Chapter Three:

A Beast Of Bone and Greed.

Ontario: Canada.

19th Century.

No One's P.O.V

Zhauwuno-geezhigo-gaubow, known to the settlers as Jack Fiddler, for they so did love stealing and allotting names as if they possessed the singular right to everything they laid eyes upon, was born in the boreal forests of the upper Severn River sometime between 1830-1840. Despite The Fact That he was born and raised in the Sucker clan, his father, Peemeecheekag, was not. An enigmatic figure from a far eastern tribe, that is all anybody knew, Jack's father was ultimately adopted into the clan before his son's birth, and swiftly rose to be a respected political and spiritual leader.

Jack would very much become his father's echo.

The Suckers were not the only tribe in the area during that turbulent time. Their brothers from the Pelican and Sturgeon clans roamed the very same forests as they, and all had good ties with the Cranes clan too. Speaking a unique form of Oji-cree dialect from the Anishinaabe language, the clans had contact with the Ojibwe at Lake Winnipeg and the Oji-Cree tribes further north.

Together, they survived where many of their brethren did not.

However, the worst was yet to come.

Starvation.

Now Jack Fiddler, the son of a mysterious traveler, grew up during a period of great difficulty. Over trapping of the fur trade in previous years left the great forests of his northern Ontario home depleted of food and pelt alike. With declining numbers, lower demand, and more opportunities coming from the west, Hudson's Bay Company abandoned their post at Island Lake, forcing the Suckers who regularly exchanged with HBC to travel to Big Trout Lake for trade.

Jack Fiddler was one such trader, bringing furs to York Factory.

As the animals faded and the forests grew silent, as the trade swept away with the strange boats down the river to fertile lands, as widespread, horrendous famine seeped in, his people were pushed to the terrible actions of the truly desperate. The second winter in from the beginning hunger pains and flour shortages was the first time Jack Fiddler saw his worst nightmare in the face of a young woman; his cousin, Neebin.

A beast of bone and greed.

What had once been a pretty woman was nothing but a gaunt mimicry of emaciation by mid-winter that year, desiccated skin pulled taunt over rattling bones. There was no colour to it, no warmth, just a sleek grey peel of decay, protruding ribs, jutting keen antlers, and the never ending hunger.

They trapped it, and it was an it, Neebin had died long before her body stopped moving, in her old lodge. It snapped at Jack viciously as he edged in close, dagger in hand, blessed by their ancestral spirits. He remembered that noise till his dying day, a tat, tat, tattering of chipped teeth, mouth ragged and bloody as it snapped and snarled at him, desperate for just one last meal.

It wasn't Neebin any longer, Jack kept telling himself. Neebin, sweet, sweet Neebin had died many moons ago when this spirit had first latched onto her. When she sank to her own greed and invited the thing into her heart. When she consumed her own dead infant son in despair.

That's what a Wendigo was.

Starvation and gluttony and sickness in human form.

That was the first time Jack Fiddler saw a Wendigo, and it was also the first time he killed one.

It wasn't the last.

La Push: Washington:

21st Century

Sam Uley's P.O.V

"This is all I have."

Sam, with the scolding burn of morning coffee sloshing down his throat, glanced behind him at the soft voice. At his back, caught in the front door of his home, gazing down at him resting on the end steps of the porch with his mug of morning coffee, stood Harriet Uley.

She was freshly showered after her morning jog, he could see. Her hair, though woven tightly down her back in a long, thick braid, was still glistening in the low morning light, damp. She was dressed neatly that morning, wearing a pair of un-ripped jeans, an over-sized but soft looking knitted sweater, and her boots, Sam noticed, had even gone through a polish.

Perfect get up to be quizzed by the Council Elders.

Nevertheless, it was hardly her hair, or her clothes, that truly caught Sam's attention. It was the small, battered and dented shoe-box clasped between her hands which did. Sluggishly, she made her way towards him, rattling her small box.

"I know it's not much, but this is all Joshua left behind, and it's all I have of him."

