“She found her ‘faith,’” Olivia said, making quotations in the air with her fingers.

“No,” I said. “She lost it. Her faith in us, I mean.”

“What?”

“Nancy will be better off without feeling indebted to us for something even as small as a twice-yearly meal.” Hell, so would I.

I was ready to let go of my past, of the friends I had grown up with and knew well. I was ready to embrace the future alone, because they could not go where I had to go. They’d let various fears fence them inside their comfort zones. Not a bad thing, but a limiting thing. I wasn’t that different, really.

I guessed I’d just grown up enough to know when to let go.

I said, “I gotta go.”

“You gonna be next?” Olivia asked, her tone accusing. Betsy peered at me curiously.

“To walk Nancy’s path?” I laughed softly. “No. I’m in for a different kind of trial by fire.”

“Oh? Have another coffee. Do tell.”

My leg started bouncing impatiently. “No, Olivia.” Give her nuggets of information and she’d chew them up and spit them out like high-powered bullets, wounding me. “I have to go.” I pushed my chair back.

“No, you don’t. You’re rejecting us like Nance did.”

“Did you ever think that maybe you’ve got it backwards, Olivia? Maybe Nancy kept coming back because she didn’t reject you. She just wanted to share something with you that gave her great peace. And isn’t that what friends should do? You, however, wouldn’t let her breathe without making a snide comment to her. Maybe things could have been different if you hadn’t pushed so damn hard. If you ask me, you rejected her.”

“Well, I didn’t ask you.”

In high school, kids become friends because they have the same classes or ride the same bus. Because they like the same band or they play a sport together. The four of us had become friends because no other cliques would have us. “What we knew of one another stopped being relevant years ago,” I said. “We’ve all changed. Our brunches are like strolls in the past. Nice, but meaningful only to us.” I paused, looked at Betsy, then looked back to Olivia. “Somehow, I know you two will still be hanging out a decade from now, retelling stories about the same stupid things we did at prom or at the homecoming game. And it won’t matter. Your future is being halted, dragged back toward a false glory in the past. You’re using Betsy to uphold the importance of it. Neither of you has any goals anymore. Opportunities stagnate around you. And I’m glad it’s not me.” At least the wæres in my life all seemed to be progressing in a positive manner, despite their lunar affliction.

I opened my purse as I stood. I tossed down a hundred-dollar bill like I did it all the time. Olivia’s eyes almost bugged out of her head. “This last brunch is on me. Have a nice life, ladies. And don’t call me.”

With the bridge to my old life in flames, I left.

Chapter 11

Since Beverley didn’t visit anymore, my TV was used only for news and weather. With all the people in my house, however, a little entertainment seemed wise. So, before leaving Columbus, I dared the traffic nightmare known as Polaris Parkway. In the DVD section of the Best Buy, I tried to decide on some titles. After the breakup with my high school sisters, I was not in the mood for a chick flick and picked up a handful of action movies in utter defiance of emotional mushy stuff. I steered clear of monster flicks for the obvious reasons and headed for the checkout. As I waited, however, the screens in the television section caught my attention. It was a local newsbreak between shows, and as they showed clips of the upcoming news for the night, there was Beverley’s face. She was crying “No, no, no…” and shaking her head. It was like footage shot yesterday at school.

Where the hell was Vivian? Why wasn’t she protecting Beverley from this? Why was Beverley even at school?

In the Avalon, with my purchases in the passenger seat, I stopped at the next gas station and pulled up to the phone. I didn’t have enough coins, so I had to run in and buy a can of Pepsi and get change.

“Hello?”

“Vivian, it’s Persephone Alcmedi.”

“Miss Alcmedi,” she said. “Have you completed your work already?”

“We have to talk.”

“I’ll take that as a ‘no.’”

“Where’s Beverley?”

“Asleep. Thank the Goddess. I couldn’t take one more minute of her incessant crying.”

“She’s mourning!”

“Of course she is. But she doesn’t have to do it so loudly.”

Bitch. “She was on the news.”

“Okay.”

“Okay? That’s all you have to say? It looked like reporters were mobbing her!”

“Her mother was killed. Of course they want her on camera. It makes people tune in.”

“Vivian,” I said through gritted teeth.

“Oh I get it! You’re calling to give me parental advice! How many pups have you squeezed out for your pack friends? That’s right. None.”

All the way to the gas station I’d thought about how to say what needed saying without being judgmentally “you should this” and “you should that.”

“Ignoring her won’t work,” I said bitterly. “Grief doesn’t just go away after a certain amount of tears have been shed. She needs help. Being her guardian obligates you to see that she gets it. And letting reporters mob her at school isn’t going to cut it.”

“You’re so responsible, Miss Alcmedi. What with all your commendable hobbies, column-writing, kenneling, killing. This is just one little girl. I think I’ll manage.”

“It doesn’t look like it.”

“Looks can be deceiving.”

“I know Beverley. And I know grief.”

“Thank you for your advice. If that’s all—”

“It’s not. You didn’t tell me my mark was a vampire.”

Vivian laughed condescendingly. “Goddess, you are a novice if you think I’d offer you two hundred thousand for a mortal.”

“You could have warned me. I had someone gather background info for me and that person nearly paid for it with her life.” Vivian didn’t need all the details.

“That’s so sad. You don’t even know how to do your own work and friends are paying for it. You must feel awful.”

Why had I agreed to help this bitch?

“I clearly made a mistake in hiring you,” Vivian whispered. “I realize that now. You can back out of our deal, Miss Alcmedi. Because I, too, have erred; I will allow it. Just return the cash—”

“Shut up.” She was pissing me off. And I didn’t want to talk about the cash because I’d spent a tenth of it on Theo, who was out a vehicle as well. Not that she’d be driving any time soon, but I owed her. “I’m calling because of Beverley. I told you I’d be watching you. Now I’m telling you: you’re fucking up. If you like, you may think of me as Social Services, without laws to restrain me…but then, you know how loose my interpretation of the Rede is.”

“Don’t threaten me, Miss Alcmedi.” There was a thin thread of fear in her tone.

“Then do the right thing by that child and don’t give me cause to feel another face-to-face meeting is in order.”

“Nana, are you even listening to me?”

She sat in her rocking chair and listened to my brief description of what I had said to Vivian about Beverley. Her rocking never sped up or slowed, and her attention remained focused on the wooden hoops that had locked together the fabrics of the quilt she was sewing. Though I’d closed the door behind me, lest the wæres hear and ask questions I didn’t want to answer, I was now unsure she even knew I’d come in. Could her hearing have gone that fast?

“What business is that of yours?”

I rose from her bed and paced. I didn’t want Nana to know details. “I saw Beverley bombarded by reporters on the news. Vivian’s not helping that little girl, and she needed a wake-up call.”

“Again, what business is that of yours?”