Nocturne

by Christine Johnson

  "Yeah?" Claire called, her head still stuffed under the pillow.

  "It is arranged. We will meet tonight, early. I have told everyone that we will begin at ten o'clock." Marie's voice was muffled by the down of the pillow, but Claire couldn't bring herself to look at her mother.

  "Thank you," she said.

  There was a wooden thump—something hitting the top of her vanity table. "I brought you something to eat. Do you— can I do anything for you?"

  "No." Claire's voice was miserable. She was miserable. Every word her mother spoke made it harder to keep from thinking. When she heard the door click shut, she reached for her headphones, jamming them into her ears and turning the music up until it seared through her head, obliterating everything else. Ten o' clock. It was already late afternoon. She just had to wait a few hours.

  The few hours passed with a fossilizing slowness. She lay there, wondering what they would say. If the pack would kick her out and what, exactly, they would do with Amy. She still seemed to want to be friends with Claire. Maybe there was some other solution they could come up with. Maybe it wouldn't be an automatic death sentence.

  Eventually, the dark slipped down her windowpane and covered the lawn and forest, broken only by the lights from the house and the pinpricks of the stars in the velvet black sky. After the sun had completely disappeared, taking with it the faint light that had crept underneath her pillow, Claire lay in the gloom until she couldn't stand it anymore. She sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed, watching as the moon rose over the tops of the trees. It was a fat crescent moon, rising pointsfirst into the blackness, like a cup. Or something with horns.

  She watched as it traced its path across the sky. She just wanted to get to the gathering. Everything felt out of control—her fight with Matthew, the bizarre intensity of the naming, and now Amy. The only thing she was certain about was that telling the pack—the whole pack—was the right thing to do. It was the only way she could get her hands around the situation.

  Behind her, Marie opened the door.

  Without knocking.

  "It's time to go, chérie. Are you ready?"

  "Yes. Let's go." Claire stood up and turned to face her mother. Marie looked her over, almost clinically, her face growing more alarmed as she took in Claire's posture and expression. "Claire, just tell me what happened. I am your Alpha. I can command you, if necessary."

  "Please," Claire whispered. "Please don't do that. I have to do it this way. You know I do. When we get there, I promise I'll tell everyone what happened. Just as soon as we get there."

  "Then let's go. And quickly."

  The fact that her mother had not commanded her to reveal what she knew gave Claire the strength to walk out of the room. If her mother was willing to wait—to respect Claire's desire to face the pack—then she really must be doing the right thing.

  Outside, the November air cleared her head. Stripped of the cocoon of numbness that Claire had spun around herself, her panic returned, threatening to overtake her. She and her mother hurried toward the woods. The two of them scurried beneath the protective arms of the trees, following the invisible but well-remembered path to the clearing. Claire kept her eyes on the leaf-strewn ground, watching the shifting patterns of the splintered moonlight on the forest floor.

  In the distance, the flicker of a fire caught Claire's eye. Someone had gotten there before them. She began to run, the secret burning her mouth from the inside out. In the clearing, Beatrice sat close to the fire, her face a mask of worry.

  "Victoria's not with her," Claire whispered. She'd been hoping to see at least one supportive face around the fire.

  "No," her mother said. "She won't be. The baby is still too little to be away from Victoria. She will have a few months before she is required to attend to her pack responsibilities." She grimaced. "No matter how dire they may be."

  Guilt sluiced through Claire in an icy rush.

  She slunk into the clearing ahead of her mother, and Beatrice immediately hurried over to her, wrapping her arms around Claire.

  "Oh, Young One. What happened?"

  "No use asking," said Marie. "She won't tell me—not until the pack is gathered."

  Judith stepped out of the trees, her eyebrows raised in surprise. "Which is as it should be. If something happens that affects the whole pack, then we should deal with it as a pack."

  She'd clearly heard the last part of the conversation, but though she was looking at Claire with irritation, she didn't have her usual, dismissive stare.

  Katherine stepped into the clearing behind Judith. "Sorry. I was trying to DVR a show and I couldn't get it set up. So. We're all here?"

  Marie shot Katherine a withering look. "Yes. We're all here. Please be seated, and we will hear what Claire has to say."

  The other women sank down around the fire. Standing in front of their expectant faces, Claire suddenly wondered if maybe she should have told Marie after all. She didn't want to see the looks on their faces when she told them what had happened.

  But it was too late now. Whether or not she wanted to know, she was about to find out.

  She stared into the depths of the fire, unable to meet their eyes as she spoke.

  "There's a girl—Amy Harper. She's a . . . a friend of a friend. And apparently, she got suspicious about me for some reason." Claire swallowed hard. "And last night, she overheard me talking and somehow, she figured out what I am. That I'm a werewolf. She told me this morning that she knows. Amy Harper knows I'm a werewolf." The words hung in the clearing, heavy and electric as a storm cloud. Claire felt her legs quivering underneath her, and she sat down in front of the fire before she collapsed.

