Almost before I know it, I'm standing on a runway at a tiny little airfield, looking at a plane not all that much bigger than Viv's SUV. The setting sun glints off the plane's wing like light on the edge of Death's scythe.
Vivian, AKA the party responsible for my sudden endangerment, gives me an encouraging smile. I used to think she was sweet. “He makes this run all the time. You're fine.”
The “he” in question would be Mr. Micheal Atherton, who, in addition to being the principal of a school for were-kids whose parents don't want them around, is also a pilot. Alaska has more pilots per capita than any other state. And they brag about it on their official website. They also claim it isn't as cold as everyone thinks, but they're lying about that one. It's thirty degrees cooler there today than it is here in Washington, which is hardly a balmy state.
My dad is looking at the winged contraption in front of us, which doesn't look like it could fly the forty-odd miles to Canada, let alone the thousand and something miles to Anchorage. A sensible person would be objecting to his daughter being shoved into something so questionable – it has propellers, for crying out loud! But not my dad. He's looking at the death trap with an excited form of envy.
Disgusted, I grab the handle of my suitcase and yank it from him. “Nice knowing you,” I mutter.
The man has the audacity to laugh. “I'll be joining you before you know it,” he tells me.
Unlike my mom, my dad has always seemed to honestly want to be around me, so I believe he'll be up as soon as soon as he can sell the house. However, since I won't be living long enough to see the school in the first place, due to my tragic death in transit, this is of limited comfort.
Ignoring my glower, Dad pulls me into a long hug. “Call me as soon you get there.” His voice chokes up, and there are tears in his eyes when he pulls away.
“Okay.” I try to give him a brave smile, like a good little soldier heading to the front lines. “Love you.”
His lips quiver as he nods. “I love you too, sweetie.”
Vivianne is there at his elbow, touching it lightly. Maybe I wasn't so far off on my theory about her trying to get me out of the way. Except, before today I liked her enough I wouldn't have objected to her going out with Dad. “I just talked to my kids.” She smiles again, giving me an urge to slap her. Luckily for her, I channel it into tightening my grip on my luggage. The plastic bends, evidence of my recently increased strength. “They're really looking forward to meeting you.”
Somehow, I manage not to snort at her. I am so sure her kids are all excited to know I'm coming. Because we all know teenagers just adore it when their parents pick out new playmates for them. (I swear I never used to be this sarcastic. It must be a were-whatever thing.)
Her eyes go to Mr. Atherton, her expression shifting just a tad. There's a softness under the forced cheer now. Hmmm... Maybe it isn't Dad she's using me to get closer to. “You'll be back at break, Michael?”
His charming smile is perfect, making it less appealing than the smiles I've seen from him so far. Still, if I thought he had any interest in me, he'd be someone well worth moving onto a frozen wasteland for. Simply put, the man is gorgeous. If my mood were just an ounce less sour, I'd be thrilled at the prospect of spending the next several hours staring at him. Well, if I were in a better mood and if he wasn't escorting me to my death in Charon's airplane...
“Unless someone calls to tell me different.” Something in his voice sounds off, but since I only met him few minutes ago, I can't make a guess about what it means.
Swallowing, Viv nods. With a gasp, her eyes widen. “I almost forgot.” She digs into her purse. “This came for Tod yesterday, and I haven't forwarded it yet. Can you give it to him?”
The envelope she holds out is thin, pristine except for a corner that must have crumpled from being carried in her bag. The writing on it is sharp and scrawled, impossible to read from here. From his frown, I would say Mr. Atherton reads it just fine. And doesn't like what he sees much.
Plastering a smile that is even more artificial than the last one on his face, he stuffs the envelope into a back pocket. “His father doesn't have the school address?” Compared to his previous ease, the question is downright surly.
Vivianne shrugs. “You know him.”
Mr. Atherton doesn't say anything. I get the impression that if he did say something, it wouldn't be polite.
“Bye, Dad,” I interrupt, not knowing what's going on exactly, but not wanting to see my pilot get distracted. I might need his help when we plummet into the ocean.
Taking his cue, Mr. Atherton hauls my stuff onto the plane and stows it between the seats in the back.
