Tell the Wolves I'm Home: A Novel

by Carol Rifka Brunt

  I nodded, still laughing. “What is a swagman anyway?”

  “I reckon it’s someone like a hobo. A wanderer.”

  Sometimes, like right then, Toby’s accent came through really strong. I loved those times. He spoke like nobody I’d ever heard before, and I would have listened to anything he wanted to say.

  “Then who’s Matilda?” I asked.

  Toby tilted his cup and poked at the slush with his straw. “I suppose Matilda’s the girl who felt like home.”

  That night I got out the Book of Days and read the note again. Sometimes when I read it I saw the words that said that Finn loved me. Sometimes I could only see that he loved Toby. That all he cared about was making sure Toby was okay.

  I tucked myself in tight under the covers. Like the sick man in the painting. Just like that, I thought, and a hook of anger caught in my belly, because I wanted to be the one taken care of. I wanted someone to look after me, like it was supposed to be. I was the kid, wasn’t I? Toby was the fully grown adult. Being the sick person seemed better than being the nurse. Lying there, having people get every little thing you might need. Who wouldn’t want that?

  But then I thought better. The sick person would always be the sick person, but the nurse, she would have to be the nurse for only a little while. And that’s when I understood what it meant, what Toby was trying to say earlier. Toby was definitely going to die. There was no time, but also there was no limit. If I was going to do something for him, something big, I had to do it soon.

  I snuck down to the kitchen after everybody was asleep and called Toby. We talked for a little while, then I got to what I really wanted to know.

  “What’s the name of your town?” I asked him. “What’s the name of the place you’re from in England?”

  Forty-One

  It was Saturday, the day of the party, and I went in to the rehearsal for a while, just in case Greta was looking for me. They were running the show straight through, and Mr. Nebowitz looked exasperated. He was making kids do their lines over and over until he decided he was happy with them.

  “You’re supposed to be a nurse, Julie,” I heard him say. “You can’t stand there scowling. Come on, people. Step it up. There are folks from the city here today, if you hadn’t noticed.” He gestured to the two seats next to him: An older man wearing a cravat and a woman with bright red hair were sitting there watching the rehearsal. I wondered if they were from Annie. There to watch Greta. Mr. Nebowitz clapped his hands together before telling everyone to run the whole scene again.

  I could see the back of Greta’s head in the front row. All the cast who weren’t onstage were sitting on the velvety red auditorium seats. Mr. Nebowitz said it was important for everyone to understand the whole play, not only their own part, and that meant that when you weren’t onstage you should be watching the other scenes. I thought about sitting down next to Greta. Maybe Toby was right. Maybe she didn’t hate me. Maybe it was something else altogether. But then the thought of being made to look stupid right there in the front row changed my mind. Instead, I sat in the back and waited for her to go on.

  This time she wasn’t anywhere near as good as the last time I saw her. Last time she wasn’t even in costume, but it felt like she was the real Bloody Mary. Even I’d found myself forgetting I was watching Greta. This time it wasn’t like that. This time I could see Greta through and through. Especially when she was singing “Happy Talk.” All the notes were right, but, still, I didn’t believe a word of it. She seemed relieved to be going offstage when the song was done. I left the auditorium right before Nellie, who was being played by Antonia Sidell, sings “Dites-Moi” for the last time.

  I wandered down to the greenroom, which ended up being mostly empty. It smelled like stale sandwiches, and the only ones down there were two girls from costumes and a guy who painted sets. They stopped their conversation for a few seconds when they saw me, then angled away and kept talking. I turned back up the stairs, and when I got to the top I stood there, back pressed against the wall, wondering where I could go next. There was something so lonely about that moment, everyone around me completely involved in this thing I wasn’t a part of, me with nowhere to go, waiting around for a party I didn’t want to go to. The only thing I really wanted to do was call Toby. I didn’t have anything to say to him. Nothing interesting at all. But that seemed okay. It seemed like he was the only one I knew in the world who I could call up and just say nothing to. I reached into my pocket, hoping there might be a few dimes, change from my lunch money, but there was nothing. So I did the next best thing. I went out into the woods.

