around too. Some who know what she’s asking but who know better than to say anything and two who have not been raised Pack.
Thea pushes back the black cascade of hair from her ear to listen, revealing a pup clinging to her shoulder for balance, its bony, hyperactive tail wagging furiously. Even Tiberius with his freakish senses shakes his head, no.
“Gehyrað æfter stilnes,” Silver says, prodding them. “Listen to the silence.”
I lean back into the chair. I remember playing this game with Sigeberg. No one got it then either.
“Water,” rasps Constantine. His voice quavers in the way of someone reluctant to give up the silence of the wild.
“Gea, Constantine,” Silver says. “Listen if you like. There are no Pack secrets.”
He totters toward the edge of the porch, grabbing on to the peeled trunk that serves as one of the roof supports. Leaning against it, he sinks down, sitting with his knees bent, his bare feet near mine.
“First the water quiets. Then birds molt and become vulnerable and secretive and the noise of spring is followed by the Silence of Summer.
“Do we have time for the story, Alpha?” she asks. “I’ll make it short.”
I nod and settle into the corner of the Adirondack chair, one foot curled up against the strut, the other near Constantine.
“Wulfas,” she says and picks Nils up. “On ðære wald stearc and grim, alifde ðæt ðæt unasecgende sceolon.
“In the forest strong and fierce are lives that must be lived unspoken.”
Constantine sucks in a deep breath; he stretches out his arms behind him. Hidden by the chair, one hand sneaks around behind my foot, its rough warmth circling the back of my heel, the tendon there, the hard bone at the side, and the soft spot below where the blood runs quick and at the surface.
As with most our stories, the one Silver tells involves the heroism of wolves and the unredeemable shittiness of gods.
“The responsibility for the flow of days was given to two gods: Sol, the goddess of the sun, and Mani, the god of the moon. Like most gods, they were lazy and selfish and thought nothing about their responsibilities and everything about their own power and pleasure. But if Bragi indulges in too much drink, a writer’s words come slowly. If Njord lounges by the beach, a traveler is stranded on her voyage. It was different when Sol and Mani dithered around, because then the earth’s seasons stopped and life withered.
“The humans were terrified. They indulged in thoughts and prayers, which did exactly nothing.
“Wolves need the Iron Moon to knit the Pack together. To run the territory. To keep the land in balance. While Mani masturbated on the mountain top, there was no crescent moon, no quarter moon, no new moon, and no Iron Moon. While Sol slept, the sands of the desert turned to glass and the trees of the Ironwood withered.
“The Alpha of the Ironwood didn’t think and she didn’t pray. Instead, she called for her fastest hunters and sent them to chase the laggard gods.
“As soon as Sol and Mani saw wolves coming, they got off their asses and ran. The cycles of the earth started again. Life began and ended. The moon waxed and waned, and wolves could be wild together. For millennia, these wolves did what wolves have always done—kept the balance of life.
“At first Sol and Mani called those wolves Hati and Sköll—Hater and Betrayer—because like the spoiled children they were, they resented being forced to work.
“The wolves of the Ironwood, however, called them by their real names, Háte and Ceald, meaning… Aella?”
Aella looks abashed, caught with her hand up as she rubbed her ear against her shoulder. “I was just—”
“Your hand was raised,” Silver says. “So what do Háte and Ceald mean?”
She hesitates, looking around her. “Hot and cold?”
“Gea, Aella,” Silver says. Tiberius reaches out his curved fingers toward the girl’s scalp. She moves her head under his nails, thumping her foot on the ground.
Silver pulls at her smile and begins again. “One night, Ceald could not move anymore. She was after all a wolf, not some mythical creature. Mani was just that, and being deathless and omnipotent, he escaped, happy with his freedom, far from the wolf who had chased him so long. He went back to his old ways, masturbating on mountaintops, spilling more stars in the sky. He drank mead. He played several rounds of Halatafl, Kvatrutafl, and Hnefatafl, even though one round is dull as dirt with only a single player. He kicked