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  I’m not sure I’ll send this letter, because you’ll be worried and want me to come home. But I’m fine here. I really am. And I wouldn’t have said anything at all if I hadn’t seen Jesse and Tolya at that moment.

  Here’s my new address. I’ll probably be moved in by the time you get this letter, but even if I’m not, Bennett doesn’t have a lot of residents yet, so the boardinghouse will hold my mail if you send it there.

  Speaking of residents, a Wolf is our new sheriff. His name is Virgil Wolfgard, and he gives off an “I’m so dangerous I don’t need a gun” vibe. Actually, it isn’t a vibe because he really doesn’t need a gun. He just shows his teeth and growls to encourage law and order. He calls me Barbara Ellen. So does Tolya. I don’t know why. Everyone else calls me Barb.

  And speaking of dangerous vibes, one of the Panthergard has taken possession of a small cabin just outside of town. There’s a young guy, a human, living with him. I’ve seen them walking around the town square, but they’ve kept to themselves so far. We’ve all been told to give them space—no bringing over a casserole to welcome the new neighbors. Not that any of us are really cooking since meals at the boardinghouse and hotel are free for the residents but you have to buy food that you cook for yourself. So why make a sandwich when you can get a Mom-approved balanced meal made by someone else?

  Have to go. Love and big hugs to Mom and Dad. And you too.

  Barb

  To: Vladimir Sanguinati and Simon Wolfgard, Urgent

  Jesse Walker is unhappy and has threatened to withdraw her assistance in dealing with all the stores and houses in Bennett. She wants to know what we intend to do with the town and the other human places that the Elders cleansed and reclaimed. Are we intending to repopulate them with Intuits and terra indigene? Are some places going to be abandoned and allowed to decay? Are the humans who have come to Bennett just temporary help and muscle or will they be residents in the fullest sense, taking up a trade or working in the businesses? She wants to know if Bennett is going to be a real town or just a stage setting for humans getting off the train.

  As Grandfather Erebus requested, the Sanguinati are now established here. We are in charge of the railway station, the bank, and the post office/telegraph office, and I am the acknowledged leader of the town. We have shifters from many gards who have come in and are willing to work here, but most have little direct experience in being around humans. Most of the Intuit youngsters who have come to Bennett have little direct experience in being around the terra indigene. Since the Elders are never far away, this is a concern.

  That said, I think Jesse Walker has a point. Originally, the intention was to secure Bennett because it had the only train station for many miles and shouldn’t be allowed to fall into the hands of humans who might be enemies of the terra indigene. To that end, I made note of the essential businesses we would have to keep. But if the town is going to be more than a handful of businesses that support the individuals working at the station, then we need to compromise and allow those who want to settle in a new place to come to Bennett—especially individuals who, like Barbara Ellen Debany, have a particular skill that we need here. We might even use Bennett as a posting station to send teams out to reclaim the other empty towns. But selecting the right humans is vital. We have plenty of young people who would stay if they had the opportunity to learn a trade. What we need now are adults who can run the other businesses.

  Could the Lakeside Courtyard act as a filter and send applicants to Bennett? Enclosed is a list of professions and trades Jesse Walker feels should be filled, especially since the offices and businesses already exist. I do not think all these professional vacancies need to be filled immediately if a suitable candidate is not found, but I think an effort must be made if we want to build a mixed community here in the same way you are creating one near Lakeside.

  —Tolya

  P.S. Barbara Ellen is doing well. I have encouraged her to write to her family, and I was told by a Crow working in the post office that she did send a letter on Sumor 26, but she may not write as often as her family desires because she is busy making new friends and is equally busy taking care of all the house animals that were left behind. With so many pets, as she calls them, needing new homes—or at least new caretakers—she suggested giving a dog, cat, or bird to every new resident as a welcome gift. I am trying to discourage this idea without telling her that new terra indigene residents might think she was giving them an easy dinner.

  CHAPTER 3

  Thaisday, Messis 2

  Out of sight of the females in the apartment, Simon paused at the open doorway and listened.

  “That does it for this place,” Eve Denby said. “This cream color isn’t exciting, but it’s a good neutral, and doing all the apartments in the same color sure makes it easier.”

  “Personal touches will add the color,” Twyla Montgomery said. “Besides, I don’t think any of the tenants are going to want to go out and spend the money right now to buy different paint and do this work again on their own.”

  “You got that right. My instructions were to clean and paint and make sure everything was in working order. The plumbing works. So does the electricity. And may the gods bless them, the Others purchased new appliances for all the apartments, including a washer and dryer installed in each of the basements of the two stone apartment buildings as well as the two-family.”

  “One washer and dryer shared by the folks living in four units? You planning to assign laundry days for each unit?”

  “If it comes to that. I’m thinking more of a sign-up sheet to reserve the washers and dryers if someone wants or needs a particular time or day. Besides, there are coin-operated machines in the Courtyard’s social center, as well as a launderette in the Bird Park Plaza. Tenants can enjoy cooperation and convenience, or they can take their laundry elsewhere.”

