The Wolf Gift (The Wolf Gift Chronicles 1)

And for hours as well she walked in the woods, with or without Reuben, determined to conquer her new fear. Once, from the beach, she saw someone high on the cliffs, but that was to be expected.

Reuben was on edge whenever she went out, listening with the inner ear of the wolf to the world that surrounded her.

It crossed his mind more than once that there could be some other Morphenkind out there, some vagrant being of which Felix knew nothing, but he had no real evidence of such a thing. And he trusted that had it been possible, Felix would have warned him. Maybe he was romanticizing Felix. Maybe he had to romanticize him.

Laura brought back tender little sword ferns for the conservatory and nursed them in specially prepared pots, and collected beautiful rocks and pebbles for the basin of the fountain. She found interesting fossils in the gravel driveway beneath the kitchen windows. Then she pitched herself into work on the house, restoring the historic William Morris wallpaper in the old bedrooms, or directing the workmen who were repainting the crown molding and other woodwork. She ordered curtains and draperies, and began an inventory of the china and silver.

She also found a magnificent Fazioli grand piano for the music room.

She began to document the Nideck forest with her camera. By her calculation there were some seventy-five old-growth redwoods on Reuben,s land. She estimated their height at over two hundred fifty feet; there were Douglas firs that were almost as high, and countless young redwoods, western hemlock, and Sitka spruce.

She taught Reuben the names of all the trees, how to recognize the California bay tree, and the maple, and how to tell the fir from the redwood, and how to recognize a host of other plants and ferns.

In the evenings, she read Teilhard de Chardin, just as Reuben did. And other works of theology and philosophy, and sometimes poetry. She confessed that she did not believe in God. But she believed in the world, and she understood Teilhard,s love of the world and faith in the world. She wished she could believe in a personal God, a loving God who understood all this, but she didn,t.

One night she burst into tears as they talked of these things. She asked Reuben to bring about the change, and to take her out and up into the forest canopy again. He did. For hours, they roamed the upper branches. She was fearless of the heights, and gloved and dressed in tight-fitting black campers, clothes that kept her insulated against the wind, and likely invisible in the dark to any prying eyes, as Reuben was. She cried against his chest, inconsolably. She said she would risk dying to have the Wolf Gift, there was no doubt of it. When Felix comes, if Felix has the answers, if Felix can somehow direct, if Felix knows how ... they speculated for hours. Finally when she was drowsy and calm, he carried her down to the forest floor, and brought her to the creek where he so often fed alone. She bathed her face in the icy water. They sat among the moss-covered rocks as he told her all the things he could hear, about the bear that slept not far off, about the deer moving in the dark enfolding shadows.

Finally, he brought her home and once again they made love in the dining room before a raging fire in the old grim medieval black fireplace.

In the main, she was not unhappy. Far from it.

The western-facing bedroom chosen for her office had been refurnished with a glass-top desk, several attractive wooden filing cabinets, and a large easy chair with an ottoman for reading, the beautiful old antique furniture relegated to the cellar.

Marchent,s old room no one touched. Someone, likely the law firm, had packed up all Marchent,s personal things before Reuben had ever come back to the house, and now it was a lovely spacious bedroom done in pink chintz and white ruffled curtains, with a white marble fireplace.

The study and adjoining bedroom that had belonged to Felix, which completed the western row of rooms at the northwestern end of the hall, remained a sanctum.

Laura and Reuben cooked all meals together, and did the errands together. Galton handled almost all the real time-consuming problems of the property.

Laura had done a lot of thinking, true, she admitted, about how she could easily accept the brutality of the Man Wolf,s attacks. She did not know the answer. She was deeply in love with Reuben, she said. She,d never leave him. That wasn,t even conceivable to her.

But yes, she thought about it, thought about it night and day, the drive we have for revenge against those who are cruel to us, and the cruelty of revenge and what it does to those who give themselves over to it.

True, she wished he could hunt the forest forever, that he would never again go to the mysterious voices that called him. But she could not explain away the fact that the voices did call, and every day the press elaborated in more detail the spectacular "fallout" of the Man Wolf,s "intervention."

The beneficiaries of his savagery captured the imagination of the press as much as the criminal victims. The old woman of Buena Vista Hill, having suffered excruciating torture before the Man Wolf burst into her window, was now mentally recovered from her ordeal and granting interviews. She said boldly on camera that the Man Wolf should be caught alive, not shot down like a beast, and that she would devote her fortune to supporting him and protecting him if he were captured. Susan Larson, the Man Wolf,s first "contact" in North Beach, also lobbied hard for his "safe" capture. To Larson, he was "The Gentling Wolf," because of the way that he had touched her and comforted her. Meanwhile Man Wolf fan clubs formed online and on YouTube, and at least one famous rock star had written "A Ballad of the Man Wolf," and other songs would shortly follow. There was a Man Wolf Facebook page, and a Man Wolf poetry contest on YouTube. And a whole variety of Man Wolf T-shirts had appeared.

Near the end of the week, Simon Oliver called to say that the title company had all documents on Nideck Point ready for signature. Reuben agreed, but secretly he had misgivings.

What about Felix? This was Felix, the real Felix. Didn,t this house belong to him?

"Nothing can be done about this question now," said Laura. "I think you should go to the title company, sign the papers, and let them file the title. Remember, there is no legal way for Felix to acquire this house. He won,t and can,t take a DNA test to prove anything, either affinity to Marchent, or that he is the man himself. He,d have to buy the house from you. For now, this place is yours."

The visit to the title company was brief. It was unusual to clear title in this amount of time, they told Reuben, but this house had been owned by only one family down through the years, which had made it easy. Reuben signed where they told him to sign.

Nideck Point was now legally his. Property taxes were paid in advance through the end of the following year. Insurance was in place.