Many Waters

  Chapter One

  It was a dark and rainy night in late September when Brandon’s life changed forever.

  Everybody on the bus was singing along with old Garth Brooks tunes as they rode back home from Tyler after the game. It had been a good one; they’d finally crushed the White Oak Roughnecks, their arch-rivals, and Brandon especially was in a good mood. He’d been the one who scored the last touchdown with less than five seconds left on the clock, and the sweet taste of victory was still fresh in his memory.

  “Hey, Bran, we’re fixing to have a party over at Bobby Jones’s place after we get back. Why don’t you come over for a while?” Jason Lewis asked him. They were only a few miles from Ore City by then, and Brandon knew that Cody and Lisa expected him home no later than midnight. It was already almost eleven thirty, and besides that Bran himself was ready for a shower. His thick red hair was sticky with half-dried sweat, and he felt grungy all over. It had been a muddy game.

  “I don’t know about that, Jase. I’m supposed to be home in thirty minutes,” he said. They’d been teammates and casual friends ever since eighth grade, but they’d never been especially close.

  “Aw, come on, don’t be such a goody-goody. Can’t you call and tell them you’re spending the night with me? They’ll never know any different. I think we deserve a party after that game we played tonight. You more than anybody,” Jason urged.

  “Well. . . maybe. Who all’s coming?” Brandon asked, weakening a little. He hated it when people made him feel like one of those narrow, prudish Christians who didn’t know how to have a good time. Yes, he was a church boy and a Promise Keeper and he played in a praise band and all the rest of those things, but it was hard when his friends made him feel like an outsider because of that.

  “There won’t be anybody there except some people from school. C’mon, it’ll be fun,” Jason went on.

  Still Brandon hesitated, torn between the desire to celebrate with his friends and the desire to go home and go to bed. He wouldn’t have thought twice about it even just a year ago, of course. He’d been surly, defiant, and downright impossible back in those days, till Cody and Lisa gradually loved him out of his bad attitude. Then some of the fire had gone out of his bright blue eyes and he hadn’t wanted to be the black sheep anymore. For the past year or so he’d been a good kid, and the last thing in the world he wanted was to ruin that.

  But temptation was strong, and he finally decided he could fudge things a little, just this once. He’d go to the party for an hour or so, maybe socialize and drink a glass of sweet tea or a Dr. Pepper, maybe relive some of the high spots of the game, and then he really would go over to Jason’s house and sleep on the couch. Just a little fun to celebrate the win, with no real harm done to anybody.

  “Sure, why not?” he agreed, pulling out his phone to call Cody.

  “What’s up, Beebo?” Cody asked when he answered the phone.

  “Hey, is it all right if I spend the night at Jason’s place? I think we might get up and go fishing sometime early in the morning,” Brandon fibbed. He told himself it wasn’t technically a lie since he’d only said they might go, and besides which, they might end up deciding to do something like that anyway.

  “Will his parents be there?” Cody asked.

  “Yeah, they’re always at home. So can I go? I’ll be back sometime tomorrow morning,” Brandon said.

  “All right. Just make sure you’re home before noon, though. We’ve got hay to cut,” Cody said. And so indeed they did; Cody was the owner of a thousand-acre cattle ranch named Goliad, and the work of a farm boy was endless, it seemed. Bran loved the place and didn’t really mind all the chores it involved, but he had to admit they sure did cut into his free time now and then.

  “Sure thing,” Brandon agreed, and that was that. Jason had overheard the entire conversation and gave him a quick high-five.

  “So, you ridin’ with me or what?” Jason asked, and Brandon shook his head.

  “No, I think I’ll drive myself. I don’t want to leave my truck at school all night, and besides that I might go see if Lana wants to come,” he said. She hadn’t been with them at the game in White Oak because of a piano recital, but that was all right. The water girl was technically a teammate just like anybody else, so there was no reason why she shouldn’t get to celebrate, too. Besides which, inviting her to the party gave Brandon an excellent excuse to go see her.

  “Oh, all right. You know where Bobby lives, don’t you?” Jason asked.