  It was windy and springtime-damp, and once I was out there everything sad seemed to blow right off me. It had been a while since I’d been there, and I’d almost forgotten how much I loved the woods. I wandered, aimlessly at first, but then I tried to pay attention. I wanted to get the lay of the land again. I wanted to make sure I knew exactly where everything was. My plan for the party was to keep a close eye on Greta and then get out of there as soon as possible.

  I followed the river, which was running fast because of all the rain and melted snow. I didn’t walk all the way to my place near the maple. I turned away from the river before that and walked to a big boulder not so far from the school. I tried to pretend I was in the Middle Ages, but it didn’t work. Not the way it used to. Every time I got close, I’d think of something Toby said. Or a Trivial Pursuit question. Or a snatch of a lyric from a South Pacific song. It was like my brain had actually changed. Like some part of it, my favorite part, had died off.

  I unzipped my backpack and took out a cigarette. I lit it and sat against that boulder until the last light faded. Until the space between the tree branches and the branches themselves became the same dark thing. I wasn’t afraid. The party was nothing. I had a secret friend in the city. I smoked cigarettes and I had tasted brandy. I had someone to take care of.

  After Toby told me the name of his hometown, I went to the library and looked it up in an atlas. I couldn’t believe how lucky he was. His town was right on the edge of the North Yorkshire Moors. Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, The Secret Garden. I couldn’t imagine why anyone would leave someplace like that. Finn said Toby had nobody, but he must have meant nobody in New York, because it seemed impossible that I could truly be the only person he had in the world. I decided I would tell him I wanted to go to England. I’d say I wanted to go, but really what I wanted to do was take him back home. I’d seen how happy he looked in London, in that picture in the bedroom. So free and easy. I didn’t want to mess it up. There were details to figure out. Phone calls to make. A passport to find. There was a lot, but for once I was going to do it exactly right. This was the spectacular thing I would do for Toby.

  I took a strong pull off my cigarette so the end glowed bright fiery orange in the fading light. I thought how there was a kind of power in being needed. In having a purpose. I could feel it hardening up my bones and thickening my blood. I felt older and smarter than anyone else I knew. I could do anything, anything at all.

  After a while people started to come down the hill from the school. I saw them as blips of light, like fireflies bouncing down into the woods. There was laughter and then squeals as a few kids stumbled over roots, their lights falling to the ground. I stepped into a hollow behind a big downed tree trunk and watched.

  I didn’t see Greta, but I saw Julie and Megan and Ryan, arms linked across one another’s backs, doing a cancan dance down the hill. I saw Ben, wearing the cloak, being followed by a bunch of younger lighting-crew boys. There were kids I didn’t know. Someone had brought a guitar and someone else was blaring the worst music in the world out of a boom box wedged between the branches of a tree. Tiffany, with her girly voice singing, “I Think We’re Alone Now.”

  The moon was huge, and the woods had a shine to them that I’d never seen before. There were more kids than last time, and the whole thing was louder and wilder. I watched and watched, but I didn’t see Greta come past. I t
hought maybe I’d missed her, because I’d seen almost everyone else, but then I saw her. She was all by herself, walking down the hill slow and careful. She had on her long black coat and a neon-orange scarf. Her dark hair reached over her shoulders and most of the way down her back, and she wasn’t smiling.

  She walked up to the fire and pulled a bottle from the inside pocket of her coat. She put it to her lips and tipped it back for so long she must have downed half of it in that one swig. She didn’t talk to anyone, and I thought of going over to her, but I didn’t. I was staring so hard at Greta that when Ben Dellahunt’s knuckles tapped the top of my head, I swung around and cried out.

  “Whoa,” he said, pulling his hand back.

  “You scared me.”

  “I can see that.” He pointed toward the fire and smiled. “Spying can make a girl skittish.”

  “I’m not spying. I told Greta I’d come to this thing and I’m just keeping to myself. That’s all.”

  “Uh-huh,” he said.

