Irish Magic (2 page)

Some people might have told him yes, of course they could. Polite conversation said that she should. These white lies that society allowed were complete BS though, as far as she was concerned, and Ippy wouldn’t have had it. Lying was a big thing to him, so she told him the truth. “Maybe a little. I can’t really tell. But I’m glad you can feel him. Samson said that would happen soon.” She smiled at him again, hoping he would return the gesture, but knowing it was unlikely. Sometimes he did, when he was very happy, but it wasn’t often and she didn’t let it get to her. Maybe she had, once, but that was years ago.

When she was six, she’d picked up a book on autism from the bookstore Daddy Liam liked to take her to. He’d had to read it to her, since the book wasn’t for kids. They’d joked about making a book on autism for kids so that people her age could understand it a little more. But now that she was fifteen, she had no trouble reading the book and had, in fact, read it multiple times. It helped to refer to on the rare occasions Ippy’s behavior bothered her. Reading it put his behavior in perspective.

Like when she was twelve and wanted to take him to an outdoor concert in the park. He didn’t want to go and she thought he didn’t want to go with her. But really he just didn’t want to go. She asked him if he wanted to get ice cream instead and he said yes to that. Problem solved. She swung their hands together between them.

“It’s getting colder,” she said softly as she looked up at the trees. Some of them still had leaves on them, but it was nearly Halloween and most of the trees were naked and shivering in the breeze.

Colder is relative
.

Hannah snorted in her laughter. “Yes, it is. So is it colder than it was this time yesterday?”

He stopped and pulled out his phone to check the weather while she waited.
By three degrees.
Do you know what makes it colder?
Ippy asked her.

Hannah shook her head and tried not to step on a bug on the sidewalk as they started walking again. A few kids played in the park beside them. They didn’t go to school until later, she knew, because she saw their bus pull up every day when they were nearly at Samson’s house for school. She’d never gone to public school and didn’t think she’d like it much. Too many people, and Ippy would never be able to go. He couldn’t handle their little class of eight sometimes. He’d never be able to deal with a large class like she saw in the movies. She didn’t blame him.

You didn’t say anything.

She blushed. “Sorry, Ippy. No, I don’t know what makes it colder. Will you tell me?” Facial expressions and gestures were hard for him. Sometimes, not all the time. But she had to remember that.

Cold fronts.

She expected him to say more since weather was currently his thing, but when he didn’t she said, “That makes sense. Thank you.” She took the last bite of the bagel, then fixed her scarf as they got to the recycle can in the park where she could throw out her baggie. After years of holding hands with him whenever she could, doing things one handed had become nearly second nature. “Think Mrs. Marsden will have us read anything new?” she asked him.

I can’t say. I don’t know her lesson plans.

Hannah smiled and took the bag he handed her before they got past the can. “I don’t think I can read the same old books again. Just once I wish she’d let us read whatever we wanted to. Samson and Christopher have a great library. I doubt they’d mind us picking through their books.”

I like Christopher. He makes cookies
.

Hannah giggled. “Yes he does. Maybe he’ll be there today and we can get him to make us some during break. He likes cooking for us. Or, at least he doesn’t mind so much.”

They turned onto Samson and Christopher’s street and Hannah looked down at their entwined hands. She liked holding his hand, liked having a physical connection with him. But she knew some of the kids in the class made fun of them. They wouldn’t do it to her face—she was the daughter of the third in the pack after all—but she couldn’t always be there to protect Ippy. “Do you want me to let go of your hand?” It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him that she wouldn’t mind. But that wasn’t the truth. She didn’t want to let go. She’d rather hold his hand most of the day. It made her feel special that he’d allow physical contact with her. Even his parents sometimes got denied for hugs. She didn’t ask for them all that often, but he hadn’t said no to her yet.

Ippy looked down at their hands, too, as they stopped on the sidewalk.
My finger is being crushed by your ring.

Her cheeks flamed instantly and she pulled her hand back, quickly switching the small silver ring on her middle finger to the other hand. “Jeez. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to.” She held her hand out again, knowing he might not take it. But he did and she smiled at him. “Thanks.”

I don’t want to go to school today.

