FOUR
On the whole, they had done a remarkably good job of not focusing on the issue that was Elizabeth’s house and property. She didn’t think anyone was ignoring the issue; she was just fairly sure that they were all trying to keep her from dwelling on it by not bringing it up.
On one hand, Elizabeth was grateful, since it gave her an opportunity to process everything without actually needing to worry about it, and that was a degree of separation that she most definitely needed. But with time and space came clarity, and after a couple of days, she was less concerned about fretting and more concerned about actually doing something.
“So, what do we do?” Elizabeth swished her coffee in idle, listless circles in her mug, watching the way the cream swirled within it. She paced back and forth across the kitchen, too much excess energy buzzing beneath her skin for her to simply sit down and enjoy her coffee and her breakfast in peace. “About my house, I mean. I figure it’s pretty easy to tell if a bunch of shifters are feuding in front of it and so it’s probably pretty easy to tell when they’ve stopped doing that, but how are you supposed to tell if just one shifter is staking the place out?” Every so often, she paused by the table to take a few bites of her breakfast before she carried on pacing once more.
Ambrose watched her from his seat at the table as she strolled back and forth. His plate was already empty, and he had both of his hands wrapped around his mug. His eyebrows rose steadily higher and higher as she kept moving. Eventually, he offered, “We stake the place out in turn.” He shrugged one shoulder. “I can send Yusuke or Mara to keep an eye on the place, and if long enough passes without sign of anyone being there, it will probably be safe for you to go back. If they keep finding signs that a large animal has been there, though, then that means it isn’t safe yet.”
Elizabeth groaned, and finally she dropped down into a chair at the table, folding her arms on the tabletop and slumping down on top of them. “But why my house?” she grumbled, voice low and only semi-coherent.
“Are you talking to me or the varnish?” Ambrose wondered dryly, and with a force of will, Elizabeth levered herself back up, just enough to lean her chin on her arms instead of her entire face.
“Why my house?” she repeated, forced to look up at him through her eyelashes as she asked. “I mean, I can kind of understand the logic of the territory dispute, but then why did one of them come back? I thought the territory issue was more or less settled.”
“A scout, maybe?” Ambrose suggested, though he didn’t seem particularly sure about it. “The wolves might have sent someone to check and make sure that the bears hadn’t come back, or just to make sure that no one else was trying to move in. If that’s the case, I doubt they would want anything to do with you. Considering how big the territory for a group of shifters can be, there is basically guaranteed to be other people living there, so that wouldn’t be an issue as long as there aren’t any other, unrelated shifters.” He paused for a moment and shifted on his feet. “Even so, I would prefer that you not go back until we know for sure that there haven’t been any wolves there for a few days in a row, so it will be safer to assume they’ve all finally vacated.” His eyebrows rose slightly, and he added slightly expectantly, “And I’m pretty sure you don’t really want to go back if you know there was a wolf there recently.”
Elizabeth grumbled into her arms and sat up, just so she could slide down in her seat, sulking down at the top of the table. “I guess you’re right,” she conceded, her voice low and sullen. “I just wish it had been someone else’s house.”
“Everyone is ‘someone else’ to everyone else,” Ambrose pointed out dryly. “But don’t worry. You’ll be fine here, and I’ve got Yusuke and Mara scoping out your house on a regular basis. If anything changes, we’ll know about it, and when the coast clears, you’ll be the first to know.”
She nodded slowly, mustering up a smile.
*
Ambrose was out of the house. For as little as he actually did with his telecommunications work and for as much of it as he left to be governed by committee, every so often he did actually need to make an appearance in person, and Elizabeth had appreciated watching him walk around in a suit that morning before he left. And then, she had the house to herself, at least until Mara, Yusuke, or both showed up unannounced.
She spent most of the day on the couch, being as lazy as she could manage. That was where she was when Mara and Yusuke entered her thoughts. On a whim she lowered her magazine to her lap, reached for her phone on the coffee table, and with her other hand turned down the volume of the television.
Any updates on the situation?
Elizabeth sent the text message to both Mara and Yusuke without putting much thought into it. It was either going to be a yes or a no, and considering it was her house and her property, she figured it was pretty understandable that she wanted to be kept in the loop.
It was Yusuke who responded first, only a few minutes later. Presumably, he had his own job, though Elizabeth didn’t know what it was; it never seemed to take up much of his time, considering he seemed to be available in some capacity or another at nearly all hours of the day.
situation? what situation?
nah i’m kidding
i haven’t had a chance to check today but as of last night something was still lurking around, or at least had been lurking around pretty recently
Elizabeth would have been happy to learn why. Or rather, she would have been satisfied to learn why. She would have been happy to be able to go back home. As it stood, it made no sense. She had to assume it was pretty apparent she wasn’t actually there anymore, so why was anyone still loitering around like a smoker at a bus stop?
