Counting Wolves

by Michael F Stewart

  Red comes to my side. I can hear Stenson admonishing her for waking me, and trying to keep the ward together, but she can’t. Not if Pig’s gone and Beauty and I are here.

  “They don’t have a bed for me,” Red says. “I’m going to a group home this morning. My dad won’t even know where I live. Can you believe it?”

  And it’s morning. A fringe of sky lightens over the trees that border the parking lot. The lot is a sea of beds and patients.

  . . . “Are you okay?” I ask, lifting my mask and propping myself up on elbows. My voice is hoarse from the smoke.

  “I hope so. I mean, I’m scared about what it’ll be like, but I don’t want to go home either. So I’m . . . hopeful,” Red says; she hasn’t twitched once. “It’s what my mom wanted. It’s all she wanted. For me to have a chance.”

  I wonder if I ever really knew what my mom wanted. What would she want for me? Too much. The wolf was trying to protect me. I can see that now. It smelled of Adriana. It was an evil mother, Stenson said of fairy tales. Stenson hadn’t seen an overprotective bitch in Adriana. She’d seen a caring person. I had twisted everything Adriana did into something evil—and polished away the tarnish from the memory of my mom. It seems like a year ago that Balder told me how we can hold mistaken beliefs.

  Vanet approaches, trailed by Peter and a glum Rottengoth. But Vanet isn’t his usual blustery self; his steps are hesitant. We shared something last night, and I suspect that he doesn’t want it to be over.

  “You all right?” he asks.

  I nod. . . . “Yeah.”

  “Stenson’s arranging for beds. I might be discharged,” he says.

  . . . “You know,” I say. “We could all keep in touch, right? I mean, the next time any of us get in here, we could even meet up.”

  “Me, too?” Peter asks.

  “Of course, my man!” Vanet says and puts his arm around the big kid’s waist. “Just don’t jump off anything taller than you to make it happen.”

  Seeing Vanet embrace Peter, and with Rottengoth looking on with the hint of a smirk, I understand what makes this cool. Even though this sucks, we all are sucking together.

  I smile and ask Nurse Stenson for a paper and pen, and each of us writes our email addresses on it. I promise to send an email around. Vanet smiles at me, but it’s not the crazy grin. It’s a quieter confidence.

  “This sounds like you’re asking me out on a date,” he says hopefully.

  . . . “Um—well, no,” I say and let my hand drop. “But I could use some really good friends. Friends who don’t mind a few quirks.”

  “Quirks are the best,” he replies.

  Adriana’s face appears in the crowd. Tears stain her cheeks, and her eyes are so tired they seem to droop. She shoves her way through and everyone takes the hint to disappear.

  “I’m so sorry,” she says and folds into me, burrowing onto my gurney like the wolf had my bed. I’d known that she was the wolf before I admitted it to myself. Who had I counted for during my panic attack? Me? No—Adriana. Did I have evidence that Adriana was evil? Had she been evil to me in the past? Was I being objective?

  No.

  No.

  No.

  Tears well in my eyes and drip onto the forearm she has wrapped around my chest.

  “Are you okay, honey?” Adriana asks. “I hope you’re okay.”

  . . . “I’m sorry,” I say, but my voice quavers and I can’t help the tears that come because I’m not okay.

  I thought I’d killed my mom. I’d wanted her to go away and she did.

  And I must have been saying so aloud, because Adriana cuddles me.

  “I know, honey, it’s okay, it wasn’t your fault. It’s not your fault.”

  I clutch tight to her shoulders. My father isn’t here. My stepmother is. My wolf. Protecting me as my mother never had.

  “I love you,” she says.

  I draw a breath. A stomach breath. And I sag into her amidst the crazy scene, the crazy kids, and I’m ready to enter the crazy Dark Wood world.

  That day, the girl sharpened a hunting knife; she shouldered a quiver of arrows and strung a bow of yew. That day, the girl gave up her magic and hunted the hunter. Into the Dark Wood, she slunk and laid claim to it for her own.

  . . .

  Acknowledgements

  My last couple of books have been an exploration of fear, managing fear, where fear comes from, how it can be healthy, and how it can be a barrier to life. With Counting Wolves, I wanted to address fear in a common and challenging form, as a psychiatric disorder. I hope what makes this story relatable is that we’ve all faced crushing anxiety, perhaps not to Milly’s degree, but we’ve all faced it somewhere on the continuum between lying on the dock in the sunlight while the water laps, to heart attack zone, paralyzed and wishing nothing more than to stay in bed. I’m sure I got parts of this wrong, and I accept full responsibility for those but, for the parts I got right, I need to say thank you.

  Clare Roscoe, thank you for your support and for sharing your expertise. To Andrea Stewart, in all your capacities, as subject matter expert and first reader. For story, Catherine Adams of Inkslinger Editing, you called this book an old friend, and I consider you a friend too. Thank you. To my literary agent and champion, Gina Panettieri, you push me to greater heights and show me how to get there. To Julia Craig for the best beta read ever. To Polgarus Studios my one stop production shop, but more personally to Graeme Hague for copy editing, Stephanie Parent for your kindness and attention to detail in proofing the manuscript, and to Jason Anderson for formatting. Glendon Haddix of Streetlight Graphics turned the ebook cover into an awesome print one. Martin Stiff of Amazing15, you always manage to interpret my blatherings into the coolest covers imaginable.

  Writers are weird. When experts talk about a loss of intimacy due to the internet, I feel they’ve never researched online writers’ groups, which are as strong a community as anything offline. I’m blessed with a mix of online and offline friends that keep me from the Dark Wood. To name a few, I thank the denizens of the Inkbots, Odyssey alum, Swoonreads readers, and the Sunnyside Writers’ Group.

  I’d be very remiss if I didn’t acknowledge the deep debt owed to Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm whose tales I bastardized and twisted to suit my needs to create Milly’s book of tales. Specifically, these tales were The Singing Bone, Bearskin, The Ungrateful Son, and The Shroud. Also, credit goes to John Brand who first recorded the Counting Crows rhyme in 1780.

  To my wife and daughters, thank you for your ever ready enthusiasm, for your love of fairy tale, you’ve built my house with the strongest mortar of all, with love and a love of words.

  I’d better thank my mom, too, lest she think this book is at all autobiographical! Thank you, Mom! It’s not.

  Dear Reader, thank you for reading. May you never be afraid to stray from safety’s slender path and, when you do, may you find the woods bright and filled with life.

  If you enjoyed this book and would like to review it, please do, wherever you make purchases.

  You can find me on Goodreads, Facebook, and Twitter. I love to talk.

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  About the Author

  Michael is an award winning author who lives in Ottawa, Canada. His graphic novels, novels, and early readers have been published by Rubicon Publishing and distributed by Pearson Education, Scholastic, and Oxford University Press. To learn more about Michael and his projects, visit his website at www.michaelfstewart.com.

 

 

 
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