I found myself blinking at her, then asking, “Are you related to Naomi?”
“She’s my aunt, but I’ve never met her because you all were kidnapped before I could,” the girl answered. “Hi, I’m Dorie.”
That meant the other voice had to belong to Leora, the oldest Hamilton sister, who was wolf-mated and sent away from St. Ailbe with a male from another Wölfennite community when Naomi and I were around Dorie’s age.
“I’m Sadie.”
“I know,” she answered with a proud smile. “I smelled your bed when my maem and I went to get Aunt Naomi’s things from theExchange House. And you’re all we’ve been talking about since you came back.”
I glanced ruefully at the reinforced chains I’d tried but failed to break free from. “I wish we were meeting under better circumstances.”
“Me, too,” Dorie answered with the sincerity of a child. “You’re very interesting.”
She stared at me for a beat with wide-eyed wonder. Then she asked, “Will you tell us where my aunt is? And the other Wölfennite Brides? My da is in Ireland, looking for them now. I miss him, and I really want him to come back.”
My steely resolve didn’t waver, but a flutter of guilt went off in my chest. Dorie looked a lot like how my children with the three Irish Bear Kings would. And I could already imagine them missing their fathers when they took trips.
But…
“I’m sorry. Like I told your king, any brides who want to come back will be returned in the spring. You just have to be patient.”
Dorie let out a sad little breath. “I don’t think they can be.”
“Dorie, girl, what did I tell you about not coming in here?”
My mother’s sharp voice in the doorway made the little girl jump.
“Oh, I was just… just…” I didn’t want to accuse this child of being a terrible liar, but she looked just about everywhere before awkwardly and obviously going over to the bookshelf. “Getting my math book! For school!”
“Mmm-hmm.” My mother gave her an up-and-down look and sucked on her teeth. “Well, the breakfast casserole I made is out of the oven. Better get down there before that bottomless stomach you call a grandfather eats it all.”
“Yay! I love your breakfast casserole! It’s even better than Maem’s!” Dorie cheered.
To my shock, she threw her arms around my mother’s shoulders. “Thank you, Granni!”
“I’m not your grandmother, child. When you asked what people from Jamaica call their grandparents, I was only giving you information. We’ve been over this.”
“That’s what Senair used to say,” Dorie answered with a wide grin, flashing her little but sharp canines.
“The audacity of you. I swear, I’ve got a shoe with your name written across the bottom of it!”
Nonetheless, Claudine gave the girl a squeeze back and even placed a kiss on top of her head. “Now get. I’m not about the habit of letting food go cold because little girls want to be disobeying.”
“Okay, see you downstairs!” Dorie said with a happy chirp before dashing out of the room.
It was like watching a rattlesnake be nice to a baby chick. I had no idea how to process what I’d just seen.
“Don’t look at me like that,” Claudine said, her voice going from affectionate to testy. “These are kind, decent people, and they’ve been letting me stay here. Cooking for them is the least I can do.”
I stopped looking at her like that, but only so I could ask, “Do they know you’re a bear, or do you plan to keep lying to them like you did to me all my life, too?”
“So, you’re talking to me now. You done with all the bad eye?”
I didn’t answer because I doubted I’d ever be done with that.
And eventually, Claudine admitted, “They know. That son of Hamish’s had it all figured out by the time I came here looking for you.”
She shifted from foot to foot. “And I wasn’t lying. I wasprotecting. Everything I did was to protect you.”
