I fought the desire to say something else, any thing else to get him to reply. I wanted him to hurt for Victor.
“He was right,” Cole said from beside me, his eyes stil on Victor. “That should be me.”
I couldn’t quite believe I’d heard him right. I’d underestimated him.
But then Cole added, “I’m the one who wants to get the hel out of this body.”
Somehow, Cole never stopped amazing me.
I regarded him and said coldly, “And to think I thought for two seconds there that you gave a damn about Victor. It’s al about your problems, you becoming a wolf. You just can’t wait to get out of your own head, can you?”
“If you were in here, you might want that, too,” Cole said, and now he did smile, a cruel, lopsided thing that crawled farther up one side of his face than the other. “I can’t be the only one who wants the wolf.”
He wasn’t.
Shelby had preferred it, too. Broken Shelby, barely human, even when she wore the face of a girl.
“You are,” I said.
Cole’s smile broke into a silent laugh. “You’re so naive, Ringo. How wel did you know Beck?”
I looked at him, at his condescending expression, and I just wanted him gone. I wished Beck had never brought him back. He should’ve left Cole and Victor in Canada or wherever they’d come from.
“Wel enough to know that he made a way better
human than you ever wil ,” I said. Cole’s expression didn’t change; it was like unkind words didn’t make it to his ears. I clenched and unclenched my teeth, angry that I’d let him get to me.
“Wanting to be a wolf doesn’t automatical y make you a bad person,” Cole said, voice mild. “And wanting to be human doesn’t make you a good one.”
I was fifteen again, sitting in my room in Beck’s house, arms wrapped around my legs, hiding from the wolf inside me. Winter had already stolen Beck the week before, and Ulrik would be gone soon as wel . Then me and my books and guitar would lay untouched until spring, just as Beck’s books already lay abandoned. Forgotten in the self-oblivion that was the wolf.
I didn’t want to have this conversation with Cole. I said, “Are you going to shift soon?”
“Not a chance.”
“Then please go back to the house. I’m cleaning this place up.” I paused. And then, as much to convince me as him, “And it’s what you did to Victor that makes you a bad person. Not wanting to be a wolf.”
Cole looked at me, the same blank expression on his face, and then he headed back toward the house. I turned away from him and went back into the shed. Like Beck had done before me, I folded up the blanket Victor had left behind and swept out the dust and hair from the floor, and then I checked the watercooler and went through the food bins and made a note of what needed to be added to them. I went to the notepad that we kept by the boat battery—a list of scrawled names, sometimes with a date beside them, sometimes with a description of the trees, because they told time when we couldn’t. Beck’s way of keeping track of who was human and when.
The open page was stil of last year’s names, ending with Beck’s, a far shorter list than that of the year before, which was in turn a shorter list than that of the year before it. I swal owed and flipped to the next page. I wrote the year on top and added Victor’s name and the date beside it. Cole’s name real y ought to have been on there, too, but I doubted Beck had explained how we logged ourselves in. I didn’t want to add Cole’s name. It would mean official y admitting him to the pack, to my family, and I didn’t want to. For a long time I stood looking at that blank page with just Victor’s name on it, and then I added my own. I knew it didn’t belong there anymore, not real y, but it was a list of who was human, right?
And who was more human than me?
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
• GRACE •
I headed into the trees.
The woods were stil dormant and leafless, but the warmer air woke up a cacophony of damp spring smel s that had been masked by the cold. Birds tril ed at one another overhead, flicking from underbrush to higher branches, leaving shaking boughs in their wake. I felt it in my bones: I was home.
Only a few yards into the wood, I heard the underbrush crackling behind me. My heart raced as I paused, interrupting the squish and crackle of the forest floor beneath my feet. Again, I heard the rustle again, no closer but no farther, either. I didn’t turn, but I knew it had to be a wolf. I felt no fear—only companionship.
