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Thing is, Mina’s never met Stiles. Uncle Scott sometimes tells stories about him, during quiet, still days, when the past seems closer than it is. He gets smaller when he talks about him, like he’s trying to shrink into himself. Everyone else nods along to those stories, then they go get him a drink and Mama hands him Baby Scottie and they all laugh.
Mina tried to ask about Stiles once. He shows up in old photos around Uncle Scott’s house, and she saw one once on Auntie Malia’s phone, and she was curious about the ghost in their pack.
“He was Uncle Scott’s best friend when they were kids,” Daddy told her. “He trained for the FBI after high school. I think he’s still working there.”
That was all she got out of him. Mama didn’t know anything.
“He’s funny,” Aunt Malia told her. “He likes jokes.”
That was all she knew. He was funny, he was FBI. She wanted to ask Uncle Scott, but seeing him try to make himself smaller frightened her.
It was the second anniversary of Mina’s adoption. Mama and Daddy had set up a bouncy house in the backyard, and the neighbour kids were there along with Uncle Liam and Davida, and Uncle Mason and Uncle Corey’s foster kids. It was crazy, and Mina had already decided she was going to jump until she threw up and then jump some more.
Then something better than the bouncy house showed up.
“Uncle Scott!”
“Hey, Mina!” He looked strange, but he swung her up into the air like always and she forgot about it.
“Come into the bouncy house!”
Uncle Scott looked more and more like himself after he helped Mina and Davida bounce off the bouncy house walls. By the time he was helping Scottie do little baby jumps, he was back to being the Alpha of the pack.
Mama teased him about being late when she served the pizza, but he just laughed.
“I know, I’m sorry. Stiles called, and I hadn’t heard from him for so long.”
Mama stopped cutting up the pizza and only stopped when Scottie grabbed her arm, trying to get his slice of pepperoni.
“How’s Stiles?” Uncle Liam looked at his salad as he spoke. “He still at the same place?”
Uncle Scott shook his head.
“They’re transferring him to LA,” he said, around a mouthful of pepperoni and hot peppers. “He’s going to stop here on his way down.”
Mama made her “that’s good” noise and the party moved on.
Later, while Mina was still hyped up on sugar and red food colouring, she overheard Mama and Daddy talking over the dishes.
“He’s an asshole,” that was Daddy.
“He was a kid,” Mama was wringing out the dishcloth, quick and firm, the way she did everything else. “It’s been years, Derek, he probably grew up.”
There was a long silence. She could picture Daddy wiping the table, in circles. He’d told her that his mom, her grandma, had wiped the table the same way. Mina tried to copy him sometimes.
“I don’t like the way he gets after he talks to Stiles,” Daddy said, when the table was done.
Mina rolled over in her bed and looked out the window. There was an owl hunting in the dark. Little mice were scurrying around in the backyard. Scottie’s heart made a steady beat down the hall.
“You know,” Mama put away the big bowl, with a distinctive click. “You can protect Scott from hunters, from monsters, from those weird little goblin dudes, but you can’t protect him from life. This is just life.”
Mina listened and heard Daddy’s soft laugh, the little huff of breath that told you he thought something was funny.
“I’m going to go take Mina some tea.”
She used to pretend to be asleep when Mama and Daddy passed by her room. She would put a chair against the door, and sit up until the blue light that came before dawn made everything real again. Back in those days Uncle Scott slept in the room next door, or in the hall in front of her room, and the smell and sound of him made everyone in the house, even Baby Scottie, softer and less afraid.
Mina used to be afraid all the time. Even after Uncle Scott came and got her out of the cage, and gave her Mama and Daddy. But she was bigger now, and things weren’t so scary.
…
Uncle Scott was laughing and giving out hugs and back pats like they were candy. Mina climbed on his back and he spun in circles for her until they were both dizzy.
“Don’t crush my little girl,” Daddy scolded them both, catching them in his hands. He looked as bouncy as Mina felt, with the full moon pouring into them, filling them with bubbles.
