29. Twenty-Nine
Twenty-Nine
M om’s words seemed to punch straight through Leslie’s chest.
When they dissected the news stories, both she and Ryker had concluded the “bear” must be wolves—and not the kind that were part of the animal kingdom. But at the time, despite seeing Mom’s maiden name in print, the victims that shared it had felt sort of removed from Leslie. She’d never even known this extended family existed. Now, though, the names of the victims came with a long-buried sadness in Mom’s eyes, in the bowing of her posture.
“Do you know what the motive was?” Ryker’s voice was kind, though he wouldn’t back down from the details.
“A land dispute,” Dad said. “The vampires were there first.”
“The wolves were so aggressive.” Mom’s voice gained a little volume as she spoke in facts. “They broke laws all the time, any time they wanted something, even little things like parking regulations. For generations my family shunned them, and they shunned us back, and that was that.”
When she didn’t continue, a tense hush settled over the room. There was so much more to tell. But Leslie bit her lip, forced herself to wait without pushing any further than she already had.
Ryker didn’t follow suit. “That was that, until…?”
Mom nodded as if checking in with herself, that she was okay to tell the rest. “A new alpha took over the pack a few months before Uncle Edmund and Derek were killed. He’d grown up there, and when he came of age, he killed the pack alpha. He was vicious, violent.”
She hesitated again, and Dad took up the narrative. “Under his control, the pack became vicious and violent too. He wanted to expand their territory, and who would a wolf pack most want to get rid of?”
The resident vampires, of course. In comparison, humans were weak opponents for a wolf pack who didn’t bother following human laws.
“When those wolves murdered my cousin…” Mom shook her head. Her hands were still tightly clenched in her lap. “We knew then it wasn’t about eliminating only the vampires who held land deeds. Derek was barely twenty years old, and he owned no property at the time. But he would’ve inherited Uncle Edmund’s.”
“Was that the only violent incident?” Ryker said.
“Far from it,” Mom said. “They liked arson. And they liked to gang up on a single vampire.”
Dad was nodding, and something flickered in his eyes, the candle flame of a difficult memory. “They really do track and chase down their prey like wolves in the wild. If you got caught out alone and they picked up your scent, you were in trouble.”
Leslie tried not to picture his description like a movie scene, but she couldn’t help seeing it, and in her imagination, the targeted vampire was… “Dad? Did they hurt you?”
“Took their fists to me one night,” Dad said. “Your mother had been asking me to move, but after that, she was determined.”
“I was stubborn,” Mom said. “But so was your dad.”
“No wolf pack was going to run us out of our own home. I wanted to stand strong. Thought I could outlast them, which was pretty stupid now that I look back.”
Yes, Leslie could see it all. How very like Dad, to dig his heels in against a lawless threat; and how very like Mom, to value his safety more than he did.
“I know I’m jumping ahead here,” Ryker said, “but after what you’d been through, why did y’all settle in Harmony Ridge of all places? I’d expect you to stay far away from wolves.”
“We didn’t know if they’d come after us, given how much we knew about them. We chose the last place they would expect vampires to go. Plus wolves are so territorial, we thought they’d be less likely to invade a town already inhabited by a strong pack.”
Ryker nodded. “Smart.”
“First thing we did here was meet with the alpha. William asked if we expected more of our kind to join us, and we said no, it was only the two of us—soon to be three. We were all pretty cautious of one another at first.”
“Wait.” Ryker held up a hand. “Leslie and I met the pack alpha, and his name isn’t William. It’s Malachi.”
Dad’s shoulders drew back as though the wolf were in the room with them. “Malachi? You met him in town?”
“Story for another time,” Leslie said before they could sidetrack from the important story. To Ryker she said, “Malachi has been the pack alpha for only about five years. William was killed in an accident.”
Ryker looked about to ask for more information about the Harmony Ridge wolves. No doubt his brain was working multiple angles, weaving multiple threads of the stories and questing for every last detail. He must have seen from Leslie’s face that her interest was still back in Meredith, Missouri. He nodded. “What was the final straw then, for y’all deciding to move?”
While they’d told their story, both her parents regained their eye color along with their composure. Leslie braced against the back of the love seat, sure this particular question would push them back to their edginess. Instead…they smiled.
“It was you, Leslie,” Dad said. “We found out you were on the way, our very own child after so many years. And that was it. We wouldn’t risk you.”
“After all my persuasive arguments failed for months, when I told your father about you, I didn’t even have to ask. The first words out of his mouth were, ‘Our baby can’t be born here.’”
Leslie’s shoulders caved as the weight fell on her again. They had surrendered the place they loved for her sake. She had upended their lives, ruined Dad’s plan to stand against the corrupt wolf pack.
Ryker’s arms came around her along with a soft, soothing hiss.
“We never regretted it for a minute,” Dad said. “We love Tennessee, and we love our town.”
“But you loved your first town too.” She sniffed back tears. “You called me Meredith when I was a baby, I remember you did.”
“We did,” Mom said. “But we phased it out pretty quickly. We preferred your first name, and after we gave ourselves time to miss our old home, we embraced our new one and never looked back.”
“Are—are you sure?”
“Leslie, look at me.” After a moment, Leslie looked up. Mom’s gaze was firm now, no longer avoiding Leslie’s. “You changed our lives for the better. You filled rooms in my heart I never knew were there. Yes, we left Missouri to keep our child from dangerous wolves. Yes, we missed Meredith for a while, and it felt sort of…poetic, I guess, to give the name to you. But you are my daughter. You have always been worth a hundred times more than what we left behind to protect you.”
“Oh,” Leslie whispered.
As if with a single thought, she and Mom sprang up from their respective seats and met in the middle of the room. Mom’s cool arms enwrapped her, and Leslie leaned her head on Mom’s shoulder. She would never be as tall as Mom.
