Page 111 of The Wolves of Forest Grove

We’ll be right here if you need us,” Jared said as he put his Jeep into park on the side of Loft Pines Road near the entrance to Pine Grove cemetery.

My skin bristled as I took in the stone grave markers jutting out from the earth in straight lines and winding pathways. The great iron gates standing wide for visitors to come and leave flowers or picture frames next to headstones.

I hadn’t been here since the day we buried him. A heavy guilt settled in my stomach like lead.

Shifting uncomfortably, Clay added, “You sure you want to go alone?”

I almost laughed. I had wanted to go alone.

I’d told them as much once the cake was completely demolished and all the tears had dried up.

Later tonight we would all be at pack camp—Ryland had summoned us all to join him in welcoming Sam to the pack.

But I needed to do this first, and I needed to do it now.

I should have done it a long time ago.

These two idiots insisted on coming along, promising they would just wait by the car, out of hearing distance. For Jared, I knew the reason was because he wanted to be there for me. To hold me close if I returned to the Jeep broken.

Clay may have had similar intentions, but we both knew the main reason he wouldn’t allow me to run all the way to the cemetery alone in the hours before sunset: it wasn’t safe.

Any minute of any day Ryland could find out what we’d done—where we’d gone. And like Clay, I didn’t think he’d hesitate to punish us for it.

“I’m sure,” I told Clay, the door creaking as I opened it slowly and stepped out.

We’d dropped Layla and Viv off at their houses to get ready for tonight. They’d both meet us back at the cabin after dark to head to pack camp together. I sort of wished I’d let them come, too, but knew it had to be this way or no way at all.

“I’ll be back in a few.”

“Take your time,” Jared urged, his gaze steady and sincere. “We’ll wait for as long as you need us to.”

My heart clenched because I knew they would. They’d wait all damn night if I took that long. They’d miss Sam’s welcome ceremony and remain there, unchanged until dawn.

I fucking loved the shit out of them for it.

Even though I’d only been there once before, I had no trouble at all finding Dad.

The path we’d walked from Uncle Tim’s used Lexus into the cemetery would be forever engraved in my memory.

Layla and Vivian had come with me that day even though Uncle Tim had tried to insist there be family only at the internment.

I’d flat out told him they were coming and that maybe he should be the one who didn’t come. He’d barely spoken to dad for the last three years, even while he was sick.

Every step brought with it the urge to panic as I neared his headstone. Quick breaths sawed out through my clenched teeth and that damned fluttering behind my ribcage grew to an intensity that made it a wonder I could even stay on my own two feet.

A chill wind swept through the cemetery, lifting my hair and leaving a lick of cold on the back of my neck. My teeth chattered, catching the first trace scent of winter on the air.

I almost didn’t recognize the stone, grown over with moss and vines as it was. Dirty and chipped in one corner. Uncle Tim had chosen the stone, and I’d hated it as much then as I did now. The color of poached salmon with Gregorian script. Dad would have hated it.

But at least the inscription rang with truth.

Loving Father.

“Hey Dad,” I said, throat constricting as I bent to my knees in the overgrown grass and began picking vines and scraping moss from the face of the gravestone.

“I’m sorry I—” the words were choked off by a sob, and I had to force it down to continue. “I’m so sorry I didn’t come sooner. I just…I just couldn’t.”

I wiped my face and sat back, straightening.

“I know that’s no excuse, but…but I’m here now and I need your advice.

” I barked out a broken laugh. “God, you always gave the best advice. It didn’t always make sense at the time, and I may not have always listened to you, but I’d give just about anything to hear one shred of advice from you right now. ”

I grimaced, setting my palms down against the cold earth, slithering my fingers through the grass at the base of the stone.

He was right there. Buried somewhere beneath my hands.

I’d never been religious. Wasn’t sure I believed in heaven or an afterlife, but if people could turn into wolves, then couldn’t angels be a thing, too?

Couldn’t heaven?

Could he be here right now, listening?

“I fucked up, Dad,” I muttered. “A lot of bad shit has happened because of me.”

I paused to catch my breath.

“But a lot of good stuff has happened, too.”

I thought of Jared and Clay, and the connection that brought the three of us together. No matter that it wasn’t normal, I could never see it as being wrong. That was the one thing I knew wasn’t a mistake.

I told him everything. About what happened with Devin. About Jared and Clay. About Layla and Vivian. About Ryland and what we planned to do. Once I started, it was like I couldn’t stop, the whole uncensored story rushing out of me like a flood.

“And I still haven’t told Jared,” I finished. “But I’m going to. I know that’s what you’d tell me to do. Whether or not we find anything. Right? You’d say he had a right to know. I know you would.”

In my mind’s eye I could almost see him nodding.

Damn straight, he would say.

“I just wish you could give me some sort of sign… or, I don’t know…just something to tell me what I need to do.”

