Nocturne

by Christine Johnson

  Claire quailed, her resolve wavering.

  "I need time to get it set up—I mean, to find a reason to get her alone without looking suspicious." She barely managed to choke out the words.

  Her mother nodded, her lips set in a hard line. "I know. But you must be quick. With every day that passes, the risk that she will tell—that she has told—increases. Spend tomorrow arranging what you must, and then find a way to get her alone. Any longer than that and the danger is too great. As your Alpha, I am commanding you to finish it by tomorrow night."

  Claire squeezed her eyes shut. "Fine." It was more like a breath than a word, but it satisfied her mother.

  "What about all those arty shops by the river? There are a couple of old footbridges around there," Beatrice suggested.

  Claire sucked in a breath. Amy was a pottery fanatic. If she could convince her that one of those little galleries wanted to see her stuff, Amy would probably be thrilled to go down and meet with them.

  Even alone.

  Even after dark.

  "What?" Judith asked, watching the emotions scroll across Claire's face.

  "I think I know how to do it," Claire whispered. She didn't want to say the words, because then it would be true.

  But, really, it was already true.

  As simply as she could, she explained things to the rest of the pack.

  "It's a good plan," Beatrice said. Judith tilted her head from side to side. "It's only passable," she said, "but it's all we've got."

  "For now, it will have to do. It has been a very long day. Let's go home." Marie stood up and looked around the circle at the other women. "Thank you for coming—for your help and suggestions. We will come through this as we have before. Scarred, perhaps, but surviving all the same."

  Katherine stood up, nodding to Marie and casting a curiously blank look in Claire's direction before slipping off into the woods. Beatrice shook her head at Katherine's retreating form and came over to Claire, wrapping her arms around her in a firm hug.

  "It will be okay. You'll see. Remember what I told you at the new moon gathering? When I gave you the necklace? You are still stronger than you know." She pressed her dry lips to Claire's cheek. "Be careful. The last few months, watching you grow . . . I love you too much to stand anything bad happening to you." Claire curved her lips into a smile, but there was nothing genuine about it. Still, it seemed to please Beatrice. With a final squeeze, she turned to go, patting Marie on the arm as she went past.

  When she'd left, Judith stepped close to Claire. Marie moved over to put out the fire, discreetly giving them space to talk.

  Judith didn't hug Claire. She didn't touch her or smile at her. She simply held Claire's gaze with her blue-gray eyes, which were exactly the color of a February morning.

  "Beatrice isn't telling you the truth. She's trying to be nice, but if you treat this like it's no big deal, it will just make things worse for you in the end."

  The words were painful, but the honesty of the hurt felt better than the lying smile she'd put on for Beatrice.

  "I know," Claire whispered.

  "No, you don't," Judith said quietly. "This will break you. The same way that the surface of the moon has been broken by the meteors that smash against it. But this doesn't have to destroy you. The shattered moon still glows. You will still be. And from there you will have to find your own way through."

  It was the worst thing anyone had said to Claire all night. But, somehow, it gave her the courage to face the next twentyfour hours. And she was determined to do exactly what Judith had said—to find her own way through. Claire didn't go to school the next day. She couldn't. It was easy to extend the sickness she'd faked on Saturday night—it probably made the whole thing more believable, anyway. The dance seemed like a lifetime ago. Her dress was still stuffed into the duffel bag she'd carried into the woods, tossed into a corner of her room. There were texts from Emily piling up on her phone, and downstairs her mother was hovering uncomfortably.

  She reached for her phone, texting Emily back. If something had gone . . . wrong, then Emily would know about it—Emily would tell her.

  Still feel like crap. Everything okay with you? Claire sent the text and then held her breath, waiting for a response. A few minutes later, her phone beeped, which meant that Emily was texting midclass.

  Sorry! Boring day here—everyone's still hungover. Amy's acting weird, too, but she won't say why.

  Emily's message was reassuring and worrying at the same time. Amy still hadn't said anything, which was good, but Emily was probably employing the "pester them until they tell you what's going on" tactic. Claire knew how persuasive Emily could be when she wanted to know something.

  She couldn't let Emily find out. As much as she wanted to pretend things were fine, that Amy wasn't living her last day, she couldn't afford to wait.

  She looked out at the woods and begged the Goddess to help her.

  Claire swung herself out of bed and pulled on a ratty pair of jeans and one of Matthew's old sweatshirts. She'd just go to his house. School would be out in a couple of hours, and if she was there—waiting for him—then he'd have to talk to her.

  She thundered down the stairs and into the kitchen, where her mother was pretending to be busy reading a catalog.

  "Where's Lisbeth?" she demanded.

  "I gave her the day off," Marie said, as though it were the most natural thing in the world.

  Claire blinked, thinking through her options. Her very limited options.

  "I'm taking the car," she announced. "I have to go to Matthew's."