Davida hated full moons. She spent them inside with Uncle Liam and their parents. Davida was Mina’s best friend, but sometimes she was like an alien.
In the cage, full moons were scary. Before they took Mommy away, she would curl up into a ball all around Mina and she would be like a bird in an egg, safe and warm. But the men would still come and yell and hit and poke them with electric things. After Mommy was gone, she would curl up and try to be quiet, but they’d come all the same.
When Uncle Scott came, it was almost the full moon. He and Auntie Malia tore the cage apart like it was paper, and she could still remember the first time she saw his eyes, like a sunrise after a really black night.
Tonight, everyone was together. Mina and Daddy and Uncle Scott were running and playing in the Preserve, and Auntie Malia was ducking in and out and all around them. The rest of the pack was either at the house, or somewhere else. She could hear Uncle Isaac playing in the creek, and she knew Alec and Rashid were there, too.
Later, while they were drowsily eating Mama and Auntie Melissa’s huge breakfast of omelettes and bacon and sweet banana muffins, she fell asleep in her plate. She didn’t wake up until the sun came creeping in, following the clouds, when Uncle Scott’s keys jangled, and Daddy’s low voice rumbled through his chest, where she was napping.
“Where are you going?”
“Airport,” Uncle Scott’s scent got stronger as he pushed Daddy back down on the couch. “Stiles’ plane is coming in in an hour or so.”
“It’s the day after the full moon,” that was Mama, in the big chair with Baby Scottie. “His dad isn’t getting him?”
“The sheriff had to work overtime, so they asked me to go,” Uncle Scott’s scent got softer and the front door whispered as it opened. “It’s no big deal. No, Braeden, you need to stay with the baby. I’m fine. I want to see him again.”
He left, the sound of his truck like a soft, friendly growl.
Mina rolled over, and snuggled into her rainbow blanket. As she drifted off to sleep, she could hear Mama and Daddy talking.
“He’s grown up, huh?”
“He might have just forgotten,” Mama said. “If I didn’t have you and the kids, I’d never even think about the moons.”
Daddy didn’t say anything to that. Mina fell back asleep, listening to everyone’s heartbeat.
…
No one got to meet Stiles until two days later, at least, not in Mina’s family. Uncle Isaac came over the second night smelling like a stranger, and making a face like he’d had to spend time being nice to someone from a new pack.
“He’s never liked me,” was all he said when Mama and Daddy asked him how Scott and Stiles were.
“Of course Uncle Scott likes you,” Mina told him. “Not as much as he likes me and Scottie, but he likes you. I heard him tell Auntie Malia that you had pretty eyes.”
Uncle Isaac laughed, but he spent the night at her house, then he went and had a sleepover with Auntie Erica and Uncle Boyd.
Mina’s house was where the pack was. Uncle Scott had his own house, he lived there with Auntie Melissa and Uncle Isaac and with ALEC, but Mina’s house was where everyone came for the moons, to make plans, to have parties. Mina’s house had a dozen empty rooms, that people with tired, sad eyes came and slept in from time to time, and that Mama and Daddy talked about filling up with other brothers and sisters.
Alec came to babysit the next night, and shrugged when Daddy asked about Stiles.
“He’s okay,” he said, looking uncomfortable.
Daddy shouldn’t have asked Alec, because Alec had been kidnapped by three hunters once and after they’d dropped him off in the park, he’d just stood in front of Uncle Scott, still bleeding, and said they’d been nice enough and he really wanted to go home and play Zelda. Mama called Alec an unreliable witness and got the kidnappers under arrested.
…
She met Stiles the day after that.
There was no birthday. It wasn’t the full moon.
But it happened like this sometimes. Uncle Liam would go home and grab Davida, and along the way he’d call Uncle Mason and Uncle Corey, or Auntie Erica and Uncle Boyd would “drop in” and they’d send a few texts, or it would happen some other way, and the next thing anyone knew, the pack would be there, there’d be food all over, and juice and milk, and Rashid, Ari, and Alec would start a game, and it would be a huge party.
