Truthful Deception

I turned and walked to my front door, facing yet another problem. With each passing second, I was sinking deeper and deeper into trouble as the clock ticked farther away from the hour I had originally told my parents I’d be home by.

I tiptoed up the stairs to my room, trying to keep as quiet as possible. Unfortunately, my sister had chosen that night to leave all her school books in the middle of the hallway. There were several loud thuds as the books toppled everywhere followed by me swearing silently and massaging my toe.

“Claire?” my mom’s voice issued from their dark bedroom.

“It’s me,” I replied. Her dark figure detached from the shadows in her room and she flipped on the hallway light. She scowled down at me sprawled among my sister’s things. I smiled weakly back.

“I can explain,” I offered, thinking fast.

“Good,” she said firmly, “Start explaining.”

“Well, you see, the movie started late, so we got out later than we expected and when we got to Katie’s car, one of her tires were flat,” I said, hoping she wouldn’t bother to conduct a background check on my story.

“You could have called,” pointed out my mom.

I opened my mouth to respond but the excuse died in my mouth.

My mom let me flounder for a minute before finally huffing tiredly, “Just get to bed.” She waited until I had scrambled out of the land mine of textbooks and had closed my door before plunging the house into darkness once more.

Navigating my room by the glow of my alarm clock, I collapsed still fully dressed on my bed and instantly fell asleep.

For once, luck remained in my favor. Any other time would have found me stumbling home at midnight only having to wake up at six the next morning but this time, I was allowed to emerge from my room at quarter of eleven, though still bleary-eyed and tired from the previous night.

I kept to myself most of the day, finishing some forgotten homework and clearing out my emails of junk and chains. The rest of my family left at half past four to go to my sister’s basketball game, which I politely refused to attend since Connor was picking me up in a few hours time.

I showered and got dressed earlier than necessary, selecting a black skirt and a dark green blouse. I hung my purse and coat on the banister near the front door and went back up to my room to try and make some sense of the knot of hair on top of my head.

At half past six, just after I had unplugged the flat iron, the door bell pealed loudly. I frowned in confusion, Connor had said seven. Had I heard him wrong?

I skipped down the stairs and opened the door to find Cade panting slightly on my doorstep.

“Cade!” I exclaimed. “What’s wrong?”

“Found them meeting—scattered before I could get close enough—to hear what they were saying…”

“Did you catch any of them, find any plans left behind?” I asked excitedly. Cade was still struggling to breathe. I rushed back inside to get a glass of water which he chugged gratefully.

“No, they heard me coming and they took off, I was too far behind to begin with to try and catch up to them. I wanted to get you and Bridget to come back with me to help search, it will take less time.”

“Why me?” I asked, remembering last night. “Surely just you and Bridget would be much easier.”

“You said you would help us, didn’t you? You agreed. And whether you realize it or not, you were helpful last night. Just because Bridget doesn’t always want you helping, doesn’t mean I don’t.”

“Oh,” I said, embarrassed. “Well thanks.”

“Go get dressed,” he ordered. “We still need to find Bridget and get back before they have time to move anything.”

I bit my lip nervously. There wasn’t enough time to go and search and then make it back before Connor came here. And there was no way I could call the date off to go and help the others. Conner and I would be finished for good if he knew I was blowing him off for werewolves he didn’t think existed.

“I’m sorry, Cade, but…I can’t go with you,” I murmured. I dropped my eyes so I wouldn’t have to see his reaction.

“What do you mean?” he asked his voice low.

“I can’t go with you…I have a date,” I mumbled. It sounded even more pathetic out loud.

“You have…a date?” he asked slowly as though he couldn’t believe I was standing them up for something so…human.

“I know what you’re thinking, Cade, but I can’t lose my best friend over…”

“Over some stupid werewolf thing huh?” he asked.

I looked up, his eyes were blazing and he had stepped closer so his face was only inches from mine. His shoulders were tight with fury.

“That’s, that’s wasn’t what I was going to…” I stammered. My hands wrung together nervously, my fingers trembling.

“Doesn’t matter does it, it was what you were thinking,” he snarled.

“Cade, you know…if it was any other night…”

“That’s the thing with you humans!” he fumed. “You only help if it’s convenient to you. It’s tonight or not, Claire!”

“Cade, I can’t…” I almost cried. I reached out to touch him, like somehow I could make him understand, but he backed away angrily.

“I really thought you were different, Claire, that you would actually mean it when you said you were willing to help us,” whispered Cade. His voice was like a dagger. “If anything, you only proved what Bridget has been trying to get me to believe since we met you—humans can’t be trusted.”

“Just listen…please,” I begged, but I had no idea what to say.

