Clarity

by Claire Farrell

  I checked my watch, groaning inwardly. “If Amelia doesn’t hurry up, I’ll have to go.”

  “I know. I’ll text and tell her to get a move on,” Nathan said.

  I realised I was holding my ribcage and dropped my hand before he noticed. Nobody had seen the mysterious pack of rabid dogs since they attacked me, knocked me down, and left me with a cracked rib. That was because they didn’t exist, at least, not in the way we told it.

  People were still on alert, and my dad wasn’t taking any chances. Cúchulainn had even been allowed to stay with us, but due to his size and particular interest in Joey’s female dog, Dolly, he was rapidly outstaying his welcome. Poor Dolly was heading for a spaying since the wild dog situation had persuaded Aunt Stella that the world didn’t need any more puppies.

  I glanced around, trying to control the shiver that ran through me by focusing on taking deep, calming breaths. Luckily Nathan was using his phone, so there was less chance of him seeing one of my minor panic attacks. He really didn’t need something else to worry about. The curse might help us bring a certain amount of happiness to each other, but it also increased our awareness of each other’s pain.

  Even though it had been weeks since I had last seen them, I couldn’t help looking around for the two werewolves. I tried not to think about the third one, but I couldn’t help it. After all, I had been the one who had ended his life to save Nathan’s grandfather.

  I couldn’t see straight for the conflict in my head. I had taken a life... I hadn’t taken a life quickly enough, not soon enough to help Lia Evans. That was the problem. That was why Jakob stayed away. If I hadn’t acted at all, the battle would have continued, and there was no way of knowing who might have gotten hurt. That was what Nathan kept telling me. It didn’t lighten the weight of the guilt on my shoulders. It didn’t make what I did okay, and we both knew it.

  I pointed and waved, seeing Amelia’s anxious face amongst the fresh crowd of students leaving the school building. “There she is.”

  “Sorry, he wouldn’t dismiss the class on time,” she said breathlessly.

  “History?” I guessed.

  “You know it. Someone should remind him school’s over for us in a fortnight. Any news?” She sounded hopeful, as if she wouldn’t be the first to know if her grandfather returned home.

  Nathan shook his head, and all of the light left Amelia’s expression. Most of my guilt stemmed from her. The connection between the three of us had only strengthened, and I could feel her hurt at what she perceived as a rejection from Jakob. I felt her loss every second I was around her. It was too heart-breaking to bear some days.

  Amelia and I had never discussed exactly what happened that day, but we both knew it could have been prevented. We both knew it could have happened differently. Everyone blamed each other, but nobody came out and said it. The tension was palpable.

  Nathan stared at Amelia, concern in his eyes. “You look wrecked. Bad day?”

  “Migraine.”

  “Since when do you get migraines?”

  “Since now,” she snapped.

  He shrugged and fell in with some of his friends, while Amelia and I followed him to the bus stop in silence. Talking led to bad memories and constant speculation about the future. Sometimes, I was glad of the peace; other times, I couldn’t resist talking about the biggest secret I would ever have in my life.

  I hated to admit how exciting the curse had once sounded. Part of me had enjoyed the mystery and danger; the air of constant anticipation had become addictive. Then I realised the true danger, how insane the curse really made us, how out of control, and how it always, without fail, led to one lonely, mourning werewolf. Too bad it took a couple of deaths to figure that out.

  Despite how much better I naturally felt around Nathan and Amelia, I was glad to say goodbye and get off the bus alone. I couldn’t let myself truly feel around them. I didn’t want them to feel my pain as well as their own. The only time I could be myself was when I was alone in my room, and even that was getting harder.

  Nobody was home. I guessed that meant Erin was coming over with Dad when he finished work. Gran had made a point of avoiding them. I was so tired of their pointless drama. It meant nothing to me anymore. Sometimes I could barely believe how serious things had seemed before, back when my biggest concern was if Nathan liked me or not.