Mina thought that her family grew parties the way some families grew flowers.
Uncle Scott came, and he brought the stranger that Uncle Isaac had smelled like.
Mina wasn’t sure, at first, if she liked him. He made Daddy smile a smile with too many teeth, and Mama’s face went tight when he talked to her. He said things that sort of almost seemed nice, but then you’d think them over and they’d sting. Like Jackson, from the London pack, but worse. He moved too fast, and his movements were like fire, you couldn’t see what he’d do next.
He told lots of old stories from before, and asked Uncle Isaac if his refrigerator was still running, and that hurt Uncle Isaac, his smell going cold and angry. He ruffled Uncle Liam’s hair and made jokes about bombs that made Uncle Liam bite his lips bloody.
He made Uncle Scott small.
He told stories that made Uncle Scott smile in a strange, fragile way, and shrink his shoulders into himself. He told stories that made Uncle Scott seem stupid and made himself look smart, and talked over people who wanted to tell the stories differently.
Mina decided she didn’t like him.
“Is that the one you picked up from a kennel?” He said about her, and he was the only one who laughed. “Has she had her shots?”
Auntie Malia swore at him. Mina waited for Uncle Scott to step in, tell them to calm down, to walk away.
He just stepped around Stiles, and put a hand on his shoulder.
Stiles smiled at him, and Mina saw why someone might think he really was just joking, that he really was nice, under it all.
Davida wanted to play Mario Kart. They left the grown ups alone and went to beat Alec on the Rainbow Road.
…
“And then, you know, I’ve got Scottie here chained up to a radiator, just hoping against hope no one comes down, and the poor guy gets thirsty.”
Mina felt that between hungry and not hungry feeling and wandered in, looking for something hopefully sweet, only to be confronted with Daddy and a plate full of steak, cut up in small slices, and potatoes that were roasted with suspiciously green herbs, and a slice of tomato.
“Eat up,” he says, a suggestion disguised as a smaller suggestion.
Mina thought longingly of Uncle Boyd and Auntie Erica’s trifle, sitting in a pretty crystal bowl on the counter, and started in on the tomato first, from worst to best.
Alec, Rashid and Nina were sitting at the grown up table with Stiles and Uncle Scott, and they had the same look they’d had last summer when Miss Satomi sat down and started asking about grades and college plans.
“And long story short, I brought out this old dog dish they had stored in the basement,” Stiles started giggling, while Uncle Scott shrank against him, smiling in that weird, flat way. “And filled it up with Evian!”
Alec stared at him. Nina looked like something had died on her plate. Rashid smiled, but in a scared way, like he thought he was being led to a trap and he didn’t want to make a fuss.
Mina stared at her plate, and, suddenly, she wasn’t even on that slight side of hunger anymore. The steak looked like the food from the cage, stinking of liver and corn, and the potatoes looked like the kibble. Her eyes swam, and she could see the bowls in front of her, including the water that had been too heavy to pick up, so she’d always leaned in and-
“Here.”
Daddy took her supper and held out a bowl of trifle, cake and berries swimming in jelly and whipped cream.
“I didn’t know you had a dog,” Mama was saying to Uncle Scott, like this was some normal conversation, like anything could be normal while everyone smelled like the hour before a thunderstorm, like the moment before a quake.
“She was dead by then,” Uncle Scott said, and took a bite of steak.
Mina concentrated on her trifle, and on how to best convince Alec and Rashid to let her beat them at Mario Kart.
…
Daddy and Mama and Uncle Corey told Uncle Scott he needed to stay home and talk to Nina about her vampire girlfriend, just to check up on things, and baby-sit Baby Scottie, so they’d take Stiles back to the airport.
It had been a few days since Stiles came for dinner, and Mina’d eaten three steak sandwiches since then, so things had calmed down, some.
