Nocturne

by Christine Johnson

  Marie's expression hardened. "You must succeed. You must do whatever it takes to ensure that. Your abilities are the only thing you have to rely on, in our world."

  Claire stared at her mother, amazed at the difference between her attitude and Victoria's. Wondering which one of them was right.

  Outside, Matthew's car horn beeped.

  "I've really got to go," Claire said. "I'll be home later."

  She practically ran out of the house and into Matthew's waiting car.

  "Hey, babe. How was your day?" His voice was summer warm and rich with happiness. It sounded—he sounded—the way he had when they'd first started dating. Like things hadn't been weird and strained between them for the last few weeks. She should have been elated, but she couldn't shake off the tension that had marked the end of her shopping trip.

  She groaned. "It was freaking exhausting."

  "Really? I thought it was supposed to be girly, best-friend shopping stuff. What happened?" Matthew asked as she shut the door.

  Claire leaned back and closed her eyes. "Amy sort of ended up tagging along with us, and things just got . . . hard. I don't know. She was asking me all these questions that weren't easy to answer. It got so bad—she started to seem sort of suspicious."

  Matthew tapped the steering wheel thoughtfully. "Maybe you're being too hard on Amy. I think she's just trying to get to know you. To fit in. And you're not that easy to fit in with, you know?"

  Claire stared at him, her lips parted in astonishment. Did he really mean that? And was he seriously on Amy's side? Her heart gave a painful little flip inside her chest.

  He glanced over at her and took in her expression.

  "You think I need to cut her more slack because I'm not easy to get along with?" she asked, keeping her words as measured as possible.

  "That's not what I'm saying—I mean, you're a werewolf. You have to be extra sensitive and careful and all that. But maybe you're reading more into it than a normal person would."

  Claire closed her mouth, turning to stare out the window. He was right, she did have to be extra careful, but just because she noticed things that other people missed didn't mean she was some sort of paranoid freak.

  Matthew rubbed the bridge of his nose between two fingers. "Claire, I'm not trying to make you mad. I'm just saying there are two sides to every story. That's it."

  She raised an eyebrow at him. It was the calmest response she could manage. "Fine. Let's drop it," she said.

  "Yes. Let's." He looked over at her. "Okay. I'm starting this date over as of now. So, hey, babe! Are you hungry? There's a Mexican place over by Oakwood that's supposed to have killer burritos."

  Claire pasted a smile on her face, playing along. "Really? That sounds good." Even though she was faking her brandnew start, she felt herself beginning to relax.

  "It's over by the library, I think. I've got the address in my phone." Matthew reached for the cup holder where he always put his cell while he drove. It was empty. "It must still be on my desk." He groaned. "Do you mind if we swing by my house? It's on the way."

  Claire stomach rumbled, breaking the tension in the car.

  "Um, as long as you're not too hungry," he added. "We could always go to Louie's."

  Claire laughed. She couldn't help it. And she was hungry. "I can wait. Let's go get your phone."

  Matthew's dad was in front of the Engles' house when they pulled up, doing yard work in the dying light. He looked awkward in his sweatshirt and jeans, like he just wasn't comfortable without a tie around his neck. He had a huge pair of hedge clippers in his hands, and the sharp blades gleamed in the sunlight, making Claire shiver. It was like a visual reminder of how careful she had to be around Dr. Engle—that he had the ability to destroy her. And he would, if he ever found out what she really was.

  Matthew popped out of the car, and Claire followed hesitantly. It was too weird to sit in the car with his dad right there.

  "Be right back," Matthew called over his shoulder, zipping past his dad and into the house, leaving the front door wide open behind him.

  Dr. Engle turned to Claire. "So." He cleared his throat. "What are you and Matthew up to this evening?"

  "Dinner," Claire said simply. She tried not to say much when Matthew's dad was around. It seemed safer—she'd had a few close calls over the summer when she'd very nearly revealed enough for him to guess her true identity.

  A cell phone began to ring, and Dr. Engle dropped the trimmers onto the grass, digging in his back pocket for his phone and checking the screen.

  "Excuse me. I'm so sorry, but I really have to take this." He gave Claire a grim smile. "Hello, Dr. Otsuke. How is everything at the lab?"

  Claire froze. The Japanese researcher? Wasn't he back in Japan? The news had said he was only staying for a few days, and Matthew hadn't mentioned that he'd stayed longer.

  Dr. Engle walked toward the house, too far away for her to hear the other end of the phone call. Thanks to her sharperthan-normal hearing, though, Dr. Engle's side of the conversation was still well within Claire's earshot. "The chemistry analyzer? Really? They were supposed to come to the lab to fix that last week. I had my assistant schedule it."

  Claire took a step back, leaning against the reassuringly solid metal of the car.

  He's still here?

  Why was he still in Hanover Falls? The hair rose on the back of her neck, and she had the sudden urge to crawl into the car—or even under it. To get anywhere that wasn't so out in the open. She felt too vulnerable, too exposed, on the green expanse of the lawn.

