by Lola Gabriel
“I’m afraid,” Chance said. “I want what’s best for her, but first, I want her to live. Okay?” Axel nodded.
“If I can never see her again,” he said, “I still want her to live. I don’t know how I’d do it… be without her… but I want her to be in the world.” Ingar looked into the fire for a long while.
“Chance,” he said. “Axel. Your packs have a feud? When was the last time they communicated? Met for a solstice or a general council meeting?”
Chance scoffed. He couldn’t help himself. “Generations ago, surely?”
“No, boys.” Ingar shook his head. “We do it now. We’re in regular contact. Sullied, lately, but I thought it would heal.”
Chance didn’t want to believe this. He ran his hand through his hair.
“That’s not what my father told me!”
Axel muttered, “I don’t remember…”
Ingar looked at the two young alphas. “You don’t remember meeting as small children? Keira, too?”
Chance was uneasy. He had a vague idea of it having happened. He remembered the shape of Axel’s mother’s face…
“Sort of,” Axel said. “I think Keira remembers.”
“I’m guessing, of course,” Ingar said, “but given your dates… Axel, if you know me, you’ll know I never hated Juneau. Chance, your grandfather and I are good friends.” Chance was drunk enough to lean forward at this.
“What?” A simple ripple of annoyance, not much more. “What about my father?” he asked. “He always told us to stay away from anything Fairbanks, that they’d double-crossed us a long time ago. I—” Axel turned to Chance. “I never asked!” he cried. “Did you ask for the details? I never did.”
Ingar settled back, and he began to tell them a story—a story so much newer than either Axel or Chance had expected, and also so much simpler.
“There was this girl,” Ingar started. “I know, it’s the classic beginning to a story. There was this girl. A witch, in fact. A good friend of the Ambrosia Coven, though just visiting. This was a couple of years ago, and my son,” he said, looking at Axel, “your father, Olliver, met the girl by chance. I had business with Ambrosia, and I took him with me. He is, as you of course know, to be the alpha when I die.”
Ingar looked into the fire and rubbed his palms together. He was thinking about the vague new knowledge of his own demise that Chance and Axel represented, no doubt. And his son’s. Chance shivered with the thought of his death, the thought of his sister’s death, the idea of ever having a foreshadowing of his own. The alcohol was numbing him, and the fire was warm, yet this still got through.
Ingar cleared his throat. “Olliver met her while I had my business with the coven elders. A protection agreement between our pack, as we’re closer to the sea, and their coven. Olliver was supposed to be sitting in, observing some easy diplomacy between allies, but the boy slipped off. He’s a century old, almost, you’d think he would have his wits about him by now, but no, he saw a pretty girl down a corridor and off he went.”
Knowing he was breaking into the story, vaguely, and that some respect should be shown for Axel’s ancestor, Chance nonetheless let out, “So, what does this have to do with my father?”
Ingar raised his thick eyebrows. “I see alphas are almost cubs in the future. I hate to
think what things must have come to.” He shot Axel a look that Chance couldn’t read. Mocking Chance, or telling Axel this included him? The fire made it impossible to tell.
Then Ingar turned to Chance. “Your father—young Graeme. He fell for this little witch, too. I suppose she was a pretty thing. And neither of them are, well, experienced. Of course, they have been introduced to potential mates, but in the proper manner. This young witch was from a small island with its own ideas of what is proper.
Chance was busy wondering what ‘proper’ meant. How much had things changed for the shifters as the world had come up to meet them? And how much had his big gruff father changed in his short lifetime?
23
Olliver
Maybe it as the way she walked; the confidence in her strong legs; her strange, buckled shoes, the way her braid was wrapped around her head. Maybe it was being in the house of the Ambrosia Coven, one of the only permanent structures for miles around, and palpably thick with enchantments. Whatever it was, Olliver had to follow her.
