Forever

CHAPTER TWO



ISABEL



I measured time by counting Tuesdays.



Three Tuesdays until school was out for the summer.



Seven Tuesdays since Grace had disappeared from the hospital.



Fifty-five Tuesdays until I graduated and got the hell out of Mercy Falls, Minnesota.



Six Tuesdays since I’d last seen Cole St. Clair.



Tuesdays were the worst day of the week in the Culpeper household. Fight day. Well, every day could be a fight day in our house, but Tuesday was the surefire bet. It was coming up on a year since my brother, Jack, had died, and after a family screamathon that had spanned three floors, two hours, and one threat of divorce from my mother, my father had actually started going to group counseling with us again. Which meant every Wednesday was the same: my mother wearing perfume, my father actually hanging up the phone for once, and me sitting in my father’s giant blue SUV, trying to pretend the back didn’t still smell like dead wolf.



Wednesdays, everyone was on their best behavior. The few hours following counseling — dinner out in St. Paul, some mindless shopping or a family movie — were things of beauty and perfection. And then everyone started to drift away from that ideal, hour by hour, until, by Tuesday, there were explosions and fist-fights on set.



I usually tried to be absent on Tuesdays.



On this particular one, I was a victim of my own indecision. After getting home from school, I couldn’t quite bring myself to call Taylor or Madison to go out. Last week I’d gone down to Duluth with both of them and some boys they knew and spent two hundred dollars on shoes for my mother, one hundred dollars on a shirt for myself, and let the boys spend a third of that on ice cream we didn’t eat. I hadn’t really seen the point then, other than to shock Madison with my cavalier credit card wielding. And I didn’t see the point now, with the shoes languishing at the end of Mom’s bed, the shirt fitting weirdly now that I had it at home, and me unable to remember the boys’ names other than the vague memory that one of them started with J.



So I could do my other pastime, getting into my own SUV and parking in an overgrown driveway somewhere to listen to music and zone out and pretend I was somewhere else. Usually I could kill enough time to get back just before my mother went to bed and the worst of the fighting was over. Ironically, there had been a million more ways to get out of the house back in California, back when I hadn’t needed them.



What I really wanted was to call Grace and go walking downtown with her or sit on her couch while she did her homework. I didn’t know if that would ever be possible again.



I spent so long debating my options that I missed my window of opportunity for escape. I was standing in the foyer, my phone in my hand, waiting for me to give it orders, when my father came trotting down the stairs at the same time that my mother started to breach the door of the living room. I was trapped between two opposing weather fronts. Nothing to do at this point but batten the hatches and hope the lawn gnome didn’t blow away.



I braced myself.



My father patted me on my head. “Hey, pumpkin.”



Pumpkin?



I blinked as he strode by me, efficient and powerful, a giant in his castle. It was like I’d time-traveled back a year.



I stared at him as he paused in the doorway by my mother. I waited for them to exchange barbs. Instead they exchanged a kiss.



“What have you done with my parents?” I asked.



“Ha!” my father said, in a voice that could possibly be described as jovial. “I’d appreciate if you put something on that covered your midriff before Marshall gets here, if you’re not going to be upstairs doing homework.”



Mom gave me a look that said I told you so even though she hadn’t said anything about my shirt when I’d walked in the door from school.



“As in Congressman Marshall?” I said. My father had multiple college friends who’d ended up in high places, but he hadn’t spent much time with them since Jack had died. I’d heard the stories about them, especially once alcohol was passed around the adults. “As in ‘Mushroom Marshall’? As in the Marshall that boffed Mom before you did?”



“He’s Mr. Landy to you,” my father said, but he was already on his way out of the room and didn’t sound very distressed. He added, “Don’t be rude to your mother.”



Mom turned and followed my father back into the living room. I heard them talking, and at one point, my mother actually laughed.



On a Tuesday. It was Tuesday, and she was laughing.



“Why is he coming here?” I asked suspiciously, following them from the living room into the kitchen. I eyed the counter. Half of the counter was covered with chips and vegetables, and the other half was clipboards, folders, and jotted-on legal pads.



“You haven’t changed your shirt yet,” Mom said.



“I’m going out,” I replied. I hadn’t decided that until just now. All of Dad’s friends thought they were extremely funny and they were extremely not, so my decision had been made. “What is Marshall coming for?”



“Mr. Landy,” my father corrected. “We’re just talking about some legal things and catching up.”



“A case?” I drifted toward the paper-covered side of the counter as something caught my eye. Sure enough, the word I thought I’d seen — wolves — was everywhere. I felt an uncomfortable prickle as I scanned it. Last year, before I knew Grace, this feeling would’ve been the sweet sting of revenge, seeing the wolves about to get payback for killing Jack. Now, amazingly, all I had was nerves. “This is about the wolves being protected in Minnesota.”



