CharlotteWednesday night in DC is warm but cooling quickly. The afternoon high was in the mid-80s, hot enough to make the tulips in the city's gardens and window boxes and greenspaces (most of which have only just bloomed) go blowsy with the heat. High winds peel through the city streets, strewing petals from cherry blossoms and bradford pears and the odd forsythia - gangly and wild and woodland and out of place here, except where it has been tamed to near inconsequence by a gardener's shears - so that the streets are dusted with white and pink and yellow as if a wedding procession had just passed through. As if snow had fallen, out of season, in the midst of a bright, sunny day.
The Gray home is large and stately, old as DC. Older, perhaps - as old as Georgetown proper, which was named originally for the King, and not the general. The original Federal building was brick and mortar and modest, set back from the street and sidewalk. It has been swallowed by a half-dozen nineteenth century renovations, so that what can be seen from the street now is a fantasty Victorian. Freestanding, on a corner lot, which is enclosed by high brick walls topped by black ironwork. Walls tall enough that they might be a zoning violation were they not as historic as the home they enclose.
The topmost canopy of the huge oak tree in the backyard can be seen from almost any angle, and tonight a handful of faery lights - paper lanterns, with a soft incandescent glow - that drift and sway in the nightwind that smells of cherry blossoms and car exhaust, and the musky promise of rain, sometime before morning - have been strung from its still-bare branches.
Erich, after all, is sharing a birthday with a nineteen year old girl. Who has never had a birthday party before.
If he drives his car up to park it on the street, or pulls it into the driveway that curls around back toward the carriage house, with its big wrought iron gates, there is a fucking valet in a formal black and a bow-tie and white gloves ready to take his keys. Maybe a little smirk on his face since it is quite a production for, ah, one guest. Thus far.
ErichErich does not, in fact, smirk to see what a production has been made of this birthday party. Actually, it just makes him feel a little bad because the party is so small, and it's Charlotte's very first, and she doesn't even really know what her real birthday is so she's just sharing one with Erich. He thinks, belatedly, that maybe he should have celebrated one just for her and then had another for himself. Or just let her celebrate this one alone, period, because he's already celebrated twenty-two of these.
He also wishes he had more friends that he could have invited. But of his friends in D.C., one of them has left for New York, while the other two -- well. Were going to be here. So that's something.
The Mustang rumbles to a stop. There's a valet that wants his keys. Erich looks at the fellow distrustfully, then grudgingly hands those keys over. Then he grabs a boxed cake and a little package from the passenger's seat, climbs out, and nudges the door shut with his elbow.
At Charlotte's front door, Mrs. H lets him in. And he stands in the entryway for a moment, present in one hand and boxed cake in the other, looking about for his friend.
MelanthaMelantha has never been here. Not as Melantha. Not as Celia, either. In fact, she hasn't seen Erich since Jack moved her into a little apartment, and she hasn't seen Charlotte since a few days before that when Charlotte gave her the wee pigeon bead. Talen. Thing.
No one has seen much of her since Jack moved her into that apartment. Some texts, some calls between her and Erich. None with Charlotte, because Charlotte plus cellphone equals ??? so Melantha can't text her to begin with. She's seen Erich once or twice: midafternoon ice cream. A carefully arranged visit to a park, where she wiped the floor with him at chess. Brief visits, nothing more. And it's been a very long time since she and Charlotte watched Mulan.
When she comes up to the house, she's on foot. She took public transportation. She is beaming when she shows up, carrying a very large bag with two wrapped packages inside. There's a spring in her step. She has no keys for the valet but she says high to him. She is very excited when she gets to the front door and is let in, a minute or two after Erich. He's still there. She lets out a squeal and hugs him, then starts calling out. None of this 'looking around' business.
"Charlotte? Charlotte! We're here! Hi! Charlotte!"
CharlotteMrs. H wants to announce Erich properly. She's dressed up this evening, all her brown-and-gray hairs in place, wearing a quiet, formal, black dress with a bit of a ruffle down the front, and a formal black apron and a pair of diamond studs in her ears and she greets Erich with a hint of familiarity (because she knows and remembers him) spread neatly over her stiff, native dignity. Erich enters carrying packages and Mrs. H is ready to take them from him, the way she would take a lady's coat were she to sweep in next (as the footman or butler should take the gentleman's coat), but 1) it is too warm for coats; and 2) there is no butler, just a footman/valet shipped down from Clingstone, with Erich's keys in hand, who has not yet returned from driving Erich's Mustang slightly farther up the driveway toward the carriage house than Erich managed to park it.
And Erich holds: his package and boxed cake in hand, while Mrs. H steps back and eyes them without staring at them, wondering if she could maybe slip them out of his grasp, then deciding not to try.
Mrs. H thinks maybe she could manage the girl better. She looks very lovely, not so... well, large is what she thinks and angry is what she means, though the two thoughts never converge, so compartmentalized and euphemised are her thoughts.
But the Melantha is Celia too and she is so excited and the valet says Hi! right back to her and then starts to trail behind her because Charles said there wouldn't be many people. Just two or three and -
"I'll just announce you, then, Mr. - " is all Mrs. H gets out.
"Erich!" - Charlotte, from above. The EM has almost formed on her mouth before she recalls herself. That name is secret and a theurge knows how to keep secret things. Her moon is secret, nearly three-quarters enshadowed. "Celia!"
Leaning over the railing of the grand staircase, standing on the landing half-way to the second floor. Waving, a quicksilver smile appearing and then shyly disappearing on her face. Which is mostly enshadowed from this angle, low-to-high. She starts down the stairs, light footed, then elects to slide the rest of the way, down the mahoghany bannister to the foot of the stairs.
Her hair is pulled back, the platinum blonde roots more prominent around her face, the pink-dyed ends smoothed and tucked away, to curl up from where they've been tucked behind her ears. She is also: bare faced and barefoot, and wearing a short, silver dress.
Couture, one-of-a-kind, not fitted to her narrow frame so much as skimming it. It suits her, and her blood and breeding. Makes her look less like an odd, skittering, tentative, wounded little bird and more like the daughter of Falcon she is. Or could be, if the promise of her blood were ever fulfilled.
Then, of course, she slams into the base of the bannister with her right hip, hops off like a jackrabbit, bare feet slapping on the polished wood floors or gliding silken over antique Persian rugs.
"Hi!" A lifting, half-lashed look at Erich as she slips by him to hug Celia firmly. Thoroughly, breathlessly. "Come on. Chas is outside. We have, uhm. Champagne and beer and chocolate milk too. Because 'Delia and 'Dosia came. My sisters," to Erich, " - you saw them?" to Celia. "The little ones. Mother said they could. They're going back to Clingstone tomorrow though. And they have to say hi and go to bed. I made that rule."
ErichIt has been a week since he last saw Charlotte, and longer than that since he last saw Melantha. He did text her a few days ago, though, saying Charlotte and I are having a joint bday party at her place on 4/10, want to come? -- to which she replied in the affirmative, and to which he replied with a stack of smileys:
:))))))))))))!
So, yes. He's glad to see them -- glad to be squeezed by Melantha, glad to squeeze her back, see Charlotte come sliding down the banister. He bets her mom would never let her do that if she knew.
"I didn't know you had sisters," he says, and then reaches forward packages-and-all to hug Charlotte because he likes hugs too, thankyou. "I got you a cake. Well, us. But it's kinda ugly. And this is for you."
She is handed the package. It is messily wrapped, as if someone had tried to do a good job and then sort of just gave up halfway and scotch-taped and rumpled the rest into place. It's not very heavy, but whatever it is thumps around a bit inside its box.
MelanthaMelantha is too polite to yoink her bag away from Mrs. H. with narrowed eyes of suspicion or a stuck-out lower lip of defiance. But Mrs. H. doesn't try, and Melantha bounces a little on the balls of her feet -- which are in cork wedges laced up in gold straps around her ankles -- when she hears and sees her best friend somewhere up high. On a staircase. Like a princess in a movie that Melantha would have Many Opinions on. She waves.
The girls are dressed better than the boy. The boy lives in his car. One girl is a Silver Fang. The other girl has a gold card given to her by the statesman she's fucking into ruination. One girl is in her short silver dress. Melantha's dress has almost a forties-esque flair to it, the bodice buttoned up and neatly collared, the short sleeves just barely gathered where they close about her arms. The dress is chocolate-colored, and the sash around her waist is creamy white. Her hair is up in a curling ponytail tied with a white, gold-trimmed ribbon. She smells like some kind of candy, warm and vanilla and possibly drizzled over strawberries.
"Oh, we can be barefoot!" she's saying, delightedly, as Charlotte slides down the banister and runs over to them and gives her a hug. She throws her arms, laden with packages or not, around her friend and wiggles her from side to side. "We can meet your sisters!"
Everything is an exclamation with her tonight. Everything is wonderful.
She looks to both of them. "I got you guys presents. Should we wait? Do you want them now?"
Charlotte"Half-sisters," Charlotte corrects Erich with a wide-eyed and backswept look. One of those oddly solemn glances she bestows on him with semi-regularly. Particularly odd because at the precise moment of that look she is still hugging Melantha and being shaken back and forth in a way that sends the paillettes sewn into her silver dress into a chaotic dance. "I have a lot of half-sisters." And half-brothers.
