Grey Lore

by Jean Knight Pace

  “Wow,” Ella said. “Where will they be reintroduced?”

  “Onto his land,” Vivi said. “Mr. Napper’s property is quite extensive.”

  “And the government supports this—like, he has permission?”

  Vivi sighed. “The government of Indiana allows certain people to have exotic pets if they’ve acquired the necessary permits—”

  Ella interrupted, even though she didn’t mean to. “Pets?” she asked. “They’ll be pets?”

  Vivi looked like she was about to explain something complicated, but decided against it. “Yes,” she said. “I suppose they would be considered pets. At least until we see how successful the reintroduction is.”

  “And the yellow signs?” Ella asked.

  “Just as in the West, some of the locals are very…nervous. They’re encouraging others to write to their politicians to try to stop the wolves from coming, but the fact is that, as exotic pets, the wolves will have to be contained. It will all be very safe, very controlled, and perfectly legal.”

  Ella nodded. It was crazy, but cool. “And the supporters—they think it will help the ecosystem—restore trees and beavers, like in Yellowstone.”

  “I think the idea is definitely to restore balance,” Vivi said before picking up her plate and walking to the sink.

  The drive to Napper wasn’t long, but Murray had gotten a late start. He’d stopped to eat and then shared a few drinks with a tall blond at the bar. By the time they were finishing up, it was after ten.

  He helped the tipsy blond to her taxi as the full moon stared down at him like a search light—high and searing. Afterwards, he sat in his classic Mustang for several minutes, letting the fan blow on his face. The strange stone was heavy in his pocket. He wished it was worth something at the pawn shop; he wished it had value for a visible, calculable reason.

  Money, prestige, position—those were things he could understand. Sentiment, history, and artifact—they held no meaning to him. And Napper, the old fox, Murray didn’t fully trust him. Murray decided that he’d ask twice as much as Napper had offered. If the old man wanted it badly enough, he’d pay.

  The small freeway down to Napper was empty this time of night, and while Murray didn’t feel drunk from his stint at the sports bar, he did feel tired. He opened the windows a few inches to let in some air, and turned on the radio. The black road rolled out in front of him, empty and quiet when, to his right, he thought he saw a tall, lanky man loping along the freeway.

  Murray shook his head, and turned the radio louder. Then, after a minute, he rolled the windows up and locked them. A moment later, a large animal ran across the road.

  Murray slammed on his breaks, cursing; and then it was beside him—the glowing, nocturnal eyes.

  The crash hit him in a burst and then the stars seemed to fall from the sky and into his head before everything went dark.

  The radio played for three more hours until the gas finally ran out.

  The good doctor, for his part, was solidly dead. When the cops found him later that night, the car smelled like booze—an easy explanation for the huge dent in his car, the driver’s head solidly imprinted into his steering wheel, a spray of blood across the windshield, deep scratches across his head and neck. The poor drunk looked like he’d been torn apart by Hades’ hound himself.

  When they checked his person, they found his wallet with several credit cards, $200, a receipt from a sports bar with a phone number scribbled on the top, and a driver’s license. Other than that his pockets were empty.

  Chapter 6

  Sam knew that girl from somewhere and it was driving him crazy. When you’d lived in seventeen states, it wasn’t always easy to place a face. Or a name. Her name was Ella. He liked it, but he was pretty sure he’d never known an Ella before. So why did her eyes remind him of his childhood, of trees and burning wood?

  Sam had spent the afternoon going through the only yearbook he had—7th grade. No one in it looked like that girl. Or at least no one looked like the part of her face that haunted his memory—the dark brown eyes, the ivory cheekbones, the full but frowning lips. She was pretty, but he didn’t think of her that way. He thought of her instead as weirdly…familiar.

  Sam’s father came home just before dinner—a small sack of groceries in his hand. Once, just once, Sam would love to have him show up with a pizza box instead. Tonight, it was canned pork and beans served over rice and topped with melted American cheese. His father ate with a napkin on his lap and made commentary on the sweetness of the beans.

