by C. D. Bell
Nessa got how funny it was, and for a second they locked eyes before Cynthia punched him in the arm and said, “What are you doing here?”
“I’m hanging out with you and…uh…” He turned in his seat to face Nessa. “You’re a junior, right?” he said.
Nessa swallowed. She laughed. She said, “I’m Nessa,” as if she couldn’t be both those things at the same time. Cassian didn’t say anything else, so she sank back into her seat.
“Cassian Thomas, are you running for me tomorrow?” Coach called out, putting the movie on pause.
“Got it,” Cassian said, slowly standing and moving out of the room. “Just trying to bring a little life into this gathering?” Nessa didn’t know if she was just imagining it, but he seemed to be looking right at her as he bounced on his heels and out the door.
The movie continued on from there, but Nessa felt less nervous. Cassian had looked at her. He’d talked to her.
When Coach turned off the movie again, she realized she had no idea what was going on onscreen. Had it ended?
It must have, because Coach was launching into his pre-race pep talk. “Tomorrow I want all of you to stay loose,” he commanded before sending them home to carbo-load and rest. “The weather’s going to be unseasonably warm—into the 80s I’ve heard—so I want you to drink lots of water and stay out of the sun. And most of all, I want you to think about the team, not yourselves. Think of yourself as part of something larger than just one person. You’re like a chain, all of you pulling each other along. A team is stronger than any one group of individuals.”
He made them stand in a circle with their eyes closed and call up an image of their best possible race.
Nessa remembered her dream of being a wolf, the feeling of running where running felt more like flying. She remembered what she’d read about wolves running on their toes to extend their stride. She would do that. She wouldn’t think about gassing out, about pacing herself. She’d just reach for that feeling of flight.
It had been over a month since the night she’d followed Cynthia. She wouldn’t think about the white wolf and the bite, the strange transformations she’d been going through. She’d think about the kernel of speed pulsing just under her sternum. She wanted this more than she’d ever wanted anything in her life, and as far as she could see, she was in a good position to get what she wanted.
“Another full moon, huh?” Luc said, pointing up to the roof of the gym as if it were a stand-in for the sky.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Nessa said, giving him a look.
Luc shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe that we’ll have good luck tomorrow?” He offered her a fist bump. Nessa returned it.
But luck, it turned out, was not on Nessa’s side.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
When Nessa woke up the next morning, her body was covered in the same fine, white hair again. Before, it had been a downy covering, a small patch, but this time it was…well, there was no other word for it. It was fur. Her arms, her shoulders, her legs. Horrifying. She ran to the bathroom.
Nessa nearly gagged on panic. Her first thought was that she couldn’t race like this, but the panic quickly spiraled. She couldn’t leave the bathroom like this. She couldn’t be like this.
She felt her throat closing off, her heart racing, her breath coming faster. This couldn’t be real.
She looked down at the counter, trying to steady herself, but she couldn’t. She was breathing too fast. She was going to be sick. She sat down on the closed toilet seat lid. She rubbed her left hand over the hair on her right arm. It was too thick to shave. Too short to cut with scissors. She could still see her skin beneath it, looking like human skin, brown from the summer running, soft like human skin should be, not thick and coarse the way animals’ skin often appeared beneath their fur. She tried pulling at the hair—could she pull it out? That only hurt.
Nessa heard a door opening into the hall. Someone was up. Her mom? Delphine? No one could see her like this. She had to hide. She could spend the day in her room. But she’d have to kick Delphine out first. She could move into the garage. She had a sudden image of herself crawling into one of the large dog crates, like the animals who had been afraid of her at the vet’s last week.
She looked at her arm again. She rubbed her skin and felt a searing pain when she pushed the hair back. A pressure was building behind her eyes, in her throat. She pressed her hands into her face to try to get some relief.
She had to do something.