Slipping into the space next to him, Harry held out the shoe box for Sam to take. Gingerly, he did. It was small in his over-sized grip. Too slight. If he tensed, he could crush the whole lot of it, and there wasn't much.

Harry grinned, nodding down at the box, and with the silent nudging, Sam slid the lid off. When Harry said she didn't have much, Sam came to discover she really meant not much at all. Anew, something deep in his chest constricted. This… This was all his sister had of her family. For years, sixteen to be precise, this shoe-box of shattered memories was all she had to know half her blood.

Had, he reminded himself doggedly.

Sam was here now, and he was damn well sure that wasn't going to change for a long, long time.

Tilting the box, Sam watched the little memento's inside roll about their cardboard cage, delicately fingering through the modest keepsake nest. There were a few letters addressed to a woman called Lily, open and lovingly read by the creased corners of paper. Sam guessed that was Harry's mother. There was an old beer cap, Blue Moon barely decipherable on its face, Joshua's favourite drink. A dented and worn zippo lighter, the one Sam, belatedly, remembered Joshua using to light the candles when the electric went out in a power cut. There were two photos, a heavily pregnant redhead next to a smiling Joshua, arm proudly wrapped around her swollen waist, and the other of a baby with her mother's eyes and her father's face, lovingly held by a beaming Joshua grinning from ear to ear at the camera. The last was a string of beads, the type Joshua used to use to tie his own braids off.

When Sam glanced back up, Harry was staring down at the little box that contained a life she did not know, a little box of memories Sam did not know he had of his father.

"I looked for him, you know?"

She muttered as she finally met his eye.

"Every now and again I looked, when I wondered why…"

Why he left me before he even knew me. Of course, she did not say this, she didn't really have to, they both knew it, Joshua had dipped out her life before she could even speak. Instead, she shook her head, collecting her thoughts carefully.

"I looked. I looked hard, Sam. I found nothing each time. It's like he's been erased. Like he doesn't exist outside that little shoe-box."

Sam lightly laid the box down near his hip on the wooden slats of the patio, only to reach out and place that same hand on her shoulder. His mouth was halfway open, comforting words ready, and nothing came forward as skin made contact.

He frowned down at his hand.

Harriet Uley felt perfectly normal underneath his palm, and that wasn't right, was it? Not for Sam Uley, shifter and Alpha of the Quileute pack. People, including Emily, were typically cold to him. Not as cold as a frigid leech, Taha Aki forbid, but chill, like autumn breeze. Yet, here Harry was, feeling normal. Which meant she was hot.

Very hot.

Deliriously hot.

Shifter hot.

Was she going to-

No. Women didn't shift. Not once in the Quileute's long, long history, and with those Cullens newly gone, Sam thankful for small mercy's though it was too late for himself and a few of his brother's in arms, leaving behind that girl, Bella Swan, that Sam had to rescue from the fucking woods three weeks ago, there shouldn't be anymore Shifters.

It was likely a trick of her thick knitted sweater, bouncing back his own scalding heat.

Patting her shoulder reassuringly, Sam brushed it all off.

"He lives in us. In me, you and Embry. His blood is our blood. Even if we never find him, we have that much. We have each other. You look a lot like him. More than me and Embry. We both look like our mothers."

Harry did look like Joshua; Sam would readily admit. Most who saw her, who had known Joshua, would too. A blind man could point out her father, his face only softened by the shades of femininity on Harry. She looked so much like him, those same arching brows and sloping nose, that devil-may-care grin and feline features and-

She looked so much like Joshua, it almost hurt Sam to look at her. Apart from her eyes. Sam guessed, from his quick glimpse at those photos in the shoe-box, those uncannily bright eyes were all her mother.

Sam's hand slipped from her shoulder after giving one last soft squeeze. Harriet turned to face the sprawling woods ahead of them.

"What do we do if we find him? I have so many questions and… Where do we start?"

Sam shrugged. What do you ask the man who birthed you and then ran, for Harriet? The man who came back, and left just as fast, for Sam? The man who never recognized you, not once, for Embry? The man who was… Gone? Always gone.

"I'd ask him if he ever thought of my mother and me."

