Where was Lizzie Lovett? Six days in the woods without any supplies. She couldn’t have gotten far. How did she just disappear? How was there no trace of her around Wolf Creek when so many people were looking so hard? I wondered how many people would search for me if I went missing. My guess was not a lot.
I yawned. My mind kept skipping around like it usually does right before I drift off. But I didn’t want to go inside yet. Was Lizzie outside too? Was she looking up at the moon at the same time I was?
I wondered why it was called Wolf Creek anyway. For that matter, I wondered what Lizzie was doing looking for wolves in the first place. There aren’t wolves in Ohio. Except…
When I was eight or nine, there were these reports of a wolf in Griffin Mills. People saw it in the woods, in neighborhoods, at the edge of downtown. Maybe it was just a big dog that escaped from someone’s backyard. It probably was. I never found out one way or another.
Back then, it wasn’t Emily and me against the world. We had a whole group of friends. I felt like I belonged, and life was an adventure where anything could happen.
We spent the whole summer searching for that wolf, scouring the woods, setting traps, collecting evidence. There was never a moment when we lost hope, when we considered that we might not find it, that there might not be a wolf at all.
Then, in the fall, the wolf disappeared. There were no more sightings. Everyone got distracted by school and forgot all about the search. Everyone but me. I kept thinking about those magical few months when we really believed it was out there. We were certain we could find the wolf and make it bite us so we could change too. Because, of course, we didn’t think it was an ordinary wolf.
I missed being a kid. I missed having friends who would spend the entire summer hunting for a werewolf.
If there were werewolves, they’d probably hang around a place called Wolf Creek. I smiled at the thought. Maybe that’s what got Lizzie. Maybe it was late at night, and she had to go to the bathroom, so she’d slipped away from camp. Only in the woods, something wasn’t right. Something was watching her. She knew she had to get back to the tent. She wanted to shout for Lorenzo but was too afraid to make a sound. So she silently crept toward the clearing. The thing in the dark growled at her. She froze. It stepped out into the moonlight. It wasn’t an animal or a man. It was both. She opened her mouth to scream, but before she could, the beast lunged, and its teeth were at her throat, sinking into the soft skin and—
No. That wasn’t right.
I pulled myself into a half-sitting position. A chill went down my back. A wolf didn’t kill Lizzie.
It was her idea to camp at Wolf Creek. Wolf Creek, where she looked for wolves while wearing a wolf pendant around her neck. I remembered the night after she disappeared, how I’d looked out my window, and the whole neighborhood was lit up because of the moon. The full moon. Lizzie the wolf lover wanted to camp at a very specific spot during the full moon.
I thought about how Lizzie had changed since high school. No more glossy-magazine-cover Lizzie. She became unkempt. A little wild looking. She became a girl who loved nature and had a thing for wolves.
All signs pointed to her walking into the woods that night of her own free will. She wasn’t dragged out of the camp. There was no evidence of a struggle. She left. Lorenzo Calvetti told reporters Lizzie seemed happy before she went to bed.
Some people thought Lizzie was lost, and some people thought she was dead. I’d been certain Lizzie took off because she was bored or wanted attention. But maybe we were all wrong.
Maybe Lizzie Lovett turned into a werewolf.
It was probably because I was so sleepy, but the image of pretty, perfect Lizzie Lovett turning into a wolf suddenly seemed like the most hilarious thing in the world. I started laughing. There, alone on my porch, in the middle of the night, I started to giggle like an idiot. If any of my neighbors would have looked out their windows, they would’ve thought I was insane.
Even after my laugher dried up, as my eyes were getting heavy, I couldn’t get the image of werewolf Lizzie out of my mind. Honestly, it wasn’t the craziest theory I’d heard in the past week. It almost made sense.
I was still thinking of it when I drifted off to sleep.
Lizzie the werewolf.
That explanation made her disappearance much more interesting.
Chapter 7
The Wolf Girl
A car door slammed and woke me up. I rubbed my eyes and shifted my weight. What was wrong with my bed? Then I realized I wasn’t in bed. I’d slept through the whole night on the porch swing. I groggily sat up as Connor climbed the front steps.
“Your parents kick you out?” he joked.
“You’re way too cheerful for this early in the morning.”
“Probably because I didn’t sleep outside on a swing.”
Connor smiled at me, looking like the perfect, all-American jock that he was. He tried to hide it with his stubbly beard and slightly too-long hair, but it didn’t work. It looked too intentional. He could have been on one of those TV shows where everyone was perfect and no one had real problems. I felt very aware of my messy hair and morning breath.
“Rush is inside. You can go in.”
“Thanks. Didn’t mean to wake you, Thorny.”
“Yeah, well, I guess that’s what I get for sleeping on the porch.”
Connor laughed and let himself in the house. As soon as the door shut behind him, I lay back down. My back hurt from the hard swing. My head was achy like I was hungover. Not that I know exactly how a hangover feels, since my experience with alcohol is pretty limited.
