Chapter Three - Part Four

"Yes, a lovely girl." Diane replied. "I assume she also told you about your grandfather becoming the Elder again, after your father passed?"

I nodded.

"Well, unlike with the other Leadership positions, most Packs choose to keep the Eldership passed down within a single family. The Garou have always been led by a Noble, and I'm sure the town would prefer it to stay that way..."

"Diane, what are you saying?" I said slowly, knowing full well what she meant.

"The Eldership was Jack's birthright, Naomi - just as it's yours."

At the sound of these words my heart skipped an entire measure of beats.

"Charles can't lead the Pack forever, and if you choose to stay in Harbor, the Eldership can be yours one day too. The Garou will need a Noble to take my husband's place."

"Wow. I... I can't believe it. Diane, are you really saying that I could be in the Leadership?"

"Well dear, you wouldn't become eligible for the Eldership until your twenty-first birthday, but I think that you would make an excellent Leader in the meantime..."

New concepts sprang to life from the possibilities that lay in wait beyond this new door. Certainly this was an opportunity that I would be a fool to decline; that much power and resources at my fingertips simply refused to be ignored. But even so, the thought of so much abrupt responsibility carried me down from my excitement like a weight. And suddenly, I imagined all of the Garou, and a Leadership full of strangers, that would have their eyes trained on me like a spotlight from some dreaded beacon. Could I handle so much pressure? Was I ready for that much obligation?

But more importantly, did I really want this?

"That's... incredible, Diane. I, I don't know what to say -"

"Say you'll do it."

A man's voice broke the flow of our conversation, and I turned to the doorway to see Charles Edward Noble, my grandfather, entering the room. He wore a black Armani business suit with a red tie that was already loosened. His jaw and nose were large and strong, sitting on a smile that didn't quite reach the point where the eyes should have crinkled. He was practical and calculating - I could see it in his face. And he had the hard edge that I supposed was meant to compliment the softer air of his wife. Where she was the light he was her dark, but when I looked at him - with his flagrant pride and premeditated smile - I wondered if devils were even capable of love.

"Hello," I tossed a smile with my greeting and stood from the couch to approach him with ease. There was no embrace between us, but if there had been, I imagined that it would have been very forced and stiff.

"Your beautiful wife was just in the middle of delivering some amazing news. A seat with you on the Leadership - I can hardly believe it!"

"Oh not just any seat, Naomi." Charles replied with stiff, but polite correction. "After all, you're a Noble, so your role would be no smaller than my own. Unlike other Packs, the Garou have no Alpha and Omega - they've been replaced by Leaders so that power within the Pack remains more widespread. It's a challenging job, but you're a Noble, so I have no doubt that you will prove yourself worthy."

"So that's it?" I said, looking between the two. "It's that easy?"

"Well, not quite. It's tradition to have a small induction ceremony when a new Leader is appointed. The full moon is in a few days, and that's when we hold our monthly meetings with the Garou, so we'll have it then. And all you need to do is show up."

"That's great. I'll ask Adelle to take me.

If I had actually been naïve enough to expect a guilty look from Charles, I would have been severely disappointed. There was no sign of culpability from him at hearing the sound of Adelle's name on my lips.

"But there is one more thing, dear." Diane said, addressing her husband with an affectionate gaze and a light hand on his harm. "A cotillion. Naomi will need that too."

"A cotillion?" I asked, feeling a little hot. "Uh, I really don't think that would be necessary. I don't even know how to dance at one of those things."

"No girl is ever born knowing how to dance a cotillion, Naomi." Diane chided fondly. "But the most sophisticated ones do go on to master it. You can take lessons."

I could find nothing appropriate to respond with, so I accepted this ultimatum with a meek nod and smile.

"Then it's settled. I'll begin the arrangements. I do hope the country club would be available again since it's so last minute..."

And to my immense discomfort, Diane left me alone with my grandfather, muttering something about decorations and invitations. Meanwhile, I felt out of place in the sudden, awkward silence.

