A BOOK DELIVERY PART 2

In the end, we decided that Ben and I were going to just pop over to the future with the cats and then back again. It shouldn't take long. Even though Edel's direction to where they were located was vague, Ben felt pretty sure it would either be his Dad's shed or the empty one behind our packhouse - that's the one we had used as our secret clubhouse when we were pups.

"Why couldn't you cats just carry the book over?" Ben glared.

"We are cats, not beasts of burden, young beta." Edel licked his paw and looked very clearly disinterested in any further discussion on that matter.

Perri tried to educate us, "Once we were stars…"

"I don't care what you once were." Ben never had the patience for anything that started to sound like a speech, "You're Sam's cats now. Go fetch the damn books."

Edel chose to ignore the rude young beta wolf and continued licking his paw.

Perri decided Ben's attitude was offensive and hopped out of Wolfgang's arms and onto Dad's desk - at the furthest corner away from Ben. He sat with his back facing us for good effect.

Since Ori was no where to be found (although I felt sure he was lurking in the shadow, we all looked to Peony. I had been carrying and stroking Peony and he had been purring quite contently… until now.

"Murrrr?" Peony looked surprised, "Me?"

Ben groaned, "Forget it. Just open a time gate for us to get it."

"Wait…" Beta Lucas raised his hand.

But a time gate had opened and Ben was pushing me in, "Be back in 30 minutes."

"That long?" Harvey asked.

"The shed is 5 minutes away and you know how Sam is." Ben said.

"Are you saying I'm slow?" I flared.

"I'm saying you're easily distracted." Ben sighed and gave me a harder push.

"Wait…" Beta Lucas said.

"This book better be worth it." Ben grumbled.

And then we were inside the time passages with Peony and Edel. I felt quite sure Beta Lucas wanted to tell us something but we didn't manage to catch it.

"What's the hurry?" I complained.

"You wanted the book right?" Ben shrugged.

"It's this way." Edel said.

"I won't personally take Edel's direction." Peony advised from my arms, "In fact, I would walk the other way."

This made Edel cross, "Fine, I won't show you the way."

"Then how would we know where the books are?" Ben growled.

This made Edel crosser, "I came in out of the goodness of my heart."

I was having a bad feeling at the way the watery flow was speeding forward, "Peony?"

I felt for my lucky sense of direction, "Open the gate here. Quick."

Luckily, Peony did. Peony was the kind of cat that followed instructions without thinking whenever it sounded urgent enough.

"Come on… we need to go quick." I barely had time to speak the words. We had to run. Luckily Ben was very good at running and keeping up with me. We all made it out into… where the hell were we?

This should have been in Dad's office, but it was a dark and empty room.

"When are we?" Ben asked. He made a guess and felt for the lights. It worked and we found ourselves exactly in Dad's office, but it was now an empty room. For some reason, the windows were completely sealed, and the floors were covered end to end with a thick metal plate.

I went over to the window because there was a switch next to it. That was new. When I flipped it, the metal shield opened with a quiet whirr, and the daylight flooded in as the metal shutters folded up. It was a lot like the window shutter in Bell's room at his castle in the Colored Mountains.

"Cool." Ben said, "It's the same as the ones in the Colored Mountains. I wonder how far in the future we have gotten?"

There was a doorbell with a sign by the door. That was new too. The sign read, "Time traveling guests, please press doorbell."

Ben opened the door, "Let's just go."

Wait… but the sign said… and the cats… I turned to see the Peony settling by the window ledge and Edel vanished… and I found myself following Ben out.

The floor was quiet, but the halls were lit, the carpet was now a dark navy blue, and it looked like our walls had been laminated in wooden panes. Aside from the dressy new coverings, the layout looked unchanged.

"Follow me." Ben said.

That was supposed to be my line! I'm the alpha!

But Ben seemed to have an idea of what he was doing. I followed him downstairs.

Our first floor was bustling quietly, just like any weekday morning. There were a few wolves coming and going, waiting, cleaning… all busy with their own tasks like it was any other day in Night Leaf.

I noticed the screen that one of them was using was almost completely see through. Like a glass pane with a single rim… how far into the future were we?

I wasn't sure. I mean, the phone was pretty futuristic looking, our lobby lights looked a whole lot fancy - it was like the entire ceiling was a light, with a curtain of magic crystals strung together across it. Very fancy.

Our wolves… I didn't recognize any of them, but they were dressed just like how we would dress. Jeans, tshirts, sweatshirt… it looked like spring. Our warriors were still in their blue demon uniforms too…

"Just act natural." Ben told me.

So we walked across the lobby like we were just another wolf passing through the packhouse. We did get noticed - I think it was my hair, but no one said anything.

Once outside in the backyard, I released the breath I was holding.

"Okay, now what?" I asked.

"Tell me, which shed would you like me to leave the books for you." Ben said.

What?

Oooooh… so wherever I said would be where Ben would put it in the future? Did it work that way?

"I don't know…" I hesistated, and then I remembered how we hid in the shed behind the packhouse in another future, "How about that one?"

I pointed past the pond. This future had a koi pond too. It looked larger than the one we saw. The apple trees looked taller too.

