Heron Lake Plateau 76, ocean drive

She didn't know what she'd expected but that—"they're the dead watching over us"—definitely wasn't it. Bat blinked slowly and said nothing as she turned this thought over and over in her head. Her silvery eyes sharpened when he mentioned his parents and sister, all of them apparently late for their next birthday.

"What happened to them?" Bat asked gently, unaware that this was Towhee's brother and that the sister he'd mentioned was Orca, the one whose grave the deaf wolf liked to sleep on sometimes.