“It’s so unfair that Gabe gets to tell his girlfriend, and I can’t tell Logan anything,” Selena said. Her lips were stained with bright pink lipstick, and she stuck them out in a childish pout.
“Selena, honey, Logan is an idiot and an asshole, that’s why you can’t tell him,” Della Jane told her daughter coolly. “Now, why don’t you get us all something to drink? I think we’ll all head out to the veranda and have a conversation.”
Without saying anything more, Della Jane took off the blazer she wore over her flowered sundress and slipped out of her pastel stilettos. She turned and walked down the hall toward the back of the house.
Julian gave us both an uneasy smile before following her. Gabe squeezed my hand—for his comfort or mine, I’m not sure—and then he led me through his house to the covered porch in the impeccably groomed garden. Bushes and greenery created mazes within their yard, and a large statue of a wolf sat in the center of it all.
Several weeping willows filled the sprawling backyard, their sinewy branches all reaching toward the pillars that surrounded the veranda. Spanish moss hung from the branches and a small gazebo to the back of the yard, giving it all an otherworldly feel.
The sun had hidden behind gray skies, and a soft mist made the air hazy, though it did nothing to alleviate the heat. A ceiling fan whirred lazily above us, and a muggy breeze blew through the open porch.
Like in the house, the patio furniture was very art deco. Boxy shapes of solid black and bright white with chrome accents. I sat on the small, firm sofa with Gabe, across from his parents, with a glass coffee table between us.
No one said anything, not until Selena brought several glasses of Pepsi. She set them on the table before perching on the elegant white bannister that ran around the veranda, and though Della Jane asked her daughter to get refreshments, she made no move toward them.
“You should’ve talked to me first, before telling anyone,” Della Jane said finally.
“I had no choice,” Gabe said. “I hadn’t meant to tell Mara, but I already told you about the monster that has been attacking her and everyone else in the carnival. I was trying to find out what it was when the monster nearly killed her, and I transformed to protect her.”
Della Jane appeared unmoved, playing absently with her dangling earrings. “That may be how you felt, but revealing the curse doesn’t just affect you. You put your whole family in danger.”
“Mara’s no danger,” Gabe insisted. “She has her own secrets, like ours.”
“I’m a necromancer,” I said.
While Selena reacted noticeably—her eyes widened and she mouthed the word wow—and even Julian raised his eyebrows, Della Jane didn’t react at all. It was almost as if this wasn’t news to her at all.
Then I remembered the invitation for us to come to Caudry in the first place had actually come from Della Jane, through Leonid Murphy. Between his sketchy history and his recent suicide, I wondered what he’d told Della Jane about us that had made her so excited to invite us here.
My stomach began to sour—the painful acid that seemed to accompany danger, like the monster in the woods. Della Jane’s eyes settled on me—her blue eyes as hard and cold as ice—and I realized that she knew. Leonid must’ve told her exactly what we really were in the carnival.
But that didn’t explain why she’d invited us here, or what that had to do with the monster in the woods, or why she was afraid of anyone finding out they were werewolves.
“Mara?” Selena asked, and by the expectant look on her face, I guessed that she’d been asking me something.
“A necromancer means she can talk to the dead,” Gabe answered for me.
“I’m sure the dead have all sorts of interesting things to say,” Della Jane commented, her warm Southern drawl doing nothing to soften the venom in her voice. “But I thought you came here to talk about us and our little family secret.”
Gabe leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “I just feel like what’s happening out in the woods with that thing—it has to be related.”
“Why on earth does it have to be related?” his mom asked. “Maybe it is a dog or just an honest-to-goodness coyote.”
“No, I saw it. It’s…” Gabe’s forehead crinkled as he tried to find the words to describe it. “It’s like a wolf made out of a black hole and mixed with a dragon and the devil.”
Della Jane offered up a shrug of her narrow shoulders. “That doesn’t sound like a werewolf at all.”
“Yeah,” Selena agreed. “The only three wolves we know around here are me, you, and Mom, and you know that none of us would ever do that.”