Brothersong (Green Creek #4) - T.J. Klune Page 0,145

mind again and again. I was blinded by hope. And I allowed something to happen that should not have, at least not then. Can I tell you what I did?”

She wasn’t looking at me.

Gavin nodded.

She folded her hands on her desk. “Once upon a time, Joe was taken by a monster. I know some people try and blame themselves for what happened, but they shouldn’t. It was beyond their control.”

I gripped the armrests of the chair, claws digging in.

“This monster—this man was someone my husband trusted. Thomas, for all his faults, was desperate to see the good in people. But we had no reason not to trust this man. I will not say his name here. He has occupied enough of my thoughts and doesn’t deserve to have his name spoken aloud. In the end, he paid for his crimes.” Her eyes flashed. “If I had been his executioner, I would have drawn it out much longer than it was.”

A chill ran down my spine.

“Joe was returned to us. He came home. But he was…. He’d left. The light was gone from his eyes. I begged him to see me. I cried over him. I carried his limp little body, and it was like he was filled with sand.”

“Mom, you don’t have to do this.”

She ignored me. “Thomas howled at him, eyes red and bright. The call of the Alpha. There was a flicker in Joe, a reverberation, but nothing more. It gave me hope. It would take time, but when it’s your child, you give all the time in the world. We made the decision to return to Green Creek. To leave Michelle Hughes in charge of Caswell while we came home. It was Thomas’s idea, and I think he was relieved, in the end. That his crown was passed to another so that he could focus on his son. We came home, and Joe was still… still as he was. I worried what would happen to him. How we would explain to our new neighbors that our son didn’t talk. You see, a boy and his mother lived in the blue house. I’d heard of this boy from Mark. He said he’d met someone unlike anyone else he’d ever known in his life. Special, is what he said. Quiet, but there was something about him that Mark couldn’t quite put his finger on. I barely paid attention. I had enough to worry about.”

“Ox,” Gavin said.

“Yes. Ox. Upon our arrival, I was distracted. Busy. Trying to make this place a home once again. When I turned around, Joe was gone.” She flexed her hands on the desk. “The terror I felt at that moment. It consumed me. I thought that he’d been taken from me again. But then, in the distance, I heard something I hadn’t heard in a long time. He was speaking again. I thought I was dreaming while awake. Have you ever had that feeling, Gavin?”

He glanced at me, then looked back at my mother. “More than once.”

“We went outside onto the porch. And there, like a little monkey, was my son, sitting on the back of a boy I’d never seen before. There was something about that moment I can’t quite explain. It was as Mark said. This boy was special. And it had nothing to do with the fact that my son was speaking to him, although that played a part. This boy, Ox, he…. Have you ever been to the ocean?”

He shook his head.

“That’s okay. There’s this sensation, when you’re standing on the beach, your toes in the sand. The tide pulls at you as the waves rush back and forth. You’re standing in place, but it feels like you’re moving. And you are, in a sense. You’re sinking, the sand covering your feet. That’s what it felt like to me. I was immobile. And I was sinking, but it felt so right.” She cleared her throat as she sniffled. “Ox had this… presence about him, even then. He was the ocean. We were the sand. And Joe had seen it, seen fit to speak of it. Oh, he didn’t know what it meant. I don’t know what went through his head when he decided to gift Ox his voice after hiding it away for so long.”

“Candy canes and pinecones,” Gavin said. “Epic and awesome.”

Mom was startled into a laugh. “Yes. There was that. He’s told you?”

“I asked.”

“Did you?” She smiled at him, though it trembled. “How wonderful.” I loved her for not