Melantha smells good. She always does, but tonight that scent is both physical and spiritual, and Charlotte takes a breath deep enough that it stirs the kinfolk's hair as she pulls away from the hug and accepts Erich's messily wrapped package with diffident sort of hand flashing little half-smile.
"Thank you." The thanks are for both of them and Charlotte's eyes are shining suspiciously (or perhaps merely gleaming in the reflected light of her silver dress) by the time she has turned that look back to Celia. She is itching to tear into the package in her hand, to dive into Celia's bag and it is such a physical urge, between her shoulder blades, behind her spine but digging close to it, that it feels bright and electric beneath her skin. " - both, uhm. We can do it now? Let me get mine first! Come on, you can put the cake on the counter and we'll cut it and I had cook make you a special cake Erich - "
The latter part of that sentence is spoken over her shoulder, is left behind her like a trail of pale stones in moonlight, as Charlotte is already on the move, barefoot and familiar in her own territory, excited enough that she's speaking and moving quickly and there's a little skip in every third of fourth step she takes.
--
She leads them back through the long hallway: past the front parlor and the den and the huge, formal dining room, thought the white-and-marble kitchen where a dour-looking man in a white chef's hat holds a sort of court, with a variety of canapes and appetizers and drinks and supplies laid out on the center island, through the breakfast / sun room, out into the back garden.
Which is beautifully illuminated, still half-slumbering, daffodils and tulips and anemones in bloom now, buds on the low hedge of azaleas on the far wall, green both bright and deep in the grass, which is plush underfoot, still-bare limbs on the huge oak tree rising overhead.
Charles is standing on the brick-work patio, chatting with a young woman in dark clothing and a bow-tie to match the valet's uniform. The young woman holds a tray with a half-dozen glasses of champagne. Close to the two of them, a pair of girls, four and seven, sit at a tea-table with gold-rimmed plates and tea-mugs, wearing the sort of dresses with sashes and organza that little girls wear at Easter. They look up almost as one, startled, and Stare at Erich, not quite old enough yet to swallow the wary edge in their manner. Then the older one nudges or pinches the younger one on the thigh underneath the table and redirects her to watch Celia. These looks have rather more admiration than fear to them, and the youngest one is brave enough to give Celia a little wave.
--
Charlotte dashes up to Charles, and this is the young woman's cue to "circulate" with her champagne glasses. There are more glasses than there are guests allowed to drink the stuff, but there it is. In any case, she offers the tray to Erich and Celia while Charlotte rocks to her tiptoes to whisper into Charles' ear. And comes away from him a moment later with two packages of her own in hand.
Both of which she hands over to Erich when she dashes back across the garden, in time to take her own glass from the tray as the young 'server' heads back to chat with Charles some more. "One's from Charles, one's from me," she explains to Erich.
ErichCompared to the girls, Erich feels -- and is -- a little underdressed. It's gotten warm enough that the ubiquitous hoodie has been relegated to the bottom of his dufflebag. The equally ubiquitous t-shirt and jeans have remained, though: neither of them particularly designer or chic or anything, really, other than sturdy. Utilitarian.
Also, sneakers. Kind of retro. Sort of muddy. They squeak a little on the polished wood floors, and when Melantha mentions being barefoot he
sort of
gratefully stomps out of them. And his socks, too. "Let's do presents after cake," he says. "'Cause it's an ice cream cake," of course, "and plus if we wait Delia and Dosia can't have any."
They are led through the long hallways of the house. They emerge into a backyard made magical by spring and lit lanterns. It all feels very classy and dignified, which means Erich feels a little unsure of himself. Charles is there too, because of course he is, and Erich has to admit to himself that his poor opinion of Celia's statesman is probably a good part of why he doesn't particularly like Charles. He reminds himself that Charles isn't a bad guy, not really, and he holds up a broad-palmed hand in hello.
There are little girls at the table. They are staring at him warily. They wave at Melantha, and whether or not she waves back Erich waves at them. He gets presents from Charlotte -- two -- in addition to the present Melantha has. He feels a little bad now. Maybe he should have gotten little things for everyone else, too.
"Thanks," he says, and sets the boxes down on the table. A tray sparkling with flutes of champagne circulates, nevermind that there are precisely four people who might drink it. Feeling obligated to do his share, Erich takes one. It looks a little ridiculous in his hand, against his t-shirt, his jeans, his now-bare feet. "I mean, for all of this. This is all so ... so Victorian tea party and cool and stuff."
And, fates forgive him: he sounds more puzzled and uncertain than thrilled.
MelanthaThe birthday girl in her pink-tipped hair and her Bee Eff Eff in her soda-shop-esque dress look like they belong here. Sort of. On the one hand, the gleaming, glittering gown isn't very tea-party, and the chocolate-brown dress isn't very fairytale, but it's just a different caliber of appearance. No one seems to mind, though.
Melantha keeps the bag with their presents close, and smiles as they start to head back out to the actual party. She keeps her shoes on for now, and as she and Erich follow Charlotte, she reaches over and holds his hand. Just for a little while. But her hand slides into his, gives his a squeeze. They separate, as they will need to, but he might notice -- as Charlotte may have already -- the slim leather cord wrapped multiple times around Melantha's left wrist like a hipster-trendy bracelet. The bright-eyed pigeon bead on it rests against the inside of her wrist, hidden away rather than displayed. But it's there.
Outside she gives a gasp of delight. "It's so pretty!" she says, and means it. The flowerbeds, the lanterns, everything. She's been at so many parties with chefs and waitstaff that it doesn't seem to strike her as odd, and she takes a glass of champagne without missing a beat. There are two little girls, and Melantha beams at them. They recognize her, at least dimly, from the very first night Charlotte caught sight of her.
She waves. One of them didn't get dessert because they waved at her that night. It sort of makes Melantha want to find their mother and punch her in the jaw. Or lecture her. Melantha's quite good at lectures.
Her eyes flick over to Charles-Chas, who she hasn't really met and didn't entirely notice at the supper club. She looks at the gifts and the little girls and then looks around, finding a spot to set down the large bag with the two presents inside of it. Then she hands her champagne to Erich -- she asks first, sort of -- and crouches down to unstrap and untie her shoes, stepping out of them onto the cool grass. There's no ahhh of relief, just a wiggling of her bare feet into the dirt and greenery before she takes her champagne back.
"Hi!" she says to the girls, and to Charles, finally. "I'm Celia."
CharlotteWhen Erich lifts a palm toward Charles, Charles returns the gesture. He's not drinking champaign from the flutes, though. Not tonight, not quite yet. He has a dark bottle of amber beer in hand, and lifts it up as Erich and Celia emerge from the house behind Charlotte like a salute.
Then, Erich waves.
So do the little girls, though warily. There's a heartbeat, then a second. First the older of the two; then, after a moment's prompting that may have involved the sharp toe of a patent-leather maryjane kicked firmly into her younger sister's Achilles' tendon - all somewhere beneath the frothy lace tablecloth with which the girls' tea-table has been laid - the younger of the pair. Though by now she's is half-hiding behind her hair.
Erich wants to wait until after ice cream cake before opening presents and Charlotte is - as she always is - so very, very agreeable. She tucks her own messily wrapped package at the back of the cake-table, and is turning back to her two friends (with a brief, narrowing look at her little sisters' antics that does not quite express itself with a hiss. But could, if Charlotte were a different sort of girl. Or even a different sort of wolf) when Erich thanks her and she is at the tenative edge of a beam when she catches (somewhere beneath her skin, it snags) the inflection of his vague bewilderment. His uncertainty.
It is more than a bit like stepping through the looking glass, isn't it? The Queen of Hearts and Mad Hatter would be most at home if they appeared, suddenly, in this setting.
"Uhm," all wide-eyed, to Erich. Low-voiced, too, so it doesn't carry too far from their immediate orbit. "Would Mexican have been better? I could've gotten a pinata."
Some of that uncertainty is leeched out of her by Celia's reaction. That it is so pretty, the garden, the lanterns, the little girls in their dresses. The strange magic of an ever-so-slightly bent spring.
"Or uhm," bare food scuffing in the thick grass, a little shrug. " - something."
--
"Charles," - the older brother, dark haired and pale-eyed, twenty-five or so, pushes away from his perch, transfers his beer from his right to left hands, and reaches out with the right as he walks up to offer to shake Celia's. "Charles Gray. This," a familiar hand on the older girl's blonde head. "Is Cordelia. And this," the younger girl. "Is Theodosia." The introduction of the little girls is offered to both Celia and Erich.
The girls pop up then, right to their feet and bob forward in little curtseys. One and two and three. "Cordelia, Theodosia. . You just met Celia. The gentleman is Erich."
Erich"No!" Erich says, a little too immediately and a little too loudly. "No," more modulated, "this is great. It really is. It just wasn't what I expected, but that's not a bad thing." There's a glance shot at Melantha here, looking for backup, for help, because god knows Melantha also took him to a party of sorts that he really, really wasn't expecting. But that wasn't bad, either. At all.
"I've just ... never been to a tea party before. Or anything like this, y'know? With catering and champagne and stuff. And to be totally honest -- "
Here he's interrupted. He's interrupted because he sees Charles heading over, so he stops talking, and then he's introduced to Delia and Dosia who are actually Theodosia and Cordelia, and Erich is wondering if every Silver Fang ever has such a long and cumbersome name. He is curtseyed to, which makes him get up out of his chair and bow, very awkwardly. And badly.
"Hello, Theodosia," he says. "Hello, Cordelia. It's nice to meet you both."