  There was a moment of stunned silence. The sort of silence that said it was just as bad as they'd been afraid it would be. Claire stared into the heart of the fire, the broken pieces of her life strewn around her. Beatrice shuffled over and put an arm around her shoulders.

  "Okay. Claire. Listen. This is bad. But it happens. That's why we have laws for it—ways to handle it." Her low voice was full of spiderweb cracks. "Beatrice is right." Marie stood up, and Claire looked at her. Her mother's expression was neutral, but pain flared in her eyes. "We will simply do what we have to—the same way we have for hundreds of years."

  Just when Claire felt the freezing ache inside her start to melt, Judith jumped in. "But we just had that . . . that incident this summer. . . ."

  Zahlia.

  Though they were not allowed to speak her name ever again, they all thought it. Beatrice pulled her arm away.

  Judith shook her head. "Killing another human right now is more dangerous than it has ever been. The town is still on edge. That other researcher—the Japanese man—is still here."

  Claire felt everything around her swim, like the air had gone liquid and slow. She'd been so worried about herself and the pack, but she didn't want to think about what saving themselves would mean for Amy. The thought of her lying somewhere—dead, broken—was more than Claire could stomach.

  "Isn't there some other way?" she whispered. The eyes around the fire all immediately came to rest on her as she spoke. "I mean, she seems to want to be friends with me, even though she knows. She seems worried about me."

  The thought of Emily, red-eyed and sniffling, crossed Claire's mind. Killing Amy meant hurting Emily, too. She wrapped her arms around her middle, feeling like she was on the edge of falling apart. "We don't always have to kill a human who finds out, right? I mean, look at Matthew."

  Marie shook her head. "Too many humans who know is dangerous for the pack. There will be no more gardiens."

  "It sounds like maybe one human who knows has been dangerous," Judith said. She looked over at Claire. "Are you sure Matthew has been loyal? Do you know why Amy became suspicious in the first place?"

  Panic beat wildly in Claire's chest, like a caged animal throwing itself against the bars. The pack was talking so calmly—so certainly—about killing Amy. She didn't want to sacrifice herself, bu
t if it kept Matthew out of this, she would do it.

  "She said that there were things I said—things that she pieced together. And then she overheard Matthew and me at the dance last night, talking about coming to the naming. She said between that and some stuff that happened while we were shopping, she figured it out."

  Katherine drew in a sharp breath, and the pack's attention turned away from Claire as they all focused on Katherine's shocked, horrified face. "It wasn't the time I ran into you at the mall, was it?"

  Claire laced her fingers, twisting them together until they hurt. She didn't want to lay the blame at anyone else's feet. While she hesitated, Katherine's mouth fell open.

  "But I didn't even say anything," Katherine protested. Marie turned to Claire with a question in her eyes.

  "I don't know exactly what made her suspicious," Claire said simply.

  Katherine balled her hands up into fists, pressing them into the sides of her totally impractical khakis. She stared at Claire, her mouth pursed into an ugly little circle. "How can you—"

  "Just stop it," Judith snapped at her. "You're the one who leapt in and told us you were at the mall—Claire didn't say anything. And I'm not surprised to hear that you were indiscreet. It's just like the Halloween gathering, when you started to howl in spite of the danger. You don't think—"

  "Enough!" Marie interrupted.

  Claire stood, aching. Frozen. Waiting.

  Her mother sighed. "Amy must be killed. I will not take that sort of a chance with the pack's safety." She turned her sad gaze to Claire. "Or with yours."

  "We don't have to kill her," Claire protested, scrambling wildly for an alternative. Kidnapping her. Somehow erasing her memory. Something. Anything.

  "You're right." Judith stepped forward smoothly. "We don't have to kill her. Pack law dictates that it is the responsibility of the wolf whose identity has been compromised to eliminate the human who knows. We don't have to kill Amy. You do."

  The words slammed into Claire like a series of hammer blows. The urge to throw up swirled inside her, making the inside of her mouth taste sour. She tried to see herself lunging after a screaming Amy. Or twisting her fragile neck. But she couldn't. Couldn't imagine it. Couldn't do it. Not ever.

  "You can do it, Claire." Her mother sank down in front of her, between Claire and the fire. Looking at her. Reading her thoughts in her posture. Her scent. "The laws are very clear on this." Marie's voice grew quiet, tinged with an ancient, knowing sort of sadness. "Living with the horror of killing a human is the price that you pay for being compromised in this way. For the danger that you have brought to the pack. I am sorry," she whispered, her eyes wet.

  Claire's breath caught in her throat, constricting into a sob. She couldn't stop the tears that raced down her cheeks, and she didn't bother to hide them.

  "There has to be another way—a better way," she begged.

  Marie shook her head firmly but not unkindly. "The best way is to plan it carefully and do it quickly." She reached for Claire's hand. "And the planning —we are allowed to help you with that. We will make it as easy as we can, chérie. For you and Amy both."

