Page 5 of Timber Hollow

5

Bloody Paws

Full Moon

M y first stop once I am back inside the official town limits of Timber Hollow is Aggie's cabin. It's about dusk, cars leaving shifter territory one by one as they venture out into the bigger city we neighbor, Sommerville. The nightlife of Timber Hollow is nearly non-existent unless you count stripping naked in front of your friends and running through the trees in wolf form.

Personally, I feel like that should count.

The town is a safe place to live though, tucked away in the woods. Protected in more ways than one.

Aggie’s cabin has a brightly painted door, a bold streak of pink in the forest that is otherwise slowly turning its green leaves orange and red one by one. I know Aggie is inside, bustling around her kitchen. Pots and pans clang together audibly even out here.

She’s expecting me, so I just open the door, striding on in. Dear Aggie presents me with a freshly baked loaf of banana bread as soon as I step foot into her little one-story cabin. Her place has always felt like home, sometimes more than my own house did. Arms laden with more banana bread, she steers me towards the kitchen table. She hasn’t replaced it, or even sanded it and revarnished... All the little dings and scratches from the past are still visible in the wood. A bowl of deep purple grapes sits centered on the wood surface, a stack of papers and a set of keys beside them. Once seated in the high back chair, I descend upon the bread, smearing butter across thick, warm slices while she gives me directions to the bar where I am supposed to be working for the foreseeable future.

I have no idea how long it's been since I've had something baked like this... Intentionally for me, because Aggie knows I love her banana bread. She doesn't ruin it with chocolate or nuts. Not to mention the fact that the White household doesn't cook things like that. Gluten and sugar in one dish? The Corgi would blow a gasket.

"It's in Somerville, just off of the old mine route. It's been there ages, you know where I'm talking about?" Aggie asks me, and then keeps talking, seeing me attempt to open my mouth and respond, even if it is stuffed full of banana bread. Honestly, I am only really half listening. I pay attention to the important bits, like when I am supposed to report for my first shift. And that Coyote Bill- the original, and his family are Shifters. That's how Aggie knows the owner.

Coyote Bills. I'd heard the older crowd talk about the place as a kid. It is supposed to be the place for entertainment if you are under the age of sixty. The bartenders there are all girls, and naturally once a week the bartenders do a dance routine- in chaps, on top of the bar. Sometimes they even light it on fire.

Or, at least that's what the rumors said.

When I left Timber Hollow all those years ago, I made my way across the States by bartending. I stayed in the forests for as long as I could, seeking out packs nearby. They found me jobs, usually at their establishments. At first, it was just little hole-in-the-wall dive bars where all they served was draft and bottles.

Those packs weren’t nearly as large as Timber Hollow’s. Eventually, I made my way up to the fancier places– and larger packs. Some of those places had a dress code and overpriced mixed drinks on the menu. For years, I did it over, and over again until I landed in Malibu California, and into Ethan's lap. Coyote Bill's wouldn't be any different than any number of those bars.

Well. Maybe a little different. I've never danced on top of the bar while it was on fire.

That’s not true. My wolf remarks, barely a whisper of thought through my consciousness.

You know, I think you’re right.

I'd forgotten about the seedy little bar in Denver, run by one of the many packs that could be found in the wastes that define the Midwest. I definitely did end up dancing on the bar there, but I hadn't lit the fire. That had been a complete accident .

Sure, A complete accident that you dropped the flaming zippo onto the alcohol-covered bar top. She snorts again.

Okay, sure… But, that was because Cindy Lache was flirting with my at the time friends with benefits situationship , that she had set me up with. I’d seen them kiss while I was hopping up on the bar.

Yeah. Complete accident . I agree.

When I ran into Ethan at an antique car show everything changed. Of course, we had been there for separate reasons– he was shopping, and I was killing time until I had to go to work. Which, coincidentally, had been the first desk job I ever had. Nights at a 1-800 customer service line were a previously undiscovered circle of hell. I'd pay good money to subject a few people to that fate.