He pulls his seat forward as he sits again. And -- not exactly in the realm of etiquette, this -- he turns back to Charlotte and continues. "To be totally honest," he says, picking up right where he left off, "I was sort of thinking about, like... dragging you out and taking you clubbing, showing you a" he makes airquotes, "real party. But you know what?"
Here there is a thump of the table, very decisive.
"We can do that any other night of the year. You should not have to change your birthday party to suit anyone else's expectations. And I'm a shithead" -- the little girls gasp! -- "to even think of it. So we're going to have a tea party in your awesome backyard with beautiful lanterns everywhere, and I'm going to enjoy the fff--" he catches himself this time, "out of it, because you guys are my friends and we make anything awesome."
MelanthaIn another lifetime, Melantha might have blushed to be introduced to Charles, who is tall and well-mannered and handsome and intelligent and rich and athletic. In that lifetime, though, Melantha would not know that the Fangs would absorb her into their tribe for the purity of her blood, to pass it along to their own children by spirit. In that lifetime she might not have lost two brothers to the bitter interplay of reactive misogyny and tribe-specific misandry and two other brothers to Spirals, might not have lost her mother and her father, might not have been raised to be what is referred to even in her tribe as a Whore For Gaia, which isn't always a term of honor but sometimes is. In any of these lifetimes, she wouldn't know Erich, she wouldn't be wearing a talen that Charlotte made just so she won't get separated from him completely, and she might not even be as wickedly intelligent as she is.
This is a good lifetime. It may not be the best of all possible worlds, but right now it seems like a very good one. She smiles at the little girls and says hello to them by name. She lightly shakes Charles's hand, firming her grip halfway because she decides that she doesn't have to pretend to be delicate and wilting in this backyard, because Charlotte is her best friend. She sips her champagne and wraps her arm around Charlotte's shoulders. "He's just a dork," she says, fondly more than dismissively. "A pinata is always awesome but your backyard is super."
She plants a kiss on Charlotte's cheek. Erich rambles. Melantha smiles at him and squeezes Charlotte. "Also, if we drink champagne out of little china teacups at any point in the evening, I think that is also fabulous. The cake is melting."
CharlotteCharlotte looks up at Erich's loud voice. No! that exclamation point at the end; she is still and sharply outlined and bright, the faery lights gleam off the armor-like bodice of her dress in soft, diffuse patterns. All alert, the look steady on Erich's face, watchful as he continues on, explaining himself through the awkwardness and expectations tunneling through his idea of taking her out clubbing for a real party and back into this, strange, glassine, inside out Victorian tea party with champagne and ice cream cake and children and brothers and blood.
Oh, Erich curses and both little girls GASP and then giggle; Cordelia bends over to whisper rather fiercely into Theodosia's ear, like so. The pair of them area peas in a pod. So alike, in mannerism and looks - in shining, silver blood - that despite the age difference, it would be easy to mistake them as twins. Particularly for a wolf, alive to the glimmer and frailty of their blood.
Whatever Charlotte was going to say in response to Erich is lost in the pink O of her mouth; because Melantha shakes hands, and firms her grip in Charles', and feels, in turn, the firming of his own grip. A shrewd, direct look from his pale blue eyes, which are so like Charlotte's, into her own before he lets go. Steps back. Probably takes the ice cream cake in hand and starts cutting it, while Mary, the champagne-tray-girl, puts down the tray and gives him a familiar hand, laughing at him as he tries to wrangle the first slice onto one of the Limoges plates.
So: whatever awkward response Charlotte might've uttered to Erich is saved from utterance, because Melantha wraps an arm around Charlotte and kisses Charlotte's cheek, and Charlotte gives Melantha a lifting, slanting glance. Nods her agreement to Melantha's fond declaration with a sly glance back to Erich.
"The oak tree's the best," Charlotte tells Melantha, quietly. "If you put your ear near the bark, sometimes you can hear him breathing." Though she doesn't know if kin can hear such things, she just expects that Melantha - who knows so much else - can and should. "I'll probably miss him more than my bed when we go."
--
Meanwhile, there is cake to be had. Charles is cutting, ice cream cake and something else, which isn't clear, in the uncertain light, the dimly lit spring, the swinging globes of pastel light from over heard.
Which isn't clear, at least until he asks Theodosia whether she wants ice cream cake or meat cake.
"ICE CREAM!" shrieks Dosia, momentarily forgetting to be scared at the horror of eating MEAT CAKE when ice cream was available. Then she informs Charles that he has forgotten the candles, and he tells her that they will eat the ice cream cake, and put the candles on the meat cake after.
And so it goes.
ErichThat ice cream cake is, if we are honest, sort of a cakewreck. It probably didn't look quite as bad when Erich first picked it up from the supermarket bakery, but it's melted a bit since then and begun to look sort of ... squashed. And really, no amount of freezing could have saved it from its poorly spaced scripting, which reads:
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
Charlotte &Erich
Also, bafflingly, there are rather malformed candy babies in the corner. Two of them. We thought the cake was for twins, the bakery lady deadpanned when he asked about them. Erich decided not to argue, and so
that is how Melantha gets served a slice of melting ice cream cake with two demented-looking candy babies on them. At least it didn't go to one of the kids. For his part, Erich -- though meat cake did sound interesting -- gets a slice of the ice cream cake as well. He'll try the meat cake later. It actually looks like it might not be too bad; like meatloaf. But ice cream melts.
So they eat, and all around them there are lanterns, soft pastel lights hung from the heavy boughs of the oak. And Erich sips his champagne, which is actually rather good, and after a while Charles joins them and Erich manages not to be a jerkface and asks him -- genuinely curious -- how school was going, and what exactly his sort of schooling involves.
"You guys should put a swing up on the tree," he says a little later, when discussion of school of entry-level politics has subsided. "And you should maybe take an acorn with you when we go."
-- and then Erich freezes, unsure if Charlotte's even told Charles she was going. Melantha probably doesn't know either.
MelanthaCharlotte's backyard is a fairytale party, except the princess is the monster, the cake is made of beef, and people keep pulling off their shoes. Melantha thinks Charles should take off his shoes, and so should Dosia and Delia, but they don't. She can tell who her friends are by who is barefoot. The ones who can be trusted and the ones who she is close to.
Cake is cut and handed to Melantha, who smiles graciously and sips her champagne and looks at the weird sugar babies on the weird cake. She glances up, before taking her first bite, at the mention of the oak tree. Her fair eyes are sad a moment, but then she smiles softly. "We'll go talk to him later," she says, because while everyone mocks the Children of Gaia and calls them tree-huggers, it's not hard to imagine Melantha laying her cheek to the bark of an oak and communing with its spirit.
After a little while, she picks up her plate and her fork and her flute and moves down to sit on the grass, her skirt pooled around her. The little girls are scandalized. The Black Fury pours the last mouthful from her glass into the grass itself, and takes another flute from the waitstaff who moves over to take the empty glass and replace it with a full one.
when we go, Erich is saying, and Melantha is still a moment. She doesn't look shocked; she's sort of assumed that wherever they go, they'll go together. Or she'll go somewhere and they'll go somewhere else and they'll find each other in the middle. Or she'll go and they'll follow. Something. She looks at Charlotte's brother, though, and Charlotte's sisters, wondering the same thing Erich is.
CharlotteCharlotte is so pleased by the unveiling of the cake. She does not seem to notice the font issues, or the malformed candy babies, with their oddly bent elbows and weird, bare, peach torsos and little cross-eyed dot-matrix like faces. So, so pleased, she flushes with it, and the pink stays in her face and fills up her chest, all bright. She wants to throw her arms around Erich, and hug him. But no: they're wolves. He receives instead a firm shoulder-bump that she swings side to side, brushing against Melantha too. Firmly. I am here and you are too. It says to both of them, all unspoken. Bright tension all sharp through her body that she can imagine stars above and worming roots underground, all knitting her back into the substance of the cosmos.
So this - odd little party in an early spring garden with melting cake and pink champagne and meatloaf, the strangest assortment of guests continues. Some barefoot, the little girls so primly and finely appointed that their black patent leather shoes gleam with every sweep of their short little legs over the moss-mounded brick patio. Were it not for the bright city all around them, the stars would be visible, speckled between the still-bare, skeletal limbs of the spreading tree.
Charles does join them, makes easy conversation. Eats his ice cream cake when he finishes his beer, takes a flute of champagne, grins at the malformed candy-babies without a word. It is so easy to dislike him, as he seems very nearly perfect. The Senator, Celia's Senator, thirty-odd years ago, at the beginning of a promising career. Athletic and attractive and rich and charming, with a sliding affability that he bestows easily, flirting with the champagne server, bending down to tease his half-sisters, quietly, sending the pair of them, tucked together like a little helical knot, into a cascade of bright laughter that has him smiling indulgently down at them, all benign, handsome, white-male privilege. His genuine if somewhat distant affection for them evident as he slides a familiar hand over the girls' gleaming blonde heads.
He chats about his graduate work when Erich asks him, but not overmuch. Mentions, in such casual passing with a direct look at Celia that Congresswoman Moreland is considering a run for the Senator's seat. Might be announcing in a week, maybe two. They're still finalizing plans. He asks Erich how long he's been on the road, whether he misses the Great Plains, whether the sky out there is really as big as they say. He asks Celia which Smithsonian is her favorite, confesses to an undying affection for the Air & Space Museum himself (because, of course), and whether she likes the Lincoln or Jefferson memorials better. Recommends a new gastro-pub near Dupont Circle - local foods and El Bulli technique, a match made, well. Somewhere. And while Charles chats so ambialy, Charlotte is almost serenly quiet. Shy, maybe, but also abstracted, her own attention drifting and a bit detached from the immediacy of conversation.
