Unbound by Meredith Noone Read Free Book Online Page B

why, and I know what you have to do about it. So do you. Yet you’re dallying.”
    The wolf whined piteously, and she narrowed her eyes.
    “None of that. There is no excuse. People are dying , wolf, and the pack can’t lead itself. Now, drink your tea and have a cookie and think about what you need to do next.”
    Feeling a little bit sick, Ranger obeyed her anyway, taking a cookie from the plate on the tray on the coffee table. The plate was decorated with a circle of painted flowers around the outside, and in the middle there was a picture of a little glowing fairy, sitting on a toadstool and talking with a mouse that was wearing a bluebell on its head.
    “It’s not very politically correct anymore,” Madam Watkins said, when she saw him looking at the plate. “Especially now that the Hunter-Merrills are living in Tamarack. But I’ve always liked those plates. They’re very pretty, and the flowers are painted quite accurately.”
    Ranger crunched up his cookie, which seemed to have been made entirely without sugar, relying on the inherent sweetness of the little pieces of dried apricot to flavor them. He must’ve made a disgusted face, because Madam Watkins laughed long and loud.
    “They’re not very nice, are they? I’m sorry. I should’ve warned you. Doctor Sorenson was very clear the last time I went to see him – no more refined sugar, it’s terrible for my diabetes. Told me I would lose my toe any day now if I wasn’t careful. I thought maybe I better do what he says, just for a change of pace.”
    Ranger slid off the couch to sniff at her socked feet. Her right foot was okay, but her left foot smelled like wet turmeric leaves and infection.
    “There’s a poultice on there,” she explained, when he looked into her face for explanation. “Good for drawing out sickness, or so Claire tells me. She was always better at the healing magic than I was. I’m better at the growing of things and the creating of life. Funny the way we all have our specialties, isn’t it?”
    The wolf wondered whose specialty was the ending of life.
    “Finish your tea, dear.”
    He was obliged to lap the tea out of his mug, slopping it over Madam Watkins’ nice walnut coffee table. She didn’t seem to mind.

    The wolf ran all the way to Michelle’s house from Madam Watkins’, hoping that Michelle hadn’t left for Norfolk already. He was in luck – she was still loading up her little white automatic when he arrived on her doorstep, panting. She blinked at him in surprise, then let him inside and offered him a drink of water.
    After he’d lapped it up, he went out to her car and stood by the passenger side door, whining and wagging his tail.
    “You want to come with me to visit Uncle Dale and Clyde and Yani?” she asked, looking and sounding confused.
    The wolf could understand why. In the eight years since Dale and Yani and Clyde had been hospitalized in Norfolk, not once had he opted to go with her to see them. He whined, slicking back his ears.
    “Well,” she said, slowly. “All right, if you want.”
    She opened the car door for him, and he hopped into the front, circled, and sat down on the passenger seat. She got in beside him and regarded him for a moment.
    “You look very much like a wolf today, you know,” she said. “I’m not completely sure they’re going to let us into the hospital. I know that other patients have had family members bring pets in for visits in the past, but you’re very big, and you look very mean.”
    The wolf snapped playfully at her face, and she pretend-flinched away from him, laughing.
    “Exactly, you brute! You’re going to need to be on your best, non-wolfy behavior, you understand? Or you’ll have to wait outside while I go in and visit without you.”
    Ranger huffed, settling down as Michelle pulled out of her driveway. He watched the town of Tamarack give way to farmland, then red and gold autumn forest dotted with the odd evergreen conifer, before he squeezed into the