Just once, did Joshua ever think of the kids and women he left behind? That's what Sam wanted to know. As Alpha-

As a man, he could never imagine having a child, a son or daughter and… And leaving. No note, no explanation, not so much as a kiss goodbye in the night. To leave Emily here, alone, wondering what happened to him, without help raising their child, a child who would never know why their father left and…

Sam thought he would rather die.

A new voice picked up from the front door behind the pair.

"I'd ask him if he ever planned for me, or if I was some sort of accident he couldn't bare looking at."

Harriet and Sam glanced back. Embry had taken up Harriet's vacated space, dressed and ready for the day, having crashed on their couch last night and popping home this morning for a clean set of clothes. Holding two mugs of steaming coffee, he made his way over, offering one mug out to Harriet. She took it, grinning her thanks in the silence around them. With a thud, Embry joined her side, the siblings sat together, facing the rising sun.

Harriet took a sip of coffee before she sighed.

"I think I'd ask him if he had ever been happy. Just once."

Sam cocked a brow at her, and now it was her turn to shrug.

"I mean, he started three separate families. Packed up and started all over again each time. That doesn't sound like the actions of a happy man. Like he was going around starting little fires, you know? Waiting for one to catch."

Waiting for one to catch… That sounded about right. The man who went around starting fires. His father. Their father. Only, they weren't little fires. They were children, children who grew up, who, at one point or another, needed a father, a father who wasn't there. That was, Sam thought, only something Joshua himself could answer for. Putting his empty mug down, Sam heaved himself up.

"Either way, if we find him or don't, we don't need him. We have each other."

Embry and Harriet grinned at him, but, suddenly, Harriet's eyes widened.

"Oh, and this!"

Sam frowned and watched as she-

Well, she promptly yanked at the collar of her jumper and hastily crammed a hand down her chest, rooting around, before, from the depths of her shirt underneath, she yanked free a corded leather chain. With a dip of her head and a slip of her hand, the necklace came free, the pendant of it clasped between her fingers.

A pendant that wasn't really a pendant.

"I always forget I have this because I wear it all the time. Joshua left this to Sirius Black, my Godfather, to give to me when I was old enough. Sirius gave it to me before he-… I have no idea what it is, I thought it might be the old ignition key to the Triumph, made useless when Sirius gutted the bike and swapped out its engine. Joshua left Sirius the bike, but Sirius gave it to me and-… And I'm getting off track. Joshua left me this key, and was pretty adamant about it being passed onto me, Sirius said once. Something about a woman called Wendy?"

Embry scoffed.

"Wendy?"

Harriet glanced his way.

"No idea. Apparently, from what Sirius said, and he didn't remember much of the conversation, him and Joshua were out one night before my birth, getting sloshed-… Drunk. At the end of the night and at the bottom of a few bottles of whiskey, Joshua demanded Sirius take the key. Give it to Harriet in case someone called Wendy comes along, he said. But that was all Sirius remembered. Three weeks later, I was born, and Joshua left. Do you know her? This Wendy?"

Sam and Embry shook their head. Harriet's shoulders sagged.

"Maybe Wendy was what he called the Triumph, and he was telling your Godfather to pass it along to you when you were old enough."

At Embry's suggestion, Harriet concurred.

"That's what I thought too."

A possibility, surely, but something wasn't adding up for Sam. Harriet chucked the key his way, which he snagged out the air. The key was old, worn sleek in places, with a little dangling tag beside it, likely a key chain, a bear etched onto the wooden circular disk above the carved number nine.

Immediately, Sam recognized the logo. He drove past it nearly everyday on the way to check in with the Elders down at the community centre.

Flipping it over, holding out the key chain, ignoring the key momentarily, Sam flashed it at Embry.

"Look familiar?"

Now that he had a good luck at the key chain, Embry's face became thunderstruck.

"that ain't no ignition key."

At Harriet's questioning glance his way, Sam clarified.

"It's a storage locker key, for the garages down at Bear depository on the outskirts of La Push."

Harriet whistled lowly, slow.

"Do you think the storage locker's still open?"

Sam cringed as he handed her the necklace back.

