The Wendigo Witchling

by B. Kristin McMichael

  “Talking?” Cassie asked, raising an eyebrow at her friend. It wasn’t like Whitney not to look her in the eyes. Whitney was one of the most direct people Cassie knew.

  “I told him more about why no one could tell you about night humans while growing up. How everyone thought your father might be a wendigo and all. Turner said the fortune-teller lady can tell you exactly what your father was just by meeting you. She has some sort of seer powers,” Whitney quickly explained.

  Once again Cassie stared in amazement at her friend. Whitney normally didn’t to go telling stuff like that to someone she just met. Yeah, Cassie knew Turner a little bit from the summer, but he still was an outsider. Cassie was at a loss for words.

  “I pulled it out of her,” Turner interrupted. “I wanted to know why she had to go back so bad, and she said something about needing to know more about your fate after joining the skinwalker clan.”

  Cassie still didn’t know what to say. It was only recently that she was even told why everything was kept from her. No one could or would tell her a thing growing up, and now Whitney was buddy-buddy with Turner. Was it because he was a night human? Did they trust each other more than others?

  “Does it even matter now?” Cassie replied. “I’m Nate’s mate. I can’t exactly get out of it. And besides, could I even be his mate if my father wasn’t a skinwalker?”

  Whitney shrugged. “You’re his mate, but it still matters. It might not matter right now to Than, but it might matter later. Night humans are a mutation. If you have kids, they could turn out to be a wendigo if your father was one, and the coven and clan will reject you then. You kind of need to know.”

  “But I thought that was all settled because of Nate. My uncle seemed to think me choosing Nate meant I was a skinwalker’s child.”

  Again, Cassie had no clue what to make of it. One time they were telling her it means something good, and now Whitney is saying that wasn’t necessarily so. Cassie tended to believe Whitney more than everyone else. She was the one who had been the most honest with her all along. Cassie glanced over at her friend, who was still studying her food.

  “I need to report to my father. I’ll be right back,” Turner said, excusing himself from the room.

  Cassie waited for the door to close before returning her gaze to her friend.

  “What else?”

  Turner wasn’t the only one who had picked up on Whitney’s hesitation.

  “And I kind of want to see if there’s a mate for me,” Whitney added quietly, still not raising her eyes.

  “Okay,” Cassie replied. That made such more sense. Whitney’s talk of kids and the clan rejecting Cassie was just a smoke screen, and she understood that now.

  Cassie didn’t need to see the seer to know that she wasn’t one of the wendigo; she knew in her blood. They were bad, and she wasn’t. There was no way her father could have been one of them. Cassie wasn’t afraid of meeting a seer who could tell her just that.

  “Okay?” Whitney asked, finally lifting her head.

  “Yeah, sure. We can go there, and I can pretend to care who my father was, and you can pretend to help me by going first,” Cassie suggested. That would work.

  Whitney grinned at Cassie. After all, they were best friends. Cassie didn’t need the answers, but Whitney did. She would sit through an unnecessary meeting for her friend. In fact, she’d do just about anything for Whitney. That’s what best friends did. Whitney didn’t have anything to worry about. She had Cassie’s back on more occasions than Cassie could do anything for her, and she was happy to be finally able to be the one helping.

  “Great, let’s go right away,” Whitney said, tossing her food back on the cart. “I don’t want to have to wait until tomorrow again. Turner said the old lady likes to turn in early and hates to stay up late.”

  Cassie nodded. She could see a weight lifted from Whitney at the thought of finding out her future. Cassie knew what it was like to be an outsider. She had been one her whole life. Her friend wanted answers. At one time she did, too. Now she just wanted a way out and back to her normal night-human-free life. That wasn’t going to happen, but that didn’t mean Whitney didn’t need help.

  Whitney grabbed Cassie’s arm as Cassie put her half-eaten food back on the tray and dragged her out into the hallway where Turner was leaning against the wall.

  “Ready to go?” he asked, looking between the girls.

