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• her hands over her mouth and her eyes wide with shock. "Oh my word, I'd nearly forgotten all about that!" she said. "I'm so sorry, Sarah! I don't know what came over me. That was such a terrible time for me, and to hear you talk like Ander was already dead, I just... I guess I lost it a little."

"No, dear," Sarah said, stuffing a chain of sausage links into the burgeoning basket. "I was the one who had lost it, and you gave it back."

"Gave what back?"

Sarah looked up, closed the lid, and smiled. "My hope, dear. You gave me back my hope."

Kiana didn't feel comfortable receiving so much praise just for throwing a hissy fit and shaking an elder so hard her teeth clacked together. She held up her hands as if to block the words. "No Sarah, really, Ander's the one who's always going around making people feel all -"

"But I had given up on him, Kiana. My own son, the one I had been dreaming of seeing again for over two decades, and the moment he leaves my home I simply abandoned him all over again. That is, until I heard your words. The moment you said those things, I knew you were planning to do something, and it made me feel so ashamed, like the worst excuse for a mother to ever live, but it also opened my eyes. What point was there in grieving when Andrew was still alive? What point was there in giving up until the very end? Why when, if there's even the dimmest, thinnest ray of hope left, would you ever want to purposefully curl up and die? Why throw it all away when doing so would only cause you misery for the rest of your life? Why not scratch and bite and claw for that last shred of hope and the person it is attached to? I'm not talking about fake hope, the kind you feel when you're sitting on the porch and staring at the road, 'hoping' that the one you love will come back. I'm talking about real hope, the kind you had. Without action, hope is as useless as wishing on a star. It was because you were willing to go out there and a take a chance that you could feel real hope, because you were the one trying to make the thing you were hoping for become real. In that moment, Kiana, I was so envious of you. All it took was one little message from Andrew, and that was your ray of hope. I would have just let it sail by, but you grabbed hold with both hands and you did not let go. And that was when I realised that there was no reason for me to be envious because there was no reason I couldn't do the exact same thing. I could hold on to hope and I could do something other than just sit on my tail. I didn't know what on earth that 'something' would be, but the answer was waiting for me when I got back home."

*

The sky had become the two-tone shades of twilight by the time she finally made it back home: black and starry in the east, light purple in the west. Where was Andrew right now? Was he still walking through the pass, or was he already back with his people?

"Michael?" she called. She knew he must be around here somewhere because all the candles were already lit, their light flickering across the antlers adorning the walls. "Michael? Michael!"

And then, from right beside her: "Yup?"

Sarah nearly had a heart attack just then. "Good Lord, Michael, don't sneak up on me like that!" she snapped, clutching her chest.

"I wasn't sneaking, I was just standing here." he said with that crooked little smile of his, a big steaming glass of warm milk cupped in his hands.

"Michael, I've got something to tell you."

"That great, because I've got something to tell you, too."

"Y-You do?"

"Yup." He blew on his milk and he watched her over the rim, his eyes never breaking contact. "But you can go first."

"I... think mine will probably take a while, even abridged. You go first."

"Okey dokey, then." He took a big gulp, sighed with pleasure, and said: "You are not going to believe this, but I just heard the craziest story from old Lonin. He said -" He chuckled and licked the milk from his lips. "He said, get this, he said his boys were out drinking at Artello's, right? And they said they saw Mateo there, drinking everything in sight, getting drunk as a lord! Ha! And he- And he- Wait, wait." He held up a finger and sniggered off to the side, his milk sloshing around inside the cup. "Apparently, according to those twins, he got so drunk that he - our Mateo - that he started smashing up the place! Breaking tables an-" He was laughing openly now, struggling to keep himself under control. "And throwing chairs through windows!" He gasped for air. "Can you imagine? Mateo getting drunk!? But that's not even the best part!"

"Oh?" Sarah was beginning to understand how everybody in town had found out about her dirty little secret so quickly.

"Get this! He said- he said- Wait a second let me put this down. Okay! Lonin told me that his twins told him that Mateo was in Artello's, smashing up the place, raving about how- Pfffft!!" Micheal doubled over, clutching his stomach, barely able to breathe, let alone speak. "Raving about how that giant brown Wolf that saved Kiana is actually your bastard son, birthed from an affair you had with a Wolven Chieftain before we were wed! Haaaaaahh! Oh my word! Oh, oh that is jolly good, oh those twins, they sure know how to tell a tall tale, eh? Eh?" Michael wiped his streaming eyes, his laughter finally dying down to chuckles. "Whoooo! Ah ha. Aaah... Ah, that's good. Okay. Whoo. Now, what was it you wanted tell me, love?"

Sarah fiddled with the neckline of her dress.

"Sarah dear?"

"Um... Michael?"

"Yeeees?"

"I think you'd better sit down."

*

"Gave me one hell of a shock, it did."