Well, unless you counted the time that Uncle Scott and Stiles went out to look into a thing that Stiles found at a petting zoo and Uncle Scott got bitten by a basilisk. He was still limping and looked pale and purple-ish.
Uncle Scott tried to say no, but he didn’t try to hard and hugged Stiles from the couch.
Mina liked watching planes come and go at the Beacon Hills Airport and she liked the cafe there, where the baristas would bring her an entire cup of whipped cream when she got hot chocolate and she had a dream that one day she would get to ride on the luggage carousel.
There was a strange feeling in the car, and Uncle Liam sat in the back with her, which was weird, because he had his own car. But she taught him to play the roadkill game and he got pretty good at it.
When they got to the airport, Mama took Mina to look at the runway before they went for coffee. They were far away from Daddy and Uncle Liam, and Mina knew that Mama couldn’t hear them and that Mama didn’t know Mina could hear them.
“You need to not call us,” that was Daddy.
“Don’t get in touch with us at all,” that was Uncle Liam.
“I have the number for a good therapist,” Daddy again. “But look, if we need you, we’ll get in touch.”
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” That was Stiles. She could hear his heart start beating fast, and smell anger and fear wafting closer. “What the hell is this about?”
“You walked into my house, and made jokes about getting my daughter from a kennel,” Daddy snapped. “And the worst part of that is that it wasn’t even the worst thing you said this week.”
“Wow, what,” Stiles heart got faster. “Parenthood just took your entire sense of humour and threw it out the window, huh?”
Daddy laughed, the kind of laugh that hid a growl.
“You’re not actually funny, Stiles,” Uncle Liam said. “You never were. You were just good at hurting people and smiling.”
“You need help,” Daddy said, after a long, bitter silence. “You’re stuck in that stage, and you need to get out of it.”
“But you can’t come back here until you stop hurting people in our pack,”Uncle Liam sounded sad, he sounded scared. “Including Scott.”
“Scott?” Stiles had a mild rage. Mina shivered, and remembered how smooth the man outside the cage had sounded. “Scott’s making you do this? He did’t have the guts-”
“I know you like to blame him for everything,” Daddy interrupted. “But no. This is what a pack does. we protect each other.”
“We protect our alpha,” Uncle Liam added. “Even from the people he loves.”
“Even from himself,” Daddy said.
“Fuck you-”
“Is everything okay here?”
“It’s fine.”
Daddy and Uncle Liam told Stiles to take care of himself.
“We’ll call you,” Daddy said. “But you need help, Stiles. You need to stop hurting the people you love.”
Stiles didn’t say anything else.
Mina watched Stiles’ plane take off, with Daddy and Uncle Liam, while Mama got four cups of hot chocolate and one cup of whipped cream. They watched the plane fade from sight, and she thought maybe the sky got a little bluer.
…
Mama hired a woman with a long, colourful scarf to do Mina’s hair for kindergarten, with bright, colourful strands in rainbow colours.
She and Daddy bought Mina a new backpack and a lunchbox, a new jacket and shoes.
Everyone came by, day after day to tell her how lucky she was and how wonderful school was going to be.
Davida came almost everyday and reported a similar line and they swung on the trees outside and laughed over silly things.
The days before school seemed so long and too short, and when she told Rashid how she felt, he laughed for ten minutes and told her that everyone felt that way.
It was later in the night, the strange hours between supper and bedtime.
Uncle Scott came by and stood on the doorstep, heart stuttering, stopping and starting again erratically. Mina watched Daddy wait for him to knock, and her stomach twisted itself in knots.
Daddy finally went to the door, and left them inside. She heard him, waiting.
“I,um,” Uncle Scott started talking, and stopped. “I need to talk to you. And Liam. But mostly you.”
Daddy’s heart began to stomp it’s feet and run faster.
“Okay,” he said. His voice was steady.
“I’ve been,” Uncle Scott sounded like he was crying. “I’ve been trying to call Stiles. Ever since he visited.”
