Walking Wolf Road (Wolf Road Chronicles Book 1)

by Brandon M. Herbert

  Before dinner, I stepped into the bathroom to take some medicine for my headache, and pulled out the scale. I stepped on, then stepped off and then on again. Then I kicked it.

  “Mom,” I yelled, “is the scale broken?”

  “Not as far as I know.” she yelled back, then walked in and slung her dishtowel over her arm. She pushed me off the scale and checked the calibration, then stepped on herself and clicked her tongue. Then she stepped off and pulled me back on it.

  “Nope, looks like you’ve lost a couple pounds honey. And I think I may have picked them up for you.” She muttered and poked her stomach.

  The last time I’d told her my weight was in Chicago a couple months before we moved. She had no idea that I’d gained six pounds… and then dropped ten in the space of a few weeks, while eating more. It just made no sense.

  Over the years, I’d tried dieting, exercise, nothing worked so eventually I’d given up. The doctor Mom took me to couldn’t figure it out either; they gave up and diagnosed me with an unspecified eating disorder.

  By the end of the week I started using belt holes I hadn’t touched since middle school. I didn’t tell Mom, but I started to lose almost a pound a day, sometimes more. When it got noticeable, even the ever-scorning-never-rewarding eye of John caught on.

  One day in P.E. I blocked Jack’s pass and my team scored. I realized my mistake as soon as I saw his face. To make sure I knew my place, Malcolm body-slammed me later and I went down hard. I tore most the skin off my elbow, but by the end of the period, it was just raw pink skin.

  I came home from school with my stomach growling, like usual. I closed the heavy wood door behind me and leaned my head against it as I sighed. Mom sat next to the big living room window, elbow deep in cardboard. “Hey Jimmy, how was your day?”

  Would you like the truth, or do you just want to hear what’ll make you feel better? “Not bad, yours?”

  “Okay, it was… okay… Um, would you come into the living room please? We need to talk…”

  Every teenager dreads that sentence. Adrenaline dumped into my bloodstream while questions blurred through my mind a mile a minute. I remembered every bad thing I’d ever done or even thought about, plus a multitude of ‘what ifs’ ‘is it becauses’ and ‘did they find out abouts’.

  Mom summoned John from his office and they sat down across from me. All I needed was a bare light bulb hanging in my eyes.

  “Jimmy, we’ve been talking about it and both of us have noticed.” John took the lead. Mom looked on the verge of tears and I felt utterly confused. “And… well… is there anything you need to tell us about?”

  “Um…” My brain raced as I tried to predict which of my multitude of lies was about to be exposed. “Nothing comes to me; it sounds like you have something on your mind though?”

  “Well, we’re concerned about your weight. It almost looks like you’re shrinking every time we look at you.”

  “And… this is bad? Aside from needing some smaller clothes, I don’t see how losing weight could be a bad thing.” When in doubt, be sarcastic, I thought.

  “Have you… um…” John leaned forward and gestured with his hands as he chose his words. “Jimmy, no matter how desperate you are, there’s a right way and a wrong way to do things. We didn’t want to say anything prematurely, but we can’t just write it off to our imaginations anymore. After you eat, do you—um… Jimmy, do you know what bulimia is?”

  “Yeah, it’s where someone, oh… oh!” I think I scared them when I threw my head back and howled with laughter. After all my dread, it was just a massive false alarm.

  “Guys… I can assure you, that of all the things wrong with me; Bulimia is not on the list.”

  “Oh, thank goodness…” Mom sighed with relief.

  “C’mere.” John almost never hugged me; it felt like hugging a stranger. He squeezed me once, then set a hand on my shoulder and looked at me. Standing so close, I realized I was almost as tall as him now. “It’ll take a little getting used to, but I sort of like having less of you to hug.”

  “Careful, you’re about to overdraw your fatherly love account.” I frowned. Please god, spare me… “Besides, you seem to have more of a keg than a six pack yourself.”

  “Just go clean up and get your brother, we’re going out for supper tonight.” John scowled and walked away.

