Patrick put his nose close to the ground and inhaled as steadily as he could. As he did, the space beneath him lit up as though it were plugged in like a Christmas tree. The once familiar scent of dry leaves was nearly lost in its new complexity, mixing with several other smells that were completely foreign. He thought that underneath the jumble of mysterious colors he could smell something that might be the ground, and after several quick snuffs he inhaled deeply once more. As with the call of the cricket, he tried to isolate this particular color in his mind. Throughout the long breath the underlying aroma of earth became clearer and clearer, and by the end the other smells had nearly faded to nothing.
The dirt had such a strange and unique quality. It was somewhat similar to how it had smelled before, but now it was so much… more. It filled his vision with a warm color, almost like brown. He felt as though he could actually taste it. It was so deep, and rich, and musty.
Doing this did more than just calm him; he suddenly found himself feeling a little invigorated. He mused that he was out in the woods in the middle of the night sniffing dirt, and that it was the most amazing and bizarre thing that he had ever experienced. These feelings were empowering, and the more he realized just how much control he had over the situation and how visible the world grew when he employed these new senses, the smaller the fear shriveled inside him.
Patrick couldn’t see or hear or even smell the crow, though one of the paths of color that cut through the air might have been its trail. Unsure of what to do next, he walked back into the trees. He still didn’t know why he was unable to walk upright, but when he moved slowly and calmly he found that he could travel without stumbling. Working to maintain his balance, taking the path one step at a time, he made his way through the dark wood.
He found that it was surprisingly easy to see his immediate surroundings. Even without the flashlight he had no trouble avoiding the trees and bushes and rocks, and in fact was probably more aware of the objects around him than he would have been in the daylight. He could even tell what was directly behind him without looking, which made him feel as though he had a third eye on the back of his head.
As he walked he wondered again and again if he were dreaming, but every time the answer came back the same. These new sensations were completely bizarre and hard for his mind to wrap around, but there was no longer any doubt that it was all real.
Now that he was calm he could pick up the scent that his own body had left before; it was buried under the mystery trails intertwining and zigzagging across the leaf-covered floor, but it was there. He wasn’t even sure how he knew that it was his own scent; he thought perhaps it was the same way an animal can tell its young from another’s. He had never smelled himself before (not like this, anyway), yet it was familiar all the same. Almost as though its memory had been locked away in his brain until now. It was a warm smell—sort of like red, but maybe closer to green, and laced with the sharp yellowish smell of new paint from his house.
After a few minutes of walking and sniffing he saw bits of soft light shining through the trees ahead. He picked up his pace, steady movement growing easier with each step, and soon he found himself on the edge of his back yard. Once again he was awestruck by this strange new world he had stumbled upon.
There was hardly any color. In fact, there might have been none at all. His house towered in front of him, the empty yard stretching wide from end to end, and all the hues were dim. Even the moonlight that should have bathed the world in a soft blue was pale. But the colors he only half saw with his eyes and fully saw in his mind were so much more vibrant than those they replaced. The color of the dirt and dry grass drifted up from the ground, the hue of the wood that comprised his house stood apart from the trees behind him, and above it all, the sharp, unpleasant smell of new paint drifting from its windows slashed a bright stroke across his vision.
Patrick stepped lightly across the yard, still banking on the assumption that his sister was asleep. To his left, in a little jumbled mess off to the side of the house, were all the things that were removed from the bathrooms when the remodeling was done. No one had gotten around to getting rid of it before his family moved in, nor had they after. There were two toilets, one of which was on its side, pipes, a disgusting looking sink that had broken in two, and an old medicine cabinet that was leaning up against the side of the house.
Some of the wooden bits were falling apart, but the mirror on the cabinet was unbroken.
Patrick looked across the yard to the mirror, knowing what needed to be done but afraid to do it. He didn’t know exactly what he was going to see. After a few moments of hesitation he finally paced over and stepped in front of it. Despite all that he had experienced tonight, it was hard to believe what he saw in the mirror.
He looked like a dog. No, not a dog; it was hard to see in the scarce light of the moon. He was…
A wolf.
Patrick’s heartbeat doubled. He looked into the scuffed, dirty mirror and a wolf looked back at him. When he moved, it moved. His hands and feet were now padded; fur covered his long snout, peppered with black; a long tail swished behind him absentmindedly. A rush of adrenaline hit him and suddenly he not only felt shocked and excited—he felt powerful. Strong. He didn’t know why this was happening, and there was still a little piece of him that was scared, but the longer he looked at the wolf in the mirror the more his everyday problems and insecurities began to melt away. Suddenly none of it mattered, because something more important was happening now—something unique.
