“There’s more,” she said. “Duskburst doesn’t seed naturally. It requires specific soil conditions and doesn’t spread on its own. But it turns up in unexpected places throughout recorded wolf pack history, often near sites of significance. My grandmother found this botanically interesting.” She said the last part with a slight smile, the kind that suggested she knew exactly how interesting her grandmother found it.
Victoria folded the letter and set it on the worktable with the same care she gave everything else.
Rising, I went over to Acorn’s basket, nudging his soft, warm body gently to the side to expose the duskburst sprigs I’d seen there the other day. Small purple flowers with delicate stems that were struggling to grow at the seal sites. The same place where my father may have performed ceremonies and where my pack members had lost their ability to shift.
Boundary rites. Territorial memory. Sites of significance.
The bones of the pack.
“Are you going to reply?” I asked.
Victoria picked up her pen and pulled out fresh paper. “I’ll tell her what I’ve discovered at the seal sites and ask if she believes there could be a ceremonial connection. I’ll also ask her if she thinks this could be related to the shifting problem.” She started writing. “I’ll also ask her what the boundary rites were actually for.”
I nodded. Restless energy moved through me, and I felt like I needed to act. To do something with all of this.
But I didn’t leave the office.
I picked up a duskburst sprig from Acorn’s basket and examined the flowers. After setting it back carefully, I stepped back.
Acorn chittered.
Victoria paused in her writing.
“He said wolves who remove boxes from shelves and gather flowers aren’t fooling squirrels of woodland powers,” she said.
I struggled not to smile at his wit.
He gazed at me with black eyes that seemed to know entirely too much.
“Tell him I’m not trying to fool anyone,” I said.
Acorn’s response was a dismissive flick of his tail.
I turned back to Victoria, who was watching me with an expression I couldn’t read.
“I need to do something about this,” I said. “I’ve thought of sending Kirk north. He could track Bastian’s movements quietly. See if his pack is experiencing the same problems.”
Victoria nodded.
“And Victoria? Don’t go back to the creek alone.”
Her eyebrows rose. The request hung between us.
“I’ll tell you first,” she said.
It wasn’t a promise that she wouldn’t go or a concession to my authority. Just an acknowledgment that she’d give me the choice to come with her. It was more than I’d expected.
I nodded and left before I did something like tell her what this meant to me. Before I crossed the room and pulled her against me the way I’d wanted to all morning. I was determined not to make this into something more complicated than it already was.
She returned to her letter.
I walked across the room.
The office had two people’s work spread across its surfaces now. Victoria’s notebooks and plant samples. My father’s journal and my mother’s desk and the wooden wolf I’d carved when I was ten.
It didn’t feel like a tomb anymore.
It felt like it was waking up.
