Seth flashed the Boy Scout salute at her. “Be prepared, right?”
He selected two of the picks and inserted them into the lock, his eyes falling half-closed as he concentrated on opening the door. Rylie shifted back and forth on her feet, alternating between watching him and the camp around them. Neither Jericho nor the other counselors were in sight, but she still had the awful feeling they were being watched.
Finally, he twisted both picks, and the lock clicked. Seth opened the door.
They went inside, shutting the door behind them. He turned on his flashlight. Harsh shadows crept up his cheekbones and forehead.
“That way,” he said, pointing with the beam.
“The counselors are holding out on us,” she observed as they navigated to a door at the back wall. There were vending machines with soda and chips—neither of which were offered to campers on her side—and even a big-screen TV in the corner.
There were no windows in the back room, so Rylie flipped on the light. A lone fluorescent bulb flickered to life.
Three of the walls were covered with tall cabinets, and a pair of free-standing cabinets occupied the middle of the room. Half the shelves had movies; the others had an array of worn books, many of which looked as old as the camp.
“Some library,” she said. Seth stood on a stool to pull a dusty box from atop a cabinet. It was full of boring history books from the fifties and sixties. “How did you know to look for those here?”
“I didn’t. I like to explore.”
The most interesting book in the box wasn’t a book at all, but a binder with a loose collection of hand-written pages. “Legends of Gray Mountain,” Rylie read aloud off the cover.
“That’s the best one. It was written by someone who said he used to hunt werewolves,” Seth said. “Look here.”
He took it from her long enough to flip to a section in the back. Rylie skimmed the page. “So there are five moons before the real transformation, counting the one where I got attacked. I only have three more before I become a…” She couldn’t say “werewolf.” It was too weird.
“Keep reading,” he said. “That’s not all.”
The next page described what would happen on each of the six moons. The first was the bite. The second, which Rylie had just undergone, was mostly a mental change from human to wolf. The third involved some physical shift, which increased in the fourth and fifth moons, until the sixth… when she really became a monster.
Several hand-drawn illustrations showed what kind of physical changes she could expect: claws, teeth, fur. The works. It wasn’t pretty.
She swallowed hard. “This does not sound good.” Rylie flipped to the back, which had a short history of several different packs. Notes filled the margins, marking which werewolves had been killed by hunters. “So if I am becoming a—a werewolf… that means whoever attacked me is a person most of the time. Right?”
“Right,” Seth said.
“Who is it?”
“It would make life a lot easier if I knew,” he said grimly.
“I wish I could take this with me,” Rylie said. “I want to read all of it. Is there a copy machine?”
“In the office.”
“Let’s do it. There’s no way I can get everything I need out of this in one night.”
“What do you expect to find?” Seth asked.
“I’m hoping for a cure. But why do they have all these books here? It doesn’t make any sense,” she said.
“It makes sense if this used to be an outpost before it became a summer camp. Silver Brook and Golden Lake have only been here for thirty years. Humans have been here much longer than that.”
He peeked outside to make sure they were alone before hurrying across the path to the back door of the office. “Don’t turn on the light,” he warned as he picked the lock. “We don’t want anyone to see us through the windows.”
She nodded and went searching for the copy machine. It was gathering dust behind a tall stack of banker’s boxes and a computer older than she was, but it hummed to life when Rylie pressed the power button.
Pulling all the pages out of the binder, Rylie arranged them into a neat stack and fed them through the paper tray. The copy machine thumped and whirred, flashing green light under the glass. She kept an eye on the windows and tried to block the light with her body.
Rylie barely breathed until the copying finished, certain that Jericho would storm in at any second. “Let’s go,” Seth said as soon as he grabbed the last of the pages.
They locked the office behind them and hurried back to the communal cabin. Rylie waited outside while Seth returned the original copy of The Legends of Gray Mountain to the cabinet.
