Silver Moon (A Women of Wolf's Point Novel) (6 page)

Mrs. Hui stretched and grimaced, her glance seeming mildly contemptuous to Becca’s dazed eyes. “Back home where I’m from? I was born right here in the valley, so yes, we had werewolves back home.” She shook her long white hair in what seemed to Becca like dismissal.

Becca looked everywhere but back at her and felt herself go red and hot. It wasn’t like she knew the other woman that well, so she told herself that maybe she was misreading her response. Still, she felt like she’d been rude and she wasn’t sure how to fix it.

Then she glanced down at her hands and saw something dark red under the nails. Her feeling of foolishness vanished, replaced with something far more sinister. She stopped and stared at her hands, trying desperately to remember what had happened. Parts of the night before came back to her: changing into a wolf, running through the woods, fighting the woman from the riverbank. Erin getting shot. But then there was a big blank spot after that. She clutched her head and leaned against a tree while her world spun around her and she tried to remember.

“It’s a lot to take in,” Mrs. Hui said from somewhere nearby. Her tone was somewhat sympathetic.

“But you did your duty to the Pack. You proved yourself, Becca. We’re happy to have you with us.” Gladys’ voice was deeper than normal, almost a growl, but that wasn’t what sent a thrill of pure horror through Becca. What had she done last night?

Then she was surrounded. Together the other women herded her up toward the bridge, their hands on her elbows or around her shoulders. When they got there, Deputy Lizzie Blackhawk was waiting for them. She was leaning against a tree, mirrored sunglasses perched near the end of her nose as they stumbled up. “Shit,” Lizzie said slowly, “what did you grandmas get up to last night?”

“Show some respect!” Gladys snapped.

Lizzie’s lips quirked in a small smile. “Get some clothes on before you freeze. We’ve got injured campers up at the hospital so you’re going to have to help me come up with a story for the sheriff on this one.”

Injuries?
Becca’s heart thudded its way up into her throat and she looked from Lizzie’s face to her gun, then to her badge. Then she squared her shoulders and stepped forward. Whatever she’d done last night, she must’ve hurt someone. She could guess as much from the blood. She’d been brought up to be law abiding and to do right, so whatever she’d done, she needed to take responsibility for it. Even if she wasn’t sure what it was.

“It was me, Deputy.” She held out her hands, bloody nails pointed upwards and stared at the ground, waiting for the click of cuffs. “I did…” Here she struggled to remember before settling on, “Whatever it was.”

There was a brief silence as Lizzie looked from Becca to Mrs. Hui and Gladys and the rest of the group. Mrs. Hui shrugged and started pulling clothes out of a couple of waterproof bags that she dragged from behind a tree. She handed out energy bars to the rest of the group. No one said anything. At last Lizzie said, “Okay, Miz Thornton. Why don’t you put some clothes on? Then we’ll talk about just what did go on last night.”

Becca looked up to see if she was being laughed at but Lizzie just looked serious and a bit puzzled. Mrs. Hui walked over and handed Becca some jeans and a shirt. “These should fit. And eat this too, while you’re at it. It’ll help ground you.” Becca picked up the energy bar, and unwrapped it. An instant later she was tearing into it, like it was meat. Meat she’d hunted herself, rich and bloody with life. She threw it down and backed away, staring at the half-eaten bar as though it might bite back.

“What the hell did I do last night?” She demanded, glaring at Mrs. Hui. That was when she noticed that she was the only one not dressed. She scrambled for the clothes folded at her feet.

“First time changing?” Lizzie asked in conversational tones, as if all of this was all perfectly normal.

“Are you one too?” Becca demanded. Her eyes narrowed in suspicion and she stepped up to look the deputy in the eyes. Only then did she realize that she was also sniffing the air for the other’s scent. The realization made her jump back.

Lizzie went perfectly still under Becca’s examination, for all the world, Becca thought, like she was being checked out by a wild animal or something.
Oh.

The deputy cleared her throat once Becca stepped back. “Nope. I hope I will be one day.” She grinned, a rare flash of white teeth in her brown face. “To be one of the guardian grandmothers, to protect the land and the people. It’s a great honor, you know. Not many are called.”

“She’s right, Becca.” Erin and Shelly walked slowly down from the bridge, their sudden appearance making them all jump. Erin had her arm in a cast and a sling. She swayed a bit, giving the impression that only Shelly’s hand at her elbow was holding her up.

Becca stared at the two of them, a whirling storm of anger, betrayal and guilt swirling through her head and choking the words before they could cross her lips. They could have at least warned her.
And then what?
The voice of her own common sense demanded.
You’d be happier about turning into a monster on the full moon?