His father was still making introductory niceties with the older witches. None of them were looking his way. The lanky young man, just beginning the slow, slow filling out that would leave him with his father’s strong and slim build, stepped behind a staircase. As quietly as he could, he began down the corridor. His cloth and hide boots made almost no sound. But it was a long corridor, and he hadn’t seen what door she’d gone into. She’d been halfway down when he turned to check on the attentions of his father, and once he’d slipped behind the staircase and into the corridor, she had been gone behind one of four doors.
The first, which was on his left, opened easily. The room was dim, a few of those witch-light lanterns glowing on the walls. It was full of piles of books and dust. The floor was a patchwork of rugs, and there were towering shelves, a double height ceiling or… Olliver looked up. Was there a ceiling at all? Uneasy with this idea, with books above him forever, Olliver stepped out of the room and closed the door a little too hard. He waited by it, not breathing.
On the other side of the corridor, the door opened to reveal a closet. It was chock-full of brooms, colorful cloaks, clogs, strange glass jars full of liquids, and an old crib. Olliver closed that door more quickly.
The third door was locked. He wriggled the handle gently. He put his ear to the wood. Nothing. Olliver let go of the handle. He took a step back and was about to move on when the door opened. It was her.
She was pale and had high, almond shaped eyes. Blue like his own. Her face was round, with some unruly strands of hair hanging down around it. Her clothing was strange: a thin draped fabric. When she spoke, her accent wasn’t one he had ever heard before. It wasn’t like the other witches’ lilts or his father’s rough, hard consonants.
“I heard two doors,” she said. “This is the third?” Olliver could hardly speak. He nodded. She smiled, and her whole face lit up. “Well, three is a very magical number. Not as magical as seven, but it would be too much if you tried seven doors to find me.” She opened the door wider. “Come in.”
It was a bedroom. Olliver hesitated. He had never been into a girl’s—a woman’s— room before, other than his mother’s and his sister’s. He stepped in.
“Why were you listening for door? Did you see me in the entryway?” he asked, hopeful that she had noticed him as he had her. She laughed a small, sweet laugh.
“I saw you for a moment, yes,” she said. “And then I felt your eyes on me. You know, a woman doesn’t have to be a witch to feel that.” She put out a hand. “Irna.”
Olliver took her hand, and his stomach filled with a swirling murmur of birds.
“Hello, Irna,” he said, “Olliver.”
“You roll the ‘r’,” Irna noticed, “but no matter.” She plopped down onto the wooden framed bed. “This matt is horsehair and straw,” she said, wriggling a little. “It is very strange. At home, we use feathers. I don’t know what they are called. The soft feathers from the chest of mother birds.” She patted the bed next to her. “Sit!” she told him. “It isn’t that bad.”
Olliver’s palms were sweating. “On, your bed?”
“Do you see anywhere else to sit?” Irna asked. “You are here with your father? To learn how to—” She fluttered her hands vaguely. “—do whatever it is the older ones do?” Olliver smiled. He found her so charming, so open.
“Yes,” he said, sitting at the furthest end of the bed from Irna. “Diplomacy. It’s a meeting. I come to a lot of them.” Irna laughed that transformative laugh again.
“And they are boring?” Olliver nodded. “I am here to learn, too,” Irna said. “I have come from my island, east, over the se
a.” She gestured vaguely in a direction that could easily, for all Olliver knew, have been east. “I am learning powerful enchantments to take back to my people.” To Olliver’s surprise, she rolled her eyes. “I do not know why they sent me. Maybe because of my age; it should be a long time until I die.” Olliver was shocked at this, but Irna simply laughed again. “Olliver, you are so serious!” she said. “Today, we will not learn. We will sit here and talk, yes?”
Olliver’s throat was dry. He nodded. “Yes, I would like to,” he managed.
24
Graeme
“Is there any more rye bread?” Graeme asked his mother, who was cooking over a fire just outside. She turned, sighed, and wiped her hands on her apron.
