The Silent Strength of Stones (12 page)

“You’re welcome.”

“It was awful. I was really scared,” I would never have said that to Paul or Jeremy, maybe not even to Junie, but somehow I could say it to Evan. “I didn’t know what I was going to do.”

“That’s one of the reasons I don’t like them. She’s mean.”

I rubbed my eyes.

He said, “And not even thinking mean. We may have been snots at home, but we thought through some of the consequences. And we knew we shouldn’t be mean, even when we were. Mama and Papa saw to that. Aunt Elissa’s mean, and she thinks she’s not. She thinks she’s righteous and everything she decides is correct, no arguments.”

He gazed toward the forest and away from the lake for a long moment. Presently he said, “Listen to me carefully, Nick.”

I straightened without thinking about it and stared at him.

“Take this deep inside you.”

I felt as if a well opened up inside, waiting for what he would fill it with.

He said, “It comes from me, and I mean it. Anything she tries to do to you won’t work on you, because you belong to me. It will slide off you without hurting you.
Kolesta y kiya
, according to our covenant.” He licked my face.

“Salt between us,” I murmured.

“What?” His ears stood straight up, openings toward me.

“Something Lauren told me.”

“You know Lauren?”

“Mmm. She introduced herself to me.”

“And said ‘salt between us’?”

“Mmm. I gave her French fries.”

He laughed. “So Aunt is three ways wrong.” Then he said, “Did you hear me, Nick?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Let these words take root in you. Aunt Elissa cannot hurt you. Uncle Bennet cannot hurt you. Uncle Rory cannot hurt you. You belong to me.”

“Yes,” I whispered.

“Take my breath.”

My thinking mind didn’t understand, but some part of me did, because he leaned close and I leaned close; he breathed out and I sucked it in, tasting things that weren’t very appetizing (his hunt must have been successful), but breathing in deep and long anyway.

“Now I’m in you,” he said, “and I will protect you.” He licked my cheek. “Now you’re in me, and I will protect you,
kolesta y kiya
.”

“
Kolesta y kiya
,” I said, tasting words like old iron.

“Okay,” he said. “I think that should do it.”

I took in a deep breath and let it out in a sigh. Why did I trust this wolf when I didn’t even know him? Maybe I didn’t have a choice. On the other hand, he had already been the best friend I had ever had. I made a few distant friends every summer, working in the store, but I had never felt this way about one of them before.

Working in the store.

I checked my watch. It was nine-thirty, and I hadn’t seen to Granddad, hadn’t stocked the till and opened the store ....

“Uh-oh,” I said. “Pop’s going to kill me!” I scrambled to my feet I hadn’t come very far along the path with the aid of the stick—the stick; I stooped and grabbed it—but running all out, I could be back at the Venture Inn in about six minutes. “Come on,” I said. Evan laughed and we ran.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” I said as we burst through the door. “I had an accident.”

Pop was sitting in the chair behind the counter, his arms crossed over his chest, his face blank. “Better have been a good one,” he said.

“I ran into a tree branch and knocked myself out.”

“Evidence without pain,” muttered Evan. I felt something trickle down my cheek, put up a finger to touch it, and found blood. My stomach went cold. I looked at him sideways. He cocked his head and looked back.

“Gaw dang, I see it,” said Pop, rising and coming around the counter. “You need Doc McBride?”

“I don’t know.” I pressed my hand to my left temple, where I discovered my hair matted with wet. “It doesn’t hurt. I think I just need to clean it up. I lost half an hour, though. I’m sorry, Pop.”

“Okay,” he said. “Get back here fast as you can. Give a yell if you need medical attention.”

Evan and I raced upstairs, where I washed blood off my head and watched the reddened water swirling down the drain. “Where did that come from?” I asked him.

“Your head.”

“How?”

He yawned.

I parted my wet hair, looking in the mirror for a wound, but there was nothing. No more bleeding, either. I ran a comb through my hair. “Evan ...”

“You can spare a little blood for a good lie, Nick.”

“You say bleed and I bleed?”

“Yep.”

“You say sleep and I sleep. You say wake and I wake. You say see and my eyes are opened.”

“Mmm.”

I washed my hands and dried them on a towel, watching him. His eyes were half open.