Nessa slipped her pajama pants back on and wrapped a towel around her upper body. She opened the bathroom door a crack, stuck her head out into the hall. It was empty. She darted into her bedroom, closed the door behind her. Delphine was still sleeping and the room was dark. Feeling around on her closet shelf, Nessa located a hoodie and, tossing the towel to the floor, pulled the hoodie over her head. There hadn’t been any hair on her face, but she kept the hood up anyway, pulling the laces to cinch the opening as tightly closed as she could and still be able to see. Reaching into her sweatshirt, she pulled out the wolf tooth necklace and ran it under her fingers, a soothing gesture that had become a habit.
When Nessa opened the bottom drawer of her dresser, it made a sound, and Delphine rolled over. “Wham op,” she murmured.
“Go back to sleep,” Nessa said in a voice she was trying to keep low and normal. What she’d really wanted to say was, “OH MY GOD DELPHINE HELP ME OH MY GOD WHAT AM I GOING TO DO OH MY GOD!!!!”
Nessa started pulling clothing out of a drawer. Even though the room was dark, she could see perfectly what each item was. Which only freaked her out more. These were the mixed-up running clothes she didn’t wear a lot: the shorts with the stretched-out waistband for laundry emergencies, the long-sleeved tee with one of the cuffs ripped off, some fleece-lined warm-up pants for super cold weather. Finally she found what she was looking for: her running tights, a polypropylene running shirt, and, for good measure, her running gloves. Baggy track pants, too, because she was afraid the tights would show the fur beneath. She was going to roast in these things, but what choice did she have?
She had friggin’ white fur all over her body.
Nessa was going to have to go to the doctor. But not yet. Not today. Going to the doctor meant telling her mom and telling her mom meant…well, it just couldn’t be done. She was going to run in this race—she just had to. Homecoming weekend was the first meet recruiters would look at. Her score here would help her qualify for States. This was how she was going to get to Regionals, to Nationals, to college. Nessa squeezed her eyes closed and fought back a surge of panic.
What if a doctor couldn’t help her? What if no one could? What was happening to Nessa had probably never happened to anyone before.
Darting back through the hall with her hood still pulled up over her head, Nessa closed the bathroom door, locked it, and leaned against it, almost as if she’d been chased. She kept the lights off and didn’t look in the mirror. She wondered if maybe she was in shock. She wondered if maybe this was a hallucination.
She wondered if she was going to sweat to death running in Lycra tights and track pants and a hoodie.
She didn’t have a choice.
She called Bree. “I can’t bike to school,” she said. “Can you give me a ride?”
“Nessa, um, are you okay?” Bree said. The races had already started and Nessa was hiding in Bree’s car in the parking lot. She’d texted Coach Hoffman, letting him know she would be late but that she would be there before the race began.
Looking out the window, she could see people moving toward the racecourse from the parking lot—parents, dogs, and siblings. Kids dressed for their own soccer games still in shin guards. Other athletes from the high school starting to assemble for games held later in the day.
At Homecoming in Tether, all sports competed in what was a town-wide event. Almost everybody was a parent or grandparent or aunt or uncle or cousin of someone competing for the school. The student council was sell
ing coffee and donuts by the football bleachers. Later in the day, they’d switch over to hotdogs and soda, though with the sun already heating up the air as if it were a summer morning and not a week into October, they probably could have made a killing on Popsicles. That night there would be a dance. Bree’s slinky pink dress had barely passed the Mom Test (Dad being fortunately out of town). She’d figured out something for Nessa too. They were going in the Monster.
But not like this.
“Can you please explain what is going on?” Bree said. “What’s with the sudden body image issues?”
Nessa rolled her eyes. Out of nervousness more than anything, she choked out a laugh. Bree straightened up in her seat, pulling on the steering wheel, proud of herself for breaking the tension.
The cross-country meets were held early in the day, with the freshmen races already over and JV girls off and running a few minutes before—Nessa had heard them called to the starting line by the announcer.