When Melantha leaves the table in favor of the mossy roots at the base of the oak, Charlotte joins her immediately, sitting close to the tree, her spine straight against its rough base, all familiar. Charlotte is on her second piece of ice-cream cake and her third flute of pink champagne. Periodically the waitstaff (there are two: the girl with the champagne and the valet who greeted Melantha outside, and, well, nudge Erich's Mustang another six-to-eight feet up the drive), bring around canapés. There are oysters on the half shell and beluga caviar, gruyere puffs and beef carpaccio. Charlotte could, and does, eat caviar by the spoonful, but dislikes oysters with a visceral intensity makes Charles laugh.
Then Erich joins them. Then Charles, a bit later, comes to sit on the cool grass too. Look, though: he keeps his shoes on.
Melantha can still tell who her friends are.
--
...when we go. Erich freezes; Melantha is still, her pale eyes swinging from Charles to the little girls at tea. Dosia and Delia are wrapped up in their private world, barely registering the adults, now. Someone has brought them sparkling cider and served it in teacups. Someone has allowed them a second-helping of dessert, which is melting into insubstantiality on their plates.
Charles, though. His mask of affability just shuts down for a few spare heartbeats. His pale blue eyes slide to Charlotte, who is stiff and still as a songbird who has sensed the shadow of a hawk gliding overhead and refuses to look back at him. Then he dispels that look with a faint snort and a wry look, his eyes as reflective as silver coins as he lifts the weight of that glance from Charlotte to Celia to Erich. Though his expression eases back into something like easy charm, it feels more like a mask now. His right hand is wrapped around a fresh bottle of beer, but the left, against his thigh, is now a fist.
"I'll probably close the house up again, when you go," Charles' voice is level, though. He's not surprised. Erich told Charlotte that she should talk to her brother. Erich told her to, so of course she spoke to Charles. The current of that conversation is an undertow here. Substrate. Charles' gaze flicks back to his sister and she's looking straight at him, all direct. The gods only know what passes between them, but it is complex and feels so fraught with such a complex web of love and duty, anger and pity that the air between them is thick with it. "It's a bit extravagent for one grad student." Pale eyes shift, to touch on Celia, then. Once again, he looks at her so directly, speculatively, with just one flicker downward over her dress, the skirt spread around her on the cool ground. Expression easing into something swimming and dark and wry. "Wasteful, really."
Abruptly, Charles stands. Lassos, with a look, the little girls who are now staring and breathless, alive to the tension, quiet, heads together. They have survival instincts. They live in a house warped by glory, stained by madness. They know when something is Wrong. And they know better than to say anything about it. "I think we're ready for presents," announces Charles, voice just a bit too loud in the cool spring air. "Aren't we?"
ErichThere is definitely Something Going On here. Even Erich -- who sometimes can't read expressions and subtext any more complex than big smile = good or deep frown = bad -- can sense it. He looks from sister to brother to sister again. He wonders what the significance of closing down the house is, which makes him sad if for no other reason than that no one will come by to listen to Charlotte's oak. And he notices, though he says nothing of, the terrible stillness in Charles's face; the ... fearful? is it fear? stillness in Charlotte's.
Even the little girls are quiet. They look alike as twins, though they are not, and young as they are they can sense that something is going on, something they don't want to get in the middle of,
which is something Erich, really, should have the wisdom to mimic. But he doesn't. So instead of agreeing that yes, yes, we're ready for presents, he sort of sits up a little straighter and says -- objects, really:
"Hey, you know she's coming back, right? It's not like she's just leaving forever or cutting ties or ... any of that. She's just spreading her wings for a while and hanging out with people like her and ... it's like college, dude, where you discover yourself and stuff." Not that Erich really knows about that. But he's heard about it. "It's a good thing."
MelanthaIf Erich didn't say something, Melantha might have. Called Charles out, asked him what the hell, man? and pointed out that he can't just go around making faces and flicking his eyes in front of guests, what does he think, she and Erich are Silver Fangs and they're just going to follow the rules of pretending they don't notice his totally bizarre behavior?
This is a girl who took her shoes off as soon as she got onto grass, sat in that grass in her pretty dress, held Charlotte's hair back when she threw up, dug a small animal from the ground and sacrificed it to Luna. Melantha is a creature of the Wyld.
But Erich brings it up, far nicer than Melantha would have. She lets her leg and Charlotte's leg touch where they sit together beside the oak. She eats oysters and caviar and meat. She remains comfortable with her friend and reaches over to idly, thoughtlessly touch the other girl's hand, soft fingertips on the backs of knuckles. They are cold from holding a plate full of ice cream cake.
"Erich, maybe let's let them figure it out," she says, instead of challenging Charles, asking him you got a problem? She looks from Charlotte's brother to their mutual Ahroun friend. "Charlotte should talk to her family about it. She doesn't need us to run interference."
CharlotteCharlotte gives Melantha a brief, swimming look as the other girl touches the back of her hand. Soft fingertips on the sharp curves of her knuckles; then she glances down at their hands, bathed in soft pastel light from the globes hung in the canopy of the huge oak. The contact is welcome, is anchoring as the spine of the tree behind her, and the knobby curves of the roots beneath her crossed legs.
--
"Jesus fuck - " exclaims Charles, before he can think or stop himself, turning around in an arc of motion so abrupt and sweeping he doesn't seem to realize he's done it until he is two steps closer than he was before. Then Melantha's voice, a cross-current beneath Erich's perfectly reasonable objection, arrests him before he continues that thought. Whatever it was in it that burned through him like a lit-fuse. Made him so rash that the substrate substance of his tension broke through the genial façade, more than once. He puts a hand to his forehead, scrubs it as if that might make the world fit back into itself, again.
"I'm right here." Charlotte says then, so quietly. Not to Melantha or Erich, but to her brother. Her hand has turned over in Melantha's, palm to palm.
And Charles looks at her, then, drops his hand and breathes out a long, controlled breath that sounds like a sigh. "I know, Charlotte." Or surrender. "I'm sorry. Both of you," to Erich, then Melantha, his expression still tense, a movement of muscle in his cheek, the way his jaw is set, molar ground together. " - all of you, I am sorry.
"Maybe you're right," back to Erich, though this isn't a concession, not precisely. " - maybe it's a good thing. She's spreading her wings. But you're a Shadow Lord she's known for two fu-" this time, he belays the curse before it is given full voice. Pulls back from the deeper thread of his anger. Checks himself. " - for two months. And I don't think it's a good idea. And nothing you say is going to change my mind, because this is my kid sister and I don't know you from Adam.
"And nothing I say is going to change her mind. So I'll be waiting for you both to prove me wrong. Hell, I'll be rooting for you to prove me wrong."
ErichThey are all sitting in the grass. Melantha, Erich, Charlotte. Melantha suggests that they leave this to Charlotte and her brother, and Erich thinks she's right, he's glad she said that, that's exactly what they should do --
-- but he never really gets a chance to say so. He's looking at her to tell her so, but then Charles wheels on them like that. Erich's friends can feel him tensing instantly and instinctively, coiling in on himself.
He doesn't leap to his feet, though. He doesn't -- though one can't fault them if they think this is a possibility -- get up and attempt to put Charles's head through the table. He sits where he is, a little stiff, listening, waiting until Charles gets it all out and falls silent again.
A beat goes by. Another. Then Erich exhales a wry laugh; there isn't much humor in it.
"Y'know," he says, "it kinda means a little less when you apologize and then launch right back into talking about my tribe like it's some sort of debilitating, contagious disease. I mean, I get it. Shadow Lord is one of those things that comes with a warning label, especially for you guys. And honestly I sorta wanna offer to answer whatever questions you might have for me until you and I are cool, but....
"Well. A: your sister trusts me. So maybe you should trust her. And B: even if she does end up making a mistake, don't you think she's smart enough and strong enough to notice and do something about it?"
MelanthaI'm right here is all Charlotte says. Charles says a lot. Erich says a lot. Melantha's words seems to stave off both Charles losing his temper and Erich getting to his feet. She watches, stroking Charlotte's hand, as Charles apologizes and argues:
nothing you say is going to change my mind,
which makes Melantha's carefully sculpted eyebrow lift up. He concedes that nothing he says is going to change Charlotte's mind, either, and Erich responds.
Melantha exhales heavily, and looks away from them both, meeting Charlotte's eyes with her own. For a moment. A long one. Then she leans over, lowering her voice. At this point, Erich is still talking to Charles, asking him to just trust his sister.
CharlotteCharles is aware enough of what Garou do; of what Garou can do and that awareness prickles in the back of his mind as his pale eyes take in both Erich's stiffness, and his restraint.
He takes in Charlotte, too, tow-headed and blue-eyed and rather small, in Erich's periphery. Charlotte, sitting stiff too now, the long muscles of her thighs tense beneath the glittering metal fringe of her absurd silver dress. Her skin flushed, her pale eyes on Erich's profile. She knows it is different for Ahrouns, the way rage sometimes fills them up, like an ever-expanding balloon, until the edges of their vision are wavery and red and all they can hear is the pounding pulse of blood in their ears.
