I’ve been rereading Ravensong, and I noticed how underappreciated Gordo’s mom is.
Catherine Livingstone. The only human woman in the Bennett pack.
I keep wondering why she was where she was. Had she always lived in Green Creek? She was close to her father-in-law, honestly, the only person who genuinely seemed to see things her way. How did she meet Robert? Did she ever love him? Did she ever want to marry him? Who is she?
We know little to absolutely nothing about her.
I keep wondering whether she was the only human who was pack, or anything resembling it. We don’t see any of the wolves talk to her. We also know she isn’t just tolerated, because Gordo’s birth would have been a big deal.
Maybe the wolves distrusted her. She certainly held her reservations about them. And I keep seeing her plan to take Gordo away from Green Creek as similar to something else.
They’re extremely similar characters. Both wanted to take away their kid from an environment that they thought to be toxic and abusive. Both wanted to go on the run.
The only difference is that Beatrice and Robbie made it. Catherine didn’t. Catherine was stopped by her insanely powerful husband, and the most powerful pack of werewolves in the country.
What would have happened if she’d succeeded? If Abel Bennett had cared a little less, if Mark hadn’t seen Gordo and his mother leave? If she’d tried taking Gordo away when he was a little younger, even?
Here’s my take on the AU:
Catherine drives out of Green Creek, possibly with werewolves on her tail. Her son is confused and slightly scared, because he’s a witch and he’s been taken away from the secret world that he belongs in.
Catherine knows this. But she also knows what she’s doing is for the best.
Catherine knows driving. She’d been a traveler, leaning toward nomad before ending up at Green Creek (because somehow she’d chosen to stay with the man with the hypnotizing promises) and so she’s off the grid in no time.
Robert might have thought she understood nothing about wolves or magic, but Catherine isn’t stupid. She listened well enough all those times in the forest, during the full moon. She knows the things Gordo’s relayed to her in excitement and wonder. She knows how to keep her scent masked, her trail hidden.
Gordo doesn’t know what to think. He’s young, still - a teenager, but just barely. A few days on the road and he can feel the absence of his father, of wolves and the blood in Green Creek’s dirt. He’s not been made the witch of a pack yet - he isn’t tied to a single place, and so trees everywhere whisper to him.
Catherine isn’t confused. Unsure about her journey now, unsure about how she’s meant to deal with her son’s abilities, but not confused. She knows, without a doubt, that this was the best course of action.
She looks to the passenger seat, at Gordo. Her son. Her son.
Catherine and Gordo travel for a long while. He’s still meant to be in the eighth grade, and so sometimes she quizzes him on math problems or gets him to write short essays in the backseat.
They’ve got an old radio, thankfully. It seems like it’s always on, playing Frank Sinatra when she wins the coin toss, and Queen when Gordo does. He notices how much more alive his mother looks here, on the road, surrounded by the quiet air and radio static.
Sometimes, on full moons, Gordo feels the pull of the pack bonds, from far, far away. They sting, sometimes with the jolt of his father’s magic, trying to feel for his location, but Gordo heeds his mother’s warnings. They’re meant to be invisible. And that means no Mark, no Chris, Tanner or Rico, and no Bennetts. Even if he wished otherwise.
Gordo misses them. Catherine hates that she’d fought for his friendships and then taken them away. But she’s been in places she’s loved, with people she’s loved before. Her mother. Her brother and sister, twins, in the past. Worked as a TA for two years, and a tattoo artist, cashier, and kept leaving it all. But she’s alive, still.
Gordo is so young, so strong. If Catherine could survive leaving what she loved, so could he.
Their car breaks down just off a small town in Nebraska. They’ve not done much more than make supply stops at service stations on the highway, but now they don’t have much of a choice.
“It’s the spark plug electrode, mom.”
They go into town, and nobody knows them. That’s good, Catherine tells him. They can’t track us like this. So they buy the necessary parts at a garage, and she doesn’t miss how Gordo’s face lights up at the door. Marty’s, the old garage had been called. She remembers how Donald had played cards there sometimes.
She makes sure to cover Gordo’s arms - the tattoos aren’t finished yet, but they’re visible enough.
She runs through their cash figures in her head, calculating how much longer they can go on. There isn’t enough. Not without a destination or job in mind, and it used to be easy to score cash, but now Catherine’s got her son to think about.
The town’s far enough from Green Creek and the two of them have been traveling for almost two months now. They need to stop. To set up roots. For Gordo, at least. Her half-hearted efforts can’t substitute an education, and he needs a place to find stability.
There could be worse places, Catherine thinks.
She finds a job at the diner, where her name isn’t Catherine Livingstone.
Gordo’s enrolled in a public school, where he changes his name as well.
Only the two of them know the truth, and it still stings. He tries not to talk about it much, but at night, in the tiny room they’ve rented in the motel, he feels the pull of trees and the moon.
stormborns
baratheonpilled
snowghoul
blakekathryn
germansingergirl
prguitarman
