Silver-White (The Great North Woods Pack #1) Page 5

  After being hugged warmly by her uncle, Aunt Ruth commenced to fussing over Evie’s height and hair—as if she hadn’t seen her niece in five years. She ended the greeting with warm, almost giddy congratulations.

  “Thanks,” Evie forced herself to say. She had no sooner escaped the awkward fuss when she was crushed by Matthew’s heavy arms. He was bigger than ever now.

  “It’s good to see you, Bama brat.”

  “Ugh,” Evie complained with a laugh. “Easy on me, you mountain man! Are you on roids or what?”

  Matthew laughed loudly as he released her. “Yeah, that’s it, I’m on the juice. You crack me up, Red.”

  “Maybe we shouldn’t call her Red anymore,” Erica said from her brother’s side. She stepped forward, hugged Evie mechanically, and stepped back. “Who did your hair?”

  Evie had been smiling while she hugged Erica. But as she stepped back and saw her cousin’s expression, after the lackluster hug, she realized the sharp edge of her comment—a cut she hadn’t expected. Just days before the two had been talking and joking as usual via text. “What?”

  “Don’t mind her,” Matthew said. He leaned forward as if he was about to whisper a secret, and then spoke loudly anyway. “She’s got her undies all bunched up because the attention’s on you now. Just ignore it.”

  Erica glared at her brother, her already dark eyes darkening further with anger. “No I am not jealous.” Then she looked at Evie. “I was surprised to see your hair, that’s all. I am glad to see you.”

  Matthew whistled loudly in regard to Evie’s hair; then said, “Yeah, yeah, it’s time to lighten the mood. Let’s hear the magic words, Red. It’s been too long.”

  Evie’s mood shot straight from perplexed to embarrassed, and she felt her cheeks warming as a memory returned to her. The magic words were an old family joke. “No, I will not say that.”

  “Come on, Evie,” Uncle Earl said from across the room. “It wouldn’t be a proper visit without the magic words.”

  Evie sighed. The chatter had all ceased. All eyes were on her now. “Fine,” she mumbled under her breath, remembering the day a large bug had struck her eye while riding a four-wheeler. Papa Joe had suggested she stay off the quads for a while, and Evie had protested bitterly that she was okay to continue. To her northern relatives, her accented cries sounded closer to Mah ahh is faahn.

  “My eye is fine,” she said now, with as much control as she could manage. The room erupted into laughter before she even got to fine. Evie covered her face with her hands, laughing along with them. And dropping her hands again, she added, “At least I don’t say wicked good all the time!”

  Matthew slapped Evie’s back, a little harder than she appreciated. “We’ve missed you,” he said.

  “We have,” Erica said, and she pushed her sharp-cut black hair from the eyes as she smiled at Evie. After laughing, her face was less stern.

  Matthew stepped away, headed for the chicken platter at the large table’s center. The two girls stepped into the great room and sat by the fire.

  “Where do I start?” Evie said, trying to find a way around the tension. “It’s good to see you.”

  “Don’t bother,” Erica said. “What do you want to know?”

  “Okay,” Evie exhaled.

  “Is it real? Yes, it’s all real.”

  “What about you?”

  “Am I a wolf?”

  Evie nodded.

  “Sure I am,” Erica said. But no sooner had she said the words did her shoulders sink. “Well, not exactly. I know all about it, and Grandpa’s been working with me a lot lately, teaching me how to focus my mind. I’ve felt the shift start … I know I have. It’s good progress for seventeen.”

  “That’s good,” Evie said, though she really knew very little.

  “I’m not far behind you.”

  Evie smiled as big as she could, until she was right on the edge of appearing fake. “How long have you known about all this?”

  “A couple of years now. Part of our homeschooling is preparation for the changes. Lots of warnings and lectures. Some history too. It’s just, whatever. They all love to make such a big deal about it. God, it’s been a nightmare hiding it from you, though. At least that’s over.”