  Finally, when his father had cleaned his plate and Sam had choked down enough beans to avoid stunting his growth, his father leaned back and said, “Sold my first vacuum today. We should celebrate. Mr. Freezy’s still have those sixty-nine cent cones?”

  Sam really, really hoped they did. “Probably, yeah, sure,” he said.

  His father stood up, pulled several neat twenties out of his wallet and took them to his room. Sam knew his dad kept the money somewhere, though he’d never been able to figure out where. Truth be told, he hadn’t tried that hard to find his father’s hiding spot. What was he going to do—sneak money for video games so they could both starve to death?

  Two hundred dollars was rent. Still nothing to cover food. And who knew how long it would be before his father sold another vacuum? His father never signed up for food stamps or free lunches. He said he didn’t like the government to have its nose in his business.

  Sam thought it’d be nice to have someone’s nose in their business. Sam’s mother had died when he was young. Too young to miss her. Although the idea of someone who could cook and fill in the budget did have some appeal.

  His father came back out with two one-dollar bills and a jacket in hand even though it’d been wicked hot all month. “Those restaurants are always freezing,” he said when Sam stared at the coat. Well, their trailer sure wasn’t. Sam only wished he could store up enough Mr. Freezy’s coldness to keep him from waking up sweating in the night.

  All the fast food restaurants were on the south end of town, and the booths at Mr. Freezy’s looked like they’d been there for about 700 years. Also, the ice creams weren’t sixty-nine cents. They were back up to their dollar menu status. Sam’s dad didn’t have the change for the tax. “We’ll just get one for you,” he said.

  “No,” Sam said. “Give me a minute.” Quickly, he went out to the parking lot and walked along the curb of the drive through and then along the periphery of the grass by the huge garbage bin. When you didn’t get a regular allowance, you got good at finding loose change. Sam could spot a coin from forty feet away and usually scrounged up enough for a burger at school every week.

  In the Mr. Freezy’s parking lot, near the garbage gate by the Dumpster, Sam found a neat little quarter and two pennies, heads up. Sam took it all. The quarter would pay their tax with change. And Sam wasn’t one to pass up pennies.

  Or luck.

  Sam and his dad ended up eating their ice cream cones in the car on the way back to the trailer. Some kid had barfed all over the floor just as they’d gotten their order, and neither of them wanted to eat dessert with the smell of vomit wafting through the air.

  Unfortunately, as soon as his dad turned on the radio, a story about the latest tooth-pull murder came on. It had happened almost exactly a month after the first bizarre murder, and the newscasters couldn’t get enough of it—wondering whether it was a copycat murder or the same guy.

  “Why don’t you change it, Dad?” Sam said. “It’s kind of sick.”

  “It’s more than sick,” his father said, not touching the dial.

  “Then why don’t you turn it off?” Sam said.

  His father ignored him for a minute—letting the story play. The latest victim had been shot in northern Montana. He had owned a huge ranch that he oversaw from a lavish house that sat on a golf course nearby. He was about as different from the Italian computer genius who’d gotten killed in L.A. as he could be. Minus the money. They both had h
ad plenty of money—money that seemed to be of no interest whatsoever to the shooter. Because just like the first murder, Montana guy had been found with a fat wallet in his pocket, his heart shot through, and his teeth torn out.

  Sam shuddered.

  “Sorry, son,” his father said, putting his hand to the radio dial as the reporter said something about a silver bullet being found during the autopsy. His father flipped stations. “It’s just that I met your mother near that town. It’s strange to hear about something like that happening in sleepy, little Montana.”

  Strange didn’t even begin to describe it.

  Sam’s father flipped through fuzzy stations until the local news came through—another morbid story about some guy who’d gotten into a car wreck on that same night, just about thirty miles north of Napper. Drunk driver, all torn up when they found him.

