by Jae
"Hello, Mother," Griffin said.
"Griffin? Griffin, is that you?" Nella's usually calm voice was agitated now.
So she has heard that I'm in trouble. And now I'm calling for help. Her pride and independence were taking quite a beating these days. "Yes," she said. "Listen, I need your help." There was no time for explanations or pleasantries.
"Oh, yes, I can imagine. Ky called me. You got yourself into a wonderful mess," Nella said.
Since she had been ostracized for breaking the unwritten law by having an affair with a Kasari, Nella had taught her children that it was better to stick to the rules, no matter what. Griffin no longer agreed. Not when following the rules meant killing innocent people. "I don't need a lecture, Mother," Griffin said. "I need help."
A few seconds of silence showed Nella's surprise at these open words. "I'm in Michigan and on my way to your fathers'," she finally said. "You are still at your fathers', right?"
She's coming here? Griffin heard the screeching of brakes and tires in the background. She got on the next plane and flew to Michigan to help me? That was the last thing Griffin had expected from her mother. "Where are you?" she asked, not answering Nella's question.
"I'm just entering a little town called... Osgrove," Nella said.
"Stay there," Griffin said. Having her mother come here, right into the center of Kasari territory, was a bad idea. She didn't need any further complications. "There's a bed-and-breakfast at the edge of town. The owner is Puwar. I'll meet you there. Please," she said urgently.
"All right," her mother said after a long moment of silence. "I'll wait. And Griffin... be careful."
Who would have thought... motherly concern from Nella Westmore. It seemed Jorie hadn't been the only one who had misjudged her mother. Let's hope she'll still be on my side when she sees who's coming with me.
* * *
"I'm sorry I had to leave you alone with my dads," Griffin said when she started the car. It didn't take the imagination of a writer to guess what kind of interrogation Brian and Gus had put Jorie through.
"It's all right. I like them," Jorie said.
Griffin's head jerked around. She almost drove the car into the nearest tree. "You like them?" No one had ever said that after meeting her fathers. Maybe that they were impressed, but no one had ever said they liked the two imposing men.
"Gus in particular," Jorie said. "Is he your biological father? You only have one of those, right?"
"They're both my fathers, but no, Gus didn't father me," Griffin said, a little distracted. She didn't want to talk about her family. Finding out more about Jorie and her dreams was more important now.
"No?" Surprise echoed through Jorie's voice. "I could have sworn that he's your father. You are much more alike than you and Brian, and Gus is so protective of you."
The thought was new, but not unpleasant. "He is?"
"Of course," Jorie said. "Didn't you realize?"
Griffin hadn't, but now was not the time to think about herself and her family. "Tell me more about those dreams you were having," she said instead. "You said they stopped when you got older?"
"No. They never completely stopped, but when I got older, I didn't dream about them every night anymore. Or maybe I did and I just learned not to talk about it or even think about it."
The pain and regret in her voice made Griffin want to reach out and touch her. She couldn't imagine not wanting to talk or think about dreams. Dreams had a special, almost sacred place in Wrasa culture, so why would anyone want to suppress them? "Why? What happened?"
"I don't know what Wrasa kids are like, but human children can be very cruel," Jorie said. The bitter scent of her emotions told Griffin that she carried the scars of that cruelty.
Griffin frowned. "Other children hurt you?" Her hackles rose even though the little girl that Jorie had once been was long gone and all grown up now.
"Not physically. Well, they did shove me into an enclosure with a gaggle of geese once. Did you know that geese can be very mean animals?" Jorie rubbed her arm, where very likely a goose had bitten her, and smiled self-deprecatingly.
"Why would they do that?" Griffin didn't understand. What did Jorie's dreams have to do with the cruel pranks of human kids?
"They were teasing me because I had told them about my imaginary friends. One day, it seems just calling me 'odd' and 'crazy' wasn't enough, so they shoved me into the goose enclosure and told me to 'play with my friends.'" Jorie's lips formed a smile that lacked all humor. "Let me tell you, geese aren't very playful animals."