After a few weeks of messing around with Ethan, and then spending all day together , all the time , I thought I'd been in love. And then he proposed. And then his mother told me not so subtly that the women's job in the White family was to make connections, and birth sons to their husbands. Then Ethan started encouraging me to leave my desk job.

Of course, like the dumbass I am, I listened to him.

Which meant 24/7 at the White Estate, something I now determine to be another undiscovered circle of hell. The fucking worst of them. Sure, there were unending amounts of things to do- you could go ride horses, or play golf, or tennis or basketball, or fucking racquetball, or any of the other multitude of other bullshit sports things rich people do.

But, go for a 5-mile walk by yourself every day? You’re batshit insane.

What it had meant, however, was that while my Tbr was endless- so was the funding to purchase those books. That had been the hardest part of leaving. At first, I'd only gotten myself the stray paperback, and then months went on and no one said anything about the deliveries of books that were seemingly endless, so I said fuck it . In the year of my engagement to Ethan, I had amassed a small fortune worth of special editions, and multiple sets of some of my favorites. Too many had been left behind. What had fit in the trunk were my absolute favorites–prized possessions even. And, of course, a dismal few from my Tbr.

My saving grace in leaving Ethan is that he has no idea that I had saved every single coin I could manage before we got together. I've amassed a nice little sum of money, enough for someone like me to live on for quite some time. What I'd nabbed from Ethan's safe is just icing on the cake. Not to mention that cash is far less traceable than using the sum of money in my bank account. Now that I’m home though, it would be fine.

With a mental nudge from my wolf, I tune back into the conversation with Aggie.

"You'll be staying over at the old Grimes place. You remember?" She pauses, grabbing a grape from the bowl in front of us. I nod in return. My best friend from high school lived there. "Well, it's an apartment now. You'll be in Marcus' room, but I can't get the keys until the Monday after next, so until then it's just like old times." Aggie says, smiling brightly at me. I used to come to stay with her when my brother and sister were ganging up on me.

Even staying on Aggie’s pull-out was better than going to Mom's. Marcus was my cousin- loosely . There are a handful of shared relatives between us. While in school we hadn't talked though.

Nothing like going from living in an almost mansion to having roommates at 24.

Satisfied that I knew where I was going to live and where I was going to work, Aggie launches her gossip tirade, giving me all the ins and outs of the town while I dig into the second loaf of banana bread. It’s still warm, and so delicious I know I won’t need to hunt tonight. My wolf has all the calories she needs, now.

I learn that Marcus is going to be gone for a few months on an oil rigger, and Aggie has swooped in at just the right time. Barely home an hour, and I have a job and a place to stay.

Do I have a plan?

Nope.

Do I have any idea of what I am fucking doing?

Double nope.

Maybe Aggie had said who my roommates are to be, and I wasn't listening, but I guess it doesn’t really matter anyway. From what I understand, we will have opposite schedules. I am about to start working nights, and they all have day jobs within the village or the town over.

I’m back home, in Timber Hollow with a fancy car that isn't mine, and the past nipping at my heels.

"Why aren't you running tonight?" I ask, directing the conversation off of myself. The Moon calls to me, even now. I want to run.

"These bones are too old to keep up with you youngsters." Aggie winks, and immediately I understand why. She might be telling part of the truth, but I know she truly stayed behind to see me.

"Did you already go out?"

"Yeah, when the Moon first rose. Caught a rabbit." She says, then adds "Your mom went with me, has been for some time now."

"So she won't be out with the pack?"

"No, she and Athena still go together. Your mother developed a conscience I guess and doesn't want to let me go by myself."Aggie snarks, and I huff a laugh, wondering if that conscience would extend to me.

Finally, when Aggie lets me leave, stuffed full of three loaves of banana bread, I exit her kitchen and walk around back using the pavers she'd laid in the grass when I was barely old enough to shift. Clovers grow between the stones, rather than grass. Seeded at the same time as the pavers. It smells vaguely like vanilla back here, the last few of the yellow flowers slowly shriveling, drying up in the early autumn chill.

Shifter babies are supernatural even as toddlers, we grow up with our wolves inside. Thankfully, though, the shift never comes until we're around nine. By then the kids are all half feral with the need to run, and chase the Moonlight between the trees.

