I sighed and trudged forward, reluctantly, but hid my lack of enthusiasm by pulling my lips into a smile to match his and handing him the cake I said in cheery, hyper voice, “Happy birthday!”
When he hugged me he said into my ear in a low voice, “Sorry, my dad’s here. They surprised me, but you’re just time in for lunch.”
They?
After following Reign into the house, I stood by myself in the entry way shrugging my coat off and stepping out of my boots while he disappeared into the kitchen where I heard laughter which to me was a good sign and put me in a better mood. I ran my fingers through my hair and waited for Reign to return. Phoebe sniffed me, then growled, then warmed up again, but barked at me. She couldn’t decide if I was a friend or threat.
Reign came back into the room and snapped at her to go sit in the chair in the corner near the fire place. She obeyed. He scratched the back of neck, confused by her behavior. Seeing his bare neck caused me to flash back to the symbol I remembered seeing on Phoenix’s neck, but I didn’t have long to think about that because Reign put his arm around my shoulder and pulled me gently toward the kitchen.
“My grandparents are here,” he said. Noticing my face tense up, he smiled warmly and said, “Don’t worry. Deep breath, here we go.” He pushed me through the door of the kitchen. We stood in the little room where an older woman with her iron hair done up in a loose French twist stood at the white farm sink with her back to us. The two men, Orgon and Thrice, sat at the round kitchen table. The three adults stopped laughing, and turned to look at me.
From the kitchen sink, Maude turned off the faucet and walked up to me. She took both my hands in hers and squeezed. I felt immediately calm and comfortable. She was about my height. Her posture was slightly curved like her nose. Her lips were a plum shade and her cheeks glowed a soft pink. Her bright green eyes were hidden behind teal square glasses that slid down the bridge of her nose. Two hearing aids sat, tucked behind her ears. She reached up to adjust both of them after asking me my name.
“Mickey,” I said.
“Were you named after the mouse?” Thrice asked from where he sat at the table.
I turned my attention from the beautiful older woman to her husband who upon setting eyes on him caused all the warmth and comfort I had felt meeting Maude evaporated within half a second. A shiver ran down my spine and my nostrils flared. Thrice made me feel similar to how Orgon made me feel. My instincts were telling me to guard myself and watch their movement closely. Thrice and Orgon laughed at his comment. The old man wore dirty jeans and a frayed checkered red shirt that was left unbuttoned. Underneath his shirt he wore a stained white t-shirt. His hair was an iron grey like Maude’s and it was full in the front and thin in the back. Coarse thick eyebrows grew above dark brown eyes set close together with a flat nose separating the two. His skin was rough and blotchy. A two inch scar ran across his left cheek.
“No, my grandma,” I said, causing their laughter to cease.
Maude had moved back to the sink where she continued rinsing dishes, I guessed from a lunch I had just missed.
“Your grandma’s name was Mickey too?” Reign asked with genuine interest.
I eyed him with sweet adoration. I wondered how he could not get the fearful feeling that I had when laying eyes upon these two men, but all Reign saw and felt was respect and pride. I was sure because he was raised by them. I wished the men would leave and I could just get to know Maude. She reminded me so much of Reign.
“Her name was Michelle. My dad nicknamed me Mickey and it stuck,” I said, pausing a moment to think about my reply. I wondered why the childhood nick name had indeed stuck. Why did I continue to call myself by a name attributed to me by a parent who left? Michelle was his mother, but also a wolf and for the first time the name instilled me with some pride.
“You’re name’s Michelle? I love that,” Reign said.
Reign’s response was drowned out by a clatter of dishes falling in the sink. The large bowl Maude had been running under water dropped from her hands and broke into pieces at the bottom of the sink when I mentioned the name of my grandmother. Maude scolded herself and Reign ran over to make sure she hadn’t cut herself. He pushed her away from the sink and picked up the broken pieces tossing them in the trash.
“Let’s have some of the cake, yes?” Maude said, turning to the cake on the counter. “It smells great,” she added and everyone agreed.
“I hope so,” I said quietly under my breath.
“It will be,” Maude said, staring at me and nodding as Reign now joined her at the counter and lifted the lid of the Tupperware. She shooed him away and told us to sit at the table while she cut up the cake and served it.
We were all squeezed around the little table. I found myself turning into how Phoenix acted at Christmas dinner. I was silent and focused only on eating the cake while listening to the conversation. I wanted to eat quickly and leave, but Maude asked me questions about myself and I responded nicely until Reign took over the conversation. Orgon and Thrice turned back toward each other and started their own conversation. I wasn’t paying much attention to the two men until I heard Orgon mention an animal attack.
“Outside of Mackinaw City,” Thrice muttered.
“Same animal?” Orgon asked.
My ears perked up. I kept my gaze focused on my chocolate cake and nodded my head along to Maude’s entertaining story about Reign’s tenth birthday, but I concentrated on Thrice’s low voice.
“Same one as the two others. They’re certain of it. Same type of injuries,” Thrice said.
Orgon leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. “We were right then. Probably, almost had it in Toronto.”
