Chapter Twenty-Eight

“Where’s Diana?” Quinn asked Willa the following Wednesday morning at school.

Willa shrugged and handed the child back the sheet of concert music she’d had to edit. They had a concert in less than thirty-six hours, and everything felt up in the air.

Even more so than usual.

She’d lost some days. She’d dozed off on Saturday and had woken up on Tuesday night to find Lola Perez sitting in her living room, knitting, and Willa’s Coyotes gone.

Lola had put down her needles, cleared her throat, and said, “I am sorry. Your father made them go.”

Lola had probably meant for the candid statement to be like a Band-Aid getting ripped off. Endure the ache and then figure out how to fix what had caused the bruise, but Willa couldn’t fix anything. Evidently, she wasn’t allowed to be happy for more than a day at a time.

Blue had just up and left. He’d been communicating with her father and hadn’t said anything to her about it. She was stuck in some fragile emotional state between seething anger and crippling despair.

And he’d left a letter she hadn’t been able to read all the way through.

She’d pushed it up from the envelope and had read the first couple of lines before flinging it away.

If I’d had time to convince you, I would have told you I love you. Would you have believed you’re my mate?

Perhaps she was naive and inexperienced in such matters, but she didn’t think that was how love was supposed to work. Love wasn’t supposed to wring people out and make them hollow. What she felt was some toxic thing eating away at her heart, infecting her brain and telling her that sadness and loneliness were her birthrights.

She’d never be happy, and her grandmother had been wrong. Everything would never be all right with her.

She was never going to be fine.

Get it together. Kids are here.

Willa forced a smile onto her face and gave Quinn’s shoulder an encouraging squeeze. “Maybe we’ll hear from her soon. She must be really busy.”

“I guess so.” Quinn retreated to her seat.

And as before, Willa perched on her stool, picked up her baton, and retreated into herself.

Just keep busy, and then you’ll forget.

Believing that lie wasn’t going to be an easy thing anymore.

• • •

The following afternoon, Willa left concert setup in the capable hands of the band boosters and went home to walk King. She didn’t feel like engaging with all those chattering mothers, who were always so enthusiastic and excited, when Willa was feeling anything but.

She was heartsore. Used up.

Tired.

Unlike in the past, she hadn’t been kept up late with nightmares and from replaying memories in her head about things so far in the past that even the ghosts of them were dead. She was mentally rehashing the recent past, wondering what she could have done differently.

If she’d been more assertive in telling people who her father was, perhaps she could have asked for help sooner. If they’d known, so much of her frustration could have been prevented, but she’d crawled into her turtle shell and used her usual strategy of saying nothing.

She should have known she couldn’t live like that. It was dangerous, and there was no one else to blame.

King strained on his leash, and she looked up from the sidewalk to see Tiny’s truck and no line.

“Okay. Maybe something small.”

King took off like a bolt, and she could barely keep up in her exhausted state.

Tiny wasn’t at the window. His mother was.

“Hi, Ms. Minnie. Where’s Tiny?”

Ms. Minnie shrugged. “I’m captain of the ship tonight.” She gestured outside the window to either side. “That why no competition. See? No burrito cart.” She muttered something in Spanish about opportunistic losers and permit issues.

Willa pressed her lips tightly together and choked back a laugh. One simply didn’t laugh at Ms. Minnie. She was an institution . . . and she was the only one who knew the churro recipe.

“What you want?” Ms. Minnie asked. “Something greasy? You skinny.”

Willa looked down at her wrinkled clothes and the weary body holding them up. “I . . . guess I lost a little weight.” The fact she’d been passed out for several days likely had a little something to do with that.

“Didn’t have much to spare. Slow down a little.”

“If I slow down too much, I may stop and never start up again,” she confessed absently.

So pitiful.

Ashamed, she pressed a hand to her eyes and rubbed away the sting. She hadn’t meant to say those words. They’d been in her brain, always in the back of her mind. Her constant dysfunction. She didn’t think a tough old broad like Ms. Minnie would understand, but when she dropped her hand, she found Ms. Minnie looking down with nothing but concern in her gaze.

“Not so good . . . to be alone.” Ms. Minnie rattled the end of her spatula against the window’s metal ledge. “You need a tribe.”

“There aren’t so many people like me.”

“Don’t need to be like you. Just need to understand you. As long as you make sense to someone, that’s what matters.”

“I thought I had that.”

Blue had tried to make sense of her, and she thought he’d actually come close to making sense of the puzzle she was. And he’d wanted to for reasons that had nothing to do with the pack. He’d wanted her. She’d been so close to having someone who was hers. She understood that he’d left to spare her from Apollo, but he hadn’t even asked. He’d cut her out of the loop yet again. She would have tried to endure him if only Blue had told her.

