The Loup Garou Society, Julie Steimle [reading tree txt] 📗

again. Maybe they overheard them.

Unfortunately, there was no place to run. Margarete walked to the door to face the inevitable.

But once she opened it, she saw it wasn’t the Loup Garou at all, but a shipping company. The man in uniform cheerfully greeted them and asked if they had the package ready for him to send.

Hearts racing with excitement, the sisters dragged over the boxes and bags they had filled. They watched the deliveryman tape them up, then fit the boxes and bags into a small shipping crate which was already labeled: CANADA.

They exchanged looks again.

Once everything was loaded, the man thanked them then went on his way. Apparently all had been paid for.

They were left with an empty house and their cookies.

Margarete put away the strong scented oils and collected the cooled cookies into a plastic container with a lid. They could always eat them later in celebration. At least one part of their family had been rescued.

They locked the door and dropped the key under the mat.

And that was it.

Walking from the house, discussing a long overdue lunch, the sisters chatted pleasantly over what kind of life Marie and her kids would now have. They would see snow, of course. Lots of it. They would eat pancakes with maple syrup. Maybe they would learn to play ice-hockey. And they would speak corrupted French. Giggling over it, they crossed a street, going back to the metro stop.

They were interrupted by a pinging noise from Margarete’s cell phone.

“I wonder who is texting me.” She chuckled. Opening her phone, she saw the English words:

 

Care to show me around Paris? Your favorite spots? I’m at the Louvre right now.

 

Breathing hard, staring at it, Margarete texted back:

 

How is Marie? I thought you went on a picnic with her.

 

It took a bit, but the response came with a smiley face.

 

Marie and family are safely on their way. Private jet. No one even saw them. J

 

Genevieve peered at the text, breathing in relief. Then another came up.

 

I wasn’t going to text you both until I got the confirmation that the shipping container had been sent.

 

Both sisters shared looks of relief, clasping hands.

Then another text came:

 

I can do the same for you, if you want.

 

They stared stiffly at the words. Them too. In Canada. Did they want that?

The last one popped up:

 

Meet me at the Louvre. We can talk about it.

 

Did they want to leave Paris?

Did they want to leave the pack?

“Should we go meet him?” Genevieve asked. She shook her head, cringing. “You know the pack will follow us. And they will find him.”

Margarete nodded. “I know. It would make more sense if we went home.” She stared ahead, thinking. “But… maybe he has a plan in mind.”

“But I don’t want to go to Canada,” Genevieve said, her shoulders rising in a shiver. “It is cold there.”

“And their French is terrible.” Margarete snickered.

They giggled together. However, as they walked along they both shared looks. They didn’t want to be under the control of the Loup Garou either.

Margarete’s phone pinged again.

She looked at the new text message

 

Did you get my messages?

 

Margarete shook her head. And she texted back:

 

We’re thinking.

 

His reply was prompt.

 

Don’t take forever.

 

Then came another after a bit.

 

We might not be able to do anything like this again. The Loup Garou will be furious when they find out what we just did.

 

He had a point. And he added in another text:

 

Just tell me what you really want, and I’ll try to make sure it can be done.

 

What did they really want?

As Margarete texted that they would meet him at the Louvre, Genevieve murmured out loud, “I want to open a patisserie.”

Cringing, Margarete replied, “Yes. But the pack won’t let us. Not in Paris. Not in France.”

Genevieve nodded. “Then we have to leave France.”

It was the awful and inevitable truth. Margarete cringed. “But I don’t want to go to Canada any more than you do.”

Nodding more, Genevieve’s eyes seemed to focus on imaginary piles of snow surrounding her, polar bears, igloos, and just being cold.

“Switzerland?” Margarete suggested with a shrug.

Genevieve nodded. “But then England. I always wanted to see London.”

That was news. Margarete never knew it. But then Genevieve scarcely confided her desire to have a patisserie with her two years ago, as no one else in the pack knew it was their dream. Not even Remy was aware.

They smelled the air, hoping not to catch the scent of a wolf, since they were sure neither Henri nor Mathieu had given up. And though they knew Remy didn’t want to go on the hunt in the first place, doing so against his will and inner desire to leave the Deacons alone, he most definitely had not quit. But then, he was not aware that Marie was safe, far from the Loup Garou’s control. If he knew, they wondered what might change.

“Let’s get lunch first,” Genevieve said.

Margarete nodded.

 

[1] Cookies in American English. The French and British used the word biscuits.  

[2] Bitch, in the female dog sense.