  “It’s true.”

  Ben had an irritating way of acting like he was way older than me. Like he was an adult and I was a kid.

  “Well, I’ll tell you what,” he said. “I won’t blow your cover if you tell me where that wolf place is.”

  I regretted beyond words ever saying anything about wolves to Ben Dellahunt.

  “Why do you want to know?”

  He reached into his pocket and pulled out a pair of weird dice. He tossed them into the air and caught them in one hand.

  “A quest. D&D. Plus, those freshman boys will shit themselves if I tell them there’s wolves here.”

  I didn’t really have a choice. I needed to be left alone. I needed to keep watching Greta. So I told him about following the river to the big split tree and heading up and across the hill there. “You’ll hear them then,” I said.

  “Cool.” He smiled and patted me on the shoulder. “And, you know, if you ever change your mind . . .” He handed me one of the weird dice. “Think about it.”

  “Right,” I said. “I’ll be sure to let you know.”

  He stood there for a second grinning at me, then all of a sudden his face lurched toward mine and he kissed me right on the lips. Before I could say anything, he ran off. As he ran, he gathered up his cloak in his hands and called out for the other boys in a great commanding voice I never imagined Ben could have.

  I stood there blushing in the darkness. The kiss probably didn’t mean anything. Nobody had ever kissed me and meant it. But what if maybe for once it did? No. He was probably just trying to weird me out. I mean, if anyone looked like the Wolf Queen of the Outer Regions, it was Greta. Under that bright big moon, Greta looked like the sad queen of everything. That’s exactly what I was thinking as I tried to get her back into my sight. I scanned the faces around the fire. Twice my eyes went around that circle, but Greta wasn’t there.

  I asked everyone I could find if they’d seen Greta: Nobody had. Ryan said he thought she was completely drunk, but he was leaning on my shoulder when he said it, like he could barely stand up himself. Margie Allen said she thought she might have seen her walking back up to the school but I shouldn’t rely on that, because she wasn’t sure at all if it was Greta. Still, I ran back up the hill. I walked behind the school to the greenroom door and tried it, but it was locked. I peered through the thin window—the room was empty.

  If I was smart, I would have gone home right then. Greta didn’t deserve to have me out looking for her. But still, I couldn’t bring myself to leave. I walked back into the woods, down that hill, and sat next to the fire, hoping she might turn up.

  The crackling fire and laughing and dulled voices and boom box music all swelled into one fuzzy blob in my head. I pressed my hands over my ears, and everything shrank away. Only the bass pulse of the music was left, and I was almost enjoying it. I almost felt invisible there, right in the middle of everything.

  Then I saw a few kids stand up. Then a few more. Soon people were running and shouting and there were police sirens. Red and blue lights from over the hill in the school parking lot slapped out into the darkness. All around me, kids were panicking. The whole thing was done stupidly this time. The fire was too close to the school, and the noise was too much.

  Kids ran in every direction. Deeper into the woods or off to where they could cut across onto streets without going through the parking lot. Someone was kicking dirt onto the fire, and I was running like crazy, looking for Greta. The boom box had been left behind, so it was like there was a soundtrack to the whole thing. “Blister in the Sun” was on—a good song, finally—and it made the whole thing seem like a Saturday morning cartoon, as cops chased through the trees, pointing their flashlights and yelling for kids to stop.

  I went tree to tree, hiding until it was safe to go on. I went deeper and deeper into those woods, looking for my sister. I didn’t even need a flashlight, because the moon was so strong. Then, without thinking, I turned and ran to the spot I’d found Greta last time. I went to my place.

  It was like she was waiting for me. Like she wanted me to find her. It couldn’t be a coincidence that she knew this exact place. That she knew I’d also know it. But I didn’t understand. She was buried in leaves, just like the last time. It was a warmer night. Much warmer than last time, and she’d snuggled herself right down under them like they were a damp blanket. Her moon-bleached face lay there, looking like something separate from the rest of her.

