I took a whole stack of workbooks back with me to the cell. Stefa noted them with a puzzled frown.
"I am supposed to learn to read," I said at little helplessly.
"I didn't realize that we were at boarding school," she laughed.
"Do you know how to read?"
She nodded, gesturing for me to set my books down. I had been provided crayons, which I only recognized from Susie Lynn's craft bin. Stefa picked herself out a purple crayon, doodling on the back of my book.
"I have to turn these in," I complained, taking the book back from her. "Will you help me?"
She flipped through the various books, finding the first in the series. It looks ridiculously childish, even Stefa laughed.
"Let's start here," she said. "I'll try not to make fun of you, but no promises, all right?"
She opened the book and I took it from her, looking at the cheerful pictures and selecting a dark enough crayon to write with. Perhaps they didn't trust us with pencils?
The letters I knew, and had been surrounded by text with Frank and Grins. My handwriting was clumsy and foreign, but I traced the letters, as Stefa watched.
"You're doing fine," she told me, when I looked up at her. "For a first grader."
"I don't know what that is," I said, feeling irritated with myself. I didn't know much about the human world.
"Hey, it's all right. You'll learn," Stefa promised, sitting beside me. "I'll tell you all about my childhood, which is not as helpful as I wish it was, but it'll be a starting point. You keep working; it'll be like old times, when you couldn't speak."
"That was only two days ago," I pointed out.
"Shh," she said. "So I was born in 1952, and my mother stayed at home with my brother and me, and my father was a grocer. I spent every afternoon of my childhood sorting vegetables. My brother was three years older than I was. He played every sport, football, hockey, baseball, whatever. He was dumb jock."
"Susie Lynn plays softball," I offered. "That's the only sport I know."
"That's a little like baseball, but with a larger ball and well, girls," Stefa replied. "I wanted to play football, but of course, that wasn't allowed then. I was in home ec and baked cakes. And made floral arrangements. This was high school, of course; so I'm getting ahead of myself." She rose from her seat and began to pace the room. I wondered why English had so many versions of the same letter. What did the capitalization do? It was just bigger, but only sometimes. It was not intuitive.
"It's been decades, but I'm pretty sure that kids still start elementary school, then work their way up into middle school and then high school. We learn history, math, reading, writing, government. Things you didn't get as a wolf."
"Things I'm not certain I need now," I told her with a sigh.
"You never explained why you have the workbooks," she noted.
"Dr. Bryce wants to turn me into...something else," I said. "I'm not certain what is happening. They want me to hunt werewolves."
"That seems a little sadistic even for them," she replied. "And you agreed to this crazy plan?"
"I wasn't given much choice," I answered, not mentioning her role in the deal. "Any choice at all. I wish I had never spoken."
"I'm glad you did," Stefa said. "It's exhausting to hold both sides of the conversation. And you know you didn't want to go back to the collar and beatings. This way you're learning something you can use later."
"When will I ever use this?" I grumbled, but returned to tracing the letters.
Stefa continued to tell me about her upbringing, She went to church every Sunday in various shades of pastel dresses. She had won prizes for her floral arrangements. When her brother was drafted to army, she had protested at the recruiting office. Her parents had been mortified, but less so when her brother didn't come back.
I finished the first workbook, my handwriting already improving as I started the second. I resolved to ask Dr. Bryce for a real pencil tomorrow. Stefa wouldn't stab me with it and I could think of no other reason that I didn't have any.
"Your childhood seemed happy," I offered as Stefa sat down on my bed. "I'm sorry about your brother though."
"He's been dead for nearly fifty years," she scoffed. "I'm over it. My parents, hell, most of the people I grew up with are dead. This is the price of immortality. You'll see soon enough."
"I have my pack," I said. "They're all like me."
Stefa patted me on the head and I flinched away from her, wrinkling my nose in distaste.
"Sorry, you're just so optimistic, I find it cute," she laughed. "I won't do it again."
I wanted to know more about Stefa's past, but I knew that I needed to sleep. I had to go back to Frank and Grins in the morning, and I needed to remember not to call them that. So I closed my book, yawning as I climbed past Stefa into my bed. She rubbed my back as she used to and hummed. It was nice to have a friend here, even if she was a vampire and a little crazy.
"Go to sleep," she whispered and I was out a moment later.
____
Stefa, as Conor will find out, has quite a lot of past and not all of it as happy as her human family. Thanks for reading!