“I want to get back to my side of camp,” Rylie whispered, clutching the stack of papers to her chest. They stuck to the shadows as they jogged back toward the lake. “I don’t feel safe here. I just know—”
“Hey! What are you two doing up?”
Jericho strode toward them. Rylie’s heart sped. Seth took the papers and grabbed her hand.
“Run!”
They fled into the forest. Jericho crashed through the bushes behind them, tearing through the trees as though they were barely an obstacle. Her hand slipped out of Seth’s. Too afraid to slow down, she increased her pace, darting deeper into the forest and further away from the trail.
She wove in and out of the trees. Rylie was fast. She was agile. She was running blind, and good at it. But her pursuer was better.
Someone blew through the forest behind her. Praying it was Seth, she pushed on.
Trees flashed past. The dirt thudded beneath her hiking boots.
It took too long to realize she was suddenly alone.
“Seth?” Rylie whispered, stopping short.
She was alone. What if Jericho had caught him? There was no doubt in her mind he wouldn’t be as forgiving as Louise. Seth could get sent home, and then Rylie wouldn’t have anyone to help her. The thought was frightening.
Tilting her face into the breeze, she took a short sniff, trying to detect Seth’s odor. She felt stupid doing it, but she immediately found him. He wasn’t far. She was confident she could follow the smell right to him.
There was another smell, too: musky, woodsy, and warm. It was a very strong odor, but it wasn’t human. It wasn’t exactly animal, either.
The werewolf. It was near.
Trembling, she took another long, slow sniff. It was on the move. The werewolf was coming toward her. Rylie watched the trees around her, trying to see what she knew had to be there.
It didn’t come into her line of sight. It hung back.
Watching.
Did it recognize her? Did it remember attacking her almost a month ago? Or was it just trying to decide if she would be easy to take down?
“Come out,” she called softly into the night. “You want to fight? Come get me.”
The smell began to fade. It was leaving. Seth’s smell was growing stronger, even though the breeze was blowing in the wrong direction now, and she could hear the crunch of his footsteps on pine needles.
She was torn between following the werewolf and reuniting with Seth. Rylie didn’t need The Legends of Gray Mountain if she could get answers from the source, and her heart ached with the need to follow it.
She took too long to consider. All traces of the werewolf vanished.
Disappointed, Rylie went to Seth’s scent. He was still wandering through the forest, and he looked surprised to see her. “You okay?” he asked.
Rylie nodded. She didn’t want to tell him that she had tracked his scent. It was too weird. “Do you think he recognized us?”
“How would he know you?”
“Jericho caught me on this side of the lake the other day. He’s—well, he’s kind of terrifying.”
“Hopefully he just thought you were a boy out of bed,” Seth said.
“A boy with long blonde hair?”
“If it makes you feel better, I have good news. I kept a h
old on this.” He showed her the roll of pages copied out of The Legends of Gray Mountain.
“Great, I guess. Or not great. I don’t know, Seth.” Rylie sat on a felled log and cradled her head in her hands. “This is so much to take in. I didn’t even believe in ghosts a month ago, much less werewolves. You know?”
He sat beside her on the log, slinging his arm over her shoulders in a comforting half hug. “Yeah. I do.” Rylie’s cheeks heated again.
“There’s another full moon in a few days,” she said. “What do I do?”
“I think you should lay low. The werewolf is a person, so it might come looking for you.” She opened her mouth to speak, but Seth went on before she could. “I’m not trying to scare you. Just stay in big groups and don’t get in trouble. I’ll come help you out on the next moon.”
“Am I dangerous until then?” she asked.
He gave her a serious look. “Maybe.”
They made their way back to the lake. It was easy with Rylie’s sense of smell. Seth took her to Camp Silver Brook in the canoe, but this time, their trip was silent. Rylie stared up at the waxing sliver of moon in the sky.
Why had Rylie, of all people, been bitten? She was going to become a wolf at the end of summer, and she hadn’t done anything to deserve it.