"If the fees have been paid, it should be. But Joshua must have set that up before he left seventeen, nearly eighteen years ago. The question is if he's been paying the costs for the last spirits know how many months. If not, the locker's been cleared out long ago."

Joshua had left behind three kids. Responsibility and Joshua Uley, much like oil and water, did not mix well. Some would say it was a flammable cocktail. Sam doubted, while the man was over in England, he had been paying his bills. Yet, as Harriet beamed up at him, full of hope and optimism, Sam felt that same positivity tugging at his own chest, warming his lungs.

"It's a place to start, at least."

Nodding, Sam glanced towards the front door of his home.

There was only one way to find out.

"Emily!"

Seconds later, Emily came peeking out the door, head bobbing around the frame.

"Can you ring up Billy Black and let him know we're going to be a little late this morning?"

Emily frowned. Sam did not often, if ever, reschedule something he had planned and agreed to. Even the pack joked about it some days. Sam Uley, they would say, was more reliable than a clock.

"Is everything alright?"

Sam smiled.

"Perfectly fine, we just want to go check something out. We won't be long."

Sam didn't want to tell Billy, or the Elders, of this development yet. It could be nothing. How many times had it been just that? A sighting? A tip? So many leads that Sam had tracked to nothing but a dead end. Best to sniff out the trail first to see if he caught a scent before telling the Elders he had a start on his wayward father. Emily nodded, still hesitantly weary, but calm. Sam scaled the steps and kissed her scared cheek before slinking back down, heading towards his parked truck.

"You two coming or what?"

Embry Call's P.O.V

"And the fees have been paid regularly?"

Sam asked for the final time, clustered with Embry and Harriet at a rustic looking garage style locker, facing a wind-weathered man chewing a toothpick. The man, at the repeated question, huffed and spat on the ground at their feet.

Embry winced.

"Yeah, right on time each month. Get an extra fee to make sure no one enters it. Good money too."

Anger bubbled underneath Embry's skin. His mother, Catherine Call, had worked two jobs when he was a child, scrabbling enough money together each month to make sure they had a roof over their heads, and Embry had diapers on his ass and food in his stomach. His mother had worked herself to the bone to see Embry happy, putting herself through nursing school for a better future. For them both.

Embry loved her for it. Loved his mother, no matter how strained their relationship had grown since his phasing, dearly.

Joshua Uley, the man who was his father, the man who should have been there for his mother, had never sent so much as a dime Catherine's way.

Yet, he had paid thousands of dollars for this fucking locker.

That stung.

That stung like a bitch.

Embry Call, to Joshua Uley, was worth less than a series of stacked bricks.

That was humbling, to say the least.

However, Harriet, who Embry was coming to realize was almost dangerously observant, caught something the man wasn't saying, and like a fisherman with his line tugging, began to reel in the catch.

"And how is it paid for? Transfer? Cheque?"

The man shrugged, his utility gilet rustling.

"Cold, hard cash. I don't accept any other method."

From the corner of his eye, Embry watched as the muscle in Harriet's jaw jumped, spasming, teeth clamping behind lip. Embry knew where this was going, and dread sank in his gut.

Surely not?

Even Joshua Uley couldn't be such a bastard?

"Cash… And who brings you this cash?"

The toothpick rolled between the mans lip, getting caught on his crooked teeth.

"The man who rented the locker. Uley, he said his name was. You know, he looks a lot like you actually, lady."

There it was. There it fucking was. Harriet looked like Joshua, and unless there was a fourth kid running around, old enough to rent this locker nearly eighteen years ago, then… Joshua had been here. Right here. For nearly seventeen years, Joshua Uley had been coming to this very place, to the outskirts of La Push, to rent a fucking storage locker. Sam nearly snarled at the poor man.

"And when was the last time Uley was here?"

The man shuffled on the spot, his boots kicking up the gravel of the lot.

"Just over seven weeks ago, I'd say. Give or take a few days. He's late for his fee. The only reason I've kept this locker is because he's normally good at paying on plan. I thought I'd give him some extra time, that was four weeks ago, but he still hasn't turned up. You're lucky you came by today; I'm about to clear this out and hock whatever's inside. I can give you a good deal if you want a cut?"

