Chapter 215

#Chapter 215 – Between Us Alvin folds his hands in his lap, shrugging one shoulder. “Ever since we were very little –“

“Since we can remember, I guess,” Ian picks up, miming his brother’s action.

“We’ve always been able to see the magic. To notice it, when others don’t,” Alvin finishes. Both boys look apologetically Victor and I, then, as if they’ve been keeping a big secret and are sorry for it.

“But what is it?” Victor presses.

“It’s just…extra stuff, I guess,” Ian says, frowning, trying not to be vague but failing. I sit back and try to be patient, to let them work through it. “Like, it is the thing that is between Alvin and me. The thing that makes us able to talk to each other. The thing that makes us able to do…extra stuff.”

I frown at this, confused. What kind of extra stuff?

“When we were little,” Alvin says, “it was just around, the magic. And it was just between us – like always floating there, in the air.”

“Do you mean,” Victor says quietly, “that you can see it?”

Ian nods lightly. “Sometimes, we can. Not all the time. Or maybe we just don’t notice. But when we look for it, and it’s there, we can see it.”

Alvin nods, agreeing. “And then,” he continues, “as we got older, we learned how to start to use it.”

“That’s actually pretty new,” Ian says, excited. “Alvin figured it out most – like, he was able to use it just a little bit ago – on the battlefield –“

“The Alpha command,” Alvin clarifies, nodding. “I was able to…grab the magic. In the air. There wasn’t a lot. But I was able to use it to make the command work, even though I’m not technically their Alpha.”

Alvin smiles at Victor then, the Beta’s actual Alpha from whom he had briefly stolen command. Victor just shakes his head at him, not in denial, but in wonder and confusion.

“We thought,” I say, hesitating, “we thought you could just do that stuff because you’re smart. But you’re saying it’s because you’re…magic?”

Ian laughs a little at this. “We’re not magic mom,” he says, wrinkling his nose at the idea of it. “We can just see the magic, and now, I guess, move it around sometimes. But,” he quirks his head, considering.

“Maybe we can do that because we’re smart…”

Alvin nods, considering this as well. I shake my head, not able to figure any of it out.

“So, those things out there,” I say, gesturing with my thumb over my shoulder at the smoke forms that I now imagine brushing up against the fabric of the tent. I shudder at the thought. “They’re the magic.

And you can see them because you can see the magic. So, why could I see them?”

Victor nods, likewise curious. He saw them too.

“Probably because it is…different here.” Ian says, stretching his arms over his head. I can see that he’s starting to get tired, but no way in hell I’m letting him go to bed without explaining further.

“Yeah, there’s a lot of magic out here,” Alvin says, his eyes going wide and excited at the thought of it.

“Like, so much, that it can make itself present. Like it did tonight, in the smoke ghosts.”

“Or,” Ian says, thinking even harder, “maybe you could see it tonight because you have the magic too.”

“What?!” I ask, the word sputtering from my mouth. “I – I have the magic?!”

Ian nods, smiling at me. “Yes,” he said. “You always had a little bit of the magic, when we were little.

But then you got more when we started spending more time with daddy.”

“It’s part of how we knew it was you,” Alvin says, smiling up at his father. Victor just blinks at him, shocked. “When we met you at Quiz Nation. You had a little magic around you. Just blip blip blip!” Alvin pinches his fingers in the air, dancing them around like fireflies. “Little sparks of it.”

“Yeah,” Ian says, distracted, reaching backwards and pulling his little backpack forward. He looks at me as he scrounges through it. “And then, after the claiming ceremony, when daddy tried to bring you into his pack, you both got loads more magic.”

My mouth drops open as Ian pulls a chocolate bar out of his pack. He takes a bite, looking between Victor and my shocked faces.

“Yeah,” Alvin says, nodding. “And then you got lots more right before the wedding. And then more and more later, when you decided to be a family.”

I shake my head, disbelieving, and then snatch the candy bar out of my son’s hand. He gives a little squeak of protest, which I ignore as I take a bite and hand it back to him. I need the sugary comfort of chocolate more than he does right now.

“But now,” Alvin says, looking at us in disgust. “You guys are like, gross.”

“What?” Victor says, baffled and frankly a little offended. “We’re gross?”

“Yeah,” Ian says, looking between us with his nose wrinkled. “We didn’t want to tell you, because we didn’t want to hurt your feelings – and because, like, you wouldn’t get it – but ever since the first night after daddy came home from the hospital…you guys are like, covered in it.”

I look around in the air around me for any sign of the magic. Covered in it? What the –

“Seriously,” Alvin says, leaning forward and flicking his hair through the air around me, like he’s scattering flies. “You can’t sense it? It’s everywhere.”

“Stop that,” I murmur, swatting his hand away. But my eyes meet Victor’s, then, and we both know that it…well, it kind of makes sense. I still don’t know what the hell this magic stuff is, but if it is…between us. Then it’s certainly something we’ve been dabbling in more and more since we’ve met each other again.

And it certainly explains how so many unexplainable things have been…achieved.

“Anyway,” Ian says, shrugging and handing the half-eaten candy bar unasked to Alvin, who accepts it gratefully and takes a bite. “That’s what the ghosts were drawn to, tonight. All the magic around you two. They were just curious. Just wanted to say hi.”

“Ugh,” I say, looking down into my hands. “That’s all so weird.”

I know it’s the understatement of the century, but I can’t think of any other way to put it.

“Thank you,” Victor says quietly to our kids. “For telling us. Explaining it. If there are any changes to it, or anything else, will you let us know?”

Ian nods eagerly, Alvin joining in.

“Good,” he says, nodding firmly. “Then let’s all turn in. It’s been…it’s been on hell of a day.”

The boys nod, turning to their backpacks to look for pajamas. I do as well, ready to get settled for bed, when suddenly I realize something.

“Hey,” I say, spinning and glaring at my sons. “Why is he allowed to say hell,” I ask, pointing an accusing finger at Victor, “but I am not?”

“Because you’re a girl, mom,” Ian says to me, as if it’s obvious. “You need to be ladylike.”

“Excuse me,” I say, whipping my finger down to point directly into his face. “I do not accept this misogyny. If dad can say hell, then so can I.”

Ian shrugs, smirking and accepting this new rule without a fight, but Alvin giggles. “We’re just not used to hearing you saying it, mom,” he says, climbing into one of the two bedrolls next to Victor, who has already climbed inside. We decided on just the two of the sleep sacks, with each of us tucking in with one of the boys, for safety and for lighter luggage.

“Well, get used to it,” I murmur, sliding in next to Ian and reaching over to turn out the light. “After this, I’m going to curse up a storm.”

Both of them laugh at that, and I smile at the noise, marveling at how cheerful it can suddenly be on a night when we were scared into the tent by the presence of smoke ghosts who were curious about all of the magic floating around us.

Bizarre, the whole thing is bizarre.

But, when I think about it, I guess the whole thing has been bizarre for a while. Even the presence of the wolf community is a little bizarre and magical, I guess, in comparison to the human life which exists alongside it. I don’t know why I’m so surprised to hear about the presence of magic, when I can transform into a wolf at will.

I guess when magical things are juxtaposed every day with the mundane, they become mundane themselves.

The tent isn’t totally dark. The fairy lights strung on the tent’s ceiling still do their work, giving us a little glow. I look at Victor, then, about a foot from me, smiling sleepily at me with his arm around our son.

Magic, he says into my mind, giving me a little smirk. A ton of magic, between us.

Oh come on, I say, the corner of my mouth lifting in a vicious little grin. Of all the surprises tonight, that one’s no surprise. It’s been magic between us, right from the start.