Hannah nodded. “I know. I don’t either. I get so bored there. The teacher just goes on and on, and since I’m not a werewolf, most of it doesn’t even apply to me.”

I am and I don’t listen.

She frowned at him and started walking again. After some slight tugging he came along, appearing reluctant though. She didn’t blame him. “Why don’t you listen when she’s talking about werewolf stuff? I’m human, so I’ve got my excuse. What’s yours?”

Her words feel prickly. When I listen it makes me feel uncomfortable. I don’t like it.

Hannah stopped short, unsure of what she should do. “Did you tell your parents?” He nodded. “What did they say?”

That it was all in my head and I should get over it
.

Rolling her eyes didn’t help anything, but it made her feel better so she indulged in it. “I don’t think it’s all in your head. Who doesn’t have prickly words?”

You.

“Yeah, I think you would have told me if I did. Who else?” Hannah pressed him. He was quiet for a long moment until she thought maybe he wouldn’t respond.

Nicholai
.

Hannah was surprised. Though they’d known the werewolf for a few years now, Uncle Nicholai wasn’t the first person she would have picked to go to. He was really big and kind of intimidating. And his wolf wasn’t like her dad’s or anyone else’s in the pack except for his partner, Uncle Oliver’s. “So…um…I’ll talk to him and see if we can’t get to spend a few hours of class with him today. At least for you. Maybe not for me, don’t know if he’d teach both of us, but you need the werewolf stuff since you’re getting older.” She shrugged lamely, not entirely sure where she was going with this.

She knew werewolves experienced changes in their bodies just like humans did. They’d had a day long lecture on human reproduction and puberty. At the end of the day she’d left with a massive headache, but plenty of pain killers hidden amongst her bright pink tampon containers to take care of it. But she didn’t know what Ippy would be going through. Maybe Nicholai could help him with that. She hoped so, since she doubted that there would be books on it like the one her aunt had bought her about Aunt Flo and her monthly visits. It had come with another bright pink pack of tampons, but at least there’d also been a big pack of chocolate tucked into the basket. That had been her favorite part by far and she’d eaten the whole thing that afternoon, which resulted in a massive stomachache, but it’d been worth it.

Her phone beeped and she fished it out of the pocket on her messenger bag. All of her signals sounded the same so she checked to make sure it wasn’t a text from her dads.

What is it?
Ippy asked when she stopped to look at the screen.

She smiled down at the email. “My application to join the Furred Mysteries forum was approved. I’ll post a message while we have some free time during lunch.” While it wasn’t a big deal to most people, and shouldn’t really have been to her, that was the forum she’d been trying to get into for weeks. They had the largest community of people that were interested in shape-shifters, which meant someone might know the boy she saw when she was nine.

Do you know what he is yet?

Ippy was likely well versed in everything she’d already eliminated. From a unicorn to a young dragon, she’d rejected everything that anyone else had suggested in the past six years. Nothing seemed to fit the little boy she’d seen on the platform while waiting for a train with her dads, though it didn’t really help that she’d barely caught a glimpse of him before the train had come and she’d been taken inside by her dads. “Not really. I want to narrow it down more, and part of me is thinking he might be a selkie, but I’m not really sure. We weren’t anywhere near the water when I saw him.”

Selkies are all girls.

Hannah shook her head. “Usually they’re girls, yes. But I found a book about the mythical creatures of Ireland that said sometimes they’re boys. I mean, they have to have kids right? So it would make sense that some of them are guys.”

I don’t think he’s a selkie.

She nodded. “You might be right. Sometimes I wonder if I just imagined the whole thing. I was nine and I was confused and surrounded by people. Maybe I didn’t actually see anything. Maybe I made the whole thing up.”

I don’t think that’s what happened. Do you?

Hannah took a deep breath and thought about it. Did she really see him? “I think I saw what I think I did. As crazy as that makes me sound.”

You aren’t crazy.

She laughed and wanted to hug him, but stopped herself before she did. “Thanks,” she said instead, wishing there was a way to tell him how important his confidence in her really was. Since she claimed to see a boy with hurt fur six years before she’d been getting all sorts of strange looks, to the point that she had stopped mentioning him at all. Not because she didn’t still think about him, though. She worried about him nearly constantly, wondering if he was safe.

