by Eden Winters
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Naked Tails
Copyright © 2012, 2020 by Eden Winters
Cover Art by Perie Wolford
Print ISBN 978-1-62622-081-2
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law.
Printed in the United States of America
First Edition Dreamspinner Press
Second Edition Rocky Ridge Books, Broomfield, CO 80021
Many thanks to the following wonderful people: Carole, Pam, Chris, Feliz, Jared, Doug, and John R., for your friendship, unwavering support, and wonderful insight. You helped me turn a scary night of critter home invasion into an adventure.
Hugs,
Eden
Glossary
Jack—A male opossum
Jill—A female opossum
Joey—A young opossum
Kit—Young fox
Passel—A group of opossums
Possum—Casual form of “opossum”
Reynard—Leader of the skulk
Skulk—A group of foxes
Sweet tea—Traditional Southern beverage served over ice, containing too much sugar
The Jack—Male leader or co-leader of the passel
The Jill—Female leader or co-leader of the passel
Vixen—Female fox
Prologue
Eight-year-old Seth McDaniel drew in his knees and elbows, completely concealing himself behind a massive armchair. He’d been scolded often enough for sneaking uninvited into his great-aunt’s bedroom, where Auntie Irene and Nana disappeared to have grown-up talks. But he’d overheard his name mentioned more than once and, worried he’d gotten into some kind of trouble (again), couldn’t help his curiosity. Whenever his parents spoke his name when they believed him out of hearing range, he’d either later been punished or received a surprise. Seth swallowed past the lump in his throat. I won’t cry like a baby! he told himself.
Footsteps grew ever closer, the slow, shuffling gait of Auntie’s sensible shoes, followed by the clip-clop of his grandmother’s high heels against the polished wooden floor. “Tomorrow morning I’m taking Seth home with me to Chicago, away from this place.” Nana’s words struck fear in Seth’s heart. What? Chicago? Why?
“You cannot deny the child his heritage,” Auntie Irene stated, far sterner than normal.
“If not for that… that man!” Nana spat the word like something vile. “If not for that man, my daughter would still be alive! Hit by a car! At thirty-one years old! Run over by a damned Buick like a stray dog!”
“That man was my nephew Aaron, and he went back for her. Gave his life trying to save your daughter!” Irene snapped back. Her voice softened, taking on the same gentle tone she used to comfort Seth when he’d skinned a knee or woken from a bad dream. “Please. Your grandson also happens to be my nephew’s son, and the last living member of my family. Don’t take him away from me.”
Seth took a chance and peered around the back of his refuge, normally the anchor post of tent forts. The black stuff his nana wore around her eyes now ran down her face, leaving blotchy trails. Both women brushed back tears with their fingertips, only Auntie’s were clear, not black. “I’m sorry,” Nana said. “I cannot allow my daughter’s tragic end to happen to Seth. He’s coming back to Chicago with me.”
Auntie asked, barely above a whisper, “Summer? School holidays? Can he at least visit me occasionally?”
Nana sniffed, steel leaching into her words. “I don’t believe contact with any of your kind is in the boy’s best interest.”
Seth’s heart sank. “Your kind”? What did she mean by “your kind”? No visiting Auntie? No playing fort with his friend Dustin? Nana didn’t play fort, and anyway, her apartment wasn’t big enough for a soldier to hide in. He choked back a sob.
“How is denying who he is, who his parents are… were… serving his interests?”
“I’m sorry, Irene. But I’ve made up my mind and I won’t let you or anyone else convince me otherwise. He’ll live with me, and that’s final. None of this… this… nonsense.”
“But I have visitation rights! He’s my great-nephew!”
“In light of your family’s… issues, I’m afraid I’ll have to say no. And if you make any attempt to contact him without my permission, I’ll guarantee your entire family’s dirty laundry becomes public knowledge. Do I make myself clear? How my daughter ever….” Nana’s voice rose again. “How she ever allowed some freak of nature to change her!” Between sobs, she added, “I won’t let you corrupt my grandson! I won’t, I won’t, I won’t!”
