Before the sun lit the sky, I was up and pacing the room, impatient to see Charlene again. Not just to see her, but to see her smile. I needed her to be happy here. To want to stay.
Yesterday, we’d done everything she’d asked. I’d thought she’d liked our efforts. Why hadn’t she had a good day?
Want to go for a run? Grey sent me.
I stopped pacing and focused on trying to calm myself. He could probably feel my agitation. It wasn’t a pack thing but a brother thing. He always seemed to know.
Meet you outside, I sent back.
I left the room and made my way down the stairs. The things filling the main room still made me shake my head. It seemed more had been added overnight and, to me, it all looked useless.
When I stepped outside, Grey was already there waiting. He didn’t say anything as I joined him and started toward the trees. In the shadows of their tall trunks, we stripped out of our clothes and shifted. I shook out my fur and exhaled in relief, feeling more like myself than I had in a long while.
Thank you.
Any time.
He took off, and I raced to keep up with him. We wove through the woods, crossing scent trails that overlapped in the area closest to the building. The further we ran, the more infrequent those trails became. Ahead, the lake shimmered in the moonlight. I didn’t slow. Running full speed, I jumped off the bank and shifted as I sailed in the air, landing with a splash.
Grey was standing on the bank, grinning at me when I surfaced.
“Don’t forget to let your wolf out,” he said. “Even if we start living in buildings, we’re too wild to ignore the call of the trees for too long.”
“That wasn’t my problem.” I started toward shore.
“What then?”
I pulled myself from the water, shook the water from my hair, then sat on the grass.
“It’s her. Yesterday, we did everything she wanted, but when Mary came back and asked how the day went, she kept quiet.” I broke off a piece of grass and rolled it between my thumb and finger. “She smiled last night. When she saw that stove you brought back.” Exhaling heavily, I tossed the grass aside. “I want her to smile because of me.”
“She will. Be patient Thomas. She’s not leaving. Neither are you.”
Patient. Before coming here, I would have said I was patient. How many nights had we crouched in the shadows watching humans? Too many to count. I’d never felt as restless then as I did now.
“Let’s hunt then head back,” Grey said.
Shifting back to our fur, we hunted for game in the trees and marshes around the lake. Grey didn’t take the hunt too seriously, sniffing out first a badger then a squirrel. Once we’d both caught and consumed a pheasant, we headed back.
The run had helped clear my head enough to see that I did need more patience when it came to Charlene. I didn’t yet understand what she liked to know what would make her happy. Just like my run-ins with prior humans, I needed to take some time to learn Charlene.
Males were already moving around the yard when we returned. Bine had his ax ready and was watching two other males pull a tree from the woods.
“There’s a hare on the spit,” Henry said when he saw us. “Mary said that Charlene’s awake and coming down.”
We went inside just as Mary and Charlene entered the crowded main room. Charlene’s gaze drifted over all the random objects before she started to move around the room, slowly considering every piece. It would take a long time to sort through it all. Spending that much time with her, I was sure I’d figure out a way to make her happy today.
“Okay,” she said finally. “Let’s store the tools in the other building. Maybe take a table out there, too, so we can take stock of what tools we have.”
I opened the door and called to the males outside.
“Anyone willing to help?”
Several with nothing to do stepped into the room. I looked at Charlene, letting her tell them what she wanted. They would be quicker to help if the request came from her.
“Can you two start carrying the tools to the other building?” she said, pointing to two men toward the front of the group. “And you two carry a table over? Then maybe the four of you can organize the tools and tell us what we have?”
The four nodded and got to work.
“Can everyone else grab the furniture and move it out to the yard? The stove and the old refrigerator can stay in here.”
While we all worked together, I made sure to stay close to Charlene. I wanted her to start feeling safe around me.
Within minutes, the room was cleared of everything but the odd items and the bags. She and Mary sorted through some of the oddities and found several old window frames still with whole glass.
“If they don’t fit, I thought we could cut the glass to work in some of the windows here,” Mary said.
“Perfect,” Charlene said with a smile. “Anton could probably do that since he helped us before.”
The joy I felt at seeing her smile again died quickly at the sound of Anton’s name.
Mary shook her head. “He left yesterday. There was no point in staying. He already had his chance.”
“Then why is… never mind,” Charlene said with a quick glance at me.
Mary grinned. “I’ll see if someone else is willing to come in and help with that.”
“Before you do that, what’s in the bags?”
“Clothes,” Mary said.
“From the junkyard?”
“Yeah. Just as we were coming in, some church group was leaving. They had a sale and brought what didn’t sell along with some of the stuff they didn’t think was good enough to put out. We took the bags before they hit the gross stuff. Wini said that even if some of the items are stained, spare clothes are better than no clothes at all.”
How much clothing could a human possibly need, I wondered as I looked at the bags.
“Let’s carry these outside before we check out the furniture. Maybe someone will be willing to help us sort the clothes.”
