Luminosity (Book One)

Chapter 21: Hybrid

It was more than a week into the month of August when we swam back to Norway. When I checked my e-mail, there was a small heap of messages from my parents and Rachel - and, interestingly, one from Angela. I was so surprised to get an e-mail from her that I opened it first. It was sweet and postcard-like. She was still in Forks for the summer, and wanted to make known her hopes that I was having a nice time in Europe. I replied and told her what I could about Norway, Ireland, the U.K., and Italy, and mentioned - since unless Charlie had told everyone, she didn't know - that I had eloped and likely wouldn't be returning to school in the fall. I sent her three wedding photos that Alice had Photoshopped to make me look pinker, and asked her if she'd do me the favor of notifying Jessica and our other friends.

Then I tackled the e-mails from my parents - more of the same, really, but I dutifully compiled the recent tourism data for their reading pleasure. Renée was mostly adjusted to life in Florida, where my stepfather had gotten signed earlier in the year. She missed Phoenix but liked Jacksonville pretty well, and was already cycling through the locally available diversions and hobbies. She and Phil were still getting along very well.

Charlie, meanwhile, was starting to worry about Harry. Since he obviously could not be told what had really happened to his friend, and yet could also not be invited to the funeral that he'd expect to attend if Harry were dead, he was being fed a confused jumble of vague misinformation.

I'd turned the Denalis' latest addition in mid-July; it was becoming awfully suspicious that in the weeks since, Harry had supposedly been visiting his aunt in Nashville, then become too sick to receive visitors but not sick enough to be in the hospital, then become well enough to go and see a cousin Charlie had never heard of who lived in Toronto. All of these plane tickets, of course, being paid for by the visited relatives; the Clearwaters were not especially wealthy, although Leah and Seth now had some access to pack money I'd supplied. Charlie didn't appear to suspect foul play - Billy and Sue both were making sure of that - but he was very confused.

I assured Charlie, in my e-mail, that Harry was probably just fine and there was no reason to worry - but I didn't know what long-term solution would work. If Harry were reported as a missing person so he could be declared legally dead later, Charlie would certainly look for him, and could run into wolfy or vampiric things that he shouldn't see yet. Short of torching the Clearwater house while Sue and the kids were out of it and Harry was supposedly inside (to eliminate the need for a body), there was no other obvious way to give Charlie a satisfactory story. I toyed with the arson idea, but it would be too obviously staged if the family rescued their belongings first, and not all of those objects were likely to be of the easily replaceable variety. They would be unlikely to go for the idea.

Next I opened the e-mails from Rachel. Two more wolves had imprinted. One, a teenage boy named Jared, had fallen instantly for a classmate of his who'd turned out to have a longstanding crush on him, so that was all sweet and convenient. Less sweetly, Quil Ateara had imprinted on Emily's two-year-old niece Claire, another Makah. Emily was still staying at the Clearwater house to comfort Leah, and had agreed to babysit Claire from that location, which was how Quil had gotten a look at her.

Rachel added, hastily, that Quil was absolutely not sexually interested in the toddler, which was the only reason he still had all of his face attached. Apparently imprinting wasn't necessarily sexual. The pack was assuming that when Claire grew up, she and Quil would be as happy together as Jared and his imprint, but for the time being he was absolutely content to serve as a older brother figure. Rachel confided to me that he let Claire boss him around very indulgently, never tiring of her.

Leah had, at first, thought that this might mean that Sam could come to think of Emily as a sister, so that Leah could have her fiancé back. Emily and Rachel had been all for this plan, and so Sam, supernaturally obedient to his imprint and his Alpha, had tried. Rachel didn't doubt the sincerity of his attempt. But he'd failed; he was still in love with Emily.