I shrugged. “Got lucky. But it’s not working any longer. At least it lasted for a bit.”
“Well, you’re a miracle worker,” Alexis said.
Not a miracle worker,I thought.
“I’ve got to get going,” I said, glancing at the clock. “It’s—”
“I know, I know.” Alexis flapped her hand dismissively. “See you tomorrow!”
***
I waited outside my car, basking in the fall sun as I stood on the sidewalk. Idling cars lined the road, everyone waiting for the same reason. I watched the large brick building, waiting for the front doors to open.
A bell rang. A minute later, the doors swung wide and a deluge of small children spilled out like a breaking dam, breaking out into mostly ones and twos as they raced toward their respective cars. My eyes snagged on a tiny girl with my features as she flounced out. She saw me and broke into a bright smile as I waved at her.
Grace hurried toward me, her auburn hair spilling out behind her.
“Hi, Mom!” she said as she stumbled to a halt, seconds before she would have barreled into me.
“Hi, sweetie,” I said, beaming down at my daughter. “Did you have a good day?”
Grace, the one good thing that came out of my time at Silver Falls. I hadn’t realized I was pregnant until a couple of weeks after I had left. I knew the second I started throwing up in the mornings who the father was. There had only ever been one option there.
No one else knew. Not Grace, not my parents, though they had demanded to know. When I refused to tell them, they threw me out. I hadn’t spoken to them since. And I didn’t regret it for a moment.
The evening went by as normal. I fixed Grace her snack, then let her eat as I did some chores. A couple of hours later, I fixed dinner, keeping an eye on Grace from the tiny kitchen as she played with some dolls on the living room floor. I wishedI had the funds to get her more toys. The ones she had were battered and well-loved, some barely holding together at this point.
I shoved those thoughts away as I finished the final preparations for dinner. Grace dropped her toys and scrambled to the table before I had even called to her.
“Hungry?” I teased.
“Starving,” Grace declared melodramatically.
Just as I put her food down in front of her, Grace’s face twisted in obvious discomfort. Her entire body shivered. Alarm rippled through me at the motion.
“Are you all right?” I asked, frowning as Grace grimaced. I tried to keep the alarm out of my voice.
“My arms and legs have been hurting lately,” she said. “They feel all prickly and tingly, and I’m not sure why.”
Apprehension crept up my skin as the words sank in. “Prickly and tingly, how?”
Grace shrugged. “I don’t know, sort of like they don’t fit right in my skin.” She wrinkled her nose. “Does that make sense?”
I did. And it was a lot more problematic than she realized.
I forced a smile on my face. “It’s just a part of growing up, sweetie. Don’t worry about it right now. But if it gets any worse, let me know.”
I turned away so she wouldn’t see the dread and unease on my face even as my fingers curled anxiously.
Grace didn’t know what this meant, but I did. They were the earliest signs of her first shift.
It didn’t make sense. She was too young. Most kids, if they could shift at all, had their first wolf transformation around ten, not before their sixth birthday. What made the whole thing worse was that I had no idea how to help her through this. I couldn’t shift. I’d never experienced the sensation Grace was describing.
For any other motherhood advice I had needed since Grace was born, I had been able to go online and look up information or ask a coworker. But shifters were a guarded secret, kept away from the general public. There weren’t any websites that I could access easily, and no one in Adobe Creek knew that the sleepy town of Silver Falls, not all that far away, was home to a pack of shifters.
I didn’t have a plan. I didn’t know what to do. I thought I had time. What the hell was I supposed to do here?
You could call her father, a voice in my head pointed out mildly.
