Memoirs of a Girl Wolf

by Lawrence, Xandra

  We finally agreed on a movie and once it started, he sat next to me on the floor with his legs outstretched.

  “Does your dad really have a jar full of ears?” I asked.

  “Somewhere down stairs. He keeps a lot of his hunting stuff in the basement where he does shop work,” Reign said as he laid his arm around my shoulders.

  I played with the tip of my white sock as I thought about the basement and the memory of last summer when the group of us had stumbled across the skeleton of an animal.

  “What do you mean shop?” I asked.

  “You know like where he cleans his guns, makes his bullets, and cleans up the animal after hunting,” Reign shrugged. “Dad doesn’t let any part of an animal go to waste.”

  I wondered if the skeleton we found chained to the wall had been left from when they lived in the house twelve years ago and a stab of sorrow penetrated me as I felt awful for the poor animal that had been left behind. I hoped that the animal did not die chained to the wall. That Orgon had the decency to put an end to the animal before leaving, but why it was chained to begin with, I couldn’t figure out and I didn’t feel like I could ask Reign because I could tell with the rise in his voice that he didn’t like talking about his dad’s job. I felt bad irritating him and I knew how much he said he loved animals and it was hard for him to accept his dad’s profession, so I thought of something to comment on that would make it sound like I wasn’t judging or thinking poorly of him or his father.

  “He makes his own bullets? That’s cool,” I said.

  “Yeah, he sells them internationally too. Its extra cash and something he can do in retirement. Keeps him busy with all the orders,” Reign said.

  “Internationally? What’s so special about them?’

  “They’re mixed with a strand of silver compound. Shh, the movie’s starting,” Reign said, playfully placing his hand over my mouth.

  I could’ve stayed all evening with him on the floor of the room watching movies, but I knew I had to leave before dark. I wasn’t looking forward to it. I didn’t want to return home to a cold, empty house, but I had to lock myself up and make myself the tea so that I’d sleep through the night.

  After the second movie we had watched ended, I stood and yawned. I told him I needed to go and he objected at first, but I reminded him that we both had a research paper over the Heart of Darkness that we needed to write. He held his head in his hands and groaned, but he agreed. Taking my hand, he led me out of his bedroom and down the stairs. We walked down the front stairs instead of the back kitchen stairs, and soon I was back in the living room and zipping my boots up on my feet.

  He handed me my coat when Orgon walked into the room. He was whistling a low tune and picking at his fingernails with a sharp knife when he noticed me taking my coat from Reign and slipping my arms through the puffy sleeves.

  Coming to a stop he licked his lips and said, “Leaving already lil’ Red?”

  I pulled my hair free of my coat and nodded, but just as I took a breath and parted my lips to speak, Orgon spoke again to Reign.

  “Buddy, I need you to clean up the kitchen. The Chhorsts are arriving tonight.”

  “My grandparents,” Reign said to me.

  “Well, they ain’t really his grandparents, but they’re close enough to us to be,” Orgon said.

  “Are they from Arkansas?” I asked. I wanted to leave, but then on the other hand Orgon was talking to me, and I felt being nice and having a short, pleasant conversation would probably be better for my chances at winning Orgon over.

  “They’re from all over,” Orgon snickered. “They got a place almost everywhere. Got a little two room cabin up here further out.” Orgon waved his hand behind his shoulder. “They move around a lot. Been awhile since they been back here and been awhile since Reign’s got to see them, right buddy?”

  “Dad, they helped us move last summer,” Reign said.

  Orgon tipped his head back and nodded. “You’re right. They did. Then they went to Arizona and now they’re coming back here. I think they miss the kid,” he said, then tapped the temple of his forehead with the butt of his knife and winked at Reign. “Gotta sharp memory kid. That’s the tracker instinct in ya.”

  I pretended to check the time on the watch that hung from my right rest and acting as if I was startled by the time I glanced back and forth between father and son and said, “Thank you for having me over. I’ll see you later,” I said to Reign and because his dad was in the room with us, I extended my hand, and when Reign didn’t take me up on shaking hands, but instead stared at me confused, I patted him on the shoulder and turned to leave. I wasn’t about to kiss him in front of Orgon.