“We weren’t wrong,” Thrice sighed. “You up for a drive?”
Orgon nodded. He stood adjusting his jeans then rambled over his shoulder a reason for their premature departure. Maude waved them away and blew Thrice a kiss as the two men walked through the kitchen and toward the mud room where they could be heard loading guns and pulling on their jackets. The sound of a door slammed.
“Working on your birthday? Maude said, frowning.
“So much for retirement,” Reign said.
Maude stood and started clearing the table of cake dishes. “Oh, they’ll never stop. It’s too engrained in them.”
“Not, me. I’m gonna be a veterinarian,” Reign said with a smile.
Maude walked up to him and placed her hands on his pink cheeks as she said, “And a great one you’ll be. Don’t tell Pap. He won’t like that that. He agrees with your daddy about going into the family business.”
“I can help in other ways like Dad’s gonna show me how to make bullets,” Reign said.
They continued chatting and I stopped paying attention all together. I was stuck in my seat thinking over the exchange between Thrice and Orgon. It didn’t make sense. If there had been more than one attack, and they assumed it was the same animal, then that animal couldn’t be me. Perhaps, it wasn’t even a wolf. I sat partly relieved. I was so elated I broke out in a smile and suppressed laughter, but that quickly turned to confusion. Did Phoenix know? I was suddenly overcome with an urgent need to tell Phoenix. I had no one else to share my happiness with that I wasn’t a dangerous beast.
I stood and when I did both Maude and Reign stopped talking. They stared at me waiting for an announcement.
“I have to go,” I said.
“But we need study for the test,” Reign said, standing also.
“Tomorrow,” I said and then bolted for the kitchen door and ran through the living room grabbing my coat from the wooden coat tree and shoving my feet in my boots without zipping them up. I was out the door and already in the woods by the time Reign left the kitchen to see me off.
The sun was still out and it was hours before dusk, but I had to tell Phoenix. It couldn’t wait, so upon breaking through the woods on my side, I ran into the house and shouted to Mom that I was heading out early. She didn’t’ care she was the
phone with someone from South Africa. I grabbed the keys to the Toyota and made the hour drive to the UP.
Phoenix was waiting for me when I parked my car at the end of the road. He was pacing back and forth on all fours as a black wolf. When he saw my car approach he stood into his human form and before I even had the car parked he threw open my car door and placed both his arms on my shoulders. His eyes rolled over my face.
“Are you okay? What is it?” he asked. “You’re scared.”
“I’m not scared.” I was earlier a little when I first found out about the attacks because at first I thought I was still guilty and I was scared I was attacking people without knowing. He must have felt my fear.
He stepped away from the car as I climbed out and together we started walking the acre toward the woods.
“I have great news. That’s why I’m here early,” I said.
“You changed during the day?” he asked.
Frowning, I shook my head. I was still waiting to be able to do that. My morphing was confined to the night hours when the moon was out. I had yet to be able to morph at my will at any minute.
“It’s Reign’s birthday,” I started.
“Mickey, I don’t care,” Phoenix said.
“Don’t interrupt. It’s Reign’s birthday so I was over at his house having cake with him and his dad and I overheard his dad say that there have been more attacks—animal attacks. They think it’s the same animal in all the attacks, so you know what that means,” I said, jumping a little.
Phoenix remained quiet.
Rolling my eyes, I sighed and continued, “It’s not me. Phoenix, I didn’t attack that kid.”
“Why are you happy?” he finally asked as we entered the woods.
“Because it’s not me.”
“Whether it was you or not innocent people have been hurt that’s nothing to jump up and down about,” he said.
Instead of jumping over a fallen tree limb, I stepped right on it. I kicked the broken branch as I walked through the snow, feeling guilty and ashamed. He was right. The discovery was bitter sweet even if it wasn’t me something out there was causing problems. I remained quiet the rest of the walk.
Because it was still an hour or so before dark there was no point to start training yet, and I started to regret rushing out there. It wasn’t like Phoenix and I had a lot to talk about or anything to do with the spare time, but I followed him into the one room cabin and sat in the arm chair while he sat on his cot. For a few minutes we stared at each other and then I picked up a book off the arm of the chair and flipped through it.
“Hey,” I said, suddenly remembering something he had said earlier. “How did you know I was scared? You said you felt it.”
He pulled his hair back and tied it up with a band around his wrist, ignoring me.
“But you told me we only experience empathy with people who we care about,” I said, smiling. “You care about me.”
“I feel responsible for you that’s all,” he said, avoiding my stare.
He stood and walked over to the little rectangle window which he peered out of with his arms crossed. His back was to me and I noticed, again, the symbol on the back of his neck.
“Can I ask you a question?” I asked.
“No,” he said.
“What’s that on your neck?” I asked anyway.
“Nothing you need to know about right now,” he replied.
“But I will?”
He flinched, but didn’t respond.
“You can ask me a question,” I said, leaning back in the arm chair.
“Ask you a question?” he asked, slowly, turning from the window.