She is so wary of that power; so in awe of it, so chary of it that she does not know what she might do if -
- well, it doesn't matter. Erich is still and stiff and listening and then he just exhales and Charlotte's easing back into the frame of her body, her pale eyes dropping from the Ahroun's profile, blond lashes shielding her eyes. Diffusing the lights shed from overhead into a haloing profusion.
That's how she is when Melantha meets her half-shielded eyes, arresting her attention. Leans in to Charlotte, lowering her voice.
Charlotte"If it helps," Charles is saying back to Erich. A huff of a breath, not much humor here, either. His voice is lower, now. The dark tide of his anger is receding, leaving behind a vague, sour taste in the back of his mouth. "I'd be more skeptical if you were a Silver Fang - "
Meanwhile: Charlotte stands abruptly. It is not an elegant motion - all gawky angles, stiff-armed and stiff-shouldered, at odds with her usual grace. Takes a few steps forward, so that she is between Erich and Charles now. She glances down at the former, her profile sharp except for the stiff, winsome curve of her mouth.
"I'm sorry Erich you - " a sharp breath, her shoulders so stiff, " you - don't have to answer any of his questions. Chas doesn't get to interrogate you. And it's your real birthday and I should've said something sooner and I - I - I don't have to be protected."
The last word is not spoken to Erich, but to Charles, with a sudden snap of her attention from one to the other. Charlotte advances on her brother, another step or two or three, closing most of the distance between them.
Her arms cross protectively in front of her narrow torso, as she echoes Erich's admonition, his question, if rather less eloquently. "So you have to trust me that I'm not stupid and stuff. That I'll be okay and if I'm not okay I'll be that too."
"Oh, gods, Charlotte." Charles hunches down a bit to meet her eyes, as if he were coaxing a wounded animal out from a dark burrow. His arms open up, and he pulls her into a wrapping hug so enveloping that they could almost be Siamese twins, wrapped up around each other, the white noise of the world like mother's blood and bones around them. He is taller than she, and puts his nose in her hair. Kisses the crown of her head as she slowly unbends into the hug.
"Of course I trust you," Charles lies. He lies meaningfully, with feeling. He lies well and for every good reason, and the truth is: Charlotte is not like to notice. "I'm sorry.
"I'm just being an asshole because I'm going to miss you." He looks up over the crown of her head, at Melantha and Erich, registering them without quite seeing them. Friends Charlotte made on her own, and in that moment the lie becomes a half-truth: he feels like a fucking asshat. The feeling just crawls over him. "I'm sorry. No one's going to make me Peanut Butter Puffs and Rice Crispie cereal in strawberry milk when you're gone."
And Charlotte quite solemnly assures her brother that she'll show him how before she goes.
ErichAnd so, the crisis seems to end.
Over by the tree, Erich is watching it all go down. He still hasn't gotten up. When Charlotte stood and -- perhaps -- stood up to her brother, he glanced briefly at Melantha. He finds her hand in the grass between them and wraps his fingers loosely around hers. They watch the siblings together. Something about the hug makes Erich look away, as though suddenly he were intruding on a private moment. He is intruding on a private moment.
He tips his head back against the tree-trunk. He looks at the boughs hung with their lanterns, all softly aglow. The yard seems magical. His thumb traces over Melantha's knuckles, and he smiles at her, and then
he gets up after all. While the siblings are mending their fences, he quietly goes over to the table and starts gathering up the gifts. The little girls are still there. Erich cuts himself another small wedge of ice cream cake and, since no one was around to tell him they've had enough!, he lops another hefty slice onto each child's plate as well. And winks.
MelanthaMelantha watches, hawklike, as her bestie gets up and gets between Erich and Charles and tells her brother to, in very nice words, to step off. Melantha is a little proud of her, even though she wonders if that's condescending. She decides it isn't. She decides that Charles gives her a bit of a slimy feeling. If anyone hear knows the tenor of a false apology, it's Melantha. Her back remains taut, but it's not her job to tell Charlote that her brother is a bit of a patronizing prick.
White wealthy boys with white wealthy privilege. The greatest privilege is not being aware of it, so you can be really hurt and so offended when someone points it out to you.
Melantha realizes that she doesn't like Charles much right now. She frowns, and looks over at Delia and Dosia, curious as to how they're reacting to all this. Erich touches her hand and she blinks, looking at him. He smiles at her, and she gives him a look that simply says you weirdo, though it's fond. It's strange, being back here. They have hardly seen each other since he helped her move into that secret lovenest, that dove's cage, which Jack rents for her. They've spoken, briefly. They've shared ice cream. They certainly haven't shared anything else.
The little girls get a third helping of ice cream and Melantha, on the grass alone now, rolls her eyes. She brushes her hand over the grass-tips. She has questions. She has thoughts now, deep and hidden in the back of her mind, but
they are not for the ears of Charlotte's kin.
CharlotteMelantha finds Delia and Dosia staring and still, holding themselves in check. The younger girl does not really register what is going on except for the tension, raised voices, the air sharp around her with things that shouldn't really be spoken. That much she knows, and she knows this, too. How to be still. How to keep her face composed and solemn. How to appear decorative and fine in the midst of it all and hold back anything else so it just... radiates outward, sometimes, from the long colemn of her spine.
Delia, the older girl, is not watching her older half-siblings (who have been largely absent from her home since she graduated from the nursery to the Victorian schoolroom in the attic of the family home), but her younger sister. Guardedly, a hand slipped into her sister's lap like an anchor, a little squeeze on the other girl's thigh that rustles her crinoline like a serpent in the grass. Their expressions are so carefully neutral, so schooled, just that flicker of taut awareness at the edges of their frames that begins to ease as the moment unspools.
Then Erich gives them both a third helping of cake. Dosia, the younger girl, shrinks from the halo of his rage, even when he is heaping ice cream cake on her plate and misses the wink.
Delia does not shrink. There is something bold about her, and she looks right up at him, eyes as dark and as blue as the ocean, and then he winks and she decides that she is in love with him. They are going to get married. She is going to be a wolf and eat ice cream whenever she wants, and she'll let Theodosia come along too, because she is feeling grand, magnanimous. They will hunt ice cream cakes and harry black crows from the sky and call down the moon. They will run until the horizon has folded in on itself and no one but no one will ever tell them when to go to bed.
Because wolves are wild and she is a wolf and no one tells a wolf when to go to bed.
She is sure of that.
--
Charles and Charlotte hug, he murmurs something into her ear, holding her close. Whatever passes between them then is soft, murmured, private. Then, he lets her go. Charles seems a bit - abashed, chagrined, over the whole display, scrubbing a hand through his hair. He retreats to the kitchen to grab another beer.
Charlotte just feels a bit hot and awkward for a moment, standing there. But they aren't the center of attention and that gives her a chance to slip back into her body without quite being seen, and while Erich retrieves presents Charlotte retrieves the remains of the silver serving tray of caviar, with its array of toast points and creme fraiche, and tucks herself back down on the grass beside Melantha, her caviar picnic close by.
--
Erich finds a small handful of gifts. The one he brought. Melantha's bag. And five (yes five) more. One small one, wrapped in Sunday's comics. Two wrapped by some experts at Nordstrom's, which are labeled Eric and Charlotte, and two wrapped in shiny black paper, sealed with golden seals.
Delia, the bolder of girls, points out the last two as Erich picks them up. "Those are ours," she says, finger pointing primly at two packages, very, very sure about things that are hers. She'll retrieve both satin-black boxes from Erich if he surrenders them, shoving the smaller package at Dosia.
Dosia gives her sister a questioning look, then jumps up, runs full stop over to the tree, and shoves the little box at Charlotte. Delia retains the second, slightly larger, package for herself, watching watching watching until Erich is free and settled and paying attention and she can deliver it straight to him. Until she can hold it out to him stiff-armed and alert, and say, "This is for you," as she hands it over. Paper a bit sticky from her ice-cream-cake'd fingers.
ErichThe gifts retrieved -- and then redistributed so that their rightful givers can present them -- Erich drops back down into the soft grass. This time he sits beside Charlotte, so that she's between him and Melantha.
And he hands her his gift. Which is poorly wrapped but festive, in a fairly sizable box but lightweight. And is, in turned, handed his own gift! One of them, anyway: from the older of the two little girls. The paper is a little sticky, but Erich is gallant about this: he thanks her and carefully avoids the sticky bits as he
fairly tears the wrapping off like a five-year-old who just can't help himself.
CharlotteThe paper comes away with a satisfying ripping sound. It is thick and fine and heavy and sounds wet when Erich tears it open. Delia approves, proprietarily, of his enthusiasm. Beneath: a black velvet box stamped with a small gold crest. Inside, Erich Storm's Teeth finds the first present of his twenty-third year.
A pair of 14k gold cuff links, each engraved with an elaborated E.
They are heavy in the hand. Does he even own a cuffed and collared shirt? If not, they will go very nicely with his hoodie, when winter returns.
--
Meanwhile, Charlotte opens her open black-paper present. Peels back the golden sticker-seal rather neatly, incising into the package with a bit of wariness and a flickering glance back to her little sisters. Dosia has returned to the ice cream cake!! While Delia has taken up the work of delivering Charles' presents for him. One to "Eric" and the other to Charlotte.