He wasn’t a shy high school student anymore.
Tonight an important piece of the world had become his.
Still in awe and filled with a curious energy, Patrick turned around and jogged back into the woods. The wobbliness in his legs was all but gone now, and before he knew it he was running through the trees, sliding through the darkness completely without hesitation.
Eventually he slowed down and began to sniff the ground. He marveled at the variety of scents laid before him and anxiously considered which to sample as one might hover over a box of chocolates. There must have been a hundred different smells in this one small clearing alone, and he could probably spend hours sifting through them. Instead, he bit into what he guessed was the scent of an animal and ran after it recklessly.
After a few moments the trail split into several directions and Patrick paused to consider which to follow. He tested each one, checking for differences. Eventually he decided that one of them was more vibrant than the others—more rich and deep, and somehow alive. Figuring that it must be the freshest scent of them all, he took off again with his nose to the ground.
He might have been chasing after a dangerous animal, but at the moment he didn’t care. The sense of adventure was too strong in him, and his curiosity knew no bounds. He half walked-half jogged with his nose pointed down, stopping occasionally to relocate the trail whenever he veered off course. He was just tracking some forest creature, but he felt like he had just developed superpowers. It was as if he were looking into another world and discerning this otherwise invisible path of movement, almost like looking back in time—or maybe following some psychic line that no one else could see, like he could remember reading about in a few different books.
He stopped suddenly when he heard rustling on the other side of a nearby bush. He only hesitated for a moment, then dashed around it. Suddenly he was face-to-face with some small animal, only a blurb of light colored fur to his eyes. He could hear the scuffling of its feet as it backed away slowly, making little grunts and going rigid in the face of threat. It definitely didn’t sound like a cat or smell like a skunk, so Patrick concluded that it must be an opossum.
So that’s what an opossum smells like, he thought to himself. It was very pungent, almost a tannish-yellow, but in that certain way unlike any color he’d ever known.
Finding the opossum excited him, and he paced back and forth in fr
ont of it, barking and occasionally trying to sneak a closer sniff. All the while the little creature only backed away slowly and tried to look as big as it could. Eventually he drew far enough away that it found the opportunity to scamper off into the bushes. The temptation to continue after the little guy was great, but he decided to let the poor creature go.
Patrick ran around the woods sniffing everything possible and trying to track other animals for what must have been hours. He was absolutely elated, filled with an energy that was primal and powerful, but also made him feel as giddy as a child on Christmas. After a time one smell began to merge with another, and the color in his vision blended strangely. He was smelling the base of a tree, then he was following the scent of a different opossum, then he was scraping at a small pile of dry leaves with his paws…
And then, without knowing quite how he got there, he found himself once again in the center of the clearing. And there, towering above him was that monolith from his nightmares. It was a tree unlike any of the others, and the oaks and cedars drew away from it as though it were cursed. The resounding cries of the crickets and bats painted an image of it in Patrick’s mind, and the specks of moonlight sharpened it slightly. It was a twisted and grotesque monster of a thing, its branches jutting out in every direction as though it were eternally writhing in agony. And apart from the animals and the earth and the fallen leaves and other trees was that smell—that smell that was so ancient and out of place, that almost seemed to hint at some deeper story that he couldn’t perceive. The sickly stink of the wood bit at his nose and his lungs, but this time he stood before it without fear. There was nothing to be afraid of anymore.
This new world of his continued to blur, the sights and sounds and colors of the woods slowly becoming more vague and dreamlike, and his consciousness drifted slowly away from them until he woke up in his bed.
Chapter 7
The next day was undoubtedly the greatest of Patrick’s life thus far.
Despite what was most likely a minimal amount of sleep, he awoke instantly and at peak energy, fueled by something that was bigger than himself and altogether special.
When he stepped outside the deep breath he took was more fresh and invigorating than any he could remember, rich with the smell of soil and yellowing leaves. The sun had yet to peek over the tall trees and the early morning moisture still clung to the air, magnifying every smell and waking sound.
Patrick jogged the breadth of the driveway to stretch his legs then slowed to a confident stroll when he got to the road. There were two other kids walking to school that he could see. They were only parallel little blobs of hoodie too far up the street to recognize, but it was clear that neither of them were Rachel. He never seemed to catch her on the road in the morning and he wondered why. Knowing her, she probably liked to arrive at school early, leaving plenty of breathing room for getting there and finding a seat and most likely looking over the previous night’s assignments. It was a funny thing, seeing as she lived barely a quarter mile away, but Patrick found her professionalism endearing.
