The Summoning (16 page)

Marge looked at her and shook her head. “There are a lot of people down there.”

“My ex, for one,” Andy replied darkly. “That’s probably why the Snake is coming. He needs to be devoured.”

“My son lives down there, too,” Marge reminded her. She said to me, “I don’t know what I would do to be of any help or how to do it. My mother showed me how to, what you call, ward this place, and what to do about the stone. I don’t think we’d be much of an ally.”

“But you know about my kind,” I reminded her.

She smiled. “I know a few things. Things my mother told me. Like, ‘Tell one Raven, tell them all.’”

I grinned. I knew this list. “‘Tell a Crow, tell the world.’”

“‘The Bobcat is a great and mighty hunter. Just ask her.’”

“‘Be kind to Bears, for they have long arms,’” I added.

“‘Do not cross the Wolf,” Marge held my gaze. “‘She will remember.’”

“Yes,” I said.

“Oh, I know those!” Hannah announced, coming in from the kitchen, wiping her hands on her jeans. “Mom used to make up a ton of them. What was it—‘The only one who sees the Cougar is her prey.’ And what’s the one about the deer, Mom?”

“‘Deer are sweet,’” I told her.

“No,” said Hannah, “there’s something else.” She gathered up her knitting. She was making a blue hat this time.

“No,” I said. “They’re just sweet.”

Andy looked over at Richard. “You’re awfully quiet,” she said. “Are you two related?”

“Not at all,” Richard answered politely. “I am a demon out of hell, but I take the form my mistress commands.” There was a short silence, and then they all laughed. It was so funny.

“Okay,” I said, standing up. “Thank you so much. The soup was great. Time for us to head back down.”

Marge said, getting up, “Is there anything we can do for you? What was it that was bothering you, up the trail?”

I held her gaze a moment. I remembered her awe and the absence of fear. I remembered the stone and her welcome. I’d been stupid. I didn’t want to be caught. Not yet, not now, not before I was a lot stronger. And older. So I told her, “I’m being sought by my family. There’s a scent marker on that big old cedar. The one who made it is looking for me.”

“Ah,” said Marge. “And you’ve left a trail right to his mark.”

I nodded. “He’ll be back. He’ll cross that trail again, and he’ll be able to backtrack me. I am not ready to be found.”

“Well,” Marge said, “I can obscure a trail.”

She went and got an old Indian blanket, worn and ragged, but clean. She produced scissors, cut off a strip off, and handed it to me. “You’ll need this.” Then she laid the rest of it on the floor. “Here. Roll on that.”

I looked at the three of them. Marge was calm and certain. Andy was suppressing excitement. Hannah looked confused. No one would believe them anyway, if they told. I love the Age of Science. I changed.

I was aware of the dog going nuts under the couch and Hannah collapsing onto it, her mother holding her hand. I rolled on the blanket, over and over, making sure it was imbued with my scent, and then I stood up again.

“You said, you said—” Hannah was gasping, “You said they were stories!”

I grinned. Marge murmured, “I never said they weren’t true.”

Andy was still staring at me. “But—what about your clothes?”

I almost smiled. Every pup spends long afternoons changing and changing and changing, trying for speed, or for slow motion, or the illusion of invisibility. We all experimented in what we could carry with us as we changed, punctuated by screams from the adults of, “Hey! That’s my shovel!” and “Not the good silver!” And often we were successful. But Aunt Dora never got her shovel back. There is a story about my great-grandmother, who grabbed her enemy as she changed, and was able to yank him with her around the twist as she turned from human to wolf, and when she turned back to human, he was gone. We don’t know where the things go that we lose there. We never find them again. But things worn close to our bodies, or caught firmly in our hands or teeth, can often be brought back again. Our clothes go with us when we change and come back again. Things in tight pockets or, even better, zipped pockets, almost always come back with us. But sometimes they don’t. And we learn not to change wearing scarves, or backpacks. Finding yourself all twisted up in what you were wearing is just embarrassing.

