Page 50 of A Wolfe in the Woods

May tilted her head, the corners of her mouth softening. “She’s gone, hon.”

Gone.

I stood there, waiting for the rest. Knowing I wouldn’t like it.

“Where?”

“Packed up this afternoon,” May said. “Said she had to leave. Somethin’ came up in Graymore.” She leaned against the counter and shot a narrowed eyed look in my direction. “Didn’t sound happy about it, if that’s what you’re askin’.”

Shifting my weight, I asked, “She say anything else?”

May shook her head slowly. “No.”

I exhaled, then looked away.

I thought about leaving it there, letting her go back to her city and her life. Maybe that was better. Cleaner.

Would she even want to talk to me after what I’d said? It wasn’t like weactuallyknew each other. Our only thing in common was…June. Someone who I had a tremendous amount of respect for…and now I’d gone and dragged her memory through the dirt too.

May suddenly gestured toward the corner of the room. “Sit, Jon-boy.”

Not the kitchen table, but the oversized leather chair near the fireplace. The old thing creaked like a memory when I sank into it, the cushions worn in so many places. It had belonged to myfather. Foley’s chair. He used to read there on winter mornings or fall asleep with a book still open on his chest.

I hadn’t sat in it in years.

The fire cracked softly in the hearth. Warm and familiar. It was the kind of quiet that let my thoughts come out of hiding.

May went back into the kitchen, disappearing from view. “I’m makin’ something to drink,” she called out. Her tone was amused when she said, “Witch’s brew. Good for setting bones straight when the spirit’s crooked.”

I didn’t answer. Just sat there, sinking deeper into the warmth. Letting it hold me as I listened to jars opening and liquid pouring. The scent of dried herbs drifted into the air, strong and bitter, earthy and spiced.

When she appeared again, she was carrying two mugs and said, “And for you, something…sweet.”

There was a familiar tin tucked under her arm. I took the mugs from her when she paused next to me, setting them down carefully. When she opened the tin, a sweet, deep aroma hit the room—cocoa, blackmint, and something fruity. Familiar in my memory. Summer sweet. Moonshade berries, maybe.

“Ya loved cocoa as a pup,” she said simply. “Wonder if it still might work.”

“I’m not a pup,” I answered.

“Don’t need to be for it to hold magic.”

I’d come back home for one reason—but made it two.

I’d needed to pick up the pieces left behind by my father. Juniper Hollow. The land. The cabins. The debt, physical and spiritual. And also step away from the life I’d built in Graymore. A clean slate.

I wasn’t running from who I was.

My time in Graymore had simply run its course.

Coming back to Juniper Woods, coming home…it was a chance to close the lid on something I’d left open for too long.Unfinished business. A part of me I’d never fully understood. That meant no more Graymore, not in any form, its lifestyle or its people.

And certainly no one new.

But Blanche wasn’t really new, was she?

She was more than that. She was familiar in a way I couldn’t explain. There had always been a faint trace of her in the wind, like the scent of something I knew but could never quite name.

She was June’s granddaughter. Her legacy.