  “Yeah, I’ve been out that way a time or two,” Brandon said. He’d gone hunting with Cody a few times down in the bottomlands along Cypress Creek, and that was less than a mile from Bobby’s place along the same gravel road. It was good whitetail country down there, full of acorns and wild muscadine grapes and all kinds of other scrumptious deer delicacies like that.

  “Okay. We’ll be out in the barn, far as I know,” Jason said.

  It wasn’t long till the bus pulled in beside the gym, and then there was a short burst of activity while people unloaded equipment or made last-minute phone calls or various and sundry other things. The rain was over by then, but it was still wet and breezy outside, with a crisp hint of fall in the air. Brandon put away his own gear before changing out of his muddy uniform into a pair of shorts and a t-shirt. It was a little bit nippy to be so lightly dressed, but those were the only clean things he could find in his locker. Then he trotted off on foot, leaving his truck at the practice field. Lana’s host family kept her on a pretty tight leash, which meant he couldn’t just drive up to her front door in the middle of the night. He’d have to be sneaky about it if he wanted to see her so late, much less take her out anywhere.

  But that was all right, too. The idea of slipping away together for a few hours without starchy old Mr. and Mrs. Jackson ever knowing about it was kind of fun, actually. Brandon might love Cody and Lisa too much to do anything very bad nowadays, but he still harbored a certain amount of his old rebel attitude.

  The house was only a few blocks away on Catawba Street, and before long Bran was close enough to see that Lana’s bedroom light was still on. Good deal. He crept across the manicured lawn to tap on her window, hoping it wouldn’t startle her. A dark shadow moved against the light, and then Lana herself parted the curtains to peer outside. As soon as she recognized Brandon she opened the window.

  “What are you doing here, Beebo? I was just going to bed,” she whispered, leaning out to give him a quick hug and a kiss. There was no reason to hide anything in the dark, of course, so they didn’t try. Her waist-length brown hair fell down around his face, still damp from a recent shower. Her lips were sweet with strawberry gloss, and she smelled like rose petal shampoo, fresh and clean.

  “I came to see you, obviously,” Brandon said, like it was the most natural and ordinary thing in the world for him to show up at her window at midnight.

  “That’s very sweet, but you know we could both get in trouble if anybody found you here, don’t you?” she asked, glancing back at her bedroom door.

  “So come with me, then. Turn off your light and they’ll think you went to bed already,” he said.

  “Come where?” she asked.

  “We’re having a little get-together at Bobby Jones’s place tonight, to celebrate winning the game,” he said.

  “Oh, did you win?” she asked.

  “Sure we did. Was there ever any doubt?” he asked, puffing himself up just a bit.

  “No, Beebo. None at all,” she agreed, smiling. She had an odd sense of humor sometimes, so it was hard to tell whether she was being serious or not.

  “So how did the concert go?” he asked.

  “It was not bad. I played the Rondeau from Sinfonie des Fanfares and then part of the Blue Danube Waltz. I don’t remember what everybody else played. I was too nervous to pay attention,” she said.

  “Wish I could’ve been there. I’m sure you did a beautiful job, though,
” he said. That much he didn’t doubt; Lana had been taking piano lessons since she was six years old, and she was an accomplished player.

  “Thank you, my krasny malchik,” she said, and he smiled a little. The words were a subtle joke between them, since they could mean either beautiful boy or red boy, depending on exactly how Lana chose to pronounce them. She often liked to say that both meanings fit him perfectly.

  “No problem, milaya. So how about coming to the party with me?” he asked, returning to the subject at hand. Sweetheart was about the extent of his foreign language skills, but Lana didn’t seem to mind.

  “Nobody will say anything, will they? I wouldn’t want the Jacksons to find out,” she said.

  “Of course not. Nobody else wants to get in trouble, either,” he said.

  “Okay, then. Wait just a minute,” she said. She let the curtains fall shut, leaving him to stamp his feet and put his hands under his armpits to stay warm while he waited. When she reappeared at the window she was dressed in a simple pair of jeans and a sweater, nothing fancy at all. She’d tied her long hair back in a ponytail and it looked like she might have put on just a little blush and some fresh lip gloss. He gave her a hand to steady herself while she climbed outside, and then together they slipped away from the house.

