Chapter 8 - Grace
When the smell of smoke shocks me out of a deep, restful sleep, I launch myself out of bed, thinking of an out-of-control wildfire.
The trees! I can’t let them burn.
When I stagger to the window and see nothing but clear sky, I turn around slowly to see the smoke pouring up the stairs.
The kitchen. Oh no…
I run into the thick smoke, wondering if I’m going to find Dan in a pile of ashes that used to be our house.
Is he good at anything except fighting and shooting things?
Even though I’m trying to make light of the situation to save my sanity, there is a deep knot of fear inside when I think about him touching me.
I know it’s inevitable. We’re married now, and heirs will be needed for the pack… I also know neither of us can go the rest of our lives without touch. But he’s so muscular and clumsy… I don’t think he can touch me without hurting me.
When I reach the kitchen and see Dan staring at the small billow of flame across the stove, I grab a wool blanket from a nearby box and shove him out of the way to hurl it on the fire. Even though I’m mad and a little scared, his wide-eyed, shocked expression does make me laugh.
He put a puddle of oil on a high burner and just left it there. What did he think was going to happen?
Even though I’m not confident in Dan’s ability to make coffee—and I’ve never had instant coffee before in my life—I let him try while I salvage the kitchen.
With the back door and the window open, the smoke quickly leaves the room, the stove only needs a bit of a wipe-down, and I find plenty of food in the cupboards and fridge, so I can start again.
I’m beginning to feel optimistic about the day, until I take a sip of coffee. I’d noticed the pale color, but somehow managed to convince myself it would be tolerable.
I wasn’t expecting enough sugar to send me blind, that’s for sure.
“I don’t think I can face the day without a decent coffee,” I say, pushing my plate aside. “Come over here, and I’ll show you how to use the coffee maker.”
Dan gets up eagerly and stands beside me, watching intently and nodding as I go through the steps. By the time the jug is percolating, he looks more confused than when we started.
“Do you understand now?” I ask.
Dan nods enthusiastically. “Not a damn thing,” he answers, making me laugh.
“How long have you been in the military?” I ask as we sit down again.
“Forever,” he says, talking through a big bite of his burrito. “I wasn’t actively a soldier until I was twenty-one, but I’ve been on the base from when I was thirteen.”
I want to ask why, and what happened to his family, but my instincts warn me that this topic might be too heavy to handle, at least on our first morning as husband and wife.
“So, they don’t teach you to cook?”
“No,” he laughs. “We get packs of ration bars, and tins of soup, beans, or ravioli if you’re lucky. I’ve only ever made coffee by just throwing the granules in the cup and adding hot water.”
I suppress a shudder, wrapping my hands more firmly around my cup and taking a sip of the rich, creamy brew.
“But once you left, surely you had real coffee. Didn’t you ever wonder how it was made?”
“I’ve never liked coffee from a café,” he says. “It’s never strong enough, and too creamy, even if I tell them to make it super strong.”
“Wait,” I say, a sudden thought striking me. “Where have you been living in the few years since you retired?”
He shrugs. “I’ve had rooms in Eccles and Rose Hollow. Nothing permanent. I did a bit of sleeping rough as a wolf when there didn’t seem to be much point in having an actual house. I’ve never even been to Clover.”
This man has never had a home!
I realize that as a child, he probably had one, but it feels like it was forcefully taken from him. Curiosity fills me, but I don’t dare ask about it.
“But you like decent coffee, don’t you?” I ask. “Just because this was made in a coffee maker, you can still have it strong.”
“Yeah, I guess,” he answers, smiling. “I’m just not used to it.”
“You like my cooking, though?”
“Yes,” he says, with enthusiasm. “This burrito is great. I knew I’d need some protein today. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” I reply, feeling good about pleasing him.
Maybe I should treat the big military man like a big, semi-feral dog. Offer tasty treats, a warm, comfy place to sleep, and rub him on the belly and tell him he’s a good boy.
I hold in a spluttering laugh, and Dan smiles at me.
“It’s really nice to see you happy,” he says. I can tell by his pensive look that he wants to say more, but doesn’t know how.
“Happy might be pushing it, but I’m a lot more comfortable than yesterday,” I admit. “It was a lot of stress for me. I’m sorry I was a bit… tense.”
“It’s okay,” he says. “You had to leave a lot behind, and we really don’t know each other. I understand.”
We share a smile, and I let my eyes linger on his deep blue eyes, my gaze trailing down to his curved lips.
He’s so cute. He could have easily ended up in men’s underwear commercials if it hadn’t been for the military.
The image of Dan flexing in a hot set of tightly fitted trunks fills my mind in such detail that I have to look down at my plate and press my tongue to the roof of my mouth. I can feel my cheeks burning, and I pray that he hasn’t noticed.
It’s not like I’m a virgin. I’ve had encounters, but they were brief. None of the boys in town would ever start something serious with me, so I learned to just live without intimacy.
“So, you like plants?” Dan asks in a hopeful voice. Even though my cheeks are still warm, I look up into his eager face.
It’s, like, the lamest get-to-know-you question I’ve ever heard, but he’s trying.
“More than like,” I answer. “I can feel them. When I was younger, it was more of a general sense, but as my powers have grown, it’s like they actually talk to me.”
“Wow,” he says. “What do they say?”