Erin gave her a quiet smile and Becca felt butterflies dance in her stomach, despite everything. Right up until she said, “You did what you needed to do last night. You did what the magic called you to do: protect the town and the land.”

Becca stared at her in horror. She’d killed someone, she had to have. They wouldn’t keep talking about it this way if it wasn’t something big and horrible. The words forced themselves from her mouth in a whisper. “Who was it?” She remembered the woman by the river and how murderous she felt last night after Erin went down. The stranger didn’t seem to be a likeable kind of gal, certainly, but could she live with the other’s blood on her hands?

Shelly walked up and put a sympathetic hand on her shoulder. “Look, Becca, there’s always an adjustment period…”

The hot flash that swept through Becca just then was a doozy. It gave her the strength she needed to pull away, to haul her drenched and angry body up to the road and all the way into Wolf’s Point. She ran like she had never run before, at least not before last night. She ran until she reached her own porch, racing through the town that she was supposedly protecting against unknown dangers. For once, she didn’t care what the neighbors thought and ignored everyone in her flight.

Her borrowed clothes dripped with sweat as she shed them on her way to the shower. She would get clean of this, somehow. Unthinking, she washed her hands thoroughly, forgetting that the blood was evidence if she really wanted to confess. She scrubbed vigorously, turning her skin hot and pink under the pressure.

She had toweled off and was getting dressed again when she heard the knock at the front door. For a moment, she thought about pretending she wasn’t home or ducking out the back. Instead, she forced her reluctant feet to the door. She couldn’t hide forever, right? She found herself face to face with Erin through the glass inset on the front door. “Go away.” She surprised herself by meaning it.

“Will you come by when you’re ready to talk?” Erin asked. Her eyes were sad and she looked worn down. “Please?”

Becca nodded as if her head was on strings and Erin walked slowly away. She watched her neighbor go back to her porch. Molly was waiting for her. They went inside and Erin shut the front door.

Becca groaned. She’d have to talk to one of them sooner or later. That or leave Wolf’s Point. Town was too small to avoid the whole group for long, especially when she worked for the leader of the Pack. She wondered if Pete and the kids knew about Shelly. He probably did; they didn’t seem to keep many secrets from each other. And how was she supposed to act around them now?

Then it hit her: she didn’t have to stay. She could leave Wolf’s Point. Maybe that would get her outside the boundaries of the curse or whatever it was. If she got “called” because she lived here, why couldn’t she get “uncalled” if she left? She looked around the room and dismissed her possessions with a glance. There wasn’t time to pack. The moon was still pretty full tonight and she might change again. She’d seen that on TV once. She could come back for the rest or send for it when she was ready.

She raced upstairs, refusing to look around her at the shabby, worn chairs or the one photo of her and Ed that she couldn’t manage to hide away or the knickknacks she’d inherited from her mother or her shelf of books. She’d think about what she wanted later, once she was safe and everything was back to normal.

An hour later, her clothes and necessities were stuffed into a bag, and she and it were stuffed into her car. She forced herself not to peel out of the driveway. Two hundred miles away should do it; that was the limit of the original ordinance. Becca guessed that outside that zone, middle-aged women were just what they seemed and monsters didn’t run through the woods at night. Out there, maybe she could be boring, divorced Becca Thornton who didn’t change into things she shouldn’t under the moon and didn’t have thoughts she shouldn’t about her across the street neighbor either. Everything would go back to the way it was.

She floored the gas once she got past the sheriff’s speed trap at the edge of town. No point in getting pulled over by Lizzie or one of the other deputies when she was this close to getting away. She hesitated when she hit the main road though, and paused, wondering where to go next.

Then she remembered her cousins Marybeth and Hal up in Mountainview, about four hours away. They’d been after her to come visit since the divorce, said she was welcome whenever she had time, in fact. Now, well, she had nothing but time.

Her phone chirped in her bag but she ignored it. She’d have to call Pete and Shelly from Mountainview while she was at it and spin some yarn, maybe something about a sick relative needing emergency care. They’d understand that, and it would give her an excuse if she decided not to come back. When she decided.

That just left Erin and Becca wasn’t ready to think about her yet. Besides, Erin was a monster, like the rest of them, running through the woods and attacking people. But Becca was different. She was going to beat this thing. Then she’d make new friends, ones that didn’t hide things from her or make her feel funny inside.

She told herself that again when she hit the next town over. And again on the road away from it as Wolf’s Point dwindled in the distance. But there was a hole inside her and she ached to think about leaving her home and not coming back. It hurt more every mile she drove but she kept going, hoping that silencing her beastly alter ego would make the loss worth it.