Strangely, she’d heard other stuff as well. She’d heard the nervous exhalations of her team members. She’d heard the squeak of leather as a JV runner made one last adjustment to her shoelaces. By now the varsity girls would be stretching and warming up, she knew. It was time to go, but she couldn’t get herself to leave Bree’s car. She’d even insisted that Bree park it in the back corner of the lot, far away from where anyone would see.
“I just can’t go over there yet,” Nessa said. “I’m not ready.”
Bree gave her a quizzical look. “Are you that nervous? Your race starts soon.”
Nessa shrugged.
“And aren’t you going to roast in long sleeves and—?” Bree looked at Nessa’s outfit as if searching for language to convey her disdain. “Nun garb?”
Nessa just shook her head, turned her phone on to see the time, then turned it off, a gesture she’d repeated about ten times in the last minute.
She wished she could explain to Bree what was happening, but she was coasting on what felt to her like a thin surface tension of sanity. One tiny wiggle of the glass and everything would collapse. She didn’t have a plan besides some half-formed thought that the less time she spent outside the car, the less chance she had of getting noticed.
“Can you do me a favor?” Nessa said. Bree leveled her a look.
“Another favor?” Nessa corrected.
Bree nodded.
“Go tell Coach I’m in the bathroom. Tell him I’ll meet the team at the starting line. Make it sound like I’m sick but be very clear: I’m going to run.”
“But why?” Bree said. “Why not go tell him yourself?”
“Just please?” Nessa could hear how plaintive her voice sounded. “I need you to help me. Get my race bib from him. Tell him I asked you.”
“Okay,” Bree said skeptically, getting out of the car. Bree rushed to join the little groups of fans heading up from the parking lot—Tether families and parents of runners from other towns. Nessa spotted Cassian, already in his cleats and soccer uniform. It felt like such a long time ago that he’d snuck into the Chariots of Fire screening, that he’d been so funny and cool and had looked at her like he finally could tell that she was there.
She lost him in a crowd of his friends, and then she remembered to track Bree’s pink Tether High sweatshirt. But Bree had also moved out of sight. Nessa turned her phone on, checked the time, turned it off.
It was getting harder and harder to depress the tiny buttons. Was she just nervous, or had her hands started to swell?
And was there any possible universe where what she was planning to do might work?
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
After delivering her message to Coach Hoffman and picking up Nessa’s race bib, Bree meant to go straight back to her car to check on Nessa. But the sophomores who were in charge of the student council stand had run out of water and they waylaid her. She explained how to get more from the side spigot—sophomores could be clueless—and then Bree saw Cassian heading over to the table.
Suddenly she heard the announcer calling over the sound system that all varsity racers should come to the starting line. Had Nessa heard? Where was she? But then Cassian was there, ordering a donut, and Bree stepped in front of the sophomores so she could be the one to take his order. Being an upperclassman had to mean something!
Bree put the change into Cassian’s palm.
“Did you join the track team?” he asked, scarfing a huge bite of cinnamon cruller. He pointed to Nessa’s race bib.
Nessa! Bree thought.
“Uh, no, it’s my friend’s,” Bree stuttered. “I’ve got to get it to her.”
“I’ll say,” Cassian replied. “The race is about to start.” He turned to his friend, Evan Branchik, and nodded toward the track. “Let’s go. I told Cynthia we’d watch her.”
As soon as he turned away, Bree was off like a shot.
“Nessa!” she yelled, careening toward her car.
Bree intercepted her friend and handed Nessa the bib as she jogged past across the grass toward the starting line.
Nessa was still dressed all in black, including black gloves and a baseball cap Bree recognized as her dad’s—the Peterbilt hat he’d brought back from his last cross-country haul, boxy and not Bree’s style, a literal trucker cap. Not wanting to hurt her dad’s feelings, Bree had worn it out of the house the day he gave it to her and then left it in the back seat of the Monster.