  “Yeah,” Evie said. “Sorry. You’ll have to fill me in when we have a chance to go off by ourselves.”

  “I get sick of it sometimes,” Erica said. “Really, I was happier when I found out about my new car.”

  Evie’s face brightened. “That’s right; I’ve only seen pictures. Is it here?”

  Erica shook her head and frowned. “Mom and Dad made me ride with them.”

  “Well, you’ll have to take me for a spin before I go home.”

  Erica raised her eyebrows. “Home? Wow, they really haven’t told you much, have they?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You just started turning, Red. I doubt you’ll be leaving here anytime soon. Grandpa won’t wanna let you out of his sight for the next month or two.”

  “That’s impossible,” Evie muttered. Thoughts of home were suddenly rushing through her mind.

  “If you’d come in August like we all expected—”

  “I’m sorry,” Evie said. “I wanted to be here. I—”

  “Whatever. If you had come, you’d know everything by now. Grandpa was going to start preparing you this summer. Since your mother’s dormant and your father wasn’t a changer, even Grandpa didn’t know what to expect from you.” Erica raised her eyes to Evie’s hair. “Then this happened.”

  Evie dropped her eyes momentarily to the hair resting on her shoulder.

  “You’re a Snow, Evie, like Grandpa,” Erica went on quietly. “You were one of his favorites to begin with; you’re an even bigger deal now. Why do you think he flew his jet down to get you back here so fast?”

  “I didn’t know,” Evie said quietly. “I didn’t know any of this. Snow? And since when does Papa have a jet? Last I knew he couldn’t handle his cell phone.”

  Erica appeared on the verge of haughty laughter. “You’re only here a few weeks out of the year, Red. Grandpa’s a lot more than the quiet farmer who took us horseback riding as kids. He’s just very good at hiding what he really is.”

  Evie turned her head and looked at her grandfather across the room. He was smiling at his place at the head of the table, his family surrounding him like a patriarch.

  “Yes,” Erica said with a heavy sigh, drawing Evie’s attention back to her. “I admit it … I was jealous. You were the talk of the pack last night, which I’m still not a part of. It’s all I’ve heard about since I woke up this morning. When I saw the white hair, I felt a little … ugh. Of what it represents, I mean. It’s a big deal with the old folks. Don’t think for a second I actually want it.”

  Evie looked back to her cousin. On top of the shock of her family story, she’d never imagined anything could come between her and Erica. Granted, they weren’t around each other on a daily basis, but rivalry had never been an issue between them; they were too close to compete. “I’m sorry, Air,” she managed to say.

  “Don’t be. You won the lottery. I’ll get over it.”

  “If it makes you feel any better, I’m not thrilled with the white hair.”

  Erica smirked, appearing slightly less irritated. “It’s only obvious from up-close,” she said, and followed her statement by making the da-da-da-da theme from The Adamms Family.

  Evie smiled. She didn’t know what else to do.

  More relatives soon poured into the Ludlow house. In all there were seven sets of aunts and uncles, with at least one or two cousins per household. The large great room overflowed.

  The oldest cousins were in their thirties now, with their own houses and small children. In addition to the smallest second cousins, several of the youngest first cousins were of elementary school age. On the other end of the spectrum, there were two great aunts and uncles: Papa Joe’s sisters and their husbands. The only relatives not present wer
e the handful kept away on “business,” which struck Evie as strange considering that the majority of the family worked for Papa Joe and his various businesses in and about Ludlow.

  Despite her mixed feelings, Evie greeted everyone with smiles and hugs. She was accustomed to being the center of attention each summer. To a degree she had always enjoyed that attention, appreciating the fact that she was loved and missed. But the attention that night was of a different kind. For her, the gathering lacked its typical home-coming comfort.

  The wolf topic was kept vague for the sake of the smallest children present, but each older relative congratulated her rather than simply greeting her. Evie smiled each time, expressing thanks through somewhat gritted teeth. It was good to be there, good to see them all, but it all felt strange—like she’d been awarded a trophy for a race she hadn’t actually won.

