cake. My mother had given me all the crispy skin. And most of the chocolate frosting. I’d gotten all the toys I’d wanted. I was full. I was happy.
But the next day, I was empty. The Deluxe Li’l Wizards Magic Set had trickery but no magic: hiding balls and coins in plastic compartments. The dart gun either jammed or the dart failed to achieve more than the velocity of a laden swallow and dropped a few feet in front of me. The parachute, on the other hand, never deployed and the paratrooper fell fast and hard to the ground.
The cracklings and chocolate did a number on my intestines.
It is, I think, what Evie was trying to tell me with the cup. Stop trying to fill up the empty spaces and shatter. Open yourself up to everything around you—the smell of the black earth under a balsam pine, the feel of moss and cold water, the motion of a breeze sliding through guard hairs and rustling through leaves.
The only thing that’s the same is a goose, which had no cracklings but was fatty in that late summer way and delicious.
Midafternoon of the final day, I hear Tara call the start of challenges. It takes me a while to make it down from the High Pines but I miss only two minor skirmishes. From the tussle between the 13th’s Kappa and Iota over their rank within the echelon, I trot around the largely deserted paddock, watching how wolves slash with teeth that can and do rip open faces. How they charge suddenly, banging chest to chest. How they leap to the side, leaving slavering jaws with nothing but air. How they submit.
With each successive bout, the paddock becomes more crowded. By the time it arrives at the challenge between the 11th’s Gamma and Beta, it is very tight. I growl at wolves to give me space. I don’t need them blocking my leap into the arena. As soon as the 11th’s Gamma submits, I jump in, not even waiting for the combatants to leave. The Beta won, but as she pulls herself over the side, blood drips down her back leg and she makes it to the top of the paddock wall with trouble before dropping to the other side.
Claiming the western end, I do everything I’ve been told to. I walk back and forth across the paddock again to feel any changes in the earth under my feet, the gouges made by wolves who fought earlier. Chuffing repeatedly, I gauge my distance from the walls by the reverberations in the air.
More echelons descend from the woods, vying for places. The 10th has taken up its positions on the eastern end. The sun is still too high, but even so, their pupils are constricted. It won’t take long before it is right in their eyes. In Poul’s eyes.
Elijah is behind me, snapping irritably at wolves who dare take up places he has reserved for the 9th.
Pups run around snapping at ankles and tails, yelping excitedly at seeing so many adults together and wild. A wolf gently takes a pup by the scruff and sits it on the top of the paddock wall where it lands splay-legged before getting to its feet and strutting back and forth. Evie bares her teeth and the wolf quickly retrieves the pup, pulling him back off.
My eyes catch hers and she looks away, but not before I’ve seen that she’s hurting. I hate myself for being the cause of it, but I am tough and prepared and I will win and he will get his fucking nose out of her ear once and for all. Please, Evie. See me. Know me. Have a little faith in me.
Speaking of the devil, Poul leaps into the paddock on the east side. I watch him land, checking to see if his ankle is still stiff.
I’m grateful to see the 7th crowding in at the western side, at my side, next to the 9th. Everyone is here and yet…
Something is bothering me. Something in the vast continuum between what is seen and what I can’t put into words is wrong. I run around the paddock, trying to focus my mind on what it could be. Evie is here, so is Magnus, and Ziggy and Elijah.
So what’s wrong?
Evie takes her place on one side, opposite Silver. Both stand at the front so they can see everything and make sure the few laws that govern a fight like this are followed.
Tara barks once,