When I wake we’re still driving. I glance over at Jasper, who looks content behind the wheel, his eyes focused on the road, his finger tapping along to some slow song on the stereo. Outside I can’t see much. We’re on a long, thin road with no streetlights. I can just make out the dusty edge of the road and a bit of the natural surroundings: rocks and dry-looking plants, the occasional cactus.
“Almost there,” Jasper says.
“Sorry,” I say, smacking my dry lips. “I didn’t mean to drift off.”
“It’s okay. You must be tired. And we’re on holiday now so you can sleep as much as you like.”
“Music to my ears.”
Jasper leans forward as if trying to make out something in the distance. “The turnoff is ahead. Just a few more minutes.”
We finish the drive in silence. Jasper takes it slow as we leave what I guess was a highway and travel up a winding dusty path, the tires jumping on the bumpy road surface as we go. Eventually we come across some sort of oasis. Palms and large-leafed succulents are lit by moonlight, a rainforest seemingly sprung up in the middle of this desert. Jasper slows to a stop and parks the car. The headlights stream through the layer of foliage to shine on the caramel beams of a fence, the boundary of the property.
Stepping out, I feel the crunch of sand beneath my feet and warm, dry air on my face—a welcome relief after the hours of air-conditioning. The air out here smells and feels different from the air back home, sweeter almost: aloe and sand, pure, clean, uncomplicated. I throw my head back and breathe in deeply, then I spot the stars.
“Whoa.” I turn in a small circle as the Milky Way rotates over me. I’ve never seen a sky quite like this: so clear, the darkness deep and unending, but dotted by the most brilliant stars—so many they seem to twist and meld until they’re a river of light, swirling through the cosmos. For a moment I feel like I’ve closed my eyes and am reaching out with my blood-wolf senses, the sky and the stars the void of my mind and the souls of all of wolfkind.
“Pretty spectacular, isn’t it?” Jasper says, hoisting open the trunk and grabbing out the bags.
“It’s…ridiculous.”
Stretching out toward the inky darkness in every direction is a moonlit desert. There’s not another house or town or even a light source whichever way I turn. The horizon is dotted by the spiked limbs of desert plant life, the curved shoulders of large rock formations, and the jagged silhouettes of the smaller rocks that pepper the landscape.
Jasper sidles up next to me, watching me as I explore our new environment.
“The next house is over sixteen miles away. Out here it’s just us.”
“We’re really alone,” I say, closing my eyes and enjoying the quiet. The humming sensation at the back of my mind is gone, the pressure of wolf noise vanished and in its place stillness, calm, a cool balm on my tired consciousness. Then a pinprick pierces that calm.
I glance behind us to see the headlights of two other cars, wobbling their way along the rocky path. Our entourage of security guards. They stop about two hundred meters from us, flip their lights off, and switch off their engines. The purr of car motors dies away, leaving only the quiet of the night. I rub the side of my head where their presence made itself known.
Jasper must notice because he says, “I’ve asked them to keep their distance. Hopefully they won’t bug you too much.”
I shoot him a smile. “It’s fine. Better safe, right?”
“Sure. You want to see the house?”
“Can’t wait.”
Crunching footsteps in the dirt, I follow Jasper through a narrow gate, flanked on either side by large cacti with tear-shaped arms. Inside, a paved pathway lined by monstrously large aloe veras curves toward the house, an adobe cottage with smooth dusty-red walls, light wood finishings, and a low-corrugated-iron-roofed veranda with a rustic fence.
I stop on the path and take it in. Jasper stops as well.
“You like it?”
“It’s—not what I expected. It’s sort of quaint.”
“You were expecting one of those sleek, modernArchitectural Digestmansions?”
“Pretty much.”
“Are you disappointed?”
“No, this is perfect.”
Jasper was right, I had been expecting a wall of concrete, some complex feat of engineering, burnished metal, treated timber—a smooth, hard, modern piece of design that stood out amongst the landscape. This is a cottage, a humble casita: it blends in with the vistas surrounding it, like it belongs, like it’s been here forever.
“My mother found this place,” Jasper says. “Dad would probably have bought the first concrete slab house he saw but she…” He fades off wistfully, his eyes traveling over the wonky roof, the plants growing up the sides of the walls, the lopsided windows and natural finishings. “She wanted this place to feel homely—less like we were imposing on the land and more like we were being welcomed into it.”