  “Stay clear of the big bad wolf, lil’ Red,” Orgon said after me as I walked out of the house and stepped in long strides the car, and because of my improved hearing I could hear his whistling, he had started up again after the front door closed, even from inside the Toyota or maybe it had just replayed in my mind because of how dark and eerie the tune was. Whether I was actually hearing it or not, I turned up the radio extremely loud and sang along to Rhianna until I could no longer hear Orgon’s haunting harmony following me.

  When I returned home I had about an hour before I needed to lock myself up for the night. While I heated frozen supreme pizza in the oven, I sat on the couch in Mom’s room and flipped mindlessly through the channels. I should have used my time responsibly and write the paper like I had told Reign I needed to do, but doing homework had slipped away from me, yet again for another night. Ever since I found out about my new identity, school work seemed so trivial and stupid compared to what was happening to me. How could I care about shapes in geometry, or Marlow in the Heart of Darkness when something very real and scary was going on within my own body? Something my peers, teachers, and even boyfriend could not understand and would probably think I was crazy—crazier if I tried telling them.

  I had never felt so alone as I did at that time and not just because I really was alone in the house, but because I was alone emotionally. The only person I could talk to was Mom, but even she didn’t want to talk about it. Whenever I tried she changed the subject or ignored me or tried quieting me by promising she was going to “cure” me, but that made me feel ashamed and she treated me as if I had a terminal illness. When she would follow me up to the room in the attic and shut me in, she avoided my eyes and talked about absurd, random things like a client she was working with or how much snow was expected to fall the next day. It was as if just because she didn’t directly address the fact that she was clasping chains around my ankles, somehow, magically made it less real.

  But it was real. Clearly, the only person who I could talk to was not Mom, but Phoenix and what had happened to him? I didn’t know and I didn’t care, I told myself. I was happy he had run off. I hoped he returned to wherever he had come from. This is what I made myself believe and even though I felt deep down that I wanted him to stick around, I reassured myself that Mom would return with something, something that would fix me and make what was wrong, right.

  In the meantime, I couldn’t do homework. I couldn’t pay attention in class. I couldn’t make it to class on time. I couldn’t participate and I couldn’t sit still and write a five page paper. I mainly went to school to see Reign and have our time together in the morning on the drive in, at lunch at our table in the back of the cafeteria, our brief moments at our lockers, and the drive home. That was all school had turned into for me. I didn’t even know what chapter we were on in Biology and why should I care about biology? We were learning about the human body, but it was something that I couldn’t identify with. Was my body the same as the girl sitting behind me? I knew I had different genes. My DNA was different. Were my organs too? Did my heart pump blood differently? All my senses were heightened, and I had strength that was increasing daily—I definitely did not have a normal human body, so what could I really learn of any importance in Biology?

  I finally decided on “Keeping up with the Kar
dashians” when the timer on my phone went off. Pushing myself off of the comfortable couch, I walked toward the kitchen. The pizza smelled good and I was reminded of how hungry I was. I hadn’t eaten since before Mom left that morning.

  I ate all of the medium pizza. I didn’t bother to eat at the table. I cut off pieces and ate standing at the counter. Occasionally, I picked pieces of fallen topping off the front of my shirt and dropped the fallen pieces into my mouth. While I ate, the water for the tea boiled. By the time I was full and washing my hands after finishing, the hot water was bubbling on the front right burner.