  Sitting on the living room floor, I hugged Cúchulainn, burying my face against his coarse hair. Wiping my eyes, I looked the dog straight in the eye. He was the only one I could be myself around. He nuzzled my cheek as if to tell me everything would be okay. I needed to cling to that lie. I could barely face myself in the mirror anymore, and my dreams were full of the exact things I wanted to forget. All I wanted to do was talk to someone about everything in my head, but there was nobody, and I didn’t have a clue what to do to get past it all.

  I sat there, my arm wrapped around Cúchulainn, until the front door opened, and both my dad and Erin stepped in. I gave a half-hearted wave.

  Dad stared at me as though I had two heads. “What are you doing on the floor?”

  “Loving Cú.” I pushed myself to my feet.

  “Where’s your grandmother?”

  “Out. Somewhere.” I didn’t want to say Gran was avoiding Erin, even if we all knew it was the truth.

  I patted Cú and turned to head to my room. He wasn’t allowed upstairs, but whenever I woke up whimpering from a bad dream, he was always there.

  “Wait a sec. Are you having dinner with us?” Dad asked.

  “Not hungry. Better do some homework.” I trudged up the stairs, imaginary weights on my ankles. It was so easy to take a life, yet so hard to live with the act. What I really wanted to do was tell my dad and let him fix everything. Childish dream. Nobody could fix everything. And Dad could never know, so I avoided him as much as possible.

  It wasn’t long ago that some of my biggest worries had been if my dad would allow me to go to a party, or if my best friend was still my best friend. I would have given anything for those kinds of problems again.

  I sat on the edge of my bed, staring at my schoolbag. Unwanted images kept popping into my head—dead wolves, dead people. It felt as though I could reach out and touch them. When my bedroom door unexpectedly opened, I jumped and shrieked with fright, clutching my bag as if it would protect me from the past and present.

  “Oh, I’m sorry.” Erin held up her hands. “I knocked, so I thought...”

  I tried not to sigh. “It’s okay. I don’t want dinner.”

  “Yeah, I heard. Perdy, are you okay?”

  I looked up at my father’s girlfriend and saw concern etched all over her face. I had to put on a mask everywhere. I smiled, aiming for cheerful. “Of course. I better get some homework done.”

  “Hmm. You said that, what, twenty minutes ago? You’ve been sitting in here—”

  “Trying to remember the homework is all. Maybe I will have dinner. Could you tell Dad?” I gave her another beaming smile, hoping she would get lost.

  She raised an eyebrow, then sat on the bed next to me. “Come on, Perdy. You’ve been moping around for ages. Is there something at school? Bullies maybe? Or did somebody do something to you outside of school? Touch you inappropriately or something?”

  My giggle was genuine and strange to hear. I hadn’t been given a good touch/bad touch talk in quite a while. I hadn’t laughed in a while either. “No, Erin. I told you, I’m fine.”

  “I know what you’re telling me. Problem is, I can’t believe you when you’ve a face on you like a scalded cat the whole time. Something’s wrong; that much is obvious. Has Nathan done something? Something to hurt your feelings maybe?”

  I choked out a laugh that sounded more akin to a sob. “He couldn’t. I… no. He wouldn’t do anything to hurt me.”

  I could tell by her sceptical expression that she didn’t believe me, but then her face dropped. “Is it…?” She bit her lip and hesitated. “Is it to do with me being around?”

&nb
sp; “Of course not! You make my dad happy. I like that.” That was true. I thought Erin was good for him. The idea that someone in my life was actually happy was a beacon of hope for me.

  She twisted a ring around her finger. “Your dad told me you hate when he and your gran fight. And well, it seems like me being around has kick-started a little aggro again. I would understand if that made you upset, if you needed some space from me because of it. I wouldn’t be offended if you needed me and your dad to back off, at least around here.”

  I patted her arm, not knowing what else to do. “I’m not upset because of you. I promise.”

  “Then what is it? I hate to see you like this. Your dad doesn’t know what to do. I don’t think you realise how worried he is.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’ll try to do better.”

  She leaned back as though I had hit her or something. “Perdy...” She shook her head. “Listen to me. This isn’t about you doing better. It’s about finding out what’s bothering you so we can deal with it.”