  “Yes,” Whitney replied, taking the arm Turner offered her. “Cassie should learn the truth sometime.”

  Cassie waited for Turner to look away before she rolled her eyes. The truth wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.

  Turner took the girls on their second tour of town, this time walking in the opposite direction of the bustling city center they were at the night before. The further they walked from the hotel, the quieter it became. Turner talked and kept them busy with stories, but Cassie was tuning him and Whitney out. The night human stuff was too new for Cassie to follow, and the houses they passed here were much more interesting.

  It was almost dusk, and lights all over were beginning to turn on. As they passed house after house, Cassie could get a glimpse inside. People were sitting down for a meal, some to end their day and others to begin theirs. Most people in town the night before walked around looking like day humans, but now she could see a variety she never imagined was possible. One eye, three eyes, four legs, tails, horns, some as white as ghosts and others as green as grass. There was such a variety, and it was all different to her. Cassie was so caught up in her window peeking that she didn’t notice her friends had stopped talking.

  “I suppose this is all new to her now, isn’t it?” a shrill, high-pitched voice said, breaking Cassie from her thoughts.

  Whitney muffled a laugh as Cassie turned red at being caught looking into people’s houses.

  “Come, come, young ones,” the gray-haired lady who had just spoken added, as she shuffled back into her home.

  Cassie closed her eyes to take two deeps breaths and tried to get the red in her face to recede as she followed her friends into the house.

  It wasn’t what Cassie was expecting at all. She had been to fake and real fortune-tellers over the years on her few travels with her aunt. They always lived in gaudy houses with large neon signs telling you to stop and hear your future. None of them were little gray-haired ladies leading you into what Cassie imagined a grandmother’s kitchen would look like. The retro red and white kitchen and dining room had a large table with six chairs at it. There were lacy doilies in the middle of the table, a bowl of fresh baked cookies on top of them, and homemade lemonade waiting in four glasses, as if she had been expecting them all along. Maybe she had.

  “Are you enjoying the city?” the old seer asked, plopping down not-so-gracefully since her stiff knees didn’t bend as easily as the rest of her.

  “Oh, yes. I’ve never been out of town before; this is great fun. It might be because we have a great host,” Whitney added, batting her eyes at Turner. She had tried her best to flirt with him every chance she got. Whitney was always like that. Probably just another reason the girls at school didn’t like her. She was quite good at finding those opportunities.

  The old lady looked at Whitney as she talked. She nodded along with her, and then closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them, she looked straight at Cassie. The blue was as clear as the eyes from Cassie’s dreams. She often dreamed of blue eyes that clear. She reminded Cassie of her summer trip to the sidhe. They all had those clear, sky-blue eyes.

  “I’m not one of them,” the lady seemed to respond to Cassie’s thoughts.

  “You can read minds?” Whitney asked, her face turning red.

  “No, child, but I’m sorry to inform you that young master Turner isn’t your fated mate. If I were eighty years younger, I’d chase after him, too. No, Turner has a fate that’s much larger,” the lady responded.

  “Hey, now,” Turner interrupted her, shoving the whole cookie on his plate into his mouth i
n one bite. “We’ve been over this before. No details. I want no details.”

  He was actually pouting.

  Cassie had to laugh. All the bravado was completely gone from Turner, and he was acting like a small child as he pouted. Even like that, he still seemed just so… Turner. She had never met anyone like him and thought the world might be a bit more fun if there were more like him. Cassie would have given anything to be the little sister he claimed she could be with her recent actions.

  “Yeah, yeah.” The lady patted his hand. “I know. It isn’t like you don’t do this each time you stop by. But if you’d just let me warn you about next week—”

  “Stop,” Turner pleaded.

  “Fine. But don’t say I didn’t try,” the lady teased him while winking at Cassie. “Most people don’t understand our gift is one that’s meant to be shared.”

  “Ours?” Cassie asked.

  “The gift of sight,” the lady replied. “I know they have tried their best to keep you from coming into your own, but they can’t stop fate. That last one the witches had was just too much. They should have listened to me years ago. Oh well. You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.”