“I’m done listening, Claire. You had your chance, you gave your word and you blew both of them. Have a good life; you won’t be bothered by us anymore.”

“Wait!” I shouted as he began to head towards the trail in the woods Bridget and I had once walked along. He half turned. “I’m coming,” I said. “Just give me five minutes.”

With a look of utter surprise on his face, Cade halted. I flew back upstairs and pulled on a pair of jeans and an old sweatshirt. Throwing up my hair with my cell phone crammed between my teeth, I bounded back outside.

I opened my phone to call Connor to tell him I couldn’t make it, but there he was pulling up in his dad’s new BMW. My heart sank; this wasn’t how I wanted to tell him I couldn’t go. A broad grin was on his handsome features as he emerged from the car in a pale blue, collared shirt and tailored khaki pants.

He walked up to me, taking a second look at my now bedraggled appearance. He didn’t see Cade who had slipped around the corner of my house at the sound of the car’s engine.

“Hey!” he called.

“Hi,” I said meekly, shuffling my feet.

“How come your not dressed yet?” he asked. “I mean normally I wouldn’t care what you choose to wear, but I’m sure the restaurant won’t allow jeans and sweatshirts,” he chuckled, giving me a hug and a kiss on the forehead.

“Connor…I can’t go tonight,” I confessed.

“Why not?” he asked.

“Because…um…because,” I searched for an excuse but I couldn’t come up with anything.

“She has to find her dog,” intervened Cade, walking smoothly across the lawn.

Connor’s gaze flickered to Cade for a minute“Travis got loose?” asked Connor.

“Oh, um, yeah…I didn’t realize the door was open and he took off into the woods,” I said, catching on.

“Who are you?” asked Connor suspiciously, pulling me closer to his side. Cade didn’t exactly look too friendly.

“I’m her neighbor,” said Cade.

“Her neighbors are both in our grade,” answered Connor, “and I have never seen you around before.”

“I’m new, just moved in down the street. I meant neighbor in the general sense,” covered Cade, not missing a beat. He was lucky there was a house for sale just around the corner. Connor made a stern noise in his throat, his hand closing tightly around my wrist.

“I’ll help look for Travis too,” he whispered, as though he didn’t want Cade overhearing. “We can move dinner to another night.”

“Oh, but you don’t want to ruin your clothes do you?” I asked, desperately. How could I get him to not come?

“I never liked these pants anyway,” he laughed, half-heartedly. “Honestly, it doesn’t matter to me.”

“Um, but…”

Suddenly, a chorus of loud, raucous barks escaped from within my house and the next second Travis’s head appeared at the window. His paws slipped on the ledge, but he kept his head in view, barking in delight to see Connor. My heart stopped beating. Cade looked confused as though he couldn’t understand why Travis was there.

Connor’s smile faded as he gazed at Travis who was barking madly to be let out of the house. His face became confused and then angry, he looked at me.

“I thought you said Travis was lost,” he said quietly.

“I-I…he…was-wasn’t there before, I-I swear he ran into the woods,” I spluttered, but Connor clearly didn’t buy it. I didn’t even buy it.

“What’s going on Claire?” he asked, dropping my hands like I was poisonous. “Why are you lying to me? Who is he really?”

My heart sank even deeper. I dropped my eyes. “He’s part of Bridget’s family.”

“And I suppose you think he is a werewolf too?” snapped Connor making the connection instantly. I saw Cade blanch out of the corner of my eye; he obviously wasn’t expecting Connor to know what he was even if Connor didn’t believe it.

“Connor, they need help and I promised,” I began weakly.

“Yeah well, you promised me too, Claire. But promises don’t seem to mean much to you anymore, do they? Neither does the truth apparently,” said Connor. “Tell me, have you been lying to me this whole time, since you said you would give this crazy dream up?”

“Well kind of, but not about what you think!” I cried as Connor began to back away.

“Well nothing ever is, is it, because nothing is as you tell it anymore,” shot back Connor. “I’m done with it. Claire. You can go and do whatever it is you want without me hanging over you. You won’t have to worry about me finding out the truth anymore. Have fun with your new werewolf friends; make sure you don’t get eaten.”

And with that he turned his back and strode back to his car. He slammed the door harder than necessary and the engine roared as he sped out of the driveway and out of sight.

“You told him!” fumed Cade, coming up behind me.

“Does it look like he believes it?” I snapped, wiping my eyes.

“That’s not the point!”

“I told him back before I even met you, before I agreed to help you. So I wasn’t breaking any of your precious rules,” I growled. I turned and pushed roughly past him. “Are we going to find Bridget or not?”

An hour later the three of us were trooping through yet more woods. Bridget hadn’t put up a fight over me coming, but I knew she wasn’t happy about it. We walked along in silence, me still chafing at the way things had ended with Connor and me. I knew our friendship and whatever else there was between us was now gone, with only the slimmest chance of ever getting it back.