Jorie's mother had told Griffin about the imaginary friends Jorie had when she was growing up. She had dismissed it as the overactive imagination of a child who would grow up to be a writer, but now she wasn't so sure. Was there more to Jorie's dreams? "Tell me about these imaginary friends."
Jorie shook her head. "It was just the typical kid stuff. Nothing to tell."
She has been teased and hurt because of it so much that she refuses to talk about it, even as an adult. Griffin's body wanted to get rid of some of her agitation by shifting or at least by getting out of the confines of the car, but she forced herself to keep driving. "Jorie, this could be important." She reached over, took Jorie's hand, and squeezed it gently. "Tell me, please."
"How can it be important? Do you really think it has something to do with our situation? It was just childish play," Jorie said.
"Maybe," Griffin said, "and maybe it's more than that. Just tell me and let me judge for myself."
A sigh ruffled the shaggy hair on Jorie's forehead. "All right. As a child, I imagined that I had friends that were magical animals. They talked to me, played with me, and protected me. They were very real to me, and I even dreamed about them every night." A slight smile played around the edges of Jorie's mouth as she remembered her imaginary childhood companions.
"And you based the shape-shifters in your novel on these imaginary friends, the creatures from your dreams?" Griffin asked, just to make sure.
Jorie nodded. "Maybe a part of me thought that if I got it out of my system and finally wrote it down, the dreams would stop. But now it seems the dreams turned into reality, huh? My imaginary friends weren't so imaginary after all." Her nervous laughter echoed through the car.
"No," Griffin said, not laughing, "they weren't."
Dark eyebrows drew together like storm clouds. Jorie turned in the passenger seat, now directly facing Griffin. "What's going on?"
"I'm not sure," Griffin said. "I don't understand it, but... let me tell you what dreams mean to us Wrasa. We believe that in the beginning, the earth existed only of water — until the Great Hunter dreamed about creatures that inhabit the world. In his dream, he saw some creatures that moved on four legs, some that walked on two legs, some that flew with wings, and some that swam with fins. And when he woke, he looked down at the watery world and decided to create what he had seen in the dream. So he created the earth and formed mountains, trees, rivers, valleys, and caves. He created animals and humans." Growing up, Griffin had heard that story quite often, especially when her grandfather had still been alive, but she had never told it to anyone. It was just a legend, as fictional as Jorie's novel was, but sharing it with Jorie still held a lot of meaning. "Then he had another dream, in which his creations changed from human to animal and back, sharing the beauty of both creations. So he created the Wrasa."
Jorie was quiet for a few more seconds. She reached out and squeezed Griffin's hand. "That's beautiful," she said softly.
It was. But Griffin hadn't told her the Wrasa's creation story to impress her with the once rich Wrasa culture and legends. "Dreams are special to us," she said. "We see them as glimpses into what is or what might be. They can be sources of insight and guidance. Wrasa children don't get teased or shoved into goose enclosures for telling others about their dreams — especially not if they are Puwar."
"Puwar?" Jorie asked.
"That's what you'd call my tiger half," Griffin said.
&nb
sp; "What's so special about Puwar dreams?" Jorie was desperately trying to make some sense of it all, but Griffin couldn't really help her, because she didn't fully understand it herself.
"Not all Puwar dreams are special, but we are the only Wrasa subspecies who have maharsi, dream seers. Or rather, we had them." Grief and regret tightened her throat every time she mentioned it. Now even more than ever, she wished some maharsi had survived, wished she had inherited her grandfather's gift so she could help Jorie now.
Jorie's hand, still resting in Griffin's, jerked. "Dream seers?" she asked. "But they don't exist anymore? What happened to them?"
