Brothersong (Green Creek #4) - T.J. Klune Page 0,95
remember.”
I could hear her smiling. “I thought as much. You should know that no one else watches me paint. I won’t allow it. It’s private. Personal. I need focus. Not even Thomas was allowed in my studio. He never knew how to stay quiet. His sons get that from him.”
“Always talking,” Gavin muttered.
“Yes. They tend to do that. There was only one other person who ever watched me paint, and though our time together was brief, I will treasure it always.”
“Who?” Gavin asked.
“Her name was Maggie. She was Ox’s mother. And like your mother, she shone brightly. I loved her more than I can put into words.”
“She’s gone,” Gavin said.
“Yes,” Mom said quietly. “Gone with the moon. Like so many others.”
He gnawed on his bottom lip. “Not good. At this. Being human.”
“You seem like you’re very good at it to me, but I understand how it’s easier to stay as a wolf. Before you came, and after Thomas and Maggie were taken from us, I only knew grief. I was a wolf for many months. It hurt too much otherwise. But pain is life. It reminds us of what we have. It’s a lesson I wish none of us had to learn, but sometimes we don’t have a choice. And yet here we are, as we are now. Together again. I know it’s not what we planned, but I like to think everything happens for a reason.”
“My father.” His mouth twisted down.
“Yes.”
“Bad wolf.”
“Is he?”
Gavin held up his right hand. He extended his claws. “In my head. Voice. Heard him. Didn’t want to, but did. Only way. I thought. And I….” He looked frustrated. “Can’t find words.”
Mom said, “You seem to be doing just fine to me. He’s still out there.”
He lowered his hands, the claws disappearing. “Still out there. Come. He’ll come here.”
“I know.”
“Bring pain. Hurt.”
“He’ll try,” my mother said, her voice growing harder.
“I’m sure he does in his own way. But sometimes love is poison, and it drips in our ears until our blood runs with it.”
“Bring pain,” he said again, suddenly insistent. “You. Pack. Everyone. I go, he stays away.”
“Do you want to go?”
I couldn’t breathe.
He looked around. At the house behind us. At the blue house behind him. At the dirt road that led away, away, away, and I knew it was pulling at him, whispering for him to run as fast and as far as he could.
But then he turned back around to us, to her. He said, “Thump, thump, thump.”
“What’s that?”
“Heart,” he said. “Carter’s heart.”
“You hear it.”
“Yes.”
“It speaks to you.”
“Yes.”
“What does it say?”
He looked stricken. “Gavin, Gavin, Gavin. Not poison.” And then he went to her, his head bowed. He pressed it against her chest, his arms hanging at his sides. He breathed heavily and shuddered when my mother reached up and put her hands in his hair.
“There you are,” she whispered to him. “Hello, hello. You’re home. So, no. No, Gavin. You aren’t to go away again. We are stronger together than we ever are apart, and this is where you belong.”
it’s platonic/into this river
They left us alone for a time. Kelly and Joe wanted to follow me from room to room like they had when they were kids, but Mom pulled them away, telling them to let us be, at least for a little while.
Gavin was twitchy, like he wanted to shift back to a wolf but was fighting against it. He crowded close as we walked into the house. My throat closed when I first went inside, the scents of home washing over me, embedded into the bones of this old house. The history here was long, and though it wasn’t always good, it was still mine.
Nothing much had changed. It looked as it had the day I left. The door to the office was closed, and I couldn’t make myself open it, remembering how lost I was the last time I’d been inside, recording a video for Kelly and feeling like I was dying.
Gavin followed me up the stairs as I trailed my fingers along the wall.
“It’s all the same,” I said.
“No.”
“No?”
“Louder. Bigger. More.”
I looked back at him. “You’ve never been in here without being a wolf. You seem to be doing okay with the stairs.”
He scowled. “I know how to walk.”
“That’s good. I’d hate to have to carry you.”
“Lie.”
I snorted. It was surreal being back here with him as he was