“Maybe not for long,” my father said. “Landy has a few ideas. Might be able to get the whole pack eliminated.”



This was why he was so happy? Because he and Landy and Mom were going to get cozy and devise a plan to kill the wolves? I couldn’t believe he thought that was going to make Jack’s death any better.



Grace was in those woods, right now. He didn’t know it, but he was talking about killing her.



“Fantastico,” I said. “I’m out of here.”



“Where are you going?” Mom asked.



“Madison’s.”



Mom stopped midway through ripping open a bag of chips. They had enough food to feed the entire U.S. Congress. “Are you really going to Madison’s, or are you just saying you’re going to Madison’s because you know I’ll be too busy to check?”



“Fine,” I said. “I’m going to Kenny’s and I don’t know who I’m going to get to come with me. Happy?”



“Delighted,” Mom said. I noticed, suddenly, that she was wearing the shoes that I’d bought her. It made me feel weird for some reason. Mom and Dad smiling and her wearing new shoes and me wondering if they were going to blow my friend away with a large caliber rifle.



I snatched my bag and went outside to my SUV. I sat in the stuffy interior, not turning the key or moving, just holding my phone in my hands and wondering what to do. I knew what I should do; I just didn’t know if I wanted to do it. Six Tuesdays since I’d talked to him. Maybe Sam would pick up the phone. I could talk to Sam.



No, I had to talk to Sam. Because Congressman Marshall Landy and my dad might actually figure something out in their little potato-chip-fueled war council. I didn’t have a choice.



I bit my lip and dialed the number for Beck’s house.



“Da.”



The voice on the other end of the phone was endlessly familiar, and the whisper of nerves in my stomach turned into howls.



Not Sam.



My own voice sounded unintentionally frosty. “Cole, it’s me.”



“Oh,” he said, and hung up.



CHAPTER THREE



GRACE



My growling stomach kept track of time for me, so it seemed like a lifetime before I came to a business. The first one I came to was Ben’s Fish and Tackle, a gritty gray building set back in the trees, looking like it had grown out of the muddy ground that surrounded it. I had to pick my way over a pitted gravel parking lot flooded with snowmelt and rainwater to get to the door. A sign above the doorknob told me that if I was dropping off keys to my U-Haul truck, the drop box was around the side of the building. Another sign said they had beagle puppies for sale. Two males and one female.



I put my hand on the doorknob. Before turning it, I fixed my story in my mind. There was always a chance that they’d recognize me — with a little jolt, I realized I had no idea how long it had been since I’d first turned into a wolf or how newsworthy my disappearance might have been. I did know that in Mercy Falls, clogged toilets made headlines.



I stepped in, pushing the door behind me. I winced; the interior was incredibly hot and stank like old sweat. I navigated the shelves of fishing tackle, rat poison, and bubble wrapping until I got to the counter at the back. A small old man was bent over behind the counter, and it was clear even from here that he and his striped button-down were the source of the sweat smell.



“Are you here for the trucks?” The man straightened up and peered at me through square glasses. Racks of packing tape hung from the Peg-Board behind his head. I tried to breathe through my mouth.



“Hi,” I said. “I’m not here for the trucks.” I took a breath, looked slightly tragic, and proceeded to lie. “The thing is, me and my friend just had a giant fight and she made me get out of her car. I know, right? I’m sort of stranded. Is there any way I could use your phone?”



He frowned at me, and I allowed myself to wonder, briefly, if I was covered in mud and if my hair was a mess. I patted at it.



Then he said, “What, now?”



I repeated my story, making sure I kept it the same and continued to look tragic. I felt relatively tragic. It wasn’t difficult. He still looked dubious, so I added, “Phone? To call someone to pick me up?”



“Well now,” he said. “Long distance?”



Hope glimmered. I had no clue if it was a long distance call or not, so I replied, “Mercy Falls.”



“Huh,” he said, which didn’t answer my question. “Well now.”



I waited an agonizing minute. In the background, I heard someone barking sharply with laughter.



“My wife is on the phone,” he said. “But when she’s off, I suppose you can use it.”



“Thank you,” I said. “Where are we at, by the way? So I can tell my boyfriend where to pick me up?”



“Well now,” he said again. I didn’t think the phrase meant anything to him — he just said it while he was thinking. “Tell him we’re two miles outside of Burntside.”



Burntside. That was almost a thirty-minute drive from Mercy Falls, all twisty two-lane road. It was unsettling to think that I’d made my way all this distance without knowing, like a sleepwalker.



“Thanks,” I said.



“I think you have some dog shit on your shoe,” he added, kindly. “I can smell it.”



I pretended to look at my shoe. “Oh, I think I do. I wondered about that.”



“She’ll be on for a while, now,” he warned me. It took me a second to realize that he meant his wife and the phone.