"Mercy," said my mother thoughtfully, "you never told me your werewolf neighbor was quite that hot." "Mmm," I said.
I appreciated her effort, but now that the time was at hand, I just wanted to get it over with.
"And you didn't get to see him rip Tim's corpse to pieces." I heard Mom suck in a hard breath.
"I wish I had.
Tell me about Tim." So I did.
And she didn't say a word until I was finished.
I hadn't meant to tell her everything.
But she didn't say anything, didn't move, didn't look at me.
So I talked.
Just barely, I managed to keep Ben's name out of it--his secrets were his to reveal--but everything else roared in jagged bits or choked roughly out of someplace dark and vile.
It took a while to get it all out.
"Tim reminded you of Samuel," she said when I was through.
I jerked my head off her lap.
"No, I'm not crazy." She handed me a wad of tissues from the box that sat on an arm of the couch.
"That's why you didn't see it coming.
That's why you didn't see what he was.
Samuel was always a bit of an outcast, and it left you with a soft spot for outcasts." Samuel? Cheery, sweet-tempered (for a werewolf) Samuel an outcast? "He was not." I grabbed a handful of tissues and wiped snot and salt water from my face.
My nose runs when I cry.
She nodded.
"Sure he was.
He likes humans, Mercy--and most werewolves don't." She shivered at some memory or other.
"He listened to heavy metal and watched Star Trek reruns." "He was the Marrok's second before he came here to lone wolf it for a while.
He wasn't an outcast." She just looked at me.
"Lone wolf doesn't mean outcast." I set my jaw.
The door popped open, and Samuel, who'd been sitting out on the porch for a while, came in.
"Yes, it does.
Hey, Margi--why'd you bring that dog with you? He's creepy-looking." Hotep was black with reddish brown eyes.
He looked like Anubis.
Samuel was right, he was creepy-looking.
"I couldn't find a sitter for him," she said, standing up to get hugged.