You didn’t have to go, Blue.

“I did have that,” she amended, accepting the paper napkin Ms. Minnie held out to her. She wiped her eyes and blew her nose. “I had that, and then he left and took his sister and lieutenants with him.”

Her own little tribe, filled with domineering dogs. She’d scorned them before, but they’d been exactly what she needed. She could trust them to do what she couldn’t. Maybe their methods weren’t hers, but they were the right ones for Maria.

“We all make mistakes, eh?” Ms. Minnie said. “You’re young. You’ll be okay.”

Willa snorted. “I’m probably five times your age.”

“You’re young here.” Ms. Minnie tapped her temple. “That’s what matters.”

“I want to believe you.”

“Mistake not to. Oye, chica. Wait there.” Ms. Minnie disappeared into the depths of the truck, and after a couple of minutes of rattling around, returned with a greasy white bag bulging at the bottom. “Last of the stewed chicken. Not for dog. Give him the runs.”

Willa was pretty sure King didn’t understand the nuances of the English language, but he must have sensed his dinner wasn’t in that bag because he let out a doleful whimper.

Ms. Minnie wagged a finger at him. “Ah, I got something for you.” She handed over a little paper bowl of grilled meat. “Unseasoned for the seniors who pretend they ain’t got ulcers.”

Willa giggled and felt lighter for it. “How much do I owe you?”

Ms. Minnie waved her away. “Puh. I do what I want.” She shut the window.

Apparently, that was that.

• • •

Willa was almost late getting back to the school because the woodland friends who frolicked in the shade under her Jeep didn’t want to get out as usual. The threat of the water hose being turned on them finally got them to go away.

She was breathless when she got back to the school and hurried to unlock the band room before the kids showed up.

The light was on. She thought she’d turned it off before stepping out.

“Huh.” She walked across the room—the chairs and stands emptied out by band moms and carried to the gym—to organize her stack of scores.

She stopped in the middle upon seeing she wasn’t alone.

There was a woman perched atop the cubbies on the back wall. So still and quiet. Her simple white sundress blending into the wall was probably why Willa hadn’t immediately caught her in her periphery.

“I didn’t realize anyone was in here,” Willa said.

The woman must have gotten in through the art or music room. Willa didn’t recognize her as one of the band parents.

But the longer she stared, the more she realized she wouldn’t have.

That woman wasn’t a band parent. She wasn’t a “woman” at all, or at least not human.

“You always have your head in the clouds,” her aunt Artemis said softly. “I suppose you are not completely to blame.”

Willa’s mouth hung open as the goddess eased herself off the shelf and glided across the room.

Willa hadn’t seen her since she was a young woman, spirited away from the pyre to Italy, but she was definitely, distinctively Artemis. The same dark curly hair worn in a simple braid down her back. The headband she wore to keep the curly frizz at her temples from falling forward was modern, though. Cloth-covered and printed with little moons.

Same pale gray eyes.

Same voice, silken and soothing most of the time. Assertive and impossible to ignore when she needed to get things done.

Willa had just needed a moment to remember it. She’d tried to block out so much of those years of her life, even the good parts.

“I should have done more for you,” Artemis said just as softly. “Perhaps you would remember me better.”

“I don’t know what you could have done. I wasn’t your concern. I know how it is. You try not to step on any toes, and he’s . . . your brother. Your twin.”

Artemis nodded slowly and looked out the window. “Your students will come soon.”

“Yeah. Gotta warm up.”

And get out there in front of what Willa hoped wouldn’t be the usual sparse crowd. Those kids worked so hard. She wanted her eighth-graders to have an audience reflecting that before they moved on to football fields and marching band competitions where no one but the most devoted watchers could tell them apart.

Artemis turned back to her. “Are you happy, Safya?”

Willa let out a long breath and fiddled the top button of her polo shirt. “That’s a loaded question.”

“I suppose it is.” Artemis’s eyes narrowed in consideration. “Specifically, I mean are you happy with no power? No magic?”

“Oh.” That was easy. That was one of the sure things in her life. “Absolutely. What good is it if I’m out of my head when I’m using it?”

“And if that were to change?”

Willa shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve never been jealous of my brothers for having magic, only that they were able to keep their packs in order. Sometimes, I thought about walking away from everything and letting the Coyotes fend for themselves, but I’ve been here too long. I’ve watched too many of them be born and start families. I wish I could do more for them.”

“You would give dominion of them away if they were to thrive from it?”