  I brushed the leaves off her quickly. This time I decided she would have to walk. Run, even. I yanked her up and shook her hard enough to wake her. She opened her eyes and looked at me.

  “June,” she whispered. “It’s you.”

  “Get up, Greta. Now.” I stood and pulled her arms until she was almost standing.

  “No, no, no. Listen. Shhhh. June, I think I’m dying.” She was clutching on to a bottle of apricot schnapps. I’d seen that same bottle not so long ago, dusty and forgotten, in the back of my parents’ liquor cabinet.

  “You’re not dying. You’re just drunk. Now, get up.”

  She laughed and her eyes closed again. Then for a second they fluttered back open. She raised her finger to her lips. “We’re friends, right?”

  “If you walk,” I said. “We’re friends if you walk.”

  And she did. Greta put her arm around my shoulders and stumbled along next to me through the woods. It was hard work, a slow slog alongside the river. We couldn’t go back up to the parking lot, because of the police, so we had to go through the woods and then cut over like we did last time. Greta hung off my shoulder like a heavy bag.

  “Come on,” I said, but she’d stopped and wouldn’t go on.

  “Remember beauty parlor?”

  Here we go again, I thought. Me dragging Greta home while she stumbles down memory lane. At first I was angry. At the whole thing. But then Greta lifted my hand into hers and ran a finger over each of my fingernails.

  “Remember those geranium petals?” she said, and the anger faded because I did remember.

  Beauty parlor was a game we used to play when we were little, when we were still best friends. If it was Greta’s turn, I would have to sit down on the grass. Then she would disappear all around the yard, looking for stuff. She collected things like geranium petals and milkweed fluff and those little purple violets that grow wild on the lawn. She would tell me to lie down flat on my back with my hands spread out. Then she went to work. She’d lay violets on my eyelids and sprinkle the milkweed fluff in my hair and one by one she’d lay those bright red geranium petals on my finger and toenails, finding ones that were just the right size for each and every nail. Then she’d shout out, “Snapshot,” and she’d make a clicking sound and pretend she had a camera in her hand and was going to preserve the moment forever.

  When she was done I would try to get up as slowly as I could, so all her work didn’t tumble off me. Usually I was able to keep only the toenails and the fluff from falling. That was enough. Especially the toenails, bec
ause those petals really looked like nail polish.

  What’s embarrassing is that the last time I remember playing that game was when I was eleven and Greta was thirteen. We both knew we were too old for it—Greta had real makeup by then—but we also knew we liked that game, and when it’s only you and your sister, you can do any embarrassing thing you want.

  “Lie down,” Greta said.

  At first I didn’t understand, but then I did. Greta wanted to do beauty parlor right there in the woods. I kept walking, tugging her along.

  “No way,” I said.

  “Awww, Junie, come on. Like we used to.”

  “Like we used to? What are you talking about? You’re the mean one. You’re the one who wrecked how we used to be.”

  She didn’t say anything. Her arm dropped off my back.

  “Did you ever think I might have problems?” I said. “That I might be dealing with . . . situations?”

  Greta stumbled along ahead of me. She turned back and laughed. “Poor old Mrs. Lucky. Poor troubled Mrs. Special,” she said. “Maybe I should go out and get myself AIDS. Then everyone can come fawning around me and—”

  “Shut up, Greta. Just shut up.”

  “Would I be special enough for you then, June? Tragic enough?” She flashed me a look, then bolted ahead, like her body had somehow sobered up instantly.

  “Wait,” I shouted. But she didn’t. I had to run as fast as I could to stay with her. The moon lit that whole forest in the most thin and silvery light. I kept thinking Greta might get lost, but she didn’t. She turned away from the river at just the right place, then cut onto Evergreen Circle, where I finally caught her.

  We walked in silence the rest of the way, cutting between backyards and down the streets of our town. I stared at Greta’s back. At her matted hair, decorated with brown torn leaves and dirt. What was happening to my sister? What if I’d never come? How long would she have stayed hidden in those cool, damp leaves? How long before she woke up alone and scared, with nothing but the howling of wolves to keep her company?