Chapters of a Life: There's no place like home

12

Winter was not gone but Spring had begun to fight back, this morning I had seen a Chickadee checking out building locations. Finally, Spring was coming and I was going. Dad had announced last night that we would leave in two days to travel North to the land of Ice to visit with his old friend. The only information he had given me was, we would travel in fur and we would be gone for months. Not really much help.

Being gone would be a huge problem. I had my family and they only got along with a few pack members. My garden needs tending, I had seedlings all over the barn just waiting to go in the ground. I knew that it would take a special group to take care of my den. "Thank you for coming. Alpha told me last night that he and I are going on a visit to another pack, far away and that we would be gone for months."

"No problem. We will take care of the animals and your garden. Can we swim in your pool?" Tove said before I even finished my pitch.

"Great, Stud only likes..."

"We know, he's only been our friend for years", Bree says while studying a book on plants. She never even looked up.

"The seedlings..."

"Are in the barn and need to go out after the last frost. We know, remember who helped you to plant those seeds?" Leif says with a smile.

"It's so hard, you're all growing up too fast", I tell them, grabbing Tove and hugging her. True to their words they had stayed their course. Bree was showing all the signs of a natural healer, she was as powerful as she was kind. Leif could grow anything, we had tomatoes in February because he had managed to keep the plants flourishing. Tove, she was going to be a scholar, she absorbed knowledge like the earth absorbed rain. She was our problem-solver and our practical joker, no one pissed her off for fear of what she might do. Michael had stepped on one of her experiments and had broken it, she turned his wolf blue. We never did figure out how and she never told even after being punished. I gave her a cookie and told her she was brilliant, but accidents happened and she couldn't go around turning wolves blue. She explained that it wasn't that he broke it but how he treated her and her work as if they weren't important. I told her to use her words first then her dye. She is my favorite cousin, don't tell the others.

"Ready?" Today was the day. Dawn had barely begun to paint the sky and we were headed West by NorthWest, into the great unknown. Most of the pack was out to see us off.

"Don't worry Alpha, I wouldn't let Beta Adare get too big a head on him," Fenian says laughing.

"That was never a worry. Bea do your best with him", Dad says pointing at Fenian.

"HEY, I'm great", Fenian says looking to his brood for support. He got none.

"Everyone take care, we will return by winter. Listen to your Betas and Deltas." Alpha says looking around at the gathered pack members. Letting our fur emerge we pick up our saddlebags and head off into the unknown.

"Why are we going to see your old friend?" We had been traveling for weeks now and this was the one question that Dad always failed to answer. Most of the time when I'd ask he'd change the subject or ignore the question but today felt different.

"Bo, listen to me carefully. They are an Old-World pack, they believe in the old ways. You must not let them get the better of you, stay calm and under no circumstances fight them." Dad tells me as I begin to scent smoke from multiple chimneys. "Think of this as an Alpha test." Something is wrong, I can feel it. But not knowing whether it is here or back home or with Dad, it is driving me crazy. I really wish I had had more time with that last set of books Ivy brought me. Thankfully I had managed to pack the last unread one. "We'll shift here and walk into town." Let the test begin.