  Marie looked up at her sharply. "I don't think so. I'm not letting you drive the Mercedes while you have so much on your mind—you'll be too distracted. I'll take you over to the Engles'."

  Claire's shoulders slumped. "Fine," she said. She didn't care how she got there. She just needed to go.

  The two of them rode in silence most of the way. A few blocks from the Engles' house, Marie turned to her. "I know you have not asked for my advice."

  Claire looked back at her mother. "Didn't you give me your advice last night? If I don't have any choice, then what words of wisdom do I need?" Her voice was cold and hard as hail.

  Irritation flashed across Marie's face, erased in a moment by an understanding that made Claire's stomach sink. Marie was treating her like a cancer patient. Like she was terminal.

  "I would not have you do this if there were any other way, Claire. But the law is immutable on this point. And so I would advise you to do it without thinking. The less you dwell on it now, the easier it may be to tuck away later. So that it does not define you, the way it defined Judith. I do not wish to see you . . ."

  "Shattered?" Claire offered, thinking of Judith's description of the rock-battered moon.

  "Exactly," Marie agreed, turning onto the Engles' street. Claire stared at the passing houses. She didn't know how to tell her mother that it was already too late. That nothing was ever going to be the same again. Something had changed in her when she'd agreed to kill Amy, even if she hadn't done it yet. It was like watching a dropped glass fall toward the floor, knowing that it was going to break but not knowing how badly. Just knowing that it couldn't be saved.

  The Engles' driveway was empty, and Claire was grateful. She'd figured that Dr. Engle would be at the lab, but Matthew's mom might have been home.

  "Where will you—do you want me to wait with you? It's rather cold."

  Claire shook her head. "I'll be okay. He'll be home in an hour or so." She slipped out of the car and went to sit on the biting concrete of the porch step. Her mother drove away slowly. Claire could see her watching in the rearview mirror. She put her hands in her pockets, tucked herself down into her coat, and waited.

  When Matthew pulled into the driveway, the wind had numbed her nose, and her hips ached from sitting on the concrete.

  When he stepped out of the car and saw her, a smile skittered across his face and then his lips went flat as a closed door.

&nbs
p; "Claire? What are you doing here?"

  She stood up. "I have to talk to you. Please."

  He nodded. "I know. I need to talk to you, too."

  Her heart hiccuped in her chest. Something about the way he said the words made it sound like he was breaking up with her.

  "Let's go inside," he said.

  The two of them ended up at the kitchen table.

  The ticking of the old-fashioned wall clock above the stove pounded against Claire's ears, reminding her that she didn't have time to waste. Still, she couldn't find the words to tell him—especially not when things seemed so uncertain between them.

  "Listen," he said, jumping in ahead of Claire. "I don't know what you heard happened at Emily's on Saturday night, and I know we haven't talked, but it all started with the fight we had in the car—"

  She spoke over top of him, not wanting to rehash their argument right then. "I have something to tell you, and I don't . . ." She bit her lip. "I need to tell you. But it's wolf stuff, and it's bad. And if you can't handle it—"

  He held up a hand, stopping her. "Wait. I don't want to have this fight again. I'm not freaked out by the werewolf stuff. I never have been."

  She made a face. "But when I was tested, you didn't even want to be there. It's like you're trying to ignore the werewolf side of my life. I mean, what about what happened after Yolanda's party?" She paused, remembering the rough wood of the utility shed against her fur. Remembering how badly Matthew had lied when Emily had almost found her and how tense and horrible things had been between them afterward.

  The memory made her too edgy to sit still. She pushed the chair back from the table and paced in front of the counter.

  Matthew shook his head disbelievingly. "You told me to leave you alone so many times. . . . It's not exactly easy to figure out how involved I'm supposed to be—when I'm being a gardien and when I'm being your boyfriend."

  Claire ground the heel of her hand into the bridge of her nose, squeezing her eyes shut. "But there's no difference between the two."

  "Of course there is!" he said, standing up. "They're both things I am, but they're not the same."

  "Right," she said, dropping her hands and stepping toward him. "And I'm two things too. A wolf and a human. But you know both. I just want to be myself with you—all of myself, not just the human part and not just the wolf. I thought that's what was so great about you being a gardien in the first place. Until you started acting like you only wanted to date the one version of me."

  "I'm not saying that! You're the one who keeps saying it. Yes, it's hard. I mean, when Doug doesn't get something that's going on in Kate-Marie's life, he ruins the lunch conversation by pestering all of us until we tell him what the hell we think he should do. And then he does it and things are fixed. I don't have that option. I'm not allowed to talk to any of my friends about your life, and I don't exactly love the idea of having a heart-to-heart with your mother about it.

  You're all I have, but instead of telling me what you want me to do, you spend all your time being mad that I'm not perfect."

