The Presence of Wolves
I sigh as I peer out the front window for what feels like the hundredth time this morning. Still no sign of the High Council or a welfare worker in her shiny green Gremlin rolling up the street of our private neighborhood. And definitely no Spencer walking through portals of crackling energy and collapsing at my feet. I glance back at the heap of overstuffed suitcases and bags piled high.
The late-morning sun strains through the blinds, casting long, slanted shadows across the living room that almost touch the largest suitcase. The house is quiet, except for the gentle, rhythmic breathing of Veronica, still asleep on the sofa where she spent the night cuddled next to me, straddling the worlds of High Priestess and child, clinging to me out of muscle memory. I’d stayed awake most of the night waiting for Spencer’s return, so I heard every whimper of Shelby’s name, lots of words in a language I didn’t recognize, and deep sobs for all she’d lost and for how long it will take her to regain it.
I close the blinds in a rush and turn back to Veronica. Her small hand clutches the edge of her pink blanket, her face peaceful in slumber. She looks so innocent, so unaware of the chaos swirling around us, yet she’s the center of it. I can’t help but feel a surge of protectiveness, even though I know deep down that the Wolf Queen’s talents are far superior to mine.
I’ve hastily packed our lives into a few suitcases, a desperate attempt to prepare for a swift departure that now seems more like a fool’s hope. The High Council once insisted I keep an array of suitcases for any special trips—ones that have never occurred—as well as a couple of go-bags in case the shit hits the fan, much like the End-Times survivalists of all religions do. The High Council has never said what kind of emergency concerned them, though, and we’ve used the suitcases only for monthly visits to the amusement parks and the Florida beaches west of Panama City, all the way over to the Green Knight statue at the eastern edge of Destin.
Even on those trips, I always carry our go-bags filled with extra clothes, a first aid kit, non-perishable food, a compass, a flashlight, batteries, candles, matches. Truth be told, it’s a pain in the butt to lug our go-bags everywhere and make sure they’re up-to-date every month, but the priesthood has always assumed, for millennia now, that the coming pole shift will happen in the near future. Even those who accepted the gift of knowing the future aren’t completely trusted with their memories, particularly since their ends could occur too quickly to be aware of global catastrophe. Instead, the priesthood walks the line between preparedness and paranoia.
At least now I know, thanks to Veronica’s memories of this lifetime, that the pole shift won’t occur in the first forty-five years of her life. . .and that I’ll never see it.
Hmph. No need for go-bags of the survivalist sort, just for getting Veronica away from the High Council itself.
Kneeling over my little girl, I plant a kiss on the top of her white-blonde head and wish I could hold onto this moment forever. I brush a stray lock of hair from my face and stand up, stretching the stiffness from my muscles. Spencer. . .he promised to return, to take us away to safety. But he never did.
Did I misunderstand that we were all going somewhere together? What if he doesn’t come back?
I’m flummoxed. How can I possibly protect my daughter? Me. The plain-Jane best friend. The talentless sidekick. The one whose greatest talent is casting astrological charts that no one except spoiled, lying Ranking-High-Priestesses-in training find useful. I haven’t even cast a chart in the last year—no need to. The only services I can offer that the priesthood deems worthwhile are childcare and childcare alone.
My life as the future right hand to the future Ranking High Priestess ended the day Veronica was born without the soul of Jaryx. The High Council traded it in a future of foster care, refusing even to allow me to continue training so that I might move from the status of priestess to High Priestess. My greatest achievement in the last three years has been potty-training Veronica, not learning astral projection or remote viewing. I’d even begged the High Council to reconsider letting my education continue by locating us near a Daeganean library where I’d have access to our books and others of the priesthood who might teach me, but they’d refused. Or even to let me spend time researching the rare book collection at the T.Y.M. Casey Archive in DeFuniak Springs in the panhandle of Florida, only to find out it had burned down the day after I mentioned it to Siobhan’s mother, following a trip with my astrology teacher before Siobhan and I were Initiated. Worst of all, I’d asked if I might rejoin my brethren when Veronica turns eighteen, but one of the seers had let slip that I would never return to the priesthood. She’d promptly been sent out of the room to avoid another gaffe.
Did she mean I won’t survive another fifteen years? That I won’t get to watch my little one grow up?
Everyone talks around it—maybe they don’t know?—as if I just vanish off the face of the earth and leave my little girl behind. There’s no way I could ever abandon her. Or let anyone take her from me. And yes, I’d die saving her.
And I will, if that’s what it takes.
I quietly move around the living room, careful not to disturb Veronica. I need to check on the car, to ensure it’s ready if we have to make a sudden escape. The thought of fleeing, of leaving behind everything familiar, sends a shiver down my spine. But what choice do we have? If Spencer has failed us, then it’s up to me to get Veronica to safety.
