Chapter 17 So Many Thank Yous #2
In the back of my mind, I’d known I’d have to wear something else eventually.
But I hadn’t wanted to ask. If I was being truthful with myself, the reasons went beyond the usual not wanting to be a bother.
Boone’s shirts had become my fully grown woman version of a safety blanket ever since he gave them to me.
No matter how wild the situation got, I felt warm and protected inside of them.
“Thank you,” I said for what felt like the millionth time.
Why did I have the feeling it wouldn’t be the last?
Boone left me in peace, but that didn’t mean he left.
That evening, I found out why he and Ravik had insisted that I move into a place between two other houses when I emerged from the cottage for the first time to try to take a short after-dinner walk.
As soon as I set foot on the road, Boone and Zion came jogging out of the houses to my left and right, and Ravik came out to the porch of the house across the way.
I nearly tripped over my own feet when I realized they’d boxed me in. One house on each side, one across from me. A triangle, with me in the center.
It’s our job to protect you.
Boone’s words from the day before whispered through my head. Another tug-of-war went off inside of me between “What nice guys!” and “What the hell?!”
Meanwhile, on the front porch of his house, Ravik raised a mug that looked exactly like the one he’d sent over with Boone and took a sip, while staring straight at me.
I quickly averted my eyes, just as Zion fell into step beside me on the right side while Boone flanked my left.
“Good evening, Bell,” Zion greeted. His rich voice made me feel like I’d just tuned into a walking version of NPR. “Do you mind if Boone and I join you for your evening constitutional?”
After everything they’d done for me, it felt surly to say no. But I hedged, “I’m only taking a short walk. I’m kind of tired.”
I’d spent most of the day bleaching the moss off the house. And let’s just say, I fought the moss, and the moss won. My hands were insanely dry, my shoulders ached from reaching, and I was pretty sure I’d ruined one of the new black tops Ravik had gotten me with my overzealous cleaning.
Even worse, I wasn’t sure if it had been worth the effort. There were still green stains all over the house where the moss had been, and I hadn’t even attempted to get to the patches on the roof.
I rubbed one of my aching shoulders as I warned them, “I’m not going to be much for conversation tonight.”
“Fret not,” Zion assured me in that resonant tone of his. “As my students will aver, I can talk enough for an entire classroom of sullen teenagers.”
As it turned out, this was not an overstatement.
Zion launched into a lecture about the history of the Outer Limits and the nearby Mining Works, which had attracted bear labor from all over Canada and Alaska and endowed the Ayaska with a near billion-dollar trust before it was fully tapped out in the early 2000s.
“Rare earth and PGMs, as they call the Platinum Group Metals, first tapped in the seventies in perfect time for the rise of the worldwide technocracy, which would require such materials in droves.”
I’d only meant to walk for fifteen minutes, tops, but Zion was unfortunately an extremely engaging orator, which made it too hard not to ask further questions about how the Ayaska came to discover they were sitting on …
if not a gold mine, certainly enough money to keep them fully endowed through the coming century.
And then we got into how the Ayaska had operated as a communal society for millennia.
What was supposed to be a mutinously silent fifteen minute walk turned into an entire two laps around the ghost town, which was more like a village, situated along the lake.
Boone seemed happy enough to lumber along beside us as Zion answered all my questions about Bear Mountain sociology, which apparently dated back all the way to the Ice Age—or, as Zion was quick to correct, “the last glacial period, which ended about twelve thousand years ago.”
Main point, the tribe was older than the Christian Bible, and they even had their own version of the creation tale that involved a great ancestor they referred to as Mother Ursa—“in English, not the original Ayaskan” Zion made sure to caveat—and The Great Serpent, a creator god, making a deal to free the Ayaska from his tyranny.
I frowned. “So, the Ayaska think they were created by a devil?”
“Again, older than Christianity—or even the concept of a Judeo god. This founder was cruel, yes, but not a devil—or even a snake. Sadly, there isn’t much scholarship in this regard, only lore.
But according to the journals of teachers who’ve come before me, there are some who believed this serpent to be a dragon. ”
That only made me crinkle my eyes that much more. “So, the Ayaska believe that bear shifters were created by a dragon?”
“Hey, I’ve heard crazier shit,” Boone said on the left side of me. “Once got called in for a wildfire started by a bunch of white farmers who were trying to get in touch with Lakshmi through the fire god Agni. In Iowa.”
It had been so long since I’d laughed, but a surprised chortle bubbled out of me.
“Come, man, surely you’re spinning a fantastical tale,” Zion accused as I giggled.
“I swear to God,” Boone said, raising his hand. “Actually, I swear to fucking Agni.”
That answer made both Zion and me fall out laughing.
“Every year, I direct a production where my students perform a pageant about the founding of the Ayaska, along with major moments from the tribe’s history, for our Christmas in July Festival,” Zion said when we’d gotten over our fit of laughter.
“If you wish to learn more about the Ayaska, it’s a wonderful retrospective. ”
I doubted I’d still be in contact with him come July, but this segued into Zion telling me how the Bear school year ran from March to November due to hibernation, and my little fifteen-minute walk turned into a little over two hours.
By the time we finally came back up the little gravel and dirt path to my widow’s cottage, the sun was setting, and I gasped when I saw the front of the cabin.
Not only had someone left enough wood on the porch to fire the stove for months—not the few weeks I figured I needed to get myself together before the girls’ wedding—but the front of the house had been completely transformed.
The door had been repainted red, and all the roof moss and sickly looking green spots were gone from the A-frame’s face thanks to a coat of dark-brown stain.
There was even a row of fairy lights hanging below the balcony that sat outside my loft window.
I’d only been gone for two hours! But it was like standing in front of a big reveal on one of those Fix-It TV shows, like Tiny Home One Day Makeover.
I easily guessed who’d done this, even before Zion told me, “Vik asks that you be careful not to get any paint on you as you enter through the freshly painted front door. He also cautions against touching the stain until late tomorrow morning.”
“That’s right,” Boone added. “Stains’re a bitch to get off your hands.”
All I could do was purse my lips as I looked up at the house. There was no more denying it.
Dammit…
I was going to have to make that Ravik guy cookies.
“Need anything before we leave you be?” Boone asked. Both he and Zion had stopped walking when I did.
“No,” I muttered, starting forward toward the house. “Thanks for the walk.” Which I was beginning to suspect they’d intentionally extended so Ravik could set up this surprise.
Dammit, I was going to have to make all of them cookies.
“Good night,” I threw over my shoulder, already making the mental calculations.
By the time I’d let myself into the house, I realized with a sinking feeling that there was only one kind of cookie I could make off the top of my head with what I had on hand.
And I cursed once again, because dammit…
I was going to have to make all of them sugar cookies.
That night, as I fell asleep with a plan to throw together three batches of cookies in the morning, I didn’t know whether to be grateful… or very, very scared.
It turned out to be the latter.
I closed my eyes…
…and woke up with a jerk, handcuffed to the bed in my apartment.
My stomach sank with the realization that Boone, Zion, Ravik, and the little A-frame widow’s cottage had all been a dream.
“Hello, Belly,” a familiar voice said from above where I was handcuffed to the bed.
Dennis stood there with the black gun in his hand and an evil grin on his face.
“Did you really think you’d ever be able to get away from me?”