Do you think someone specifically doesn’t want me to go home?
I mean, considering it was a territory dispute or something, wouldn’t that make sense?
not really
territory disputes are mostly about making sure other shifters don’t wander where they aren’t welcome
non-shifters sort of fall through the cracks and get ignored as long as they don’t get caught in the crossfire
but i guess it’s possible that one of them doesn’t want you coming back for other reasons
Elizabeth groaned and thumped her head back against the back of the couch. It was silent and painless, and sort of anticlimactic, but Elizabeth couldn’t be bothered to stand up to find something more satisfying to bonk her head against. Besides, that struck her as a little irrational.
She had been hoping he would laugh the idea off as ridiculous. But if it was a known phenomenon for shifters to occasionally decide to just stop being human at all, she supposed they probably weren’t dealing with the most well-adjusted people in the world.
Any guesses as to why?
There was a longer pause this time, and Elizabeth paged absentmindedly through her magazine as she waited. Whoever had taken the photographs for the main article hadn’t been particularly talented and it was mostly just gossip. It wasn’t all that interesting, and she dropped it like a hot coal when her phone buzzed to alert her to another message.
not really
i’m not a psychic, i just have a decent nose
if you’re looking for a link between smell and psychic abilities, i’d ask mara
Elizabeth rolled her eyes down at her phone and debated just ignoring the response. But she supposed that was immature, and she probably should have expected some sort of non-answer.
Duly noted.
I already asked her, she’s just really slow to reply.
yeah, she actually has an attention span that lets her focus on her job
i don’t know how she manages it
Elizabeth snorted quietly under her breath and set her phone aside, content to get comfortable and wait for some sort of a response from Mara. It seemed like all she could do until the situation blew over.
Time passed slowly. Not as if it was some sort of drudgery, but just in the way things were prone to slow down when there was nothing going on. It was a relaxing sort of monotony, as strange as that sounded when she thought it over, but it fit. It was quiet and still, save for the sounds of the pages turning every so often.
Elizabeth nearly had a heart attack when her phone buzzed almost forty minutes later to alert her to the fact that Mara had finally replied to her. Her magazine slipped from her fingers and flapped down to her lap, and she fumbled to grab her phone before she recalled that there wasn’t actually anything pressing going on, and so she had no reason to panic.
She opened the text message from Mara.
nothing new that I’ve noticed, but if all that’s happening is lurking there won’t really be any huge changes to spot
we’re just waiting for a sign that the stakeout on your house has stopped
is there something in particular you wanted us to keep a look out for?
Elizabeth sighed and leaned her head forward until her forehead bumped against the phone, her eyes closed. The message didn’t say anything that she hadn’t already been aware of. She had just been hoping that something noticeable would have happened.
Not really. I’m just getting tired of waiting for something to happen like I’m sitting in timeout.
rude
Ambrose’s house is much nicer than timeout. it’s at least a penalty box.
Elizabeth snorted and rolled her eyes.
I stand corrected, but you know what I mean.
fair enough
but like I said, if nothing huge is happening, there won’t be anything huge to spot
I’m keeping an eye on things, though
I’ll let you know if anything changes
Elizabeth knew that was all she could expect, but she still couldn’t quite help but to feel like it was a letdown. Not that Mara or Yusuke had let her down—they were doing what they could in a situation where there wasn’t much to be done—but the situation in general was not shaping up in quite the way she had wanted or expected it to.
She kept her disappointment to herself, though. The others all knew she wasn’t thrilled with the mess, and they were doing what they could to straighten things out. Whining unendingly wasn’t going to do anything except make it look like she didn’t appreciate their help at all.
Thanks, Mara.
You should help me convince Ambrose to attack the wolf eventually.
I can turn it into a rug once I have my house back.
For a split second, she was worried that the joke was maybe a bit too dark, but then Mara simply sent back a thumbs up emoticon and a grinning face, and Elizabeth figured it was alright.
She glanced at the clock to get an idea of when Ambrose would be back, before she tossed her magazine aside and slumped down sideways on the couch to get comfortable. She turned the volume of the television up again, unsure if it was the same movie as before or if a new but entirely interchangeable one had started while she wasn’t paying attention. Not that it really mattered; it would kill time just as easily either way. She squirmed for a moment until she achieved optimal comfort, and she settled in to wait for Ambrose to get back.