Charlotte's paper also opens onto a black-velvet box. Which she cracks open to reveal a pair of diamond stud earrings. One solid carat each, two carats of D-flawless, brilliant diamonds, certified conflict-free, set in platinum. In the garden's half-lit shadows they shed sparks like fireworks arcing through the night sky.
Charlotte's ears are not pierced.
Two for two, Gray family.
--
Oh, hey. Erich has another gift. Delia has been keelhauled into service by Charles, who is watching from a bit of a distance now. She delivers those Nordstrom's packages, one to Eric (NO ATCH) and the other to Charlotte. Then watches steadily as they open them again.
These are somewhat more reasonable. For Erich, a hand-made Italian leather wallet. It feels like butter, lovely and soft and supple, and may be more expensive than anything he owns except for his car and, now, one ridiculous pair of cuff links. Aside from the feel, though, it has that worn and ageless look, supple and low-key enough that it could fit into anyone's back pocket without being remarkable. The quality is only particularly evident in the hand.
For Charlotte, an iPhone! Look out world, someone is about to discover Instagram. Charlotte is pleased, but mildly concerned about spiders. When she touches it, she shivers ever-so-slightly, as if she had just brushed through an invisible web.
--
Then Charlotte exchanges her own Sunday-comics wrapped gift to Erich for his festively wrapped lightweight box, smiling shyly, darting little glances from Erich to Melantha and back as she starts to open it.
And while this is happening, Charles is corralling the little girls back into the house. He allows them to bring their ice cream cake, but it is bedtime, and he is leaving the three friends alone with caviar and meatcake and champagne and a few presents left between them, to enjoy on their own. The French doors to the house close with a quiet snick behind the trio as he ushers the girls inside.
ErichErich doesn't even know what to do with the gifts he receives. They're so far out of his socioeconomic stratus; so far beyond the circle of his daily life. He doesn't have a shirt fine enough that it doesn't come with its own plain, plastic buttons. He doesn't have enough money to make that wallet worth it, either.
It's briefly on his tongue to hand the gifts back to the girls. To tell them, embarrassedly and honestly, that he couldn't possibly accept these; they're too much. It's too much for him. He wouldn't ever be able to use them, or know how, or --
but he doesn't. Because: they're children. And because: child or adult, anyone can read a rejected gift as a sort of snub. And he doesn't want to snub them.
"Thank you," he says to them instead. Each of them is thanked this way: the gifts are torn open and looked at and Erich looks at the giver, right in the eye, and says a heartfelt: "Thank you." Just like he was taught. Just like he learned when he was young.
The girls are taken inside. Charles goes as well. Erich feels a little bad; he hadn't meant to make Charles excluded from his own party. He hopes the Fangsman comes out again, even if -- in all honesty -- he's not terribly fond of him. Or rather; not fond of the way he and his sister interact. There's something sadly codependent there, he thinks. But then he pushes the thought aside because:
presents.
He hands Charlotte hers. He's a little bashful, doing this, because he just received gifts from her ten-year-old cousins that are worth more than all his other possessions combined. In comparison, his gift is shoddy. It's a joke. It's even wrapped in cheap, thin, blurrily printed paper which tears even if Charlotte tries to be careful about it. And inside, she finds ...
... a slingshot. No, really: a slingshot. And not one of those old-fashioned things crafted of forked wood with a rubber sling. A modernized, sleek thing, all gleaming steel and molded polymer, complete with a wrist brace and stabilizing counterweights. Erich quirks a smile.
"It's not really something you can wear to a ball," he concedes, "but I figure if it's good enough for King David it's good enough for a Fang."
MelanthaLittle girls taught to be perfect. Melantha watches Delia and Dosia and sees them the way she might see aliens. They aren't natural; they aren't normal. None of this is familiar or normal to her, except -- and even this is dim -- the shadow of an elder brother kissing a brow or the crown of her hair, belittling her with his concern, crushing her with his protection, forgetting who she is and what she is because her hair is longer and her limbs are leaner and her voice is lighter. Melantha blinks and just barely spies the older girl reaching for the younger girl's hand. She watches Delia squeeze Dosia's fingers, not to hurt but to anchor, and this,
this, Melantha recognizes.
Just as she recognizes the sudden look in Delia's eyes when Erich winks. It's savage and it's exhilirated and creepy and adorable all at once. Melantha smiles and turns away, just in time to see the siblings release one another, to see Charles retreat, to see Charlotte return. She looks at the tray Charlotte brings curiously, perhaps hungrily, and if Charlotte does not feel very lupine in that moment, or feels like Melantha is her kin and her pack as Melantha feels right now, she takes a little triangle of crustless toast and spoons some caviar on it, eating neatly.
Gifts are gathered, and identified, and while all that is happening, Melantha reaches over into Charlotte's lap and does something very similar to what Delia did for Dosia. She touches her hand. Squeezes it, looking in her eyes. Smiles. Does not say you did good or I'm proud of you with her glances. Only: hey. it's you. and also me! and we're both here together. isn't that splendid?
And it is.
In short order, they have gifts being thrust at them. Melantha twists and reaches behind her for the large bag she brought with her, and rustles out two boxes, also wrapped in black paper, but hand-done at home. One has a pink and silver bow on it and the name Charlotte written in a swirling scrawl on the top with a metallic silver Sharpie. Erich's is much the same, but his bow is gray and white and his name has the aych at the end. She knows there is an aych at the end because the last time she saw him she wanted a picture of him eating ice cream to use for his contact information in her phone and he noticed that his name was spelled Erik and she said it was because he's totes a Norseman and he informed her that Ee-Ar-Eye-See-Aych is the only sensible way to spell his name.
Regardless: the boxes are the same size, and Melantha holds them patiently on her lap while the birthday children open presents from the Gray family. Her expression is careful: the gold cufflinks and the diamond earrings are lovely and expensive and she's been given enough lovely and expensive gifts to know their quality. She looks a little sad tries not to, but then, she doubts Delia and Dosia picked those out.
And a wallet and an iPhone. Melantha's tongue is pressed against the tip of her incisor now, which causes just enough pain to keep her from opening her mouth but does not keep her from smiling her little polite smile. She refuses to glance at Charles. At least he put some thought into it. At least he tried, even if he just... doesn't understand what a wolf really is. And not a wolf, not an animal, but a Garou.
At the same time, she worries about her presents. She holds them in her skirted lap, glancing at them, because truth be told: she hasn't been to many birthday parties for werewolves, either.
"Goodnight, Delia. Goodnight, Dosia," she says to the children, as they're thanked and led inside. "Goodnight, Charles," she adds, as he leads them. The door closes. She licks her lips as she turns back to her friends, now to the exchange of gifts between the two of them. The birthday boy and his new birthday-twin. She, unlike Erich, does not care if Charles comes back. She can tell pack as easily as a wolf can sent their own dam and sire, their own littermates. Charles is Charlotte's blood, but he is not Melantha's pack, and he is not a sister, and he reminds her of Jack and men like Jack and the younger men who aspire to be men like Jack and she knows she is biased and
she still doesn't like him.
Erich gifts Charlotte a slingshot. Melantha laughs. "Oh, I bet you could make the neatest talens to shoot with that, too," she says. She's talking now. She's been so quiet up til now, ever since coming to the house. Now she erupts, as delighted by the gift as though she were the one receiving it. Or giving it. "Or if someone needs to be healed you could pop one of those gourds in it and heal them from across the battlefield!" She laughs again, bright and amused by the image of Charlotte long-range healing with a slingshot. "Oh, that's neat. Erich. Erich, open yours too!"
She claps, beaming.
CharlotteCharlotte is not feeling particularly lupine tonight. Or, perhaps, she is feeling especially lupine as she sits back down beneath the drowsy old oak tree, bare feet in cool grass, because Melantha is her kin and her pack and the caviar is for them all, even Erich if he dares it, though he will have to eat it with a spoon as the toast itself would not agree with him.
Melantha squeezes her hand and Charlotte - wriggles in her direction, bumping thighs and flanks with the other girl. Something puppyish about the movement, all sweet shivers and suborned enthusiasm, held deep and held close and worn, brightly, beneath her skin.
Because that thing where they are both here. Where they are all here, is splendid.
Absolutely.
Delia and Dosia murmur dutiful goodnight carefully back to Melantha. Charles salutes her, briefly, with the neck of his beer bottle. Charlotte waves to them, a little half-wave, as they disappear, but does not offer a polite little goodnight.
Charlotte has tucked her earrings aside, just below the shadow of her left knee. She's going to give them to Melantha before the night is through if her friend wants them. Then Erich is bashfully handing her his present and Charlotte gives him a profile skimming glance, her eyes all bright and lashed, as she accepts the present, tears open the thin paper and dives into the box and -
"I hate balls," Charlotte solemnly informs Erich. "People wear weird faces over their faces. They're gross." Her voice is quiet in that moment, near-reverant, as she traces the frame of the slingshot, the wrist-brace, the counterweights with her fingertips.
When Melantha laughs about Charlotte shooting talens from the sling, the girl nod-nod-nods, "It's so awesome!" she enthuses, her pale-pink hair bouncing from its neat flip in disordered and gleeful array.