“Victoria, Seth’s only half blood; chances are he’ll never change. He’s not at risk….”
“My daughter wasn’t any blood, until… until….”
Auntie dug her heels in. “My nephew didn’t force her. Your daughter made a choice.”
Seth suddenly wished he’d stayed in the living room with the others who’d come to his parents’ memorial service, even if they had confused him by saying, “There was barely even enough to bury.”
“And she chose wrong! Why couldn’t she return to Chicago after college? What brought her here to this godforsaken place?”
“She and Aaron fell in love.”
“Love! Ha! You see where their love got them.”
“Yes, it got them Seth.”
The rest of the conversation was lost on Seth, who fought the urge to both comfort his grandmother and demand that she not keep him from Auntie’s house. Who’d feed the hens and help gather the eggs? Who would Dustin tell secrets to if Seth lived in Chicago?
The two women left the room, one after the other, Auntie’s pleas apparently falling on deaf ears. Seth spread his legs out in front of him, tears dripping down his cheeks. First he’d lost his parents, now it appeared he’d lose Auntie and Dustin too. What did Nana mean about Daddy’s family?
“Seth? You in here?”
Dustin made a beeline for the chair. He always seemed to sense where Seth was, making hide-and-seek an unwinnable game.
“Oh, Seth. Are you alright?” Dustin squatted beside the chair, wiping tears from Seth’s face with the tail of his Sunday best shirt.
Red-haired, freckle-faced, and green-eyed, ten-year-old Dustin Livingston was Seth’s best friend. Many nights they’d stayed at each other’s houses, chatting until the rooster crowed. The prospect of never seeing Dustin again broke what little remained of Seth’s heart.
“I want Mama and Daddy back!” Seth wailed, afraid to tell what he’d overheard. If he didn’t tell, it might not be true, right?
“Shhh….” The hands normally used to tickle him, give noogies, or playfully punch an arm lifted Seth’s sopping face. “You got me. I ain’t going nowhere.”
The dam broke and Seth wailed in earnest. “Nana’s taking me away! Says I can’t come back here, ever!”
Dustin held him while he cried, murmuring, “You’ll come back one day. And when you do, I’ll still be here—waiting.” He reached into his pocket and then pressed something into Seth’s palm.
Through a glaze of tears, Seth stared at his friend’s prized possession. “I can’t take your lucky arrowhead. What will you do without your luck?”
“You need luck right now worse than I do, I reckon. Maybe it’ll make you lucky enough to get to stay.”
The arrowhead didn’t work.
The next morning Auntie Irene woke Seth early and made his favorite pancakes, served with homemade blackberry syrup. She didn’t smile or sing like usual, and the corners of her mouth turned down in a frown.
Seth finally worked up enough nerve to ask, “Am I in trouble?”
Auntie looked up from the fork she pushed around her plate, rearranging her meal without actually eating. “In trouble? What on earth gave you that idea?”
“I dunno.” Seth shrugged. “You don’t look happy, and when I’m bad I make you sad.”
“Oh, you sweet boy. You sweet, sweet boy. No, you haven’t done anything wrong.” She dropped her fork to the plate with a clatter and scooped Seth into her arms, sniffling into his hair. “Oh, baby. I love you so much. Never forget that. Promise me.”
“I promise, Auntie.”
A car horn sounded outside and Auntie Irene straightened, wiping her cheek with the back of her hand. “Your grandmother is here. We have to get you ready to go.”
“Go? Why can’t I stay here with you?”
“I want you to, but you can’t. You have to go with your grandmother.”
Panic seized Seth’s heart. “Why, Auntie? I don’t want to go! I wanna stay here with you and Dustin! I’ll be good, I promise! Please don’t make me go! Please!” Tears flooded his eyes, spilling over onto his cheeks.