“Yes.” Shame rippled through Willa, but she couldn’t run from the truth. She would quit. She’d give them away if she knew without an iota of doubt that she’d made the right choice. “I’d detach myself completely, if whatever magic that’s currently in place, wiring them to me, fell away.”

“So give them away. Have one less burden.”

“Who would I give them to?”

“Did you not have someone?”

“Blue? Are you talking about Blue?”

She couldn’t find a handkerchief in her pockets for the tears. She wiped her eyes on the hem of her shirt. It didn’t matter if Artemis saw her scars on her torso. She’d already seen them, as well as the wounds that had caused them.

“Blue’s gone. He’s probably in Sparks right now, married and well on the way to forgetting about me.”

Willa didn’t really want to know. They didn’t call. Didn’t text. He’d been ordered to stay away, and she was just . . . chickenshit. She didn’t want to go down that rabbit hole of information only to find that snakes lived inside.

“You believe a Coyote would forget about his mate?” Artemis asked, one dark brow creeping upward.

“I hope not,” Willa whispered mournfully. “I don’t want to be forgotten.”

“So give him the pack, if you want. You are his mate. There is nothing preventing you from transferring it.”

“I don’t understand what you’re getting at.” The idea had potential, but Willa couldn’t figure out what to do with it. Blue had left because Apollo had made him, and he was going to get pawned off to placate another alpha. He wasn’t hers anymore.

“I think you do,” Artemis said. “Emotions make some dilemmas seem insurmountable when in fact, they’re easy enough.”

Willa scoffed. “Easy would be if I could make Sheena Esposito call off the wedding. Bruno would have to get his repayment in some other way, and maybe that’d buy the folks in Sparks some time to get out if they want to.”

Artemis’s lips kicked up at one corner.

“What?”

“Ah, you see what happens when your head is out of the clouds?”

“No.” Willa still had no idea what her aunt was getting at. “I was hyperbolizing.”

“No, you let common sense shine through without trying to analyze it first. Listen to it.”

“It can’t be that easy.”

“What if it were? Would you do it?”

“Of course I would! I’d be happy to turn over everything to him if it’ll get him back here, but Lola said he can’t come near me.”

Absently, Artemis fidgeted the tiny golden arrow pinned near her collar. “I should have educated you more about curses. I will correct that one day, if you allow me.”

Willa nodded for her to go on. Of course she wanted to see more of her aunt, as long as the Grecian family reunion didn’t extend beyond her.

“It is true that Blue cannot come to you. The moment he tries, my brother would know. He enforces his curses scrupulously, and he will allow no slack. So.” Artemis turned her hands over in a now you say something gesture.

Willa didn’t know what to do but to continue in her previous line of reasoning, even if it was outlandish. “If Blue can’t come to me, could I go to him?”

It was a ridiculous idea. Willa had never in her life chased after a man, and she wouldn’t even know how to. Was she supposed to just show up? Express her undying love and plead for him to return to Maria where he belonged?

Well, why not?

She’d be artless. Graceless. Stammering and inarticulate.

But he already knew that about her, and he’d said he loved her, anyway.

“If he returns because you’ve pulled him back,” Artemis said conclusively, “the curse will lose its legs.”

“Why is that?”

“Because Apollo, in spite of how capricious he may seem, will not escalate this if you defy him. He has no foresight on the matter—no prophecy is driving him now—but I know my brother. He will not expect defiance from you. You must show him here and now that you are not a pawn in his game, but a player. If you make yourself his equal, he will have no choice but to respect you. That was your mother’s mistake. Not knowing her power over him.”

“I’m not his equal.”

“Only because you believe you are not. You have extraordinary power over him. He fears reminders of his deficiencies.”

“Oh,” Willa whispered, pondering if her aunt was right.

Willa didn’t have magic or the ability to force people to do her bidding, but she had value as a person. She meant something to someone. Having someone believe in her meant she did have a little power, and she was going to use it for a change.

“Trust me,” Artemis said, stroking Willa’s cheeks. “You have to take care of you. Your needs are important, and you must at times be aggressive to fill them, even if that is difficult for you. He will not ever coddle you. He cannot give you the affection you need and deserve. He simply cannot be that father to you. After watching so many of his children perish, I believe he has lost the ability. Most of our kind do.”

Artemis had never had children. Willa wondered if that was one of the reasons why.

Artemis let her hands fall from Willa’s face and twined her fingers in front of her belly. “Can I give you some advice?”

“I wish you would.”

“Leave for Sparks as soon as you are able. You will not have much time to spare. Find a friend and go as soon as the concert concludes.”

“Why? What’s happening?”

Artemis didn’t answer her. She was already gone.