  Had? As far as Cassie knew, the seer for the witches had been the same one for over fifty years.

  “Now onto the fun.” The old seer rubbed her hands together. “Go on. Take a cookie.”

  Cassie looked at Whitney. She shrugged but did as she was told.

  “What brings you all here today, besides Master Turner teasing me with his presence once again and refusing to let me tell him his future?” The old lady gingerly lifted her glass of lemonade and took a sip of it.

  “We came today to find out who Cassie’s father is, but since she’s worried about doing this, I figure I could go first,” Whitney suggested.

  Cassie had to keep from smiling as she nodded along. Whitney didn’t just have movie star looks; when she wanted to, she could act just as well as anyone Cassie had seen on the big screen.

  The old seer nodded along like she was in on the scheme.

  “Yes, yes, that should put Miss Cassie at ease. It’s quite hard to be on the receiving end of our gift if you are used to doing it to others. What is your question on this fine afternoon?” She turned to Whitney.

  “Hmm. Let’s see …” Whitney pretended to think of a question. “How about … You know that all the skinwalkers get a witch that’s their mate. Is there one for me, too?”

  The old lady reached out quicker than Cassie could have predicted and stopped Whitney from picking her cookie back up. Snatching it from Whitney’s hand, she quickly took a bite before handing it back to her. Whitney took the cookie but just held it, giving the old lady the same look that Cassie had on her face.

  The seer closed her eyes. “Hmmm. Yes. I see.” She nodded to herself.

  The girls both looked at Turner. He just grinned and shook his head. He had mentioned that the seer was a bit odd yesterday, but Cassie thought the old-lady house with the plastic-covered couch was the extent of it. It seemed his assessment of odd maybe included her ability to see. Cassie had to look into someone’s eyes to see their past, but others had to do different things, such as hold their hand, touch someone’s head, or whatnot. Eating their cookie was one Cassie had not heard of.

  The old woman finally opened her eyes and looked directly at Whitney. The sky blue color was now clouded with white clouds, almost giving her eyes a cataract appearance.

  “You’ve already met your mate, but until you know the truth of your real father, you won’t see them as your mate,” the old lady said in an eerily clear voice. She blinked and her eyes were back to their normal color.

  “Real father?” Whitney asked.

  The old lady shrugged. “I don’t know what it means any more than you do. My sight isn’t as clear as hers.”

  The old lady nodded to Cassie, but she had no clue what the woman was talking about. Cassie’s “sight” was picking up on emotions, or even seeing something someone had done. She hadn’t seen the future or, at least, she couldn’t on purpose. She could barely control seeing people’s thoughts and pasts.

  “Now your fortune.”

  Cassie tried to take her cookie back but was too slow. For an old person, the seer was extremely quick. The seer took a bite and began to chew slowly.

  “Your question?”

  “I don’t have any questions today,” Cassie replied.

  There was no way she was going to ask about her own father now that Whitney got her cryptic reply. Yes, the seer had answered that Whitney would have a mate and had met him, but she just dropped a bomb on her with the real father bit. Basically, the old seer was saying that Whitney’s father wasn’t her father, which had to be impossible. Cassie had seen baby pictures of Whitney with her dad.

  Cassie didn’t need any information she didn’t want to know being dropped on her right now. She could barely keep up with all the new things in her life as it was. She didn’t need to know anything about her father now.

  The old lady closed her eyes and nodded again, even though Cassie hadn’t asked a question.

  Her clouded eyes opened back up, and she looked at Cassie.

  “Answers will be coming for you, though not from me. All I can say is that your father wasn’t ever committed to one clan. You, therefore, don’t belong to one clan. You’re a free agent in their world, and no one will know what to do with you. You’ll either connect them or destroy them.”

  Yep, Cassie really didn’t need to know that.

  CHAPTER 3

  “You do realize that there’s a speed limit?” Cassie asked as they zoomed up the mountainside leading back home.