“I’m sorry, sweetie. I really am. But you have to go.”
She said nothing more as she loaded Seth’s suitcases into Nana’s rental car. Auntie dropped to her knees and pulled him close one more time, squeezing the breath out of him. “I love you, sweetie,” she whispered into his hair. She buried her face in his neck, whiffing deeply.
“Love you too, Auntie,” he mumbled weakly, his heart about to split in two.
Auntie Irene released her hold and stood, giving Seth a strained smile. Nana bustled him into the car, ignoring Seth’s, “No! I wanna stay here! I don’t wanna go!”
Nana kicked up dust from the red Georgia clay in her hurry to get to the Atlanta airport. Seth spotted Dustin on the side of the road on his bicycle as they whizzed by. Dustin turned when he saw the car, pumping the pedals to try to keep up. Through the back window, Seth watched a copper-crowned head growing smaller and smaller, finally fading from view. He didn’t stop crying until he reached Chicago.
Chapter 1
Dr. Dustin Livingston finished his shower. How ironic: showering and grooming when, in a few hours, he’d be ambling on four legs through weeds, hunting earthworms and other munchable critters, and exploring vacant burrows. “If you’re going to act like an animal, at least be civilized about it,” his mother always said. Of course, his mother would likely root around the yard of her Florida retirement home tonight too.
He missed his mother, yet missed his dad more, for a simple phone call connected him with Mom, but Dad was beyond reaching out to now. Dustin sighed. After tonight, he’d have one more person to miss, one who directly affected the path of his future.
Since his birth, Irene McDaniel had played a huge role in his life: mentor, leader, teacher, friend. Tonight would be her last. After far more years than most folks realized, her strength finally reached an end. She’d not survive another full moon.
Heart heavy, he drove to Irene’s in silence. Several cars crowded the yard of the old woman’s farmhouse, and Monica Sims’s beat-up Silverado proved a welcome sight. He’d need her support tonight.
He parked next to Monica’s truck and entered the house he’d practically grown up in, his gaze automatically landing on the photos displayed on the mantel. By rights, Irene’s great-nephew should assume the torch at her passing, but Seth McDaniel hadn’t darkened her door in twenty years. Out of long habit, Dustin paused a moment by Seth’s picture, a knife twisting in his heart. Damn, but he wished his childhood friend were here.
Through a crowd much too large for even the spacious farmhouse, Dustin sought out a familiar blonde. He found her in the kitchen. Normally Monica kept her thigh-length tresses bound in neat braids, but not tonight. Tonight her hair, like the woman, would run free, golden waves flowing over her broad shoulders. Even without the beacon of her shiny locks, the six-foot nursing assistant towered head and shoulders over many gathered tonight.
She noticed Dustin and fought her way through the crowd, pressing her lips tightly together.
“Hey!” shouted a red-faced man, industriously slapping sandwiches together in an assembly line for a woman to place on the floor. “Mine’s the one with mustard and pimiento. Don’t step on it!”
Monica ignored him. Every eye turned to her, even while young and old scrambled out of the way of a woman on a mission. “The tension in here’s so thick you can cut it with a knife,” she said after finally elbowing her way to Dustin’s side.
Dustin, at five foot seven, rose on his toes to hear her better over the others’ chatter. “Well, it’s not every day the passel loses a leader after fifty years.” If the shifters who made up the passel were a family, tonight they’d lose their mother.
Dustin and Monica shared a quiet, eye-to-eye moment, tuning out the chaos around them. Monica’s “all business” expression softened. “She’s asking for you.”
He forced a smile. “I’d best not keep the lady waiting. Can you manage things out here?”
“Short term? Yes. In a few hours? Not on your life. I wish we’d shift in the field. Less mess and a whole lot more room.”
Dustin agreed wholeheartedly. Soon, all hell would break loose, turning Irene’s house into a disaster zone. “Yeah, but tonight will be her last. She wants the passel with her, and she wants to spend her last night in the house she grew up in.”
