38 - A Season of Change

“Show me Harlan,” Evie told the meadow. What she had been viewing had been cut off, which had never happened before. The colors rippled then showed her Harlan as a child, playing in the woods with his cousin Cash, both of them shifted and running through the words. “Now, show me Harlan now. He’s at the farm with Burton. He just said no to asking Leilani to get my body. I want to see what is happening now.”

The colors strained. Pink all the way to a blood red, then black, then back again. Evie frowned. She’d never seen this. “Show me,” she whispered. “I have to see.”

The meadow shifted and the colors eddied and swirled, but then they focused and drew her down, down…

To Trevor’s farmhouse. But she’d lost time, how much she wasn’t sure. At least a day. Harlan had new clothes, he was in Trent’s room by Leilani’s body, but no, Evie wasn’t headed that way, the meadow was showing her something else in the house. Troy, agitated, pacing back and forth outside of a room on the far end of the house, where Remington had Track. This was the room where Remington had all his medical equipment stored, along with a tiny exam table. He was looking in Track’s ears, his eyes, palpating his chest, all the way down his body, to his tiny baby belly and under his arms.

“There are no structural abnormalities,” Remington was saying, but it was wavy, because Evie was irritated.

“Go to Harlan,” she said. “I want to see Harlan.”

The image wavered, but did not move. Remington still. “There are no structural abnormalities, but because of his genetics, I advise you to see a specialist. There are some Citlali in the Western States that are good with healing, we could call one in and see what he thinks.”

Troy chuffed once and barged into the room, snarling at Remington. Hm, interesting. Evie stopped trying to pull away. Right up to the exam table, Troy went, between Remington and Ella, using his nose to shove Track onto his belly, before Ella or Remington could react. Troy put his paws up on the table, leveraging himself to grab Track by the back of his neck, delicately, but firmly, then taking off across the room and out the door

Ella freaked, running after him. “Troy, we agreed, no scruff of the neck carrying, especially not as a human! Didn’t Trevor tell you!” Evie allowed herself a small smile. Poor Ella was having conniptions with the young and it was not going to get any better.

Troy was out though, right to his room. He carried Track in, who was laughing and giggling, and trying to grab ahold of Troy’s fur, jumped up onto the bed and curled up around Track, telling him in ruhi, It’s ok, Track, you're fine just the way you are. You don’t ever have to shift if you don’t want to. Track may have spoken back in ruhi, but Evie couldn’t catch it. Another baby snarl, maybe. Evie’s focus shifted back to Ella in the other room. She had called Trevor in and told him what had happened. Trevor was telling her to let them be, that Troy was right, she was making too much of it and that sometimes these things happened, you couldn’t rush them. Ella’s unspoken fear was very clear in her eyes. Trent and Troy would never shift, and Ella did not want to imagine Track as never being able to.

The picture blurred again, making Evie dizzy, and she caught a glimpse of Harlan, then a swoop that told her time was passing, too much time, too quickly. She focused, hard, not wanting to miss anything, wanting to see someone other than Harlan for the first time in decades. Troy, show me Troy.

He was asleep on his bed, a black wolf curled in a circle around a pudgy human baby, also sleeping. Evie stared at the two males, one young one not, one human, one not, one large, one not, and wondered for the first time if she had any influence from the meadow. She’d always considered herself just an observer, but maybe she’d always had it wrong. Maybe what she was actually supposed to be doing was more… steering. “Rhen,” she said aloud to the meadow, addressing the deae by name for the first time in her life. She’d never been one to seek Rhen’s guidance or pray for her council, not even after she ended up in the meadow. The two of them got along just fine as long as they each did their own thing. “Rhen, isn’t there anything that can be done to help Track shift? Look at him down there, so vulnerable. This is that age, isn’t it? That special age where the pups need to shift by. Can you help him?” Evie pulled back from the scene in the Ula slightly to watch the colors of the meadow for a sign that Rhen was listening. Nothing. The meadow was completely still, not even a bird flew or an insect buzzed. No sourceless wind blew, no sunless light shone. The meadow had gone a queer and stilted gray. Maybe that was a good sign. She tried again. “If you were down there helping him shift, not doing it for him, I know you don’t do that kind of thing, but I imagine if there were something that could be done that could, I don’t know, help him along, some sort of hormone or scent or something that—” she was babbling. She didn’t know what the hell to say or do, but she didn’t know what else to do. Why was she being shown this if she wasn’t meant to intervene in some way? She didn’t have any real power, but she knew the female who did. Had her own special, fucked-up relationship with her, and it was about time Evie started acknowledging it.

