Indigo Moon

by Gill McKnight

  “I passed out.” Isabelle spoke haltingly, as if reluctant to share, or maybe to recall her story at all. “When I came to I was at Ren’s farm. I was in a bad way, my shoulder was dislocated and my face black and blue. Ren was…is a vet. She dressed my wounds, but I’d had a bang on the head and couldn’t remember much. It all came back in dribs and drabs later…Well, most of it. I still have blanks. Every day a little more falls into place.” Throughout her talking Isabelle’s hands couldn’t remain still. She plucked at her loose clothing, twisted and pulled on strands of hair. She poked at her fingernails and cuticles. She was a ball of nervous energy eating itself up. Hope watched, fascinated; her heart went out to the young woman. What was hurting her the most—the memories she struggled to relay, or those still to surface?

  “Ren was good to me, at first. They all were. She had a group of young people staying with her. She told me they were drifters and runaways. She employed them to help with the farm work.”

  Hope frowned. “You mean she had a pack? Where was this, Isabelle?” she asked.

  “I don’t want to tell you. Not yet. It’s in Canada, in the middle of nowhere. That’s all you need to know right now.”

  “We’re not going to go after them or harm them in any way. I’m just interested in your story,” Hope said. Trust had to be earned. It was enough for now that Isabelle was telling her this much. It would be useful information for Marie later. Somewhere in the background of this story was a Garoul who ran with ferals. That had to be mightily important.

  Her reassurance calmed Isabelle.

  “It was a hard spring and the valley was under a lot of snow,” Isabelle continued. “Ren told me we were snowed in, and that’s why she couldn’t get me to a hospital. But I found out later there were logging roads nearby and a float plane that could come in at any time with supplies. I was being held captive…in the nicest possible way, of course. She hid my passport and my money.” Her eyes implored Hope to believe her. “I know it sounds weird. I even found my wrecked car burned out in a gully.”

  “I believe you.” Hope meant every word. Amy Fortune had been hunted by a feral in Little Dip, under the very noses of the Garouls. She believed anything of these creatures with the guile of a wolf and malice of mankind. It was alarming if this Ren had Garoul connections yet behaved like a feral. Ferals were a maverick force.

  “I found out what they really were. At first I thought I’d lost my mind, that the knock on my head had given me hallucinations. But I know what I saw, and I ran. And now I’m having the strangest dreams.” She pulled at a loose fold of clothing. “Look. I’m fading away, getting thinner and thinner. I can’t get warm, then suddenly I overheat. I can’t stop eating, but I’m skeletal. It’s as if I have a disease. A cancer that’s eating me up, and I’m frightened. What if they changed me?” Her fingers fluttered to her shoulder. Her words poured out faster and faster, becoming garbled. “I don’t want to be a…a werewolf…wolven, whatever you called it. But I think I am. Everything looks different and smells different. Everything is sharper, cleaner, clearer. I see colors I never knew existed. And smells tell me actual stories, and it freaks me out.”

  “Okay. Okay.” Hope held out her hands to calm Isabelle down. She was becoming extremely upset, and Hope was shaken, too. She understood this panic, the struggle for control over one’s body, the stress that something malevolent was eating you up from the inside out. She’d been prisoner to that feeling herself, only to gain a reprieve a few days ago. She’d do anything to give Isabelle hope, to reassure her there was light at the end of the tunnel.

  “I’ve cleaned up the kitchen and made us all a nice pot of tea.” Godfrey breezed into the room with a tray and lifted the whole atmosphere. “The mess was driving me mad.”

  He gave Hope an intense look as he poured.

  “I know you were calling your friend,” Isabelle said. She was tired and her words were listless. “Marie and Little Dip. I could hear you both talking in the hall. What did she say? Can she help?”

  Godfrey threw Hope a shocked look.

  She shrugged. “Wolfie ears. What did Marie say?”

  “Well, she’s fascinated by this Ren person, and Claude is on his way even as we speak. Claude is Andre and Jolie’s father,” he explained to Isabelle. “He sort of counsels the younger ones and looks after any of the partners who choose to change. He’s a sort of…educator, I guess.”

