Kelly

Eleven

That cottage became my refuge as the years passed. William and Beta Joseph had organised everything and they let me be involved in the whole process of fixing the foundations, building the walls up again, choosing paint colours and tile patterns. It wasn't a big space, just one big room with a small bathroom off the back and a mud room off the front. William had had to replace all the pipework to install the bathroom and fix the kitchen as Beta Joseph had been adamant that the cottage have regular running water. Perhaps he knew it, even then, that things would get worse for me in their house.

The only thing I had really said I wanted was a greenhouse, just like the one my Pa had. So that I could grow flowers again. I had loved spending weekends and Ma and Pa's and helping them tend to their gardens. Ma had the vegetable garden and Pa had the flowers. Pa said it was because Ma didn't like his vegetables but always forgave him when he gave her flowers after an fight.

Beta Joseph had gotten me one. It was a beautiful lean to, with a special door so I could grow all the plants that needed a warmer home over the winter. I filled it with all the things I had helped Pa grow. And then I got my own vegetable patch where I grew all the things I had helped Ma grow. My little cottage with its little gardens was my space. My home. Beta Joseph, Marcy and William had been astounded by how quickly I had my plants growing and how bountiful they were. I didn't tell them that I have them my heart and they grew. Just like I tried with Mama. But I just gave them a little, not enough to make me sleep. As time passed, I started getting really good at it too. I was even able to heal little animals that I found as I walked the forest around my home or on my walk between school and home.

Things at Aunt Charlotte's house did get worse, just as Beta Joseph knew. The fights got louder and I was always the cause of them. Beta Joseph tried to keep the peace, but it felt like I was a stone in their shoe. Caleb always blamed me and tried to find all sorts of ways to sabotage me at the house and at school. No matter how hard I tried to stay out of things , Charlotte would always have something to yell and scream about. And I was always to blame. Caleb kept growing even more hateful. His glares got colder, his words sharper, his actions more subtle. Sometimes I wondered if Caleb was planning my death to be staged like an accident. Beta Joseph was away more often on pack business and Charlotte's hatred of me boiled over each time. With Beta Joseph out of the house she'd go out of her way to make my life a misery, finding small, cruel ways to punish me. My food would be smaller, or served cold. Always the same bland oatmeal or stale bread. And I always ate the the table in the kitchen alone. She'd "accidentally" find a way to throw out my laundry. Especially if Beta Joseph bought me something. Even if it wasn't in the laundry. She'd make me scrub the floors until my hands were raw or tell me to sleep outside like a good dog.

It didn't take long for me to stay at the cottage all the time and only return to see Beta Joseph before leaving again. It took months for me to realise that Aunt Charlotte had taken everything out of the small room I had at their house, because I was never there. I tried to ignore it all and keep my head down. Keep my plants happy and my homework done.

Marcy always stopped by on her way home in the evenings, often bringing me dinner or stocking my kitchen so I never went hungry. As I planted more vegetables, I started sending Marcy home loaded with fresh and yummy food. The berries we both our favourites and she even taught me to cook all sorts of things, like pancakes and waffles, to pies and puddings. I wasn't very good but I loved the time with her. Sometimes it felt like it did when Sissy and I would help Ma. Marcy would even bring her granddaughter who was a little younger than me. She hadn't wanted to at first, Caleb had done a real number for me in this pack. But eventually, I won her over. We were friends, but only where the pack couldn't see.

One spring evening I was getting my seedlings ready for the greenhouse when my skin went all tingly. Not a bad tingly, but a warning. I looked up from my little pots of dirt, and there he was. Caleb. He was standing at the edge of my garden, not on my property but close enough that it felt like a threat. He wasn't with his friends, not this time. He was alone. He was bigger now, broader in the shoulders, his jaw harder. He looked like a smaller, more spiteful version of Beta Joseph, but none of the Beta's kindness had found its way into him.

He was watching me, a smug, ugly smirk on his face. "So this is your little playhouse," he said, his voice dripping with condescension. "Daddy's little project. Does he come out here to tuck you in at night and tell you what a good little orphan you're being?"

I didn't answer. I stood up slowly, brushing the dirt from my hands. My heart started its frantic rhythm, the familiar flutter of panic in my chest. I could still be sick, I could even feel the bile stinging me at the back of my throat. I took a slow, deep breath and tried to remember what Alpha David had said. A warrior masters their spirit. I couldn't let him see me tremble.

"I asked you a question, death-stench," he snarled, stepping closer, right onto the wooden border of my vegetable patch. The crunch of the wood under his boot sounded like a bone breaking.

"My cottage, my garden," I said, my voice quiet but steady. I was surprised by the sound of it. It didn't shake. "You're trespassing."

His smirk widened. "Or what? You'll break my nose again? I'm not ten anymore, Kelly-Grace. You can't just flail your little fists and expect to win. Not to mention you don't have ownership of anything. Everything you have should have been mine and my brothers - not yours. You're a thief; a burden that my family was forced to take in and give things that were not yours to be taken." He took another step, his muddy boot now hovering over my row of newly sprouted carrots.

"Don't," I said, my voice sharper now. My hands were clenched into fists at my sides, my nails digging into my palms. The memory of my drawing being stomped into the mud flashed in my mind. The feeling of helplessness. The hot, blank rage that had followed. I felt a flicker of it now, a dangerous warmth spreading through my chest.

"Or what?" he taunted. "You'll tell my dad? The Beta who's supposed to be protecting his pack? Not some stray that was dumped on us?" He brought his foot down. I heard the delicate snap of a stem before I saw it. One of my carrot tops, crushed into the dirt.

Something inside me went very still and quiet. The panic was gone. The fear was gone. And I was still. I stared at the crushed plant under Caleb's feet and I thought of my Ma's garden. Of her words about soil and earth and the respect the land you live on deserves. Afterall, the land, the soil, the dirt - it provides for you. It is the reason for game, and growth that feeds the family. Its the reason for streams and rivers and abundance to keep the family cool and sheltered. I gave prayers to the Goddess each morning and night as I watered to help me care for my plants and in return for them to care and nourish me.

Caleb smirked the longer I stared at the plant and I felt a warm stirring inside me. It felt like sunlight on a cold winter afternoon. It was different from the cold slithering I had felt the last time Caleb and I had fought. But it still felt like power. Like something inside me was also not happy with Caleb and his disrespect and constant targeting.

"I told you not to touch my things," I said. My voice was low, calm, but it carried an authority that I didn't know I possessed.

"I'm not touching your things," he scoffed. "I'm touching some dirt and weeds. This is pack land. Not your land."

He took another step, deliberately grinding his heel into the soil. That's when the warmth inside me flared. I didn't move. I didn't raise my hands. But I watched as those little carrot tops began to move over his boot. I watched as vines from the tomatoes next to him stretched and slithered over his clothes.

He didn't feel it at first. But I lifted my eyes to his as an old tree root wrapped itself around his waist. His eyes widened, the smug arrogance on his face dissolving into shock. He jerked at the plants covering him as they began to tighten and pull at him.

"Kelly! What's going on?" His voice, while still loud, wavered.