  It didn’t take long to get back to Brandon’s old blue Chevy at the practice field. It was nothing much as far as trucks went, with a few dents and patches of rust here and there from hauling hay and such, but it drove like a brand new machine. It had been a gift from Cody on Bran’s sixteenth birthday less than a month ago, and the freedom that came with it was still a fresh and heady thing.

  The Joneses lived on a ramshackle cattle farm about two miles north of town, and the barn itself was so far back in the pasture that it was nearly invisible from the main house. When Brandon and Lana finally arrived there were already at least a dozen cars parked on the grass. Loud country music wafted outdoors from a radio, and several people had lit a bonfire off to one side where it wouldn’t get out of hand. The pungent smell of wood smoke almost completely covered up the lingering odor of mud and rain from earlier in the evening. Two or three human-shaped shadows were gathered round the flames, laughing occasionally.

  Brandon parked the truck and then sat there frowning for a minute. He’d been expecting something a little smaller, from what Jason had said. He had half a mind to turn around and forget about the whole thing, actually; he could always make excuses later and say something had come up at the last minute. But while he was still sitting there thinking about all this, Jason himself came walking by and spotted them.

  “Hey, Bran!” he called cheerfully, waving at them. He was holding hands with a tall and very beautiful dark-haired girl, causing Brandon to wonder briefly who she was and how Jason had ever managed to hook up with such a fine specimen. He’d never been especially popular with the ladies before.

  It would have seemed feeble and cowardly to leave at that point, so Brandon smiled and waved back. Then he and Lana got out to head for the barn.

  “There are more people here than I thought,” she said, as they walked across the wet grass.

  “Well. . . yeah, there are. We can go somewhere else if you want to,” he offered, half hoping she might take him up on the offer.

  “No, that’s all right. Let’s go inside and see what it’s like. We can always leave whenever we like,” she finally said.

  “Okay, then. If it gets too rowdy just let me know,” he said, and she nodded.

  The barn was full of unfamiliar faces when the two of them finally got inside. Some of them were definitely older than high school age, and Bran noticed immediately that several people were drinking. Off to one side was a massive cooler full of brown beer bottles and slushy ice, right next to a table well-stocked with whiskey and two-liter Cokes.

  Brandon eyed the beer with suspicion, wondering all over again whether coming to this party had been such a great idea or not. It wasn’t remotely what Jason had led him to believe it would be, and Bran privately made up his mind to have a few choice words with the boy as soon as they both got back to school on Monday.

  As an afterthought, somebody had put out chips and cold cuts and various other finger foods on the same table next to the whiskey and Coke. At one end was a huge bowl full of red fruit punch, sitting next to a tray of chocolate brownies sprinkled with powdered sugar. Bran took a cautious sip of the punch to make sure it wasn’t alcoholic, and then nodded at Lana.

  “It’s okay. Just fruit punch and ginger ale,” he said. He was still thirsty from the game, so he drank down a full glass and then refilled it while Lana fixed them a plate of food to share. Finally the two of them sat down on a bale of hay in the corner to eat.

  Several couples were out there dancing in the middle of the room, including Jason and his nameless new honey. It seemed to be one of the few feasible ways to socialize very much; the music was almost too loud to hear yourself think, much less talk to anybody.

  “Do you really like this?” Lana asked after a while, sipping on her own glass of punch.

  “Sure, it’s cool. Better than being at home, anyway,” Brandon said, with what he hoped was a charming grin.

  “I guess so,” she agreed, sounding dubious. Bran was dubious himself, to be honest, but since going to the party had been his idea (sort of), he felt compelled to at least pretend to enjoy it for a while. Nevertheless, he’d already made up his mind to leave as soon as they could graciously get away with it.

  So they sat and talked, and ate and drank, and people-watched for about thirty minutes or so. And after a while Brandon really did find that he was enjoying himself a lot more than he thought he would. He felt lightheaded and happy, and the music which had seemed so loud and annoying before now seemed enthralling, like an extension of his own body. He could have sat there and listened to it for hours, days, weeks even, and never lost interest.