  “Partners who choose to change? You mean become werewolves?”

  “It’s always an option. Werewolves mate for life. Once you enter the Garoul clan you have the choice to remain human or change, if you wish,” he said.

  “But changing can be dangerous, so it’s a big decision,” Hope said.

  “I had no choice. If…if that’s what’s happening to me.”

  Godfrey and Hope both shifted uncomfortably.

  “What’s happened to you is unforgivable, Isabelle. There’s a term we use called ‘feral.’ It’s for people who have been attacked and…forced into transmutation,” Godfrey said. Hope was thankful for his diplomatic choice of words. It was rare to survive a werewolf attack, never mind become one through a mauling. “But because they are outside of a wolven pack and its protection and rules, the odds of surviving as a werewolf are much harder. That’s why some ferals band together to form packs of their own. But it’s kind of anarchic compared to established wolven society.”

  “And the Garouls will help me?” Isabelle asked. Her voice was weak and tired.

  “We can’t think of anyone better. They have been around for hundreds of years and will know what to do. You’ll be safe in Little Dip, and Claude is coming to collect you. He’s the best. Honest,” he said.

  “Isabelle,” Hope spoke gently. All the talk of Garouls and their partners had made her thoughtful. “Forgive me for asking this, but you and Ren…were you close?”

  Isabelle stiffened and Hope had her answer. She swapped a telling look with Godfrey. This young woman was the partner of the Were who’d bitten her. That was probably not a good thing. She was not the product of an erroneous attack, or a hunt gone wrong as she claimed. She had been deliberately chosen. Hope widened her eyes and nodded at the door, giving Godfrey the “clear off” message. He shook his head, obviously uneasy at leaving her alone in the house. Hope glared at him hard. She had to get Isabelle to trust her enough to tell her about this relationship, and that would not happen if Godfrey stood guard. There was a risk, but Hope felt safe enough to take it.

  “Ladies.” Godfrey tactfully broke the silence. “This little fella looks like he needs some tinkle-time. I’ll take him over to the shop with me for an hour. Call me if you need me.” He looked pointedly at Hope. “Come on, Taddy, let’s go to the park and leave the gals to gossip.”

  Tadpole was glued to his heels in seconds. Hope waited until the front door closed before turning her full attention on Isabelle.

  “I’m asking because Ren’s behavior, in a wolf sort of way, could be seen as a sort of, well, courtship?” she said.

  Isabelle held her gaze with an unfathomable look that unnerved Hope completely, but she pressed on anyway, hoping her instincts were correct and she had not got it appallingly wrong.

  “What I mean is, this marking you and hiding you away, it’s very wolven. Marking can take the form of a bite, or layering on of scent, for instance.” Still, Isabelle held her gaze unblinkingly. Her eyes were overly bright and focused entirely on Hope. Hope perched on the edge of her seat, her discomfort growing. Why had she let Godfrey go?

  “I mean, when Jolie decided she…liked me, like that, she bit me. Okay, so it was in her sleep, but she’s…well…odd like that. But it was a mark nevertheless, and though I didn’t realize it at the time, it was a sign of ownership among her clan. Perhaps your Ren and her pack have something similar? Do you think that may be the case?”

  This was met with a wall of silence.

  “She’s not my Ren,” Isabelle muttered but broke her gaze from Hope’s. She sat
staring at the back of her hands. It was a subconscious submissive gesture and Hope took the initiative it afforded her.

  “I think she is.”

  A minute of silence ticked by before Isabelle said, “I miss her. She made me feel…I don’t know. Something. Something that was good for me. But I don’t know if it was because she bit me or because we knew each other from before.”

  “You knew each other before?” This threw Hope. “Where? How?”

  “I don’t know. That’s the part of my memory that’s still missing.” Isabelle’s frustration flooded out. She thumped her knees. “If only I could remember, then I’d know if she was good or bad for me. It’s awful when you have strong feelings but can’t remember the root cause of them. I can’t just follow my heart like other people do. I need to understand why I feel like this. Where it came from, how I changed and came to love—” She broke off and blushed scarlet. She trembled all over.

