Page 30 of It’s You

Why, Darcy? Jack’s gone until Thursday. What’s the point? Staying here will make the time go faster than waiting around at home for him to return.

“Have dinner with me at my place, sugar?” asked Miss Kendrick, with a wide, warm smile.

“You convinced me. I’ll stay. I’d love to have dinner tonight.”

Darcy kissed the older woman’s cheek and hurried so she wouldn’t be late for class.

It had been the right choice to have dinner with her friend.

Miss Kendrick entertained her with stories about the Dartmouth faculty, and Darcy ended up staying with her friend instead of seeking a room in visiting faculty housing.

Miss Kendrick’s guest bedroom had the added benefit of housing several species of violets, which greeted Darcy cheerfully in the morning.

She considered staying over on Tuesday night too, but the pull to return to Carlisle was still on the spectrum of exhausting.

She knew Jack wouldn’t return until Thursday morning, but she thought that he probably wouldn’t mind if she collected some samples in his woods while he was away, and even the thought of being at his house without him made her feel closer to him.

She had committed to dinner with one of the chemistry professors on Tuesday night, which meant a late start home, and Darcy hadn’t been able to leave the campus until after nine o’clock.

Still, the dinner had been worthwhile. She had discussed synthesizing the lichen and clubmoss samples to see if they had useful medicinal properties, and Professor Jenkins had walked her through a rough sequence of steps for optimal integration.

She wondered if the calming properties of the olivetol mixed with the healing properties of the clubmoss might make for an herbal remedy of sorts.

But she could continue all of her research at home and consult with Willow, of course.

Darcy scratched at her arm again as she made her way through the dark roads toward home.

She had been surprised to find mild blisters raised all over her body on Monday evening as she was getting ready for bed.

She remembered what Willow had said, that if blisters raised, it was a burn, not a rash.

And while it was just about impossible that it was a sunburn, Darcy’s mind had wandered, trying to figure out what other sort of burn it could be.

If it wasn’t radiation, perhaps it was chemical?

But, no, Darcy hadn’t come into contact with any chemicals.

Thermal, then? Electrical? None of it made sense.

Her ah-ha moment came a few minutes later.

Of course. Poison Ivy. The answer to the riddle: Name a rash that blisters.

She must have come into contact with it in the woods.

She would reconfirm with Willow, but, of course, that must be what it was.

Much relieved with at least one answer to the many mysteries of her relationship with Jack, Darcy turned on the radio and let Mozart be her companion until she arrived home.

The house was dark when Darcy got there, which wasn’t altogether unusual, as Willow was often at her office in town until quite late.

That and she was one of the few remaining doctors on the face of the earth who made house calls, so it was possible she was checking on a patient or delivering a baby.

That Willow’s car was in the driveway meant she was probably at her office, though, since it was walkable from home.

Darcy picked through the mail on the kitchen counter, then opened the freezer to find a carton of Ben & Jerry’s.

She cradled it against her elbow, rummaging in the dishwasher for a spoon.

She set the ice cream on the window seat, wandered upstairs to change into her pajamas, then curled up in the picture window to eat her treat and wait for her friend.

It wasn’t a long wait until she heard a car pull into the driveway.

Now, this is interesting. Someone’s driving her home at midnight? Why didn’t she take her car?

Darcy hopped off the window seat, walking into the kitchen where she had a better view of the driveway. She gasped as she realized it was Amory’s truck, with “Turner Contracting” written in bold letters on the side and Amory’s logo, a log cabin beside a fir tree, reflecting in the porch light.

Well, well, well. Darcy hurried back to the window seat, and after a few minutes, she heard the back door open and close.

As Willow walked through the living room toward the stairs?—

“So,” said Darcy. “You and Amory?”

Willow jumped a foot, placing a hand over her heart.

“AHRGH! Darcy? What are you doing? Scaring people to death in the dark! Why are you home? You never come back until Wednesday.” Willow plopped down on the window seat beside Darcy, giving her an angry look. She held out her wrist. “Feel my pulse. Feel it!”

“Well, now, I could feel it, Will, but how would I know which Turner child was the cause of its thumping?” She pursed her lips and raised her eyebrows.

“And what’s that? My ice cream? Nice. On top of everything, you’re eating my ice cream. I’m getting a spoon.”

Willow returned with a spoon and curled up on the window seat across from Darcy in the moonlight. She held out her hand.

Darcy looked at the small container, then held it over her head. “Amory?”

“I’ll tell you. Hand over the ice cream I bought.”

Darcy offered it hesitatingly, and Willow grabbed it away.

“We went for coffee,” she mumbled.

“Sorry,” said Darcy, “I didn’t catch that.”

“Coffee. Coffee? Bitter? Dark? Much like me?”

“How did that happen?”

“Nail through hand. Puncture wound. Coffee.”

Darcy gasped, cringing. “Poor Amory.”

“You’re telling me. I hate injuries more than illness sometimes.”

“Is he okay?”

“I won’t lie,” she said, taking another bite. “It was a bad one. Deep. Went down to the muscle. Sure you don’t want more ice cream?”

Darcy shook her head no. She’d suddenly lost her appetite.

“I cleaned it up and plopped a bunch of antibiotic cream on it. Nothing to do now but hope it doesn’t get infected.” She took one last bite before putting the cover back on the pint. “Had to give him a tetanus booster too.”

Darcy heard the sprinkle of sheepish humor in this admission.

“What are you not telling me?”

“ Technically , you can have it in the arm, but…”

Darcy chuckled. “Where’d you give it?”

“Use your imagination,” Willow said, eyes twinkling in the darkness.

“And that led to coffee?”