  Just before nine the last of the remaining family said goodnight. Uncle Earl, Aunt Ruth and Matthew filed out; Erica stopped in the doorway.

  “So I’ll see you tomorrow?” Evie said hopefully.

  “I’ll be working at The Kitchen all morning. Maybe we can do something after.”

  “Okay, I’ll swing by and we can make plans.”

  The two girls hugged. It wasn’t the warmest hug in history, but it wasn’t entirely heartless either. Erica stepped out and Evie closed the door. Her mother and grandparents were gathering by the fire place in the great room. Evie joined them, curling up on the end of one of the large leather couches.

  “It’s good to see everyone,” her mother said, “isn’t it?”

  Evie nodded.

  “Are things okay with you and Erica?”

  “I’m not sure,” Evie admitted.

  “Just be patient with her.”

  “Erica’s a proud one,” Papa Joe said. “Very eager to prove herself. Very impatient. She’ll view this as you beating her to the punch.”

  “And like Matthew said,” Janie added, “she’s clearly a little jealous right now. It should smooth over in time.” She smiled. “She’s not the first of us to be a little high-strung.”

  “I didn’t ask for this,” Evie said, glancing around at all their faces.

  “No you didn’t,” her Grammy Evelyn said promptly. “But you’ve sure got it, haven’t you?”

  Evie stared back at her a little less than appreciatively.

  “Don’t fret,” the old woman said softer. “Growing pains never last. Erica loves you.”

  “Yes,” Papa Joe agreed. “Rivalry is a strong instinct, but the love of family, the devotion of the pack, is stronger still. I’ve watched Erica closely; I don’t see lasting trouble with her.”

  Evie said nothing else. Though she’d slept most of the day, she felt drained now of what energy she’d recouped. For a second the thought crossed her mind to mention Erica’s statement—about how long her grandfather would expect her to remain in Ludlow. But staring into the flames dancing within the deep-set fireplace, she felt herself fading, and the thought never reached her lips. Lulled by the dry warmth, the soft play of light and the low crackling of the flames, Evie was soon sleeping.

  -5-

  The great room was dark. Only coals remained of the fire as Evie sat up on the couch, suddenly awake. She’d been dreaming of a strange and beautiful music that was both exciting and haunting at once. And as consciousness returned to her, she could still faintly hear that music.

  Throwing off the blanket that had been laid over her, Evie stood and surveyed the dark house. As her eyes adjusted to the low light, she knew for sure that she was awake, not dreaming; she pinched her arm, wincing at the proof. But still she heard that strange music—the distant songs of wolves in the night. Sometimes lone and other times in union, their melodies quickened her pulse and made her insides dance like no instrument on earth.

  Their music grew louder—or closer. As she stood listening, every bit of learned sense, every remembered fairy tale told Evie to fear such sounds. They were the soundtracks of nightmares, and their sources: the sharp-toothed, demon-eyed embodiments of evil. The child remaining in her wished to run upstairs, jump into bed, and pull the covers up tight. The weary part of her wished simply to go back to sleep. But also there was another side of her emerging, a newer segment of her personality that she could only comprehend in small portions, but a side that held great sway over the rest of her.

  Evie stood motionless in the dark, at war with herself. This new side of her did not revile the unknown—the typical human reaction. It longed for those cries from the dark, feeling drawn irresistibly to them. Hearing beauty where others heard threat, it desired to see the wonderful creatures that made them, beyond the fog of dreams, clearly, with waking eyes. More so it desired to join them.

  She looked to the shadowy wolf on the mantel. Dreams and stories could take her only so far, she suddenly knew. If this was not a joke, if this was truly her life, in that moment Evie wanted more than anything to be near those others. To live in their world. To feel what they felt. To share in their songs.