I heard the occasional stir of leaves as the wolf moved to fol ow me. Stil not very close—just observing me from a careful distance. Part of me wanted to see which wolf it was, but the other part was too thril ed by the presence of a wolf to risk scaring it off. So we just walked together, me with steady progress and the wolf with intermittent bursts of movement to keep up with me.
The sun that shot through the stil -naked branches above was warm on my shoulders, and I stretched out my hands on either side of me as I walked, soaking in as much of it as I could, trying to erase the feel of last night’s fever. It felt like the further I got from my anger, the more I could feel that something wasn’t right inside me.
Stepping through the underbrush, I remembered Sam taking me to the golden clearing in the woods and wished he was here with me now, listening to the unfamiliar racing of my heart. It wasn’t like we spent al of our time together or like I didn’t know how to occupy myself without him—he had his bookstore work and I had school and tutoring—but right now, I felt uneasy. Yes, the fever was gone, but I didn’t feel like it was gone for good. I felt as if I could stil sense it singing restlessly in my blood, waiting to reappear the next time the wolves cal ed.
I kept walking. Here the trees were sparser, new saplings discouraged by the presence of the massive pine trees. The smel of the lake was stronger, and I saw a wolf paw print in the soft dirt of the forest floor. Underneath the dul green of the pines, I wrapped my arms around myself, cold without the sun on me. To my left side, I saw a flash of movement: a brown-gray coat, the same color as the trunks of the pine trees. Final y, I saw the wolf who’d been accompanying me as he paused long enough for me to get a good look at him. He didn’t flinch when I took in his bright green, human eyes and the curious tilt to his ears. Beyond him, I saw the sparkle of the lake through the trees.
Are you one of the new wolves? I wondered in my head, but I didn’t say it aloud, in case my voice startled him. He tilted his face upward, and I saw his nose working in my direction. I felt I knew what he wanted: I slowly lifted a hand in his direction, proffering my palm. He recoiled, as if from the scent, not from the movement, because after he had jerked back, his nose continued working.
I didn’t have to bring my palm to my own nose to know what he was smel ing, because I could stil smel it myself. The sweet, rotten scent of almonds, trapped between my fingers and under my nails. It seemed more ominous than the fever itself had. It seemed to say, This is more than just a fever.
My heart thumped in my chest, although I stil wasn’t afraid of the brown-coated wolf. I crouched on the forest floor and clutched my arms around my knees, my limbs suddenly shaky with either knowledge or fever.
I heard an explosion of sound as several birds burst from the underbrush; both the brown wolf and I flinched. A gray wolf, the cause of the birds’ surprise, slunk closer. He was larger than the brown wolf but not as brave; his eyes held interest but the set of both his ears and his tail were wary as he crept closer. His nose, too, twitched, scenting the air as he approached. Motionless, I watched as a black wolf—I
recognized him as Paul—appeared behind the gray one, fol owed by another wolf I didn’t know. They moved like a school of fish, constantly touching, jostling, communicating without words. Soon there were six wolves, al keeping their distance, al watching me, al scenting the air.
Inside me, the wordless something that had given me my fever and slicked my skin with this scent hummed. Not painful, not at the moment, but not right, either. I knew why
I wanted Sam so badly now.
I was afraid.
The wolves circled me, wary of my human form but curious of the smel . Maybe they were waiting for me to shift.
But I couldn’t shift. This was my body, for better or for worse, no matter how hard the something inside me groaned and burned and begged to be released. The last time I had been in these woods, surrounded by wolves, I had been prey. I had been helpless, pinned to the ground by the weight of my own blood, staring at the winter sky. They had been animals and I had been human. Now the line wasn’t so distinct. There was no threat of attack from them. Just worried curiosity.
I moved, gingerly, to stretch out my stiff arms, and one of the wolves whined, high and anxious, like a mother dog to her pup.
I felt as if the fever was waking inside of me. Isabel had told me that her mother, a doctor, once said that terminal patients often seemed to have an eerie sense of their condition, even before it was diagnosed. At the time, I’d scoffed, but now I knew what she meant—because I felt it.