I only have two bags with me, and they aren't even full. It's sort of sad that my life fit into so little space, but I couldn't stand the thought of even looking at most of my clothes, which are too cheerful and happy and pretty. I grabbed everything black or dark gray and left the rest. And I didn't bring a single skirt. I prefer my refer my rear-end in a non-frozen condition.
Dad gives me one last hug, then hurries away before he starts crying. He goes all the way to the parking lot, but stands by his car instead of getting into it, waiting to watch the plane take off. He looks very, very alone.
Mom hasn't shown, of course. Not exactly a big shocker.
“Mike,” Vivianne calls around me, addressing the elder Mike.
He looks down at her, waiting without saying anything.
She takes a nervous breath. “You are staying up there, right?”
His lips turn up ever so slightly as he nods. “Yeah. The bears can figure this out.”
“Bears?” I blurt.
“You were attacked in territory claimed by a bear family,” Atherton explains quickly, his first direct mention of anything not freakishly mundane.
“What, werebears?” Huh. No reason people can't turn into bears. You know, once you accept that people can turn into other animals. “I'm a werebear?”
“No.” Vivianne shakes her head, adamant. “You don't smell at all like a bear.”
The other Mike puts his hand on my shoulder. “We don't know what you are yet. Usually, we can tell by scent, but yours is tricky.”
I don't like the sound of that. “Tricky how?”
“I think you smell like a healthy young wolf,” he tells me. Which doesn't seem very tricky to me.
But there's a loud sigh from Vivianne. “And you don't smell even slightly like a wolf to me. You don't smell like anything I've ever smelled before.”
“You sniff a lot of people?” I have to ask.
She smiles faintly. “Enough to know how rare you are.”
Removing his hand, Mr. Atherton clears his throat. “We'll have plenty of time to talk about this when we're airborne.”
“Right.” With a nod, Vivianne takes a step backward. She looks at Mr. Atherton like she wants to say something else, but in the end, she just waves and tells us, “Have a good flight.”
As she goes to talk to Dad, I raise a hand toward him. Pretending I don't notice him wiping at his cheek before he waves back, I duck into the plane and climb to the front, hesitating a second before deciding to sit in what would be the passenger seat if this were a car.
I buckle myself in and take deep breaths of air that smells somewhat like a dog while Mr. Atherton flips a bunch of switches, grabs the wheel, and tells the tower he'd like to leave now. Closing my eyes, I wish I had more faith in God, because then I would have someone to pray to.
Humming to myself, I try not to notice the sounds around me or the acceleration that whips me back in the seat.
“You can open your eyes now,” Mr. Atherton tells me eventually, his voice rife with amusement. “Unless you plan to keep them closed the entire flight.”
The idea doesn't seem like a bad one, but he's already laughing at me. How much more ridiculous would I seem if I really did spend the whole trip refusing to open my eyes?
My breath takes when I see the view. On the left, the Puget Sound lies at the feet of the sun, dotted with tree-coated islands and sea traffic of all descriptions. To the right, the Cascade Mountains reign, green and white and majestic. Mount Baker stretches up, higher than we are and even more impressive than it is from the ground. It's smaller than Mount Rainier, but when I've seen the more famous volcano from the sky, I was always in the coach section of a huge jet. The effect isn't the same.
“It's beautiful,” Mr. Atherton agrees with my unspoken words. “I love it up here.”
“So you're a werebird or something?” I ask, my eyes locked in awe on the scenery.
My companion laughs. “Hardly. I'm a wolf. Painfully traditional of me, I know, but we can't all be new species.”
Dragging my eyes back inside the cockpit, I frown. “Is that what I am?”
“Maybe.” He makes some adjustments while I think about that.
I don't think I want to be something new. I want to be something old. If I can't be human anymore, I want to at least have a new name for what I am, a new community....
“You're a were,” Mr. Atherton tells me, firm but not aggressive. “We don't know what you change into, that's all.” His smile is probably meant to be reassuring. “We'll know next full moon. It will be your third, right?”
“Including the one I was attacked on,” I confirm.
A mummer of acknowledgment accompanies his nod. “Three moons is the waiting period. Next moon, you'll change. So, we'll have it all figured out in three weeks,” he assures me, as if three weeks isn't an awfully long time to wait on knowing ones species. “And, really, it doesn't matter. I think you'll find North Sky is free of that sort of prejudice.”
