‘What would a lone wolf want with me?’ I asked, every living thing in the garden shuddering as one, Wyn included.
‘There’s only one way you can return to a pack after exile,’ he replied hesitantly.
‘And that is?’
‘Present a still beating heart of a wolf killer to the pack leader.’
The garden fell silent and he looked at me with more fear in his eyes than I had ever seen before.
‘A wolf killer like me,’ I replied, my voice as light as air. ‘Who’s your pack leader?’
Wyn swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down in his throat as he turned his head away from me.
‘My mom.’
He placed his phone down on the table, the photo of a strangely familiar woman filling the screen with the word ‘mom’underneath. He wasn’t the only one of us who was afraid. On his phone, she wore a purple smock and a smile. In my vision, she wore grey. Wyn’s mother was one of the strangers I had seen in my vision.
‘And what does the pack leader do with the beating heart of a wolf killer?’ I asked, my words dancing away on the air like dandelion seeds.
Wyn looked at me as though I was about to be snatched away right in front of him, tears in his eyes and his voice rough-hewn as it scratched out the back of his throat.
‘She eats it,’ he answered. ‘The pack leader has to eat the heart.’
Chapter Nineteen
‘Relax,’ Ashley said. ‘From what I hear, most people have difficult relationships with their in-laws.’
I stared at my aunt as she took a huge lick of her ice cream cone.
‘Yeah, about where you’ll spend the holidays or whether or not they’re spoiling the grandkids. Not whether or not they’re going to eat your heart to make up for killing your boyfriend’s brother.’
She took another bite and licked her lips.
‘When they’re eating the hearts of their enemies, are they in human form or wolf form?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Do you think they’d cook it or eat it raw?’
‘Ashley!’
‘What?!’ She rolled her eyes, a picture of innocence. ‘I’m only wondering.’
‘Could you wonder about something that doesn’t involve me having my internal organs ripped out?’ I suggested.
‘Well, pardon me for having an inquisitive mind.’
She went back to attacking her ice cream, the two of us sideby side on an old wooden bench in Oglethorpe Square. Hours after Wyn left to check in with his family, Ashley found me still sitting in the garden and insisted on dragging me out of the house, more or less literally, but not even the promise of early-evening Leopold’s ice cream could brighten my mood. Pointing at the regency-style mansion with what was left of her ice cream cone, she nudged my arm with her elbow.
‘You ever see any ghosts over there?’
‘No,’ I replied, focusing on the pretty buttermilk yellow stone home. ‘And from what Jackson told me about that place, I don’t know if I want to see any.’
‘If you’re trying to avoid houses that kept enslaved people, you’ll have to walk around the whole city with your eyes closed,’ Ashley replied. ‘It might not be a pretty part of our history, but it’s very real.’
I kicked my legs back and forth, scraping the toes of my sneakers against the dry ground. ‘What I don’t understand is how the founders banned slavery in Savannah but as soon as their backs were turned, it was happening. Surely everyone must’ve known it was wrong or it wouldn’t have been outlawed in the first place?’
‘You sweet summer child,’ Ashley said with a sigh. ‘You’re forgetting that there have always been two kinds of people who take charge. Good people who want to change the world for the better and shitty people who are only looking out for themselves. The shitty people make the biggest threats and they’re not afraid to play dirty. Most people just want an easy life. You’ve got to be real brave to stand up against a bully, even when you know what they’re doing is completely wrong.’