Tour de France

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Nine

 

 

The Louvre was big. So big. Rick had walked the halls staring at the pictures, thinking there was no way his sisters would be able to find him from a small message that said, ‘Meet me at the Louvre.’ But if their phones were being spied on—a possibility he did not ignore considering that he was sure the Loup Garou had issued all the phones the pack used—then he had to be vague on purpose. He could lose those wolves following them just as easily in the Louvre as anyone. Besides, he was sure Margarete would text him as soon as she arrived. Then they could negotiate a meeting spot.

Everything with Marie had gone perfectly.

Admittedly, their initial meeting had been tense. But once she allowed him to speak—and thankfully she also knew English as well as her sisters—he was able to show her he and his father sincerely wanted to help her.

Marie wasn’t as difficult to convince as Genevieve was. And she honestly did not seem as devoted to that goddess as Margarete. Perhaps that was why she was living in such a bad neighborhood. Marie had said while cuddling her children, “If this is the blessed protection from Diana, then I don’t want it. Dictators wishing to take my children away from me is not what I call protection.”

And because she said that, Rick decided to tell her the story about his grandfather being born a wolf then about the witch who had changed him into an assassin through a spell. Her eyes had widened, but she nodded.

“I don’t care if they call me a heretic,” she said. “Your father told you that story so you would not forget your heritage. And it explains a lot.”

He wondered what she meant by that last part. Perhaps she had met witches. Or maybe she was thinking about Claude who had become a man-eater.

He didn’t want to overwhelm her with the rest, so he did not tell her about the rest of the unseen world. In time, she might learn about it. At present, it was more important to get her to safety. The hardest part was not convincing her to leave France, but to assure her that the Canadian pack was not going to control her life like the French had—even though she was terrified about living outside a pack. She outright refused to move to Middleton Village where he grew up. Stories about witches aside, and not wanting to live among them, “A lone wolf, is a sad wolf,” she had said.

And to be honest, he agreed with her.

After watching the wolves at the party, and watching Margarete and Genevieve together, he realized he was missing something in his life. It wasn’t Diana the moon ‘goddess’. But it was the feeling of belonging. Even among his cherished friends of Gulinger High where they were all freaks of some kind, he never felt like he belonged. In a way, he envied all those people so wrapped up in identity politics. They could mindlessly bunch together and at least feel right—even while doing wrong.

But at that thought, he chuckled. Mindlessness was not his style.

It felt good, though, helping his family find peace. Reconciling differences and past hurts was difficult, even painful, but so satisfying. In fact, it was cathartic. His own anger at his father for lying to his mother about being a werewolf made him realize that people just made bad decisions sometimes and he had to be more forgiving. He was sure to make huge mistakes, as he already had his own regrets. It was also fun outwitting the French pack that had manipulated his father.

He had first made calls to Canada, hoping someone in the pack was awake. His family had been in contact with them since the death of Malik and Lukas, trying to make an amends. When he told them about Marie needing a new pack, they were overjoyed. They were desperate for new blood, and French blood was welcome. He didn’t tell them she was his sister, but that she was a dear friend whom they needed to treat well. Then he had texted his father, asking him to arrange the jet for Marie, as well as sending a car to take them to the picnic place without being seen. His father had arranged the shipping company to pick up their things also.

His father’s final text to Rick told him that he had given notice to their French lawyer (a human entirely unaware of the werewolf situation) to arrange anything Rick asked for, passing on the number. Rick knew that meant his father was now under the watchful eye of the Loup Garou… and he might have to rescue him next.

His hands in his pockets, Rick strolled the gallery, looking at painting after painting after sculpture in mild boredom, thinking—‘Where are all the wolves?’ Meaning the paintings. Not that was what he only wanted to see, but he missed it. His family home was covered in wolf artwork. Picasso, Jackson Pollock, Peter Paul Rubens, etc.… This place, the Louvre, the cultural center for western art, was sadly empty of wolves. Then again, maybe his grandfather had bought them all. Though, Rick had always assumed the paintings in his home had been replicas as his grandfather wasn’t pretentious but practical. He was born a wolf after all. But he had been a wolf whose pack had been slaughtered by the witches, and he had gotten lonely.

Then Rick finally found it: the original She-wolf Nursing Romulus and Remus statue. His family had a fourth-size replica in their hallway back home. He stood there staring at it, realizing it was a depiction of an ugly, hairless she-wolf who really didn’t look like she was enjoying feeding those two human babies. He had never liked that statue. When he was in Jr. High long before he discovered he was a werewolf, his friends on the basketball team had come over once and they made fun of it, especially her ‘wolf-boobies’. And though they were just being stupid twelve-year-olds, he wondered if this statue was not verging on wolf porn.