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I heard the occasional stir of leaves as the wolf moved to follow me. Still 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 thrilled 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 still-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 all 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 still sense it singing restlessly in my blood, waiting to reappear the next time the wolves called.
I kept walking. Here the trees were sparser, new saplings discouraged by the presence of the massive pine trees. The smell of the lake was stronger, and I saw a wolf paw print in the soft dirt of the forest floor. Underneath the dull 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. Finally, 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 smelling, because I could still smell 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 still 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, followed 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, all keeping their distance, all watching me, all 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 smell. 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 really 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 well, resting his head on his paws. He rolled his eyes toward me, ears still tilted watchfully. One by one, the wolves all lay down, forming a loose circle around me. The forest was still as the wolves remained, protective and patient. Waiting with me for something none of us had words for.
Far away, a loon called, eerie and slow. They always sounded plaintive to me. Like they were calling 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 •
Eventually, the wolves left me.
I sat there, alone, trying to feel every cell 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 hello.
“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 calling to find out how infectious you are. ”
How could I explain how I felt? And to Isabel?
I couldn’t.
I answered her truthfully 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. Personally, 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 socially acceptable alternative. All 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 all of it.
I didn’t know how to tell 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 fo
rest, but I didn’t feel guilty about it—I was still 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 full Isabel style—slashed haircut brutally and beautifully styled around her face and her eyes ink stained and dramatic. She really 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. ”
“Well, 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 personally. ” 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 really have good bread for it. ” I didn’t really want to, though.
“I’d rather wait for the real thing,” Isabel said. “Let’s order pizza. ”
“Ordering pizza” in Mercy Falls meant calling up the local pizza joint, Mario’s, and paying a six-dollar delivery charge. A price too dear after Sam’s studio visit.
“I’m broke,” I said regretfully.
“I’m not,” Isabel replied.
She said this just as we came inside, and Mom, who was still 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 fat-heeled boots on the back-door mat and followed 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 practically phone sex on an extra-thin crust. ”
“It’s what I do,” Isabel said. “So look. I didn’t bring my homework. I basically did it in my free period in school. ”