Silver Collar

by Gill McKnight

  Emily stood stock-still. She did not like hearing this. It rang a little too true. Marie released her.

  “If you care for her then why is she running from you?” Emily counter accused. “She’s trying to get to Canada. Why was she sent away?”

  Marie fixed her with a stare that turned her inside out and examined all the contents. Emily felt her knees weakening. She could barely cope with this conversation.

  “She told you that?” Marie asked.

  “She told me she was sent away when she was young.”

  “She was the same age you were at your father’s funeral. Luc was not responsible for your father’s death. She didn’t touch him. My mother was Alpha then. She did not want the possibility of Luc being questioned. She wanted her out of the way. She sent the entire family north and they never came back.”

  “She’s back here now.”

  “Because she’s ill. Because this will always be her natal den.” Marie stepped closer. She was intimidating in all her glowering glory, and Emily fought hard not to backpedal away from her. “Maybe she’s come home to die?” Marie said, then laughed softly at Emily’s stricken face. “Seems you’re not as unaffected as you act. Are you sure she didn’t bite you, just a bit?”

  Emily felt her face blaze but was smart enough to keep her mouth shut. Marie moved away. She looked bored now.

  “Go home, Emily,” she said. “Luc will keep right on calling, and when you finally come to your senses and realize the danger you’re in…” She shrugged. “Well, you know where to find me.” She went to walk away, then hesitated. “Oh, and please talk to your uncle. Ask him what really happened to your father. Your dad was a smart man. He figured out what we were, the same as you. But his intentions were bad and a lot of people suffered. My question is, what are your intentions, Emily?”

  *

  Emily returned to the shop to find her uncle whistling cheerfully and stacking shelves. Delilah lay slumped by the counter blocking an entire aisle. She still felt shaky after her encounter, but the familiar confines of the shop soon relaxed her.

  “Where are the regulars?” she asked, noting the empty stools.

  “Pension day. They all go to the steak house on pension day.”

  “You sure Delilah’s not putting them off?” she asked, stepping over the dog who had positioned herself perfectly for any possible tidbits.

  “Well.” Norm paused to suck his teeth. “Pat Crone came in earlier and looked a little nervous.”

  Emily hauled Delilah to her feet and pushed the lazy animal toward the connecting door. “I think she needs to stay outside on a fine day like this. Honestly, Uncle Norm, you can’t have dogs lying all over the shop. Not with food.”

  “Here, take this through, will ya?” He shoved an opened package at her, all crumpled brown paper and string.

  “What is it?”

  “Them Garouls returned some stuff. See? Told you she was wearing my pants.” He pointed at the contents. “Told you they were thieves. Always take what they want, them Garouls.”

  “At least she washed and ironed them,” Emily pointed out.

  “Yeah, they did that, all right,” he conceded, and she could see he found the whole episode confusing. Thieves weren’t supposed to return stolen items freshly laundered.

  “How much did they spend?” she asked.

  “Almost two weeks’ takings.” His eyes gleamed with satisfaction, and maybe a little relief. “They used to spend like that before—” He shut up and began fiddling with the cans on the nearest shelf.

  “Before Dad?” she finished for him. The slump of his shoulders spoke for him. There’d been better days here, before the hate had filled all the empty corners of his life. There was an awkward silence. Emily did not want to launch into this particular conversation just yet. She didn’t want to take Marie Garoul’s advice and talk to Norm about her father even though she knew she should. Pride was rampant in her. She adjusted her grip on the parcel and noticed the tartan.

  “Hey. Wilbur’s stuff,” Emily said, delighted. “Where’s the collar gone?” she asked, frowning at this particular discovery.

  “Told ’em to keep it. They didn’t want the coat though, just the collar.”

  “You gave them back the collar?” Emily sighed.

  “Is there a problem, Em?” Norm asked. “Did I do wrong? What did that Garoul woman want with you, anyway?” She could see the anxiety in his eyes. She set aside her pride. Maybe it was time for them to talk. She didn’t want him to worry anymore.