Seven weeks. Forty nine days. Joshua Uley had been right under their noses not two months ago, and not so much as a hello, how you doing pups.

Worst, just their luck, they had caught up just in time for him to stop appearing by the sounds of it. Two steps too far behind. Embry's hand clenched at his side, fighting down the shake. He wanted to punch something. He wanted to punch something hard.

Not for himself. Embry couldn't care less about ever meeting Joshua Uley. He had lived his entire life without the mangy-mutt, and he was sure he could happily live the rest of it that way too. But Sam… Sam worked so hard for the pack, so hard for the Quileute tribe, so hard for everyone, and he never asked for anything in return, not so much as a thank you.

He deserved answers, he deserved Joshua looking him in the eye and answering for what he'd done, he deserved the Uley seat on the Council. There was no one better, Embry was sure, for that responsibility.

And Harriet too. She deserved answers. She deserved to know why she had been abandoned away from her people, unknowing of who she was, where she came from, far from the land her ancestors made home. Far from the people who could understand her, and accept her.

Harriet reached into the back pocket of her jeans, pulling out a wallet. Fingering through, she pulled out a stack of bills and handed them over to the man.

"The fees paid now, right? You don't touch the locker."

The man flicked through the money, holding one up to the light. Happy with it, he shrugged and jammed his prize into his gilet's pouch.

"No skin off my nose. Keep the fees paid, and the locker's yours. I'll leave you three to it then."

The man hobbled off, humming merrily around his toothpick, and suddenly, it was just them, he, Sam and Harriet, at the red gate of the locker. Sam was the first to lose it, swearing loudly as he kicked at the ground, booting up asphalt and dust. Thankfully, he still had half a mind to keep his strength in check.

"That fucking bastard!"

Shoving her wallet back, Harriet, who had gone eerily quiet, went to the red gate and crouched down low on the floor, slipping her necklace off, sliding the key home into the padlock. The key fit with a click as the lock came undone.

Embry scowled.

"Maybe we should just burn it all down. Give Joshua a surprise if he ever pops back."

Harriet stalled by the gate, mulling over Embry's, perhaps spiteful, proposal before straightening out.

"Don't get me wrong, I won't to. I really want to. However, whatever is in here, Joshua treasures it. He prizes it more than his three kids. He's spent more time here than with any of us and… Whatever it is, he wouldn't just leave it behind. He hasn't left it behind. He's spent seventeen years protecting this fuckin' thing. At least we know now that he isn't bloody dead. He was alive seven weeks ago. He was right here. It's a start."

That's when Embry saw it. Her hand, which fell to her side, was… Shaking. Trembling. On instinct, having seen that sort of shaking before, though this was slightly less pronounced, Embry took a step back, voice soft and weak. None threatening.

"Harriet?"

The hand fisted, though Harriet didn't hazard a look his way.

"I'm angry, Embry. The angriest I think I've ever been. I knew Joshua was a wash-out, he left my mother high and dry when she needed him most, but I never thought he would… He's a foul cunt, and I'm angry."

Sluggishly, she peered down at her hand as if it was something new, something alien, unfurling her fingers, flexing, and Sam saw it too, that terrible shaking. If Embry didn't know better, for women didn't shift, he would think Harriet was seconds from phasing. Maybe they should leave and talk to Billy and-

Harriet shook her hand out, like one would with a cramp, and the trembling stopped instantly.

"But we have to be smart right now, if we ever want to find Joshua, and burning down our only lead seems counterproductive to me."

Right. Well, if she had been a Shifter, some way, there was no way she could so effortlessly shake off a phase coming on so strong. Embry was the newest Shifter, and even two months into this life, he still could barely stop a phase when it tickled at the base of his spine. And she was young. Sixteen. Too young to shift, surely?

Moreover, Harriet smelled human, if with something peculiar lingering in her scent, a scent of something sizzling like a lightning storm mixed with popping candy.

"Ready?"