  Matthew came flying out of the house, his phone clutched in his hand. He waved at his dad, who nodded absently in response.

  Claire got back into the car. Feeling a little more protected, she looked over at Matthew. "Why didn't you tell me Dr. Otsuke was still in town?" Her voice was more demanding than she'd meant it to be. But still. It was the sort of informa tion that he should have been giving the pack, especially since he was their gardien. And extra especially since he was her boyfriend.

  Matthew looked surprised. "I—I don't know. I guess I didn't think it was a big deal. You knew he was here, right?"

  "Well, yeah—" After all, his arrival had resulted in Claire's panicked sprint through the woods to hide the evidence of her fire lighting from the press. "But I didn't know he'd stayed."

  "He's doing some sort of test on the water around here or something. Trying to determine if it has something to do with why werewolves live where they do, to see if there are any similarities between Osaka and Hanover Falls, since they've both had at least one werewolf captured in the last couple of years." Matthew had that guarded look again—like he had his hand on a gate, ready to swing it shut as soon as she said the wrong thing.

  But at least the Dr. Otsuke situation didn't seem to be too dire. Japan—and Osaka in particular—had a huge number of werewolves. If Dr. Otsuke was just here for water research, there was no reason to think that he or Dr. Engle was suspicious of Claire or any of the other wolves. She blew out a careful breath.

  "Sorry. I guess I overreacted." She leaned her head against the window, vowing to shut up until they got to dinner.

  On the way to the restaurant, the stars started to come out, so glimmering and thick that Matthew and Claire decided to stop by the burrito place and get dinner to go. After they got their food, they drove to the deserted library and sat in the unlit parking lot, leaning against the hood of the car and eating their food.

  "Feeling a little better?" Matthew asked, wadding up the wrapper of his first burrito and peeling open the second.

  "Yeah," Claire said around a mouthful of chicken. "Thanks." She swallowed, licking a tiny drop of guacamole off her lip. "There's just so much stuff that's up in the air right now. And now I have this naming thing hanging over me too."

  "What naming thing?" Matthew asked, taking a long drink of his soda.

  Claire froze midbite. That's right. She hadn't told Matthew about the ceremony for Victoria's baby yet. S
he chewed her food slowly, trying to figure out what to do. She wanted to talk to him about it, but the memory of how freaked out he'd been by the new moon gathering loomed like a storm cloud, warning her to be careful.

  "I—when Victoria's baby is born, we'll have a special ceremony to celebrate, and that's when she'll be named. That's . . . the gathering when I have to light the fire."

  Matthew stared down at his food. "Wow. That's a pretty serious deal, huh?" There was a flatness, a disconnectedness, to his words that made Claire want to scream.

  Slowly, carefully, she put down the rest of her food and turned to look at him.

  "Yeah. Actually, it's a really serious deal."

  "No, I know," he said, "but there's nothing I can—"

  "Do about it," Claire interrupted. "You've said that before. Actually, you've said it in one way or another every time I try to bring up stuff about the pack. Any time I mention it, you act weird." The anger built inside her, rattling her voice the way steam would rattle the lid of a boiling kettle.

  "I'm not acting weird," he insisted, but Claire noticed that his eyes stayed firmly fixed on the ground next to him.

  She resisted the urge to reach out and shake him—to make him look at her. "Yes, you are! I mean, you got me a flower for my damn chemistry test, but I practically had to drag you to the new moon gathering, and watching me try to light a fire made you absolutely reek of freaking out."

  A shocked look crossed his face. "You could smell the way I felt?"

  "Of course I could. I'm a werewolf, Matthew. That's what we do."

  He crumpled up the paper bag that the food had come in, crushing it into a tiny ball.

  "I know," he whispered. "I get it, I swear to God, I do. Can we just drop it, please?"

  The conversation felt unfinished —like an eyeless jack-o'lantern. But Matthew was obviously done talking, and the idea of fighting for the sake of fighting seemed stupid.

  "It's getting late," she said finally. "Maybe we should get back, huh?" Matthew threw the remains of his dinner into a nearby trash can. "Yeah, maybe we should." He leaned in and kissed her cheek, like he was smoothing things over.

  Under the touch of his lips, though, irritation still scratched at Claire. It had been a hard day, and she wasn't quite ready to soften. That night, Claire lay in her bed and stared at the ceiling. She'd gone to bed early, exhausted, but she couldn't sleep. The day had been too much—too weird, too intense. Her mind was whirling like an out-of-control carousel, all loud music and flashing lights and freaky animals, going round and round and round without getting anywhere at all. Finally, she couldn't stand it anymore. She threw off the covers and sat up, checking the clock next to the bed. It was a little after one.

  She pushed her tangled hair off her face and stared out the window at the star-flecked sky. She wondered what Emily and Amy were doing. If the strangeness of running into Katherine, with all her blabbering, had stuck with them. Of course—her breath caught—there was a way she could find out.