  I picked up my backpack from where I dropped it near the door, and headed down the dungeon stairs when Mom came up behind me.

  “Jimmy? I’m sorry but I have to ask… how are you losing weight? Is it…drugs?” She whispered the last word like it was dirty.

  I looked into her eyes and did something unusual. I told the truth. “I have no idea. It might be the elevation, but… I just… I really don’t know.” I shrugged.

  “Well alright… Oh!” She turned back as she remembered something “Is something wrong with your glasses?” I realized I’d gotten lazy and left them off.

  “Yeah, I was gonna tell you about that. I, uh—my eyes seem to be getting better.”

  She quirked her eyebrow, “Well, that’s good. Strange, but good. Do you want to see an optometrist and get your prescription fixed?”

  “Maybe, I’ll let you know.” Wow, that went easier than I’d expected. I turned and walked down the stairs while something stirred in the back of my mind. A whisper I fought to forget and a fractured memory of a dream. I brushed it off, but that night, the truth that had been lying in wait within me uncoiled and pounced.

  The first dream I didn’t realize was a dream until I woke up from it; something about a girl with brown hair. She seemed so familiar for some reason… meh… the harder I tried to remember, the faster it slipped from me. All I could really remember was the girl herself, not her exact face, but the feel of her soft brown hair and deep contentment.

  I surfaced from the dream and clutched at a sharp burning pain from the scar on my leg. Exhaustion pulled me down despite the pain and I slipped out of my skin…

  I opened my eyes on top of a tall spire of rock, overlooking a circular sapphire pool. Maple and aspen trees ringed the shore. I lifted my arms and dove in. I swam toward the bottom amidst dancing spears of sunlight and saw the dark mouth of a cave.

  Brightly colored fish darted away and disappeared as shadows dimmed the light. I looked up toward the surface and bit down on a scream.

  Snakes. Snakes everywhere, their undulating silhouettes darkened the light as they converged in the water above me. Searing pain lanced through my calf, but I fought it as I turned and desperately swam inside the cave to escape them. The darkness swallowed me until I came up into an air pocket.

  I froze. A pair of amber eyes stared back inches from my face.

  The wolf looked starved, emaciated and neglected, but he held himself proud. His coat gleamed iridescent in the darkness of the cave, and his eyes burned with life and intelligence. Slowly, I lifted my hands and touched him, sliding my fingers into the dense fur on either side of his ears. His eyes hooded and he made a happy rumbling sound as he stepped forward and touched his forehead to mine. Warmth filled me at the familiarity of the sensation.

  I knew I had to get him out of there. I led him into the water and clutched him to my chest as we swam out of the cave. As we rose through the water, his fur waved against my arm and I felt his heartbeat against my chest, racing in sync with my own. The snakes rushed toward us as the wolf and I started to merge, like they were trying to stop us. I saw through his eyes, felt his fur over my skin and our heartbeats became one. We defied the suffocating terror as we raced to the sunlight and the snakes closed in.

  I kicked one last time and broke the surface, drawing in a deep breath. Before the snakes reached me, I felt everything shift around us as the light dimmed past my closed eyelids.

  I opened them and found the moon in place of the sun. The sky was depthless obsidian, without a single star to break the curtain. Only the moon hung there, eternally full.

  “My son; I’d feared you lost again�
��” I recognized that voice instantly and it sent a chill down my back.

  I tore my eyes from the moon and saw Lupa standing there. Her white fur gleamed in the moonlight, perched on rocks almost as black as the sky. She climbed down like a pool of platinum liquid spilling from ledge to rock. Everything was black as onyx despite the full lunar light, even the towering trees that surrounded us. The only thing that reflected light was her coat.

  “You rejected us. You forced me out and tried to hide from me again, just when we’d finally recovered you.” I felt her pain and her rejection inside me as though it was my own, “Why, my son?”