“Boy, you have your own home. Why not your own bread? Eating all of ours. Your siblings will go hungry.” Graeme leaned against the low doorframe. He shrugged.
“You have to find me a wife, then I’ll have bread.” His mother let out a tssk.
“You have hands, no? Learn to bake or barter. Finding a mate isn’t a matter of deciding to, from me or from you. It happens when it’s supposed to. And you know that very well.” Inside, his mother lifted a bag from the top of a shelf, untied it, and pulled out a loaf of dark bread. “Don’t eat it all, Graeme, your father will be home soon. He has some business with Ambrosia this afternoon, and you know he needs to be well fed to deal with the coven!”
“They’re spirited,” Graeme laughed. Then he began to cut a slice of bread, pulling the butter across the table. He had only taken his first bite when his father came into the room. Alasdair picked up the rest of the loaf and pocketed it.
“No time for lunch, son,” he said, a hand coming down on Graeme’s shoulder. “The Ambrosias have a visitor, and they are showing her around the systems they have helped us shifters with—a tour of the allied packs. And you are helping me lead ours.”
Graeme groaned and shoved the slice of bread in his mouth.
“The Ambrosias treat me like a child,” he complained. “I always feel like they are mocking me somehow.”
“That’s because they are,” Alasdair said. “Don’t talk with your mouth full, for crying out loud. You’re a grown man.”
The group was waiting in the main square: a couple of older witches Graeme vaguely recognized and a young woman he didn’t, strangely dressed. She was wearing a fur of a kind he’d never seen before and hard-soled boots with metal clasps. Her lips were pale pink, and her eyes were blue. She smiled at him and his father as they approached, though Graeme rather thought it was more at him.
“This,” one of the older witches said as they came closer, “is Irna.” She gestured to the younger woman. “She is visiting from the islands in the east to share some of our knowledge with her people. She’s a powerful witch, but—” The elder Ambrosia witch looked at Alasdair and raised her gray eyebrows. “—something of a handful.”
Alasdair nodded at her and pushed his son forward.
“Graeme will be showing you around,” he said. “Hopefully he knows his way around the enchantments of his own village, but it’s hard to tell with the young ones sometimes.” The Ambrosia elder laughed. Graeme’s ears burned. He took another step forward, this one very intentional.
“Shall we start with the bell tower?” he asked, pointing to the tallest of the wooden structures around the main square. “It allows us to communicate with other packs. The Ambrosia— Ah, your coven,” he said, turning to the elders, “kindly built it for us to sound the alert for intruders of any kind, and also to call any rogue packs to battle. It’s enchanted so it can be heard by all shifters.”
Graeme was quite pleased with this explanation, but his father added, “Not, of course, that battles like that happen often. We try to stay friends with our neighbors.”
Irna nodded. “Of course, as do we. But sometimes it can’t be helped, hmm? My islanders are a very passionate people.”
Graeme walked the group of witches through the warm air that blew constantly around the village in the wintertime. He showed them the witch-lights that hung at various spots during the dark of falls and winters, the architectural tricks the coven had taught them, though these were not strictly magical. These, Irna waved away with a hand.
“My people have better ways for this,” she said. “We have great halls with no enchantments whatsoever. We use earth and whole slim trunks and sometimes whalebones.” She turned to Graeme. “Perhaps you should visit us some time? I am sure my people would love to have you!” She looked at Alasdair. “It would season him, no? A trip?”
Alasdair’s noise was noncommittal, something between a grunt and a hum.
“That sounds— It sounds educational,” Graeme said, wanting nothing more than to touch Irna’s beautiful white skin and undo her strange braid.
“Enough of this,” Alasdair snapped. “You are all welcome to dine with us. Our great hall may not be much on yours, Irna, but it will fit your coven and my pack, and we have plenty ready to eat.”
Graeme’s heart was beating in his throat. He had been invited to her island. What did that mean? Was it to meet her people? Her parents? He thought about this for so long, he had to dash after all the others. Irna looked back as she heard his breath and his soft padding boots. She laughed.