"A lot of them were killed by humans a few centuries ago. Humans sensed their power and their insight, but they didn't understand. More than a few of them were burned as witches or sorcerers or tortured to death as demons," Griffin said sadly. Some of her ancestors had died too. "And dream seeing has always been a very rare gift. It ran only in some of the Puwar families, and even there, not every child in the family had the gift. It often skips a generation. The more maharsi died without having cubs, the rarer the gift became. By the time I was born, there was only one maharsi left." Griffin paused and became aware that her thumb was rubbing the back of Jorie's hand. "My grandfather."
"Your grandfather was a dream seer? So you... you have the same gift?" Jorie asked. Awe and disbelief glittered in her dark eyes.
"No," Griffin said. She forced herself to keep looking straight ahead and watch the road instead of hanging her head in shame that wasn't hers. "The gift only runs true in full-blooded Puwar."
Jorie put her other hand on top of Griffin's too. Her fingers were soft and warm. They wrapped around Griffin's like a protective glove. "That's why your fellow Wrasa don't really like or respect you. You're a hybrid, so you didn't inherit any dream-seeing skills. But why didn't your mother have other children after she gave birth to you and Kylin? Not that it's right to use a woman as a birthing machine and expect her to have a dozen kids, but..."
"Wrasa society can be very strict. Each and every one of us is born into a world of laws and expectations that we can't escape. The more our numbers decline, the more the trap of society's expectations tightens around every single one of us." Griffin felt that pressure every day of her life, and she knew her mother had experienced the same. "My mother's role was to give birth to the future generation of maharsi, and if she didn't fulfill that role, there was no place for her in Wrasa society."
A frown wrinkled Jorie's brow. "That's pretty harsh," she said. She was a woman who loved her independence, just as Griffin did, so she didn't like a life that was dictated by others.
"Yes," Griffin admitted. "But it's what made us survive after being at the brink of extinction. We had to put the survival of our kind above our individual wishes. Even after centuries of living like this, we just stuck to it without thought. So my mother followed expectations and gave birth again even though the doctors had warned her about it."
"Warned her about it? Is it dangerous for Wrasa women to have a lot of children?" Jorie asked.
It usually wasn't. A hormone prevented shape-shifting during pregnancy and childbirth, so the risk of giving birth wasn't any greater than it was for a human woman. "Ky and I were pretty big, a lot bigger than Puwar babies are. It caused complications when we were born," Griffin said and swallowed heavily. "My mother risked her life to give birth to our younger brother, Chiron, but despite being one hundred percent Puwar, he didn't inherit the gift. After that, the doctors told my mother flat out that she wouldn't survive another pregnancy, and she gave up. So when my grandfather died, we lost our last dream seer."
The silence in the car squeezed the air from Griffin's lungs. She breathed slowly and carefully.
Jorie squeezed Griffin's hand with both of hers. "I'm sorry," she said gently. "But what does that have to do with my dreams and my imaginary childhood friends? You're not suggesting...?"
"I don't know," Griffin said. "I was too young when my grandfather died, so I don't remember a lot about how his gift worked, but to me, your dreams sound like they're more than just the typical dreams that don't make much sense and don't have any meaning. You're basing your novel on your dreams, and everything you're writing about describes us Wrasa to a T."
It meant Jorie's dreams were accurate. They were showing her a reality that other humans didn't even suspect.
"That's why you were hunting me? The Wrasa got scared because I described them a little too accurately? They wanted to kill me just because of my dreams?" Anger and betrayal roughened Jorie's voice. She let go of Griffin's hand.
Reluctantly, Griffin pulled her hand back and put it on the steering wheel again. "Basically, yes." It didn't feel good to admit it, but she didn't want to lie to Jorie anymore. "You seemed to know so much about us that it couldn't be mere coincidence. We thought one of us had provided you with the information, but that quickly turned out to be a dead end."
"That's when they ordered you to kill me," Jorie said with a slight tremble in her voice.
Griffin's fists tightened around the steering wheel. "It's not usually how Saru investigations are conducted, but this time... yes." The order to kill Jorie had come much too soon. Griffin still wasn't sure why things had been different this time. She admitted to herself that she hadn't done a stellar job with the investigation. While she had found out a lot of interesting things about Jorie, they hadn't helped with the investigation.