Though it seemed like I should have been drinking. Because, you know, falling asleep contemplating werewolf cheerleaders is a lot more acceptable if you’re drunk. Having those thoughts when you’re sober makes people wonder if you’re crazy.
Not that I really thought Lizzie was a werewolf. Obviously. That would have been absurd for a million different reasons. Starting with the fact that werewolves don’t exist.
But still.
There were some oddities about Lizzie’s disappearance, oddities that centered on wolves. It made sense that if someone isolated those details and kept an open mind, they could conclude that Lizzie turned into a werewolf. When you added up all the clues, the whole thing seemed very reasonable.
Well, maybe reasonable wasn’t the right word.
It wasn’t that much of a stretch though.
And really, as far as paranormal creatures went, werewolves were probably the least unlikely phenomenon.
An image popped into my mind of the police chief somberly leading Lizzie’s mother into his office and motioning for her to sit. Ms. Lovett would look at him with wet eyes, tissues clutched in her hand. And the police chief would say, “I’m sorry, ma’am, but your daughter has turned into a wolf.” And Ms. Lovett would be like, “We always knew this day would come.” Then the police chief would open a drawer and take out a box of silver bullets.
I started giggling all over again.
It was messed up to laugh. Totally disrespectful. But I couldn’t help it.
I was still laughing when Rush and Connor came out of the house. They stopped and looked at me like maybe I’d gone off the deep end.
“What’s wrong with you?” my brother asked.
“Nothing,” I said, trying to calm myself with a deep breath. “Or maybe everything. It could go either way.”
• • •
“Please tell me you’re joking,” Emily said when I called her on Sunday afternoon. “Please tell me you didn’t steal Lizzie Lovett’s job.”
“I would hardly call it stealing,” I said defensively.
“Hawthorn, what are you doing?”
“I need money to fix my car.”
“Did you even look for a job in the Mills? Or did you immediately go to Layton?”
“I just think it’s really weird, OK?”
“It’s only a part-time job.”
“You hate people. How are you going to be a waitress?”
“Look. I admit that I went because I was curious,” I said.
“About what?”
“I wanted to see where she worked. Then everyone was really nice, and they offered me a job, and I took it.”
“How convenient,” Emily said.
“It is, actually. I need money, and this way, maybe I can get some information too. About the disappearance.”
“So you think you’re going to solve the mystery, is that it? Don’t you think the police talked to everyone who works at the café?”
“What does it matter if they don’t know the right questions to ask?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
There was a long pause. Then I said, “Listen, Em. What if Lizzie turned into a werewolf?”
“Oh, here we go,” Emily said with a sigh.
She didn’t laugh or act shocked. She didn’t tell me to stop messing around. Like I wasn’t even worthy of a reaction. It made me feel a million miles away from her.
“Look, Hawthorn, I need to get to my piano lesson.”
“No, wait,” I said. “Hear me out.”
Another sigh. “Three minutes.”
And that’s how I shared my theory about Lizzie Lovett being a werewolf out loud for the first time.
• • •
My mom’s vegan chili was surprisingly good, though it would have tasted even better over a hotdog. There was something called textured vegetable protein in the chili, which made me a little squeamish, but if I didn’t pay too much attention to it, I could pretend it was ground beef.
While my mom told my dad and Rush her plans for a winter garden, I thought about my conversation with Emily. She wasn’t a fan of my werewolf theory. In fact, the more I talked, the more annoyed she got. I hadn’t expected her to buy into my reasoning, but I thought maybe we could have one conversation that wasn’t about school assignments, college, and real life. Would it have killed her to play along?
“Earth to Hawthorn,” my dad said, nudging me.
I looked up. “Huh?”
“Your mom asked you to pass the cornbread. What are you thinking about over there?”
“Werewolves.”
Rush rolled his eyes.
“You know,” my dad said, “werewolf legends were very popular in medieval Europe.”
“They were?”
“It was a coping mechanism. People preferred to believe murders were committed by beasts rather than by men. Most accounts of werewolf attacks from that time would be considered serial killings today.”
“So you don’t believe in werewolves?” I asked.
“Well, no. Do you?”
“Maybe. I mean…they could exist.”
“Yeah,” Rush said. “They probably hang out with vampires and mummies.”
“You know, mummies are real, Rush. That’s not a debate,” I shot back.
“Hawthorn,” my mom said in her warning voice.
“Why the sudden interest in werewolves?” my dad asked.
“I was just thinking what if Lizzie Lovett turned into one?”
Rush pushed his chair back from the table. “That’s it. I’m out of here.”
I thought my mom would use her warning voice and tell him to sit back down, but she let him go.
Instead, she turned to me. “That was very insensitive.”
“What?”
“I know you don’t understand why Rush is upset about Lizzie. But that doesn’t mean it’s OK to make jokes.”
“How do you know I was joking?”
“Hawthorn.”
“She could be a werewolf. You don’t know.”
