The days and weeks that follow the death of Adelle become long and grey. No, not grey. Colorless. Leached of life. The Channons have lost a long standing pack member. A woman who was both a nurturer and a fighter. The brush of loss and grief paints everything.
Losing Adelle is hard. The investigation into her shooting was short. Few questions were asked, and we didn’t encourage more. Adelle was known for her love of nature, her kooky tendencies. Walking in the forest at twilight with wolves around was perfectly plausible. It went down in the law books as an accident.
Losing Adelle, just as I lost Mitch, is life-changing. It leaves behind a solitary and agonizing world. It’s a world that’s hard to breathe in, that’s impossible to smile. There’s no bestie to hold me, no passion to buoy me. There’s no Mitch to show me that this will get better someday, somehow.
Adelle’s funeral showed me what this new world would look like. Even Mother Nature was mourning the loss of her champion. She draped the skies with low clouds and painted the world with sadness. Everything was grey; the sky, the air, the faces of the people who stood around the mound of soil that now held her.
The Phelans were there, but I couldn’t tell you who because all I saw was one. Dark hair, dark suit and eyes that wouldn’t turn my way rocked me with a flash of emotion. It was a flash of color in my too-grey world. A flash of blue that hurt, a stabbing pain, like a spear of light when you’ve spent too long in darkness. The overwhelming urge to move to him, to touch, had locked my muscles. The knowledge that I had destroyed that right was like a wrecking ball to my chest.
As the words were said — ashes to ashes, dust to dust — I’d locked my knees as grief piled on grief.
All I could ask myself is how do I get through this without Mitch? The irony that the loss of Mitch is what makes this so hard isn’t lost on me. And it’s not the kind of irony that makes you smile a little, marvel at the twist of fate. It’s the kind of irony that makes you wonder if the universe always hated you.
Today is the final goodbye at the Glade. We’ve done the human part, the one that maintains our secret and allows the humans that Adelle touched to pay their respects. Now we do it our way.
We’re the first to arrive as per usual, although this time it’s warranted. The Alpha family are the ones who greet everyone else. Even the majesty of the Glade doesn’t bring life to my soul. I stand beside Mom and Dad, Kurt Junior in her arms, glad I don’t have to try and muster a smile. The Channons who file through are all somber as the occasion expects.
The only thing that sparks any life into me is the knowledge that I’ll be seeing Mitch again soon. I know it’ll hurt, and I know I’ll be slapped with his anger and his pain, but I’m so far gone that it doesn’t matter. Any contact with Mitch has my muscles straining as I stop myself from peering at the path that leads to the Glade.
About twenty people have arrived before I realize they’re all Channons. Not one Phelan has entered. I turn to Dad. “Where is everyone?”
Dad keeps his gaze straight ahead. “The people who should be here were invited.”
What does that mean? “There’s no Phelans.”
“Exactly.”
He didn’t invite the Phelans? “You mean it’s just Channons?”
Dad finally glances at me, a frown deeply embedded in his brows. “Adelle was a Channon, today is for our pack and our pack only.”
I glance away, processing that. Mom shifts Kurt Junior from one hip to another. The look she throws my way says one thing — drop it Tara.
But I still don’t get it. I look from Mom to Dad. “The Phelans have invited us when they’ve lost one of theirs.”
“Things are different now.”
With that Dad turns away, heading to where he’ll say his words.
The divide that I thought I’d imagined is becoming very real. Dad has spent years wondering if the Phelans were friends and allies, or competitors. Possibly a threat.
It seems he’s decided.
I look at Dad, strong and unwavering at the head of the Glade. When did it become us and them? The answer is clear. When Noah didn’t change. When the Phelans were no longer equal.
When Dad no longer saw them as competition.
But the Phelans are made strong by so much more than their pack hierarchy, their ties to the animal world. They have love and connection and each other. I glance around at my pack — my baby brother being raised by a village of Weres, at Seth being comforted by those who loved Adelle too, at every one of us who is connected by our blood and our strength. The Channons have always had that too.
And it’s what Adelle believed in too.
Dad speaks the words we all know, that I heard at Grandfather Garrett’s goodbye, and my uncle’s. They’re brief, sweet and can almost encapsulate a future without Adelle.
Dad closes his eyes. “Adelle Channon, we will always hear you.”
Then opens them, looking at us all. “We will always see you.”
He raises his arms, head tilting to the sun as he makes the final promise on behalf on his pack. “And we will always celebrate you.”
Silence holds those last words as each and every one of us considers the beautiful caress that Adelle was in our lives. It’s fitting and I wish Mitch were here to see it. I shy away from that thought, there’s enough sadness in this grassy enclosure at it is.
People start shuffling and moving. Normally, this is where we’d run. The pack would shift and head for the trees, hurtling their grief through the forest, howling their pain into the wind.
But Dad holds up a hand and everyone stills. “You all need to know that the land is no longer for sale.”
A ripple of shock flows through my pack.
“Adelle was well loved, and the land is now forever tainted by her loss. The investors have retracted their interest, and not even loggers have considered a bid.”
Smiles of relief flutter over faces.
Dad scans the Channons. “Remember. It is the Channons who made this happen, it is the sacrifice of one of ours that saved us.”
As chests expand with pride my own deflates. Dad is claiming this as a victory for the Channons? Since when was it a competition? And Adelle…would she have chosen to leave her son for this?
It almost feels like he’s using her...
I straighten, shocked at the mutinous thought. How could I think such a thing? Surely Dad’s felt some sense of responsibility, maybe a twinge of guilt that he ordered them to keep going that night. And I know all he wants is for the Channons to be strong. To endure. But do the Channons really need power and strength at any cost?
I suck in a sharp breath, telling myself those thoughts are disloyal and unwarranted. Strength is everything in the animal world. It dominates and it survives. Dad’s focus has always been on making us stronger - not for himself, but for his pack.
But I can’t deny I’m deeply uncomfortable with the direction that the Channons are taking. Maybe Dad shouldn’t have treated me like a pseudo-heir…maybe I would have ended up thinking like this anyway. Maybe he shouldn’t have let me spend so much time with the Phelans, the ones he’s now considering outsiders. Because like a snowball that gains momentum as it grows, an idea starts to gain critical mass.