Then she pushes Erich's gift toward him. Lightweight; lighterweight than his own. Wrapped in the comics from last Sunday's Washington Post, no name written on the newsprint. The wrapping does not come away easily. Charlotte may own stock in a scotch tape company, but he's able to tear into it and finds a small, plain box; and inside the small, plain box he finds a small rectangle of heavy paper the size of a wallet-sized photograph. The sort your parents might clip off your five by seven school portrait and enclose with Christmas cards sent off to distant, rarely-seen aunts and uncles. It is secured in a very small, very thing metal frame, sealed with epoxy. Thin enough that it is no thicker than a credit card, perhaps two sandwiched together.
It is a pen and ink drawing; the suggestion of a portrait of a girl, who is in the woods. The idea of trees around her, the cross-hatched shadow of their straight trunks. Her head and right shoulder can be seen, she is moving away from the viewer, but looking back. Dark-haired, straight-spined, the suggestion of a challenge in her eyes - a hunter on the move through the silent woods, the edge of laughter haunting the corners of her mouth.
A stranger with some knowledge of mythology might call the girl Artemis.
Erich - Erich will see Melantha, captured in a few lines of ink on paper.
ErichErich breaks into a grin. There might be just a bit of relief in it as Charlotte pronounces his gift awesome, as Melantha instantly comes up with equally awesome usages for it. "I'm glad you like it," he says, all understated and stuff, but his cheeks are flushing red again.
He gets a gift back. And it is light, and wrapped in Sunday comics. He tears the newspaper rather than trying to unwrap it properly. Then there's a box, which is probably a good thing because if it had just been a sheet of paper he would have ripped that in half. He opens the box, though, with a little more care than he'd shown the packaging, and
it's a drawing. Pen and ink. Small enough to slide into his wallet, which is surely its purpose. It's like the sort of portrait people keep in their wallets of their loved ones, only this isn't a portrait in the strictest sense. In another sense, it's truer a portrait than anyone's likely to have of Melantha.
The look on Erich's face is complex and shifting. He smiles, but there's a touch of wistfulness in his eyes. On impulse he kisses the portrait quickly, then gives Charlotte a tight side-hug. "Thank you," he says quietly, and passes the portrait over to Melantha so she can see it too.
It occurs to him suddenly that everything Charlotte has done for the three of them has been for Erich and Melantha. The beads that they both wear, she on her wrist and he around his neck. The picture he can keep in his wallet to remind himself of her. All of it has been to find a way to keep them together, keep their connection alive. His heart aches. He hasn't stopped hugging Charlotte; in fact he might be squeezing her even harder now.
"We need to take a picture," he says. "Of all three of us, right here, tonight. Let's do that after we open the rest of the presents."
MelanthaIt's hard to see what Charlotte gives Erich, other than a piece of paper sort of laminated or in a frame or something. Melantha frowns, peering over. She has to lean around Charlotte, trying to look past her to tell what it is that her other very very very good friend just got for his birthday that is way better than a wallet or cufflinks, just as a slingshot is way better than diamond earrings or an iPhone.
She doesn't see it before Erich kisses it, like a weirdo, and she wonders if maybe it's a rare baseball card or something. He hands it over to her. She is expecting something very bizarre, since Erich is going around kissing random presents, and then she turns it over.
The drawing is very good. And Melantha doesn't recognize it at first. She stares at it, her profile not far from Charlotte's eyes, thoughtful and curious, like she's trying to sort out a puzzle. Erich is hugging Charlotte, which is right and good, and that's when he sees realization dawn over her features. Her eyebrows lift and her eyes widen a bit, her mouth opening.
"Oh, wow. That's me," she says, looking to the two wolves as though to make sure she's not being dumb or narcissistic here. "Charlotte, I didn't even know you could draw."
The picture drops in Charlotte's lap, and then the girl who is -- despite being a damned werewolf -- the skinniest of them is being squeezed between the dark-haired Fury and the fair-haired Shadow Lord. Melantha kisses Charlotte's cheek, then buries her face in the other's hair. She can't smell the Fang's breeding the way that Charlotte and Erich can both smell hers, are drawn to hers as inextricably as they're drawn to their own rage, but she can smell all the smells that Charlotte is. She breathes them in. She smells Erich's, too, more familiar in some ways and yet stridently, shockingly different than what she's used to, overall.
"I love you," she tells Charlotte, but one of her hands is resting on Erich's arm, too, and he knows she means him as well. Or: he should when she squeezes his arm with that hand, making sure it transfers. You: Charlotte. You: Erich. You: two. You: both.
A picture. All three of us. Melantha smiles and draws back when he mentions the rest of the presents, which means just hers, and she is happy to let go of the hug in order to deposit those black-wrapped boxes with their pretty ribbons on their laps.
"Open them at the same time," she says, and claps again, then clasps her hands together in front of her chin.
CharlotteCharlotte is smiling with a close and quiet pleasure, her pale eyes sliding off Erich's profile as he opens the gift, as she registers his smile, as that wistfulness gleams in his eyes and he kisses the picture. That's when she glances away, straight ahead. Here is the portrait she sees: the impression of their reflections in the glass of the French doors, light behind them, smeary from the interior, warm and diffuse from the faery lights above.
Her own smile in that moment is serene and far away. They are layered about her, and that is how she is seated, looking straight away, her lashes just lowered over her pale eyes, the pupils huge dark cores, when Erich side-hugs her. Tightly. She nudges him back, her elbows drawn tight against her torso, as if they were siblings and playfighting, as if they were littermates testing their teeth: just a bright wriggle of resistance, the sort one expects in any puppypile.
So the two of them are sort of swaying when Erich hands over the portrait to Melantha for her to puzzle out, and Charlotte's focus cuts aslant. Melantha's profile against the deeper shadows of the half-sleeping spring garden. The shadows of azaleas against the brick wall that closes them in, just starting to return to leaf.
Oh, wow says Melantha, and Charlotte's little mouth quirks in a little smile and she nods. Just minutely. Oh yes. That's you. Sometimes, Charlotte remembers Melantha's blood the way she remembers the chambers of her own heart, and then she is squeezed and squealing a bit, inhaling Melantha's scent as Melantha kisses her cheek.
"Me too." Charlotte murmurs back; perhaps too quiet for Erich to hear. Perhaps not, but Melantha can sense the words sketched against her cheek.
Then Charlotte is freed again and nod-nod-nods to Erich's suggestion of a picture, of the three of them, and she's not looking at either one, but they're flanking her and she's so happy about that. It feels so right to her that she wonders how she didn't know how it felt before.
Melantha instructs Erich and Charlotte to open their presents at the same time and of course Charlotte is going to comply. For the first time since that wistfulness drifted over Erich's features, Charlotte looks back at him. Picks up her own present, counts down, the edge of laughter in her voice as Melantha claps to rally them onward:
"one. two. three!"
And pulls the tail of the bow free, then pulls away the paper, nearly all at a go.
ErichThey embrace, and are embraced. They love, and are loved. He hears Melantha, feels her squeeze his arm; thinks he might hear Charlotte too. He doesn't say it, not because he's shy about these things (though maybe he is a little) but because it doesn't seem necessary. He is hugging them both. They're almost squishing Charlotte between them, Erich and Melantha, and he is laughing as they come apart.
Just two more presents. They are decked out like twins, wrapped in black and tied in pretty ribbons. Erich shakes his a little, and Melantha tells them: together! So, okay: at the same time. Erich looks sidelong at Charlotte to see if she's ready, and she gives a countdown, and he's actually tugging gently but then he sees Charlotte ripping into her present so he accelerates to catch up.
And that pretty bow turns into a pretty strip of textile. The wrapper turns into shreds. Erich looks down to see --
MelanthaMelantha has a gold card from one of the highest-paid members of government. She could have bought them gifts with that, hundreds of dollars worth, and gotten in trouble for it that she could have pouted and bounced her way out of. She could have bought them leather and technology, if not gold and diamonds.
Melantha can't draw. She also can't really cook, or put together furniture from IKEA. She can throw a punch and fire a gun but can't do either of those things very well. She can fuck like a demon. She can dance and she can hold her liquor and she's very good at chess.
There's not food or chess pieces of drawings in the boxes. There's a whole lot of... stuff.
Charlotte's is full of strips of brown and black leather, different-colored string, tiny pots of paint, clay made to harden in ovens or even sunlight, a little carving knife, some blocks of wood, some brushes, some little leather drawstring bags, some glass vials. It's just a bunch of nonsense to most people. For Charlotte, it's a lot of talen-making tools. And there's a little book, too, simple, leather-bound but it probably only cost about ten dollars at a big box bookstore. The pages are unlined. That, too, is for talen making. Or at very least: wisdom-recording. Idea-noting. Melantha doesn't know if Charlotte will like it. She just knows that she'll get good use out of the tools, at very least.
Erich was harder. She got him a cookset though. It's even nicer than the one she had when they went camping. But it's hard to tell at first: it's just a cylindrical tub in a black bag that says GSI. It's gadgetry from top to bottom: handles fold in and fold out, bowls and mugs nest together. If he unpacks it, he finds a cooking set for two people. The lid of the main pot can even be a strainer. The carrying bag doubles as a kitchen sink.
"And these," Melantha says, as they're going through their boxes. She takes something out of one of her dress's pockets, and it turns out to be two... friendship bracelets. Hand-woven, only a quarter-inch thick. The threads are silver and black and grey, nothing bright, but woven in among them is something dark and glossy and not quite black and not quite brown, either.
She smiles as she ties them onto her friends -- their wrists, if they like. Their ankles, if they prefer. Because only the friend who made it can tie a friendship bracelet on. And once it's tied, it can't be taken off or untied, it can only be broken, and it's hard to break tightly woven threads.