  “Oh, sweetie.” Hope moved to sit beside her and put her arms around her. “I understand. Really I do.”

  When she fell in love with Jolie Garoul her world had blown apart. A small world, but one she had guarded jealously because of her ill health. Wolven lovers catapulted all order, reason, sense of self out the window. They bounded into your life, pounced on everything, and took over, offering nothing in return bar unconditional love, devotion, protection, adoration—the list went on and on. She hugged the shivering body closer, alarmed at how paper thin and fragile Isabelle felt in her arms. Her neck grew damp with Isabelle’s tears.

  “I’m so scared and exhausted. I don’t want to be a werewolf. I just want my memory back and to read my books. I miss my books,” Isabelle mumbled into Hope’s shoulder.

  “Your books?”

  “I teach part-time at Reed and PCC.” Isabelle sniffed and drew away, wiping her eyes and damp cheeks with the back of her hands. “Gothic romance. How bizarre is that? Gothic romance, and I’m bitten by a werewolf. I thought I’d dreamed it, it’s so freaking fantastical. But every morning I wake up to it, and it’s real, and my life’s a mess. I can’t even concentrate enough to read anymore. Books were my only escape, but now even that’s lost. I had to take the whole term off, said I was ill. I know I’ll lose my job but I can’t go back looking like this. I’m a mess. I feel raw and exposed. There’s nowhere safe.”

  “You can’t make such dire predictions until you know all the facts, Isabelle. You said some of your memories are missing. Those pieces hold information to help you process what’s happened and where you go from here. For the moment let’s just concentrate on you, and what you need, and what you can remember. I promise to do all I can to look after you and make you comfortable. Godfrey and I will both help. We’ll keep you as safe as we can until we get you to the Garouls.”

  Hope glanced at the clock. Godfrey had been gone for some time. It would have been nice to have his support here. He generally knew the best thing to say in situations like this.

  *

  “Oh, my God.”

  Godfrey stood with the small crowd at Sellwood Park south gate. Tadpole flopped by Godfrey’s feet on his leash, bored with the delay. Police tape crisscrossed the way in, and two police officers politely kept people at bay. Behind him on the street sat several assorted police vehicles with flashing lights.

  “What’s going on?” he asked the bystander on his right.

  “Some guy was murdered.”

  “Oh, my God. In Sellwood Park?”

  “Down in Oakes Bottom. A jogger found him. He was all beat up.”

  “He was mauled,” the bystander on Godfrey’s left said.

  “Mauled?”

  “Shredded,” the new guy said. “Like jerky. Guts all over the place.”

  “Oh my God.”

  “Hanging from the trees, they were.”

  “Wow.” The first bystander was fascinated. Their attention was dragged away from the gory details by a sudden flash. Bright lights lit up the police cruisers. A TV report was being broadcast live from the roadside using the dramatic flashing blues as a backdrop.

  “What’s he saying?” bystander number two asked. “I can’t hear him.”

  “He’s saying the dead guy jogged here frequently. First reports say he’s Barry Monk, and he teaches at Marylhurst University,” bystander number one answered.

  Godfrey frowned. The name rang a bell. Barry Monk. Barry Monk. Monk. It was an uncommon surname, and he’d heard it recently. Monk. His blood pressure dropped into his shoes. Monk. Barry Monk with his guts hanging from the trees. And Isabelle Monk, the werewolf, sitting at home with Hope.

  “Oh, my God.” He had left Hope alone with a stone-cold killer! Godfrey sidled from the crowd as quickly as he could, dragging Tadpole behind him.

  Once free of the crowd, he took off as fast as he could to Hope’s house, uncaring that Tadpole’s stubby little legs could hardly keep up.

  Chapter Nineteen

  “I didn’t kill him.” Isabelle was white as a sheet. “I didn’t. Please don’t say I did.” Anxiety pulsed off her. Tadpole had managed to wriggle onto her lap, and now she sat stroking his soft fur unthinkingly.

