Wolf at the Door

chapter Twenty-one



Rachael stopped by her apartment pro tem on the way to the queen’s mansion. She did so partly because she wanted to make sure Edward hadn’t left any messages for her, and partly because she was becoming quite fond of her den. Apartment. All right: den.

Well within walking distance of the queen’s hideout, her apartment was part of the basement of a small Victorian, a two-story house with five bedrooms, nearly as many bathrooms, and a turret (a turret!). There was no yard to speak of, but Rachael was used to that from her years in the Boston area. Besides, there was a turret. (A turret!) It looked like they were smuggling princesses up there.

She parked her rental car in . . . no. She parked the rental car in the alley behind her apartment. No. The apartment. Dammit, this was a temporary living situation, so: The rental car. The apartment.

Anyway. She parked in the alley behind the apartment, circled around to the front, and bounded up the steps. The porch floor was painted sky blue, and various sherbet-colored chairs from the sixties—clunky lawn chairs, which were bulky and made of too much metal—were scattered along the sizeable porch.

Well used to the Cape’s orderly color schemes of cream and white and green and cream and white and cream, and sometimes green, and maybe red if the neighborhood was spiraling out of control, the odd pastel colors more than pleased her. She found them delightful.

Perhaps the Cape could stand with some color changes; perhaps if they tried something more daring and less conventional . . . ack! Traitorous thought!

She opened the front door, realizing (again) that it hadn’t been locked and remembering (again) that it never was, until her landlord went to bed.

All right. She would confess. That was something she could get used to, and no lie.

The entryway was all dark blond wood and hardwood floors waxed to a high gloss. The stairs were much the same—the house smelled more of floor wax and cleaning supplies than anything else. Given how old it was, Rachael was beyond grateful. More than once she’d walked into a Cape Cod cottage that reeked of dead fish and dust.

If she took the stairs up, she’d find herself in the area of the house the landlord shared with his elderly wife and their grown son. Their grown son lived in the turret, fortunate bastard.

They were all human, which she had expected. Humans outnumbered Pack by a minimum of fifty to one. She’d been fortunate Mrs. Cain was in the Midwest, and in a position of power to help a Pack member newly come to Minnesota’s capital.

She took the stairs down and down (there were quite a few). The more she burrowed, the calmer she felt, until she was standing in her small living room.

Mrs. Cain hadn’t known (as Rachael herself had not) how long she would be staying, so she’d rented a furnished apartment. The small basement area was decorated with several rugs in jewel colors, while the walls were lined with cement blocks of a color she had never before seen: rose. They were, she had to admit, the most glamorous cement bricks she had ever seen. She hadn’t been aware bricks came in rose. There was an old-fashioned rolltop desk that gave off a strong, though not unpleasant, odor of decades of furniture polish.

The worst that could be said was the faint undertone of live mice. It was a battle she knew not to fight; mice outnumbered Pack by a ratio of seven million to one. In an old house like this, mice were the nature of the beast. The thought made her chortle. Who would know the nature of the beast better than she?

Every other Pack member on the planet, for starters. You have to admit, Rachael-girly-girl, you’re a beta. You’re the second spear-carrier from the left, the kid in the play who has no lines.

True enough. And irrelevant now.

The kitchen, tucked around a corner to the left, was small, with all the disorder and filth found in the average operating room. In other words: immaculate. Possibly sterile. Back home, Rachael never cooked . . . she had a three-ring binder, organized by cuisine, stuffed with menus from every take-out and delivery joint on the Cape. So the small fridge, half-sized stove, and lack of counter and storage space suited her nicely.

The living room was also festooned with several rugs (mostly reds) as well as a daybed, built-in book shelves (dens for her books!), and a plasma screen television. That made no sense until her landlord, a perfectly nice older gentleman whose name was Call Me Jim, explained that their nephew worked at Best Buy and was always bringing them electric doodads at a severe discount.

“Those plasmatic TVs, they hurt my eyes,” he confided while giving her a tour. “But you know kids. If it’s new, it’s gotta be the best, and if it’s the best, you gotta have it. Our old one works just fine.”

“That’s very generous of you, Mr.—”

“Call Me Jim.”

The small bedroom was large enough for a queen-sized bed, an end table with a lamp, a closet, and a small chest of drawers. More than adequate. And the bathroom just off her bedroom had a shower, tub, medicine cabinet, enough rolls of toilet paper to build her own fort, and lots and lots of old towels that were faded but clean and smelled like cotton and Tide.

Best of all were the windows. There were several, and though they were small for house windows, they were large for basement windows. If she stood on her tiptoes in virtually any part of her den, she could see out—a perfect view of the backyard, the side yard, and the side street. And it was much harder for someone to see in.

She had liked the apartment as soon as she’d seen it, and she knew why. It was her den. It wasn’t so small she felt claustrophobic, nor so large she felt intimidated by the empty space trying to swallow her. (She had no idea, none, how Michael tolerated living in that enormous mansion by the sea.)

In it, she felt closed in and safe. She supposed it wasn’t very interesting as far as individual characteristics went. Pack members liked small spaces they could call their own. She was Pack, ergo she found the basement apartment both comfortable and charming.

Dull, dull, dull.

She went to the rolltop desk and woke her laptop, which kicked right into her e-mail account. Nine new ones. A thanks for doing this from Michael. A come to my next show! group e-mail by comedic Einstein Jim Gaffigan. A here are the new movies out this week from Netflix. And six from Edward, whose e-mail account was (and why was she surprised?) PicardRules666.

“I’ve assumed by now you were a figment of my imagination. A smokin’ hot spectacular figment. On the off chance I haven’t gone clinically insane, when can I see you? How’s tomorrow? Or tonight? Or an hour from now? Or right this second? Am I coming off as creepy or obsessive? Because I’m neither, I think. Did you know your hair smells like strawberries? Why do I now want a huge bowl of strawberries? It’s summer, why can’t I find strawberries? Call me, call me, oh for the love of God, please call me: 651-249-3377.”

The others were more or less the same. She could feel the silly smile spread across her face and didn’t especially care. So she hit reply and typed, “Tonight’s good. Come by my new place . . . remember how we agreed our new living situations were sad? Mine’s not so bad. Pop by 369 Summit Avenue, anytime after six P.M. Sincerely, Strawberry Fields. P.S. I have no idea if you’re clinically insane, and don’t much care.”

Then she memorized the queen’s address and looked up the quickest way to get there. She memorized the directions, made sure her den was secured, and left.

What if you don’t make it back in time?

A fine question. Rachael stood on the sherbet porch and pondered.

Am I worried about being killed in her house, or missing my date with Edward? The fact that I have to take a moment and figure that out is sad, sad, sad.

So she mentally shrugged and went on her way.