I should load the car, I decide. While her little body is resting.
Outside, our manicured neighborhood is still. Unnaturally still. I was taught that Nature reflects the situation, always, anticipating, preparing. Just like wild animals that run to high ground before a tsunami or birds that change their migration patterns before a hurricane, everything is one step ahead of danger for those who have a mind to listen.
From the carport, I can still hear automobiles on the highway outside of the country club gates, but nothing of nature. Not even birdsong. It’s hard to imagine that danger could be lurking just beyond the manicured lawns and picket fences, but I feel it, too. Energy. Pulsating. Popping. Focused on this plot of land.
Maybe I’m not quite as talentless as I think.
Somewhere, close by, a wolf howls. Moments later, its mate answers.
I shudder.
“Maybe I should hurry,” I mumble to myself.
I open the hatch to my Gremlin, the metallic click sounding absurdly loud in the silence. Thankfully, I’ve left the back seat folded down for more space, though I’ve spilled sugar-white sand from what I “borrowed” from the beach and haven’t gotten around to cleaning up. One by one, I lift the heavy suitcases and wedge them into a cargo area. I should still have enough room for our go-bags between the suitcases and the front seats, and hopefully enough clearance to see through the rear window. I close the hatch as soundlessly as possible.
“Excuse me, Miss Winzler?”
I let out a yelp that negates all my previous efforts to keep quiet. Spinning, I find a woman behind me in a navy blue suit, her blouse pristine white, a navy satin ribbon tied neatly at her throat. I’ve never seen her before, but her appearance is almost too perfect, too rehearsed. Maybe thirty years old. Close enough to my age that we might be friends or she might act like an older sister to an inept young mother living in an enormous house with no husband and no obvious source of income.
She introduces herself as another welfare worker, but I’m too intent on the movement of her pale-painted lips to catch her name or office location. There’s something not-quite-right in the movement of her mouth, something stressed and distressed. Avoiding her eyes with a streak of gold eyeshadow on both lids, I peer over her shoulder where her brown hair has been curling-ironed, feathered back, and plastered into place with hairspray. My heart skips a beat. I’ve been too lost in thought to notice she parked her powder-blue Ford Pinto directly behind my car, barring any chance of escape.
“Miss Winzler? Miss Winzler. Did you hear what I said?” She doesn’t offer her hand or a business card, but she does hold a clipboard identical to the one the previous welfare worker carried. I’m sure she’s read my file, yet she doesn’t glance around my big house or the expensive neighborhood and judge me for not belonging here. Whatever she thinks, she’s already made up her mind before laying eyes on me.
I shake myself out of my haze. “You’re here to check on Veronica. Someone like you left a note on my door yesterday.”
“Oh, I doubt that.” A slight accent paints her words. She’s not from the South.
“No, really. She left a note on my door.”
The welfare worker laughs, all charm and no bite. “I’m sure someone left a note, but no one like me. I know a visit from my office may be frightening for someone in your—shall we say?—situation, but I promise, I’m not here to hurt your little girl. Quite the opposite. I plan to treat her like the princess she is. I hope you’ll think of me as a friendly face.”
I wish I could believe that. Discreetly, I push my energy toward her, but I can’t read her. I haven’t honed my skills, so I’ve probably lost any talents I may have possessed three years ago. Unfortunately, from what Mr. Casey has told me, most welfare workers are excellent at reading body language, and she’s sizing me up, whether or not I like it. She may be the biggest actual threat I’ve met since the High Council sent me here.
I can’t think of anything to say. We stare at each other, but I don’t blink. My back stiffens involuntarily, making me at least an inch taller than she is.
Ouida. That’s right. She said her name was Ouida something. From the Montgomery office, not the local one.
Whatever suspicions the ER doctor might have raised about my fitness as a mother have echoed to the big city. Mr. Casey’s word alone has weight with the locals in our little country club town in the middle of nowhere. Everyone’s a stranger to me and suspicious of me, but he holds sway here. But with strangers from Montgomery?
Ouida blinks first and holds the clipboard close to her chest so that I can’t see the documents attached to it. “I mean it, Miss Winzler. It’s a good thing I’m here today instead of someone else from my office. I’m not your enemy. Everyone else wanted to remove your daughter from your care until we could assess whether the landslide in your back yard indicated negligence on your part.” She wrinkles her nose, and I catch a whiff of judgment. “The word negligence means—”
“I know what the word negligence means. I may be young, but I’m not stupid. And that sinkhole was caused by a pipe that the City of Wiregrass was supposed to have replaced two years ago when they updated the infrastructure in this subdivision, according to what my neighbor, Mr. Casey, was told by the Wiregrass Water Department when he spoke with them on my behalf. He’s a lawyer and like a father to me so he’s keeping the paperwork for me, in case I need it. He said the city ran out of money halfway through the update and instead of installing a new water line to my house, they put a, um, I think he called it a ‘T-connector’ on the corroded pipe and capped off the other half of it which had a slow leak that attracted tree roots. He said they were cutting corners and doing a ‘piss-poor’ job, but I don’t know if ‘piss-poor’ is a legal term. You’d have to ask him.”