  Exhaling heavily, I gave up on the idea of peace. How on Earth could I tell her I felt depressed because I’d killed the bad werewolf who killed my werewolf boyfriend’s werewolf grandmother? It didn’t make any sense, even in my head. She would probably have me committed, and that still wouldn’t solve any of my problems.

  Erin wrapped her arm around me and laid her head against mine for a few seconds. “I know I’m not family, but I remember what it was like to be your age. Everything was a huge deal, and sometimes the only way to feel better was to talk about it to someone who wasn’t your parent. What I’m trying to say is that I hope you know I’m here whenever you’re ready to talk, okay? No judgements, I promise.”

  “Thank you.” The more time I spent with Erin, the more I liked her. She didn’t act nice to impress Dad; she seemed genuinely interested in me. It would be easier for me if she didn’t care at all. Sometimes I felt like blurting out the whole crazy story to her.

  But I remembered what I had been told. Nobody could know.

  Chapter Two

  Nathan

  “We need to hunt soon,” I reminded Byron.

  He waved me away. “I have work to do. Maybe on the weekend.” He bowed his head and concentrated on his stupid laptop. His fingers moved deftly over the clicking keys, majorly annoying.

  I’d been trying to talk to my uncle for weeks. He never listened, and I’d had enough. Grabbing his laptop, I slammed it shut before he had a chance to react. That got his attention—indignantly outraged attention, but still.

  I pre-empted his lecture with one of my own. “The memorial’s this weekend, and you haven’t hunted since Opa left. You can’t keep avoiding it until you’re ready to chew someone’s head off.”

  He glared at me. I felt his rage, and I didn’t really blame him, but I still couldn’t back down. He wasn’t even our alpha anymore. My grandfather had taken that before he left. For the first time, I realised we really did need a clear leader because my inner wolf had been trying to break its cage ever since my grandfather had run out on us. I was slowly losing my grip on control, and that terrified me. Someone needed to take charge before the entire family fell apart.

  After a couple of seconds of shaking, wordless rage, Byron’s shoulders drooped. He took off his reading glasses and rubbed his eyes distractedly. I highly doubted he even needed reading glasses and secretly suspected he had some kind of Clark Kent complex when what we really needed was Superman.

  “Tomorrow,” he agreed in a tired voice. “We’ll go out tomorrow evening if Perdy can stay with Amelia for a couple of hours.”

  “Shouldn’t be a problem.”

  Byron refused to leave Amelia in the house alone anymore. I couldn’t see the point, but I wasn’t in the mood to argue. I needed to hunt, too, anything that might cool down my hormones or help me sleep.

  I wandered outside, wondering what to do. I wanted to go to Perdita, but I sensed her pulling away from me. She said all the right things, but I felt the distance, and I didn’t have a clue how to bridge it. It wasn’t supposed to be that way. The curse was meant to keep us close, but I couldn’t deny the way it had ripped us apart at the very core the day my grandmother died.

  I made a beeline for my sister when I saw her on the swings. She wasn’t swinging, just sitting there, my grandmother’s dog by her side in place of King. The old dog was mourning more than the rest of us, and Amelia had only allowed herself one day to cry over King. She claimed it wouldn’t be right to cry over a dog, not even one as amazing as King, when our Mémère had just died.

  The dog licked my hand in greeting, but Amelia didn’t move or make a sound.

  “We’re hunting tomorrow.” I hoped she would react. It might stop me from feeling so completely alone in the world, as though everyone had locked themselves in their own heads.

  She nodded, still staring into space.

  “Want to read my fortune?”

  “Nah.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  She gazed at me, seeming truly amazed by the question.

  “I meant right now, specifically,” I amended.

  She tried to twirl around, but her movements were jerky and went against the natural rhythm of the swing. “It feels like we should be doing something about the memorial. It doesn’t feel right that strangers are organising everything.”

  I agreed with her, but it wasn’t up to us. Unsurprisingly, Byron had paid people to take over before locking himself in his office. “We could do something in private. Visit her grave together. Leave her something, maybe.”