Why is it I don't believe him?
“So, what do the other students change into?” I wonder aloud, in the hopes of figuring out what I'm not will help me figure out what I am through the process of elimination.
“We have a lot of wolves, like myself,” he says. “The Fox children are foxes, of course....”
“What?” I stare in disbelief. “Vivianne Fox actually is a fox?”
He grins at my outrage. “Not all families had creative founders.”
I guess not.
“We have a few bears, of assorted subspecies,” he goes on. “Some leopards, mostly snow leoprds. A few lions. Some tigers, including a pair of Siberians. A small pack of coyotes...”
“So, all mammals?” I catch on.
He nods. “There are those who change into other things, but you really need warm blood and fur if you want to be happy living as far north as we do.” His head tilts to check a setting before going on.
“Most of the students were born weres....” Catching my confusion, he makes a backwards motion with his hand, as if rewinding himself, and explains further. “There are two ways to be a were. You can either be born to it, or you can be turned through an attack. You and I were both turned. If either of us have children, they'll be born to it.”
Something about that seems wrong. “Shouldn't there be a lot of you? A lot of us, then?”
“We don't breed easily,” he answers with a shrug. “Our dominance struggles tend to be to the death. And there are a lot of rules about who is allowed to reproduce, which vary by species.”
I make a gagging sound at the idea of having to ask someone's permission to have children, but he rushes over it without pause.
“And we have a long history of strict punishments for weres who attack humans.”
That strikes me as ominous. “How strict?”
“Usually, we kill them.”
This is spoken with a complete absence of emotion.
My throat constricts as I swallow. “Is that what happened to the one who attacked you?”
He chuckles softly. “Worse. He had to marry the girl we were fighting over.”
My expression must be funny, because he laughs harder when he sees it. “We were cousins. Through the non-were side, obviously. And she was his life mate. Not that she knew it at the time, or I doubt she would have been fooling around with me.”
My nod of response is noncommittal. Something tells me he was pretty dazzling in high school. I can't imagine the girls around him were filled with chaste thoughts.
“He didn't mean to infect me, he was just too emotional, and too inexperienced, to control himself. His hands shifted to claws and ripped into me. He didn't even realize they'd changed until after it was too late.”
“And they let him off because of that?”
Mr. Atherton shrugs. “And because I pleaded for his life. He was my best friend. And she was his life mate, even if he was the only one who knew it at the time.”
I tilt my head. “And what did she think?”
More laughter meets the question. He laughs easily. “She realized when his life was in danger that she really did want to be with him. And in return for my role in their courtship, they named me godfather of their son.”
He turns the plane, banking west and drenching us in the glare of the sun.
My eyes water in response to the light, then my mouth widens as a yawn overtakes me. My eyes feel really droopy, for reasons I don't think are related to not having brought sunglasses. My energy levels are plummeting as quickly as I had expected the aircraft to.
“I'm impressed you're still awake,” Mr Atherton lets me know.
“Why?” I ask around a second yawn. “Excuse me....”
He gives my hand a pat. Apparently weres touch a lot. I would be freaked by that if I wasn't incredibly exhausted all of sudden.
“Changes take a lot out of a new were,” he answers. “And partial changes can really tire all of us. Stopping the change before it's over takes more energy then changing the whole way. Part of what saved my cousin was that even enraged with jealousy over his mate, he still controlled himself enough to only shift his hands.”
“But I can't change the whole way,” I point out. “Less than three months. Um. Moons.”
“Yeah...” The word is drawn out thoughtfully. “It is strange to shift at all before then.”
Great. I'm strange in addition to smelling funny. I'm just going to be the hit of my new school, aren't I?
“Get some sleep,” Atherton tells me, sounding sympathetic. “You can lay down in the back if you want.”
But moving seems like too much of a bother, so I just lean against the window and close my eyes.
I should be thinking about all the information that's been dumped on me today or worrying about what a school full of weres is going to be like, but my concentration is back at my old school. Troy will be in computer lab right now. I'm sure he's received the e-mail I sent him. Wonder what he thought when he read it. There wasn't a special one for him; he was cc'ed with everyone else. I wonder if he recognized the significance of that. I wonder if he cared.