  As she approached I felt fear and uncertainty; but also a strange giddiness, almost… joy…

  “Because… because I was afraid…” What was I saying? I meant to say ‘because this isn’t real’, but as soon as I said it, everything clicked into place. This was the answer; the weight loss, the bizarre dreams, my eyesight; all of it. Fen wasn’t completely deranged; I was changing…

  It was all real, this place, Fen, Lupa; all of it, and I felt… right. Acceptance seeped into my bones, and I felt it inside me; a restless energy behind my breastbone with yellow eyes. I took a deep breath and set my jaw.

  “But… I’m sick of being afraid.”

  Lupa smiled again and joy lit her face, and then she turned and looked over her shoulder at me. “Then run with me…”

  I moved after her and my body spilled from one form to another like water; my hands were paws by the time they touched the rocks. I didn’t even pause, that would have given her a bigger head start, but I was surprised that I didn’t feel any different.

  I was still me, my soul, just a different shell.

  The world flushed to life like never before, and we left the riverbed and charged into the trees. The woods lost their ominous darkness and stars emerged from the velvet sky overhead, netted in the faint glow of the Milky Way. Trees and shrubs flew past, every detail clear in vivid sepia, dead pine needles the color of rust crunched underfoot as I flew after the spirit with my tail trailing like a banner.

  We played and raced around tree trunks and massive boulders. I doubled back under a fallen log, and thought I’d lost her until she barreled out of the underbrush and broadsided me; we rolled a couple times then jumped back onto our feet and took off again. We panted and laughed, grinning with our cheeks pulled back and our ears down.

  For the first time that I could remember, I felt whole.

  We broke free of the forest and raced along the shore of a huge lake. The moon reflected in the perfect mirror of the water was as crisp and clear as the original, along with the green ribbons of light that danced over the trees on the northern shore. We kicked up sand and pebbles behind us as we flew and the soft silt squished between my toes. We reached a tall spire of rocks and leapt our way up to the very top and looked out over the lake and the forest.

  I knew this place, knew it with a deeper memory inside me. It was like this world had been lost in time, but my soul remembered it.

  “What is this place?” I asked her while we looked out over the vast black wilderness.

  “Some humans call it the Lowerworld,” she said while we curled up against each other, our white and black coats like the halves of a yin-yang, “This is the realm of souls and spirits, but it’s shaped by memory and belief. This lake,” she looked out over the rippling water, “is a reflection of your memories, Jimmy. Long ago, this was your home.”

  Memory stirred, and I realized that we had run like this before, years ago. Time meant nothing, a strange human concept that had no place here. My memories were shattered, half remembered and buried in the depths of my mind behind a shroud of terror, but still very much real.

  “How many times have we run like this?”

  “Too many to bother counting. Do you finally remember now?” She rumbled against my side, that same contented sound my wolf had made in the cave.

  “Sort of… Have I been like this all along?”

  “You pushed it down, buried it deep and tried to forget it within yourself.”

  I felt uneasy, and a twinge of pain rippled through my hind leg, “What happened to me?”

  She was quiet a moment, “You’ll remember when the time comes. For now, I’m just glad you are home; I’ve missed you so much. You needed someone to remind you who you really are. Someone like you.”

  “Fen.”

  “Yes.”

  This calm, this peace—it almost hurt. I felt like I was home for the first time in my life. Lupa lifted her head to the moon and let out a great soaring howl, and I joined in. Somewhere in the distance I thought I heard an answer rise from the trees across the lake as my eyes drifted closed.

  The next day, Fen waited for me, leaning on the wall outside the art room door. Neither of us spoke for a minute, too stubborn to admit my mistake.

  “I heard your call.”

  I frowned. I didn’t remember calling him.

  “Last night, from the lake?” he prompted and raised an eyebrow. “I tried to answer but I was too far away, you were gone by the time I got there.” I swallowed and lowered my eyes.

  Well, if I was looking for proof that it wasn’t all in my head; that would probably suffice.

  “So… that place was real then?” I scowled as I tried to fit it all into my reality. It didn’t fit, but I was working on it.