There was something real y wrong with me, something I didn’t think doctors would know how to fix, and these wolves knew it.
I huddled under the trees, my arms wrapped around my legs again, and watched the wolves watching me. After several long moments, the large gray wolf, never taking his eyes from mine, sank to his haunches, slowly, as if he might change his mind at any moment. It was utterly unnatural. Utterly unwolflike. I held my breath.
Then the black wolf glanced to the gray wolf and back at me before lying down as wel , resting his head on his paws. He rol ed his eyes toward me, ears stil tilted watchful y. One by one, the wolves al lay down, forming a loose circle around me. The forest was stil as the wolves remained, protective and patient. Waiting with me for something none of us had words for.
Far away, a loon cal ed, eerie and slow. They always sounded plaintive to me. Like they were cal ing for someone they didn’t expect to answer.
The black wolf—Paul—stretched his nose to me,
nostrils moving slightly, and he whined. The sound was a soft, breathy echo of the loon, anxious and uncertain. Just under my skin, something stretched and strained. My body felt like a battleground for an invisible war.
Surrounded by wolves, I sat on the forest floor as the sun sank in the sky and the shadows of the pines grew, and I wondered how much time I had.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
• GRACE •
Eventual y, the wolves left me.
I sat there, alone, trying to feel every cel of my body, trying to understand what was happening inside. The phone rang—Isabel.
I answered. I had to return to the real world, even if it wasn’t as real as I wanted it to be.
“Rachel was very happy to point out that you’d asked her, not me, to pick up your homework and copy notes for you,” Isabel said after I said hel o.
“She’s in more of my cla—”
“Save it. I don’t care; I didn’t want the extra work of picking stuff up, anyway. I was more amused by the idea that she’d think that it was a status symbol.” Isabel did sound amused; I felt a little bad for Rachel.
“Anyway, I was cal ing to find out how infectious you are.”
How could I explain how I felt? And to Isabel?
I couldn’t.
I answered her truthful y by making it a narrow truth.
“I don’t think I am infectious,” I said. “Why?”
“I want to go someplace with you, but I don’t want to get the bubonic plague if I do.”
“Come to the backyard,” I told her. “I’m in the woods.”
Isabel’s voice managed to convey equal parts disgust and disbelief. “The. Woods. Of course, I should’ve known; that’s where sick people always go. Personal y, I would rather go someplace and let off some steam with some good nonproductive retail therapy, but I guess the woods would be a rewarding and social y acceptable alternative. Al the kids are doing it now. Should I bring skis? A tent?”
“Just you,” I said.
“Do I want to know what you were doing in the woods?” she asked.
“I was walking,” I told her. The truth, but not al of it. I didn’t know how to tel her the rest.
Later, Isabel had to shout for me beside the trees a few times and wait a few minutes for me to come out of the darkening forest, but I didn’t feel guilty about it—I was stil too lost in the revelation I’d had while surrounded by the wolves.
“Aren’t you supposed to be dying or something?”
Isabel demanded as soon as she saw me picking my way back in the direction of my house. I’d made my point with my mother; now it was time to go back, and I figured she wouldn’t try to initiate a serious conversation if I had someone else in tow.
Isabel stood by the bird feeder, hands shoved in her pockets, the fur-lined hood on her shoulders hunched up around her ears. As I approached, her eyes flicked between me and a faded white stain of bird poop on the edge of the feeder. It was clearly bothering her. She was done up in ful Isabel style
—slashed haircut brutal y and beautiful y styled around her face and her eyes ink stained and dramatic. She real y had been planning on going someplace with me; I did feel a little guilty, then, as if I’d refused her for frivolous reasons. Her voice was a few degrees colder than the air. “What part of your treatment involves trooping out through the woods when it’s thirty-seven degrees outside?”
It was getting pretty cold; the ends of my fingers were bright pink. “Is it thirty-seven? It wasn’t when I went out.”
“Wel , it is now,” Isabel said. “I saw your mom when I was walking back here, and tried to convince her to let you go for a panini in Duluth tonight, but she said no. I’m trying not to take it personal y.” She wrinkled her nose when I came up alongside her, and together we headed back toward the house.