  Her feet scuffed the ground, halting the swing’s movements. “I like that. We could bring Perdita.”

  I hesitated. “I’m not sure she would be into that. Not after everything.”

  “She’ll be okay, Nathan. I mean, it’s Perdita.” She hesitated when she caught the look on my face. “Well, if it’s only us, let’s go now.”

  “Oh, um… I mean, I don’t have anything to give her right now.”

  “Give her something you own,” she said excitedly. “I’m going to get ready.”

  Seeing a bit of life in my little sister was probably worth the hassle. She had taken the loss of our grandparents pretty badly, mostly because she had been so spoiled by them. Sometimes I wished they hadn’t treated her like a baby for so long; maybe she would have dealt with everything better.

  I paused outside Byron’s door on the way to my room, but didn’t knock. Even though he made a big deal about never leaving Amelia alone, he rarely noticed if she left the house. He had no real interest in us. He never had. We were the burden he had inherited first from his brother and then from his mother.

  By the time Amelia was ready, I was itching to go. I persuaded her to walk so I could feel the wind against my skin. My wolf was dying to hunt and run and be free. I couldn’t wait.

  Amelia acted as though everything was fine, but there was something off about her. Her mind was elsewhere. Then again, we were all still learning to deal with life without our grandparents.

  At the cemetery, we knelt at our grandmother’s grave and cleared away twigs and debris decorating the surface. The graveyard was eerily tranquil, the only sounds distant traffic and rustling leaves.

  Amelia dug a little hole and buried her charm bracelet and a silk bag of tarot cards. “They were hers,” she said fiercely. “That bracelet was the first gift Opa ever gave her. I took the cards from her room. She should have them with her.”

  I bit my lip, not knowing quite what to say to that. “You’re right,” I said at last.

  Amelia glanced up at me, tears in her eyes. “Good.” She bowed her head reverently. “Mémère, I miss you so much. I need you now. I…”

  I moved away so I wouldn’t hear anymore. Not to give her privacy, but to stop whatever it was inside me that kept breaking whenever I heard the catch in my sister’s voice as she said Mémère. Her hurt and pain were so overwhelmingly obvious that it shamed me not to be there for her. I h
ad been thinking about how everything affected me and Perdita. I hadn’t really given enough thought to Amelia. She wasn’t coping, and I had to claim some of the blame.

  “Your turn,” she called out after a couple of minutes. I tried not to think about what she might have been saying. Her cheeks had flushed red, and her eyes shone with tears, but she seemed better, more at peace. Maybe speaking to Mémère really did help.

  “Do you think you could give me a minute?” I asked. “Alone, I mean?”

  She shrugged and got to her feet.

  “Stay where I can see you,” I called after her. I took a card out of my pocket. I’d gotten it for Mémère’s birthday, but hadn’t had the chance to give it to her. I set it down behind the flowers on her grave. It felt lame and impersonal, but I had no idea what else I could have brought. It seemed stupid, but I had never felt a part of our family, and the fact I didn’t have all of those great memories that Amelia had was hard to deal with. But I did love her, and that had to count.

  Sitting beside the headstone, I cleared my throat, unsure of where to begin. The events after her death had been confusing—the fake death certificate, the removal in the middle of the night, the brief, secret funeral Opa had somehow organised without consulting anyone. There was no closure, no real sense of peace. I wasn’t sure what happened to people when they died, but we hadn’t had the chance to say goodbye, so maybe that meant she was still around. I decided to go with that thought.

  “Um, hi, Mémère. Hope you’re okay. I... I want you to know that I’ll take care of Amelia. Byron isn’t doing so well, and I’ve no idea where Opa or Jeremy could be.”

  It made me so angry to think they were out there, doing something, and leaving the rest of us behind. What we really needed was for someone to help us be more like those other wolves, ferocious and aggressive, able to win a fight. The werewolves had to come back for us. Whatever it was they wanted, they hadn’t gotten it yet, and it seemed as though I was the only one willing and able to protect Amelia and Perdita when the scum returned for more.