Chapter 162

Sarah POV

It was the night before Zane and I had a parent-teacher conference set up at the girls’ school, so we visited them together to say goodnight and ask if they had any worries.

“What are you going to talk about?” Chloe wanted to know.

“About the two of you, of course,” Zane said. “How you’re doing in school, the friends you’re making, the subjects you’re enjoying.”

“You’ll see my painting, the one that won second place in the contest,” Grace said softly. “They won’t let me bring it home yet, but it’s on display in the first level hall.”

“I can’t wait,” I said enthusiastically. “Will you maybe give us a hint now what it’s about?”

Grace shook her head with a sly little smile.

“No? So it’s not, say, a field of flowers?” I asked.

“No.”

“A spaceship?” Zane asked.

“No, silly.”

“A brick?” I asked.

“No, that’s boring.”

Zane looked at me and shook his head sadly. “Well, I guess we’ll just have to wait until tomorrow to see.”

I sighed deeply. “I guess.”

The girls giggled, and I nodded to Zane as I reached for the girls’ current favorite read, which I confessed to myself I was getting almost as tired of as I had The Nightingale.

Zane didn’t leave, however, and settled back in Grace’s little bed as I read.

“At length the eldest was fifteen and was allowed to rise to the surface of the ocean.

“When she returned she had hundreds of things to talk about. But the finest thing, she said, was to lie on a sand bank in the quiet moonlit sea, near the shore, gazing at the lights of the near-by town, that twinkled like hundreds of stars, and listening to the sounds of music, the noise of carriages, the voices of human beings, and the merry pealing of the bells in the church steeples. Because she could not go near all these wonderful things, she longed for them all the more.

“Oh, how eagerly did the youngest sister listen to all these descriptions! And afterwards, when she stood at the open window looking up through the dark-blue water, she thought of the great city, with all its bustle and noise, and even fancied she could hear the sound of the church bells down in the depths of the sea.

“In another year the second sister received permission to rise to the surface of the water and to swim about where she pleased. She rose just as the sun was setting, and this, she said, was the most beautiful sight of all. The whole sky looked like gold, and violet and rose-colored clouds, which she could not describe, drifted across it. And more swiftly than the clouds, flew a large flock of wild swans toward the setting sun, like a long white veil across the sea. She also swam towards the sun, but it sank into the waves, and the rosy tints faded from the clouds and from the sea.”

With the girls asleep, I set the book back in its place, but I didn’t get up from my chair, and for a while Zane and I just looked at each other in the dark.

We knew what the other was thinking. Why couldn’t this be our real life, raising the girls together, living openly as a family, perhaps even having more children in time? Why couldn’t we leave this room and walk hand-in-hand to bed?

Slowly, quietly, Zane rose from Grace’s bed and walked over to my chair. He knelt, and his face was an inch from mine. His hands came up and cupped my face, and then his fingertips trailed over my brow, my nose, my lips, and then down my neck.

Silently, we kissed, and I felt my eyes grow damp behind my eyelids. I put my hands on his shoulders and reveled in the strength of his firm muscles. I wanted to wrap myself around him and join with all that strength, that love and care.

Instead, we parted, checked quickly that the girls were still sleeping, and then left the room, closing the door on our way out.

The next evening, we went to our PT conference looking like two professional, caring caretakers, the Pack Alpha in his gray suit and his children’s goddess-mother in her brown suit trailed by two bodyguards and a little wave of raised camera phones.

We stopped at the art display first, and there was Grace’s painting with the #2 ribbon next to it.

I easily recognized the lake from the park, but instead of a sunny day and picnic, it was evening, and a thin crescent moon was glowing like a scimitar in the darkening sky. It was technically impressive—better in that way than the first-place winner, in my opinion, but I could see that while it was very pretty, it did nothing to move me, not even in the way a human child’s little stick figure paintings sometimes could.

In fact, if it were a painting by a human adult, I would have guessed the artist was bored.

Three teachers greeted us when Zane and I entered the conference room, a male and female beta and a male gamma. Interestingly, it was the gamma who led the meeting, encouraging the others to chime in as he discussed the girls’ popularity and high achievements in school.

“We’re still a little concerned about Grace’s reticence to put herself forward in class,” the gamma, Mr. Albertson, told us. “But she’s been making such progress in her confidence that we’re just going to keep an eye on things for now. No need to be worried.”

“We did consider separating her and Chloe more during the school day in case Grace were feeling overshadowed by Chloe,” the male beta, Mr. Caulfield, added, which irritated me until he continued. “But it was clear very quickly that the girls provide each other confidence and support. I’ve rarely seen siblings work so well together.”

They told us about the girls’ work on a recent test and about a school play they were rehearsing, and all the while I could tell the female beta was biting her tongue.

Fortunately, Zane could too.

“Ms. Glim,” he said with a congenial smile, “do you have something you want to tell us about the girls?”

“Well, it’s about Grace, actually.”

“Yes?”

“A few weeks ago, I noticed that Grace was lingering in the hallway during break periods when the third-level choir was practicing. I invited her to attend the practice inside the rehearsal hall, which she did and seemed to enjoy.”

Zane and I nodded.

“As the head music teacher here, I have many opportunities to work on my listening skills, particularly during choir, when I need to be able to focus on individual voices even as they’re singing together. And I soon realized I was hearing a new voice, very faint, but perfectly on pitch.”

Zane and I both realized what was going on at the same time and looked at each other.

“Grace was singing along?” Zane asked her.

“Yes, perfectly. It took a little doing, but Mr. Caulfield was kind enough to let me have some time with her during lunch period, and, well, she’s been singing with me, and I would like to ask your permission to enroll her officially in voice lessons.”

Bewildered, I looked at Zane. “Why hasn’t Grace told us about this?”

“I think she has been, with her painting,” he said softly.

We both looked back to the teachers, who were oddly anxious.

“Oh,” Zane said. “You think I’m going to object to Grace’s interest in music because I expect her to become a Pack Alpha.”

There was general reluctant and polite agreement.

“My grandmother on my mother’s side was an opera singer,” he said with obvious pride. “Gloria Stradt.”

“Grace’s great-grandmother was Gloria Stradt?” Ms. Glim asked in shock.

Zane smiled while I hid how impressed I was myself. A brilliant soprano, she’d been one of Richard Strauss’s muses.

“Well, that explains why Grace is showing all the signs of being able to sing The Voice when she’s old enough,” the music teacher told us triumphantly.

It was Zane’s turn to look impressed. Even I knew how rare that was. It was said that Stradt had been able to do it, but The Voice couldn’t be reported, and some thought she was just a passionate enough singer to move her audiences to tears without an alpha quality.

“I assure you all,” Zane said. “If Grace wants to study music, I could not feel more supportive.”

The teachers all looked relieved, with Ms. Glim near tears.

“Thank you, Alpha Zane,” she said more than once. “Thank you so much.”