Bree jogged after Nessa, catching up to her just as Coach Hoffman did. He was waving frantically, shouting an exasperated, “Where have you been?” Before Nessa could begin to explain—and Bree for one was getting curiouser and curiouser about what that explanation might be—the final call for the race sounded and Coach Hoffman shooed Nessa toward the line. He gave her a meaningful we’ll-talk-later look for good measure.
Bree followed Nessa at a brisk walk and by the time Bree reached the starting line, weaving among spectators, she had said, “Excuse me,” and “Sorry about that,” and “Pardon” about a dozen times. Nessa was already standing on the line, looking like a crazy person with her hat pulled down over her eyes and her tiny racing tank top stretched over a black hoodie, her legs hidden by the track pants she’d been wearing in the car. A few of the other runners gave her strange looks. Bree went from feeling exasperated with Nessa to feeling protective in the space of half a breath.
Nessa had barely been on the line thirty seconds when the starting horn sounded and the girls shot off, quickly forming a pack with one racer—not from Tether—out in front. The other runners fell into two clumps behind her.
Bree knew that the girl out in front wasn’t going to win. “You never want to be that person,” Nessa had told her. It was easier, physically and mentally, to hang out in that early runner’s tailwind, and then, depending on how fast you could run and how long you could maintain a sprint, make your move about a mile or a half mile from the end of the course.
Bree spotted Cynthia about halfway back in the first pack, just where you were supposed to be. Nessa was trailing behind her. In her hat and baggy clothing, Nessa looked weighed down and out of place as the group of racers ran a perimeter of the playing fields, and then cut into the woods. “Nessa, get up there,” Bree said out loud, but under her breath. Some guys from another school who were standing near her thought she was talking to them.
“Everything okay there?” one said. Bree gave him a little wave, and then hurried to the other end of the field, where she knew she would be able to see the runners emerge from the trail with about a quarter mile to go before the end of the race. The race photographer was already there.
Bree waited at the end of the woods for ten minutes. Finally, she saw the race photographer crouch down into ready position and put his eye to the camera. Bree looked for the lead racer.
What came next happened so fast that Bree’s brain didn’t process it until it was over. Suddenly, there was Nessa—incognito Nessa in gloves and a hat and all black—streaking past Bree like a gazelle, her feet almost perfectl
y quiet on the path, her legs stretching long, her arms held close to her side, as if nothing she was doing required the slightest effort on her part.
Bree couldn’t see Nessa’s face, but she could see how still every part of her body had become. She knew how intensely Nessa must be concentrating. And then behind Nessa—a good eight seconds behind—came another girl, wearing purple, from who-knew-what school. She was absolutely flying also, her feet touching the ground at a pace Bree could not have reached for even a short sprint. Behind the purple girl was a pack of three runners, including Cynthia. She looked like a pure arrow of intention slicing through the air in front of her. But Nessa led. By a wide margin.
Bree had not so much as closed her mouth when it was all over. She had not had a chance to cheer Nessa’s name. “Wow,” she said to herself as that freshman Nessa had been so worried about—Hannah—crossed in front of her. “Wow,” Bree said again before jogging to the finish line to find Nessa, to jump on top of her. Bree had never been so proud of anyone in her life.
By the time Bree reached the area near the finish line, it was crowded with varsity finishers, not to mention sweaty survivors of the JV and freshman heats, their parents, their dogs on leashes, their colorful sports drinks, their cameras, little kids sitting up on shoulders or chasing each other in and out of everyone’s legs. Nessa was tall. She should have been easy to spot wearing the Peterbilt hat, but Bree could not find her and ended up turning around in circles just looking. But Nessa was not to be found.
Suddenly she was face-to-face with Luc Restouille, and no matter what Nessa said about him, Bree thought he was even better looking up close than he was from a distance, with his intense black eyes, olive skin, jet-black hair, and those cheekbones.
“You’re Nessa’s friend, right?” he asked.