Season of the Wolf by Maria Vale

Author:Maria Vale
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Published: 2020-06-11T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 21

Evie

My first Offland meeting as Alpha had taken so much preparation. For days, Tara had prepped me on questions of engineering; Josi, on questions of the law; Leonora, on how to handle humans. I needed to be able to answer every petty, pointless question so they did not have any excuse to inspect Homelands.

I’ve gotten better at it, better at lining up my facts, better at identifying what Leonora calls bullshit. But in the end, to protect my Pack, I have to know four times as much as all the humans in the room.

I unroll another map, holding it open with skunk skull from the shelf of First Kills, rehearsing my responses for the Community Wildfire Protection Plan meeting.

The chart with water pressures riffles and floats slowly to the floor in the suddenly bright air. At the window, I taste the coolness of the breeze and the warmth of the ground and the scuttling lacy clouds against blue.

I’m not the only one who feels it: Pack emerge blinking into the sunlight. They are ill-tempered and ill at ease. Days spent inside hiding from blackfly do that. Soon, they begin circling me, bodies shivering with need.

“Go! Go!” I say loudly. “Before it’s too late.”

And they go.

“Rinnaþ, wulfas,” I whisper to myself.

Run, wolves.

The wild bursts out of them, and in their excitement, things are left undone. The stove is still on. The milk is out. A screen in the library is wide open. Clothes are strewn everywhere.

“Alpha,” says Leonora.

“Aren’t you going out running?”

“I thought we’d take this opportunity to go swimming, but”—the children are already pulling off shirts, whooping around, their arms waving in a premature celebration of nakedness—“we will need some adults.”

“I’ll arrange it.”

Arne runs back in, his back covered in pine needles.

“Forgot to turn off the stove,” he says.

“I did it, but, Arne, as soon as the 8th is changed, send them to Home Pond. Leonora is taking the class swimming.”

I squat down to pick up an armload of clothes.

“What’s happened?” says Constantine. “We were working and then everyone disappeared.”

“Blackfly don’t like strong winds and bright sun. It gives the Pack a chance to run.”

“Why’d humans hafta wear clowes t’go simming?” complains Edmund, coming up the stairs. “And why is the shit and pans so liddow?”

“Because humans think that by hiding evidence of their fucking, they can pretend they are more than animals,” she says. “The quicker you get dressed, the quicker we get to the water. Now, let’s see how well you’ve done.”

Edmund emerges from the stairs, pulling on a clearly uncomfortable blue-and-white-gingham bikini. Aella is wearing a pair of long shorts with skulls and a daisy-print tank top. Leofric has on a pink one-piece that covers the back but leaves the nipples exposed, which as I recall is acceptable because he’s male.

“Alpha? Would you like to comment on how the class has done?”

I wave her off. Those lessons were long ago, and I’ve forgotten everything save for that single arbitrary fact that while male nipples may be exposed, female nipples must never be.

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