  “At least he didn’t kill anyone else,” Sam said, glad when his father finally flipped the radio off entirely.

  His father nodded grimly, looking out the window at the flat, green landscape ahead of them.

  Chapter 7

  A dark, mottled wolf turned circles in its cage—occasionally banging its body against the side.

  “Do you think it will eat the others by the time it arrives in the U.S.?” a heavyset Frenchman asked his friend as they lifted the aluminum crate to place it on the large, wheeled baggage cart at the Paris Charles de Gaulle airport.

  “If they’re lucky,” the smaller man replied. “Then they’ll know it’s crazy to welcome such an animal into your woods.”

  The wolves had been well-fed, vaccinated, and sedated. They now rested in a row of cages. Still, many of their eyes blinked open and the large one lurched around, looking anxiously through the narrow slats at the others.

  The other man chuckled, but just as he did, the pacing animal let out a howl, and the man dropped his end of the crate. The lock banged against the tiled airport floor and sprang open. The wolf staggered out, breathing heavily. And then it howled again.

  “What do we do?” the heavyset one shouted, as the animal stumbled forward once more before gaining its footing.

  The heavyset man took a careful step back, and when he did the fur on the animal’s neck rose up—spikes of dark fur surrounding a black face that ran into the deep abyss of its eyes. There was no glaze over them now, no dilation of the pupils.

  Slowly the animal’s lips curled back—black gums to yellow teeth—long, thick, salivating. The animal lurched forward, snarling.

  “Kick it in the nose,” the slender man screamed as the heavyset one stumbled backwards. “It doesn’t even know what it’s doing.”

  “Comme diable,” the heavyset one stammered, kicking out a foot and missing, as the animal growled deep in its throat—a noise both men could feel as well as hear.

  The slender man grabbed a small trashcan, holding it in front of his chest and then pulling it back as though to hit the animal with the flimsy, plastic edge.

  The wolf lifted its snout, baring its teeth again, just as a tall American in khaki trousers and a plain cotton shirt appeared. He carried a large veterinarian’s bag.

  “Trouble, gentlemen?” he asked.

  “Monsieur, it has escaped,” the slender man shouted. “It is out of control.”

  The veterinarian raised one eyebrow—every other feature on his face unmoving. “Out of control?” he said. “Hardly.” He smiled, lips lifting from his teeth in the same way the wolf’s had. “You’ve merely spooked the poor creature through your panic.”

  The animal collapsed as the American spoke. The veterinarian calmly knelt by the animal, shining a penlight into its eyes. He reached into his bag and pulled out a small syringe, which he plunged into the animal’s hide.

  “Thank you, monsieur,” the slender man said as the vet inspected the cages. “It is good you will be travelling with them.”

  “Yes,” he said, looking to the men. “It is. Should I draw up a report about this incident?” he asked, reaching for a pen.

  “Non, monsieur, that will be quite unnecessary,” the heavyset man replied.

  “Of course,” the vet responded. “I trust then that you won’t mention to anyone else what happened.”

  “Of course.”

  After they had left the American with the crates at the loading area, the heavyset man grumbled, “Spooked the poor creature, did we? Conceited American.”

  The slender man shuddered. “I’m glad he came anyway.” And then he laughed—a thin, shaky sound. “Like an American movie, non?”

  The other shook his head. “A bad movie,” he muttered. “Those wolves should all be more heavily sedated.”

  “Should we report it?” the heavyset one asked.

  “That we dropped a crate containing a deadly animal in the center of the Roissy and almost got attacked? Non.”

  Ella had developed a ritual. Each night before bed, she took down her mother’s jewelry box. The smell of the wood was comforting, as was the clink of the small, inexpensive things inside of it—a few bicentennial quarters, several stones—some picked up at lapidary shows, but most found in nooks and crannies around the city. They held, as far as Ella knew, no value at all, but were beautiful and interesting to the touch. Every night as part of her ritual she rubbed each stone—the smooth and the jagged, and thought of her mother.

