throat, attracting her attention. When he saw he had it, he gestured at the space between them—not much—and tipped his ears in a silent question.
“Yeah, sure,” she mumbled, giving her furs her full attention as she adjusted them. “Sit wherever you want.”
He didn’t move. “I want to sit where I am welcome.”
“Oh hell.” Nona rubbed at her eyes, just to have the excuse not to look at him. “Of course you’re welcome. I don’t mind talking to you, you know that.”
“I do.” It was not clear whether that was a statement or a question.
“Look, I’m sorry about before. If it helps, I promise not to pull a knife on you this time.”
“I require no such promise,” he assured her, wagging his tail. “I have my weapons with me also.”
“But you’d never use them on me.” The words had a weight, a significance she refused to inspect. “Maybe if you did once in a while, I’d start thinking before I opened my goddamn mouth.”
“I would rather have you honest.”
“I wasn’t being honest, Nakaroth. I was being a bitch.”
He thought that over, then said, “That word means something different for your humans, I think.”
She nodded, but did not explain.
He sat with her as she stared out into the woods.
“Tell me of your dream,” he commanded suddenly.
She blinked around at him, more amused than put off by his imperious tone. “What the hell for?”
“It gnaws at you.”
“I’m fine.”
“If that were so, you would be sleeping. It gnaws at you,” he said again, calmly. “The gods seek us sometimes in dreams. Did you meet with one?”
“No.” And before she could stop herself, she added, “They were ghosts. Well, one of them. Maybe. I don’t know, it was just a dream.”
He frowned. “Your packmate returned to you?”
“No. Someone else. He was…just…someone I met once. I didn’t really know him.”
“What did he tell you?”
“I don’t know. That he was dead.” And so am I. “It doesn’t matter,” she said stubbornly. “It was just a dream.”
“Are you awake now?”
“I don’t know,” said Nona, which was a stupid answer. She shook her head, acknowledging the senselessness, but didn’t amend it. “What do I have to say to get you to leave me alone?”
“Leave me alone,” he replied at once, unruffled.
Nona looked away, picked at a hole in her sweater sleeve, said nothing.
Nakaroth moved closer. It was the sort of predatory thing he liked to do, the sort of thing that should have immediately sparked a few hard words out of her, but not this time. This time, she just watched as he eased right up next to her. His arm brushed at hers as he settled; she looked at Burgash’s arm, lying easy around Heather.
“You’re trembling,” Nakaroth said.
“I am?” She looked down at herself, realized her furs were mostly open around her waist and she had nothing but her sweater between her and the cutting cold of winter. Her sweater…She’d had it for four or five years and it had always looked just fine. Wearing it every day for the past—what did the soldier in her dreams say?—two or three months had turned it into something ugly. Not just ragged, but actually ugly, something that could never be cleaned or mended enough.
Something that could never go back to what it used to be.
And neither could she.
Nona tugged listlessly at the thick fur she used for a blanket, but if she pulled it up around her shoulders, she wouldn’t be able to feel Nakaroth’s arm against hers. He was warmer than the fur was. It didn’t mean anything, just that he was warmer.
She shivered.
Nakaroth leaned toward her. She could feel the solid press of his body all down her side now, feel the rhythm of his breath and the tickle of his fur.
Her stomach cramped. It didn’t growl; she wasn’t hungry. She tried to ignore it, but it twisted even more as Nakaroth took her slack hand and held it up. His claws caught at her sleeve, pulling it slowly back to expose a half dozen scars, silver in the moonlight. He traced them with the very tips of his claws (a tingle ran up her spine like an echo), then with the leathery pads of his fingertips (the fine hairs at the nape of her neck prickled), then bent (her entire insides clenched and burned) and licked them.
“What do you want from me?” she asked dully. “I wish you’d just say it.”
“Do you?”
Did she? All at once, she wasn’t sure.
“I think I have made no secret of what I want,” Nakaroth said quietly. “I want you. I want all.”
She shivered again. It had nothing to do with the cold.
“A better question is, I think—” He leaned in, the long whiskers of his muzzle brushing against the side of her face. “—what do you want from me, Nona?”
“Nothing.” It was the truth. She didn’t want this. She didn’t want the spreading warmth in her belly, pulsing in time with his breath. She didn’t want the flutters in her stupid heart every time he said her name. She didn’t want his hand on just her wrist.
And he knew it.
“What do you expect me to say?” she hissed, pulling away with a twist and a yank. “Whatever you think this is, it isn’t! It’s not love, damn it! It’s…It’s desperation! Is that what you want? Is that what you need from me?”
He looked at her, his pale eyes shadowed by thoughts even darker, if possible, than her own. “Perhaps,” he said at last. “I will not deny it is attractive. We lycan have mated a thousand years without love. The wolf I was a year ago would never ask it of you. The man I am tonight…”
He didn’t finish. She told herself she didn’t want him to.
“If it were just you and I,” he said after a long silence lined with teeth. “If there were no consequences, no winter and no spring, but only us…”
He didn’t finish that either. The longer the silence stretched, the more stupid little things appeared to fill it. The sound of snow falling off branches. The tiny sting as windblown ice-chips melted on her skin. The faint glow of starlight reflecting on the frosted rock. Nona realized that she could see lights in the clearing, very faint, like dozens of motionless fireflies frozen in midair
No, not fireflies. The blurry, greenish-yellow shine of animal eyes. The Fringe-wolves, staring back at her.
There were so many of them.
“Why do they have to look at me like that all the time?” she asked, and was proud of the clear, indignant tone she struck.
Nakaroth turned and all the eyes winked away as if by magic. He uttered a dismissive growl and scratched at his neck. “You know why.”
“No, I don’t.”
“You are very desirable.”
“No, I’m not.”
His ears tipped forward, his eyes moving slightly left to right as he stared at her, as if hunting for another answer written somewhere on her face.
“You can’t possibly think I’m attractive,” she insisted.
He frowned. “Your skin, you mean.”
“My skin, my face, my…everything! I’m nothing like you! Admit it, you don’t desire me, you’re just…”