hand, he lifts the other over his head and rubs his ear against his raised shoulder.
“What’s fistshoos?”
“Fist.” He holds up one finger. “Fist.” Then he holds up another finger. “Secon.” And one more. “Turd.”
“First…?”
“Shooos.” He holds up his foot and taps at the shoe. “Whem we staht weareding skin?” He tries to enunciate but it still takes me a moment to figure out what he means.
When we start wearing skin.
He tucks the now-shod foot under his leg and starts with the other, a pink Croc with a gently gnawed toe that goes on easily. Now he rubs at his ear with his wrist, his foot shaking until he is done. Jumping up, he thunks awkwardly toward the outside door, but then stops short. He fishes for something in his pocket and returns to me, wiping an orange stick against his shirt.
“A presence,” he says, holding it out to me.
The orange stick smells salty and rich and vaguely earthy and makes my mouth water and my stomach clench. “A present? What for?”
“Because I god a pack. You only god a buncha peoples.”
Then he clumps away again, his uneven footsteps picking up speed as he heads to the door. I hear him thump down the stairs yelling, “I talged to one! I talged to one! I gave it my sheese shew!”
Staring down at my pity prize from a prepubescent werewolf, I feel the heat of eyes the color of fire and turn around.
Chapter 9
Evie
I watch Edmund through the paned windows that give onto the mudroom. Like all wolflings in this first year out of pupdom, he is awkward. I’ve seen him stretching out his fingers and circling his thumb in the air, trying to make sense of these new digits. I’ve seen him yawn wide, popping his ears, trying to make them work. I’ve seen him stick his stubby, thick tongue out, trying to lick his cheek. I’ve seen him stick his short little nose in the air, sucking in big panicky breaths that tell him not nearly enough.
I don’t know why it’s called the Year of First Shoes, when it could just as easily be called the Year of First Forks. The Year of First Pants. The Year of First Words. The Year of First Lurching on Two Legs.
The First Year of the End of Innocence.
As soon as I scent steel and carrion, my shoulders tighten and my legs coil in case the pup needs me.
Like all wolves, Edmund is curious about the newcomers and scents the Shifter’s boots. Like young, protected wolves, he doesn’t know to be afraid of humans and anyone who smells like them.
“You’re one of the Shifters?” Edmund says, staring up the long length of him.
“Lukani,” the Shifter says, squatting down. “We call ourselves Lukani.”
The Shifter folds his hands under his arm. The muscles at his back are loose as he talks softly to Edmund. Once, he extends a hand, but Edmund says no and the Shifter retreats.
When Edmund starts for the door, the Shifter stretches out his long legs, watching him disappear and return holding out his cheese chew. A present, Edmund says, because he has a pack, and the Shifter only has a bunch of people.
The Shifter stares at it for a long time after Edmund leaves, an odd look in his eyes that is both inward and absent. It’s a little chewed at one end, the cheese chew. It probably doesn’t look like much to someone who is not Pack, but they are objects of constant tussling among our pups and much prized.
I hope he doesn’t throw it away.
He slides the dry end into the pocket of the worn flannel shirt, holding it there, his hand to his heart, until something seems to call him and he turns, his eyes catching mine.
He’s a Shifter in our midst and I should be watching him, so I don’t know why I feel awkward, but I do and I start to busy myself distributing chairs. I hoist an armload of them toward the table farthest away. With a flick of my wrists, I open two at a time, settling them into place with a hollow metallic clang.
I don’t like it. It’s not like the heavy sound of our old wooden benches.
We copied the old hall as closely as possible: the fireplace, the birch-branch balustrade of the stair leading to the second floor where the pups and juveniles and grans live, the big tables that draw us together when we are in skin. The smell of fire is