Had it been the lack of progress that had caused Jennings to lose patience and hurry along the kill order? Griffin didn't think so. They'd had slow-moving investigations before. Never had it caused Jennings to forge her reports.
At least as far as you can tell, she said to herself. Her trust in Jennings was gone.
"Why was it different this time?" Jorie asked. "They can't possibly believe that a writer of lesbian romances would be that much of a threat that she needed to be killed instantly." She was trying to be matter-of-fact about it, but the trembling of dark lashes gave her away.
"I've asked myself the same questions over and over again, Jorie. I don't really understand it either. I can just guess that my superiors thought it better to be overly cautious and wanted you dead just in case." It painted a very ugly picture of her entire species. For the first time, Griffin wasn't so proud to be a Wrasa anymore. She hoped that Jorie had learned enough about Griffin and her family to believe that not every Wrasa wanted her dead. "I'm very sorry all of this is happening to you, and I'm sorry for my role in it."
Their gazes connected; then Jorie looked away with a sigh. "Sometimes I still think all of this isn't real and I'm just dreaming."
Griffin smiled sadly. "I think dreaming might be what got you into this trouble."
"Where are you taking me now?" Jorie asked, changing the topic.
She doesn't want to talk about her dreams. She's not ready to admit that they might be more than just meaningless dreams, products of her overactive imagination. Griffin could understand that. It boggled even her mind, and she was the offspring of a family of dream seers. "We're going back to Osgrove," she said.
"What?" Jorie gripped her arm.
The car swerved across the street.
"Jorie!"
Jorie quickly let go of Griffin. "Sorry. But going back to Osgrove... that's suicide! The cops in Osgrove are Wrasa, and you told me every saru out there is looking for me."
"Not anymore." Finally some good news she could give Jorie. "My sister called in a few favors and got us forty-eight hours. There shouldn't be any saru around, and if one or two are still there, they'll follow the council's orders and leave us alone."
"Leigh has connections to your council?" Jorie asked, clearly astonished.
"Not Leigh — my twin sister, Ky. She's a member of the council." For the first time, Griffin could take pride in that, especially since she now knew that Kylin was working toward revealing their existence and sharing a more peaceful coexistence with humans. It was an uphill battle against the more conservati
ve councilors, but at least Kylin was trying.
Jorie thought about it for a moment. "Your family is very powerful. Your fathers rule a pride; your grandfather was a dream seer; your sister is a councilor — and you are a saru."
It didn't sound like a question or an accusation, but Griffin took it as a little bit of both. "Was," she said. "After everything that happened, I'm no longer a saru."
"Who knows," Jorie said. "If everything works out all right and your sister puts in a good word for you, maybe they'd take you back."
Within the confines of the car, picking up the scent of Jorie's emotions was inevitable. Griffin was getting good at interpreting them. This time, her nose detected the stale odor of guilt. It immediately made Griffin feel guilty too. Under no circumstances did she want Jorie to feel responsible for the loss of her job. "I don't want back," Griffin answered. "No matter what happens, that part of my life is over."
CHAPTER 24
JORIE'S HEARTBEAT echoed through her ears as they drove along the familiar streets of Osgrove. She could still remember the last time she had raced down this road, fleeing from Griffin — and now she was sitting next to her in the car, letting Griffin drive her to some unknown location, for a reason she didn't know and after revealing the one thing the Wrasa wanted to know from her. She had put all her chips on Griffin, and now she could only hope that Griffin wouldn't betray her a second time.
Her instincts told her she could trust Griffin, but some last doubts remained.
It was too dark to see much, but Jorie knew they were nearing her house. A longing for the comfort of her home engulfed her. "Can we stop at my house to make sure my cats are okay?" she asked.
Griffin hesitated. "It would be better if we headed straight to the meeting."
"Please?" Since having to leave her cats behind, Jorie hadn't stopped worrying. Now that she was so close to her home, she didn't want to miss the chance to at least check on her cats.