  "It's not like I have some secret werewolf dating guide that I'm not showing you," she fumed. "I want us to be together, but I want to be with you. Not in charge of you. You can't just lurk around at the edge of everything, waiting for me to tell you to jump. I don't know what I'm doing, either, and you're not the only one who can't get advice from your friends." Her words were coming fast and faster, and she felt the conversation spinning away from her.

  He reached out and caught her wrist. "Stop. Listen to me. I love you. All of you. I'm not trying to ignore the fact that you're a werewolf." Misery creased his forehead, crinkled the corners of his eyes. "Our relationship is never going to be easy. And I won't lie—sometimes, I wish it was. I look at what Kate-Marie and Doug have, and it's so simple."

  She pulled her wrist out of his lax grip. "I can't help that."

  "I know." He stepped in and wrapped his arms around her. "And I don't want what those two have. I want you. No matter how complicated it is. But you can't expect me to have some magic way to make it easy."

  She stared at him mutely, her lips parted. Thinking about what he'd said. Turning it over in her mind. He waited a moment, watching her, and then—without waiting for her to make the first move—he pulled her close. She leaned her head onto the warm, familiar curve of his shoulder. A firefly flash of relief shone through her then disappeared as quickly as it had come. In the dark that followed, there was nothing but despair.

  She and Matthew were finally sorting things out, and she was going to have to ruin it by telling him the worst thing imaginable.

  "You might not think that when you hear how complicated it is," she said.

  "I already know—"

  She lifted her head from his shoulder and looked into his eyes. At the confidence and love and relief that were glowing there, like hot coals.

  "No, you don't," she said. "Something happened. It's— it's horrible. And I have to tell you." The words were coming faster, tripping over one another as they rushed out. "And I need you to help me and I'm sorry because it's going to ruin everything we just talked about—"

  The light in his eyes turned to worry. He lifted a hand to cup the side of her face. "Claire. Stop. Just tell me. What happened?"

  "Amy knows," she said simply, needing to get it out. Like ripping off a Band-Aid.

  Matthew's eyes widened. "That must be what she wanted to talk to me about at Emily's. I said we'd had a fight and she got all concerned, but I didn't want to talk to her about it and . . . Oh God, she knows you're a werewolf?" he whispered.

  "Yes. She—we—ran into Katherine at the mall, and I guess Amy got suspicious, and then she overheard you and me at the dance and figured it out somehow. She was acting like she still wanted to be friends, like—like she thought she could help me, almost." Claire hung her head. "But the bottom line is that she knows. I told the pack—I had to." Even though it was warm in the Engles' kitchen, her teeth started to chatter.

  "Of course you did. What did they say? What are they going to do?" He looked at her with a mixture of dread and hope.

  "They aren't going to do anything," she said.

  "Really?" His eyebrows shot up. "But no matter how nice Amy is, that can't be safe—"

  She interrupted him. "No, it's not, and that's why they've said I have to kill her." Her voice rose with each word, quavering and half-hysterical.

  He sat down heavily on one of the kitchen chairs, which creaked in protest. He stared at her and she said nothing. She watched him thinking. Saw him swallow.

  "They won't make an exception?" His voice was little more than a croak.

  Claire shook her head.

  "But when I found out, they made me a gardien. Why can't they do the same thing for Amy?" His face was pale as milk.

  "A gardien is a really rare thing, Matthew. Before you became a secret-keeper, you'd already been kind to my mom, and then you helped me get her out of your dad's lab. This situation is different, and the pack's already said that having any more gardiens is too dangerous. When humans discover us, we don't just make them part of our world. We do everything we can to keep the worlds apart." It sounded like something Marie would say, but Claire could hear the truth in her own words. It murmured to her, ugly and undeniable.

  "Why do you have to do it?" he whispered.

  "Because I'm the one who was found out. It's—it's sort of a punishment." It felt like the words were too big for her throat.

  Matthew stared down at his hands for a long time. Claire dug her fingernails into her thighs, bracing herself. She wouldn't be surprised if he took back everything he'd just said about not minding that she was a werewolf.

  Finally, he looked up at her. "Is there any way around it? Some sort of loophole or something?"

  She stared at him. Hard. "Do you really think I haven't twisted the whole thing inside out and upside down looking for a way out? It's the law. And beyond that, my mother—my Alpha—ordered me t
o do it. To have her dead by tonight."

  "You really don't have a choice, do you?" Something about the defeated way he said it shook Claire to the core.

  "No, I don't." She paused. "But you do. You can't walk away from the pack, but you don't actually have to help me do this." Her voice was almost inaudible. "I would understand. I would walk away from it if I could."

  "I'm not letting you go through this alone." His anguished gaze held hers, and grief and relief trampled through Claire, crushing everything else.

  "You would really do that?" she asked, still not quite able to believe it.

  He held out a hand to her. "For you. And no other reason. How can I help? What—what needs to be done?" He swallowed hard.