Harriet asked as she grabbed at the gate's handle, and scents, Shifters, phasing shakes and legends drifted away. Maybe it was just her way of dealing with anger. Some people locked themselves away, some, like his mother, cried when angry, and maybe, just maybe, Embry told himself, Harriet shook.

With a nod from Sam and Embry, she heaved the rolling gate up. The metal groaned and squawked, and as Harriet edged into the garage, blindly pawing at the wall just inside, she hit the light switch and everything inside lit up in pale, fluorescent light.

"What is all this?"

Harriet queried as she wandered in deeper, swiftly followed by an equally enraptured Sam and Embry, curiously glancing around, at the racks and crates and tables lined with shiny things. Sam fingered an item closest to him, running a thumb down a plume of an Eagles feather.

"It's Ojibwe relics. Our great Grandmother on Joshua's side was from that tribe… I didn't know the old man kept it all, or that she even passed anything down. Some of these must be nearly a century or two old."

Embry ambled over to the nearest table, gently stroking at the arched bend of a polished bow, one of many placed on the table. It was beautifully carved, painted and waxed, and old. Very old.

"Did Joshua or our great Grandmother like hunting?"

Embry couldn't answer Harriet's question, shot out from near a rack of knobbled clubs resting on the wall, dusted in… Some sort of ashy substance, hardly knowing Joshua, let alone Joshua's family. Fortunately, Sam did and could answer, having been partially raised by Joshua's mother when his father went skipping out of town and depression kept his mother bed bound.

"Absolutely not. Dad couldn't stand it. Never accepted Old Quil's offer of joining him on his hunts, or Billy Black when he went fishing. As for our great Grandmother… Bit before my time, but I don't think so, our Grandmother, her daughter, sure didn't like hunting."

Harriet drew away from the rack, casting one last critical eye around her before meeting Embry's curious gaze, her own gloomy, brows pulled down tight in a hooded frown.

"It's surprising then, isn't it?"

She gestured around her with a flap of her hand.

"Look around us… Knives, bows, clubs, darts, spears, traps… For people who outwardly didn't like hunting, they have an awful lot of hunting gear. Strange hunting gear at that… I think those spears are poison tipped. The clubs too, but I can't tell by what with, and I'm pretty damned good at knowing my plants and herbs."

Embry squinted about him. The garage was a squat room, long as it was wide, dusky smelling, and from wall to wall was weaponry. Painted, polished, embellished… But still weaponry. Nothing else. No family quilts. No moccasins or Powwow dresses. Nothing but blades and feathers.

Embry felt a shiver run down his spine. Slowly, he skirted towards the exit, backing up, away.

"Something doesn't feel right. Somethings going on. Something we're just not seeing."

Sam looked his way sharply. Embry had always had a… Strange, should he call it, sense for danger. Even before the odour of leech would float by in the wind, Sam could always rely on Embry to say something was coming long before anyone else knew to be alert. He had always been that way since a small child. Knowing exactly when not to cross a road, when not to go swimming, when to shoot his hand out and wait to catch the vase his mother had accidentally knocked off the counter before she could slice up her bare feet.

It was how their pack worked so well. No one had the mind for strategy like Sam, no one could sense danger coming quite like Embry, no one could track like Jared, and Paul-

Well, shit. Once something was between Paul's open maw, it wasn't getting out again.

Curiously, Harriet appeared to agree with him, face calm but closed off as she scanned the room.

"I agree with Embry. This is… Deep. Deeper than we first thought."

Sam, finally, nodded. A good Alpha always knowing when to listen.

"I think we should head back. I need to speak to Billy, inform him of what we've found."

Nevertheless, Harriet stayed exactly where she was, even as Embry and Sam turned to leave.

"I'm going to stay here for a bit longer. See if I can find something Joshua left behind. Maybe a note, or a diary, or… Something that isn't sharp."

Sam and Embry looked to one another. It would be easier to inform the Elders of what had happened, what little they knew that is, if they didn't have to tip-toe around the pack secret with Harriet there. Certainly, she would know eventually, but the Elders, Sam too, had wanted to speak to her first, explain more about the Quileutes, gently slip her into it, and not have her, which was a possibility, running for the hills when she saw one of the boys sprout a snout. Still…

Embry didn't feel right leaving her alone.