A couple of Dad’s cousins got everyone to believe they could change clothes when they shifted shape. One in a black t-shirt, the other in a red, they’d change together, and when they changed back, they’d switched shirts. The whole valley was astonished into thinking the old days were back again, when it’s said we were much more powerful. A lot of my relatives lost their shirts trying the same trick before Dad figured it out. His cousins were wearing one tee shirt over the other, and the top one was cut and ready to tear off, so they’d each shift back in the shirt they wore under it. Everyone had a good laugh. Dad and Aunt Dora went to the cousins’ house, grabbed up every stitch of clothes they owned, then changed, dropped all the clothes, and changed back. And everyone had a good laugh about that as well. Trying to figure out where things go when we change is like trying to look at the back of your own head while you’re still wearing it. It is said that in the old days, our human natures could wear weapons and armor into the change and emerge on the battlefield armed and at the ready. Mom says that’s only a story. I lost a whole lot of kitchen knives trying it. Dad did the stitches for me so Mom never found out.

Andy repeated, “Where do your clothes go, when you change? Why don’t you have to take them off?”

I shrugged. “It’s magic.”

They cut the blanket into strips, and Marge and Andy wound two of them around the outside of their boots.

“I’ll hike on up the trail,” Marge said. “I’ll go up to the ski resort, march around the lodge a few times, and then I’ll take the chair lift back down, so your trail will go all the way up there, and just disappear.”

“I’ll go with you as far as the cut-off,” Andy said, “and then I’ll take the trail through the pass and over to the cave. If I walk around the cave entrance a few times, and then back down to the village and into a few more of the inner circle’s misdirection spells, that’ll confuse anybody.”

“And then we’ll burn the rags,” Marge finished.

Hannah sat forward. “I can help,” she offered. “I have to drive back to Redlands tonight. After I walk down to the parking lot, I’ll rub your scent on my car tires. When I get to Redlands, I’ll wash the tires, and the trail will disappear.”

“Thank you, Hannah,” Marge said. “That is an excellent idea.”

I smiled at them. Turns out I do have a nice smile. “Thank you.” I nodded to them. “The Wolf does remember.”

The little dog never did come out from under the couch. I don’t have to be friends with everyone.

We drove back down the mountain and headed home. Traffic was light. I didn’t talk, though the thought of that little dog almost made me laugh. The scent of the gray wolf was in my throat, and a tide in me was already rising. When I glanced at him, Richard’s eyes had darkened.

We stopped for pizza at a place on Whittier. We waited, sitting side by side on the bench inside the door, until they handed us our box, and Richard paid. When we got to my apartment, we put the box down on the table and went straight to the bedroom, peeling shoes and dropping clothes on the way.

When Richard had left me panting and oblivious, helpless and replete, when he brought me slices of cold pizza and fed them to me, looking smug, when I had done my best to even the score until at last he fell asleep, I lay looking at him. I ran my hand gently down his neck, along his shoulders, down his spine. He smiled in his sleep.

My days that had so long been empty were suddenly crowded with incident and adventure, with things to do, and with people. I had more to think about than I had in months, which is why I wasn’t thinking at all about some of the things I should have been.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

I
went to work the next day at the proper time, despite the temptations of Richard, French toast, and maple syrup. I ate my last piece in the car on the way to work folded in half around the slatherings of butter and syrup. We moved the scaffold over to the next section of the upstairs lobby. Yvette brought some donuts, and she and the guys sang most of the day, once the sugar high kicked in. I found myself singing along now and again, when I wasn’t just staring at the wall and smiling. I took some ribbing, which I normally don’t tolerate, but that day I hardly noticed.

I resisted calling Richard from work at the noon break. He wasn’t supposed to be home anyway, since he planned to take the bus to the mall and buy himself some clothes. That night we were going back to see the sorceress Tamara, to see if she’d come up with anything in the meantime, and I was going to be sure we asked some questions about Richard.

When I got home from work, dinner was hot on the table, some kind of lamb stew with all kinds of unidentifiable succulent lumps in it. I love lamb. It’s in my nature to do so. After we ate, he had to show me all his new clothes, and this turned into a fashion show, which turned into a ritual of a completely different kind, and by the time I’d inspected everything he’d bought, including socks and underwear, we were both exhausted and, quite frankly, unfit to be seen in public. So we decided we’d hit Tamara’s the next night, and went properly to bed instead.

When I got home the next night, Richard was gone.

