“How are we understanding you?” I asked.
He threw what he had into the fire. “Breathe deep.”
We looked at one another, and Roscoe nodded, taking in a deep snort through his nose as smoke filled the cavern. Each of us joined in, and the vibrant colors of the high returned, but different this time. The fire shifted to a pale blue before taking on the shape of a familiar scene. A younger Roscoe slid a wad of money across the table toward a bewildered Darryl.
“This small act of selflessness changed everything.” The elder sprinkled more of the dust over the fire, and the scenes shifted. Older Darryl stood proudly on the beach, folding his arms as he smiled and gazed out over the water. “If you had not given young Darryl his chance”—the scene shifted to a large werewolf sitting slumped over on a street corner, unconscious—“he would have gone down a familiar path. And you, Roscoe…” The fireshowed the older werewolf lying under a tree eerily still, empty pill bottles scattered around. “This was to be your fate on the day you should have met Cody.”
Seeing him lying lifeless and alone like that was too much. I looked away. The visions of his past alone had been painful enough. I squeezed Roscoe’s hand, and he looked down at me with an unfazed grin. Even seeing himself like that didn’t do much to dampen him.
“I guess you saved me, Cody.”
“He did, and had you not started a new path, such tragedies would have befallen all of you.”
The fire roared as Adam gasped for air, trying to swim. Inevitably, though, he was dragged under the rough waters where his eyes remained locked in terror as he took a final desperate gasp of sea water.
“Darryl wasn’t there to breathe life back into you, and neither was the one who pulled you from the water.” The elder blew another handful of herbs onto the fire. The flames lapped violently as more smoke filled the cave. A hazy vision appeared of Austin falling into a fit of traumatic rage while running toward three police officers, each firing several rounds into the werewolf. He would make quick work of the humans before coming to his senses, clutching the lifeless body of a young woman in uniform while sobbing and rocking her back and forth.
“Why am I here?” he cried, looking down at the gun that had fallen to the asphalt. He held it to his head, and with a deafening crack, the flames grew brighter.
“Adam wasn’t around to pull you off the streets. Every day, the sounds of the city, and the stress of being alone and uncared for ate away at your already fragile state of mind.”
The fire turned a darker sapphire, and there I was a half-turn, wandering a cold facility in a drugged-up stupor. My bodydragged itself like a husk along the halls until I passed beveled, silver lettering that read Stonebrook—the facility where the most desperate half-turns ended up. The vision shifted again to a mangy brown werewolf sitting at the same bus stop where I had found Roscoe, his fur matted and sticky with flies gathering on damp, bloody spots. His stare was empty and defeated, and he didn’t seem to pay any attention to the humans walking by, eyeing him with disgust. He didn’t beg or speak—he just stared at nothing.
“Without Roscoe to pull you from this life, the moment you realized that all the debt and hard work meant nothing, you fell into despair believing you were worth nothing. Why try to live a good life when there is no good in the world? Why go on with no one to care?”
The vision suddenly turned into a violent whirlwind of flames, startling the elder as I reappeared in a windowless building, my eyes blank and white, a shadowy figure approaching. The white smoke from the fire cycled upward before the vision evaporated into nothing.
“That was something I did not expect,” he said, holding up his hand. The drums outside fell silent, and the fire dimmed to a softer orange.
The elder might not have known what was happening in that vision, but I did. I’d seen it happen to Roscoe’s pack, and to a young Mosavi. The huge werewolf’s silver stare lingered on me for a moment before turning back to the others.
“Amazing, is it not?” he continued. “Had that one event not occurred all those years ago, none of you would have found the right path. We never know in the present the lives we touch, each of us nudging ourselves and others along fate’s narrow paths. It was not merely coincidence. You were all meant to find one another.”
A younger feral wandered into the cave holding three packages of Little Debbie snacks, with one torn open. He smacked loudly before sitting on a makeshift pallet of leaves and straw.
“Ooo!” Roscoe jumped up and walked over to the feral, his ears off to the sides. “Forgot we brought these. I’ll take that Christmas tree one—”
The feral snarled, turning his back to Roscoe and cramming more of the cakes into his mouth like a starving dog.
“Aw, come on, guy. I haven’t eaten in days.”
“You have only been here a few hours,” the elder said with a deep, throaty laugh. “You should begin your journey home while the sun is still high. With Samhain passed, the witches are weak, but they can still be dangerous the closer to midnight it is.”
“Thank you,” I said, standing to meet the huge elder next to the fire. I held out my hand, and his hands engulfed mine, a small, smooth stone pressing into my palm.
“You and your pack did all the work. All I did was observe. Take this to your elder and tell him to meet me on the solstice. I have been watching over him for years, and he may need real Whasha guidance as you all did. And perhaps, I would need him.”
Austin
We didn’t talk much on the way back home, and we didn’t say anything before going to sleep. What could we say that hadn’t been said already? Part of me wanted to know what Cody and Roscoe had experienced, but I’d seen enough sadness for alifetime. Awful things might have happened to me, but everyone was struggling with their own demons, even Adam.
I would have loved to say I was cured, but even with this weird werewolf magic, ya can’t snap a finger and make over a decade of hurt disappear. The elder pulled me aside before we left, and I knew what he would ask. It was something I’d given careful consideration.
“If it meant forgetting those you loved and lost, would you abandon those memories for a cure?”
Knowing he could erase my past was a relief, but that was the coward’s way out. I’d forget my mom, my little brother, my grandma…
I grabbed the dog tags jingling together against my chest fur.