Here, especially.

Something just wasn't right, and perhaps that had something to do with the old scent of Joshua in the room… Mixed with something tangy and coppery. Old blood.

His blood.

Sinking a hand into his jeans pocket, Embry jerked out his old and battered, but crucially still working, phone, holding it out for Harriet to take.

"Take this. Once you're finished, ring Sam and we'll come pick you up."

"It's fine, I can just-"

"Please, Harry."

At that, what rebuff Harriet had ready to go evaporated, and gently, she took the phone.

"Alright. I'll call as soon as I'm ready to leave."

Harriet Uley's P.O.V

Harriet was not looking for a note, or a letter, or, Merlin forbid, a diary. What she was looking at was the weapons, and what she saw unsettled her greatly. On closer inspection, scanned with her wand and magic, her first guess had been proven right.

These weapons weren't normal.

Some had been imbued with hexes, some with Thestral bone dust, others with rather nasty blood curses, and yet the magic used, the magic she was picking up was… Different. Older. Ancient. It made her own magic feel like fucking child's play. Like what a muggle wiccan would be next to someone like her.

It was primal.

Primordial.

Additionally, much more than knowing they had some form of magic attached to them, Harriet could not make heads or tails of what the purpose of that magic was for. Magic, typically, was intent. A cause and effect directed through purpose. This… This was just… There.

Her muggle father, for that's what Sirius and Remus told her, Joshua had been a muggle, her missing muggle father, had a cache of hidden weapons that could, and would, kill something magical. Something equally as old. What that something was, what creature needed blood curses, slowing hexes and nasty burning jinxes, she did not know, and that scared her.

These weapons were meant for something mean.

Meaner than Moony once a month.

Circe… Just who was her father?

Who was her great Grandmother, to amass such a collection?

What the fuck was going on?

Locking the red gate to the storage locker and slipping her necklace back around her throat, Harriet strode away from the room that, drenched in ancient magic, was giving her a migraine just standing too close to. When she found she could breathe properly again, she turned her face to the rain clouds forming in the grey sky, thoughts whirling.

The truth was Harriet had searched for Joshua Uley before. She had cast tracking spells, and spells to see if he was living, and everything, every incantation, potion, spell, had come up blank, even when, if he had copped it somewhere out there in the big wild world, they should have come up telling her he was dead. As she had told Sam before, on the steps of his house, it was if Joshua didn't exist outside her shoe-box.

Harriet had always thought she had made some mistake in the casting, a wrong stir of the potion, and then the war had happened, and trying to survive to the next school year snatched her attention, but… Well, whatever that magic was behind her, in that storage room, maybe that was concealing him.

The wind picked up speed around her, blowing.

Her back stiffened, joints locking.

There was a tingle at the base of her neck, a thorny prickling.

Harriet glanced behind her.

Bear depository was a remote lot of land etched out of stubby little garages, just on the peripheries of La Push, surrounded by woodland. Woodland that was staring right back at her now. Harriet skimmed the treeline.

Her gut rolled.

Something was… Wrong.

Something was… Watching.

Craftily, her hand glided into her jeans waistband, fingers tumbling beneath over-sized jumper, around a belt loop, to the weapon concealed there. The cool wood of her wand slipped free, finding home in her hand. Watching the treeline back, Harriet hid her wand behind her, feet bracing, ready.

The breeze fluttered past.

"Come out, I fuckin' dare you."

The tops of the trees wavered in the wind, leaves rustling, but nothing more. Yet, she could still feel… It. Something… Old. As old as the magic in the garage. Something… Watching. Something sniffing. Something hunting. Her grip on her wand tightened and-

~In touch with the ground. I'm on the hunt, I'm after you. Smell like I sound, I'm lost in a crowd, and I'm hungry like the wolf~

Harriet Uley, tense and ready for battle, nearly jumped a foot in the air like a startled cat as her back pocket blared and vibrated.

"Sodding hell!"