I probably shouldn’t antagonize a welfare worker with power over me, but I have complete faith in Mr. Casey’s legal abilities. Plus, it’s worth slapping back at her verbally for talking down to me, just to see the pucker in her upper lip.
Before I can let the next words out of my mouth, I swallow them instead. I am so damned tired of being the good girl and complying with everyone else’s expectations!
My venom falls flat, though. I’m always such a good girl with a quiet voice that no one hears me, whether I’m telling them my dreams or telling them off. Here I am, afraid of antagonizing someone who can hurt me, pushing my anger at them, and once again not being heard.
“Hmmm, Veronica isn’t with you out here? She’s out of your sight again?”
Maybe she can still smell the guilt in my heart for allowing a three-year-old to play alone in her sandbox with me watching from the kitchen window twenty feet away. Kids Veronica’s age ride their tricycles down the sidewalks here with their siblings no older than second grade, and when their siblings aren’t with them, they ride alone. The rule among most of the mothers, including Mrs. Casey, is that they “come home when the streetlights come on at dusk.” I’m far more over-protective of Veronica, which has earned me the nickname of “Nervous Nelly” among the more experienced mothers in the neighborhood.
“I’m sorry, but she’s inside, sleeping,” I say, my voice steady despite the pounding in my chest. “And, if you weren’t talking, I could hear every little sigh from here. You’ll have to come back later.”
“Really? Interesting. Still asleep at this hour? It’s almost noon. And here you are putting two big suitcases in your car. You’re not going somewhere, are you?”
My jaws tighten. Everyone knows I’m not a fighter. I just do what I’m told, and the moment anyone threatens my boundaries, I give in because my purpose in life has been to be selfless.
“My little girl’s had a hard couple of nights. She has terrible nightmares. Seems like that would be normal in a case like this where the ground opened up and swallowed you up, don’t you think? Maybe a change of scenery for a few days would be good for her.”
“Hmmm, I’m going to have to insist on seeing her, Miss Winzler. Just to make sure she’s safe and not in one of those suitcases in your car.” Her tone is firm, yet courteous.
“You think I’d hurt—”
“Look, Miss Winzler. No. No, I don’t. I already know you’d die for your daughter. I have no intention of taking Veronica away from you, if that’s your concern, but I cannot return to my office without reporting that I have seen the child and that she’s in a safe situation.”
“I already know you’d die for your daughter.” Does she mean today?
Intuition gnaws at my stomach. I can’t put my finger on it, but something about her insistence and knowing already that I’d die for Veronica sets off alarm bells in my head. Authority figure or not, I don’t trust her.
“No.” What I don’t tell her is that she’ll have to come through me to get to my little girl.
Her face hardens. “I beg your pardon?”
“I said, no. She’s finally resting, and I’m not waking her for you. Not yet. You can come back later. If you think I’ve done something wrong, you can come back with the police, and I’ll make sure my lawyer is here when you return.”
Instead of arguing, she answers me with a roll of her eyes. She tries to pass me and head toward the door to my house, but I refuse to budge. My feet feel rooted to the ground as she grabs my arm in an attempt to force me out of the way.
Then, a low howl nearby pierces the still morning air.
“Holy shit!” The woman jumps backward, her clipboard clanging against the grill of her car. A red stripe across the flash of white papers startles me as she holds her clipboard like a shield, then takes another step backward toward her car door.
I turn to see a wolf, its coat a mix of grays and browns, padding towards us. It settles next to the rear bumper of my car, its amber eyes fixed not on me but on the woman. Its breath is hot on my hand at my side, but the growl in its throat isn’t meant for me.
A second wolf brushes against my hand with a surprising gentleness and takes its place on the other side of me. Like two guardians. They don’t seem interested in advancing on the woman, but I have no doubt they’ll leap into action if she touches me again.
I finally find my voice. “You should go.” I nod at the slash of red on the clipboard’s contents. “You’re bleeding.”
Frowning at the clipboard, she ignores the blood and retreats to the car door. “No problem,” she says, a smile playing on her lips. “We can do this the hard way.”
As she drives away, I’m left with a sense of unease. Why would she be pleased by the presence of wolves?
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