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It’s another phrase for tending the hair between your legs.
Your fur is there to keep you warm. You’d think you’d want to keep what little you have. Humans are strange creatures.
That made me laugh more. She wasn’t wrong.It’s tradition,I explained when I’d finished giggling. I’d learned that Esme would accept anything strange if I told her it was a tradition. Apparently wolves are big on tradition, and it doesn’t need to make sense.
Ah. Well then.Satisfied with my explanation, she settled down in my mind.
I raised my hand and knocked at the slate-grey door. A woman opened it. She was probably in her early thirties, with dark-green skin and contrasting blonde hair. She smiled warmly at me. ‘You must be Lucy. Come on in. Jinx said you’re in a pickle.’
A pickle seemed a mild way to describe the brutal murder of one of my pack mates, but we’re British. We’d describe a torrential downpour as a ‘spot of rain’.
‘Just a little pickle,’ I agreed. I kicked off my shoes and followed her in. ‘No kids about?’ Jess had mentioned that she had two little ones.
‘My neighbour has them for me sometimes to give me a short break.’ Joyce led me into the lounge, absently picking up toys from the floor as she went.
Jess had been hired to find Joyce’s husband’s killer; she’d got the job done and found Joyce the answers and closure that she needed. Even so, Joyce had been left a single parent to young kids. I could only begin to imagine how hard that must be.
‘I’m sorry for your loss,’ I said awkwardly. ‘Jess mentioned you’d lost your husband.’ The phrase ‘losing your loved one’ always makes me think you’ve accidentally misplaced them, like you’ve lost track of them on a walk in the hills, but these trite phrases were expected. I felt a genuine sympathy for Joyce; I’d seen grief destroy Jess, and it was only recently that she’d truly put herself back together.
Joyce gave me a stiff smile. ‘Thanks,’ she replied. ‘How can I help you?’ She got straight to the point and I appreciated that. She probably could sense my awkwardness.
‘I’m new to the position of alpha of the Home Counties pack. I gather there’s some tension between my wolves and the dryads at the moment.’
She tucked a strand of hair behind her ears. ‘I don’t know how frank to be,’ she said finally.
‘As Frank as Sinatra.’
She sent me a faint smile. ‘Your younglings have been straying into dryad territory at Black Park. We’re normally fairly flexible about these things, as long as no harm comes to our trees, but…’ She hesitated.
‘Go on.’
‘They’ve been daring each other, egging each other on. We shrugged it off at first – harmless younglings screwing about, kids will be kids no matter what species they are. But just recently they came into our heartlands and one of them urinated on our elder tree.’
Her outrage was palpable; she was ramrod straight in her chair and her cheeks were flushed with anger. ‘The elder tree!’ she repeated indignantly. ‘The dryad commune reported it to your pack. Lord Samuel would normally have smoothed out such issues and the younglings would be taken to task so that no one would dare transgress again, for a few months at least. But this time Lord Samuel didn’t come. Mark Oates came instead.’ Her eyes narrowed. ‘He walked right up to the elder tree and he also pissed on it.’
My mouth dropped open. ‘He didwhat?’
She nodded, her mouth set in a grim line. ‘He urinated on the elder tree. When he was finished, he spat on it. He said the younglings could go where they liked in Black Park, and then he walked out.’
Joyce met my eyes unhappily. ‘The commune is due to meet and the pack’s fate will be decided. I fear our truce is at an end. There have been enough tensions lately between the humans and the creatures, but to have your second relieve himself on the elder tree… That is not a youngling’s infraction.’
‘No, it is not,’ I agreed hotly. I shot to my feet. ‘Can you take me to the commune, or to the elder tree, or to whoever I have to apologise to?’
Some of the tension left her shoulders. ‘Let me make some calls.’ She stepped out of the room and shut the door. Her landline phone was in the hallway; my wolf-enhanced hearing is so good, even when I’m in human form, that I could hear her side of the conversation even through the closed doors. It was clear that she was begging on my behalf for them to meet with me, but the outrage ran deep and they didn’t want to give me the opportunity to apologise.
I texted Jess.Can you ask Emory for the proper way to apologise to some dryads? A real grovelling apology. x
What did you do? X
Not me. The dead guy literally pissed on their elder tree. I don’t know what an elder tree is but it seems like a big deal. X
Oh jeez. Emory says you couldn’t manage a worse insult for a dryad, other than spitting on it too. They water the elder tree with blessed spring water – there’s a whole ceremony. They believe the tree guides and protects them. They marry and honour their dead in the shade of the elder tree. Emory suggests the only thing that can even start to help is to take a young sapling to plant in recognition of the insult. And you must offer to tend it. If the sapling takes, then the insult is forgiven. If it dies…x
Oh man. Mark spat on it too. What happens if the tree dies? x
War probably.
Shit. I’ll take a hardy tree. x