  “Let’s dance, Lana,” he suggested, and she nodded. This was on the very fringe of being an unwise thing to be seen doing in public, but at the moment that didn’t seem to matter so much.

  They got up and moved onto the dance floor, and it was awesome. The song on the radio was Everything I Shouldn’t Be Thinking About, which for some reason struck him as hilarious. He could feel the music even better out there, and when he put his arms around her she surprised him by leaning in close against his chest. Her body was warmer than the summer sun in July, and he kissed her on impulse, feeling tingles run all up and down his spine at the touch of her lips.

  That was definitely unwise public behavior, and somewhere in the back of his mind he still had enough sense to realize something was awfully strange about all this. But that small part of him was nowhere near strong enough to change anything.

  He remembered the rest of the evening only in fits and snatches. At one point somebody thrust a guitar into his hands and for a while he ended up playing a strange mix of red dirt country and Ozark bluegrass which only a barn full of drunk people could possibly have enjoyed. Then later on he vaguely remembered drinking a few shots of Coke and whiskey himself along with Jason and his girlfriend, something he would never have done ordinarily.

  He was too fuzzy-headed by that time to think much of it when the dark-haired girl pulled a vial of clear liquid from her pocket and poured some of it into their drinks.

  “What’s that?” he asked.

  “Just cherry flavoring. It’ll make this cheap stuff taste a little better,” the girl said, wrinkling her pretty nose distastefully. For some reason that seemed funny too, so Brandon laughed before downing the shot. The sweet taste of cherries filled his mouth, and before long he’d completely forgotten about the incident.

  It must have been awfully late by the time he fell asleep, because when he finally opened his eyes it was almost noon. He woke up in the hay loft with Lana still asleep beside him under a horse blanket, with a pounding headache and his mouth so dry
it felt like his tongue had turned into a piece of saddle leather.

  He sat up to rub the sleep out of his eyes, and then realized his shirt and shoes were missing. He couldn’t remember taking them off, nor how he ended up in the hay loft, or much of anything else for that matter. Then he glanced uneasily at Lana, wondering what might have happened during the night.

  He knew immediately what people would think, of course, and that alone was enough to make his face turn red. If word got out then he’d never hear the end of it.

  He got up to hunt for his clothes, only to find that they seemed to have vanished into thin air. The shirt didn’t matter so much, but the shoes were a whole different story. The prospect of explaining to Lisa how his best pair of game cleats could have disappeared was enough to make him squirm just thinking about it.

  Eventually he gave up searching and came back to shake Lana’s shoulder. If he didn’t get her home before the Jacksons found out, then he’d soon end up having to explain something much worse than a pair of lost shoes.

  “Hey,” he said awkwardly, as soon as she opened her eyes. Her sweater had disappeared also, leaving her with only a skimpy tank top which couldn’t possibly have been very warm. She sat up, pulling the blanket closer around her shoulders, and then looked at him silently.

  “We have done wrongly,” she said, after the silence had stretched on for a painful length of time. Somehow he didn’t have to wonder what she meant.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, for lack of anything else to say.

  “Do you love me, Bran?” she asked. It wasn’t at all what he expected her to say, but at least he knew the answer.

  “Always,” he said, and that seemed to comfort her.

  “There must have been something bad we ate or drank. I remember nothing,” she said. He could tell she probably had a terrible headache herself, if only from the slipups in her speech. Normally she could have put a dictionary to shame.

  “Me neither. But if there was, I swear I didn’t know it. I even tasted everything first to make sure it was clean,” he said.

  “I know that, Beebo. I am not mad at you,” she said.

  “Okay, I just didn’t want you to blame me, that’s all,” he said, and then came another lengthy pause. Finally Lana let out a long breath, as if she’d been thinking for a while.

  “Perhaps we should simply pretend it never happened, yes? My sponsors would send me home if they knew, and I don’t want that,” she said.

  “But what if somebody else at the party says something?” he asked.

