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behavior — most animals do. While the Pack wasn’t so heartless, even those less attuned to their wolf-side were uncomfortable with change, and with those who were "different". I knew Jeremy didn’t like to fight, and I knew that wasn’t normal werewolf behavior. Yet I could overlook it, even accept it, because I knew he could fight. As a wolf, that was what was important to me — the ability, not the desire. Not every member of the Pack felt that way. Take Malcolm. To him, a werewolf was a fighter, and a werewolf’s value was directly related to his martial skills. For Malcolm, having his only son show no interest in fighting was a humiliation beyond bearing.
    If Jeremy’s refusal to fight lowered him in the opinion of some Pack members, knowing that he had visions might have been grounds for exile. Such a thing went beyond the realm of individual difference. Even I had a problem accepting it. Unlike the rest of the Pack, though, I knew that Jeremy sometimes saw things, bad things, always about a Pack brother.
    After nearly two hours, Jeremy fell into a semi-doze, disturbed only by the twitches and moans of a fitful sleep. When I was sure he wasn’t going to wake up again, I crept into the room and fell asleep on the sofa.
     
    The next day, Jeremy stayed close to the phone. Malcolm noticed. Malcolm always noticed Jeremy’s moods. He hated the thought that something bad might be happening in his son’s life . . . and he couldn’t claim the credit for it.
    The phone rang twice that day. Both times Jeremy bolted for it, which didn’t escape Malcolm’s notice either. The first time it was Pearl , the woman who cooked our dinners, confirming our menu for the next week. The second time it was one of Jeremy’s employers asking whether he’d received a delivery.
    Late that afternoon, Malcolm went out. Where? Didn’t know, didn’t care. He was gone, and that was enough. Jeremy tried to curb his restlessness by painting, one hobby he never dared practice in front of his father. At least marksmanship was a sport, which made it a marginally worthy pastime for a werewolf. But painting? That would open him up to a whole new arena of mockery. So when Malcolm was home, the paints and canvasses were locked in a basement storage box.
    Today, though, even that hobby couldn’t distract Jeremy from whatever bothered him. Instead, he threw himself into physical activity, playing two straight hours of touch football with me before dinner. While we played, he kept the study window open, despite the bitter December cold. Every now and then he’d stop in mid-play, motion for me to wait as he looked toward the window, as though he’d heard the phone ring. When no sound came, he’d shake it off and resume the game.
    After dinner I reminded Jeremy that it was our hunt night. We had two joint Change nights per week — one for hunting and one for running. As well, Jeremy encouraged me to run by myself once a week, and he did the same. One advantage to Changing so often was that if anything interrupted our schedule, we could skip a run or two with no ill effects. Given Jeremy’s mood, I figured he planned to skip our hunt that night, and I knew that we could skip it, but I wasn’t going to let that happen without a fight. On my scale of Change events, solo runs ranked at the bottom, runs with Jeremy fell in the middle, and my absolute favorite — the one thing I loved even more than a full Pack hunt — was our weekly hunt together.
    When I reminded him that our hunt was scheduled for that night, I was fully braced for verbal battle but, to my surprise, Jeremy told me to grab our coats and boots. Like playing touch football, a hunt was action—it was something to do. If someone phoned, he’d miss the call, but I think, in some ways, Jeremy was almost as uncomfortable with his psychic abilities as I was. At that age, he hadn’t yet learned to trust them and, when the phone hadn’t rang in twenty hours, he’d probably decided