Chapter Six: The Locket (Christian Cassidy)

While out shopping, an interesting object catches Molly's eye. Christian, meanwhile, must decide whether or not to stay at the farmhouse.

March, 2013

            When I wake up the next morning, I feel oddly refreshed. I sit up slowly and stretch. Then muddled memories from the previous night come rushing back to me, and I look over at my brother's bed. It's empty. I look at Molly's. My younger sister is still asleep, sprawled out on top of her covers, and wearing her clothes from the previous day.

            Sighing, I rise from my bed and gently shake her shoulder. She groans and cracks open her hazel eyes. She squints up at me, and rubs at her tired, red eyes.

            "Good morning, baby girl. How did you sleep?" I ask her.

            She sits up in her bed and gazes at me, her expression wary. Suddenly, her cheeks flush.

            "Good dreams?" I query. She nods, then sighs.

            "Christian, you would never lie to me, right?" She asks me.

            I sit down on her bed beside her. She scoots slightly to give me more room.

            "Of course not." I reply.

            "You'd never hide anything from me?"

            I hesitate, hopefully not long enough for her to notice.

            "No, I'd never hide something from you, Molly." I lie to her. It's for her own protection.

            "Then I owe you the same courtesy." She says.

            "Before you say anything else, Molly, I just want to tell you how proud I am of you." I interrupt her. I know what she's about to say. I give her hand a squeeze. "I know how much you wanted to go to that movie, but you were a good girl, and you listened to me. I know I can be a bit strict and overbearing, but it's because I love you."

            I don't speak those words often enough. When was the last time I said them to Jaden? I wonder.

            She grits her teeth. "But I did go to the movie." She tells me. "Jasper gave me tea that he'd mixed crushed sleeping pills into, and I gave it to you and Jaden to drink. After you fell asleep, we snuck out and went to see the movie." She confesses.

            I smile at her to show that I'm not angry. She sounds so ashamed.

            "I already knew that." I inform her. "I was waiting to see if you would tell me."

            "You...remember?" She asks me nervously. She gnaws on her lower lip.

            "Last night is a bit murky, but yes, I remember."

            She hangs her head. "You must hate me. You must think I'm a horrible person." She cries softly.

            I am horrified by the conclusion she's come to. Hate her? Such a thing is impossible.

            I put my hand under her chin and lift her head so that she's looking at me. "Hey, I don't think that at all." I reassure her. "You're fifteen, and you have those raging teenage hormones. Jasper is the first boy you've ever met. I knew when we came here that there was a strong possibility something like this would happen." And I dreaded it.

            "So...You're alright if I date Jasper?" She clarifies.

            "Yes." I say, and this time I don't hesitate. I can't stop her from seeing him in secret, and perhaps if I feint acceptance of their relationship, she'll be more open with me, and I can keep closer tabs on them. Besides, forcibly separating them would only cause her to resent me, and I don't want that.

            She squeals in delight and wraps her arms around me in a bear hug. I laugh and put my arms around her, wishing I could hold her there, safe, forever. "Oh, baby girl." I sigh.

            "I'm not a baby anymore." She mutters against my chest.

            As though I am not all too aware of that. I stroke her hair and whisper, "You'll always be my baby."

            "You're my brother." She says softly. "But you've always acted more like my father."

            I bristle at her words. She doesn't notice.

            "Did our father...Did he ask you to watch over me before he died?" She implores. She sounds so hopeful, I hate to break her heart.

            "He was attacked in the woods by a wolf. He didn't have the chance to make any final requests." I tell her. Even after all this time; all these years; it's still difficult for me to talk about the man who raised me. I still miss him. I don't think there will ever come a day when I don't.

            I still miss the woman I thought my mother was, as well. She's been dead to me almost as long as my father has, the only difference is she may still be breathing.

            "I'm certain that if he had, that would have been his wish." I continue. "That's not why I care for you, though. I do it because you are one of the two most important things in my world." I kiss the crown of her head. "You and Jaden are the people I would die for."

            "I don't want you to die; not ever." She whispers. "I don't want you to leave me."

            My heart cracks at her words.

            "I'll never leave you." I promise her, and I ruffle her already bed ruffled hair. Not again. I add mentally. I left her once before, out of necessity, but I will never again willingly leave my sister's side.

            "What was he like? Did he love me?" She asks me, back on the subject of our father.