  “Maybe that will not happen. They were mostly strangers to me, anyway,” she said, and he nodded.

  “All right, then. As far as I’m concerned, it never happened,” he agreed.

  “Good,” she said. Then a shadow of pain crossed her face, and she raised both hands to rub her temples.

  “Does your head hurt?” he asked.

  “Yes. Very bad. But I will find medicine at home,” she said.

  “Yeah, me too. But I guess if we don’t want to get caught then we should probably go home now. I’m supposed to cut hay this afternoon, but call me tonight sometime and let me know how things went with the Jacksons, okay?” he asked.

  “Okay,” she agreed.

  The two of them climbed down a wooden ladder into the main part of the barn, which lay silent and empty except for scattered beer bottles and leftover trash from the party. Jason and Bobby and all the others were long gone, it seemed.

  “Feels strange to be so quiet down here,” Brandon said, kicking one of the bottles with his bare foot as they crossed the dirt floor. It was his first feeble attempt at normal conversation, but the words felt stilted and artificial even as he said them.

  “Yes, but at least no one will see us leaving,” Lana said, and then both of them reverted to silence again.

  As soon as they reached the truck Bran rummaged behind the seat till he found a dirty black-and-gold Ore City Rebels t-shirt. It smelled like grease and old sweat, but he pulled it over his head anyway before driving them back downtown. He pulled over less than two blocks from the Jacksons’ house, and then reluctantly turned to face Lana.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow at church, I guess,” he said, and she nodded. They’d both attended the Avinger Cowboy Church ever since arriving in Texas barely a week apart at the beginning of eighth grade, he from Arkansas and she from Saint Petersburg, two friendless strangers far from home. The place had felt like a second family to both of them ever since.

  In fact, they’d first met at the church’s annual Back to School Rodeo that year, when Brandon sat down next to her in the stands purely by chance. He hadn’t been very charming at the time, admittedly, with chili-cheese all over his fingers and mouth from eating a Frito pie while he watched the calf roping competition. But then again, he’d only been thirteen in those days, young enough that girls still didn’t interest him very much.

  Life had been so much simpler back then.

  “Okay, I’ll see you tomorrow then. Love you, Beebo,” Lana said. She didn’t seem to notice his fleeting stroll down memory lane, or whatever one wanted to call it. She simply squeezed his hand briefly and then kissed him on the cheek in the way that some old-fashioned Russians were apt to do when they said goodbye. He’d learned quite a few interesting little tidbits like that from talking to her over the years, and up till then he’d always thought that particular custom was rather sweet. But at the moment, even a kiss on the cheek seemed painfully awkward.

  “Love you too,” he said, laying his fingers on the spot where her lips had touched. He watched her get out and walk away until she turned the corner onto Catawba Street, and then he drove away with a heavy heart.

  He was reluctant to go home himself, irrationally sure that Cody or Lisa could somehow read what he’d done on his face, like the mark of Cain or the Scarlet Letter. Knowing that he’d committed such a major offense left him feeling guilty and remorseful, even if he couldn’t actually remember anything.

  For a while he indulged in beating himself up over how stupid he’d been. He never should have lied to Cody about what he was doing. He never should have asked Lana to sneak out in the middle of the night. They should have left the party immediately when they saw what it was really like. There were a thousand things he could have done differently which wouldn’t have led him to the spot he was in now, and he’d chosen wrongly every time.

  What he kept coming back to was the complete weirdness of it all. He simply wouldn’t have acted like that under normal circumstances, and the whole evening wouldn’t be a blank slate, either.

  Lana’s idea about how there might have been something else in the food or the punch besides alcohol came to mind again, and he gave it some serious thought this time. There were all kinds of drugs which didn’t have any smell or taste; even he knew that much.

  He finally decided there was only one good way to find out for sure, so he turned around in the parking lot at Catfish Village and drove back downtown to the health department. It was open till one o’clock on Saturdays, a fact which he knew from going there with Lisa now and then when she took Micah to get his shots or his well-baby checkups or whatever else he needed. Mikey was nine months old, and even though he loved the kid dearly, Brandon often thought his nephew had to be one of the sickliest little ankle-biters he’d ever met.