A scream from the Ula.

Evie snapped her attention back that way. Troy was gone, and in his place on the bed was a naked male Evie had never seen before, curled up next to a dark wolf pup with a white, curved renqua on his shoulder, two curves, like the front of a ‘B’.

Ella was still screaming, but it cut off all at once, and the adult male on the bed was blasted against the wall, his body twisting so that his renqua showed…

Ella rushed into the room, snatched up the wolf pup who was unharmed on the bed, staring wide-eyed at his momma, and ran to the doorway before turning around and staring. “Troy, oh my God, is that you?” she said.

The big male on the bed only groaned, his hands flopping ineffectively at his sides.

“Trevor!” Ella shouted, but most everyone in the house was already on the run, skidding to a stop at the doorway, craning to see Troy. Trevor was in first, then Wade, while Trent and the others watched from the hall.

Whoa, what a mess. Only Harlan stayed with Leilani, sitting next to her bedside, his head in his hands. The house was in an uproar and Evie had trouble tracking everything from Rhen’s meadow. She squinted and tried to will time to slow down there.

“What’s going on?” Leilani whispered, eyes wide.

Evie hadn’t realized she could see what Evie could see. “That big guy on the floor? That’s Troy. He’s never shifted before, been a wolf only for 30 some years.”

“Whoa, what happened?”

Evie shrugged. “Not sure.” Probably a coincidence. There hadn’t been young for so long, maybe that was all he needed all along. The adults shifted to familiarize the young with the process, to trigger their own shift, so why couldn’t a new young shift trigger an adult shift?

Everyone was trying to touch Troy, to help him. His neck stretched long as he tried to howl as a man. It didn’t work. He couldn’t get his body to work. Evie knew exactly how he felt. He crawled into the bathroom, then shut and locked the door behind him, blocking everyone out, obviously struggling with his body.

Evie watched, fascinated. This had not happened last time, before her and Leilani had changed everything. Troy pulled himself up to the mirror and stared at his face for long moments while the others called to him from outside the door. Ignoring them completely, he ran his fingers over chiseled face, through wild, too-long, hair, and a beard that nearly reached his nipples. He looked good, handsome, a bit like Trevor, but his hair wasn’t as dark, and his body was leaner, packed with solid muscle you could tell had never seen a barbell. No, these weren’t pampered, cushy muscles. These were solid, hard-won muscles from the life of a wild wolf. She snuck a peek at his package. Goodness, she hoped he was a shower, not a grower or someone was gonna be in trouble.

“Where’s Jaggar?” Leilani said, craning her neck to try to see behind the knot of people in the hallway.

“He hasn’t come back yet,” Evie told her, pulling away from the fascinating scene in the Ula. This was a talk they needed to have. “And he needs to. You can talk to him from up here, you know. He might not know it’s you, but you can soothe him, heal him, and even communicate a little in his dreams.”

Leilani looked down the path that led nowhere, pointing away from the meadow. This was Evie’s favorite place to watch Harlan, the place in the meadow where she could see him the best. “What’s he like?”

Oh. Wow. Evie had been so caught up in her own drama she’d never even thought about how all of this was affecting Leilani, or how she’d figured out he was her mate. Or had she? Evie hadn’t told her.” Jaggar? He’s the best. Super smart. A little intense.”

Leilani wrapped her arms around herself and stared off into space. “He won’t want me,” she said, her voice sad and far away.

Crap. We need the couch and pillows again.

They showed up neatly, like they’d always been there. Evie took one more glance at the Ula—Troy had clippers and was shaving off hair and beard and requesting food and clothes be brought to him in the bathroom in ruhi. Potato chips, chocolate, candy, soda, just like Leilani’s food requests, then curled her arm around Leilani and led her to the couch.

“Let me tell you all about Jaggar,” she said, curling into the pillows, snuggling Leilani up next to her as they stared up at the pink sky and Evie tried not to agonize over what was going on without her. This was her place right now.

“Jaggar is the baddest of the badasses. Smart and tough. Always has to do things the hardest way, and you as his mate will need to understand that. It will color your relationship in ways you can’t imagine.”

If he came back. And if Leilani would leave the meadow.