chapter Three
In the morning, they set out to find a new place to live, packing what few belongings they'd gotten from Arthur - secondhand clothes and books - into backpacks. They hitchhiked, moving east toward the coast, staying in a succession of small towns, never longer than a week in each. Lawson felt safer near the woods, so they shied away from the big cities. As the temperature rose, they spent summer on the rocky beaches of Maine, and when fall came, they began to move west. There was still no sign of the hounds, and in December they were back where they had begun, back in Hunting Valley, and they paid Arthur a short visit. The traveling had done them good. They passed for real humans and he was glad to see them looking well. They decided to stay in town, where he would be close by.
They found an abandoned house at the edge of the city, dilapidated and reeking of mildew but with several small bedrooms. It was located at the end of a broad culde-sac among several other houses that also seemed abandoned; despite the mildew it was in a newer development, the investors of which had apparently gone bankrupt before they'd even finished paving the streets. Many of the houses were half-built, slabs of concrete with pipes reaching upward, waiting for plumbing that would never be installed, for wood frames that would never be hammered into place. They planned to stay for a week at most, then move on, just as they had been.
Arthur had given them some money, so Tala took Malcolm to the store to buy groceries while the rest of the boys wandered off to look for jobs. Lawson got lucky right away. Since they'd been on their own, he'd learned the best way to find work was to hang around the parking lots of big-box stores where other unemployed men gathered, and quickly got himself hired as part of a ground crew. He spent the day clearing out someone's yard and was paid fifty bucks for his trouble.
A fortune to them.
He came home that night and handed Tala a small cardboard box. "For you."
"What is it?" she asked, opening the lid and looking inside.
"I saw someone order them. They looked good." He had watched, in front of the town bakery, as people pointed toward bread loaves and mouthwatering pastries, leaving the store with delicacies that smelled so delicious it almost drove him insane.
Tala picked up the pastry and bit into it.
"I think it's called a cream puff," he said.
She laughed at the joy of it. A tiny circle of cream dotted her nose.
Lawson quickly kissed it off her nose, then grinned. "I love you," he said abruptly.
"What did you say?"
He was surprised. He hadn't realized he'd spoken aloud, but her laughter had awoken something in him. He felt, for the first time, that they would make it after all. The year was almost over, and they were still aboveground, still safe. Edon would learn to forgive him, and Malcolm, who seemed weakened by his transformation, would grow stronger. The youngest boy's transition to life aboveground had not been an easy one, and Lawson worried that he had never fully crossed over, that when they'd made the break, Malcolm was too weak to undergo the change, and that part of his soul still remained back there. The youngest boy was always ill; his nose was always running; his back hurt; his eyes were dry.
Lawson had many worries: the biggest was the plight of the rest of the wolves in the underworld. Marrok would take care of them, he hoped. Since the five of them had returned to Hunting Valley, Lawson kept going back to check, visiting the place where they had landed when they first crossed from the underworld, but so far, no one had appeared in the glen. No other free wolves. Perhaps their plan had failed.
He didn't know if he loved Tala because of who she was or because she made him feel hopeful and made him forget. But he'd said it. I love you.
"Never mind." He shrugged.
She looked embarrassed for him.
But it was true. He loved her. He loved Tala and he wanted her to know it.
She said nothing more to him that day. She continued to eat the cream puff with a serious expression on her face, and then they went inside and she made them dinner, asking them gently to eat with the forks and knives as Arthur had taught them. The past year, Tala had been the linchpin of the family, holding them all together. Maybe that was confusing him; maybe his feelings stemmed from her being crucial to their survival. In a way, he was glad she hadn't responded. Now he had some time to think about how he truly felt.
The pack settled into a routine. Lawson, Edon, and Rafe went to the big-box store early in the morning to pick up whatever odd jobs they could. Tala and Malcolm worked at home - Tala was in charge of housework and cooking, and Malcolm studied the books Arthur had given them to try to understand the extent and limitations of their power in this new world. Wolves were not immortal - they had not been bestowed with that gift - but they were long-lived and fast-healing and infinitely stronger than mortal men. They surprised construction crews with their ability to lift heavy objects; bags of cement that the men used to haul in wheelbarrows, Lawson, Edon, and Rafe tossed to each other like beanbags.
Every night Lawson would come home to find a mouthwatering concoction simmering on the stove while Malcolm talked excitedly about what he'd learned that day. The youngest spent most of his time working on a spell called the dogwood defense, one that he had read would protect the house from the hellhounds.
"We're hardly wizards," Edon would say, but then he'd ruffle Malcolm's hair. He seemed to be less angry; sometimes he even spoke directly to Lawson, though never about anything significant. Most of the time it was to ask him to pass the salt at the dinner table. Lawson accepted that, hoped his brother would come around soon. He was tired of feeling guilty; besides, like he'd told Edon, he'd left the portal open for any others to cross over, and he meant to return if that didn't work, and when he did, he would bring all the wolves out of Hell with him.
Lawson wasn't sure if Tala was avoiding him, but they never seemed to be alone together. It was fine for now, because he had grown embarrassed about sharing his feelings for her. After all, if she felt the same way, wouldn't she say something? He tried to put her out of his mind, but every day there she was, with her shy smile, wearing her worn T-shirts that just skimmed her flat stomach, her faded jeans clinging to her slim figure, dark roots starting to show through her bright pink hair.
After a couple of weeks Malcolm decided he understood the spell well enough to attempt it. "I'm going to need everyone's help, though," he warned. He assigned everyone tasks: Edon was to carve the runes into the front door, Rafe was to gather the necessary herbs for the mixture, and Tala and Lawson would smear them around the house, making sure to leave no gaps.
Ringing the house with the herbal mixture Malcolm had created was painstaking work, much more so than Lawson had anticipated. They started on a night when he'd come home from work early. The sun was just starting to set, and the glowing pink matched Tala's hair. Lawson held an enormous vat of the foul-smelling, steaming stuff while Tala scooped it out and spread it on the ground. They worked in silence for what felt like hours before Tala announced that she needed a break.
"Sure," Lawson said. "Should we take a walk, stretch our legs a bit?"
"That sounds good. I could use a few minutes away from that smell."
They wandered away from the house, walking a few blocks in the twilight darkness without speaking. The air was cool, the sky clear. Lawson's hand brushed against hers a few times, but she didn't pull away. They hadn't been this close since the day she'd dyed her hair so long ago. There hadn't been a lot of opportunity to be alone on the run. Finally, he couldn't bear it, and he grabbed her hand and pulled her close to him. It was natural, instant; she fell into his arms and his lips were on hers. He barely had time to worry about whether she would respond before she started kissing him back. She tasted of bubble gum, sweet and soft.
She pulled away for a moment. She looked into his eyes in the darkness. "Do you remember what you said to me, a couple of weeks ago?"
"How could I possibly forget?"
"Did you mean it?"
Lawson stroked her cheek. "How could I not?"
"Well, I love you too," she whispered.
He grinned. "Of course you do." Feigning arrogance, but what he really felt was relief. And happiness.
Tala laughed. "Don't get cocky."
"Shut up and kiss me again," he said, running his hands under her jacket and layers of thin T-shirts, wanting to feel her skin on his, wanting to get even closer than they were.
She kissed him back for what seemed too short a time, then pulled away again. "Come on, we need to get back. We have to make sure the house is protected."
So they trudged back to the house and the dogwood spell. Lawson hoped Tala was paying close attention to the task at hand, because he couldn't concentrate on anything but this new feeling, this complete joy he'd never felt before. He hoped it never went away.