The naked trees lessened as they approached Samson and Christopher’s house. Instead of the seasonal trees, her uncle—the pack’s alpha—preferred to have his privacy year round and so had planted thick evergreens all along the fence. The walk had taken a while, as it always did, and her dad would drive them in the winter so she’d get to sleep in a bit, but she liked walking to school with Ippy, even if it did take longer. It was their time away from his family and the class. Her dads didn’t bother them, but it was still nicer to just be with Ippy without everyone else around.

She pressed the call box at the front of the big iron gate with her free hand.

“Name?” Uncle Samson’s voice came over the speaker.

Hannah stuck her tongue out at him. “You can see me! Let us in!”

“Name?” he repeated.

“Hannah Glass. Daughter of Liam and Travis Glass. Liam, as you know, is the third in command of your pack. Now let us in or I’m stealing Ippy and we’ll go to a movie instead of school and you can tell my dad that I ditched class because you wouldn’t let us in.” Ippy gasped beside her and she squeezed his hand, letting him know everything was okay. He took things literally and she’d been joking. There was no way their alpha would actually take her threat seriously, though his twin sister, Aunt Evangeline, would have likely driven them to the movies herself and then taken them shopping. She’d done it once, too, and Daddy Liam’s expression when she dropped Hannah off around dinnertime had been priceless. She hadn’t ever seen him that upset before, but Evangeline had smoothed him out somehow while Hannah had gone upstairs to put away her new clothes.

She heard him laughing as the gate beeped and they were let inside a moment later.

A long walk down the pine tree lined driveway and they were in front of the house Samson and Christopher shared. It reminded her of an old plantation, complete with bright white columns out front and shutters on every window. The home, if the mansion could really be called that, would look perfect in the south surrounded by Spanish moss. Which was weird, since the town they were in, Pine Hollow, was in the northeast.

Aunt Evangeline was waiting for them when they got to the front step. Hannah smiled at her and instantly went into her arms for a hug, letting go of Ippy’s hand. She was Uncle Samson’s twin sister, and since they weren’t related to either of her dads by blood or marriage they weren’t really her aunt and uncle. But the pack was pretty much one big family and she’d been calling Samson and his sister, his second in command, Uncle and Aunt since she could remember. Samson’s partner and Evangeline’s guys sort of worked into that same idea.

“You’re wearing those new jeans I got you,” Evangeline said, stepping out of her hug, but not going far.

Hannah nodded and started taking off her scarf. “Yeah. They fit. Thanks.”

Evangeline grinned at her and put her hands on her hips. “They look good on you. Hey, I’m thinking about getting my navel pierced. Get your dads to say yes to you coming with me.”

Hannah snorted and handed her scarf and jacket to Ippy, since he was closest to the closet as he finished putting away his outer layers as well. “You know they’d never go for that.”

Evangeline rolled her eyes, but was quickly distracted by a large black man coming down the stairs. His skin was only a few shades darker than Evangeline’s own. They reminded Hannah of dark and milk chocolate and on that thought now she really wanted something sweet. “Hannah, Phillip,” Samson greeted them as he joined his sister.

Ippy stepped forward, tilted his head to the side and offered his alpha the sensitive skin of his neck. Samson nodded at the submissive gesture and Ippy stepped back behind her as quickly as he could. When Samson looked to her, probably for some sort of the same, Hannah merely smirked at him and adjusted her messenger bag on her hip. She was human, not werewolf, so she didn’t feel the need to engage in submissive displays with him or anyone else. She respected him, and that was the difference. His wolf, a fluffy shadow around his face, put his ears back at her, but the man remained completely stoic as he said, “Go on and get to class now, you two.”

Ippy started heading in that direction, but Hannah wasn’t ready to go just yet. “Is Nicholai here?” she asked Evangeline—after all, the man was her…boyfriend? No, that didn’t sound right. Significant other, maybe. She didn’t know. Either way Evangeline, Nicholai and Oliver were in a relationship. It wasn’t conventional, but they appeared happy, and the men were nice to Evangeline so Hannah didn’t really care.