The Tempering (The Mackenzie Duncan Series) (6 page)

Climbing the stairs one-by-one, running her hand along the polished wooden handrail up the thirty-two stairs to Jordan’s floor, her heart filled with dread. She was going to lie to the one person who took the time to get to know her. She was going to say goodbye, and most likely never see her again. She didn’t like the idea, but kept reminding herself that it was for the best. If she stayed, she could hurt someone.

When she finally stood before Jordan’s door, her hands began to shake and her stomach rolled, sending a wave of nausea through her. She could do this. She would do this. She had no choice. How was she being so rational yet so emotional? How could she concentrate on so many different things at once? Thoughts of leaving, packing, saying goodbye and all the emotional shit that went with it. Not to mention, turning into a giant wolf that, if the morning taught her anything, had a craving for blood and violence. Every bit of it was running through her head since she had got up that morning.

Mackenzie took a deep breath, raised her hand, and knocked on the door in front of her. When neither Jordan nor her roommate answered, she felt relieved. She wouldn’t have to say goodbye face-to-face. She wouldn’t have to try and explain what she didn’t understand herself.

Quickly pulling out a notebook from her bag, she used the door as a hard surface and wrote a letter to Jordan. She could say everything she needed to, without having to answer any questions. The only thing she could think to tell her was exactly what her mother told her from the beginning. She couldn’t handle the high expectations of Harvard. She wasn’t ready to be completely submerged into an adult world. Mackenzie apologized for leaving on such short notice, that she was leaving her key with the letter and to feel free to go and take whatever she wanted, and then to please leave the key on the dresser when she left. The school would take care of the rest. They owned the apartment anyway.

Folding the letter into thirds, she slipped her key in, and then folded the ends up, creating a pseudo-envelope before slipping it under the door. One goodbye down, one to go.

~*~

After an hour in line at the registrar’s office, the woman at the desk finally called Mackenzie forward.

“What can I do for you?” The woman had dark brown hair with a few strands of grey starting to poke through and very ornate glasses resting on her nose. She smiled at Mackenzie while she stood there, staring ahead, not saying anything. “Miss? Are you all right?”

“As much as I can be. I need to drop out.” Mackenzie’s voice was just barely above a whisper. She never in a million years thought she would say those words. But there she was, quitting. She was a quitter. She was running away. Just like her father.

“Of what class?”

“All of them.”

“Are you sure? You don’t seem so sure. Let me get a counselor for you. I am sure we can help you with whatever academic problems you’re having.” She stood and began to walk away, but Mackenzie couldn’t talk to a counselor.

“NO!” She banged her hands against the counter in front of her, startling the poor woman. Quickly softening her voice and removing her hands, she added, “I’m sorry, but no. It isn’t academic. It’s personal. I wish I could stay but I can’t. Can you please just pull me from the school? And is there any way to get a partial refund of the money I paid out of pocket for tuition?”

“All right, let me just pull your information up. What is your name?” She sat back down in a huff, no longer being overly polite. Mackenzie didn’t blame her after the way she had exploded.

“Mackenzie Duncan.” The woman began typing away and within a few minutes the printer began making noises. Reaching behind her, the woman grabbed a small stack of papers and a pen and placed them in front of Mackenzie.

“Sign here, here and here.” She pointed to all the places marked with an X. Reading the document was nearly gibberish. A lot of legal stuff that she had no clue what it meant until she saw the word voluntary. She was leaving the most prestigious school in the country voluntarily. If only she felt like she had a choice. Mackenzie signed each and pushed the papers back to the woman.

“Thank you, about my tuition?”

“Take your copy of these and go see Financial Aid. They should be able to tell you if you are early enough in the semester for a partial refund.” Mackenzie smiled at the woman and began to walk away, when she heard, “Whatever personal issues you have going on, please remember you can always reapply. A college education is important and throwing away a chance at Harvard may just haunt you for a long time to come.” She was being haunted all right, but leaving Harvard was the least of her worries.

The financial aid office was a bust as she had missed the deadline for any sort of refund by three days. She would just have to make do with what money she had on hand and figure out the rest of her life before the next full moon.

Chapter 7

Day after day, the sun rose and set, and the moon high in the sky sent shivers through Mackenzie. Her sleep was no longer sound, as she would wake up crying and sweating, from the nightmares that plagued her. Every night was the same thing. She was running around the woods, looking for campers, and killing them with her bare teeth, ripping them apart as if they were made of paper. When she would go to the water to take a drink, her reflection would not be that of a wolf, like she knew she was, but of herself, enforcing her fear that she was the monster.

Mackenzie had taken a few buses east, not caring where they were stopping. Mostly, she walked. She refused to be in a small, enclosed area with anyone, just in case, every myth was wrong. Maybe wolves could turn more often than on a full moon. Maybe they would do something to make her angry and she would “wolf out” as she started calling it.

Any time she happened to pass by a library, she would go in hoping they might have stocked different books than the last. It was a shame that the only books that featured Lycanthropy were considered fiction. Even so, she combed through them. Any piece of information to help her cope, help her learn what she was, and help her learn what that really meant.

Without any idea of what town she had wandered into, Mackenzie slipped into a little bagel shop for breakfast. She had been walking since eight that morning and she was starving. Standing in line, she couldn’t help the shiver that ran along her skin. Someone was watching her. Glancing around the shop casually, she hoped to spot whoever it was.

When no one seemed to be paying any sort of real attention to her, Mackenzie turned back to face the short line ahead of her. Her stomach growled loudly just as she stepped up to the register.

Since the change, Mackenzie seemed to be constantly hungry. She would eat three times the amount she used to and it was doing very little to help her dwindling cash reserve. Ordering three bagels, all with cream cheese and lox, she paid and thanked the woman. Mackenzie picked up her breakfast, finding an empty table in the back of the shop. If no one could sit behind her, she would be able to see if anyone was really watching her.