Silence was my reply, and I dropped my head, ready to leave. The sun was nearing the horizon, the autumn evening sky bright with the reddish glow of sunset. Jared and Clay would be getting worried if I didn’t go back soon.

I sighed and peered over at the gravestone next to Dad’s. In a shade similar to his, my mother’s headstone sat in a similar state of neglect. With twitching fingers, I cleared it, too, picking off leaves and vines, brushing over the dirty face of it with the forearms from my sleeve.

“At least you’re together again,” I whispered, the words snatched up by a rogue wind as it funneled between their tombstones. Only one tombstone was missing, but the ghost of it squatted between theirs. The other daughter they planned for, but never had.

I wondered offhandedly what sort of flowers my mother would have liked, resolving to bring some for her once the things that needed dealing with were through. Marigolds, I thought, the flower coming to mind as though it were the easiest choice in the world.

Yes.

I knew she’d like them. “Your parents, I presume?”

The willowy voice broke my focus, and I jarred forward, tripping over myself in my haste to whirl around.

“Now, now, child. I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“Grams?”

Her blind eyes stared past me as she neared, folding herself into a seat on the grass at my side, tucking the long hem of her deep jade jacket beneath her.

“What are you doing here?”

Hazel tipped her head in the direction of a winding path that led over a grassy knoll in the cemetery. “Visiting my husband,” she said. “I sit with him for a few hours every now and again.”

Her husband?

“Oh,” I said, unsure what else to say, still trying to get my pulse under control.

“Thought your voice sounded familiar,” she said, her gaze sailing past me to rest near where my parents’ tombstones were. “But I’ve never heard you here before.”

“That’s because I’ve never been here before,” I admitted, shame coloring my cheeks in a way that I was glad she couldn’t see. “Not since he was buried.”

Hazel tipped her head to one side, and her long silvery braid slipped from her shoulder. “I see,” she said, falling silent.

We sat there together, both grieving different people, but as one in our sorrow.

“Can I ask you something?” I said after a minute. Hazel dipped her head in a graceful nod.

I’d been waiting for her to come to the cabin.

I’d wanted to talk to her after that night at the Four Corners.

But I’d been more than a little preoccupied with Viv and Layla, and then afterward, with everything to do with Ryland.

Now that she was here, right in front of me, I wasn’t sure how to ask what I wanted to.

I had been so sure she’d been there that night. I’d seen her, her silvery hair and white gown billowing in the autumn breeze as she’d inclined her head. Silently helping me make the decision that led me where I was now.

“Why were you there that night?” I asked, shoulders tensing. “Why did you tell me to join the pack?”

For a full minute, a slight downward pull at the corner of her wrinkled lips was the only indication that she’d heard me at all. Finally, she breathed a sigh and reached her hands out to me.

I recoiled, but she managed to snatch up the wrist of my right hand. I let her, breaths coming more feverishly. Her milky gaze lifted, boring into me as though she could see as she flipped my hand over and traced the lines of my palm.

Instead of answering me, her thin brows pulled together, and her lips pursed. My spine tingled.

“I’m sorry that the stars have chosen you to walk this path,” she said, her eyes downturned and cheeks growing sallow. “But walk it you must. You’re the only one who can.”

I swallowed, breath hitching. “What does that mean?”

I hated riddles.

Her brow furrowed as she pressed her clammy palm to mine, and I wondered what she was seeing that I couldn’t. She’d told me once how she could see the inner workings of people. Their gears and cogs. The way they ticked. Their histories.

A deep and burrowing cold crept like frost over my bones. She knew, I realized. I let her touch me, and now she could see, in her way, what Clay and I were doing. I tugged my hand out of her grasp, my mouth going dry.

I rubbed the chill out of the hand she’d held with my other, hairs on the back of my neck standing on end. “You saw.”

Her lips pressed into a taut line.

“Do you know what’s going to happen?” I pleaded. “Do you know if we’re right?”

She bowed her head, her gaze going back to the unfocused stare of a blind woman.

“I can see history,” she said, her voice a croak now, and I wondered if her ability exhausted her when she used it.

She seemed almost to have aged another ten years in the last five minutes.

“Pasts. Presents. Feelings. But...not the future, I’m afraid. ”

I slumped back, suddenly bone weary and wanting more than anything to be finished with this conversation.

What exactly did I hope she could tell me, anyway?

If Hazel knew anything, then surely she would have told her grandson.

Or Jared directly. I pushed to my feet, casting a silent farewell to my parents.

“There’s a reason Ryland forced me out of his pack,” she whispered, so quietly I wasn’t sure if I heard her. “And a reason he won’t allow me near him. Has never allowed me to read him. I have my suspicions, just as you have yours.”

She stood, hobbling as she did, and I noticed for the first time how she was barefoot, even in this cold. Maybe we should give her a ride home.

“Hazel, do you—”

“You’re different, Allie,” she said, interrupting as she brushed past me, headed back in the direction of the grassy knoll. “It’s what sets you apart that will see your triumph. Embrace it... and don’t forget it.”