  Simon thought that sounded fair. A laundry pecking order. Not that dissimilar to feeding on a deer—the dominant members of the pack had first choice. It would be interesting to see how the females taking up residence in the apartments sorted out their dominance.

  While this talk about laundry was interesting, up to a point, he had a reason for coming over to the apartment building before going into the meeting to talk about the e-mail he and Vlad had received from Tolya Sanguinati.

  He stepped into the apartment and waited for the two females to notice him.

  “Mr. Wolfgard.” Eve wiped her paint-smeared hands on a rag. “Give it a day for the paint to dry, and Sierra and her girls can move in.”

  “Kitchen is clean, cupboards and floor, and the dishes and the rest are put away,” Twyla added. “It was thoughtful of you to supply the basics.”

  Simon shrugged. The Business Association had a lengthy discussion about how much they should provide to their tenants. In the end, the decision was based on the humans who would be living in those dens. Ruthie and Karl Kowalski had already lived together in a different place before being driven out, so they hadn’t needed much beyond the appliances when they moved into the top floor of the two-family house that sat between the two stone apartment buildings. But Merri Lee hadn’t had anything of her own but clothing, books, and personal items, and Nadine Fallacaro had been burned out of her den and lost everything but a couple of boxes of business papers. So he and Henry and Vlad had gone to the Bird Park Plaza with Ruthie and Eve Denby to purchase basics: glasses, silverware, cooking utensils, four-place settings of dishes, pots and pans, bed linens, and bath towels. They purchased the basics for each of the eight apartments, even though only four were about to be occupied.

  Maybe five. That was the reason he had come over here—to get an answer about the fifth apartment.

  He looked at Twyla. “Have you decided which den you want?” Lieutenant Montgomery had taken a ground-floor apartment in the building to the right of the two-family house. Sierra Montgomery and her pups had been assigned a second-floor apartmen
t on the opposite side of the building—at Montgomery’s request. Nadine Fallacaro and Merri Lee had taken the ground-floor apartments of the other stone building.

  There had been some hesitation in agreeing to have two females residing in a building that had no male occupants, but they were across the street from the Courtyard, where there were plenty of sharp-toothed males who would respond to a call for help, and two of the males who were residing in the other buildings now owned by the Courtyard were police officers. Three if they counted Michael Debany, who wasn’t quite living with Merri Lee yet but was around enough to be counted as male protection.

  This not quite living with a female was being watched with great interest by most of the Courtyard’s residents. Until now, the Others had never interacted so closely with humans as to be able to observe mating rituals.

  And Simon had more reason than the rest to observe those rituals. He found it encouraging that his living arrangement with Meg was so similar to Debany’s arrangement with Merri Lee because it meant a Wolf behavior didn’t have to change in order to be viewed as human.

  “If you don’t need me, I’ll clean these brushes,” Eve said.

  Simon moved away from the door and the freshly painted walls. The paint wasn’t overwhelmingly stinky since the women had opened the windows, but he didn’t want to be in the apartment longer than necessary.

  “Well now,” Twyla said when they were alone. “I wanted to talk to you about that. I was wondering if any of the efficiency apartments above the seamstress/tailor’s shop are available.”

  He studied the older woman, confused. “Don’t you want to live with your pack?”

  She smiled, showing him the denture teeth—something he still wanted someone to explain. “When an adult Wolf gets tired of having puppies chewing on her tail, what does she do?”

  “She gets up and leaves.”

  “Exactly. I love my children and grandchildren, but I don’t want to be around them every minute of the day.”

  He couldn’t picture Lieutenant Montgomery pestering Miss Twyla enough to get nipped, but he’d seen the Sierra sometimes revert to juvenile behavior around her mother, despite having two pups of her own.

  “These apartments all have porches and real kitchens,” he pointed out.

  “And an extra bedroom that I don’t need.” The smile she gave him now didn’t show teeth, but it was warmer somehow. “I’ll be spending plenty of time over at Crispin’s apartment, looking after Lizzy when he’s working. But he needs time on his own with his daughter, and she needs time with him. And Sierra needs to stand on her own without me being a crutch. An efficiency apartment lets me be close by if I’m needed but not right on top of my children. Not much housekeeping with a small place, and I’m happy about that. And there is the Market Square. Plenty of places there to sit and enjoy an evening. I can select a book from the library, pick up a meal at Meat-n-Greens, and spend an hour reading outside.”

  She could do all those things if she lived in one of these apartments, but she seemed certain she wanted a small den.

  That meant all the efficiency apartments would be full, since one was going to be the classroom for the human pups, Henry still wanted to keep the one he used when he worked late in his studio and didn’t want to go back to the Green Complex, and they’d agreed to let Chris Fallacaro have one since he didn’t want to live with Nadine, despite her being a relative.