  She wasn’t looking forward to all the noise that would come when they passed over the top. Whitney had explained that the noise was something that came with being alpha. Nate had constant contact with his clan, and being bonded to him made her part of all of that. Cassie didn’t want a mate, or to be connected. She liked her head quiet.

  “Sorry,” Whitney replied. She slowed down by only a couple of miles an hour, therefore essentially keeping the same pace racing home. “I always thought my mother’s fancy talking was because she was hiding something, but I have a different father? How is that possible? How didn’t I know that? Why didn’t they tell me?”

  Whitney was back to her ranting. Cassie didn’t know how to reply. She didn’t have parents, but Whitney’s possibly false father meant the world to her. If Dave didn’t turn out to be her father, Whitney would be crushed. Whitney even looked like Dave. Cassie was beyond confused.

  As they neared the top of the peak, Cassie paused to hold her breath. Good-bye, silence. It had been nice.

  They passed the spot where it all went away when they left on their trip, and there was nothing. No voices. No headache. Nothing.

  “Something’s not right,” Cassie said. She didn’t want the constant hum back, but the silence felt wrong being that close to home.

  ‘Cassie, turn around and leave before they feel you,’ Nate said into Cassie’s mind.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Cassie replied. Nate was so set not to have her leave just days ago, and now he was trying to keep her from coming back. It didn’t make sense.

  “Nate says we should go back to where we came from,” Cassie told Whitney.

  “He just told me the same thing.” Whitney continued to drive toward home. “I told him ‘screw you’.”

  Cassie laughed. No wonder he sounded a bit upset. Cassie knew that he didn’t like people disagreeing with him, but Whitney was beyond disagreeable.

  “Then we’re still heading home?” Cassie asked. The alpha could command Whitney, but it seemed like Nate couldn’t.

  “Oh, my mother isn’t going to get away with lies this time,” Whitney muttered as she sped up again.

  They made it home in record time since Whitney didn’t drive the speed limit for any part of the trip. Cassie wondered what Nate was doing now, but she didn’t have a clue wha
t it all meant. He hadn’t answered any of the questions she had been silently communicating the whole time they had been driving. Beyond telling her to leave, he had stayed quiet and so had the clan. Something was off.

  Main Street wasn’t empty when they arrived, but it was odd. Cassie got a gut feeling that maybe Nate was right after all. They shouldn’t have returned. The place was filled with strangers. Not a single person walking down the street was recognizable. The men—both young and old—who walked around were all new to Cassie. It wasn’t odd to see one or two new faces as people traveled through town, but there was no one Cassie knew. And they were all guys. Not a single woman walked among them. Whitney slowed down to the stoplight in the middle of downtown.

  “I think possibly something is going on,” Cassie said as she looked in front of her. Still no one she knew. Cassie had grown up there. There should have been at least someone she knew walking around. This many strangers meant something was up.

  “Oh, I think more than maybe, and I don’t get the feeling we’re welcome here.” Whitney nodded her head behind her.

  Cassie turned around to see several of the men transforming into the monsters that still haunted her dreams. Long, grotesque arms with claws the size of kitchen knives, long snouts with teeth dripping saliva waiting to bite into them, and thin, triangle-shaped fury bodies perched on backward facing legs. Yep, her nightmare was coming alive behind them.

  “Yeah, not exactly a welcoming party,” Cassie replied, trying not to look back at them. She didn’t need more nightmares. “My house is closer.”

  Whitney nodded as she watched in her rearview mirror. The monsters weren’t running, but they were slowly stalking toward them.

  “Remember how you thought those racing lessons were a waste of time?” Whitney asked, watching her mirror and the stoplight at the same time.

  Whitney had asked for her sixteenth birthday to have car lessons on a race track. Her father, whom she loved dearly, agreed it was handy to know how to really drive a car and talked her mother into it. Cassie and Owen laughed the whole time, but it turned out Whitney was actually quite good at driving and driving fast. Probably her night human reflexes, but whatever it was, Cassie hoped she still had it in her.