“I haven’t always known what to do as a parent,” Mom said. “I’m sorry our silence about the past was hard for you. I’m sorry, and I love you.”
“I’ve never doubted that, Mom.”
“We didn’t deal well with the aftermath of Meredith. Neither of us did.” Mom shuddered and tightened her arms around Leslie. “The wolves broke six of your father’s bones, and if they’d learned I was pregnant… I don’t like thinking about it.”
“And you can’t separate what those wolves did from our neighbors here?”
“It isn’t fair to them,” Dad said. “I know that, and it’s easier now to keep the past separate. When you were younger, it was still hard not to see any wolf as a threat.”
“You should have told me.” If today was a day for full honesty, she couldn’t leave this part out.
“Maybe we should have. It was…incredibly painful to talk about. All of it.” Mom gave Leslie a final, gentle squeeze, then let her go. “I’m sorry I hung up the other day. I’m sorry for what our pain cost you.”
“I’m sorry too, Les,” Dad said. “I’m sorry you were left wondering all these years.”
“Sometimes it felt…” Leslie’s shoulders tried to hunch up again, but she straightened and faced her parents and her history head-on. “It felt like vampire topics were off-limits.”
Dad got up from the couch and drew Leslie into a hug of his own. She couldn’t remember the last time Dad had hugged her, and she pressed her cheek to his shirt just as she had as a girl. His hugs were never long; he stepped back a second later, regret deepened in his eyes.
“We tried too hard to fit in here,” he said, “to get along with the wolves and the humans in ways that didn’t call attention to what we are. We never meant for you to feel like less of a vampire, but at the same time, when we saw how well you adapted in school to your human and wolf classmates… We felt you were safer.”
Leslie had never seen her parents so clearly before. So many memories clicked into place and suddenly made perfect sense. They had been acting on barely-healed wounds, and over time their wounded actions formed habits. And it sucked. Losing out on her own identity, culture, and pride—it all sucked, and she couldn’t turn back a clock and give these missing pieces to her childhood self.
But she was a vampire, for goodness’ sake. She had centuries to catch up on what that meant, to cultivate new layers of herself—not only as a vampire but also as a woman, as an artist, as an eternally bonded spouse.
“I understand,” she said. “You were hurt and scared, both of you.”
“It’s not an excuse,” Mom said.
“No, but you were trying to keep us safe the best you knew how. What you went through—stalked, threatened, physically attacked…”
The full truth of it finally struck her. Tears filled her eyes, and she couldn’t help it—she rushed to Dad and threw her arms around him. She imagined his fear and pain, ambushed and beaten by violent wolves.
“Oh, Dad. I’m so, so sorry they did that to you.”
She imagined Mom too, witness to the pain of the person she loved most in the world. If a wolf pack had nearly killed Ryker, Leslie would be hurting too, terrified it would happen again. And then to find out a tiny new life grew inside her, a life those same violent wolves wouldn’t hesitate to destroy…
She reached out and grasped one of her mom’s hands. “I know it was awful for you too, Mom. I’m sorry. I’m sorry for both of you for everything the Meredith wolves did.”
Mom’s eyes sparkled with tears, and Leslie lost her breath. She’d never seen her mother cry before. Never in all her life.
“Thank you, Les,” Mom whispered. “Can you forgive us for…for passing some of this down to you?”
“Oh, Mom. Of course I forgive you, both of you, one hundred percent.”
Then she was sandwiched by both of them as they all hugged. When they resumed their seats, Leslie pressed into Ryker’s side, and he put his arm around her again. She needed a good cry in the safety of his arms, a final release of the history they’d heard today. But now wasn’t the time.
In the ensuing quiet, Leslie had no idea what to do next, yet the sorrow of her parents’ story didn’t settle over them. Somehow the very house felt brighter, more open, as though it had known all these years that this conversation was needed, that the secret past needed to be known.
Suddenly Leslie needed Mom and Dad to know something too. She needed them to know what Senna and Laurence already knew. She looked toward Ryker and could only hope he guessed what she was trying to ask. He must, because he nodded with a smile that held both pride and joy.
“Um, Dad, Mom… Do you know about future-sight?”
Dad chuckled. “Do we ever. Your mother is on top of it.”
“Well, it turns out, so am I.”
“Oh!” Mom beamed, but then her face shadowed. “I never told you about this either.”
“My mama never told me until last week.” Ryker shrugged.
“That’s different,” Mom said. “You’re not a daughter.”
“Aha.”
“Not that we can’t inherit it,” Dad said. “We’re just less likely to, and it doesn’t carry the same…traditions? Ceremony? Something like that.”
“Okay, listen up,” Leslie said. “I’m trying to tell you something.”
Her parents both went still, anticipation in every line of their bodies as they sat forward.
“One of the glimpses I’ve seen for Ryker and me is…a child.”
Her mother actually screamed. It was the most demonstrative moment of Debra Snow’s life as far as Leslie knew. Never in her life had she heard her mother shriek for joy, but it was happening now. All of Mom’s caution, all of her reserve, evaporated in a single instant. She was on her feet, dancing in place. Dad was too, swooping her around in a circle and then grabbing Leslie by both hands to pull her up and into a hug much longer than the last one.
“Hey,” Leslie laughed against his chest. “Hey. Y’all. Calm down. I’ve got zero timeline on this. Y’all might be two hundred by the time this happens.”
“Oh, fiddlesticks,” Mom said. “A grandbaby—oh, Leslie, I don’t care if I’m double that!”
Mom gave her a final hug—three in one day, surely a record—and Leslie let a few tears wash away the old confusion and hurt. Here were all the hidden truths, finally spoken, finally out of the dark corners and into the light. Like this dear old house, Leslie’s heart was bright and open.