"I hope I don't disappoint anyone." I said tentatively, deciding to be the first to speak up. "This seems pretty important to her."

"Well, it's important to all the Garou." he replied. "Every, January we hold a cotillion in order to honor the young men and women in the Pack who will be turning sixteen that year. It's tradition."

He turned his back to me as he approached the mantle, scanning random photographs of his perfect family. They stood in timeless peace, trapped in their frames as they smiled, forever benign.

"Naomi, you should know that when your father and your mother told us that they had given you up, Diane and I fought their decision." Charles said, without turning around. "I urged him to reconsider, but his mind was made up. There was nothing that the rest of the family could do. And Jack didn't reveal this to us until you were already gone."

He turned to me again, with unhappiness and suffering etched in every line on his face. But before I allowed myself to become sympathetic, I reminded myself why it was that I was there.

"He wrote to me about that." I replied evenly. "He said that he did it to protect me."

"Yes. Yes, he did want to protect you. Even Paris had her doubts, but this was the one time that she found she couldn't control him - so they sent you away. And it was conducted very similarly to a closed adoption. Only your parents knew how to contact you."

"Well, I suppose that explains all the missed letters." I said, with frank sarcasm. "But honestly, I'm not here expecting anything from anyone in this family. And I'm definitely not here to point fingers at you for what your son did."

"You say that, but do you truly understand what it was that Jack was protecting you from?" he replied, observing me through shrewd, narrowed eyes. "The town was in immense danger, many Supernaturals were dying. Even Paris and her sister Thalia lost their mother to the disease."

It was a familiar story, and one that I had referred to many times. I had even managed to find a more watered down and non-magical version of the article on the Internet. It was the chilling tale of the start, and the sudden end, of a long and depressing trail of deaths in Harbor Village. Some mystical affliction had run its course through the town, striking down Supernaturals left and right. And this had all begun around the time that I had been born. The illness was so sudden, and so devastatingly effective, that as the death toll rose it was feared no one would be safe.

But of course, my father feared for the safety of his only child. Jack knew that he would be made Pack Leader one day, and only his deep, fierce role as a protector of the town kept him from leaving with his daughter and his wife. So they had all stayed behind, while I left without them to begin a solitary life, alone, amongst the Humans.

"And you never found out what caused it?" I asked curiously. "Or who?"

"The sickness didn't last long - it ended a few months after you left." Charles replied with a sigh. "But Jack never brought you back. He was convinced that you wouldn't be safe."

"And what happens if the sickness comes back? What will you do then?"

"I'm confident it won't return." Charles replied with firm self-assurance, but this only served in stoking the fire of my suspicions.

"Well, that's reassuring to hear." I said with stiff good manners.

"But my point, Naomi, is that your grandmother and I were kept from you. You weren't removed from us by choice.

"No." I agreed. "It wasn't your fault - just circumstance. But I'm here now, right?"

My grandfather didn't answer, but I didn't need him to. Of course I could ask him why he and Diane hadn't bothered to show their faces when I had returned to town, but I knew that it wouldn't matter. They would probably spew out some bullshit answer as an excuse. But anyway, in the grand scope of things, that wasn't what mattered.

In order to keep me safe, Jack never intended for his daughter to become a Pack Elder. He sent me away, but when the illness had ended, for some reason he had still felt it unsafe to bring me home. Apparently, my father had felt the danger was still there.

And I intended to find out why.

* * *

Several days later, Adelle and I sat comfortably together in her white Volkswagen. We were parked beneath the shade of two weeping willows, across the street from the darkening lot of the Quality Inn - a motel just off the highway from town. The sun was ending its shift in the sky now, and the moon was beginning to rise. Adelle was hunched over in the driver's seat, and peering intently at room #4, with her camera held at the ready. It had been almost twenty minutes since Claire Briton had entered the main building of the motel, to exit with a single room key. She had then disappeared through the door of #4, where Mr. Franks would soon arrive in his two door sports car to join her.

"Honestly, Naomi, I think I would be committing a vast disservice to our friendship if I encouraged you in believing that anyone in your family is worth