  I soon realized, however, that I didn’t know how to make the tea. Mom had always, every night, fixed the warm, sweet drink for me. It wasn’t easy like dropping a tea bag into a cup of water because the tea was loose leaf and I didn’t know how many tea leaves I needed in order to make it strong enough to knock me out for the night. I was worried about brewing too much tea leaves and not being able to wake up in the morning at a decent time, but I guessed anyway. Taking a black, plastic tablespoon from the drawer beside the sink, I scooped one spoonful out of the box and turned the spoon over into the diffuser. Then second guessing myself, I scooped half of the spoonful, now at the bottom of a metal diffuser, back into the box and nodding my head with satisfaction, I poured the hot water over and the diffuser into the mug till it spilled slightly over the brim of the mug which I sucked on and cursed myself when the hot liquid burned my tongue, but with the ability to regenerate I suffered only a couple seconds and then did it again and repeated this all the way up the two flight stairs to the attic, so that by the time I reached the tall book case, I had already finished the tea.

  I followed the now normal routine of moving the bookshelf away from the wall and opening the door which was growing lighter and easier to open since the first night I discovered its existence. Mom and I had talked about how I was going to ensure my security in the room and we decided to have dead bolts on the inside of the door as well as on the out so that on nights she couldn’t be there to lock the outside, I could lock myself in by turning the dead bolts on the door inside which I did after shutting the door in place once stepping inside the room. The light flickered on like it always did when it detected motion and then I sat in the center of the room and locked the chains around my ankles with a small key that I kept on a necklace around my neck, but I fumbled with the second chain on my left ankle because the tea was starting to affect me and my eyelids kept growing so heavy I could barely hold them open. Every cell in my body relaxed and urged me to surrender to restful sleep, but I tried my hardest to lock the chain around my foot and when I thought I heard a clasp, I pulled slightly on the chain to see if it was secure it seemed like it was good enough, so I fell back and by the time my head hit the tile I was asleep.

  I immediately knew something was not right before I even opened my eyes. I dreamed I was swimming in the lake with Reign and he kept pushing me under by jumping on top of my head and holding me under the current with both his hands on my head. Under the water, I tried fighting back by grabbing his legs, but I couldn’t. He was too strong. In my dream, once he released hold of me and I bobbed back up to the surface I swam away from him and got out of the lake and wrapped a towel around me, but I was still wet. I was really wet and then I started drifting out of sleep and into consciousness, but I kept my eyes shut tight because I still felt so wet, and I felt a sharp pain from the front of my head down to my tail bone. It was a dull, throbbing pain that was so painful it made me nauseated.

  I did a mental check. I was on flat on my stomach, with my arms by my side, and I was wet and in pain and the air smelled fresh. A gust of wind blew on my face and through my hair. The sounds of nature grew louder. I could tell also that outside was getting brighter, but how? The only light in the room was the flickering light on the ceiling that only sprang on if I moved. Then I put it together. I was outside. I bolted upright in surprise, or I tried to but I was unable to sit up because I was under something. Opening my eyes in terror I turned on my back and looked up to see what was above me: wooden planks. Quickly I looked around me and saw the water to my right. I was under the back deck of my cabin.

  After crawling on my stomach, I stood, shakily, and paused for a moment staring around me and hugging my arms close to my body. How did I get outside? The only answer I to my worrisome question that I could think of was that someone let me out, but who? It had to be Phoenix. I continued staring around me mainly focusing on the patch of woods, scanning the trees for the black wolf, but I saw no one. No lights were on in the house across from me either. I was completely alone and it was still early in the morning though the sun was rising slowly in the bleak sky.

  I walked around the house and to the front door which was open. For a split second I didn’t want to go inside. I thought about calling the police. What if someone was in my house? But who? If it was anyone, it was Phoenix and why should I be afraid of a possible intruder. Wasn’t I really powerful? Or so Phoenix said.

  I took my chances and entered the house and even though I searched every room and concluded it was empty except for me, I was still freaked out. I decided that after changing and breakfast I would see if Reign would come over for the rest of the day.

  I needed a better idea of what happened last night, so I went directly to the attic and found it in a horrible state. The book shelf had fallen forward and broke the coffee table in two. The couch was ripped as were the pillows, Mom’s poor pillows, and the steel door on the little room was not only completely off its hinges, but also across the room. The door was dented right in the center as if something had rammed itself against it repeatedly, and I knew that someone was me. When I walked into the little room, I saw the chains ripped from the floors and walls. The locks on the chains were broken. I had seen enough.

