The Wolf Gift (The Wolf Gift Chronicles 1)

He had a sudden overwhelming sense of it. Marchent had probably rested her face against the kitchen floor and bled out alone.

He got up and went down the hall. The door to his father,s darkened office was open. City lights glowed in the tall white frame windows. Phil was in his robe and pajamas and was sitting back in his big leather desk chair, listening to music under the obvious black headphones. He had his feet up. He was singing in a low voice with the music, that eerie, disembodied singing that comes from people who are hearing a music we can,t hear with them.

Reuben went up to bed.

Sometime around 2:00 a.m., he awoke with a start. I own the place now, he thought. So I,ll be connected all my life to what,s happened. All my life. Connected. He,d been dreaming of the attack again, but not in the usual repetitive and fragmentary way. He,d been dreaming of the animal,s paw on his back, and of the sound of the creature breathing. In his dream it had not been dog, wolf, or bear. It had been some force in the darkness that savaged the young killers, and then left him alive for reasons he could not understand. Murder, murder.

In the morning, the Nideck lawyers and the Golding lawyers came to a settlement on all the personal possessions. The original handwritten codicil signed by Marchent and witnessed by Felice had been filed, and within six weeks, Reuben would take possession of Nideck Point, a name, by the way, that Marchent had referenced in her papers - and all that Felix Nideck had left behind when he vanished.

"Now of course," Simon Oliver said, "it,s too much to be hoped for that no one will contest this codicil or the will in general. However, I,ve known these lawyers at Baker, Hammermill a very long time, especially Arthur Hammermill, and they say they,ve been all through this question of heirs and inheritance already, and that there are no heirs to the Nideck estate. When Felix Nideck,s affairs were settled, they tracked every conceivable family connection, and there are simply no living heirs. This man friend of Ms. Nideck in Buenos Aires, well, he signed all the appropriate papers a long time ago, guaranteeing he would make no claim on Ms. Nideck,s wealth. She left the man quite a lot, by the way. This was a generous woman. She,s left quite a bit to worthy causes, as we say. I,ll tell you the sad thing here. A lot of this woman,s money is going to go unclaimed. But as far as the Mendocino property - and the personal possessions on the premises - well, my boy, I think you,re home free."

He,d talked on and on about the family, how they,d sprung up "out of nowhere" in the nineteenth century, and how the Nideck lawyers had searched exhaustively for family connections during those years when Felix Nideck had been missing. They,d never found anyone in Europe or America. Now the Goldings, and the Spanglers (Grace,s people), well, they were old San Francisco families, going way back.

Reuben was going to sleep. All he cared about was that land, that house, and what was in that house.

"All of it,s yours," Simon said.

Before noon, Reuben decided to cook lunch like in the old days just so everybody would think he was all right. He and Jim had grown up preparing meals with Phil, and he found it soothing, the rinsing, chopping, frying. Grace joined in whenever she had the time.

They sat down to lamb chops and salad as soon as Grace got in.

"Listen, Baby Boy," she said. "I think you should put the house up there on the market as soon as you can."

Reuben burst out laughing. "Sell the place! Mom, that,s insane. This woman left it to me because I loved it. I loved it at first sight. I,m ready to move up there."

She was horrified. "Well, that,s a bit premature," she said. She glared at Celeste.

Celeste put down her fork. "You,re seriously thinking of living up there? I mean, like, how can you even think of going into that house after what happened? I never thought - ."

There was something so sad and vulnerable in her expression that it cut Reuben to the quick. But what was the use of saying anything?

Phil was staring at Reuben.

"What on earth is the matter with you, Phil?" Grace asked.

"Well, I don,t know, really," said Phil. "But look at our boy. He,s gained weight, hasn,t he? And you,re right about his skin."

"What about my skin?" Reuben asked.

"Don,t tell him all that," said Grace.

"Well, your mother said there was a bloom to it, you know, almost like a woman gets when she,s pregnant. Now I know you,re not a woman and you,re not pregnant, but she,s right. There,s a bloom to your skin."

Reuben started laughing again.

They were all looking at him.

"Dad, I want to ask you something," said Reuben. "About evil. Do you believe evil is a palpable force? I mean do you think there is such a thing as evil apart from what men do, a force maybe that can get into you and turn you to evil?"

Phil answered without missing a beat. "No, no, no, son," he said, scooping a forkful of salad into his mouth, "the explanation of evil is a hell of a lot more disappointing than that. It,s blunders, people making blunders, whether it,s raiding a village and killing all the inhabitants, or killing a child in a fit of rage. Mistakes. Everything is simply a matter of mistakes."

No one else said a word.

"I mean look at Genesis, son," said Phil. "The story of Adam and Eve, it,s a mistake. They make a mistake."

Reuben was pondering. He didn,t want to answer, but he thought he should.

"That,s what I,m afraid of," he said. "Dad, do you have a pair of shoes I can borrow? You,re a size twelve, right?"

"Oh, sure, son. I,ve got a closetful of shoes I never wear."

Reuben drifted off into his thoughts.

He was thankful for the silence.

He was thinking about the house, thinking about all those little clay tablets covered with cuneiform, and about that room where he,d slept with Marchent. Six weeks. It seemed like forever.

He got up and walked slowly out of the dining room and up the steps.

A little later he was sitting by his window looking out at the distant towers of the Golden Gate, when Celeste came in to say she was headed back to the office.

He nodded.

She put her arm around his shoulders. Slowly he turned and looked up at her. How very pretty she was, he thought. Not regal or elegant like Marchent, no. But so fresh and pretty. Her hair was such a very glossy brown and her eyes were so deeply brown, and she had such an intense expression. He,d never thought of her as fragile before, but she seemed fragile now - fresh, innocent, and definitely fragile.

Why had he ever been so afraid of her, afraid of pleasing her, afraid of measuring up to what she expected, afraid of her energy and her smarts?