"The clubhouse? Alright, let's go…" Ben stopped talking and raised his arm to block me. There was someone behind the trees.

The someone emerged, dark green healer cape. The cape was half opened so I could see his ripped jeans and the grey sweatshirt he had under it. His black hair was longish, one side covered an eye, the other side was tucked behind his ear, which was pieced with three jeweled studs in different shades of green - the same color as his eyes.

I didn't know this wolf, but I knew his bloodline. Short of the monocle, he looked very much like all the Hami wolves on the paintings at Hayao's family home. I was quite sure of it.

"Hello." He said. He didn't look wary of us at all. He smiled easily enough too and was definitely our age, or at least only a little older, "Are you new here?"

I had no idea.

"Yeah." Ben nodded, "You can say that."

The Hami wolf shrugged, "Welcome to Night Leaf. Are you Moon Bell wolves?"

And then he laughed a bit, "Sorry for asking. You must think I'm weird. I'm from the Mountains, just came in yesterday. My name is Haruka."

I nodded, "I'm Sam. This is Ben."

"Is he your soul mate?" Haruka asked.

I shook my head, "More like my brother."

Haruka smiled, "Lucky! Am I?"

I laughed. Ben growled. I jabbed him in the ribs to shut up.

"Do you know what year it is?" I asked.

Ben growled again, "Way a go at being subtle, Sam."

What? Oh. I laughed again.

Haruka laughed too, "Sorry. You're right. That pick up line must be kind of old fashion here."

What pick up line?

"Anyway, since we're all exchange students here, let's be friends." Haruka said.

Yeah, that was exactly what we were. Exchange students.

"We need to go." Ben wasn't being appreciative of Haruka's friendship at all.

"I'll come with you." Haruka offered, "I've gotten quite familiar with the woods around the packhouse. What are your room numbers?"

Haruka turned out to be quite talkative, so by the time we got to the shed, I had already learned that New Leaf Academy had a special exchange student program where teens from the Colored Mountains and the Blue Packlands would come over in their last year of highschool to get their diploma, and sometimes meet their soulmate or carry on to Gate City University. This gave them the opportunity to get a taste of the outside world and modern independent living away from the heavy set traditions back home or something. Haruka looked rather excited to experience such a life here.

In exchange, the Colored Mountains would host Moon Bell youths during their exposure trip in the Summer of their Senior Year. Haruka heard that the Snow Moon pack would host Moon Bell exchange students for half a year in their schools too.

"Are you from the Snow Moon Pack? Or the Flame Forest Pack?" Haruka wondered while looking us up and down, "You don't look like snow wolves or fire wolves…Oh! You're from the Colored Mountains too, right? You're a blade wolf!"

He stopped, "That blue hair is real right? Are you a Lorent Wolf? I didn't know the Blade Wolf Alpha had a daughter…"

I shook my head quickly, "We are kind of distantly related."

Blade wolf pack in the Colored Mountains, that would be the pack my future son starts up right? How far down in the future were we?

"Cool." Haruka smiled. When he smiled like that, his eyes would bend in crescents, and he would look very much like Fluffy, and for a moment, I wondered if Haruka was the product of Hami and Fluffy bloodlines mixed together.

Meanwhile, Ben who had been walking ahead of us and pointedly ignoring our conversation stopped in front of an old weather beaten shed.

"Oh good. It's still standing." Ben said.

There was a rose bush growing over the shed, it was very large and wild and untrimmed, and looked like it was about to swallow the shed.

"That's a rose bush, right?" I examined the leaves. I knew what rose leaves looked like because of all the times I had seen them in my Grandma Luna's rose garden.

"Ah, Sam. Watch this." Haruka said. He reached out and touched the base of the bush to cast some blessing spell. The rose bush made a very quiet creaking sound and suddenly burst into buds that opened into tiny white roses.

"Oh, how pretty." I exclaimed, because it was. Little white roses like popcorn suddenly popping out all around the entire shed.

Haruka looked confused, "Strange… this plant has magic already stored in its roots…why was it in slumber?"

"Haruka, you're really powerful." I told the healer wolf, "I've only ever met a couple of healer wolves who were as powerful as you when they were your age."

Actually, I only knew Hayao and Bell… and maybe Ki too… but Ki was already an adult so that didn't count.

"If you are done flirting, Sam, can you come in and see this?" Ben called from the opened doorway of the shed.

"Oh good, it's open." I said, but I noticed later that the shed had a fingerprint lock installed. I looked at Ben who just shrugged. He was more concerned about the small mountain of airtight sealed plastic boxes. It was transparent, so it was obviously filled with books and other things too.

"Wow, I had never seen such old tech in real life before." Haruka said at the box closes to him, "What do you think those are?"

"Hard drives." Ben said with a glance, and then he seemed to have found what he was looking for. A note, written in Ben's scrawl on good old fashioned paper, kept in a ziplock bag stuck on the box labeled #1.

It read: "You said a book, but I didn't know which one. Here's all of it and then some. PS. I always knew you had a plan."

WTH did that mean? But that was enough for Ben, "Alright, lets get them back to the packhouse."