  Clearly, I broke out last night just as Phoenix had warned and predicted, but I was thankful that my family had been gone and I had gotten lucky that my wolf-self stayed so close to home. I didn’t know what I would I do about tonight, but I didn’t want to think about it not at the moment. I wished silently that Mom was having luck in Peru. If not, we would need a stronger door and locks.

  I was depressed, angry, worried, and scared. The sun wasn’t even fully up, I didn’t need to know right away what I’d do with myself at night until Mom returned. I took a long, hot shower and then fixed myself a huge breakfast of bacon, eggs and biscuits even though I didn’t feel hungry. I sat on Mom’s couch eating breakfast and watching TV, trying to calm my emotions down, when I heard a knocking on the French doors. I turned my head and saw Phoenix, furious, staring at me as he continued pounding on the door.

  24

  He stormed through the doors before I even had a chance to get off the couch and greet him. Without saying a word, he walked right up to me and took the remote from my hand and changed the channel until finding the local news.

  “What?” I demanded.

  “Look,” he interrupted, pointing with the remote at the screen.

  I turned my attention to the two news anchors in navy blue suits reporting on a breaking story. Brenda Hastings, the newswoman, spoke in a sympathetic tone about a teenager—the name had yet to be released—who was camping with this family last night in the woods. In the middle of the night, he was dragged from his sleeping bag about one hundred feet from his camp site and mauled by what they believed to be some kind of animal.

  I stopped listening. My head started throbbing and all noise was replaced with a sharp ringing. My vision blurred. My stomach tightened. I felt hot. My breathing stopped. My hands trembled, and my eyes shut so tight my jaw hurt. I wanted to disappear. I wanted to cry. I wanted to yell. I didn’t know what I wanted, but I didn’t want to open my eyes and have to look at Phoenix who knew what I knew, and if I saw his face he, would confirm my worst nightmare.

  I didn’t have long to sit in still darkness with my eyes shut. I was jerked out of it when Phoenix grabbed both my arms pinning them to my sid
e and shook me back and forth until I opened my eyes; now watering with hot, painful tears. I glared at him.

  “It was me?” I asked, quietly.

  “You got out,” Phoenix said. “I told you . . .”

  “Stop!” I shouted. I was clearly upset was it really necessary to rub it in my face that what he had predicted came true? “I hurt someone? Is he . . .” My throat closed.

  “No, but he’s in critical condition,” Phoenix said, straightening up. He crossed his arms in front of him and stared down at me, coldly.

  I needed to be comforted. I had hurt someone and I didn’t know how I was going to live with myself now knowing that I was violent and dangerous. I was a monster. I needed to cry and I needed someone who loved me to hug me, but all I had was Phoenix who wasn’t offering any bit of comfort.

  “What happened?” I asked, finding my voice after minutes of silence.

  “You tell me,” he replied.

  “I don’t know. I woke up out there.” I pointed towards the open doors. “The chains and door upstairs are busted.”

  “You broke out because you’re stronger,” he said. “You probably ran into the woods and found the kid at the campsite.”

  “Isn’t that kind of far from here?” I asked.

  “Not for a wolf with the speed you have.”

  “Oh, my God.” I covered my face with my hands and suppressed a cry. I just couldn’t break down in front of Phoenix. He expected me to be this amazing, strong wolf girl and I didn’t feel anything like that, but he still wasn’t exactly someone who encouraged you to show emotions.

  “What do I do?” I asked, my voice trembled.

  “Stop being upset,” he said.

  “I hurt someone!” I yelled. I couldn’t control my emotions any longer and I fell forward on to the couch in sobs.

  “Look, you can’t dwell on it. You did something bad so own up to it and make it right. The first thing you need to learn is to not be controlled by your emotions. You have to make choices using reason and letting emotions get in the way could put you and others at risk. As a leader, you’ll need to realize this.”