“Head in the clouds, Graeme?” she asked. “I also have that problem sometimes.”
Graeme thought he would do almost anything just to hear her say his name again.
25
Irna
It wasn’t that she hadn’t enjoyed her time in this snowy world, or the shifting people. They were interesting, as well as the relationship between the witches and their neighbors. But she would be glad to get back to her greener world and tell her people all the strange things she had seen.
Irna had learned that they were working on time-traveling. She hoped to one day come back to find out more about this. She doubted it was possible. She had many bundled parchments in her luggage, which was now being packed onto her small ship, where she would mostly sleep for the enchanted voyage home. She’d wake up to eat and drink water. The witch-light would change many things for the island, and enchantments for good harvests and quick forest growth were much needed.
When her family had sent her off, they had been worried she would be asked to stay. Irna didn’t think the coven liked her at all, though. They thought she was strange, she was sure. And she was younger than any of them. She liked to wander off, it was true, but she wasn’t work-shy. They just did things differently at home. There was less ceremony, so things took less time. And it seemed as though almost no one had liked her jokes. No, Irna would be glad to get home.
She turned to see how the packing of her boat was going. She wanted to help, but the coven had insisted on hiring some local men to do it. She suspected they hadn’t even lightened the packages for them.
Imelda was busy casting enchantments on the boat. Irna walked over to her.
“Thank you,” she said. Imelda seemed annoyed. She finished her spell, muttering, a birch branch with a split end in her hand. That was something Irna thought was silly. They didn’t need those branches. It was, she knew, for show.
“Hmm?” Imelda turned to her.
“Thank you,” Irna repeated, “for housing me and for teaching me.” She opened her arms and walked forwards, going to hug Imelda. No arms came back for her. Imelda was stiff as a board, arms and birch branch by her sides. Irna stepped back, embarrassed, happier than ever to be going home.
“Well,” Imelda said. “It’s been a— We’re glad to have helped. A long way back, all us witches come from the same place. A long way back.” Then she turned, still stiff, and nodded to the boat. “All should be ready. Goodbye, Irna. We’ll wave you off, of course.”
Waves, but not hugs. Obviously.
Irna was just beginning to walk toward her boat when she felt a hand on her shoulder, panting in her ear.
“Irna—” Olliver was out of breath. Irna turned.
“You
rolled my ‘r’!” she exclaimed. Olliver was pink-faced from exertion.
“Of course.” He put his hands on his hips. “Wow, I was sure I would miss you. I wanted to say… well… goodbye, and…”
Irna grinned, and Olliver’s eyelids fluttered. His eyes were so wide and blue. She thought he would grow into a fine man, when he started laying down some muscle and fat onto his bones. Then she pulled him into a bear hug.
“Goodbye, Olliver. Thank you! Thank you!” Irna let out a squeal and let Olliver go. Graeme was here, too! He was standing a little way away, a bag in his hand. He put up a hand in a wave, but Irna ran to him. “Graeme! You also came to say goodbye?” She hugged him just as tight as she had Olliver. This was like a last-minute reprieve. The young people were not as strange as the old! Her friends had come to say goodbye. They had spoken to her openly, almost been funny.
“Yes,” Graeme said, hugging back. “Yes, but also… well, I could come… to visit your home?” They broke away from the hug, and Irna nodded fervently. She held Graeme still, away from her now. He was like one of the farm boys from home. He would never be as imposing as his father, but his face was kind and his golden hair was like the hair of most of her people. Perhaps this was why he made her feel safe.
“Yes! Of course!” She dragged him a little closer to Olliver. “We will arrange it when I am home. You both must come!” She squeezed their arms. “But now, I must go!” Irna hugged them both at once, one boy in each arm. “Wave me off, yes?” Then she ran into the surf, to her vessel.
As Irna’s boat began to gain speed, Irna used her last waking moments to look up above the prow. She wanted to wave to her friends.