“You have more imagination than is good for you,” my dad said.
“And we love your imagination,” my mom added. “But you need to learn boundaries.”
Boundaries. She meant I had to say and do what was expected of me. Keep any weird thoughts to myself. Not rock the boat. I bet her mom told her the same thing when she was my age. I bet she got some pretty weird looks when she changed her name to Sparrow and painted peace signs on her face.
For someone who called herself a hippie, my mom had become quite the conformist.
• • •
I couldn’t sleep again. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw the disgust on Rush’s face when I brought up werewolves. It was the same tone I’d heard in Emily’s voice. Which made me angry. I had to let it make me angry, because otherwise, I would just feel sad.
Couldn’t they have humored me? I wasn’t asking them to launch a werewolf investigation. Why was everyone so desperate to be logical all the time anyway? As if growing up meant you couldn’t even talk about something unless you thought it was real.
Who were Emily and Rush to say what was real or not anyway? It’s not like either of them knew all the secrets of the world.
Legends exist for a reason after all. Those stories are based on some truth.
I thought about what my dad had said, how hundreds of years ago, people believed serial killers were half-beast because it was easier than admitting what horrors men were capable of. But couldn’t it be the other way around? Maybe it was present-day people who couldn’t accept the truth. Maybe a man turning into an animal was too magical for a society that values logic and reason. Maybe those medieval villagers with their werewolf lore were the ones who had it right.
The more I thought about it, the angrier I got.
Werewolves could be real.
They probably weren’t.
But they could be.
All I’d wanted was to talk about the possibility.
I felt very alone. I lived in a world with practical people, like Emily and Rush and my parents, people who had stopped believing in the impossible a long time ago. Where were the other people like me? Locked up probably. Getting called crazy and delusional.
Sometimes, the crazy people turn out to be right though.
I shut my eyes and pushed my brother’s disapproving face out of my mind. Instead, I pictured a world where there was magic, a world where Lizzie Lovett really was a werewolf, and I was the one who found her and proved it.
The night before, I’d laughed myself to sleep thinking about werewolves, but my theory wasn’t funny anymore.
It felt possible. Inevitable.
Why shouldn’t werewolves exist?
And if werewolves were real, what other creatures might be out there?
Anything.
Everything.
I just needed to find Lizzie. I could start my own investigation—talk to the people who knew her, search the woods myself. And yeah, maybe Lizzie had simply run away, but at least I’d have some fun until the case was solved.
That night, I came up with my own version of counting sheep. Over and over again, I thought, Lizzie is a werewolf, and I am going to find her. Lizzie is a werewolf, and I am going to find her. Lizzie is a werewolf, and…
I fell asleep in no time.
Chapter 8
A Brief History of Griffin Mills
I was pretty sure I’d get my history paper back with a big F written on it, maybe a D if I was lucky. Instead, something totally weird happened. Mr. Romano wanted me to read my paper to the class.
I froze.
Mr. Romano handed my essay to me. It was only a page long, which was three pages shorter than it was supposed to be
. “Hawthorn had a very interesting take on the assignment, and I’d like you all to hear it.”
“Are you being sarcastic?” I asked. Some kids laughed, and they weren’t laughing with me.
Even Mr. Romano seemed amused when he told me that no, he was not being sarcastic. I felt like I was the only one not in on the joke.
Reluctantly, I walked to the front of the classroom and took my report from him. Everyone was staring at me, including Emily, who had her jaw clenched really tight. It was probably the first time my schoolwork had been singled out before hers.
I cleared my throat and looked down at the paper.
“Go on, Hawthorn,” Mr. Romano said.
The skater kid who sat in the back of the room shouted, “Yeah, we don’t have all day.” The class laughed, even though it wasn’t funny.
When it was silent again, I figured I’d better start, or I’d just be prolonging my agony. I cleared my throat again.
“Every town has a story. And every story has a beginning and an end. For Griffin Mills, the beginning was around the turn of the century when Samuel Griffin came to the Ohio River Valley.”
I figured everyone’s essay started with Samuel Griffin. But I was probably the only one who skipped over the glory days of Griffin Mills and the advances that were made in the mining and milling industries. Instead, I focused on the Griffin Mansion, the big abandoned house on the hill, where kids tried to catch a glimpse of Samuel Griffin’s ghost.
“Griffin Mills is a haunted town,” I read. “Not by the ghost of Samuel Griffin but by generations of people who told his story simply because there was nothing better to do.”
Kids who’d been shifting in their seats and rustling papers stopped. The room was totally quiet.
“This will always be a steel mill town, even though the last mill closed more than twenty years ago. It’s a place where boys enlist in the army and are disappointed if there’s not a war to fight. It’s a town of mechanics and plumbers, of drunken brawls and Friday night football games. Kids who grow up in the Mills dream of what life would be like elsewhere and count the days until they can get out and experience it, even though, deep down, they know they never will.”
The Hundred Lies of Lizzie Lovett Page 6