Gregory and I did most of the carrying. Once they were outside, she explained how she wanted the clothing sorted. Male vs. female. Adult vs. child. As I listened, I realized the clothes weren’t for Charlene. They would be for any of our kind when they came to sanctuary. I doubted the female clothing would get much use beyond what Charlene and Mary would wear.
Once the willing males were working, Charlene started sorting through the furniture. Badly broken items were to be used as spare parts for mildly broken items. The repaired pieces were then passed to another table where they were painted. I moved things when needed but stayed close to Charlene and listened to her.
Charlene’s knowledge as she walked around answering questions, surprised me. What amazed me more was the way she had everyone working together.
When she and Mary went inside, Gregory, Grey and I followed. The room was once again empty, except for the stove, metal chest, and the three dressed rabbits on the table.
“Dad and Paul went hunting,” Mary said when Charlene looked at them.
“The rabbits are perfect. We should be able to make a stew for the group outside.”
Gregory and I shared a look while she moved to the pump. She wanted to cook for them? For us?
“Do you know how to get that stove working?” she asked Gregory.
“Winifred said it shouldn’t be too hard. We’ll need to set it near an outside wall. There’s a pipe that has to go from the back out of the wall so smoke doesn’t fill the room. Winifred thought she could walk us through it.”
“We’ve seen enough stoves to figure it out,” Grey said.
“Excuse me,” a voice called.
I turned and saw a Mated pair standing in the doorway. Seeing the heavily pregnant female shocked me. Females expecting cubs never came out. They stayed hidden in their dens because it wasn’t safe in the human world for them.
“We heard about the changes here,” the male said, meeting my gaze. “My Mate wants to stay until the cub is born if that’s all right.”
They wanted to stay here?
“Of course,” Charlene said, moving toward the couple. “My name is Charlene, and this is Mary.”
The man glanced at me again before looking at Charlene. I looked at her, too. She’d done this. The changes we’d all thought dangerous had brought an expecting Mated pair to sanctuary’s door.
“This is Ann, and I am Leif.”
“Mary, would you be willing to show Ann and Leif to one of the fixed rooms, and maybe Ann would like to pick a few things out from the stuff you brought back.”
News of this will spread, Gregory sent me.
It would. And as hopeful as this event was, I had no idea what that would mean for me and my chances of winning Charlene.
Mary happily chatted with Ann as the three left the room.
Charlene turned toward me.
“How long will it take to hook up that stove? Ann will probably want a hot bath, and that stove will make the job a lot easier.”
I could no longer challenge the way she took charge. Ann and Leif’s appearance had helped support Winifred’s theory. We needed Charlene.
“We need some kind of pipe to vent the smoke,” I said.
“Gregory, did you see any pipe at the junkyard?” she asked.
“We brought some back,” Grey said. “It should be around here somewhere.”
“See if you can find it and get the stove working. I’ll keep fixing lunch.”
Charlene’s motives confused me. I’d thought we were making this place better for her. Instead she was gathering clothes for more of my kind, worrying how to feed everyone over winter, and welcoming Mated pairs. I liked all of it, but I couldn’t figure out why she was doing any of it.
I watched her carry the pot to the fire then wrap the rabbits in a shirt. Her moves were focused and filled with purpose when she tossed the shirt wrapped carcasses into the water.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Making a broth for a stew base. My mom never used a shirt, but it should work the same and keep the little bones out of the stew while adding flavor.”
She turned to look at the rest of her supplies.
“This won’t be ready until closer to dinner. I don’t know what to feed everyone for lunch.”
I moved to her side and turned her away from the table.
“Charlene, we’ve fed ourselves our whole lives. You only need to worry about feeding yourself.”
Her eyebrows lifted.
“You need to stop thinking like that,” she said. “Each individual only thinking about themselves… it’s not helping. Winifred and Mary said your race is dying. Stop looking at your little groups as isolated families and start seeing the big picture. You all need to work together to find a way to survive. If you want to survive.”
She studied me a moment.
“Don’t you see?” she said with increasing frustration. “It’s not you who will suffer the most, but the generations after you if you don’t change your ways.” She turned back to the table. “I need to get something ready for Ann to eat.”
My fascination with her wasn’t just the pull anymore. It was Charlene. I’d never before met a human so…giving.
“Whether you know it or not, you were meant to come here,” I said. “We won’t change on our own. But maybe you will change us.”
I moved away to keep helping Grey and Gregory with the stove while watching her sort through the food.
Once the stove was ready, we lit a fire for her. Grey and I went outside to look for pots to hold the water she wanted to heat for Ann’s bath. While we were out there, I asked Henry if he and Paul could hunt again.
“They ate the rabbits?”
“No, Charlene is using them to cook dinner for everyone. She wants something to cook now for the expecting female.”
He was silent for a moment.
“My mate was like that. Caring about everyone. It’s how she died, Thomas. Keep an eye on Charlene and the new wolves who enter the camp.”