  There hadn’t been much to do during those visits other than read pamphlets or stare at posters on the waiting room walls. But still, Brandon had learned a good many things about the Texas Department of Health while he sat there twiddling his thumbs for all those dull and tedious hours.

  Including the fact that they gave drug tests.

  The parking lot was nearly empty when he got there, a good sign since he didn’t have much time. It wouldn’t be long before Cody started to wonder why he wasn’t home yet, and Bran had no intention of stirring up that particular can of worms. The fewer questions anybody asked about where he’d
been or what he’d been doing, the better off he’d be.

  He hurried inside to the receptionist’s window, still barefoot and hoping nobody would notice. Then he tried to explain what he wanted, so nervous that he fumbled with the pen and had trouble signing his name. The only time he’d ever been to the health department on his own account had been to get a tetanus shot after stepping on a rusty nail in the barn last year, but that was nothing compared to this.

  The receptionist herself didn’t ask too many questions, but the nurse in the examination room certainly made up for lost time after she called him back there. He had to explain the whole squalid situation, and by the time she got through grilling him he almost wished he hadn’t come at all. Finally she seemed to be satisfied, and after giving her blood and urine samples he was free to go.

  “All right, hon. Call back Monday after one o’clock and we’ll have the results for you,” she said, patting his shoulder.

  There was no other reason to linger in town, so Brandon went home to slip on his cowboy boots and some fresh clothes before heading out to the pasture. Then he had to suffer through an entire afternoon of cutting hay in the hot sun, praying the whole time that Cody wouldn’t smell any leftover traces of whiskey on his breath. Things were bad enough already without that. Bran had never felt so awful in his entire life. He felt sweaty, achy, and pukey all rolled into one, and by the time they finished cutting the last field, all he could do was crawl up to his room and lie there groaning in the dark.

  One minor bright spot occurred when Lana texted him a little after eleven to say that the Jacksons had still been in bed when she slipped back home that morning. They never noticed a thing. That was a major relief, but he still felt guilty and ashamed of himself. Therefore he took the time to pray earnestly just before he fell asleep.

  Please forgive me, Lord; I didn’t mean for anything to happen, Brandon whispered under his breath. Then he went on to recite a long list of reasons why God should let him off the hook just this once, and ended with a solemn promise to never let it happen again.

  He knew better than this, of course. He understood perfectly well that God isn’t remotely the sort of person to whom one offers deals or excuses. Free gifts offered in love were the only things He cared for, either to give or to receive. The proper thing to do would simply have been to ask forgiveness and then forget about the matter, with no need for any further explanations. But even though Brandon knew all this, it didn’t stop him from trying to justify himself in this one case.

  A lingering sense of guilt dogged him all the way to church the next morning, even though he tried not to let it show. He played the music service just like always, making sure to smile not just for the crowd but also for his band-mates. He was good at things like that when necessary. The only hint of his inner conflict that he ever let slip was when he chose The Prodigal Son’s Prayer for his solo piece. It didn’t fit in very well with the more traditional hymns they were supposed to be playing that morning, but he never offered any explanation for what must have seemed like an odd choice. He noticed Cody looking at him a bit strangely afterward, even though nobody actually said anything.

  He didn’t get a chance to speak to Lana, but he did see her sitting on the third row with the Jacksons and their two natural children, Jamie and Sheila. He waved at her casually with his two left fingers, and Lana smiled and did the same.

  He chewed his nails to the quick for the rest of the weekend, awaiting the verdict from the health department. When Monday afternoon finally rolled around he still had to wait till after school before he could call them back, and those last few hours were almost unbearable. He snatched up his phone the second the last bell rang at three twenty, only to be put on hold for several more minutes while they looked up his information.

  “Mr. Stone?” the nurse asked when she came back on.

  “Yes ma’am, I’m still here,” he said.

  “We got your results back a little while ago. I’m afraid you came back positive for methamphetamines, ecstasy, and marijuana,” the lady said, and in spite of bracing himself for just such an answer, Brandon almost dropped the phone in shock.

