"Now," he went on, somehow managing to make that a two-syllable word, "you're not the first woman who can't understand men. And," I knew as he made that conjunctive monosyllable into a polysyllable, that he was going to drive me crazy with this diction. He grasped his lapels as if the gesture affirmed his right to analyze me, and finished. "Because of your lack thereof, you default to anger for your responses."

I said, "If you think starting off with 'You're going to rot in Hell, little girl' is getting things off on the right foot and isn't something that would make anyone 'default to anger, then I think it's you who needs the lesson on understanding people, Sam. An insult and a veiled threat is always wrong."

"I'm a preacher, Ms. Alcmedi. Telling people the status of their soul is my job."

"Not anymore."

He glared at me.

Maybe I should drop the phone in the grove and run like hell, to break the binding. Let the Eldrenne know. Let her make me do another. It couldn't be as torturous as this. "Why aren't you and your soul in heaven, Sam? Why are you here in this phone, if your soul was so sanctified?"

Samson laughed. "Already figured that out, girly. The afterlife is different if you're murdered. And pondering the how-and-why of my being here doesn't change that I am here and you're stuck with me." Glowering, he continued in a prissy tone, "I can't go anywhere. Where you go, I have to follow. We're in this together."

He was right. Damn it.

"Good-bye, Sam." I shut the phone and shoved it into the back pocket of my jeans. Nana wasn't going to be able to keep quiet much longer. I started counting in my head. I got to four.

"Persephone, Johnny stopped in yesterday morning," Nana reached across the table and wrapped her warm old hand around my wrist.

Having anticipated she'd go on about the phone, I wasn't ready for the shot of regret her words left ricocheting around my heart. I stared at her hand, the skin like parchment, and wondered what, if anything, Johnny had told her.

She squeezed my wrist. "He took his things with him."

Some secret part of me had hoped there was some logic in Johnny's actions, something I didn't understand. Just then, that part of me shattered. And I realized that I wouldn't have been more stunned by Nana's words if she'd pulled out a gun and declared herself Jesse James.

"Persephone?"

"Good," I said.

With her other hand, she put the cigarette in the ashtray, then reached into her pocket. She pulled out an envelope and pushed it across the table toward me. "He said to give you this."

I stared at the rectangle of white. My heart wouldn't beat; it felt like a cold rock in my ribcage.

Ripping open the envelope, I removed the paper. It read:

Lustrata you are… and yet not.

You've come so far!

You are what I've sought.

Lustrata you see and are blind.

Your answer won't be inside your mind.

It's inside your heart.

It's in knowing yourself.

It's inside your heart.

Recognizing yourself.

Seein' it.

Believin' it.

You create your bound'ries. Will they be lines?

Lines you won't color outside of? Do you have a spine?

Lines you can step across? Can you not redefine?

You create your bound'ries. Will they be walls?

Walls to keep you safe within? Locked inside lonely halls?

Walls that must be scaled to escape? Don't fall. Don't fall.

Lustrata, you choose the limit.

The scope of your truths and your mental intent.

Disclaim it or acclaim it!

Blame me or reclaim me!

But know yourself… see yourself.

Know yourself… trust yourself.

It's inside your heart.

It's in knowing yourself.

It's inside your heart.

Recognizing your Hell.

Seein' it.

Releasin' it.

Seein' it

… and letting it go, letting go.

There were little marks, chords and notations, to the right of the page. It was a song. It was how he expressed himself best. Musicians.

Eyes burning, I folded the paper and replaced it in the envelope.

Nana was watching me intently. "You okay?"

No. Nope. Not at all.

I felt the hurt churning, turning. My heart burned and began to beat again. Angrily. Those shattered pieces, those fragmented shards melted and ran together, congealing and hardening like one big scab over a wound I'd never admit having. This song indicated I needed to rethink my perceived self. How I saw things? My boundaries were fine; his needed to be reexamined.

So what if he's supposed to teach me about fighting. I'd find someone else.

I was not about to cry over him leaving. After what he did, why would I even want him around? He better have gotten his shit and left. He saved me the trouble of throwing it out by the road.

"Persephone?"

"Yeah. I'm fine."

"You sure?"

I faced Nana squarely. "Yes."

"What happened, Persephone?"

"I don't want to talk to you about it." I kept my tone even and polite.

"Fine. I'll do the talking," she said cheerily. "Earlier, you said the only thing you can't do is keep a boyfriend. You knew he was gone, or was planning to go, before I gave you that letter. You're thinking about him, and whatever was in that letter. Am I right?"

I frowned at her. "He went wrong. It's not fixable."

She opened her cigarette case and lit another. "I need you to tell me what happened."

"I already know what went wrong, so we don't need to analyze it."

She took a long draw on the cigarette. "And?"

"And it's done."

"What's done?" Beverley asked, coming to the doorway.

I stammered. Nana said, "Her column. What do you need, honey?"

"I want to take Ares outside."

"Stay in the back," Nana said.

I watched Beverley head for the garage door, Ares following closely. "Still wearing your necklace?" I asked.

"Yup. I love it."

As soon as the door shut, Nana said tersely, "So long as you're thinking about him, it isn't done."

"He left, Nana. Whether or not I think about him, whether I'm glad he saved me the trouble of hauling his shit to the road, or whether I regret it, it's done." I left the table and carried my mug to the sink. I rinsed it out, wishing I could wash him from my mind and heart by turning on the tap. I smirked; I could try crying him out. But I hated crying.

"He's a wolf, Persephone."

I turned to her. "Duh."

"So stop thinking of him like a man. He isn't just a man. Even when he's not furry. He's still part wolf." She half-rose in her seat, checking on Beverley through the window. "And not just any wolf," she added.

I crossed my arms over my chest and leaned against the counter. "What does that mean?" I hadn't told her about the at-will partial change. Wait—the morning after we changed Theo, he and the other wolves had a discussion that made him uncomfortable. Had Nana overheard? "You mean his maintaining his human sensibilities while in wolf-form?"

Nana got up and shuffled over to open the refrigerator, and started rambling around. "You know so much about waeres. They tell you much and you're perceptive, you see a lot. But it's just the surface of things. The surface that the world, such as it is, can accept. They still haven't let you in. Not with your column."

"What about my column?"

"You're helping them. With things as they are." She set ground beef and vegetables on the counter.

My column created sympathy and humanized waeres despite much of society wanting to make them monsters. "Are you saying the waeres are using me?"

She pulled a deep pot from the low cupboard and a frying pan from the stove drawer. "No more than you use them to make your living."