  “I’m not saying you did it. I’m just saying you’re a werewolf and your ex-husband is in shreds in Oakes Bottom,” Godfrey said. “Not a good look.”

  “He’s not my ex-husband. We’re not divorced yet.”

  “He’s an ex-something. How about breather.”

  “Godfrey. That is not helpful. Can’t you see she’s upset?” Hope said.

  “I’m upset, too. I’m the one who left you here with a possible killer.”

  “I didn’t do it. I’m not a killer!”

  “Let’s all calm down.” Hope glared at Godfrey, and he did manage to look a little contrite. She could see his nerves were stretched to the breaking point.

  “I didn’t do it. I didn’t,” Isabelle repeated like a mantra.

  “What say I make us more tea? Hope, can you help me with it?” He nodded toward the door. Hope gave Isabelle an apologetic smile and followed him to the kitchen.

  “Well, that was subtle.” Hope took a seat at the table. “She might be able to hear us all the way down here, anyway. Her hearing is exceptional.”

  In answer Godfrey flicked on the electric kettle and started talking over its bubble. “This is crazy. She has to have done it unless a Bengal tiger is on the loose.”

  “Tadpole seems to be okay with her. That makes me hesitate to—”

  “He’s a ho for anyone who looks like they have a biscuit in their pocket!”

  “Nevertheless, he’s always right.”

  “Great, the dog wags his tail and we can all relax, assured she won’t rip us asunder.”

  “Look, Taddy was okay when he met Jolie, and he knew she was wolven before I did.”

  “He nearly had a heart attack when you took him to Little Dip!”

  “Please don’t fight.” Isabelle stood at the kitchen door, Tadpole in her arms. “I’ve brought you nothing but stress. I’m so sorry I burst in on your lives like this. I’m leaving right now.” She set Tadpole down. “I’ve nothing to hide from the police. I’m going back to my apartment to wait for them.”

  “Honey, it’s not the police we’re worried about. If you didn’t kill Barry, then something else did. I’m not sure you’re safe.”

  “When you change into a Were, can you remember what you do?” Godfrey asked bluntly.

  “I don’t change. That’s just it,” Isabelle said. She sank into a kitchen chair. It was obvious she was still in shock.

  Hope was annoyed at Godfrey for his blunt questioning but realized they needed answers, and fast.“You don’t change?”

  “What? Never?”

  Hope and Godfrey spoke over each other in their surprise.

  “I dream of it. All the time. And Ren is always there, running with me. Guiding me through a forest. But I’ve never physically changed.” She looked down and plucked at the sweater hanging from her shoulders. “Maybe I’m too w
eak? Maybe I’m one of those ferals that won’t survive a change, so my body somehow suppresses it? Can that happen?”

  Hope and Godfrey didn’t know, but they doubted it.

  “Then what was outside your house last night, if it wasn’t her?” Godfrey said.

  Hope looked at him blankly. “I never thought of that. I just assumed it was…” She looked across to Isabelle.

  Isabelle looked at them suspiciously. “What?” she asked uneasily. “What about last night?”

  “Come with me.” Hope rose and had them follow her to the back deck.

  “This.” She pointed to the muddy wolven prints. “Were you here last night?”

  “I was. I’m here most nights. But not this close. Never this close. It took all my courage to come this far, and that was only because the dog told me to.”

  “Tadpole told you to?” Godfrey’s eyebrows rose.

  “Well, sort of. I’m not sure how, but I knew he was making me welcome and wanted me to come closer. And then when I saw the photograph and I was…compelled, I suppose. But I swear I’ve never come around the back of your house.” She looked at the dried-out mud prints. “They’re enormous. Is this your partner?” she asked Hope.

  “Hell, no. Though it could easily be Jolie’s feet,” Godfrey blurted. “Shit. We need to think this through.” He turned to Hope.

  “I thought I could scent a Were earlier, and just assumed it was your partner. But the inside of the house smells different. Sort of nicer,” Isabelle said. “Much nicer.”

  “Can you smell something here?” Hope pointed at the patio.