*
The door opened, footsteps entered the house, and a moment later the door closed again. Elizabeth sat up on the couch, looking in Ambrose’s direction to see that he was already working on pulling his tie off.
“Not much for dressing up, I take it,” she guessed, one eyebrow rising.
“I can dress up just fine,” he protested mildly. “I’m just not one for looking like an overly starched and pressed prick.” He dropped his tie on the table and kicked his shoes off, not even bothering to put them away. “Have a decent day?”
“More or less,” she replied. “Nothing really happened, other than hassling Yusuke and Mara via text messages.”
He nodded once in satisfaction. “That’s always a worthwhile endeavor. Any plans for this evening?”
Elizabeth shrugged halfheartedly. “I hadn’t really thought about it,” she answered. “But now that you ask, I think you should show me around the property. Show me all the hidden corners and secret spaces.” She grinned broadly. “Take me on a fairytale adventure.”
Ambrose’s eyebrows rose as his expression shifted to faintly incredulous amusement. “What, are you expecting to find fairies and gnomes?” he asked dryly, his hands landing on the kitchen table as he leaned back against it. “I mean, I’m not going to say nothing like that exists, because who knows, but I’m pretty sure we’re not going to find any of them around here.”
Elizabeth rolled her eyes and picked her magazine up. Rolling it up into a thin rod, she pointed it at him like a scepter. “You are missing the point.”
“I’m pretty sure it would be more fairytale-ish if you were being led around by an animal,” he pointed out, his tone turning slightly thoughtful. “I can maneuver through the woods a bit better that way too.”
“So, show me around as a bear,” Elizabeth returned, shrugging carelessly. “It’s still you either way, and since I’m pretty sure we plan on keeping in touch even once I’m back at my house, I’m pretty sure you being a bear is something I’ll need to adjust to, to consider it normal eventually anyway.”
Ambrose feigned a pout in her direction. “You don’t think I’m normal yet?” he asked, purposely pitching his voice to something that was almost a whine.
Elizabeth scoffed. “Come on, let’s be real. You’re never going to be normal,” she reasoned. “You turning into a bear just has a chance of becoming normal.”
He shrugged one shoulder and tipped his head to the side, as if to silently concede ‘fair enough.’ “Yeah, alright,” he finally agreed. “I’ll go dress down, and you can put on something a bit more appropriate for wandering through the woods,” he added before he pushed himself away from the table and headed towards the stairs, forgetting his tie and his shoes in the kitchen.
Elizabeth loped up the stairs after him to get changed, made it back down the stairs to the kitchen again before him, and she could still hear him upstairs. She headed out onto the porch to wait, and she set about shoving the cuffs of her pants into her boots and gave her bare arms a spray with tick spray, because no one wanted to deal with that sort of thing. The entire porch smelled sort of odd and like it had all been dipped in slightly caustic chemicals afterwards, but she was content that she wasn’t going to be afflicted with Lyme disease in the near future.
When at last Ambrose came outside, Elizabeth had to stare for a moment.
She had expected him to be wearing something.
She had not expected him to be completely naked from head to toe. Granted, they had already discussed that he would be in bear form and thus would need to strip naked anyway, so she probably should have seen that coming, but it had sort of slipped her mind that plans to shift into a different shape necessitated either losing clothes or else ruining those clothes.
Ambrose grinned at her as she stared before he stepped down from the porch and began to make his way towards the trees. Elizabeth shook her head quickly, dragging her thoughts back to the present, and she loped after him. It wasn’t until he reached the tree line that he actually transformed, and it was still a sight that Elizabeth hadn’t quite gotten used to. She couldn’t decide if it looked like it was painful or not, and she wasn’t even sure if she was really seeing the whole thing or if her brain was just plastering over parts of it because she wouldn’t understand otherwise.
Either way, Ambrose didn’t seem to be slowed down at all, and he glanced at her over his shoulder before he cocked his head to one side, turned back around, and set off at a lope into the woods. Elizabeth buried her still-complicated feelings on the entire matter of transforming and having multiple forms at the back of her mind.
Mixed feelings aside, she expected a reasonably relaxing day, and she followed him at a sedate pace as he lumbered along.
There was a stream that wandered and wove its way through the woods, lazy and slow except for a few spots where it burbled and foamed over the rocks. They followed it for a time once they found it, and Elizabeth shoved pebbles and leaves and twigs into the water every so often, just to watch them get swept away by the current.