  “Eh, sort of… We’ll get to that later though. Meet me in the cafeteria at lunch; we have a lot to go over. You’ve been asleep too long.” He turned to walk into the classroom, and then paused, “Oh, and happy new moon by the way…”

  Chapter 4 – The Pack

  I met Fen near the lunch line but said nothing. Embarrassed by my behavior and the lingering rationality that ‘there’s no such thing as werewolves’. Fen looked me over and narrowed his eyes.

  “It’s obvious the change has stuck; but you’re off balance. You’ve still got a long way to go, and a lot to learn.”

  I followed him out the cafeteria door, “Where are we going?”

  He didn’t reply, and I took my cue, “Look Fen, I’m sorry. I’m sorry I was such a jerk, but… put yourself in my shoes. This isn’t exactly easy for me; it’s sort of a mind-fuck.” I said as we started across the front lawn.

  He paused and sighed, “Yeah, you’re right. I’m sorry too, we were all able to sorta prepare ourselves; you were just dumped in it headfirst.” How many more were there? “Lupa told me you were coming years ago. At first I didn’t believe it, I thought I misunderstood her, but then there you were.” He shook his head, “I wanted to wait, but apparently Lupa had other plans. She chose you Jimmy; it was decided long before you or I had any say in the matter.”

  Okay, creepy. He didn’t exactly sound ecstatic about it either.

  “First things first, look into my eyes.” I resisted making a Bela Lugosi pun, and did as he asked. His gaze was intense and I could only hold it for a few seconds before my skin crawled and I glanced away. We both shuddered and he blinked hard.

  I rubbed at the goosebumps on my arms and felt that cool wash again from his necklace as it bumped against my chest. I pulled it out and looked at it, “So… why did you give me a silver necklace? All the stories say werewolves are allergic to silver.”

  “All the movies say that, but it’s not exactly true. Most of us react to it, but nothing as dramatic as fiction makes it. The moon has been associated with silver since the dawn of time. See, silver and gold are both charged with spiritual energy. And before you give me one of those looks, think about it; didn’t you feel better after I gave you the necklace?” I froze in the middle of making the exact face he mentioned and frowned. Damnit, he was right.

  “Yeah, I thought so. You’re gunna need to open your mind a bit… okay, maybe a lot in your case.” He smirked at me so I knew he was just teasing and I smiled back. “Silver carries lunar energy, and werewolves are linked to the moon. But even that part is only half true. We’re connected, but we’re not slaves. So silv
er either boosts or deadens our shifting energy. It all de—”

  “Wait, pause, what the hell is ‘shifting energy’?” I rubbed my temples; it felt like he was speaking another language that I only half understood. The words were familiar, but the way he used them was different. I was going to need to take notes to remember all this crap.

  “Sorry; shifting energy is something particular to werewolves, or shifters since we’re not all wolves. It’s like to the Qi of oriental medicine; the energy of our bodies, our auras. Shifters’ energy is different though; it fluctuates more, usually in sync with lunar and yearly cycles. It peaks and dips, and when it peaks, it makes ‘shifting’ possible.”

  “You mean like turning into a wolf?” I fought very hard to keep the skepticism out of my voice as we sat down on the grass in the middle of the field, no one around to hear us.

  “Potentially,” he said carefully, “though I’ve never done it, or seen it done, or seen any proof that it’s even possible. But…I dream about being able to actually shapeshift someday.” He grew quiet for a moment, lost in his own thoughts. “Anyway, there are different kinds of shifts. You’ve already experienced at least one, last night, you shifted into your wolf form in your dream right?”

  I nodded. The sun was warm; but the breeze gave me goosebumps as leaves skittered across the lawn.

  “Anyway, like I was saying, our reaction to silver is based almost entirely on the individual. This particular Pack reacts to both silver and the moon. So it was pretty much just a good guess that the necklace would affect you the same way and help buffer your shifting energy.”

  “Wow, it only took you half the lunch break to answer my question.” I muttered as I stuffed the last bite of food in my mouth.

  He smiled with embarrassment, “Yeah, sorry. I’m notorious for my tangents. Do you have time after school?”