I chuckle. “Well, it’s not like human speech. I don’t think I could translate exactly. But mostly, they tell me they want more sun, or shade, or water. On a really nice day, a field of grass will sing in happiness, kind of like ‘all is well, and everyone is happy.’”
“That sounds wonderful,” he says. “It must bring you so much peace.”
“It does,” I agree. “But it has its flip side. When land is cleared, everything screams. The plants, trees, and even the earth. It cries as it dies.”
“But people have to build houses,” he says. “What do you expect them to do?”
“Do they?” I snap, narrowing my eyes. “Do people really need to build houses? We rip the environment to shreds to suit our needs, without even a thought to what we destroy.”
“But what’s the solution?” he asks, looking genuinely confused. I sigh heavily.
He’s stumbled into one of my most passionate subjects, and now I can’t stop.
“It’s very easy to go through an area and look for nests and habitats before bulldozing it,” I say.
“And it’s also not difficult to plan it carefully and go around the oldest, most established trees.
Clearing a ten-acre area for one small dwelling is utterly unnecessary.
Do you have any idea how the earth screams when an old tree is ripped up by the roots? ”
“No,” he says, looking uncomfortable. “I never really thought about it.”
“And that’s exactly the problem,” I say.
“Humans look at the land and say, ‘I want a building here, or a road.’ They strip everything—trees, plants, grass—all the birds that call the place their home, and a beautiful base ecosystem of insects—they tear it all apart to leave bare, dead dirt they can poison further by building on top of it and then draining chemicals into the soil.”
“You feel pretty strongly about this, huh?”
“I don’t think there’s anything else I really care about, actually.
It’s one of the most frustrating things to me to hear people say, ‘Oh, humans are arrogant to think we can interfere with nature, so we have to just do nothing.’ But we’ve already interfered, and we keep doing it, every day, just by existing.
We can’t undo it now, but we can pay attention.
We can care. Every single person on the face of the earth can do that. ”
“Do what?” Dan asks, bewildered.
“Don’t cut down the tree because it blocks your view. That is selfish and arrogant. Trim it if it’s dangerous—but check it for nests first. Understand the structure attached to it. Make arrangements for any animals that depend on it. This isn’t very hard to do.”
“I don’t know,” Dan says. “It sounds pretty complicated.”
“It’s really not,” I reply, a slightly plaintive note in my voice. The frustration I feel about this topic causes an ache in my chest that never really goes away, and it always leaves me feeling like “ordinary” humans aren’t the same species as me.
“How about this,” I say. “Don’t kill spiders in your house. I hear a lot of people say they want to invite birds to their yard and have a relationship with them, but if you poison spiders, you also poison the birds.”
“But inside the house?” Dan asks, looking nervous. “I might be persuaded about outside, but you just said not to kill the ones inside?”
I stare steadily at him, feeling my power rising inside me.
“This is my house now,” I say. “Do not kill any of my spiders.”
“Your spiders?” Dan says, looking even more worried. “I don’t know if I can handle this.”
My anger rises, and I know I’m about to say something harsh, but a shout from outside breaks the mood.
“It’s Luke,” Dan says as Luke appears in the doorway.
“Perimeter alert!” he yells.
Dan leaps up, smacking the table and making everything on it jump. Even though cups spill over and food falls off plates, Dan doesn’t even notice as he bolts for the door, shifts, and disappears.
I look across the table in dismay, thinking about the gigantic mess I now have to clean up.
First day of marriage, and I’ve spent more time cleaning up after him than I have getting to know him.
I look down at my hands, swallowing hard as I try to shift the lump in my throat. I knew that Dan had lived rough, so I shouldn’t really be surprised by how the conversation went, but it hurts me that he’s one of those people who barely notice the living world around him.
The wind is always whispering. The birds pass on messages from miles away, and the bugs in the soil tell tales of the earth’s core. Every spider is a sister to a witch, helping her weave her spells. How can anyone ignore that?
The few moments I spent admiring Dan’s good looks come back to me, adding a sliver of fear to my sadness.
How can I get close to someone who has absolutely no sensitivity? He’s cute, but it sounds like he’s completely dead inside. He’s probably spent more time blowing up nature than admiring it.
With a sigh, I get up and start clearing the table so I can wash up. I really tried my best to make the most out of this morning, and now I feel worse than I did last night.
The way he bolted out of here, too… I know he has to protect the pack, no question of that. But he didn’t have to make such a mess on his way out.
A few minutes later, I’m finishing up with the dishes when Luke and Dan get back. I feel awkward and withdrawn, like I don’t know how to talk to him now.
It might be better if we don’t talk much. I can’t see any good coming from it.
“What was it?” I ask as the guys come into the kitchen.
“False alarm,” Dan says.
“Yeah,” Luke agrees. “Just some coyotes. Nothing major.”
Even though both of them use a relaxed tone of voice, they look tense.
Are they lying to me?
“Okay,” I answer. “That’s good news, then.”
“Yeah,” Dan replies. “We have to stay on alert, though. It’s new territory.”
“Of course,” I say, not liking the furtive looks the two of them share. “I guess we should go out and talk with our new pack, then?”
“Yes,” Dan agrees. “Definitely our next order of business. Just let me get ready, and we’ll head out.”
“I’ll be back on patrol,” Luke says. “I’ll call you if there’s anything.”
“Appreciate it,” Dan replies, disappearing into the hall as Luke leaves through the back door.
I go back to cleaning the kitchen, my emotions a raging storm of suspicion and fear.