She got out on the beach. Seth stayed in the canoe. “I’ll see you on the full moon,” he said, passing the papers to her. Their fingers brushed together. “Remember: lay low.”
She climbed her way back to camp and looked for Seth once she reached the office. He waited in the boat, and although it was too dark to see his face, she could tell he was watching her go.
Rylie got into bed and huddled under the sheets. She didn’t fall asleep.
It was a long time until morning.
Laying Low
For the next few days, Rylie followed Seth’s orders and stayed in her cabin. She passed the time by reading The Legends of Gray Mountain by flashlight.
The young werewolf changes late at night when the moon is at its height. As he ages, he transform earlier and earlier, until finally, at full maturity, he can change when he chooses. In the early years, he is mindless, and he knows insatiable hunger.
Rylie stared at the words insatiable hunger. She shivered.
When she had to leave the cabin for activities, Rylie participated without arguing. She swam in the lake and went kayaking. She made bracelets, learned about edible flora, and took hikes. Amber still looked like she was afraid Rylie would explode, so they avoided each other. Louise was relieved.
“You’ve been doing great this week,” she said when Rylie was helping clean up after a campfire dinner. “Thank you. I appreciate it.”
She gave the counselor a weak smile. It was hard to rebel when all she could think about was becoming furry on the next full moon.
Rylie tried to get through all of The Legends of Gray Mountain, but she found herself returning again and again to the pages depicting what would happen every moon. The final werewolf looked like a normal wolf, but bigger and deadlier.
Her fear wasn’t the worst part. No. The worst part was that she was almost excited.
She tried to banish the thought, just like she tried to ignore the meat on the buffet line, but it was hard without other distractions. Amber hadn’t picked on her much since the archery incident, and everyone else was avoiding her, too. Making hemp lanyards was hardly more interesting than The Legends.
If nothing else, reading made her free time pass quickly. She started reading it by the campfire’s flickering flames during her free time in the evening, too, brushing ash off the pages.
The next full moon. Rylie curled her fingers to examine them. She couldn’t imagine claws bursting from the tips. It was ridiculous. Nightmarish.
But her symptoms were undeniable. One lunch, Rylie found herself hovering over the sandwich meat again, imagining the feel of it tearing between her teeth. They would have hamburger that night. She could smell it being ground in the kitchens even though they hadn’t started cooking yet.
“I’m a vegetarian,” she whispered to herself, like she had every day for the last couple of weeks. It sounded even feebler than before. Giving into eating red meat would not be laying low, especially after the scene she made over getting more vegetarian options.
Stubbornly selecting the tofu Louise had ordered and a bag of potato chips, Rylie took her lonely position at the end of a table. Nobody joined her, like usual. She didn’t mind anymore. She was too preoccupied to talk.
A hulking man strode into the mess hall. His eyes scanned the room and briefly fell on Rylie.
Jericho.
She sank lower on her bench and tried not to look guilty, stuffing her food into her mouth faster than before. But Jericho didn’t approach her table. Instead, he went to sit with Louise. If he told her that Rylie had been on the boy’s side of the lake, then no amount of hiding would save her. She would be sent home.
Rylie tried to ignore the counselors as she finished her meal. As soon as she was done, she dumped her tray on the line and hurried outside.
“Rylie!” Cassidy ran to meet her. She was wearing a torn pair of jeans and a black shirt again, defying the summer heat. “Are you done with lunch already?
“Yeah,” she said, glancing over her shoulder into the mess hall. Jericho and Louise were gone.
“You want to hang out?”
“Uh, no. Not right now, Cassidy,” Rylie said. “Sorry, I have to get going.”
“Why?” She stepped in front of Rylie’s path to keep her from leaving. “I have some wicked new drawings to show you.”
Jericho and Louise emerged from the back side of the building, strolling toward the offices. Ignoring her better instincts, which told her to go back to her cabin and avoid Jericho, she edged around Cassidy.
