Chapter 17
B uck’s plan, Honey was somewhat bemused to discover, mainly involved shouting.
“Are you all slug shifters?” He led the way, somehow managing to set a brisk pace while simultaneously bellowing at the top of his lungs.
“We’re on a hike, not taking a basket of goodies to grandma!
Rufus, stay with the group. Flora, that’s poison ivy.
Archie, put your pants back on. Move your tails! ”
“Is he mad at us?” Honey overheard Claire whisper to Beth.
“No,” Beth whispered back. “You’d know if he was mad.”
“Beth!” Buck roared without looking round. “If you’re able to talk, you’re not walking fast enough!”
“Yes, sir!” Beth seemed obscurely delighted at being singled out. She snapped to attention, redoubling her pace. “Sorry, sir!”
“ You’re talking,” Flora said to Buck, a little reproachfully.
“No,” Buck replied calmly. “I am providing verbal motivation. There’s a difference. Now keep up.”
“I don’t see why I can’t hike as a bear,” Archie grumbled, hopping on one foot as he pulled his shoe on again. “I thought this was meant to be shifter camp.”
“It is,” Buck said, never breaking stride. “And the defining feature of being a shifter is that you have two forms. Right now, we’re concentrating on improving the performance of your human one. Or did you only want to be fit and strong when furry?”
Archie blinked, like he’d never considered this before. “Oh. But won’t I get muscles anyway, just because I’m a shifter?”
“Won’t do you any good if you don’t learn how to use them.
” Buck swung off the broad, easy trail they’d been following, onto a smaller track heading uphill.
“A well-trained human can beat a lazy shifter any day of the week. I should know. When I started hiring shifters on my hotshot crew, every one of the motherlovers rolled in thinking they could just cruise by on their powers. Never took long to disabuse them of the notion. Even the biggest and toughest soon learned I could leave them behind crying in the dust.”
Flora frowned. “But you’re a shifter.”
Buck didn’t pause. “Wrong.”
Ignatius, who’d been slouching behind everyone else like a teen desperately trying to pretend they weren’t with a parent, stopped dead in his tracks. “What?”
Oh no . In that moment, Honey could have cheerfully throttled Buck. The last thing they needed was to put that idea into the boy’s head.
“He means he wasn’t one back then,” she said firmly. “Buck wasn’t born a shifter. He was bitten by a hellhound.”
“A hellhound?” Ignatius said, in much the same way someone might say a cockroach? Despite the distaste in his tone, there was a kind of rising hope dawning in his face, as though someone had just slid a key under the door of his prison cell. “That’s not a proper shifter. When I tell my uncle—”
“Buck is too a proper shifter!” Estelle said indignantly. “And he’s not any old hellhound. He’s a thunderhound. ”
Buck stopped.
Beth heaved a long-suffering sigh. “Estelle, stop trying to make thunderhound a thing.”
“It is a reasonably accurate description,” Finley said diplomatically. “If a little… uh, unpoetic.”
Archie snickered. “Sounds like farts.”
Buck was staring at the sky, his back to them all. Honey would have given a great deal to be able to see his expression.
“So he’s, what, like a hellhound, only he makes wind instead of fire?” Flora asked. “Oh, shut up Archie, you know what I mean.”
“Not wind.” Estelle lowered her voice dramatically. “ Lightning. ”
“But… wouldn’t that make him a lightninghound?” Claire ventured.
“Yeah, but thunderhound has a better ring to it,” Estelle said, undeterred by mere logic. “Anyway, it’s a pun. Because he’s part thunderbird and part hellhound, see?”
A pained expression flickered across Rufus’s face.
“Right. That’s not a pun, Estelle,” Beth agreed. “And anyway, it’s stupid.”
“And Archie’s right, it does sound kinda like farts,” Flora conceded. She abruptly brightened. “I’ve got it, guys! The perfect word!”
“I guess it can’t be worse than thunderhound,” Finley muttered. “What’s your suggestion, Flora?”
Flora made finger guns at Buck’s back. “ Zapdog! ”
Unseen by any of the kids, Honey jammed a knuckle into her mouth, biting down hard to stop the laugh from escaping. Buck had gone perfectly still, with the rigidity of a man who was slowly counting down from ten in his head.
“Um.” Finley cast a nervous glance at Buck and lowered his voice. “I don’t think he likes it.”
“ I like it,” Archie assured Flora fervently.
“Which clearly means that my word is better,” Estelle said. She folded her arms, glaring at the other kids. “And it does not sound like farts.”
“Well, how about we put it to a vote?” Flora said reasonably. “All in favor of calling Buck a zapdog?”
“Um,” Claire said timidly, as Archie’s hand thrust into the air. “Maybe it would be better to… ask Buck?”
“Good point.” Flora turned round, raising her voice as though Buck might have somehow missed the entire conversation happening two feet behind him. “Buck! What do you call your animal?”
“Words I have no intention of teaching a bunch of kids,” Buck growled. He set off again, his stride rather more stiff-legged than before. “We’re wasting daylight. Keep up.”
The campers fell into line, trailing after him like ducklings. Honey, bringing up the rear, noticed Finley, Beth, and Estelle whispering together, eying Buck behind their hands. The group dropped behind the other kids until they were walking at Honey’s side.