When they came to a broken tree draped at an angle across the stream so one end of it was nearly six feet off the ground, Elizabeth couldn’t quite help but to climb it, the urge overtaking her like a child presented with a jungle gym. It wobbled under her feet, but it held up under her weight, and once she was standing at the highest point of it, she stretched her arms out and jumped. Her fingers wrapped around the nearest branch of the next tree over, and with a grunt, her side thumped against the trunk. She shifted and squirmed until she could plant her feet against the bark, and she scrabbled her way up onto the branch until she could sit on it, one leg on either side and her back against the trunk.
Ambrose hopped across the stream, so he was gazing up at her, looking sort of bemused, or at least as close to bemused as Elizabeth figured a bear could look.
“Look,” she started, “if you expect me to go walking through the woods and not climb a tree, then you are very mistaken.”
Ambrose snorted and rolled his eyes (and frankly, watching a bear roll his eyes was never not going to be more than a little strange). He leaned against the trunk of the tree just to make it wobble, and Elizabeth’s grip on the branch tightened as she scowled down at him.
Of course, climbing a single tree wasn’t quite what they were out there for, so Elizabeth appreciated her elevated seat for only a few moments before she began to make her way back down to the ground. She stretched, back arching and hands in the small of her back, then she followed in Ambrose’s wake when he began walking again.
*
They were deep enough into the woods that if she squinted and climbed up to a low branch, she could see her house. They didn’t get any closer than that, though. If there was still something in her yard, neither of them wanted to deal with it just then, especially not when Elizabeth was there and essentially defenseless. Her self-defense skills wouldn’t be much help against a wolf the size of a carriage horse, as much as it pained her to admit it.
And besides, her house wasn’t what they were there to see, so they kept moving in short order. Elizabeth had a general idea of where they were largely because of her sense of direction, but even so, she peered around at everything with interest, as if the entire woods had suddenly become new and fascinating.
Deeper and deeper they wandered, until the trees were thick around them, the light was falling dappled and spotted across them, and the trees grew as tall as buildings.
Eventually, Ambrose slowed to a halt and looked straight up towards the canopy of leaves. Elizabeth tipped her head back to follow his gaze, and she gasped quietly at the sight.
To call it a tree house would be a bit disingenuous. It sprawled throughout six trees, with ramps making it so it was multiple levels. There was a staircase wrapping around the trunk of the broadest tree, and another towards the easternmost edge. Ladders hung down in three other locations, and there were strings of lights spread between numerous branches.
Elizabeth gaped up at it in awe for a long enough moment that she didn’t even realize that Ambrose had shifted back to his human form until he spoke.
“Took a while, but it was a good distraction,” he observed wryly, arms folded over his chest, completely comfortable in the knowledge that they were far enough out in the woods that no one was going to see him exposed.
“You built this?” Elizabeth asked, her voice low, as if she was observing something otherworldly.
“Mara and Yusuke helped occasionally,” he replied, before he confirmed, “but yeah. It felt nice to have a place to get away to every so often, even if I had to put it together with my own hands.”
Elizabeth continued to stare upwards, and eventually she managed, “This isn’t what I expected when I decided we should go for a walk in the woods.”
Ambrose laughed and ran a hand through his hair. “Yeah, I like to show off sometimes.”
“Very effective,” she assured him as she headed towards the nearest staircase. Leaves crunched under her shoes as she began to climb, but the railing was smooth when she wrapped a hand around it.
The tree house was only partially covered by a roof, with the ramps uncovered, and it only had true walls in a few strategic places. But even so, once she was standing at the top of the stairs, there was a distinct difference between standing in the tree house and standing in the open woods. She looked over her shoulder, looking down at Ambrose expectantly, only moving deeper into the tree house when he began to follow her up the stairs.
It was a brief tour, if it could even really be called a tour. Even so, it was nice to be shown around the little house, with leaves scattered across the floor boards and tumbling away with each step. They made no efforts to draw things out, though, considering wandering around outside while completely naked was not the most comfortable way to spend time. Soon enough, they began heading back down the stairs.
“Would you ever do anything like it again?” Elizabeth wondered, glancing over her shoulder as Ambrose followed her down the steps.
“Never again,” he replied emphatically. “I’m glad I did it. It was a good experience and a good skill set to have, don’t get me wrong. But it drove me nuts while I was working on it.”
Elizabeth laughed and hopped down the last few steps, landing with a quiet thump and moving out of the way.
Ambrose turned back into a bear just a moment after he made it to the bottom of the stairs. He gave himself a brisk shake before he prodded at Elizabeth’s side with the end of his nose. She ruffled his fur and tugged at one of his ears, and with a noise that sounded almost as if he was offended, he turned and began to lumber away with Elizabeth jogging after him.
They made their meandering way back to the house after that. After all, anything else he could show her would probably pale in comparison to the tree house.