“Yeah ask me anything”
“Okay, why do girls have those strings on their clothes? What’s the point?” He pointed to my shirt where, embarrassingly enough, the black string was hanging out of the arm pit of my shirt.
I tucked the string back into my shirt and thought about it as I did. “I really don’t know”
“You can’t answer me; I can’t answer you. That’s fair. No more questions,” he said.
But I didn’t want to spend an hour in silence, so I respected that he didn’t want to talk about his neck for whatever reason and I instead tried opening the discussion again about the attacks. Occasionally, in the past, there had been minor, animal attacks, random instances, but never a series of attacks, not that I knew of. I didn’t know if I should be worried.
“I know you think I’m a horrible person but I am so thankful that it’s not me. I was in serious turmoil that I had hurt someone,” I said.
“I think it’s the same animal that attacked you,” he said.
I sat up, slowly. I was getting better at reading him though I still couldn’t use empathy on him. I saw his eyes flicker and slide to the left when he looked at me. I could tell in that moment that he had lied to me.
“You knew it wasn’t me. You lied to me,” I said in disbelief.
“I was right to. Would you have agreed to this if I hadn’t?”
“I’m so tired of everyone lying to me. I thought you’d be one of the ones that couldn’t do that to me,” I said. Shaking my head, I pulled my keys out of my back pocket and headed for the door, “I’m going home. I’m done with this.” Didn’t he understand what he had put me through the last month? How horrible I had felt thinking I was violent? How terrified I was thinking Orgon was hunting me? That my boyfriend’s father was planning on cutting out my heart? I was doing my best not to let my emotions get the best of me, but I felt like Phoenix had just clawed my back.
“I was just looking out for you. Like I’ve always done,” he said, following my out the door.
“Like you’ve always done?” I asked.
“Who do you think carried you home that night and bandaged your leg?”
I came to a stop and slowly turned to face him. “You?”
He nodded. He grabbed hold of me and looked intently into my eyes, pleading with me to stay and forgive him as if saving me that night would make up for his lies. He was supposed to be the one person, the only person, who I could share and connect with as I learned about what it meant to be Morphic; a connection I couldn’t even have with the boy I loved, Reign.
I shook my head and pushed him away.
“Well, stop. I have been and still am capable of looking after myself,” I said and ran.
28
Mom left the first of February. I hadn’t seen Phoenix since our fight and that was fine with me, but I didn’t want to return to locking myself in the room in the attic although Mom had replaced the door, I wasn’t going back into that cage. I didn’t want Mom to worry or ask questions, so every night I still left home, but I didn’t go to the Upper Peninsula. I had found a small cottage near the lake that was empty and dark and would be until the summer when the cottage would be rented by tourists. It was a two bedroom cottage and furnished. I slept in a full size bed and brought my sleeping bag with me to sleep under. I slept like this every night. I stopped training all together. I felt like I was in a good place with it anyway and now that I knew I wasn’t dangerous, I felt like I could take a break maybe even permanently. All I had to focus on, I told myself, was being in control of my morphing at night. I had given up ever having the ability of morphing at my will during any part of the day. I was certain it just wasn’t going to happen for me.
A lot changed in those first weeks. I was sleeping more, so I was more energized and in a better mood and I could devout more time and attention to Reign who had been a little hurt by my rapid departure on his birthday. Mom had made the mistake of blurting out to him that I had gone to see Phoenix and that was difficult to explain to him, but he seemed to believe me when I told him Phoenix had something important to tell me about where Viktor was.
My relationship wasn’t all that had improved. School also got better. I did all my homework every night in the little cottage and my grades started coming up. It started to look like I was going to pass sophomore year after all.
<
br /> But then, I came home one afternoon and found Mom packing two suitcases in a hurry. I stood in her doorway, disheartened at seeing the luggage, and only moved when she started ordering me to help her pack.
“Where are you going?” I asked.
“Africa,” she said from her closet. “I found it. I did, baby. I really did. This is it.”
I re-folded a couple tops for her while she collected her toiletries from her bathroom. After what happened with Phoenix, I really hoped that she had found something this time and I tried my best to believe her, but my heart couldn’t, so instead I smiled to show my support and hide my doubt.
I didn’t want her to leave though. With her gone, I’d be completely alone in the house. I dropped her off at the bus station where she bought a ticket for Detroit to catch a flight to Johannesburg, and then I found myself driving back down the lane toward an empty house. At least, I could stop going to the cottage, but I still didn’t like the being alone and the quietness of the house made me miss my family, especially my brothers. I tried calling my grandparents, but the phone rang unanswered.
After the second attempt, I called Reign who was slightly surprised I was inviting him over so late. He realized for the first time that in our months of dating we had never spent time together after dark. He could tell in my voice that I was upset, so he came over and it didn’t take him long. I waited for him on the steps leading to my front door and when I saw him emerge from the trees, I stood and ran to greet him.
Hugging him tightly, I rested my head on his chest and I told him Mom had left, though I didn’t go into detail why. I told him how alone I felt in the house. He replied that he would stay as long as I needed him to.
Memoirs of a Girl Wolf Page 23