"So I,m likely to keep growing for a while yet," said Stuart.
"You will," said Margon with a sarcastic smile and a roll of his eyes. Felix and Thibault also laughed.
"Yes, it would be very considerate and gentlemanly of you if you were to stop growing," said Felix. "I find it disconcerting looking up into your big baby blue eyes."
Stuart was obviously exultant.
"You,ll mature," said Margon, "and then you will not age."
Laura sighed. "One couldn,t hope for anything much better than that."
"No, I don,t suppose so," said Reuben, but it was only just hitting him, the obvious truth that he would never father normal human children, that if he fathered a child, that child would likely be what he was now.
"And this matter of others out there," said Felix. "In time these boys should come to know what we know about them, don,t you think?"
"What," asked Margon, "that they,re secretive, often unfriendly? That they seldom if ever let themselves be seen by other Morphenkinder? What more is there to say?" He opened his hands.
"Well, there,s a great deal more to say and you know it," Felix said softly.
Margon ignored him. "We are all too like wolves. We travel in packs. What do we care about another pack as long as it doesn,t come into our forest or our fields?"
"Then they,re no threat to us basically," said Stuart. "That,s what you,re saying. There are no wars for territory or anything like that? No one seeks to gain power over the rest?"
"I told you," said Margon, "the worst threat to you is from human beings."
Stuart was pondering. "We can,t shed innocent blood," he volunteered. "So how could we fight each other for power? But has there never been a Morphenkind who went rogue, or started slaughtering the innocent, who went mad perhaps?"
Margon considered for a long moment. "Strange things have happened," he conceded, "but not that."
"Are you contemplating being the first rogue?" asked Thibault with a deep mocking drawl to his words. "A juvenile delinquent Morphenkind, so to speak?"
"No," said Stuart. "I just wanna know."
Margon only shook his head.
"The need to annihilate evil can be a curse," Thibault said.
"Well, then why couldn,t we breed a race of Morphenkinder who would annihilate every bit of evil?" Stuart asked.
"Oh, the young and their dreams," said Thibault.
"And what is our definition of evil?" asked Margon. "What have we come to settle for, we Morphenkinder? People we recognize as our own are under assault, isn,t that it? But what is the actual root of evil, may I ask?"
"I don,t know what the root of it is," said Felix. "But I know that evil comes into the world anew every time a child is born."
"Amen," said Margon.
Thibault spoke up, looking directly at Laura, "As we were discussing last night," he said, "evil is a matter of context. That is unavoidable. I am no relativist. I believe in the objective and true existence of good and of evil. But context is inevitable when a fallible human being speaks of evil. This we all must accept."
"I think we argue over the words we use," said Laura. "Not much else."
"But wait, you,re saying the scent of evil for each of us is contextual?" Reuben asked. "That is what you,re saying, isn,t it?"
"It has to be," said Laura.
"No, that really is not quite it," said Margon, but then he seemed frustrated. He looked to Felix who seemed reluctant as well to continue with this same train of thought.
There,re many things they are not saying, Reuben thought. They cannot say it all. Not now. He had a strong sense suddenly of how very much they were not explaining, but he knew better than to ask.
"The Chrism - the question of individual variation, strength," asked Stuart. "How does this work?"
"There are huge differences in receptivity and in development," said Felix, "and in the end result. But we don,t always know why. There are certainly very strong Morphenkinder and very weak Morphenkinder, but again, we do not know why. A born Morphenkind can be quite impressive, or a shrinking and timid individual, not at all receptive to his or her fate. But then it,s the same with those who are bitten, unless they ask for the Chrism, of course."
Margon drew himself up and gestured emphatically with his hands, palms down, as if to say he was bringing this to a close.
"What,s important now is for you to remain here," he said, "both of you, and Laura of course as well. For you to live here with us now, with Felix, with Thibault, and with the others of our small and select company when you meet them, which you soon will. What,s important is that you learn to control the transformation, and to resist the voices when you must. And above all, for now, to withdraw from the world until all chatter about the notorious California Man Wolf finally dies away."
Stuart nodded. "I understand that, I accept that. I want to be here. I,ll do anything you say! But there,s so much more."
"This will be harder than you think," said Margon. "You,ve tasted the voices. You will grow restless and miserable when you don,t hear them. You,ll want to seek them out."
"But we are with you now, all three of you," said Felix. "We came together a long time ago. We chose our last names in the modern age, as you guessed, from the werewolf literature of earlier decades. And we did this, not to signal our identity or common bond to anyone else, but for those names to serve as markers for ourselves and those few friends outside of our group who knew who we were. Names become a problem for people who don,t die. Just as does property and inheritance, and the matter of legality within a nation. We sought a simple and somewhat poetic solution to one of those problems with our names. And we continue to seek solutions to the other problems by a variety of means.
"But what I mean to say is, we are a group, and we are now opening our group to you."
Stuart, Reuben, and Laura all nodded and expressed their warm acceptance. Stuart was beginning to cry. He could hardly remain seated. Finally he got up and began to pace right in back of his chair.
"This is your house and your land, Felix," said Reuben.
"Our house and our land," said Felix graciously, with that warm beaming smile.
Margon rose to his feet.
"Your lives, little wolves, have just begun."
The meeting was at an end. All were scattering.