  Which left him with the problem of what to do with Emily Faire, the young Intuit woman they had hired to work part-time as a nurse practitioner in the Market Square medical office. Now that Dr. Lorenzo was away from Lakeside so much, doing his work for the task force that was gathering information about the cassandra sangue, they needed someone trustworthy to look after Meg when she made a cut. The Business Association had intended to let the Emily use one of the efficiency apartments; now they would need to find another place for her to live. There were rooms above the social center, but those had been used for sexual liaisons and didn’t have anything beyond a bed, a lamp, and a table. The terra indigene had been clearing out those rooms, using the frames from the single beds to provide beds for the human children—although the parents of those children insisted on purchasing new box springs and mattresses. Since any scents on the mattresses had faded to the point that even the Wolves couldn’t pick up anything, it was doubtful human noses could either, but it had been important to the adult humans, so the Business Association had made the extra purchases.

  Vlad called, using the terra indigene form of communication.

 

 

  “I have to go,” Simon told Twyla. “You can use the efficiency apartment that Meg had when she first came to the Courtyard. You know which one that is?”

  “The only one unoccupied?” Twyla replied.

  “Yes.” He hurried down the stairs and out the door. He hesitated at the curb and considered if he should walk up to the light at the corner or just dash across the street. Crowfield Avenue had enough traffic at this time of day to make going up to the light prudent, so he did. Then he hurried to Howling Good Reads to find Blair and Vlad facing Michael Debany.

  Vlad glanced at Simon, then gestured toward Debany. “There is a concern.”

  Blair added.

  “What’s the problem?” Simon asked, focusing on Debany, who was in uniform. Which included a gun. Fortunately for the human, he was waving a piece of paper and not the gun.

  “The problem is my sister, Bee.”

  “Barbara Ellen,” Vlad clarified. “Went to Bennett as the vet-in-training to take care of the small animals that were found in the houses.”

  “She’s been away from home barely a month, and she says she’s moving in with some guy named Buddy,” Debany said. Normally an even-tempered male, he sounded snappish.

  Simon pondered the information, trying to sort out why this was a problem. “Don’t you want your sister to find a mate and have puppies?”

  “Someday. Not now. And not with a guy she hasn’t mentioned to anyone in the family until now. What do we know about him? What does he do for a living? Where did he come from?”

  “Do you need to know these things because you can’t give him a good sniff and decide if you like him?”

  “I need to know because she’s my kid sister and she’s living in a town hundreds of miles away in a different region of Thaisia so I can’t even call her to find out what’s going on. I need to know because I’m a cop and I’ve seen the bad things that can happen to vulnerable young women. And because Bee shouldn’t be shacking up with a guy.”

  “Aren’t you shacking up with Merri Lee?” Vlad asked.

  “That’s different.”

  “How?” Simon asked. “Barbara Ellen and Merri Lee are about the same age.”

  “That’s beside the point. It’s different.”

  “Why? Because Merri Lee doesn’t have a brother to growl and snap at you when you go to her den to mate?”

  “We could growl and snap,” Blair said, sounding more than willing to oblige.

  All the anger drained out of Debany. He gave them a pleading look. “She’s my kid sister. Isn’t there someone in Bennett you could ask about this Buddy guy? She’s moving in with him, and she didn’t even mention his last name.”

  “We’ll see what we can do,” Simon said.

  Debany folded the paper, put it in his breast pocket, and left.

  “Are we going to help him?” Blair asked.

  Simon nodded. “Pack is important to him, like it’s important to us.”

  “Tolya mentioned Barbara Ellen in his e-mail but said nothing about this Buddy,” Vlad said. “I’ll send him a telegram and use the special communications network the Intuits set up between regions. We
should have an answer by tomorrow.”

  Tess walked through the archway that connected A Little Bite with Howling Good Reads. Her hair was still brown but starting to curl, a sign that she wasn’t upset—yet—but wasn’t calm. “Steve Ferryman just pulled in for the meeting.”

  “For a town so far away, the citizens of Bennett are certainly giving us plenty to do,” Vlad said.

  Tess gave them a sharp smile. “Hopefully we can return the favor.”

  • • •

  “Mama? Are you up here?”

  Hearing the agitation in Sierra’s voice, Twyla took a deep breath and let it out in a sigh. She wasn’t looking forward to this talk. “Back here.” When her daughter walked into the second of the two bedrooms, she kept her voice calm, conversational. “The other bedroom has the door to the porch. Better if you have that one and put Bonnie and Carrie in here.”

  “I heard Ruth and Merri Lee talking about jobs that needed to be filled in the Courtyard, including a secretarial position in the consulate, so I went over to talk to Elliot Wolfgard. Why did you tell him not to hire me? It’s a good job, Mama, and I’m qualified for it.”

  “You have the typing skills and the rest that’s needed for an office,” Twyla agreed. “But if you’re thinking you’d get paid more for that job than working at the coffee shop or the library or helping clean shops and offices, then you’d be wrong. Everyone who lives in the Courtyard is expected to do a job according to their abilities, so everyone is paid the same hourly rate, except, maybe, the folks who actually run the businesses. I heard you might get a cash bonus in your pay envelope if the Business Association is pleased with your work, but that’s the only difference in pay.”

  She could see by Sierra’s expression that the girl hadn’t taken in that difference between working for the Others and working for a human company.