“What if you say something I don’t want to do?” I asked after a moment.

He glanced toward the door, panting, tongue hanging out a little, then looked at me, ears up.

“I mean, something I really don’t want to do,” I said. “Anything I can do?”

He lay down, nose on front paws, forehead wrinkled. “Tell you what,” he said. “Unless it’s urgent, you can question my orders. Permission, Nick. Put that where you know it.”

“Thanks.”

“Doesn’t mean I’ll change ’em.” He jumped up. “I know I’ll regret it. You’re fun to tease.”

“Another goal I’ve always had,” I muttered, heading for the stairs. “Fun to tease. Feh.”

My next bad moment of the day came when Aunt. Elissa walked into the store.

It was approaching eleven-thirty. Evan was sleeping behind the counter. I was checking to make sure the right video was rewound and in the right box, and listening to two preteen girls chattering among the teen magazines, but I knew somehow the instant Elissa put her hand on the door, and I had already gone cold inside when she came in. She was wearing something almost normal this time—an orange sun dress with a red sash—and she didn’t look my way; she focused on the food aisles. I nudged Evan with my foot. He made an irritated dog groan and tucked his nose further under his paw.

One of the girls came up and offered me a
Sassy
. I sold it to her without even looking at it I was watching Elissa in the antitheft mirror. The girl moved over to get into my line of sight, smiling and showing me her mouthful of braces and colored rubber bands, and I blinked out of my terrified trance enough to smile back and murmur thank you to her, at which point she blushed and darted out of the store, magazine rolled up in her hand, friend rushing after her with a ring of bells.

When I looked up, Elissa was standing before me, holding out a jar of bay leaves. Her eyes were wide and her face was pale.

I could feel the blood seeping out of my face, prickling as it went. In my mind I knew that Evan had told me she couldn’t do anything to me, but I still remembered the primal terror of losing the world because she said a few words and waved her fingers at me. Nobody should be able to do that to someone else.

I reached out for the jar, and she dropped it almost before I got my hand there. I caught it, though. “Dollar seventy-nine,” I said, setting the jar on the counter and punching cash register keys.

“What did you do?” she demanded, the vinegar strong in her voice.

Evan stirred beside my feet, stood up. I glanced down at him. His eyes were wide, his face solemn.

“Tell me,” she said. I could feel her words trying to slide inside and order me around, but they slipped off, just as Evan had said they would.

“Dollar seventy-nine,” I said again.

“What did you do? How? Tell me!”

“Lady, leave me alone and I’ll leave you alone, okay?”

“What ... did ... you ... do?” Her words sounded like rocks grinding against each other. My stomach did some gyrations. I could feel her words trying to sand down my will.

The bells rang behind her. Lauren walked into the store. She was wearing a blue shirt and shorts, and her feet were bare and very dirty. “Hi, Nick,” she said. “Mama, Daddy says hurry.”

I said, “Hi, Lauren.”

Elissa reached across the counter and gripped my shoulder, her fingers digging in. “How do you know my daughter?”

“Salt between us,” I said.

Her face leached even paler. She let go of me and looked behind her at Lauren.

“Daughter, is this true?”

Lauren kicked the floor, scraping her sole against the hardwood, staring down, then flicked a glance at her mother and nodded.

“You shared salt with this stranger? This particular one? How could you?”

Lauren’s voice came out very small. “He gave me some food. I didn’t know it had salt on it.” Her gaze was fixed on the floor.

“He tricked you?”

“He didn’t know about salt. I had to tell him.”

Elissa’s eyes went so wide I could see white all around the irises. “When was this?” she asked.

“Yesterday,” whispered Lauren.

Elissa stared at me for a long, uncomfortable moment. “I have violated a covenant between us, but I did not know. I hope you will forgive me.”

She scared me more at that moment than she had before. “Uh ... sure,” I said.

“Without your forgiveness I lose the good favor of the Presences. I regret what I have done.”

“Okay,” I muttered, I glanced at Evan, whose eyes were narrowed. I wished I knew what to do. I didn’t like this woman focusing on me any more than I liked it when Pop paid real attention to me. The end result couldn’t be good.

Then again, last night Pop had surprised me.

