Page 37 of The SnowFang Secret


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And she wantedmeto do it.

Decorating Committee

Ifolded the huge pile of kitchen towels that had just come out of the laundry. Wonderfully hot and toasty on a cold morning. The calendar said it was almost April, but it was still damp and miserable outside. Some more wolves milled about, bringing things up to the porch, while the pups that lived in the house poked and stuck their fingers into things.

And what had I gotten from my mother as an early birthday gift?

If I could send it back, I would.

Livia, Sarah and Henri’s oldest daughter, bumped into my hip as I folded. She clutched her threadbare stuffie. Whatever the stuffie had originally been was impossible to say. Maybe a squid. Or a flying squirrel. Or a washcloth stuffed with another washcloth and stitched with string. Because all it was now was an indeterminate shade of yellow-green-brown and had more drape than that sequin “dress” Mint had chosen for Florida.

“You want to help?” She was five, not even shifted yet, and pups that age weren’t etiquette experts. She knew not to pester Marcella, but the rest of us were more or less fair game. When packmembers lived under the same roof, nobody barked at the little ones for being underfoot. At that age, it was more aboutdon’t hitanddon’t put your fingers in the outletandthe toilet brush is not for your hair. Once you could more or less trust that they weren’t putting whatever they found in the couch cushions in their mouth, you could move on to more advanced social techniques.

I lifted her up onto the chair so she could reach the table and gave her a few towels. She hooked her stuffie against her chest with her upper arm. I attempted to demonstrate how to bring corners together and fold a kitchen towel.

Sarah came into the kitchen with Marcella, noted her offspring was “helping” me fold towels while standing on a chair, and Marcella was wearing work clothes, complete with tags and lanyards and lab coat, with her own offspring tagging along behind her, grumbling aboutcan we gooooo. Marcella ignored them and focused on the list she and Sarah were working through while each positioning their shoulders to convey they were dissatisfied with my choice to violate theno feet on chairsrule.

Shoeswere not an acceptable thing to have on furniture.Feetwere perfectly acceptable things to put on furniture. Exhibit A: a bed. You put your feet on beds. And massage tables. And exam tables. And ottomans. Andfootrests. And those little rungs on bar-height stools and chairs.

I paid attention to Sarah and Marcella’s morning conversation. If the day came that I was required to take point, I needed to know enough to fake my way through it. Or the off chance I ever led a pack with more than three members ever again.

Coordination and delegation were key, andnothingsnuck under Marcella or Demetrius’ respective noses. Their calm and ease was just an illusion created by the underlying control they had over everything. I hadn’t even known if we’d had cream cheese or where it was in the fridge if we had had it, because I’d been just fine with delegating food to Cye. But I had known where to hide the lemon cream cookies and make sure he didn’t know anything about it.

A far cry from Sterling’s vigilant intensity, but more like Garrett’s alligator-in-the-bayou demeanor.

Livia was playing “hunt the non-specific towel-prey” with her stuffie. I kept folding but my ears perked up atEquinox. Equinox was mentioned with increasing frequency, but nobody had explained tomewhat Equinox was.

Marcella left the list with Sarah and rounded up her offspring, who rolled their eyes and were likefinalllllywhile Marcella told them something about texting their father about something or other.

“Equinox?” I asked Sarah.

Sarah (and most of the she-wolves currently in the kitchen) knew who I was, so she gave me a mildly impatient look. “You know what that is.”

“Yes, but you celebrate it?”

“Yes. Every year. You didn’t?” She meant at SilverPaw.

“No. Wasn’t on the calendar.” Most Alaskan packs didn’t celebrate it, as far as I knew, because in March, it was still literally freezing cold with spring months away and nobody wanted to try to pretend it wasn’t. In Montana, it had been much more temperate, but SilverPaw had historically been an Alaskan pack, and my mother had discussed perhaps Equinox, but she’d died before making it happen, and my father had never bothered.

“Ah, well, we do.” Sarah had an air ofpoor little lambto how she spoke, while the other wolves present contributed to the scent of awkwardness in the kitchen.

What did the AmberHowl… do… at Equinox?

Livia offered me her stuffie.

I tucked it under my arm and kept folding towels.

The sun was warm,the air was cool, and the ground was squishy.

Emily passed me a brown paper shopping bag. Inside were lengths of wide cotton ribbon in stripes and gingham patterns, all colored in various spring shades, like bright lavender and green and yellow. It was a chaotic mix, and a lot of the ribbons were frayed and had obviously been used year after year. At the bottom of the bag were an assortment of ornaments: tiny clay bells, balls made from fabric and glue and twine, pine cone trees with green wax dipped on the tips, and paper folded in fanciful shapes then dipped in wax to protect against the elements, wood discs that had been painted with scenes of the sky or meadows, wood or clay discs shaped like flowers or trees or bees.

“So the way we do,” Emily was telling me, “is we set up the big tablethere, and then everyone comes up or around from the front to behere, in this big area between the trees. Mostly wolves don’t go beyond the table into the house itself, you know.”

“And we’re hanging streamers along the avenue?” The massive back lawn had a wide open space that was framed on both sides by the trees.

“That’s right.”

The lawn dipped downward from the house, then the tilt mellowed out to expand into a wide open space. A group of male wolves seemed to be doing some aggressive yard work involving a few wheelbarrows, a large number of sacks, and assorted tools.

Source: www.allfreenovel.com
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