Chapter 14: Marius

CLARA

An hour later, I found myself standing outside room 25A of the Melville hospital.

I gave the door another solid knock, and this time, I heard a gruff man’s voice from inside.

“Come in,” he growled, and so I did.

The man was covered in bandages from head to toe, looking more like a cartoon burn victim than anything. He looked to be in his late twenties or early thirties, with dark hair and tanned skin like Elias.

I walked up to the side of the bed and took a seat.

“I’m Clara Parks with ~The Melville Times.~ I’m here to ask some questions.”

“Marius,” the man replied. “I’d shake your hand, but obviously I’m a bit incapacitated at the moment.”

His tone was serious, but I wasn’t sure if he was being sarcastic or not.

“I don’t know what angle you’re going for, but if you want me to tell you I escaped a serial killer or something, you’re going to be vastly disappointed.”

And I was. But I called on my interview skills and adjusted my line of questioning.

“I’d rather hear your story than any preconceived notions of what happened,” I replied, actually earning myself a smile.

“Well, that’s a breath of fresh air. But I don’t know if the real story will make a good article for your paper. The police sure seemed disappointed by it.”

“That’s the police,” I replied. “I’m sure they were hoping that you’d be the missing piece to break their case open, and I don’t blame them. I can only imagine how much pressure a small-town police force is under over multiple unsolved deaths. I don’t envy them one bit.”

Marius didn’t seem to have considered that angle, because he got a thoughtful look on his face before giving a grunt of agreement.

“I suppose that’s true. They definitely felt twitchy and impatient. Why don’t you move your chair to the foot of the bed so I can see you while we talk?”

“Oh, of course,” I said.

There wasn’t much room between the foot of the bed and a handwashing sink across from it, but there was just enough for me if I blocked off the other half of the room.

Once I was settled, I pulled out my notebook and recorder with a smile.

“Mind if I use this?” I asked, waving the recorder.

Marius agreed, but I couldn’t help feeling like he was staring a little too intently at my face.

It was a bit creepy, not gonna lie.

“So why don’t you just tell me what happened, and I’ll ask any clarifying questions when you’re done?” I suggested.

Open-ended seemed the right way to go with someone who was defensive from the beginning. And it worked.

“Like I told the doctor and the police, I was clearing my land claim in the woods and had a disagreement with one of the wolf packs on whose land it was. I barely managed to make it to my truck.

“I’d suggest using your article to remind people to stay out of the forest at night because it’s dangerous.”

As Marius spoke, I kept having flashbacks of the monster wolf Elias and I had met in the woods.

“These wolves—they seem to be far less afraid of humans than they should be. Do you have any idea why that might be?”

“These aren’t your regular wolves, ma’am. And I have a suspicion that you already know that.”

Marius stared even harder at my face, and as much as I wanted to turn away, I couldn’t.

Plus, he was right. I may have flippantly used the word “werewolf” before, but I couldn’t get it out of my head.

“Has this area always had such strangely large wolves?”

Marius nodded slightly, as much as his wounds would allow, and narrowed his eyes.

“Longer than the area has had people. Are you not from around here? Because you look very familiar to me.”

“No, I just moved here last week.”

I relaxed. Marius was only staring because I looked like someone he knew…

My heart skipped a beat. ~I looked familiar.~

My fingers twitched at my sides, a thousand questions bubbling to the surface. I decided to handle the situation just as I had with Elias—tell my story and find out.

“My mother moved here when she was a child and stayed until she left my father and moved to the Midwest. My father’s family has lived here for generations, according to Mom. No idea where he ended up, or if he even knows I exist.”

“I see,” Marius said with a frown. “What did you say your surname was?”

“Parks.”

The scowl deepened. “I see. I must have been mistaken, then.”

Marius obviously knew something, so I studied him carefully as I gave out the next piece of information.

“Parks was my mother’s maiden name. She took it back when she left my father, and I was born afterward, so I got hers as well.”

“I think his surname was Retskyn? Or Redsky? I can’t quite remember.”

My mother had only said his name once, and even then she’d been three drinks deep and whispering like it hurt to say. I’d just turned eighteen and begged to be allowed to find him, but the next morning she’d acted like it never happened.

Marius had gone still and silent, his eyes again focused on my face.

“Renskyn?” he offered.

I nodded vigorously. That was it!

“There are only a few families who have been here for generations, so there were only so many options,” he offered, as if I’d silently asked how he knew. “The Renskyns are an old and revered family in town.”

So my father was probably here, and maybe even my grandparents.

Admittedly, I might have moved to Melville hoping I could find out more about my family—not that I’d had time to look for them yet. What was a few more weeks to settle in, when none of them had ever reached out in thirty-three years?

And even if they didn’t know about me, I wasn’t sure I actually wanted to meet the man who’d driven out my pregnant mother. Or his family.

I didn’t feel ready for any kind of direct confrontation, but I couldn’t let it go. Not yet.

“I see. Well, like I said, they probably don’t even know I exist. My mother always said she left my father, but I found a letter in one of her drawers as a kid—it sounded more like ~he~ rejected ~her~ and drove her right out of the state.”

The look on Marius’s face was unreadable but unsettling.

“Did you need anything else for your article?” he finally asked, hard pivoting back to the reason I was here in the first place.

I shook my head and backed down. I had my father’s name—for now, that was enough.

Perkins wasn’t going to be very happy that I didn’t get a big scoop on the local murders, but hopefully, he’d be all right with the article I had planned about the local wolves getting brash.

“No, I think that’s everything. Thank you for your time, Marius. And I hope you recover soon.”

Marius waved a couple of fingers and assured me, “I will. I’ll be perfectly fine in a couple of days.”

Which seemed ~really~ short to me as far as healing times went. But perhaps the wounds were all superficial? Hopefully that was the case.

I left the hospital with my heart pounding.

For the first time, I had a name—his name—and the knowledge that his family was still here in Melville. The thought thrilled me…and terrified me.

What if they rejected me? What if my father had been abusive, just like Grant?

What if my mother had been right to keep it all from me?

But the look on Marius’s face had lit a fire under me. I had to know. It was, after all, part of the reason I’d come here. It was part of ~me~.

I wasn’t ready to knock on doors, but maybe the town’s past held some clue about mine.

Rather than going back to the office right away, I climbed into my metal death trap and rumbled down to the local library.

It was a tiny thing, made of old brick and a tin roof. The double doors opened to the circulation desk with bright and cheerful decorations hanging above it.

Rather than wasting time searching shelves, I walked right up to the librarian.

She gave me a wide smile and asked, “How can I help you?”

“I guess first I need a library card. And then if you could point me toward any books you have on local history?”

“Absolutely!”

She began typing away on her computer and asking all the usual questions. Five minutes later, I held a shiny new library card, and the librarian led me to a small room in the back corner.

“This whole room contains our local history. Feel free to browse as long as you like! We’re open until eight p.m.”

I glanced at my watch, noting that it was barely eleven a.m.

“I think that’s more than enough time,” I laughed.

As soon as the librarian left, I set my notebook on the table in the middle of the room and began scanning book spines. Honestly, I had no idea what I was really looking for.

“Too bad physical books don’t have a control-F feature,” I mumbled with my head tilted for more effective spine-reading.

~Founders of Melville~ caught my eye, and that seemed like a decent enough place to begin.

If my family was old and revered, they might be in there.

I turned to the back of the book in hopes of an index, and I lucked out. I ran my finger down the pages in search of my father’s surname, only to be disappointed that it wasn’t listed.

But something very interesting caught my eye.

“Werewolves, p. 394,” it read, and my heart began to race.

I turned to the page and began to read, my eyes growing wide.