  “You did fine.” Emily brushed her hand over the back of his. “I’ll come back and we’ll have some coffee and I’ll tell you all about Marie Garoul.”

  She carted the parcel back to the kitchen nudging Delilah along every inch of the way with her shins. In the end, the dog refused to go outside, so Emily let her sleep on Wilbur’s old blanket instead. Once the dog was settled, she went back to the shop. Butterflies swam in her stomach in anticipation of the conversation they were about to have.

  “Tell me about Dad,” she said as soon as she settled on the stool opposite him. Mugs of coffee steamed on the counter between them, and he was slicing up some pie to share.

  “Roy?” he asked. “Roy was great. Great hunter. Clever fella. Cleverer than me,” he began his usual spiel, the legends of her childhood. Inventing a brave, wonderful pa for a lonely little girl. “He was a school teacher, and look where I ended up. You definitely got his brains, Em.”

  “He wasn’t clever enough to keep away from that valley,” she said softly.

  He sliced the pie slower and slower until, eventually, he set the knife down on the countertop. Norm sighed.

  “I know, sweetheart. I told him a million times, just like I tell you. Stay away. Nothing good ever came out of Little Dip. The place is cursed—”

  “In what way exactly?” she pressed. She didn’t want the old nonsense about witches now. She needed to understand what he knew. His washed out eyes met hers. Without his glasses, she could see the milky aura around his pale blue irises and the jaundiced color of his eye white. His skin was dry and patchy, and rashed where he shaved badly. His hands were liver spotted, and on wet days, they trembled. He was too old to be running this shop. He should have retired years ago. He should be down at the steak house with his buddies drinking beer and yammering. She didn’t want to hurt him, but this phantasm of her father’s death had lain between them for too long now. She didn’t want that to be the glue that bound them.

  “For all his brains, Roy could be damned stubborn.” Norm let go. “He had some wild ideas about yetis and all sorts of monsters, and he would talk about putting them in cages or killing and stuffing them and displaying them all over the place. We’d be millionaires, he’d say.”

  “What did you think?” she asked.

  “I think what I always thought, let sleeping dogs lie. Nothing ever came to Lost Creek and hurt me and mine, and in turn, I don’t go hunting where I’m not wanted. I let Mother Nature keep the score and set the balance.” He didn’t say werewolf and she didn’t push it. He had enough monsters to work with.

  “Did Dad have a weak heart?” She had her father’s motive. She needed one more thing.

  “All the Johnston men do. We could go in a snap.” Norm clicked his fingers, perversely proud of his boast. It sounded familiar to Emily. She had heard him say it before when she was little when the idea of losing him scared her half to death. She remembered being frightened of snapping her fingers in case he would suddenly disappear. The unexpected memory filled her with tears.

  “You all right, Em?” He stared at the moisture in her eyes.

  “You’re my pa, Norm. You always have been, and I love you very much.”

  He looked stunned. His jaw dropped and his tired old eyes found a sudden rush of moisture of their own. He coughed, sniffed, coughed again.

  “Did she say things to hurt you?” he asked, almost fearfully.

  “Marie Garoul? No.” Emily shook her head. He had
just corroborated Marie Garoul’s story. “She only said things that helped.”

  *

  It took some coaxing, but Emily managed to lure Delilah outside with Wilbur’s old dog treats. She could see the writing on the wall with Uncle Norm and his new pet. He would spoil the dog rotten, and it would just get fatter and fatter. She was determined to get Delilah into the habit of expecting at least one short walk a day. The exercise would do Norm good, too.

  She let the dog waddle out of the yard and into the woods beyond, realizing they were following the path Emily had taken with Wilbur. It would be a short walk then. Wilbur could hardly be called a walking machine either, but he had his stubby legs as an excuse. Delilah was plain lazy.