I didn’t think, even for a moment, that I’d been taken for a chump. Why would he have bothered to do the breakfast dishes if he was doing a bunk? Why was there dough rising on the stove, overflowing the bowl and all over the stove top? And, conclusively, why had he left all his new clothes, except the ones he’d been wearing that morning? He hadn’t even taken his snazzy new tennis shoes, but had gone out wearing his old boots. He had taken his jacket. His soul was gone.

His scent was faint on the steps—he’d gone out hours ago. Nonetheless, I had little trouble tracking him down Philadelphia, smiling at the tiny remaining scents on his new jeans, which he hadn’t washed since last night. On Greenleaf he’d turned right, toward the grocery store, which is what I expected. I’d already heard a couple of Richard’s riffs on food having to be fresh, not frozen, not prepackaged. He’d gone out to buy whatever was to go with the biscuits for dinner, and it wasn’t supposed to take long. Not longer than it takes bread to rise, anyway. Near one of the sidewalk coffee shops, the trace of Richard ended, and I picked up another scent, which sent me trotting back up the hill to get my car. I knew that one. And I knew where he lived. This wasn’t going to be hard after all.

When I pulled up in front the bungalow in Laguna Beach, I was tingling with pleased anticipation. After all, I’d played this scene before, and I’d come out the big hero, rescued the beautiful guy and taken him home to my bed—eventually. I scented Richard’s recent trace on the path, and this time I hopped the front gate, insinuating myself over the top of it and under the rose-tangled archway above in a suave undulation, graceful and with no loss of motion. I hoped Richard was watching. I trotted up the steps and knocked on Thomas Fallahan’s front door.

His friend Chris opened it. I saw him recognize me and, in the same instant, try to close the door in my face, but my foot was already there. I was hyped up enough that when I put out my hand and pushed open the door, he backed up fast and I breezed in right past him.

The elegant leather-and-wood living room was the same, except the candles were gone. The couch was right-side up and back in its place before the fire. I looked around curiously. There had been one distinct addition to the décor: garlic wreathes. In all the windows. Hanging over the door. With silver crosses hanging from them. Some of them were big. I had to laugh.

“That’s a myth, you know,” I said, pointing at a particularly heavily decorated window. I wandered over to it, grabbed the garlic skin and made it crackle, dangled the cross in my fingers. Old. Kind of pretty, in fact.

“Oh,” said Chris, and swallowed. He still stood near the open door.

I wandered over to the bedroom, glanced in. It was dark and there was no one in there. I looked at him quizzically.

“He’s not here,” he told me warily.

“Who’s not here?” I asked. “Tommy?”

“He’s not here either.”

“That’s okay,” I told him cheerfully. “I’m not here for him. I came for…” What had these guys called him?

“Stan’s not here.” Chris supplied the name for me. “They left.”

I wandered around the living room, thinking. “They left. They were here, but they left. What was—Stan—doing here in the first place?” I turned and faced him, not trying anymore to seem friendly. Not trying anymore to pretend I wasn’t right out of his worst nightmare.

Chris had his back practically against the wall. He shook his head. “It wasn’t my idea. Honestly.”

“Why don’t you tell me—right now—what Tommy was doing in my town, and what he’s doing with—Stan.”

“A guy came here—friend of Tommy’s, I’d never seen him before. He wanted to know where Stan was. Tommy’s—he’s pissed about the other night. You scared him or something.”

Or something. I smiled my not-nice smile, remembering. “Yeah.” I remembered, too, Richard coming out of the shower, smelling of sweet unguents, his fine body flushed, and his eyes troubled. “And so?” I prompted.

“This guy, this friend of Tommy’s, he said if Tommy brought Stan to him, he’d…” Chris’s eyes left my face. That keyed me up even more.

“Oh yeah?” I asked him. “He’d what?” I walked casually over to Chris until I stood just within reach. “He’d what?” I asked him, softly.

He put his hands out in front of him, as though to ward off what was coming. And I hadn’t done a thing yet! “Look,” he said, “this has nothing to do with me. If I tell you—everything—could you just go away and…”

My eyes dripped sympathy; I’m sure they did. “And not hurt you?” I took another step forward. “Why don’t you tell me every little thing you know, and then hope that puts me in a really nice mood. How about that?” I took another little step forward and ran my finger down his arm. His biceps were taut. He watched what I was doing with an expression bordering on horror, as though my finger had grown tentacles. God, I enjoy respect! “Go ahead.” I gave him a little poke. “Start talking.”