It’s not entirely my fault though, I thought for perhaps the hundredth time. I pushed a branch out of my way, only to have it slip and slap me hard in the stomach. It wasn’t the only thing punching me like that today. Grunting, I massaged my abdomen and hurried to catch up with Bridget and Cade who were whispering quietly.

If he would just try and believe me, then…my thoughts trailed off. If he believed me, would it solve anything or would it just create more of a problem? I sighed quietly in frustration.

If Nicole talked to him… I sighed. It wouldn’t do any good. Nicole was getting angry at me now too. Could I do anything right? I tried to escape my brooding thoughts by concentrating on where I was putting my feet as I stumbled for the fourth time. But the sneaky branches and roots didn’t provide enough of a distraction and helpless to control it, my thoughts wandered again.

Why was Connor so against trying to believe? Was he that close-minded or was he afraid of the truth, the truth he didn’t realize I was telling. Yes, I had lied to him and I didn’t try and deny it from him or myself, but he was getting it all wrong. He had twisted it to make me look like the villain and him the innocent bystander who got hurt in the process. Had the twist been intentional or just a misunderstanding?

The only thing I lied about to him was what I was doing that Friday afternoon and my intentions behind it as well as the slightly empty promise I had given to him about giving up on my crazy werewolf dreams. But those slights were only a glancing blow compared to what he had given me, distrust and doubt. I hadn’t told him the entire truth, but I had not flat out lied to him either.

Both of us were so sure we were right that only the very bad things had gotten out. Neither of us was right, and neither of us was wrong. But it wasn’t only about right and wrong, it was about trust and honesty as well, two things both of us had exploited until they had become our undoing.

It was more like a truthful deception, I thought. After all, there were times when the truth could be deceiving and when lies can hold a tiny truth. Connor and I just had to figure out how to set it right.

Still mulling the situation over, I failed to realize that the others had stopped and I walked headlong into them.

Stuttering an apology, I stopped when they didn’t even move, except for Bridget who put a finger to her lips. They both crouched low to the ground among the bushes. I looked down on them in confusion, but Cade reached up and seized my wrist to pull me down along side them.

“What are we doing?” I whispered, wrenching my wrist angrily from his grasp. I was still sore at him from before.

“We are near to where I saw them before,” said Cade. I peeked through the brush, expecting to see some type of building. But all I saw was more woods, the same trees, bushes, leaves, and twigs we have been walking through for the last hour or so.

“I don’t see anything,” I said crossly.

“Of course not, they wouldn’t make it that obvious would they?” snapped Bridget.

“What do you mean?”

“They have created the illusion there is nothing here.”

“I thought you said you found their hideout, not more illusions,” I grumbled.

“So I stretched the truth a little, I really found a bunch of them meeting, but they heard me,” said Cade, seeming untroubled he had lied to me.

“So there could be nothing here then?” I said.

“To put it plainly, yes,” said Cade. I opened my mouth to retort angrily that there was no reason for me to come if there wasn’t solid proof, but I stopped. Getting them angry again wouldn’t solve anything.

“So why are we sitting in the dirt?” I asked. But they ignored me and were silent.

“Let’s go.”

Bridget and Cade crept slowly out into the patch we had been observing. This time, it was Bridget who became her other self though she had already become a wolf by the time I had worked my way over to them. She had beautiful, thick black fur and the contrast to her violet eyes made them shine like gems in the dusty sunlight. She cocked her head thoughtfully at me and then gracefully loped a few yards away and put her nose to the ground.

It seemed fruitless work, scouring the ground for signs, though I didn’t know what the clues were supposed to look like. They probably would have found something faster without me anyway, why did they have to drag me along when I could be with Connor?

I looked half-heartedly among moldy leaves and decaying twigs, shoving dead trees and other fungi away with my foot, before leaning any closer. My back and neck ached from bending to scan the ground and even though the sun was weak and broken by the wind, beads of sweat glistened on my neck and forehead.

Defeat hung over me like a cloud and just when I was about to say something, I saw a tiny scrap of white poking up from a pile of foul-smelling leaves I had just disturbed. It looked like the edge of an envelope.

Grabbing a stick, I moved it out of the leaves into a position where I could grab it without actually submerging my hand in the mold. It was an envelope, caked in dirt and smelly mud, but an envelope nonetheless. It was wet and limp in my hands.

I rubbed some of the muck off. Peering closely, I could see it was a blank envelope as well, there was no address. I slit the edges open and opened it up, the paper tearing easily in my hands. Inside was a folded piece of computer paper, soggy, but clean. I took it out and opened it carefully, trying not to rip the fragile seams. Some of the ink had run, but I could still read it. It was an advertisement for the Harvest Fair.