The first shift is always the hardest. We're clamoring to run, full of energy. But the instinctual surrender to the wolf takes time, to let it come forth, freed from its cage. My first official shift had been born from loneliness- and had been earlier than my siblings. With Dad gone, no one knew how to talk to me anymore.

Timber Hollow was surrounded on three sides by state land- shifter land. Just walking the path, my wolf rises. She’s clawing at my soul, clamoring to be let out as I rip my oversized hoodie over my head.

She knows these lands, these trees.

Home.

We are home.

For me, it has always been easy. I'd never been afraid of her. Inhaling the crisp air, then I sink beneath the soft, dark fur that belongs to my wolf. Even now, shifting for me is a surrender . Surrender of control, of desires, of everything . Once a shifter surrenders that control, the beast emerges.

Surrender and submission come with razor-sharp teeth, and snarls in the face of death. There is nothing to fear when the wolf emerges.

The actual transformation is brutal. Limbs snap and rearrange. The skull shifts, breaking. Teeth elongate and sharpen.

It’s excruciating, exquisite pain.

And then, freedom .

The Quaking Aspen tree that used to be only as thick as maybe my bicep is now nearly the size of my thigh, and triple the height. The white bark still has a blue jay roughly carved into it, plump breast speared by an arrow.

I drop my hoodie at the base of the tree, kicking off my boots with a toe. When I toss my phone down, the screen illuminates for a moment revealing 3 missed calls from Sam before it disappears within the wrinkled fabric. Leggings are shucked off, underwear is dropped in the pile as well.

Inhale.

Exhale.

Surrender.

My wolf comes rushing forward, a flurry of transformation, cracking, splintering pops coming from my bones, and then I am covered in fur, driven by the need to run . To chase the Moonlight between the trees.

With the Moon as my guide, I retrace decades-old footsteps and darken the places my heart still pangs for within the trees. Like the stream that sometimes runs dry in the very hot summer months, and the pool of water below.

I run and I run, until I feel like my lungs will burst and my paws are bloody, hoping that my time at Aggie's will disguise my scent enough to remain undetected for just a little longer.

The wolves of Timber Hollow come in all shades of brown, and grey, and some even with a reddish tint to their fur. My wolf is entirely black, much to the surprise of my mother. My siblings have bleach blonde hair, their wolves varying shades of white and grey. While my hair is still technically blonde, it is darker than all of theirs. Just like Dad’s. I still remember when my wolf emerged, black as the night sky, nearly blending into the darkness between the trees.

Just like Dad.

I don't think I'll ever forget the keening howl that ripped from my mom's throat that night, and how the Pack had echoed the mournful sound into the morning. It’s branded into my soul.

Timber Hollow, of course, isn’t exclusive to wolves. There are a few coyote shifters and even a lynx family here too. Probably more these days. The Pack has grown, likely only noticeable to someone who’s been gone for so long.

The Alpha, though, is a wolf. Magnus Temple runs the pack. He is also sort of our mayor, but his control runs deeper than that. The Temples have been the Alphas of Timber Hollow since the pack's beginning. They started the logging business, way back when the town was founded. That business now funds the majority of the town's expenses. Government contracts for the environmentally conscious logging combined with the handmade- wood carvings that nearly every wolf in Timber Hollow worked at – at least once in their life- make up the majority of the town's income. The Temple family also has a Forge, where at one time they made horseshoes and weapons for the town. Now it churns out handmade gold and silver jewelry, each piece worth a small fortune.

Leaving Timber Hollow wasn't against the rules- it was recommended that every wolf gets a taste of the wide open areas of the world, before choosing where to start their own pack. We're all told that we'd be welcome within the arms of other packs, that even if you were just visiting it is important to join the monthly run. They hadn't told us what to do if the Pack didn't feel right, though. If the thought of running with another Pack felt like betraying your own soul. Like ripping out your own beating heart.

I'm pretty sure that I am the only one to stay gone for more than half a decade. And have absolutely nothing to show for it.