Daddy didn’t say anything. Mama couldn’t hear them out on the porch.
Mina put her LOL dolls in their pool. Once Daddy had filled it up with club soda so it looked like a jacuzzi and he said it was a spa day. Uncle Scott had laughed and laughed and laughed.
“He doesn’t pick up,” Uncle Scott sounded like he had the day he found Mina. “I thought if-He’s my best friend.”
(“She’s the only one left.”
“We heard there were-“
“She’s the only one.”)
Mina ran a hand over her doll’s head. They were so cute and strange looking. Kind of like Baby Scottie, if you got right down to it. She’d told Uncle Scott that once, and he’d smiled, nodded, and told her not to tell Mama or Daddy that.
“He picked up today.”
Daddy still didn’t say anything. His heart moved faster.
“What did you say to him?”
Daddy sighed.
“I told him he needed help. That he’s needed it for a long time, and I gave him the number for a therapist.”
Uncle Scott didn’t say anything.
“And I told him, and Liam told him, we didn’t want to hear from him unless he stopped being such an asshole.”
“What-That- What is wrong with you?”
“What’s wrong with me?” Daddy was mad. He’d sounded like that the first time he took Mina to a doctor. “What’s wrong with me?”
“You can’t just- you can’t-“
“Yes, Scott, I can. I can do that. I can tell someone who talks to my friends like, who talks about my kid like that, I can tell someone who treats you the way Stiles treats-“
“How does he treat me? How does he treat me? How is my friendship with him any of your business?”
“You’re my alpha. It’s my business if he’s being an asshole to you, if he’s trying to control-“
“But it’s okay for you to control me? It’s okay for Liam and you to decide who I can be friends with?”
“No, it’s-“ Daddy’s heart jumped. “It’s not the same.”
Uncle Scott waited.
“It’s not.”
Uncle Scott sighed.
“Scott. It’s not. I never told him not to be your friend.”
“Didn’t you?”
“I told him we didn’t like the way he treated you.”
“While you were telling him not to ever call anyone in the pack.”
Daddy’s heart slowed down. Uncle Scott’s started to steady itself.
“God, Scott.”
Uncle Scott started laughing. It wasn’t a nice laugh.
“Scott, I’m sorry.”
“I don’t fucking- I accept your apology. I forgive you.”
Mina began to relax.
“That doesn’t- I know you didn’t mean… all this… but that doesn’t mean it was okay. You should have come to me.”
Daddy was quiet again.
“We didn’t- you don’t do well when it comes to Stiles.”
“I do alright with Stiles,” Uncle Scott snorted. “When I’m standing behind him, cheering him on, making sure he’s happy, making sure he’s comfortable.”
“God!”
Daddy jumped as Uncle Scott got up and paced back and forth, in front of the filmy curtains on the window, a shadow of frustration.
“I’m so tired of worrying about Stiles’s comfort,” he said, voice low, almost too quiet to hear. “When he picked up the phone today, part of me was hoping he wouldn’t. And when he started talking, it was like time had turned back, and I remembered it, every single time Stiles decided to pin some bullshit on me. And I couldn’t take it anymore.”
“It was like I’d had a headache, for decades,” he continued. “And then I didn’t. But I didn’t know what was different until the pain was back.”
“I kind of- it’s not the same, but I do understand what you mean.”
Uncle Scott laughed.
“I thought you might.”
They were quiet for a while. Then Uncle Scott sighed.
“We’re going to need to talk about this some more.”
“I know.”
“But not right now. I’m pretty sure I just blew up my longest friendship and set the wreckage on fire, so I don’t think I can do anything else heavy right now.”
He breathed, deep and slow.
“I brought a present for Mina. Because she’s starting kindergarten.”
“You better take it in,” Daddy laughed. “I think she’s been eavesdropping on everything and she definitely heard that.”
Mina jumped up and ran to the door. Uncle Scott was on the other side. So was the whole entire world. And everything was going to be okay.