There was a list of all the activities it was hosting this year which included a magic show, a fire-eater, dancers, and an act performed by some of the town’s citizens. I scanned the rest of the paper for anything remotely interesting, but it only gave an email address and phone number for those who were interested in volunteering. Ready to crumple the paper up and pocket it as garbage, I suddenly noticed something strange. My eyes raked over the page once more and found the notice for the town act. It was titled, “Shape-Shifter’s, Like Nothing Anyone Has Ever Seen Before”.

My heart jumped to my throat.

“Cade,” I said.

“What is it?” he asked, his footsteps angling towards me. The paper crackled in my hands as I stood up.

“I think I found something,” I whispered.

Bridget, who was scuffling among some thick bushes, lifted her head at the sound of my voice. Her ears pricked to catch my sentence and then she bounded over, panting heavily in excitement.

“Let me see,” said Cade, trying to remain calm in case it was nothing, but there was a detectable aching excitement in his voice like he wanted so much to have headway instead of blundering around in the dark.

I handed him the advertisement. His eyes quickly took in everything, but nothing registered in his golden eyes. He looked up at me disappointed.

“This is just some silly advertisement for that Harvest Fair you mentioned before at the movie theater,” he complained. I pointed wordlessly to the Shape-Shifter act. He looked at again and realization dawned on his face.

“You don’t think…” he murmured.

“They’re planning it for the Harvest Fair under cover of an act,” I said. Any feeling of “I told you so” was quickly dying as I understood the horror of what Bridget and Cade were going through.

“Of course,” said Bridget. I jumped; I didn’t realize she had come back as a human. She turned to Cade, “Why didn’t I see this before?”

“What matters now it taking them down before they get their chance,” said Cade, crumpling the paper in his massive hand.

“ But we don’t know how many are behind it,” said Bridget, “They could have a back up plan in case their first doesn’t go well, they already know we are on to them, you saw to that.”

“I didn’t have much choice did I?” said Cade crossly, “We need to make plans of our own and we need more help.” He looked meaningfully at Bridget. She narrowed her brilliant eyes.

“No, this is my assignment, remember?” She crossed her arms tightly.

Cade let out his breath angrily. “Can you forget about the stupid assignment! If we fail, everything will be ruined. Our lives won’t exist anymore; we will be hunted until every one of us is found.”

“We have our own home,” pointed out Bridget, pushing past me to shove Cade. “Have you forgotten? Or are you getting comfortable in the human world? You barely come home anymore, getting a soft spot for an easier life maybe?”

“I don’t come home because I am busy protecting her!” he spat, waving his arm wildly at me. “I have been running my paws off trying to protect her after you promised to!”

“Are you sure?” whispered Bridget fiercely, her voice hissing through her teeth, “Or do you like feeling more powerful than the humans, power you can’t feel at home because of my father?”

Cade faltered for a moment, a flash of uncertainty crossing his face. Bridget sneered smugly. She started to turn triumphantly away, but then Cade’s voice followed low and hard.

“Are you sure you even care anymore?” Bridget stopped dead. “You know what I think? I think you’re giving up so Camen will finally kick you out and you’ll be free. But you know what; you can’t live as a rogue. No one will take you in, and you won’t survive out there alone. You’re too delicate,” taunted Cade. He had struck a nerve somewhere. Bridget’s shoulders began to shake and before I knew it she had thrown herself on top of Cade.

They fell in a tangle of arms and legs back to the forest floor. Growls erupted from both fighters and I could see the wolf coming out. Their nails were lengthening and fur was sprouting along their struggling limbs. Horrified, I ran toward them screaming.

“Stop! Stop it! You can’t fight! Not if we are going to win!” I cried desperately.

They ignored me, ears and tail now visible.

“STOP!” I bellowed at the top of my lungs.

Surprised, they fell apart, breathing heavily. Bridget’s lip was bleeding heavily and Cade was sporting a brilliant black eye. Slowly, they returned to normal. Tail, ears, fur, and nails all retreated. After a few tense moments, in which both healed so no remainder of the fight was visible, I walked closer to them and spoke quietly.

“If you start fighting, everything is going to fall apart. Right now we need to work together if we are to finish what we started. If that means adding one or two more to the team, then we do it. I don’t know what exactly the situation is with your family, but right now it doesn’t matter. We are all working towards the same goal are we not? Then we need to start planning our attack and start doing things right instead of wandering around with hazy thoughts and half-plans and half-truths for that matter,” I said firmly, looking from Cade to Bridget. Both glared hard at the other and then they nodded.

“Good,” I said. “Where shall we start?”