“Yeah, I’m trying to ignore how mad I am at her right now,” I confessed. Isabel waited for me to slide the back door open for her. She didn’t comment on my anger, and I didn’t expect her to; Isabel was always angry at her parents, so I doubted it even registered on her radar as unusual. “I can fake paninis here, sort of. I don’t real y have good bread for it.” I didn’t real y want to, though.
“I’d rather wait for the real thing,” Isabel said.
“Let’s order pizza.”
“Ordering pizza” in Mercy Fal s meant cal ing up the local pizza joint, Mario’s, and paying a six-dol ar delivery charge. A price too dear after Sam’s studio visit.
“I’m broke,” I said regretful y.
“I’m not,” Isabel replied.
She said this just as we came inside, and Mom,
who was stil parked on the couch with Sam’s book, looked up sharply. Good. I hoped she thought we were talking about her.
I looked at Isabel. “Why don’t we go to my room?
Are we getting—?”
Isabel waved a hand at me to be quiet; she was
already on the phone with Mario’s, ordering a large cheese and mushroom pizza. She kicked off her fatheeled boots on the back-door mat and fol owed me into my room, flirting effortlessly with whoever was on the other end of the phone as she did.
In my room, it seemed hideously warm in
comparison to outside. I started to peel off my sweater as Isabel clicked her phone off and crashed sideways on the bed. She said, “We’re getting free toppings. Bet me we’re getting free toppings.”
“I don’t have to bet,” I said. “That was practical y phone sex on an extra-thin crust.”
“It’s what I do,” Isabel said. “So look. I didn’t bring my homework. I basical y did it in my free period in school.”
I gave her a look. “If you crap out of school now, you won’t get into a good col ege, and then you’l be stuck here in Mercy Fal s forever.” Unlike Rachel and Isabel, I wasn’t fil ed with horror at that idea. But I knew that neither of them could imagine worse fates. Isabel made a face. “Thanks, Mom. I’l keep that in mind.”
; I shrugged and tugged out the book that Rachel had brought over earlier. “Wel , I do have homework, and I want to get into col ege. At the very least, I have to do my reading for history tonight. Is that okay?”
Isabel laid her cheek on my comforter and closed her eyes. “You don’t have to entertain me. It’s enough to get out of the house.”
I sat down at the head of the bed; the movement jostled Isabel but she kept her eyes shut. If Sam were here, and if he were me, he would have asked Isabel how bad things were and if she was doing okay. It wouldn’t have occurred to me to ask the question before I’d met him, but I’d heard him ask things like that often enough now to know how it was done.
“How are things?” I asked. It felt weird in my mouth, like it must not sound as sincere as when Sam asked it.
Isabel made a loud, bored noise and opened her
eyes. “That’s what my mom’s therapist asks.” She stretched in a way that defined the word languorous and said, “I’m getting something to drink. Do you guys have soda?”
I was sort of relieved to be let off the hook so easily and wondered if I was supposed to ask again. Sam might have. I couldn’t think like him for that long, though, so I just said, “There are some in the door of the fridge, and some in the drawer on the right.”
“You want any?” Isabel asked, sliding off the bed. One of my bookmarks had fal en to the floor and stuck to her bare foot, and she made a triangle of one of her legs while she pul ed it off.
I considered. My stomach felt a little twisty. “Ginger ale, if there’s any left.”
Isabel stalked out of the room and returned with a can of regular soda and a can of ginger ale, which she handed to me. She clicked on the clock radio by the bed stand; it began humming out Sam’s favorite alt station, a little fuzzy because it was from somewhere south of Duluth. I sighed; it wasn’t my favorite music, but it reminded me of him, even more than his book sitting on the bed stand or his forgotten backpack on the floor beside my shelves. Missing him seemed bigger now that the sun was almost down.
Maggie Stiefvater - [Wolves of Mercy Falls 02] Page 15