  She could transform. Use her abilities to listen in on them.

  Claire smoothed the sheets underneath her hands, hesitating. Thinking. It felt weird to eavesdrop on Emily. For one thing, it was a huge invasion of privacy. But also, it was like using her werewolf talents to do something really . . . human. Of course, if Amy weren't trying to make Emily think Claire was a bad friend, weren't planting all sorts of slightly-tooclose-to-the-truth suspicions in Emily's head, then Claire wouldn't even have to be thinking about the whole thing. What the hell. I might as well try.

  She didn't want to go all the way into the woods. And she really didn't want to think about what her mother would say if she tried to explain why she was leaving the house at this hour. Claire looked around her room.

  It was more than big enough. And it wasn't like there was anyone around to catch her—Lisbeth wouldn't be back until Monday morning, and Marie was down in her darkroom. If her mom happened to notice that her room smelled too much like wolf, Claire could always blame it on the stack of unwashed laundry stashed in her closet.

  Slowly, Claire crept out into the open space in the middle of the room. She licked her lips. There really wasn't anything to lose. . . .

  Tossing off her pajamas, she squeezed her eyes shut and reached for her wolf form. The fur. The teeth. The claws. As her lupine self swept aside her human skin, terror came crashing over Claire. She crouched on the carpet, the chemical smell of the fibers burning her nostrils. The walls were too close, the scents were too artificial. She felt penned in. Caged. There was no way to open the doorknob.

  Nowhere she could run.

  With her heart thudding and squeezing in her chest, Claire dug her paws into the rug and scurried backward into the corner where her nightstand met her bed. She lay there, trying to calm herself down. She'd never transformed indoors before.

  There's no threat in here. Jesus, Claire, get a grip. It's your freaking room. This is all your stuff.

  But the more primitive part of her brain, the one that had so much more reign when she transformed, screamed at her that it was human stuff. That anything human was dangerous. That the only safe place was a place she could leave.

  That she was trapped.

  It's. My. Stuff. I am not going to lose my shit over this!

  She opened her mouth, panting. The taste of the fake-lemon furniture polish and faux-floral detergent coated her tongue, but it was more bearable than breathing through her nose. Feeling like she was within clawing distance of control, she closed her eyes, shutting out the borders and barriers of the room. She focused on the security of the furniture behind her—the protection of a corner, where at least she could see a threat coming.

  Her heart slowed, though her flanks and whiskers were still trembling. She had two choices: change back or try to listen to Emily and Amy. She'd already tortured herself by transforming. She might as well try to get something out of it.

  Claire concentrated on her barely contained desperation to escape. She took that feeling and used it to get her hearing to stretch beyond the walls of her room.

  ". . . not like that. I don't know." Amy's voice was thick, like she was talking around a mouthful of something.

  Probably ice cream, Claire realized. She wanted to be having a late-night sugar binge with her best friend, not listening in on one from a terrified corner of her own bedroom.

  "There's only one way to find out. I mean, maybe I should give it a try? It's not like anything terrible's going to happen if I do." Emily sounded thoughtful, but sort of excited.

  "Yeah. Exactly. But if you care, then why don't you just ask her? There's nothing wrong with wanting an answer either."

  Claire's ears went back, pressing flat against her head. They weren't really . . . was it possible they were talking about her? The fear that gripped her just brought the faraway conversation into clearer focus. She couldn't just hear Emily and Amy—she could hear the scrape of spoons against a paper carton. The tinny sound of Emily's bad speakers playing music in the background.

  She was so far outside her body that she wasn't even sure she was breathing anymore.

  "Well, whatever you do, I'll be behind you." Amy said.

  Distantly, Claire felt something inside herself wrench. Twist. She was vaguely aware of a desire to scream.

  What are they talking about? What the hell are they talking about?

  "I mean, it's just hair." Emily said.

  Claire's relief stung like a slap. The sounds from Emily's room disappeared, and she was slammed back into the confined reality of her own dark bedroom.

  She shook her head and stretched out, reconnecting herself to the conversation that was happening in Emily's room.

  " . . . don't need her to tell you what to do with your hair."

  "No," Emily said. "I know. It's not really about that."

  Claire reached to the very edges of her ability. Right out to where it frayed into nothingness. Held herself there, and waited.

  "I just—I can't get
used to the distance between us." Emily's voice was quiet. Hesitant. "Claire and I never used to have any secrets, but now it's like she's always hiding something." She sighed. Oh, holy shit.

  Claire forced herself to wait. To listen. Not to react. After all, she'd already known that keeping her best friend in the dark was hurting Emily as much as it was hurting her. Hearing her say it out loud made it worse somehow, but what she really cared about was finding out what Emily thought her secret was.

  "Oh, Emily." Amy's voice was quiet. Sad. Unsure. "I—I can't seem to get to know her at all, even though I want to. It does seem like something's going on with her—some of the stuff that happened this afternoon was pretty weird. But you're the one who's really her friend. . . ."