I stopped in the doorway of Father’s office. He was checking his computer screen and writing something down on a piece of paper. His face was calm and collected, his eyes focused. Floof curled by his feet, snoring softly in a pile of crumpled papers. The plumpy raccoon thought the office was her lair. I bought her a nice kitty bed, but she kept taking paper trash out of the waste basket and making a bed with it instead.

Father was busy, which was nothing new. He was often busy. He liked to say that it was because we needed the money, but I knew the real reason. He missed Mom. He felt helpless when she died, and now he wanted to make sure he was there to do something when other people felt helpless.

I couldn’t remember her face anymore. When I tried to recall what my mother looked like, I got a warm, soft smudge with dark hair. I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to feel sad about it or if it was better this way. Death was the final predator, and sometimes it pounced when you least expected it. There was no fighting it, but Father still tried and I did, too.

Floof finally caught my scent. She uncurled, rolled onto her feet, and scurried over. I crouched and scratched behind her left ear. She grabbed my leggings with her hands and pulled at the fabric.

Father looked up and smiled. He was always very handsome, but especially when he smiled.

“I have a problem,” I said.

“How can I help?”

“It’s Marty. He is stuck.”

Father got up. “Let’s get him unstuck.”

We left the office and went down a sunlit path toward the armory. Around us, life hummed. Birds sang. Insects chirped in the ornamental shrubs. Mice scurried, hidden by the flowers in the flower beds.

We turned onto the main “street” of the Compound, a wide, paved road that connected the main gate with the main house. Tall oaks flanked the road, their canopies meeting over our heads, and two squirrels bickered in their branches while three others watched. Squirrels were territorial creatures, and they got into disputes over trees and food and had to have words.

I, too, was a territorial creature. The Baylor Compound was my kingdom. I knew it like the back of my hand. I never fully understood that expression. Was the back of the hand the palm side or the other side…

“Matilda?”

“Yes, Father?”

“Would you like a tutor to help you learn Spanish?”

The C on my test had come back to haunt me. “I don’t think that will help.”

“What would help?”

“Not learning Spanish.”

Father smiled. “You must learn a foreign language. The State requires it.”

“I already speak enough languages.”

“Oh?”

“Human language, mouse language, racoon language, wolf language, panther language, tigrionex…”

“I could make arrangements with the school to switch you to the Korean language class.”

Mother was Korean. I understood that people assigned a lot of importance to heritage and I was part Korean, so it was my heritage. But learning Korean would hurt, because I would be thinking about Mother the entire time.

“I will try to do better in Spanish.”

“Was my suggestion painful?” Father asked.

“Yes. Learning Korean feels unsafe.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

I reached out. Father took my hand, and we squeezed our fingers.

The armory came into view, a fortified building with a construction crew around it. The building had been damaged in the last attack, and Catalina decided that since we had to repair it anyway, we might as well remodel it to better suit our needs.

I led father to the side of the building where Luis the Electrician stood by a narrow pipe sticking out of the ground. Luis had a long-suffering expression on his face. The first few times I saw him, I asked if he required assistance, but now I knew: Luis thought life was difficult and he always looked that way.

“Is Marty in the pipe?” Father asked.

I nodded. “The building’s wires were run through narrow pipes, which turn. Luis has to rewire it, so I attached the wire to Marty’s harness.  He did two pipes, and this is the third. He went in and he won’t come out.”

It wasn’t that Marty was lazy. He was stubborn. Sometimes he just decided that whatever he was doing was too much and stopped doing it.

“Did you prompt?” Father asked.

“Yes.”

“Try it one more time.”

I flicked my animal bond on. It was always there, attached to me like an invisible thread, but now I picked the thread up and tugged on it. On the other end of it, Marty scooted deeper into the pipe. His mind was so quick, and his little thoughts bounced around in all directions, as if you took a cup full of hard plastic beads and emptied it out onto the table.

I visualized treats and sent them down the thread.

Juicy mealworms.

Delicious boiled egg, with the shell half peeled.

Piece of chicken breast, still moist from being baked and dripping with delectable juices.

Nope. Marty stayed right where he was.

I looked at Father.

“Let me try.”

I let go of the thread, letting it disconnect. Father closed his eyes.

Seconds ticked by. A tufted titmouse landed on the branch of a nearby tree and tugged on me, wanting birdseed. The feeder was empty.

Marty popped out of the pipe, his pale, cream-colored fur sleeked back. He dashed to Father, wire still attached to his harness, climbed him like a tree, and wrapped himself around Father’s neck, nuzzling his cheek with his cute ferret nose and bit him gently. When ferrets loved you, they used their teeth to show it.

“How?”

Father brushed Marty’s fur with his fingertips. “Marty was born on a ferret farm. It was a terrible place, run by an evil person who only cared about selling baby ferrets. He didn’t take care of his animals. He starved them and let them live in filth. Marty was kept in a tiny cage with his siblings, and when animal control came in and rescued him, he was the only kit left alive in his cage. Marty refused to take food. The ferret rescue people didn’t think he would survive, and they called me as a last resort. I’ve tried everything to get him to eat, but he simply wouldn’t.”

“You never told me.”

Marty had appeared in our house two years ago, after I came back from vacation with my aunt. He seemed just like any other baby ferret: hyper, happy, and sweet.

“I didn’t tell you about it, because you were still young and it would have upset you.”

“Father, I was eight years old.”

Father smiled.

Marty slapped father with his paw and dooked, letting out excited chitter.

“Like I said, you were young and I didn’t want to upset you. I was out of options, so I carried Marty everywhere in my sweatshirt, and I would offer him little tidbits of food. One night I was very tired, and I fell asleep. I woke up, and Marty was gone. I followed the bond and found him in Cordelia’s enclosure.”

Oh. Two years ago, Cordelia and Go Mi Nam had their kittens.

“He was snuggled up against Cordelia. She was cleaning him, and he was eating canned kitten food.” Father smiled and stroked Marty’s back. “He can’t have it too often, since it doesn’t have the right combination of nutrients, but once in a while I give it to him as a treat. With Marty, kitten food is a sure bet. I always keep some in my desk.”

It must have been so nice for him to curl up against Cordelia. She was warm, fluffy, and kind. Marty must’ve known that she wasn’t his mother, but he needed to feel loved and safe, and Cordelia was very good at loving her kittens.

We detached the wire from Marty’s harness. No more pipes required rewiring, so we went back to the office.

Mother was gone, but Father was still here. And my aunt Diana loved me very much. My uncle loved me, too. He didn’t like people. He was mostly a wolf himself, but he knew I was family. If I was in trouble, he would come to help me and he would kill anyone who tried to hurt me.

I had the Baylors. Everyone took care of me. If I wanted love, I didn’t have to look very far.

“I think I would like to try learning Korean,” I said.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“If it becomes painful, please don’t force yourself.”

“I won’t.”

I moved closer to Father. He hugged me, and his arms were warm and safe. I smiled at him and we went back to the office to reward Marty with kitten food.