Dozens of eyes followed Dustin’s progress down the hall, where he quietly knocked and then entered Irene’s room before closing the door behind him.
“Ralph.” He nodded to the elderly man sitting at Irene’s bedside, tenderly stroking her arthritic fingers.
“Doctor.” Ralph Mason, county coroner, rose from his chair. Dustin didn’t miss the bittersweet smile the two seniors shared. Though not passel, Ralph and Irene’s friendship ran deep; the old man would miss her upon her passing—as would half the county.
“Is everything in order?” Dustin pretended not to notice Ralph drawing Irene’s hand to his lips.
“Yes. I’ve got the papers ready, waiting for your signature.” The coroner reached his free hand over and tapped a manila envelope lying on a dresser. “And per Irene’s instructions, I’ll wait until after her official burial to contact her next of kin. Less explaining to do that way.”
“It’d be a whole lot easier if what we see in movies was real and we turned back human if we die in shifter form.”
“Yeah, Doc, but you know as well as I do that this is how she’d want it. The moon will help her make the change, but she’s too weak to change back on her own.”
In a few short hours, Dustin, a medical doctor, would pronounce Irene legally dead, verified by the county coroner. They would bury her body in the wild, with the funeral parlor in town providing documentation of a burial in the local churchyard, should any curious parties ask questions.
Such had been the way of Possum Kingdom since the town’s creation. A world within a world, playing fast and loose with human laws while hiding in plain sight.
“Promise me?” Irene’s raspy voice ended both the spoken and unspoken conversations taking place between the two men.
Dustin stepped closer to the bed, bending his slight frame to better hear Irene’s whispered plea. “Promise you what, my Jill?” he asked, though already suspecting the nature of her request.
“It must be you; there’s no one else.”
Dustin’s heart sank. “But the title should be passed to your family. I love you like my own mother, but we’re not blood kin. What will the passel think?” The passel, one-hundred-fifty-odd strong, were a fickle bunch, ranging from the easily led to die-hard traditionalists. His leadership wouldn’t be accepted without a challenge or two. Challe
nges became messy, as he’d witnessed before with other groups. No one had ever second-guessed his Jill, however.
“They’ll agree with my decision. You’re the best man for the job.” The wizened lady lying in the bed, formidable despite her advanced years, leveled him with her steely eyed gaze, the same one that had backed down many a young joey.
“Besides, the only kin I have is partial blood. Had that woman allowed contact over the years, it might be a different story. Because of her meddling, Seth grew up with no idea of his legacy. Even if he did, he’d have a decision to make. Not every half blood chooses to become a full-fledged passel member, especially at his age.”
Dustin clearly remembered Seth’s tear-streaked face the day his maternal grandmother had taken him away from the house twenty years ago. Twenty years. Had it truly been two decades since they’d last seen each other? “She’s been gone for a couple of years now. Have you even contacted Seth and asked him to come home?” Dustin clutched at one last straw, his heart filled with longing. Thoughts of Seth McDaniel brought to mind shaggy brown-and-gold hair and dark-brown eyes, hazed by tears. Even now, after so much time, the memory brought a lump to Dustin’s throat. Seth, ripped away from his life by “the evil harpy from the north,” the label Dustin had given Seth’s closed-minded grandmother. Oh, how he’d cried, wanting his friend back.
“He comes from a different world and has his own life there. We can’t expect him to understand his true path since no one’s been there to teach him who he really is.” Irene lifted a trembling hand to stroke Dustin’s cheek. “He doesn’t even know about the passel, so how can he love them like you do?” One heavy-lidded eye winked. “Though he might make a good coleader one day, if his inheritance manages to lure him down from Chicago.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve left him the house in hopes he’ll decide to live here. If he’s here, he’ll need a friend.” She lowered her voice, adding, “And possibly more.”