And that set the tenor of the rest of the weekend. Wendy set up her laptop—and when Alejo checked next, she had fallen into her typing with the same absorption that characterized Sam when he worked on his drawings.
Content to see her content, Alejo flew down to Wendy’s house, where a small crew of construction workers, recommended by Joey Hu, had begun bringing supplies from the flatbeds of their trucks.
The fog meant that Alejo did not have to concentrate on stealthing as he flew, scanning on the mental plane as far as he could reach. He sensed nothing active, but something was out there waiting. He shifted as he landed, becoming visible between one breath and another.
Julio, one of the construction people, only blinked, then gave Alejo a short nod. A bloodhound shifter, Julio said quietly, “Nothing on the wind.”
“Good,” Alejo said. “Thanks.”
He hadn’t sensed anyone from the little community, either. It was as if they had gone into total hibernation. He took a look around, then pulled on his gloves, set up his ladder, and got to work.
Today they were laying the beams for the upstairs. Alejo had prepped everything as far as he could over the past days, so the work would go swiftly. Julio and his team all knew what they were doing; by the time the sun dipped toward the sea, they had a complete framework in place.
Everyone dispersed for home, and when Alejo reached the house, he was in time to see Wendy pulling a savory chicken pie from the oven, juices bubbling through the golden-brown crust over the top.
“How did you know?” he asked, a cavern of hunger yawning inside him. “You are so wonderful.”
Wendy flicked him a smile, but there was still a hint of question in her eyes. “I felt you finishing up…” She made a gesture toward her damp forehead, where a strand of hair stuck.
He gently lifted it with a finger, and addressed the question she hadn’t asked, “You are always welcome to listen for me. Always.” He kissed her, then murmured, “I’ll grab a shower now, while that dinner cools off. Otherwise I’m afraid I’ll attack it now, burns and all.”
The next day was pretty much a repeat, except that the morning flight revealed both a clear sky, and nothing watching in the distance.
After breakfast, Alejo said to Sam, “We have something to do, don’t we?”
Sam’s face lit up. “Yes!”
His smile stayed bright with anticipation until he scrambled down to the beach, while Alejo shifted. Then Sam looked a little uncertainly from the two-story-tall serpent to the sky and back.
Alejo shifted back, and said, “Remember, Sam, I won’t let you fall,” he said.
Then he was a serpent again. Sam climbed trustingly onto his back. Oriane had come too, and shifted as well. Usually Alejo leaped into the air, catapulting himself skyward with mighty beats of his wings, but he did not want to scare Sam, and so he walked a couple steps on the beach, wings outstretched, and glided gently up and over the house’s roof, then stealthed until they flew far out to sea.
Sam’s fingers tightened on Alejo’s tawny scales, but he wasn’t crying or shouting to stop. Alejo kept things easy, soaring out over the blue-green waters, until he felt Sam relaxing, then he began some easy swoops and dives, laughing inwardly at Sam’s shrieks of delight.
Oriane darted around them, testing her wings by performing rolls and loops. Sam called out, “Wow, that was a good one!” and “Do another!” which kept Oriane at it until she began to tire.
Alejo kept scanning—he encountered Mikhail Long, in fact, high in the sky, alert and watching. That gave him the confidence to keep flying until some clouds drifted over the sun, and the ocean breeze began to take on a chill, and though Sam didn’t seem to notice, Alejo felt him shiver a bit, and so he stealthed again and soared in for a landing. Oriane landed nearby, and scampered back to the house.
Sam repeated his thanks several times, then as they reached the garden, he looked earnestly up at Alejo. “Why won’t Squeak and Ratty come out? Is it because Oriane came?”
“No, I don’t believe so,” Alejo said. “I think that happened before Oriane came.”
“Oh,” Sam said. “But I wish they would come out.”
“They don’t like bullies. I don’t, either. My teacher doesn’t let anybody be bullies at school,” Sam observed. “But no one tells grownups not to be a bully, and they don’t have to go in the quiet room.”
“Maybe they should,” Alejo joked—and then said in haste, lest Sam take that too literally, “Look, Sam, I don’t know who, or what, is preventing your friends from appearing. It might even be something they do.”
“But they have never been gone so long before.”
‘That you know. Granny Godiva has been putting the feeding stations out since your mom was little, right?”
“But that was for regular squirrels,” Sam said, looking near tears. “Maybe I did something wrong? Because I’m just a human, not a shifter?”
“That’s scared thinking,” Alejo said.
“Scared thinking?”
