Page 19 of Her Second-Hand Mate

“Professor Bell,” Lynn raised her hand, “are we going to talk about Zilpah White?”

“Ah,” Professor Bell smiled, “that is an excellent question, Ms Howard. Prof. Williams and I agreed that she’d cover that portion of the story in her history course since her class will be passing through Concord on their Underground Railroad tour. But I will inform your classmates that Zilpah White was a former enslaved woman who lived in a cabin right here in Walden Woods and who inspired Thoreau to try doing so as well. She made her living spinning flax into linen and she provided for herself at a time when few, if any, other women did so.”

I was in absolute awe while I absorbed information about this woman. My whole body was covered in goosebumps as I thoughtabout her strength and determination. For the second time in one day, I refused to give in to the urge to compare.

But the ugly voice inside my head taunted me that I had been given so much more than Zilpah White and yet had done so much less with it, always depending on someone, always following someone else’s lead, neither independent nor self-sustaining. I suddenly remembered a quote I had underlined while readingWalden, “Things do not change; we change.”

Nana had decided that she would, in a way, take the class with me. She got all the reading materials from the pack library and had already readWalden.Her favorite quotes, unsurprisingly, were: “As if you could kill time without injuring eternity,” and “Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.”

Thinking of that made me smile. Nana hated lies and she hated idle hands, and she had said so many times in many different ways over the years. Now she had a fancier way to say, “Don’t piss on my leg and tell me it’s raining.” I almost burst out laughing at the memory of one of Nana’s more colorful sayings.

Professor Bell must have sensed the group’s interest was waning because he said:

“One last thing before I let you enjoy a leisurely afternoon at this beautiful reserve. If there is one thing I want you to remember 50 years from now, when you’ll maybe have long forgotten all about a June afternoon spent in Concord, Massachusetts, it is not necessarily this quote but the spirit of it: “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only theessential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”So, live, and suck out all the marrow of life, as Thoreau urges us to do, and be grateful that you have a chance to do so. See you back here in two hours.”

“It is so nice to be here,” Anthony said as he finished taking photos of the beauty surrounding us. “Reminds me of home.”

He then pointed his camera at us and started clicking away.

“I’ve never been to your pack,” I said.

“It’s the best,” he said and quickly added, “Yeah, I know everyone says that, but in my case, it’s true. And it’s the pack members that make it so. Everyone is good and kind and friendly, and encourages each other. I really miss that.”

“That sounds lovely,” I said quietly. Before anyone could ask about my pack or its main attraction, I turned to Charlotte, “What about you? You’re a long way from home. Do you miss it?”

She sighed and looked down at her sandwich as if it could show her the answer to the question.

“I don’t-“ she started saying but then cleared her throat,“there’s nothing to miss there. I lost my parents a long time ago, and I was raised by my grandparents. They were great, but then they passed away as well, and then I shifted, and my mate was nowhere to be found... there was nothing tying me to that place. So I don’t miss it. But what I do miss is this idealized version of a pack and a family and other things I never knew. I guess I’d always hoped to find all of that with my mate, but he’s taking his sweet time coming into my life.”

“I’m sure you’ll meet him soon, you’re only 23,” Lynn said in a patient voice as she gently patted Charlotte’s shoulder.

“It’s easy for you to say, Ms future Luna of Illinois,” Charlotte clearly teased her former roommate.

So Rowan was the Alpha heir of his pack. I felt a jolt of joy at the thought of Lynn forever remaining in my life through our official roles.

“My invitation stands, come home with me the next time I visit,” Anthony said. “You already visited Lynn’s pack and struck out, who’s to say your male isn’t in New Jersey?”

Charlotte seemed to be thinking about this before she closed her eyes and tipped her face to the sky.

“I just hope he’s out there looking for me too, and not living his best single life, having relationships like I don’t exist,” she said, and then whispered, “I hope he’s alive.”

That caused us all to fall silent.

“What about your pack’s mating customs, Charlotte?” Anthony found a way to change the topic, and I think we were all grateful for it.

“We get a small tattoo when we meet our mate, something that reminds us of them or our love story.”

I was stunned by this information.

“How? Doesn’t the body heal itself? I never knew tattoos could stick for our kind?”

“They can, if you mix wolfsbane in with the ink. That prevents the body from healing the spot permanently. It has to be small, though, or it would cause too much of an immune reaction.”

“So it’s not the permanent mark you’re after, since with the bite, we all get that,” Lynn mused, “but you basically weaken your body for them?”

“You make yourself vulnerable, yes,” Charlotte said, “isn’t that what love is about?”

I looked away from how sad her eyes were and said, “See, you learn something new every day. I know about the mating customs in Georgia because of my Nana, but what about Illinois, Lynn?”

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