            That she has to ask such a question saddens me. No child should ever have to wonder if their father loved them. I silently curse our mother. She's the one responsible. She's the one who took him away from us.

            "He was a good man; one of the best." I tell her. "He wasn't always around, but when he was, he was focused solely on us. He made an effort to be home more after you were born. When you were in the NICU, he hardly ever left your side. He loved you, Molly, more than words can express. I so wish you could have known him. I'd give almost anything for that."

            "Me, too." She says quietly.

            "Did he and our mom love each other?" She asks me.

            I swallow. How to answer that particular question?

            "He loved her very much." I say at last.

            "Did you ever have someone like that, Christian? Someone...special?" She implores.

            A face; a beautiful, pale face with inquisitive green eyes and just the faintest splash of freckles, with long, wavy blonde hair; one I haven't seen in a very long time; flashes briefly through my mind at the question.

            "I did, once, a long time ago. But I was a different person back then than I am now."

            Jaden pokes his head in the door. "Breakfast." He announces with a grin. "Rayna made pancakes."

            "What are pancakes?" Molly inquires.

            "We've really deprived you." Jaden comments, winking at me. I smile back at him.

            "Pancakes are the most superior of the breakfast foods." My younger brother tells our sister.

            Molly and I rise from her bed, and the three of us walk to the kitchen together. We sit down at the table, Molly between Jasper and I. Jasper smiles at her, and I try not to grimace.

            Ted loads her plate high with a stack of pancakes, and Jaden pours syrup onto them. Molly crinkles her nose.

            "Trust me, they're wonderful." Jaden promises her.

            "You've never had pancakes before?" Ted asks her.

            She shakes her head, and I can tell that she's embarrassed.

            She raises her fork and knife and cuts a small piece of pancake. We all watch her as she lifts the bite to her mouth, her hand shaking. She closes her lips around it, and begins to slowly chew. We're all leaning forward in our seats. As soon as she swallows that first bite, we're demanding to know what she thinks, and if she likes them.

            Instead of answering us, she takes another bite, and then another, followed by yet another...Until her plate is empty.

            We all laugh in unison as she wipes the syrup from her mouth with her napkin.

            "I guess she likes them." Jasper says.

            We all assist with the cleanup afterward, during which Rayna offers to take Molly into town to go shopping. My sister's eyes grow huge at the prospect. She turns to Jaden and I, her gaze pleading.

            "Can I speak with you alone, Rayna?" I request.

            Rayna glances over at Molly, then follows me down the hall to mine and my sibling's bedroom.

            "The girl deserves a sense of normalcy." She starts in before I have a chance to say a single word.

            "That's all I'm trying to give her; one day where she can be a regular girl her age. Is that a crime, Christian?"

            No, it's not. I think. I want that for her, too, but her safety will always come first.

            "I appreciate the gesture, Rayna, but you know we can't have her out in the open, exposed like that." I say. "What if one of the Pack members is there, and they see her? They have spies everywhere, human and...werewolf."

            "It still troubles you to say it, doesn't it?" She asks me. "Werewolf." She places a horrible emphasis on the word. "It's what we are, Christian, and sooner or later you're going to have to accept it."

            Her words eerily echo Jaden's from so many years before; back when we went to retrieve Molly from Aunt Rose's house.

            "I've accepted it." I lie. "It doesn't meant I have to like it. I realize what she's doing then, trying to distract me.

            "Don't change the subject!" I snap at her. "We were discussing Molly and why it's a bad idea for you to take her out in public."

            "I understand your concerns, Christian, but I can protect her just as well, if not better, than you." She says.

            I snarl at her. How dare she?

            "What, are you going to transform in public, Rayna?" I sneer at her.

            "If you're so paranoid, then why don't you come along with us?" She suggests.

            I consider her words, and sigh. "Fine." I agree in a growl.

            We return to the kitchen, where Molly is waiting for us.

            "You can go shopping with Rayna if you wish." I tell her. She perks up instantly "But if you do, I'm coming with you." I add.

            Her mouth twists, making it look like she's sucked on something sour.

            "Ok." She says at last.

...

            The three of us head out in Ted's truck. Rayna drives. Molly is wedged between us.

            The mall is enormous, and busy. I can tell Molly is overwhelmed. She clings to me tightly until Rayna pries her off. The woman drags her from store to store and has her try on outfit after outfit. After a while, I can tell from the smile slowly stretching across her face that Molly is beginning to enjoy herself.