  "I can't—"

  "You have to. Or the whole pack is at risk. A human death is terrible, but there are six of us—and, of course, Aura. It may be your identity that Amy has discovered, but it puts all of us in danger. Your whole wolf family. And so you will do this to save all of us. Do you understand?" The memory of her half-starved mother cowering in Dr. Engle's cage last summer rose in Claire's mind. Behind it came a vision of Victoria dead at the hands of vengeful hunters and Aura crying for a mother she would never know. And then there were Judith, Katherine, and Beatrice . . . and none of this was their fault.

  Claire huddled into herself, closing her eyes against the awfulness of what was happening. "Okay," she whispered.

  Her mother released her hand and stood.

  "So, we have little time to waste. Let us begin. Judith? I know you have some . . . experience in this area. Perhaps you would like to start."

  Claire's eyes flew open, and she stared at Judith's stony face. Judith returned her gaze. She nodded, slowly, a crack of vulnerability appearing in her masklike expression. "It's true. It was years ago. But someone found out what I really am."

  "But you couldn't have killed someone. Until Zahl—" Claire caught herself just in time. "Until last summer, there hadn't been a werewolf attack in Hanover Falls for over a hundred years."

  "No recorded attacks," Judith countered. "No one knew that it was a werewolf who killed him. No one was even sure he'd been killed at all. It looked very much like an accident." She turned her face up toward the sky. "I was—" Her voice faltered, and she cleared her throat, still studying the stars that speckled the patch of sky above the clearing. "I was dating him. He came one night, to surprise me, and saw me leave to go for a run in the woods. He saw me transform." Her fingers trembled in her lap. "He panicked—there was no time for a good plan. I caught him and broke his neck. And left him at the bottom of the ravine. He was dressed like someone who might have been walking in the woods. Everyone assumed he'd fallen." Her eyes glittered in the reflected starlight, tears gathering in the corners. She scrubbed her hands across her face and cleared her throat, the vulnerability disappearing from her voice.

  "That's how it must be done or the hunt for us simply begins again." She looked thoughtfully at Claire. "Perhaps you can make it look like a suicide. There's nothing wrong with that. Can you think of any reason why she would be depressed?"

  Claire shook her head. "Everyone likes her. She's ridiculously happy. She's practically the poster-girl for well-adjusted people."

  "Okay, so, some other sort of accident." Judith was being so matter-of-fact. Like she was picking out paint colors. Or talking about which restaurant to try. But there were lines at the corners of her mouth that were telling their own story. Hoping that Claire couldn't tell just how bad it was going to be.

  But Claire could tell. And it was terrifying.

  Judith leaned back against the fallen tree. "A car accident is pretty hard to stage—it would be better if we could think of something that was just her. Electricity? Water?"

  Claire blinked as a memory—welcome, unwelcome— stepped out of her subconscious. "She can't swim," she whispered. "Amy can't swim."

  "So drowning, then . . ." Judith said, a faraway look in her eyes. "It would be easy. Not a lot of evidence. Not as easy for Amy, maybe. But it sounds like the best option."

  "But—where?" Katherine interrupted. "It couldn't be anywhere with people around—I mean, imagine how horrible it would be for them to see her die like that." A disgusted expression distorted her features, like a squeamish girl being forced to pick up a dead mouse. The pain in Claire's chest swelled, stretching against her ribs.

  Judith shot Claire a sorrowful look before turning to Katherine. "What it would do to some random human bystander? What about what it will do to Claire? I don't think I've ever heard you be quite so insensitive, Katherine. And that's saying something." Her words dripped with venom, and it was like she had pulled aside a curtain. Claire could suddenly see where her anger and distrust came from. The wound that killing a human had left on Judith kept her walled off from everyone and everything.

  While she felt a sympathy for Judith that she'd never expected, at the same time, a fierce determination bloomed in Claire.

  She was not going to let that happen. She was not going to end up like Judith, cut off from the world. Angry. Afraid.

  She was a werewolf. She would do whatever it took to fix things—to keep herself safe. If that meant taking the life of a human, then she would find a way to do it. To live with it.

  Amy knows. She might as well be pointing a loaded gun at us— all of us. I'm just going to stop her before she pulls the trigger.

  What Amy knew might be invisible, but it was as deadly as any weapon. Claire dug her fingernails into her palms, focusing on the pain in her hands instead of the ache that wrapped around
her heart. She'd harden herself somehow. And then she'd work like hell to bring herself back—to keep from living the sort of half-empty life that Judith had made for herself.

  But before she could figure out how she was going to survive it, she had to figure out exactly how she was going to do it—how she was going to kill Amy.

  Chapter Twenty

  THE PACK—MINUS Victoria—talked well into the small hours of the morning. Discussing whether a pool or a natural body of water would be best. Where there were bridges with low sides. Whether Claire could wait a few days or if it needed to be the next night.

  "The sooner it's done, the better it will be for everyone." Marie said. There was decision, rather than discussion, in her voice. "It must be done tomorrow night."