  Methamphetamines, he thought to himself. Ecstasy. Weed.

  For almost a whole second he was so stunned he didn’t know what to think, but it was soon replaced by a rage so intense he thought his clothes might spontaneously catch fire. He could feel the hot blood of anger rushing to his face until it literally clouded his vision and he saw red.

  His first thought was how much he’d like to cut Jason Lewis to pieces with a rusty knife and then feed him to the alligators in Cypress Creek bit by bit. But since he couldn’t do that, he satisfied himself with calling the boy every name he could think of and then some. He was too furious even to care that it hadn’t technically been Jason’s party. He didn’t want to be fair, and he didn’t want to be nice. He wanted to think about slow ways to roast his teammate over an open fire.

  The other object of his wrath was whoever had spiked the punch in the first place, but that was unsatisfying since he didn’t have the faintest idea who might have done it. Some idiot who thought it was a way to liven up the party and help everybody have a good time, no doubt. Probably one of Tommy Jones’s brain-dead stoner buddies if Bran had to guess, or maybe even Tommy himself. He was Bobby’s brother, after all, and out of all the folks at the party he was surely the prime suspect. Brandon was sorely tempted to knock a few of the dude’s teeth loose next time they ran into each other.

  Then he took a deep breath and told himself to calm down and get a grip. He didn’t go around starting fights anymore, no matter how richly it might be deserved. He wouldn’t hit Tommy, and he wouldn’t even cuss Jason. The old Bran would have, but he was determined not to fall back into all that again.

  He reminded himself several times not to start thinking there was some nefarious scheme going on behind the scenes. It wasn’t like this had been some huge conspiracy to ruin his life. Nobody had meant him any harm personally. He’d just been stupid, that’s all, and so he shouldn’t be surprised that the consequences had come back to bite him. That wasn’t Jason’s fault or anybody else’s except his own. In hindsight he could see clearly how much of a fool he’d been, but the only thing he could do was to promise himself that he’d try to use a little more common sense in the future.

  On the bright side, it seemed like they might get by with keeping the whole sordid mess under wraps. Nobody ever mentioned it at school, and Cody and Lisa never asked him any more questions about his imaginary sleepover with Jason.

  But the lie that nothing had ever happened was simply that, a warm and comforting lie. The truth lived on beneath the surface, out of sight and out of mind for a little while, perhaps, but never quite forgotten. And no matter how desperately the two of them might wish for that lie to be true, they were soon to find that both God and the Devil had other plans.

  Bran the Blessed

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  The Last Werewolf Hunter Series

  Zach Trewick always thought he’d become a writer someday, or maybe play baseball for the Texas Rangers. What he never imagined in his craziest dreams was that he’d find himself dodging bullets and crashing cars off mountainsides, let alone that he’d ever be expected to break the ancient werewolf curse which hangs over his family. But Zach is the last of the werewolf hunters, the long-foretold Curse-Breaker who can wipe out the wolves forever, and he’s not the type to give up just because of a few minor setbacks. . .

  Cry for the Moon: What would you do, if your family wanted you to become a monster? What if they wouldn’t take no for an answer? When 12 year old Zach faces questions like these, he seems to have only one choice; run. Thus begins a long search for refuge, and perhaps redemption also.

  Behind Blue Eyes: When a stranger kidnaps him from his own back yard, Zach soon finds that the past isn’t quite as dead as he might wish. For the time has come at last for Zach and his cousin Cameron to break the wolf curse forever; and his family has no intention of letting that happen.

  More Golden Than Day: When his girlfriend Jolie and then Cameron fall into the hands of the wolves, Zach has no choice but to take on his enemies for a second round. Only this time the stakes are horribly high, and if he fails he may end up losing everything he’s ever loved.

  Truesilver: When a family of wicked ex-wolves is accidentally awakened, Zach soon finds himself locked in a desperate fight for survival that he never anticipated. And even though he’s sworn an oath to fight evil to the utmost of his power, there are times when courage is awfully hard to come by.