Whatever that park ranger did, didn’t actually affect her at all. At least that was working in her favor. She supposed she should be grateful for the fact that she hadn’t seen anything to say that she was in trouble. If she had hurt anyone that night, they would be searching for the girl spotted leaving the scene of the crime with blood covering her bag. She had no run-ins with police or anyone searching for her as she thought she might after leaving Harvard.

Mackenzie pulled her notebook from her backpack and opened to the page she had created as a calendar. Three days. She had three days before she would turn again. Suddenly, her appetite disappeared.

Dumping the last bagel into the trash, she walked back up to the counter, which thankfully, no longer had a line.

“Excuse me; I was wondering if you knew of any forests or woods around here? I have a project I need some stuff for.” Mackenzie knew it was a lame lie, but throwing something out there was better than them asking and her losing her cool. Again.

“Yeah, two towns over. Granby. They have a huge state park.”

“Thank you.” Mackenzie walked out of the shop with at least a plan for the next few days. She still wasn’t sure about anything beyond that, but she would worry about that if she managed to survive wolfing out again.

~*~

There was no public transportation available so Mackenzie had to walk. There was one good thing about her newfound healing powers, her feet never hurt or got blisters from being on them for too long. However, she would have to invest in some new clothes soon since hers were becoming looser every day. Between all the walking and an apparently incredibly fast metabolism, she was dropping the extra weight she had always carried. She was still far from looking like a fashion model, but being at a healthy weight was definitely in the near future.

With every step, Mackenzie glanced at her surroundings. The paranoia had yet to dissipate. Every person she passed, she inspected and to her utter horror, her instincts kicked in and she would take in a giant whiff to smell them, hoping to gain a better sense of who they were. When she tried to fight the urge, her entire body was on edge.

After five hours of walking, Granby came into view. It was a small town with a lot of little Mom and Pop stores lining the main streets. The houses all had yards and it felt as if by simply walking into this town, Mackenzie transported back in time fifty years. Trees were everywhere, a mix of bare branches, and orange and red hues lined many of the streets. If Mackenzie had been there for any other reason, she might have even reveled in the idyllic quality. Unfortunately, she had things to accomplish. There was time for admiration of the town’s beauty later.

First thing, she needed to find a place to stay for the next two nights. She knew very well that she wouldn’t be staying anywhere near the town, or the people in it, on the third night. That night was reserved for the beast. She would check into some kind of motel, and then find the state park the bagel girl had mentioned. She needed to learn those woods as best as she could in the next two days to be able to go deep enough to protect anyone from her path.

The further into town Mackenzie got, the more she could see the outline of the trees of the park on the horizon. If she had any chance of even checking them out that night, she needed to get going—and soon.

A bed and breakfast sign swung from a large, white farmhouse with a wraparound porch and a beautiful bay window. The yard was extremely large, but the best part was the land looked to go on for miles, right up to the edge of the state park.

Sighing in relief at yet something else to add to her list of things going in her favor, she knew she had found where she would be staying. Mackenzie climbed the steps to the porch. What looked to be immaculate from the street, actually had signs of wear and tear that only a house loved by its owners can acquire. The house featured paint patches from touch-ups, different colored nails in the floorboards, and a homemade swing hanging from the ceiling that needed a new set of chains and a fresh coat of paint. She smiled, wishing she had grown up in a place that she could call home for more than a year or two at a time. This house had obviously been lived in for many years. At least, she chose to believe that and didn’t really care if it were true or not.

Mackenzie pushed open the door and a little bell jingled overhead. A few children ran through the room chasing after a cat. The brown blur darted under a table that sat low to the ground and when the children kneeled to try and coax him out, a hiss resonated through the room. Or maybe it was just Mackenzie who heard it since no one seemed to pay any attention to the children still desperately trying to reach the cat.

As if she knew what the cat was thinking, Mackenzie rushed forward and touched the children on the shoulder, gaining their attention. They pulled their little hands out from under the table just as the cat’s paw, its sharp claws extended, swiped forward, missing the children by mere centimeters.

“Hey, I think the kitty might want some time alone.”

“But we want to play with him! Mommy said it was okay.”

“I am sure it was, but I think the kitty might be a little tired of playing now. I see a checkerboard over there. Maybe that could be fun.” Mackenzie pointed to the bay window that overlooked the front yard. It had a bench built into the wall just under the pane of glass with a little table right in front of it. The table had been painted to be a permanent game board for both the checker pieces and the chess pieces that sat in a box on the floor.

“Oh! Good idea!” The children ran off, the cat completely forgotten. Getting down on her hands and knees, Mackenzie peered under the table. Her new amplified eyesight could see more clearly in the dark than she thought was possible, making the outline of the cat as detailed as the individual pieces of fur. The cat spotted Mackenzie and backed up, pressing itself along the wall with its fur standing on end.

“Hey, pretty kitty, the kids are gone, you can come out now.” Mackenzie made some kitty calling noises that never actually do any good but everyone does anyway. The cat only responded with a powerful hiss that sent shivers down Mackenzie’s spine. “Okay, fine. See if I ever save you again.”

Huffing at the cat’s attitude, she wandered over to the front desk. She hoped that they had a room available and that it wouldn’t drain the last of her cash. The door behind her jingled, and all at once, her senses went into overload. She could smell something, something that made her feel like she was home, that made her feel safe. Her entire body relaxed and she had no idea what had made the change.

When Mackenzie looked over her shoulder, she saw a woman that exuded power, but more than that, the woman looked at her two younger companions with a motherly love. Her own mother often had that look. While she may be critical and they may not actually get along very well, the love was there. That, she never doubted for a second.