“From the caliber of those screams, it’s gotta be Finn,” Mary Kate said.
“He’s the favorite Uncle Wolf,” Molly explained to Esa.
“Is he?” Esa asked speculatively.
Mary Kate nodded. “Of course my brothers are only truly ‘uncles’ to my kids but that hoard of cousins out there doesn’t know the difference. Even my little sisters think Finn is the best Uncle Wolf.”
Esa wondered how much her expression revealed her thoughts when Glory gave her a searching look that reminded her very much of how Finn studied her sometimes.
“Well?” the older woman challenged archly. “Why don’t you go and find out for yourself?”
“Maybe I will,” Esa said slowly. “Where, precisely, is the Wolf Man’s territory?”
Glory’s grin itself looked a little wolfish as she replied, “Our backyard and the backyards to each side of us.”
“Our neighbors are tolerance personified,” Molly added wryly.
“Wish me luck then,” Esa said before she turned and left the kitchen, smiling to herself at the sound of Glory’s chuckle behind her.
Quite a crowd had gathered on the back terrace. Danny, Jess, Carla, Chase and a brunette woman dressed as a gypsy all glanced over at her when she walked out onto the large deck. Carla gave her a puzzled look but Esa just waved and said hello before she descended the steps into the backyard.
She was a little surprised at how quickly velvety, impenetrable blackness of night surrounded her. Finn’s mother and grandmother lived in an older, established neighborhood that boasted enormous backyards that ended in an alley. Across the alley, another backyard stretched to the house on the next street. Detached coach-style garages blocked much of the light that shone from the house. The children certainly had an atmospheric arena in which to scare themselves silly.
Esa peered through the darkness, afraid she would trip over a bush or a small child. The night was chilly but not overly so and she wore only a lightweight leather jacket. She paused when she heard the sound of muffled laughter in the distance and little feet scurrying through the leaves.
She suppressed her own nervous giggle of excitement. Why did humans love to scare themselves so much? Something brushed against her outstretched hand and she jumped in alarm, sighing when she realized it was just the bark of a thick tree trunk. Thankfully she hadn’t walked straight into it and knocked herself out.
She suddenly went very still when she heard footsteps in the leaves just feet away from her.
“Wolf Man’s right on the other side of that tree,” Esa barely made out a boy whispering.
“He is not. Quit trying to scare me, Cory,” a younger girl’s voice responded shakily.
“He is. Let’s get him before he gets us!”
The sound of rapidly rushing feet made Esa’s eyes go wide in panic. “No, wait. I’m not the Wolf Man, I’m Esa…oh—”
She stopped speaking abruptly when the weight of a small body collided against her legs and arms wrapped around her thighs. She teetered for a second, almost losing her balance, but then righted herself and steadied the small body that had attempted to tackle her as well.
“It’s a lady,” the little girl who had been correct to doubt the presence of the Wolf Man exclaimed.
“Shhh, quiet, Amanda. He’ll hear you. You’d better not get us caught,” a boy admonished.
“Are you all right?” Esa asked as she extricated Amanda from her legs. She bent down and peered at the vague outline in the blackness. From the size of her Esa guessed that she must have been around six or seven years old. She was accompanied by three other children, all of them older, given the sizes of their shadows.
“Are you looking for the Wolf Man too?” the little girl asked in a stage whisper.
“Er…yes, I am.”
The girl giggled.
“Let’s go, Amanda,” one of the boys hissed in a long-suffering big brother voice. They melted back into the darkness and were gone as quickly as they’d come. Esa tried to calm her rapid breathing in the silence that followed.
She left the relatively secure landmark of the tree and wandered to the left of the yard, her arms stretched out in front of her. The children likely knew the territory of the backyards intimately but Esa was not only nearly blind but ignorant as she stumbled around back there. Her fingers encountered a waist-high bush. She tried to move around it but quickly realized it was a hedge that probably separated the two yards.
A light rustling sound reached her hyper-alert ears and she paused. She drew her breath in cautiously but all was silent except for the muted voices and music of the party in the distance. It probably had just been some leaves scattering in the wind. Still, some instinct told her it was more than that.
“Finn?” she queried softly, her heart hammering in her ears. “Is that you?”