  Emily mused over the day’s exposés. She was an intelligent woman, and the separate stories she had received on her father’s fate felt more like a balm on an old, tired bruise than the acidic sting of an unwanted truth. She had seen him hunt. Hadn’t he taught her all he knew? And he’d been ruthless and efficient. She could imagine him doing the things Marie Garoul accused him of. Hadn’t she come close to the same barbarity herself? A chip off the old block. Her old man would have been proud of her with her traps and drugs and surgical tools. Marie Garoul had looked her in the eye and told her a hard story, but she had her uncle to turn to for corroborating the truth of it. He had not failed her.

  Before Roy Johnston’s death, relationships between Little Dip and Lost Creek had been cordial enough to benefit the town. The Garouls were a well-heeled, but very private family, and her father had been fascinated with them, to the point of obsession. He began to spy on them and stalk them in their own valley despite the cautions of his brother. When Roy’s body was found in the Silverthread, Norman Johnston called foul play and soured the relationship between the town and Little Dip forever. The Garouls funded the local library and that was all. Their other charitable concerns were focused elsewhere.

  Emily considered Marie’s other news that Luc was mesmerized with her. Enthralled was the word she’d used. Emily was less sure of this. Luc had behaved bizarrely last night. Emily’s body was still bruised; the nape of her neck bore a parade of blood red blotches. Marie had somehow sensed their intimacy, and she had indicated Emily might not be safe.

  Up ahead, Delilah growled. Her growling increased in rapidity and volume until she was in a full-on barking frenzy. Emily hurried to see what had stressed the dog. She did not know Delilah that well and hoped she could calm her.

  At first, she could see nothing.

  “What is it, Delilah?” She glanced around. Delilah fell back into uneasy growling. Still, Emily couldn’t see what had alarmed the dog. Then the trees caught her eye. The poor disfigured trees. Their trunks were pulled to pieces with huge chunks torn from the living wood. Score marks so deep and livid they wept sap.

  “Shush,” she whispered to the dog. Delilah stopped growling and moved close to her, pressing hard against her leg. The animal was spooked. The place was horrid. Emily had no other words for it. Her head began to pound and she clung on to the nearest tree for support. For several moments, she had to stand in that hell and count her breaths until she was in control again.

  Then it dawned on her that this was the spot where she herself had behaved strangely, rubbing against trees and…Her face burned. She had scented this place, too, and intimately. Once again, she turned in a slow full circle drinking in the malice, the brutality. In her mind, on some deep, subconscious, almost primeval level, she knew this to be the work of Luc. It slotted into perfect place beside her bestial behavior last night. This was what they were doing to each other, the collar and the key. Emily had devised a trap for both of them.

  The breeze turned chill and clouds crowded the sky. The shadows around her lengthened and the forest grew darker, sullen, and unnaturally quiet. Shaken, Emily turned back the way she had come. She felt utterly lost. She had dabbled in something she had no hope of understanding. Pride and anger had led her here, to a place where all her old truths were spinning away from her, and new terrors replaced them.

  “Come on, girl,” she encouraged Delilah to follow her home. Marie Garoul was right. She was out of her depth. Luc was feral and savage and capable of any cruelty Emily could imagine. She had to stop this now before she placed herself and Uncle Norm in any more danger. She had to go to Little Dip.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  “Luc found my tracks around Emily’s pee,” Ren said.

  They were walking back along the old logging road away from Lost Creek and toward Little Dip. It was a beautiful day. A day when the sky fell open, flat as a big blue blanket and the sun shone down unhindered by a single cloud. Not even a bird cast a shadow. They were all rustling furtively in the underbrush or busy building nests. Spring had arrived, and every animal was either courting or homemaking. Jolie felt the urge, too, and couldn’t wait to get home to Hope. Mouse had moved back in with Ren so they had the cabin all to themselves, and Jolie planned to raise the roof a little tonight.

  “She didn’t like it,” Ren added. “She pulled the trees to bits.” She had been out scouting again, while Jolie and Marie visited the general store and found Emily.

  Jolie snorted. Luc was caught up in the same springtime extravaganza as the birdies whether she liked it or not.