“I won’t make that mistake again,” she said. She stared at me. I could feel her gaze like a hot breeze against my face.

“Okay,” I said, since she seemed to be waiting for something.

At last she looked away. She fumbled at her waist, pulling out a small woven purse tied to her sash with strings, and fished a couple of crumpled dollar bills out of it. I made change and handed her coins, bay leaves, and a receipt, and she turned and left.

“Sorry,” Lauren said in a wobbly voice, and followed her mother out of the store.

As soon as the door closed behind them, I looked at Evan and said, “What? What? What was I supposed to do? She’s mad at me now!”

“Because she was wrong,” he said.

“That’s not my fault!”

“I know.”

I stooped so I was looking him in the eye. “Why didn’t you help me?” My voice came out higher than I meant it to.

He licked my face. He said, “Anything I did would just have made her more angry. You did fine, Nick. Remember: she can’t do anything to you.”

“I ...” I looked away, toward the place under the counter where we kept paper bags and cleaning things and a box of lost-and-found objects. “I don’t know if I believe that.”

“She can’t do anything to you, and if she tries, I’ll fix it. She knows she was wrong, Nick. She knows she did something the Presences would object to. I don’t think she’ll compound that error.”

“I hope you’re right,” I said, as the bells rang.

“Hey?” said someone.

I stood up.

“Wow, magic,” said Megan, the girl I had met at the dance last night. She was wearing a green halter top and black short shorts, and she was tan all over. Her dark curly hair was tied into a loose ponytail at the left side of her head. Strands had escaped the rubber band. She looked relaxed.

“What?” I asked, startled. How had she known what was going on?

“Well, it was like you were invisible, and then suddenly you appeared. What were you doing back there?”

“Talking to my wolf,” I said.

“What?”

“Hey, Evan, this is Megan,” I said. He rose on his hind legs, his front paws on the counter, and looked at her. “I met her last night at the dance.”

“Yikes!” she said.

“
Uuf
,” he said.

“Megan, this is Evan.”

“I, uh,” she said. She sucked her lower lip into her mouth for a second, then took a couple steps closer. “Pleased to meet you,” she said, edging up and holding out her hand.

“
Ruf!
” He grinned at her and extended a paw, and she grasped it, then released it, her eyes wide. He blinked at her and she blinked her turquoise eyes back, then looked at me.

“I never met a wolf before,” she said, her voice low.

“Bet she has,” said Evan. He dropped to the floor and walked out from behind the counter to sit neatly facing Megan, smiling at her.

“You’re beautiful. You’re so beautiful,” she said, crouching and reaching to stroke his head.

“
Arou
,” he said. “She’s cute.”

“He thinks you’re cute,” I said.

She glanced up at me sideways, her grin impish. “Why, Nick, I thought you told me last night you already have a girlfriend.”

“But I—”

Evan laughed at me.

“That wasn’t a line, Megan. He thinks you’re cute. Well, you are.” I stopped, confused. I usually didn’t foul myself up in quite this fashion.

“You can understand what he says?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

“Ask him if it’s okay if I kiss him.”

“What?” I said. Did she know somehow about Evan?

Evan licked her nose. She kissed his nose right back, then said, “Eh! Do something about that breath, fella, or this relationship is going no further!”

He laughed, then asked me, “What could I do about my breath?”

“I don’t know. Mouthwash or brushing your teeth, I guess. Or suck down some flavored water? I don’t know if your mouth works the same as ours.”

Megan laughed. She reached for a roll of breath mints from the candy display on the counter and showed them to Evan. “If you’re really motivated, you could chomp on a few of these,” she said.

“Anything for you, babe. Hey, Nick, who is this woman? I’ve never met anybody who responded to me like this, at least not while I was this shape. It’s very odd being tame. I used to just scare people. Who is she?”

“I don’t really know,” I said.

“What did he say?” said Megan, standing up and reaching into her tiny purse for an even smaller wallet, handing me a one-dollar bill.

I raised my eyebrows and she waved the breath mints at me, so I rang up the transaction and gave her change. I said, “He asked me who you were.”

She pulled the strip to open the roll and handed Evan three mints off the top. He chewed them, then said, “Yuck!”