She huffed between wheezes, trying to steady her breathing as she stretched into her pocket and yanked out the offending mobile phone. Noticing Sam's flashing name and number, she hit answer.

"You bloody dickhead."

Instead of Sam's sniggers at her irate bite answering her, which she was anticipating, someone tutted at her from the other side.

"Hello to you too, sunshine."

The voice was husky, mulled wine dizzying. Harriet drew the phone away from her ear and looked at the screen. Definitely Sam's number. Definitely not Sam's voice.

"Who is this? How did you get Sam's phone? Where's Embry? Or Emily? I swear, if-"

Now the voice chuckled at her, dark and gravelly, and deeper than anyone's voice had a right to go.

"Slow down. I'm Paul, a… Friend of your brothers. Sam and Embry are a bit held up at the moment. I've been charged with playing chauffeur."

And, this Paul fellow, couldn't sound more unimpressed by the prospect if he tried. Fantastic. Harriet scoffed.

"Don't sound too excited, now. You'll make me blush. Look, stay there and keep Sam company, or do whatever the fuck you want to. I don't rightly care. I'll find a-"

The fucker actually cut her off.

"I'm already on my way. I'll be there in ten minutes. Just make sure you're out in the car park. I have better things to be doing then waiting around all evening."

Well… Didn't that make a girl feel special. Harriet opened her mouth to retort, but a click told her the line was dead already.

The bastard had hung up on her.

She had been right the first time.

Dickhead.

Shoving the phone into her pocket all over again, and threading her wand in her belt loop, Harriet couldn't help but glance at the trees one last time. Something still felt wrong but… She couldn't see anything. Couldn't sense much more than something off either, and so, with a shake of her head, Harriet turned around and headed for the car park out front.

The beast in the woods skittered forward, keen teeth tat, tat, tattering.

NEXT CHAPTER: An unforeseen attack by something neither Paul or Harriet had ever seen before leads the latter to shifting unexpectedly, a double imprint, and a first date like no other…

Boo or Woo?

NOTES ON THIS CHAPTER:

The story of Jack Fiddler is real. At the time, he was a Shaman and great leader of the Sucker clan, who was believed capable of summoning animals to protect his people, and one of the few people ever said to have killed a Wendigo. Fourteen Wendigo's, in fact. Of course, Jack's tale ended sadly, as the Canadian government caught wind of this, accused him of the murder of a strangled woman, and ordered his execution in what is now believed to be an attempt on their part to finally bring the Sucker clan under their authority and law (Which they were not till this point in time). Jack escaped, but ultimately committed suicide. His brother was held on trial and executed too, and the real salt in the wound is they pardoned him… Three days after his execution. The historical record is a lot more interesting and complex than what I just wrote, but if you are interested, I really would say google his name.

The Wendigo is a mythological creature or evil spirit from the folklore of the First Nations Algonquian tribes based in the northern forests of Nova Scotia, the East Coast of Canada, and Great Lakes Region of Canada and in Wisconsin, United States. It is not just 'Native American', as against popular belief, dreamcatcher's are not universally Native American, but from the Ojibwe tribes/bands. I wanted to put these notes here because it's important to remember the term Native American is a western concept to understand and categorize an indigenous collective that was and continuous to be forcibly lumped together. The First Nations are made up of different tribes, each wonderfully and beautifully rich with their own traditions and cultures, and each First Nations tribe deserves the respect owed to them, even if you're simply writing fanfiction like me.

Embry, in my mind, is a hundred percent the type of Shifter to have Duran Duran as his ring tone. Un-ironically at that too.

This is set just after the Cullens have left, when Embry has phased, but neither Quil or Jacob has. So very early New Moon.

Harry in canon look like the spitting image of his father, but with his mother's eyes. Even though this version of Harry is a girl, I stuck with this, making her look a lot like her father.

THANK YOU all for the followers, favourites and the lovely reviews! I can't say how many times I've read every single one, and I just wanted to thank you all for all your kind words. I hope you all liked this chapter, and if you have a spare moment or two, please drop a review, and I will hopefully see you all soon!