  “I still can’t figure out how Emily managed it,” Marie said. “There’s no pattern to this that I can see. Luc is acting so unpredictably that I’m worried for Emily and her uncle. I want patrols around Lost Creek tonight. We need to make ourselves visible to Luc, and maybe keep her at bay.”

  “What!” Jolie was aghast. Her plans did not include hanging out around the general store trying to keep Luc away from her girlfriend’s liquid calling cards.

  The splutter and burp of an engine that had seen better days came rumbling up behind. All three turned and watched a battered bright orange RV rumble around the bend and make a steady course toward them. It drew up alongside Marie, and Emily Johnston stuck her head out the window.

  “Can I give you a lift home?” she said.

  “Only if you stay for dinner.” Marie smiled in greeting.

  “I think I would like that,” Emily said, and waited while they all piled into the small RV.

  *

  The sun slipped below the rim of the valley as the afternoon shadows dissolved into dusk. Emily leaned her forehead against the windowpane wishing she were outside on the porch, watching moths patter against the lanterns and catching the early evening breeze. Instead, she was suffocating in Marie Garoul’s cabin. She could see the woman reflected in the glass, sitting behind her watching Emily right back.

  The claustrophobic squeeze on her lungs tightened. The cool glass against her forehead brought no relief from the headache slowly developing. How had her life become so insane, so ridiculous, for her to end up here of all places? What journey had she taken, corners had she turned, for this valley to represent shelter? She had lost all control, the one thing that mattered most to her. Without control, she would spin away into oblivion.

  “We’ll eat in about ten minutes.” Connie Fortune came through from the kitchen wiping her hands on a dishtowel. Emily turned from the window and strove for normality. She smiled at Connie.

  “Thank you,” she said. “It was kind of you to invite me to dinner.”

  “Nonsense. I’m glad to finally meet you,” Connie said. “Though I’m afraid with this one, it’ll be more work than pleasure.” She poked at Marie’s shoulder.

  “Can you remember the year of the almanac?” Marie asked, proving her partner’s point. She was watchful, as if aware of the struggle Emily was going through.

  “Eighteen eighty-two.”

  “That’s an old one. I’ll be back in a moment.” Marie left the room.

  “She keeps a copy of every Garoul almanac ever published,” Connie explained. “I’m surprised you found one outside of the family. They rarely leave the clan, and if one does turn up in the sale catalogues, it’s usually snapped
up by a family member.”

  “This one was far from collectable. All the botanical plates had been ripped out,” Emily said. “It looked like a tattered old recipe book.”

  “Ah.” Connie nodded. Marie came back into the room holding a pristine version of Emily’s battered book.

  “Is this it?” She opened the covers, which squeaked of tight, clean leather and under use. A glimpse of the cover plate drew Emily forward like the moths around the porch lanterns.

  “It’s beautiful,” she breathed, reaching out to touch the rich colors of the belladonna that adorned the first plate.

  “What was the name of the recipe?” Marie asked.

  Emily tore her stare away from the pages. “Silver collar,” she said.

  Marie hesitated then laughed. “Of course. Luc was wearing one. I’ve never seen one before. It’s an ancient thing. I thought she’d stolen some jewelry.”

  “She’s capable of it. I can see her in diamond earrings if the notion took her.” Connie also smiled, and Emily could feel the sincerity of their concern for Luc. “Let’s eat now. We’ll start our research later.”

  “Tell me how the hell you got that thing on her?” Marie led Emily to the table. “We found your traps but nothing to do with silver.”

  “Drugs,” Emily said. “She’s a sucker for a ham sandwich.”

  Over dinner, she told them of the traps and the mudslide. She didn’t reveal that they had saved each other’s lives, or tell about the night spent in the RV nest. On some things, she didn’t want to be judged, on others, like the torn up trees behind her house, she needed advice. Throughout the meal, she had a feeling she was not fooling Marie and Connie at all. The true depth of her experience with Luc did not seem a mystery to them, and even though Emily had no name for it as yet, she suspected her hosts did.