Page 63 of It's You
She realized something was coming closer. She heard the footfalls and inclined her head to the left as it came closer. Her eyes widened as an enormous black wolf made his way out of the mist, sitting at the base of a tree not far from Darcy, training its glowing yellow eyes on her.
Jack’s voice was low and deep in her head.
I belong to you.
Her eyes opened abruptly, and she squinted, blinking against the sunshine sparkling on the water before her. A heavily bearded older man was rapping lightly on the lower half of her open window.
“Girlie? You awake now? How about moving your car if you’re not launching? Trying to get some fishing done.” He hooked his thumb back toward his waiting trailer behind her.
“Oh! Yes. Sorry. I dozed off.”
“You sure were out.” He chuckled. “Beeped twice. Lucky thing I came along and not someone with untoward ideas.”
Darcy looked at his grizzled face, her stomach turning over from the faint smell of gutted fish emanating from his lure vest. She cringed, and he stepped back, offended.
“Just move your doggone car.” He stomped away, and Darcy looked after him helplessly, wishing she could apologize for her expression, but it was too late.
She put her car in Drive and made a wide turn out of the launching area, and back toward the main road. She took a deep breath, feeling better. She hadn’t seen Jack, but she’d heard his voice, and it soothed her.
The black wolf.
He appeared more and more in her soul flight, especially since Jack had reappeared. Darcy knew that the Métis claimed a special connection to the wolf. Willow’s favorite T-shirt growing up had been silk-screened with the original flag of the Métis people: a wolf’s head in the middle, flanked by feathers with the unity symbol underneath. Jack’s surname bore some tribute to the wolf, perhaps making it totemic to him. She would have to ask him on Thursday.
As she pulled back onto the highway headed south, she thought about her conversation with Willow yesterday. It bothered Darcy. More and more.
Although Willow hadn’t ruled out the possibility that it was a legend she wasn’t acquainted with, Darcy knew that Willow’s depth and breadth of Métis knowledge was vast and sound. It was unlikely there could be a whole sub-tribe of the Métis that practiced beliefs about which Willow knew nothing. It didn’t make sense. Which left one alternative.
Jack was lying to her.
Of the many relationship deal-breakers in Darcy Turner’s life, lying was at the top of the list. She would not engage in a relationship that wasn’t built on honesty. At the hint of deceit, Darcy cut bait. As she had learned with Phillip, deceit led to secrets, to cheating, and eventually to heartbreak. If Jack was lying to her about who he was, how he felt, and what he believed, there was no room for him in her life. As much as it would hurt, she would rather turn her back on him now than have her heart broken in half later.
She didn’t realize she was crying until a fat drop plopped on her shirt, making a blotchy wet spot on her chest. She reached up and swiped the rest away with the backs of her hands, desperately hoping that Jack wasn’t lying to her.
Saying goodbye to him would not only be excruciating. If they were truly bound by some mystical force, there was a good chance it would be impossible.
“Mm-hmm,Darcy Turner, you are a sight for these sore, old eyes!” declared Miss Kendrick, pulling Darcy into her thick, warm, brown arms.
The aptly named Fern Kendrick had been a fixture in the Life Sciences Greenhouse for as long as Darcy had been working there. She had started her tenure on the janitorial staff in the 1960s, but the administration had noted her fondness and care for the plants of the sciences department after a decade of extra watering, trimming, and babying of the various greenery they kept for research purposes. Over time, her janitorial duties were phased out so that she could be the full-time caretaker of the outdoor research gardens and indoor samples. When the modern greenhouse was completed in 1995, Annabelle Fern Kendrick not only cut the ceremonial ribbon, but was the first person to enter the greenhouse, and was often found by “Fern’s Fountain,” the affectionate name for the gurgling marble fountain set in the center of the large building where students and professors often met for impromptu lessons.
She was in her sixties now, and without the benefit of a diploma or degree, Miss Kendrick couldn’t be officially named to the Dartmouth faculty, but she owned the respect of every member and was consulted on botanical questions by educators and botanists all over New England.
“How are you, Miss Kendrick?”
“Darcy, we’ve been workin’ together these ten years. When’re you goin’ to call me Fern?”
“Never,” said Darcy, grinning at her and shaking her head. “Can’t do it. Until I know more than you, I can’t do it.”
Miss Kendrick beamed at Darcy and pulled her over to a table of samples. “Come and see your babies.”
Darcy looked at the beds of moss and lichen under the dim, lavender lights. “TheParmeliaceaelichen looks good, doesn’t it?”
“It does.”
“Did you try extracting the olivetol yet?”
“Yes, I did. And what exactly are you goin’ to do with it?” she asked Darcy with a disapproving look.
“Not synthesize it into THC, Miss Kendrick.” She rolled her eyes.As if!“But who knows what other helpful properties it might have, right? It’s the responsibility of botany to help the world, if possible.”