Kiana and Sarah both nearly jumped a foot in the air. "Dammit, Michael, why do you have to sneak everywhere you go!?"

"What? I was just standing here," he said with a shrug.

"How's Mat?"

"Sleeping it off. I might need to prepare some of my world-famous anti-hangover elixir for when he wakes up. I call it: 'Michael's Marvellous Medicine', the one-stop cure-all for all your household maladies, from mumps to morning sickness to mad cow disease! Just take a cup of warm milk and add a pinch of chimney soot for whatever ails you, results guaranteed!"

Kiana raised an eyebrow. "Chimney soot? Is that really supposed to cure a hangover?"

"I wouldn't know about that, but it'll certainly make him think twice about doing it again. Say, mind if I join you lovely ladies?"

"Of course, dear," Sarah said. "I was just getting to the part where you -"

"Nearly went catatonic for a good ten minutes while you told me of the wild hedonism and soul crushing abuse of your youth? If I remember correctly, I switched back and forth between extreme incredulity, heart rending sadness, and blazing fury about two hundred times." He flipped one of the chairs backward and sat down with his arms crossed over the back. "Blazing fury at the so-called 'Father' who would raise a bloody stick against his own daughter, you understand. I only wished you could have told me about it sooner, instead of waiting twenty-something years. I would have - Hell, I dunno. I would have done something."

"But you did, Michael," Sarah said and put a reassuring hand on her husband's shoulder. "You're the one who finally got me out of that place. And please understand, I never told anybody about what went on that house. I just wanted to leave it all behind and never look back. But then it's a bit hard to ignore your past when it literally comes squeezing in through your front door..."

"Ah, my long-lost step-son, finally come home."

Sarah snorted. "Michael, he's not your 'step-son'. Or, maybe technically he is? I don't know, it sounds a bit weird."

"I could always refer to him as your bastard, if you'd like?"

"'Andrew' would be just fine. Or 'Ander', I guess. That's the name he grew up with, after all, but he'll always be Andrew to me."

Kiana didn't think she'd feel so relaxed in this house, considering everything that had happened. This place used to be so stuffy and formal, even with Michael cracking the odd joke or two, but now it was as if they were going through some kind of metamorphosis, starting with Sarah, and from there it was spreading through to the whole family.

"'Ander', 'Andrew', whatever you want to call him, it still came as quite a shock," Michael said. "I can barely even remember what went on in my head at the time."

Sarah smiled. "I remember you staring at me like a frozen -

*

• bullfrog, his eyes seemingly bigger than his entire face, not even blinking.

"Michael?" Sarah could feel her hand creep up to grab her stretched-out neckline again, but she stopped it. Now was not the time to be scared. Now was the time to be tough.

"Um..." he said, kind of staring off at nothing. "Gee, love, give me a second to process this here. You've just dumped a whole lot of information on me in a very short timespan, so... wow."

"I understand that, Michael, and I understand that you have questions and I understand you want to talk about it, but we don't have time. Right now I need your help, so please, please stand with me on this one. Once it's all over, I'll... I don't know what I'll do to make it up to you, but I promise I will do whatever it takes, so -"

"Hey, hey, hold up there, darling. Who said you needed to make anything up to me?"

"I... I don't?"

"Come here." He put his hands on either side of her face and pulled her in close so that their noses were almost touching. "I understand, love. You've been through a lot. I've had a bit of an inkling about it for many years, but I never pushed it because I felt that you'd tell me on your own once you felt ready. I'm just sad it turned out to be so much worse than I could have predicted. But none of it was your fault, understand? Not one tiny little bit, so please stop talking like everything happened because of something you did wrong."

"But I -"

"You did nothing wrong, love. Nothing." He stared into her eyes, making absolutely sure that his words were striking home.

Sarah sniffed and nodded: "Thank you, Michael. Really, thank you."

"You are more than welcome, love. Now as much as I'd like to talk to you some more, I understand time is of the essence. Have you decided what you want to do?"

"I..." she sniffed again, not wanting to be all weepy and snotty when they were so close, but Michael didn't seem to mind. He was looking at her with such love and intensity it reminded her of why she had chosen him to be her mate out of all her suitors. "I'm not entirely sure. I couldn't convince him to stay, so running after him probably won't help, but I feel like, even if I fail again and again, I have to try, you know? Even if he has to hug me and say goodbye a dozen times over and break my heart each time, I feel like I have to, because just sitting around doing nothing is like... letting him die. And that's like letting myself die. It's like I'm killing a part of myself for no reason, and I can't take that anymore, Michael. I want to go out there and do something!"

"All right, then that's what we'll do. Grab your coat."

"Really?"

"Really. Let's go get my giant bastard of a step-son back."

"Oh, Michael!" Sarah threw her arms around his neck and squeezed him tight, so grateful that she could count on him no matter what. "He's not really your step-son, though."

"He kinda is. In a way. Sort of."

Sarah laughed and kissed him on the cheek. "Let's go."