“Sorry. Maybe later.”
The counselors paused to talk on the trail, and Rylie ducked behind a nearby tree to listen.
“Trouble on the other side, huh?” Louise asked cheerfully. “I always thought the boys were better behaved than any of the girls.”
Jericho folded his arms and glowered. He was a shadow in the sunshine. “Maybe there was a girl being a bad influence on one of the boys.”
“Did you see a girl over there?”
“I saw two kids, but it was dark. I couldn’t identify them. Even so, I have reason to suspect one of them was a camper from your side of the lake.”
“That’s a problem,” Louise said.
“Yes. Why would a girl cross over?”
She laughed. “Oh, probably the usual reasons. It seems like we catch a few couples in the act every year. Remember those two last year? Every single Tuesday night! It never amounted to any real trouble. They’re just doing what teenagers do.”
“It could become more trouble than we suspect,” Jericho said. His voice was a low, dangerous purr. “Someone also broke into the counselor’s cabin.”
“Who do you think it was?” Louise asked. Rylie held her breath, peeking around the tree again. Jericho’s back was to her. She couldn’t make out his expression.
“I don’t have enough evidence to make accusations. But if you find one of your girls has been getting out, I want to know about it.”
Rylie grimaced. That sounded ominous.
“There are a couple problem campers this year, but I can’t imagine them stealing anything,” Louise said. “Are you sure it’s that serious?”
“Oh yes.”
She sighed. “All right. I’ll let you know if I discover anything.”
“Thank you, Louise,” Jericho said.
They walked away. Rylie didn’t follow—she had heard enough. Jericho knew she had been on the boy’s side; he just didn’t have enough “evidence.” She didn’t like to think how he was going to prove it, but she knew it was more important than ever to be on her best behavior.
At the beginning of the summer, Rylie would have chopped off her foot to be sent home. Now, over a month later, it was t
he last thing she wanted. The thought of changing into a werewolf at her dad’s house made her sick. Going home wasn’t an option. Not anymore.
There was a big campfire after dinner that weekend at the amphitheater. The fire pit in the middle of Silver Brook was filled with burning logs, and enough extra fuel was added to make the flames leap higher than the tallest benches. It was too hot to sit in the bottom row. Rylie took her seat in the shadows at the back to wait for announcements.
Cassidy sat beside her.
“How are you doing?” she asked, offering Rylie a chocolate bar from the s’mores ingredients stash by the fire.
Rylie reached out to take it, but her fingers were trembling violently. Instead, she sat on her hands. “Yeah. I’m fine.”
“You sure? You’ve been acting weird,” Cassidy said. “That’s my job.” She laughed, and Rylie figured she was supposed to laugh too. She mimicked the sound. It came out sounding forced and awkward.
“I guess I’m homesick,” she lied.
“Getting any mail from your folks?”
“Sometimes.” Rylie hadn’t gotten anything since her mom sent her new clothing, but that was probably because they were too busy with divorce proceedings to write.
“I’m not.” Cassidy unwrapped the chocolate bar and snapped a piece off in her mouth, chewing it on one side so her cheek bulged. “They hate me.”
Rylie took a square of chocolate and let it dissolve on her tongue, watching the campfire. She couldn’t think of anything nice to say to Cassidy about her family, so instead, she asked, “What about those drawings you wanted to show me before?”
Cassidy pushed up her sleeve to bare her wrist. The old ink was fading, but fresh line art ran from the inside of her elbow to the palm of her hand. A shaggy wolf bared his teeth as though chewing on the veins beneath the skin.
Rylie stared at it for too long. It almost looked alive. “That’s a really good illustration,” she said. Her voice was dead.
The director finally stepped in front of the fire to speak. Grateful for the distraction, Rylie pretended to be absorbed in the speech and ignored Cassidy. She didn’t hear a single word.
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