*
If anyone had decided to ask her why, Elizabeth wouldn’t actually be able to give any sort of real answer, but she had expected everything to just…proceed as normal. Maybe that wasn’t quite the right term, but everything at Ambrose’s house seemed so idyllic. It was easy to believe that everything there would just carry on as it had been and that nothing would disturb the peace that they had settled into.
She wouldn’t have guessed that something as simple as an unexpected guest could throw everything out of sorts, like playing a game of Fifty-Two Pick Up with a deck of playing cards. Maybe that was a naive way of looking at it, but it had seemed to make sense at the time.
She would have liked to have kept that viewpoint. It would have been better than the alternative.
*
It seemed like an ordinary night when things changed, at least as ordinary as they got in Elizabeth’s circumstances, considering she was barred from entering her own house because of supernatural shapeshifters. Anyway, it had been a dull day, and it had been shaping up to be a dull evening; she had expected the status quo to hold out.
It seemed like a typical evening, with Elizabeth sitting on the couch watching a cheap movie on the television that had already been half over by the time she turned it on. And then, she was interrupted.
Elizabeth sat up slowly when she heard someone knock at the door. Ambrose wasn’t in the room, so she thought about answering it, but inviting someone into his house still seemed like a step too far, at least for the moment. Not that it mattered much, as he entered the kitchen at a brisk walk a moment later.
Elizabeth got to her feet and slunk after him, peering around his shoulder as he tugged the door open.
There was a man standing on the other side of the door, regarding them warily. He looked around Ambrose’s age—thirty, perhaps—and he was only a little shorter. He had skin the color of brown sugar, and his hair was a tawny shade of brown which was slicked back for the most part, save for a few errant strands that kept falling into his face, partially covering pale grey eyes.
He was dressed simply, and though in a sense, he was attractive, Elizabeth felt no draw towards him and, in fact, retreated another step behind Ambrose. There was something…odd about the newcomer, as if he didn’t quite fit right in his own skin. His eyes kept darting, as if he was expecting something to happen. More specifically, he seemed like he was expecting something to happen to him, as if a monster was going to burst out of the woodwork and try to gobble him up.
After a moment, he cleared his throat and said in a rasping voice, “Are you the one I go to if I need help?” He tipped his head to one side inquisitively as he asked, in a manner that seemed more canine than curious. Almost as an afterthought, he added, “I’m Maxwell, by the way.” The name didn’t quite seem to suit him. “Maxwell Beyer.”
“You’ve come to the right place,” Ambrose assured him before ushering him towards the basement stairs. Drawn by curiosity, Elizabeth trailed after them, pulling the basement door closed in her wake. If either of them noticed her following along behind them, neither of them said anything.
She was pretty sure they noticed, though. Even from her limited experience with shifters, it seemed like they always noticed. It was slightly impressive while at the same time being a little unnerving, though Elizabeth supposed it was no real loss that she would only rarely be able to sneak up on any of them.
As it turned out, Ambrose’s work wasn’t nearly as secretive as Elizabeth had assumed it to be. (Well, yes, it was still not exactly legal, and he didn’t want any people related to law enforcement finding out about it, but amongst his friends, it was not as much of a secret as Elizabeth had assumed.) He didn’t comment or protest when she followed the two of them down to the basement or when she hunkered down to sit on the bottom step and listen in on their conversation.
It was…enlightening.
Maxwell was a wolf and a very candid one at that. When questioned about the incident at Elizabeth’s house, he admitted readily that he had been involved in the dispute with the bears, though he seemed baffled when they asked if he had returned the other night. And when pressed for details about who he was, he admitted that he had spent more than seven years as a wolf, hardly shifting back to his human form at all, and those instances could be timed in seconds rather than minutes. So many of the details of his life had been lost or forgotten. Ambrose was going to have to invent most of it, making up entire swathes of who Maxwell was whole cloth.
Ambrose didn’t seem to appreciate it, but he didn’t complain, and the only sign he offered that he was dissatisfied was after Maxwell left, when he dragged a hand through his hair as he sighed, leaned back against the front door, and let his head thump back against it.
“He’s going to be trouble,” Ambrose decided eventually, slowly straightening up and dragging a hand over his hair once again. “Just…be cautious about him,” he warned her. “I’ve got a bad feeling about him. Turning over a new leaf or not, once a shifter gives up on balancing their humanity once, I wouldn’t put it past him to give up on it again, so he’s liable to be a bit…unpredictable.”
Elizabeth offered a jerky nod in reply. “Right,” she agreed slowly. “Unpredictable.”