  Stepping softly to the sliding glass door, Evie peered out into the night. As she did, a long, lone howl sounded from the darkness—then another, and then several together. Instead of turning away as part of her felt compelled to do, she gripped the wooden handle firmly, and slowly pushed the heavy glass door open.

  The night was brighter outside than in, alive with all the small sounds of the rural world that thrive in darkness. On her face the night was clear and fresh and inviting. At her back the house had the feel of a tomb in comparison—dead air and hollow silence.

  When it seemed the battle had been lost by her rational side, that the last traces of her resistance had been squelched, Evie stepped through the doorway and closed the door quietly behind her. With only socks on her feet, the boards of the porch felt cold. In the distance she could hear the tops of the trees moving in the small wind; all around the crickets made their noise. And standing against the porch railing, she waited, scanning the vast sky that was free of all light pollution, listening for the next lines of those songs from the dark.

  She was not kept waiting long. The next howls came from the very fringes of the tree line. With no walls and only open pastures separating her from the singers, Evie felt a cool twinge shoot through her. Not a shiver of cold or of fear—a shiver of wonder. Her heart rate continued to climb, and though the night around her was crisp, her insides grew warmer by the second.

  “I hear you,” she whispered after a beautiful, solitary wail, which she somehow felt certain was a call laced with questions. Her head was turned up to the sky, her ears pricked, waiting for the next lines. But instead of the next line of a melancholy song, she heard next a sound far too close for comfort. From directly behind her a sudden swishing sound sent her spinning on her heels. As she whirled and faced the house, a bright shape flashed into her line of sight. It was her grandfather, robed in white, suddenly standing just this side of the glass door.

  “It’s time,” he said in a low, serious tone.

  “N—now?” Evie stuttered. He had appeared so quickly, and her nerves were so on edge, that he had startled her.

  “Now,” he answered coolly. “Do you understand how young birds learn to fly?”

  “What?” she gasped.

  “Do as I say.”

  “Do what?” Evie began, but before she could form the words her grandfather was gone.

  In one fluid motion he had stepped from his robe, dropped in height, lightened in color, spread in width, and in a blink transformed into a massive white wolf; Evie felt his great weight creaking the deck boards. Slightly smaller than the wolf of her dream, this wolf too had eyes that absorbed all of the night’s small light and reflected it in stormy pools of green. With sides swelling from his first deep breaths of the night, he stared into her with those piercing eyes. A deep rumble started low in his belly.

  “Papa,” Evie shuddered, realizing too late that it had been far easier to appreciate the beauty of wolves from the s
afety of the house. With her back pressed hard to the porch railing, the human side of her made its final appeal to reason, clamoring for safety, screaming in her head for retreat. Every muscle in her body twitched with anticipation.

  The rumbling from within the white wolf grew louder. In it—through it—a single thought seemed to enter into Evie’s mind. The thought grew bolder, louder, into a clear word; the word, a command. “Run,” it said coldly. “Run!”

  At Evie’s back there came the nearest howl she’d yet heard.

  With her head half turned, her eyes moved quickly back and forth from the white wolf before her to the open field at her back. From the dark tree line she caught glimpses of shadows moving into the open, like living blots of that darkness spilling out from the blackness, their eyes aglow, one after another, soon so many that she could not count in glances, first gathering, yelping and grumbling, now on the run, now leaping the outer fences, now rushing forward, fanning out in a blitz of the open fields. She felt the white wolf inching closer. In her ears the sounds of frightened horses whinnying and galloping came and quickly faded as they retreated to the barn. The wolf shadows at her back continued blazing the field, nearing the house, all of them massive, closer by the second, now leaping the inner fences, glinting gray under the half-moon. Warm breath fell against the front of her neck, with each heartbeat nearer, warmer.

  When she turned fully forward again she was greeted by the white wolf’s drawn back lips. With his gleaming teeth bared, he inched closer, crouching, holding his great bulk low in a stance of ready power. The rumbling from his belly rose steadily into a growl in his throat.