"I braided a little of my hair into them," she says softly, looking at her fingers doing the tying. "I hope that's not weird."
Charlotte"It's awesome," says Charlotte; slowly, as she pulls out piece after piece, supply after spully. The leather strips waiting to be plaited or bound or worked or etched or burned. The wood and the brushes, the carving knife, the miniate pots of ink and paint, the handful of stones, worn smooth in a river somewhere. The glass vials, the drawstring bags, the cork stoppers, the wax for sealing in a half-dozen colors. This time, her awesome is drawn out as she pulls out a small palette for the paints, a soft felt pouch with a half-dozen brushes in wood and horsehair, varying sizes and shapes, all cinched neatly together.
The Silver Fang is barefoot, but they've both seen her much-doodled upon Converse all-star sneakers. The symbols worn down to smudges, now, from the time she tried to bind a cheetah spirit into her shoes. Spirits want homes made for them, by Garou hands, with thought and care, not mass-manufactured by half-slave labor in some distant land. (Also: there are not many Cheetah spirits in Connecticut.) Charlotte chat-babbles about that happily as she pulls sorts through the supplies, telling them story. The most she got was a bobcat and even the torn-eared, wary bobcat spirit turned up its feline nose at her sneakers.
Charlotte is still sorting through her supplies when Melantha announces the rest of her gift: the friendship bracelets. Charlotte sticks out her left arm, turning her hair palm-upward, her bony wrist, the dark threads of veins visible beneath her pale skin, for Melantha to secure the friendship bracelets and Charlotte, Charlotte shakes her head no. That's not weird. But her eyes are shining and she doesn't know right now how exactly to say more. How connected these things are. How she can keep Melantha's scent in her body and sleeping mind, how she could find her now, anywhere. Almost anywhere on earth.
So Charlotte just nudges Melantha with her knee and shoulder as Melantha is doing the tying, and says, quietly. "Thank you. It's the best birthday ever." To both of them.
Erich"This is awesome," Erich keeps saying, which is sort of what Charlotte kept saying too. "This is amazing. Oh, wow."
And he, too, is pulling out piece after piece. Let's be honest: at first he didn't quite know what to make of it. A pot? Is it a pot? But then he unfolds the handle -- which doubles as a locking latch -- and it slowly becomes apparent that this is not ordinary pot. It's a veritable Russian doll of pots; a Swiss army knife of cookware. And all in Shadow Lord-y charcoal grey, plus Erich-y bold primary colors!
But that's not all. There's something else, too. A friendship bracelet, which he sticks his arm out for as well. Melantha ties it onto his wrist, which is much thicker than Charlotte's, which has the definition of all those hard bones and complex muscles and strong tendons and friable veins coursing through it. His brow is a little furrowed. "Do you have one too?" he asks her.
And then he smiles again, lopsidedly. He nudges Charlotte back. "Thank you. I've never had a birthday tea party before. Or a friendship bracelet like this one. Or friends like you two."
MelanthaMelantha. Is. Over. The moon.
She wiggles in place, bounces, hands still clasped, as Charlotte and Erich pronounce their gifts awesome. She ties their bracelets -- and yes, the one for Erich is longer than the one for Charlotte -- around their wrists, the left on each of them, and she is smiling the whole time. She's on her knees in the grass, looking like she belongs to another century in that dress and with that hairstyle.
In less than two weeks, she's going to head west. She doesn't know it yet. There's no way she can warn Erich and Charlotte of how soon it's all going to happen. She just smiles, terribly happy right now, as she ties friendship bracelets onto their arms.
"No," she says to Erich, laughing softly at his question. She glances up from his wrist and meets his eyes for a moment, the first moment of protracted eye contact they've had all night. "Charlotte made you and I our pigeons, and I made you and Charlotte your friendship bracelets. And when you make Charlotte and I something to wear, then I'll have that."
Silly Erich, her tone says, as it often does. As though it's obvious. She kisses the soft mound beneath his thumb, where that softness conceals strong muscle even in the weakest hand. Closes his fist with her own hand after her lips touch it. It's a different sort of kiss than the one she might give Charlotte, but then, the sort she gives Charlotte is different from the sort of kiss she'd give anyone else, too. She doesn't often have the urge to nuzzle people or breathe near their jaw or neck to make sure they sleep soundly after Cheesecake And Mulan.
Gifts scattered everywhere, Melantha relaxes again, lying down next to Charlotte's legs and laying her head on the other girl's lap like this is the most normal, expected thing that she could do. She's quiet a moment, her arm resting over Charlotte's knees, her hand bumping up against Erich's knee. She thinks for a moment. Asks:
"Who's going to take the picture?"
CharlotteThere are presents all around; and one more for Melantha, which Charlotte nudges Erich to retrieve from the hollows at the base of the tree. One more bottle of water, rainwater filtered through the branches of the great oak tree, gathered at its base. As clean as rain in a city like this one can be, now given that oily, liquid spark of life by the gaffling called down from a rainswept sky and bound into the little glass bottle, stopped with a carved cork and sealed with purple sealing wax. Erich hands it to Charlotte and Charlotte tucks it carefully beside Melantha's left flank, where she sprawls on the grass, her head on Charlotte's lap, her free arm and hand pulling the three of them into a sort of communion.
At first, Charlotte curls her fingers through Melantha's hair rather tentatively, the tips of her fingers hovering over the gleaming length of Melantha's dark curls. Then she does so with a lazy slowness, as if they have sprawled together like this, a lifetime ago. And another, and on into the some hazy, half-remembered beginning of such things.
--
Melantha asks them who will take the picture and there are coincidences in this world, and here is one: the French doors open with a quiet rush in just that moment. Charles, returning as Erich hoped he would. Charles, whom Melantha did not wish to see again.
"I will." He did not hear the rest of the conversation, but he can infer it. "Give me a minute." He sets the beer bottle down on the teatable and disappears inside again. Five minutes later, maybe eight, he emerges with a Nikon DSLR camera. Of course he has one. And knows, more or less, how to use it.
They'll have candids, a handful, of the three of them sprawled beneath the tree. Perhaps one of them standing upright, all together, the three of them combined not-yet as wide as the trunk of the oak that overshadows them. Charlotte is in the center of the candids, sitting upright, making-not-quite eye contact with the camera lens, but she makes Melantha shift places when they stand up for the formal portrait. Slips Melantha in between herself and Erich. In those pictures Charlotte's torso is curving close to her friends, but her eyes are lifted up and to the right, looking off into the distance, listening to something no one else can hear.
ErichIn two weeks, Melantha's friends will hear not from her but from cruel, sensationalist, jabbering news reports that her hunt was finished; her quarry slain in the eyes of anyone who matters. In two weeks, she'll be gone from the city without a word of goodbye, without a last hug or a last meeting with either of them.
In two weeks, Erich will get a phone call. He'll stop by Charlotte's house again before the call even comes and leave a note that they'll be leaving in the morning. Then after the call he'll come by again, and this time he won't talk about tomorrow morning, he'll say now, we have to go now, and
in two weeks, all three of them will be gone from the city by nightfall. And the two young wolves won't see their friend again for weeks and weeks, and when they do she won't call herself Celia in front of anyone. Charlotte won't be living in a grand old Victorian then, either. Erich won't be living in his car. Or even driving it anymore.
None of them can see what time brings them. Not tomorrow; not two weeks or ten years from now. They do have this night, though. They have this exchange of presents, which feels a little like a ritual binding them together. Erich wishes he'd made something for the two of them. But then at the same time he's glad he didn't. That leaves something for the future. It's always nice to leave a little something for the future, as though in this way he could coax fate into letting them see each other again because something was still undone, something still unsaid, something still unfinished.
They lounge in the grass. In a little while, Charles is back. Erich waves as him as he sits up. They take a picture together, arms around each other, smiling broadly under the fairy-lit boughs of the oak. They have other pictures too, candids. They'll be sent to their smartphones (Charlotte has one now!) and their emails (Charlotte may not have one yet); later on Erich will print one out for his wallet, which he'll keep slipped beside the drawing of Melantha.
And, of course, there's still meat-cake to be had. And Erich has his with a bottle of beer, and they lounge in the backyard, those lanterns overhead gradually burning low and dimming as they talk,
and talk and talk,
about where they might go. Who they might be. What they might see, and know, and remember.
It's well past midnight, the garden is dark and the night-insects quiet, when they meander in. Erich wants Melantha to stay, but she can't, so he says he'll take her home at least. She thinks a while. She decides there's no harm in it, and so the girls hug at the door. Erich promises he'll be back in a bit.
He drives Melantha back to her apartment. The one Jack rented for her. The one Erich helped her move into. The one Melantha will use to crush Jack, along with the cell phone, the credit card, the incriminating photos, all of it. Parked downstairs, he holds her hand for a while, his thumb rubbing over her knuckles. He says nothing. Eventually she has to go in, and he leans over and kisses her the way she'd kissed his palm: gently but intimately, privately.
Then he watches her go in. He waves a little from the car if she looks back: a shadow in the driver's seat.
About an hour after he leaves, he's back at Charlotte's. He sleeps in his wolf form that night, twenty-three years old to the day, curled up and thick-furred at the foot of his packmate's bed. He thinks Charlotte was right. It's the best birthday he's ever had.