“Sort of. He was bent over, talking all fast and nervous while I took my time admiring, um… prepping , the…area. And he mentioned things had sort of petered out with Faith.”

“He mentioned this while you were staring at his ass?”

“Uh-huh. So, I told him it might pinch and asked him if he wanted to have coffee with me. I don’t think he felt a thing.”

Darcy smiled appreciatively at her friend. “I’ll bet he didn’t. So? Did anything happen ?”

“Most sisters wouldn’t want these sorts of sordid details.”

“Are there sordid details to share?”

“We might’ve kissed again.”

“Might’ve?”

“Do I look like one of those girls who kisses and tells?”

“You look exactly like one of those girls. Okay, we’ll do it this way…How was the coffee?”

“It was good. Really, really good,” Willow murmured, looking up at the full moon out the window. “One of the better cups I’ve ever had in my life.”

Darcy grinned, tapping the spoon lightly on the ice cream cover.

“So,” said Willow, turning back to Darcy. “Why didn’t you call me back?”

“What do you mean?”

“I called you this afternoon. After I talked to my Nohkom . I was sure you’d call me back right away.”

“Nobody ever calls me. My phone probably died sometime on the ride. What’d she say?”

“Well, I was wrong. There is a binding legend. But it’s not Métis. I mean, it is, but it’s not.”

“Should I feel this confused?”

“Ready for a freaky Métis legend?”

“I guess…” Darcy recognized the ghost-story tone of Willow’s voice and knew she was in for one of Granny Nohkom ’s whoppers.

“Long, long ago, the French settlers came across from Europe, and with them, hidden on their ship, they brought a terrible creature. A werewolf. A full-blooded wolf creature, who roamed the woods of France for his victims, had snuck himself onto a ship bound for Canada.

“When the ship got there, the werewolf ran to the great north to hide and hunt, kidnapping four Abenaki sisters on one dark, full-mooned night. The oldest of the four, who was wise beyond her years, begged that the creature not kill them and promised him something more precious in return.

“Nine months later, each bore a child. The children looked like Indian babies until they each cut their teeth on the full moon, howling and fearful, and the mothers realized that they had each borne a monster. They took the children into the woods and left them there, abandoned to the elements.

“The Métis believe that the four children survived, growing into horrible creatures they called Roux-ga-roux.

Unlike their Indian mothers or werewolf father, they lived in a state of half-creature.

They appear as humans for most of the moon cycle, but at the full moon, they shift back into bloodthirsty creatures, skinwalkers who hunt like their father for three… full…days.

“The skinwalkers have razor-sharp fangs, long, yellow claws, the face of a wolf, eyes that burn , and the strength of ten men. They carry little children off in the dead of night and eat their flesh, for the Roux-ga-roux can never have enough human flesh. It wants it. It craves it. Its fangs drip with the blood of its victims.”

Willow was having trouble maintaining her composure, her lips trembling as she held back laughter. She cleared her throat and resumed her storyteller’s voice.

“And here’s the part you’ve been waiting for…

“Because no one but another Roux-ga-roux could ever love such a hideous, abominable creature, they must mate with one of their own. So they are bound on the eve of their eighteenth birthday, one Roux-ga-roux to another, and spend their lives together hunting, killing…and mating.”

Willow stopped for a moment, her laughter finally getting the better of her. When she finally looked back up at Darcy, her eyes were glistening.

“ Nohkom didn’t actually say that part about the mating.

I thought I’d add it. Oh! But she did have a caveat to the legend.

Apparently, the Métis are safe from the creature.

The Métis race was started when French trappers married indigenous women, and the Roux-ga-roux race started when a French werewolf mated with Abenaki women.

So even though they are different, they are both races of mixed blood who share the northern woods.

By tacit agreement, the Métis don’t hunt the Roux-ga-roux, and the Roux-ga-roux leave the mixed-blooded Métis in peace. They hunt the white man instead.

“ Nohkom said that you should listen at the full moon, and you’ll hear the howling cry of the Roux-ga-roux. Oh-oh-oh-Oh-Oooooooooooooooo! Oh-oh-oh-Oh-Oooooooooooooooo!”

Willow howled like a wolf, then grinned at Darcy.

“You know Nohkom . She always had a flair for drama.”

Darcy stared at Willow, then took a deep breath, clapping quietly. “Well done, Mistress Storyteller. But not so helpful. Did she say anything about a Métis sub-culture that fashions their marital beliefs on this…Roux-ga-roux legend?”

“Nope. She’d never heard of any of the tribes practicing binding.

But you said that Jack mentioned the woods north of Quebec?

That’s a big area. I guess it’s possible one of the tribes up there takes the legends a little more literally?

Who knows?” She leaned forward and kissed Darcy’s cheek. “I’m tired. I’m headed to bed.”

Darcy nodded, feeling deflated. She’d hoped that Willow’s grandmother would have some sweet story about a small sub-tribe that practiced wildly romantic notions about true love and first kisses.

Instead, she’d gotten an old Métis ghost story about werewolves, kidnapping, rape, child endangerment, and death. Great. Thanks a lot, Nohkom .

She sighed in frustration. And she still had no answers to explain the soul flight, the eyespeak, and losing hours of her life every time she was around Jack Beauloup.

Darcy had looked forward to Thursday with a sharp longing, desperate to jump into Jack’s arms and love him all weekend long.

Now, they’d be retreading old ground as she demanded answers, and he sidestepped questions.

Well, not this time. This time, she wouldn’t be distracted by his beautiful body and hot, wet, toe-curling kisses.

She would have her answers, or Jack would not have her.

The longer she waited, the longer he’d wait.

She’d get to the bottom of their connection. Her life—her heart—depended on it.