“Honey,” Estelle said, in what she probably imagined was a covert whisper, “have you ever seen Buck’s animal?”
“Yes, I have,” Honey replied, and was a little startled to find them all gazing at her in reverent awe. “Why, haven’t you?”
Finley shook his head. “We know he flies around the camp at night, but we’ve never been able to get a glimpse of his other form.”
“Not that we haven’t tried,” Estelle added. She cast a pointed glare at Beth. “And I would have been able to see him, if someone hadn’t tattled to Zephyr.”
“You shouldn’t have been up on that roof,” Beth retorted. “And anyway, you wouldn’t have caught him. Glue doesn’t set that fast.”
“No sneaking out at night trying to spy on Buck,” Honey said firmly, having visions of the entire pack doing exactly that. “If he wants to show you his animal, he will. Have you tried asking him?”
Finley shook his head. “There didn’t seem to be any point. My dad said that Buck won’t let anyone see his animal. He won’t even talk about it.”
“ My dad,” Estelle put in, with the air of someone imparting a rare insight, “says that Buck has PMS.”
Honey just managed to turn her wheeze of laughter into a cough.
“I think,” she said, somewhat strangled, “you might mean PTSD, Estelle.”
Archie must have been eavesdropping, because his head swiveled round. “What’s that?”
Honey hesitated, aware that Flora and Claire had paused to listen in as well. She snuck a peek at Buck, but he was still striding ahead of the rest of the pack. There was no sign that he’d overheard the surreptitious discussion behind his back.
She lowered her voice anyway. “It’s a medical condition.
Sometimes, when someone goes through an awful, traumatic experience, it can affect them even after it’s over.
They may seem fine most of the time, but if they’re triggered—if something reminds them of the terrible thing—it’s like it hurts them all over again. ”
“But getting Turned isn’t a bad thing,” Archie objected. “Who wouldn’t want to be a shifter?”
“Buck didn’t.” Honey looked round at all their blank faces, wondering how to explain it to them.
“Imagine… imagine that you got hit on the head, and when you woke up, you discovered that your animal was different. That you suddenly turned into a leopard instead of a bear, Archie, or Flora, that your wombat was now a kangaroo.”
This seemed to have the desired effect. From the looks of horror, she’d just handed them all a fresh, steaming mug of nightmare fuel.
“That would suck ,” Archie said with heartfelt sincerity.
“Yeah,” Flora agreed, as Finley and Estelle both nodded. “Totally.”
Claire said, so softly that Honey almost didn’t catch it, “I… might not mind.”
That was something she’d have to look into later, but this wasn’t the time.
“Exactly. Different people would react in different ways, but for a lot of you, it would be awful. Not that there’s anything wrong with being a leopard or a kangaroo.
You might even be able to do some things better, like climbing trees or jumping.
But it wouldn’t feel like you . Not the you that you were used to being. ”
“I guess I can see how it would be weird to suddenly be a shifter, if you’ve been used to being a human,” Flora said slowly, as though working her way through a complicated logic puzzle. “Especially when you’re really, really old.”
“So that’s why Buck has PM…Q… R… uh, whatever?” Archie asked.
“I don’t know if he does or not. I’m not a doctor.
But what I do know is that it’s a very, very sensitive topic for Buck.
So I need you all to solemnly swear that you won’t ask him about his animal, or pester him about shifting.
” Honey held out her right hand, little finger crooked. “Pinky promise?”
One by one, each camper hooked his or her pinky around hers, as solemnly as if taking the witness stand.
“Honey,” Estelle said, when everyone had completed the pledge. “You’ve seen Buck’s animal. What’s it like?”
“Estelle!” Beth said. “You literally just swore not to ask!”
“I promised not to ask Buck,” Estelle said, thus proving that she had a brilliant career as either a lawyer or a politician ahead of her. “And I’m not. I’m asking Honey. Pleeeeeease, Honey? Just a hint?”
Her expression was so pleading, Honey had to relent. “Well, I can tell you that neither thunderhound or zapdog is a good name for him. He’s not at all like a dog.”
“What is he like?” Estelle asked.
“Huge. Powerful. Wild, and I don’t mean like an animal. More like a force of nature. Something that can’t be tamed or caged. Like a storm.” She smiled, feeling the rightness of the word. “A stormwolf. That’s what he is.”
Archie’s eyes were as big as saucers. “Does he really make lightning?”
“Oh yes. And thunder, too. When he flies, the whole sky goes dark. When he lands, the earth trembles. His teeth are like daggers and his eyes are bright as a lightning strike. And his belly…”
The campers all leaned in, hanging onto every word.
“His belly,” Honey whispered, “is very… very … floofy.”
“No part of my anatomy,” Buck said from twenty feet ahead, in a tone of mortal offense, “has ever been floofy.”
“You would not believe how floofy,” Honey told the kids. “I wanted to just bury my hands in there and give him scritchies.”
“If you’re quite done discussing my anatomy, some of us would like to get back to camp before Christmas.” Buck glared back at them over his shoulder. “Less yapping, more hiking!”
For the briefest instant, his eyes met Honey’s. His face was still set in his customary aggrieved scowl, but his lips moved, shaping a single, soundless word.
And Honey couldn’t be sure, but it looked a lot like he’d said: Thanks.