            When Rayna goes to purchase the clothes Molly tried on, I object to her spending such a hefty amount of money on my sister. She immediately dismisses my concerns.

            As we're leaving, we pass a jewelry counter, and Molly tears away from Rayna and I.

            The woman behind the counter smiles pleasantly at her, and asks her if she'd like to see anything. My sister points to a locket, and the woman reaches into the case and pulls it out, setting it atop the counter.

            I come to stand behind Molly. I stare hard at the woman. She grins at me, and I see how sharp her teeth are. Her eyes flash yellow, and I know. She's a member of the Pack. I look down at the locket that Molly's interested in, and my heart momentarily stutters. The locket is brass, and the design etched onto its surface is the face of a monstrous wolf with two yellow topaz gems for eyes.

            "Do you like it?" I ask her as she opens it to discover a clock on one side and an empty space for a photograph on the other.

            She nods vigorously.

            I wordlessly reach into my jacket pocket and pull out an old, worn leather wallet. The one that belonged to our father. The one Jaden doesn't know I kept.

            "Christian!" Molly cries as she watches me slide the cash across the counter.

            The locket costs all of the money Rayna paid me in advance for a month of work.

            "Let me do this for you." I say softly. "It would...Make me happy."

            Once the locket's purchased, she pulls from her pocket the tiny photograph of our father holding her as a newborn that I gave her when she was six years old, and slips it into the locket. I put it on her, having to disentangle her dark curls from its chain.

            "It looks lovely on you." Rayna compliments her, and Molly smiles radiantly.

            When we return to the farmhouse, Molly wanders off to excitedly show Jaden all she has gotten.

            Rayna and I are alone in the kitchen then.

            "Surely you recognize the symbol on that locket." She murmurs to me.

            "Of course." I answer. "It's Ruem's."

            Rayna is the one who first told Jaden and I of the prophesy. It's what's motivated my every decision since.

            "Strange she was drawn to that one, isn't it? It's almost as though her unconscious mind knows the truth, and it's trying to tell her." She muses.       

            "There's no way she could know anything!" I retort angrily.

            "You don't think she's ever seen things, not even by accident? Neither you nor Jaden has ever let anything slip?" She queries skeptically.

            "No." I reply in a hard voice. "My brother and I have always been careful." The closest she's ever come to seeing either of us in our wolf forms is when she ran away and we chased her, transforming so that we were fast enough to catch her. But it was so dark that night that if she'd seen us she wouldn't have been able to tell that we were anything other than ordinary wolves.

            "I think the Pack is closing in." Rayna whispers conspiratorially. "I think one of them placed that locket there with the intention of her finding it. They're set on her, Christian. Her date of birth is incorrect, and so is the turning sequence, but it doesn't seem to matter to them. They're determined to have her."

            "They'll never have her." I vow.

            "They won't stop until they do." She says ominously.

            "If they want her so badly, then why did our mother try to kill her?" I demand. The memories from that night continue to haunt me. It was the night I stopped loving the woman who birthed and raised me; the night that I was confronted with an impossible choice. Never once have I regretted my decision. Not even now.

            "Sarah was lied to her entire life." Rayna tells me softly. "They told her it was a blessing and an honor to bear the thirty first. She believed everything the Elders told her. We all did.

            "When she learned the truth about what they intended to use Molly for, she...She did what she thought was right. Molly was going to be scarified anyway, so she decided to kill her daughter to prevent her from being used to...to..."

            "I know what they intend to do." I say.

            "Should we leave?" I wonder. "If they know we're here, then Molly isn't safe. None of us are."

            "You and your family can leave if you wish, but Ted, Jasper, and I are going to stay." Rayna says firmly. "I won't let the Pack drive my family from our home."

            I ponder my options. I hear Molly laughing from the bedroom. I want so desperately for her to be happy, and she is the happiest I've ever seen her here at the farmhouse. We only just arrived yesterday, but already she's settled and considers this place home. Can I really uproot her? She would despise me. Better that then the Pack get their paws on her, though.

            "We'll stay...for now." I decide."But if there are any more signs of the Pack, then we'll leave. I can't risk Molly's well being, not even for her happiness."

            Rayna nods. "It's been hard on you, raising her, but you're a good father, Christian."

            Not her too! I groan internally. I could never replace our father, and I'm a poor substitute for him.

            "I'm not her father." I say stiffly.

            Rayna smiles at me. "Oh, but you are." She murmurs. "You are."