  In the box, there was almost no jewelry at all except for her mother’s wedding ring. It was a thin band with an unusual square of gold at its center in place of a diamond. On the gold square was a large swooping ‘C’—her mother, Christa’s, initial. Ella ran her finger over the shallow engraving. She might have hated the ring that represented her mother’s lost marriage, except that her mother hadn’t. Her mother had worn the ring often, almost always when they were at home.

  Ella slipped it onto each finger. It didn’t quite fit, but she liked how it felt—so polished and cool.

  The only other things in the jewelry box were scraps of paper. Some of them were her mother’s—a line of a poem, a Celtic saying, a nursery rhyme from Ella’s childhood.

  Lately, Ella had started adding to the stack of papers—a small observation, a sentence about Vivi’s un-played piano, a little sketch of the stray dog she’d seen in the neighborhood. It was her own poetic contribution to her mother’s little scrap journal.

  Ella hadn’t written in her real journal since her mother’s death. Almost every day since she’d been old enough to write, her journals had gotten an entry, but now the pages sat naked and abandoned.

  Maybe when she’d recovered a bit from the…the everything, she could paste some of her scraps onto the blank pages. She hoped for this—that one day these bits of paper, these scraps could be placed together to form a meaningful whole; to make some sense out of her mother’s death which made no sense at all; to find some beauty in a situation that felt a lot like Ella’s current journal—blank, empty.

  Chapter 8

  “Oncle,” the young girl said. “Why do you ask if there are wolves on the plane?”

  “Because I can feel them,” the man replied with an American accent.

  “But how,” she asked. “Comment le savez-vous?”

  The American shrugged. “One day you may understand.” He stood and hugged the girl’s mother—his sister.

  She looked with some concern into his face. “Until next summer, then,” she said.

  “Yes,” he said. “Or maybe Christmas if Antoine can change his holiday.”

  “Oui oui, oncle,” the child said, throwing her arms around her uncle. “I so want to see American Christmas.”

  The man untangled the child from his legs and kissed her cheek as he gathered his bag and papers. “Maybe Christmas,” he said. “But for now I must get back to my job and my class.”

  He took a deep breath. He could smell them—the wolves the ticket agent had said couldn’t possibly be on the plane. There were nine.

  The passengers still had not begun boarding and the man was feeling antsy. As
was his niece.

  “Oncle,” the girl said. “Tell me a story.”

  “A story,” he asked. “But which one?”

  “Well,” the girl said with a small, mischievous look in her eye. “Since you like wolves so much, you must tell Le Petit Chaperon Rouge.”

  “I do not like wolves. At least most,” he said.

  “All the better then, for the telling of the tale,” his sister injected, staring out at the plane as though trying to see through it and biting her nail.

  The man sighed. The would-be passengers were milling about and someone who looked like the pilot was arguing with a tall man in khaki pants. It did not appear the passengers would be boarding any time soon.

  “Very well,” he said, looking at his niece.

  “Once upon a time there was an impetuous and persistent young girl.” He tapped his niece on her nose. “She was like a bright spot in a land dense with woods and darkened by wolves. Every night, each cottage that sat near the woodland path locked its doors and shuttered its windows, leaving candles like talisman to frighten away the bloodthirsty beasts.”

  “David,” the girl’s mother said in a warning voice. “Don’t make it too scary.”

  “Non maman, c’est bien.”

  Her mother sighed and her uncle continued. “Only the bravest families lived among the trees, gathering roots and plants by day, spinning and weaving by night. The girl’s grandmother was the bravest of all—living alone at the path’s far end—gathering berries and baking pies to give to weary travelers and to trade with the roaming merchants.

  “The old woman seemed to the child as sturdy as one of the 200-year trees and the girl expected her to live just as long. Which is why it was a shock when one day a rumor floated through the wood, dusted onto the lips of a tall tradesmen: The old woman had fallen ill and lay in her bed, wasting away into twigs and loose skin.