He smiled to himself. Today he would see her, and today he wasn’t afraid. No, quite the opposite. There was a newly-gifted confidence in him now, one that would probably be impossible to conjure by himself under any other circumstances. Barring another random orthodontist appointment, he would see her.
And indeed, when Patrick walked through the door into Mrs. Spotts’ classroom, he saw her sitting one row back from the front and a few seats to the right. Only a few other students had arrived, so Patrick had no problem securing a seat next to her. As he walked up to her desk he wondered with a little giddiness if she avoided the very front to accommodate him should he decide he was done wigging out for a while.
He didn’t plan on it. Not today.
Patrick sat down as casually as possible, but couldn’t help but smile upon seeing her look of pleasant surprise.
“Hey,” he said, taking his binder out of his backpack.
“Hey!” she returned, with slightly more exclamation than she probably intended judging by the immediate clearing of her throat afterward.
Before he could say anything, she asked, “Are you feeling better?”
There it was again, that genuine concern. Patrick once more felt oddly touched when her words from Friday came floating sweetly through his mind…
“Goodness, here, have some of my sandwich!”
“I’ll save some apple slices for you.”
It was all Patrick could do to stop himself from grinning like an idiot.
“Yeah, totally. Must have been some bad eggs or something Friday morning.” The issue hadn’t been very funny, but he tried to shrug it off as a comical experience anyway. Maybe to take some of the edge off of the guilt he had felt.
“Oh, no problem,” she replied with a little laugh. She tried to find the humor in this as well, but she was clearly relieved.
Before she felt obligated to say anything more on the matter, Patrick pushed forward, leaving it as far behind them as possible.
“I’m not sure how well I did on the assignment last night,” he said as he flipped to his homework folder.
*****
Lunch that day was fifty minutes long, just as it was every day of the week, but to Patrick it felt like it went on for ages.
The unpleasantness of that awful day had practically disappeared, and the progression of their natural friendship kicked back into high gear. Patrick now had every bit of confidence he could ever need. Conversation went smoothly and the laughs came easily. The chronic awkward pauses which had plagued Patrick’s attempts at friendliness his entire life were officially gone. What could be more inconsequential a thing when you knew what he knew—when you had experienced what he had experienced last night? Suddenly these social interactions were nothing at all. How could this have ever been so hard?
Patrick originally thought himself too preoccupied to eat, but when he withdrew his floppy turkey sandwich and began to eat it absentmindedly he found that it agreed with him much more than he had expected.
The two laughed and talked about whatever silly thing they could think of. They did quiet imitations of Mr. Rolls, their resident Hollywood football coach (which was rapidly becoming a favorite pastime of theirs, much as insisting that everyone “suit out” for PE was for dear Mr. Rolls). They giggled madly at each others’ impersonations as the gloriously long lunch stretched for what absolutely must have been several hours.
Being with Rachel was simply wonderful. The world had never been so vibrant and meaningful to Patrick, and he had never felt quite so alive.
Ah, the emotional roller coaster that is adolescence, he mused to himself as their lunch drew to a close and they walked to their next class.
*****
Patrick was so caught up in his joy that he hardly had time to notice how haggard Mr. Vincent looked today. He had appeared very tired during world history, and even now, several hours later as he taught Mrs. Gomes’ political science class while she attended some sort of appointment (which was a small blessing, as Patrick grew to dislike the woman more with each passing day), the man was no more energetic. His eyes also might have been a tad more sunken than usual, but it may have just been Patrick’s imagination.
They listened to the lesson, Patrick wishing with all his might that he could still be talking and laughing with Rachel. Yet somehow sitting next to her, entertaining the thought that she was feeling the same thing and knowing that they would have plenty of time to do it all later was enough to keep him in his seat. That feeling was broken though, when he thought about tonight.
A whirlwind of butterflies took flight in his stomach and he felt his extremities tingle as his mind drifted back to the forest. These were different butterflies than the ones that reacted to Rachel though, the tingling feeling different than that particular warmish chill that went through his arms, that sudden dizziness that flitted through his brain the first few
times they shared eye contact. This feeling was laced with pure excitement, much more immediate and demanding of action. The sensation was localized almost entirely in his gut.
It will happen again tonight, he thought to himself.
The idea of thrusting himself once more into that world that was so different from his own, to breach the borders of the unknown with such power, such confidence, filled him with the only joy that could match that which he was already experiencing. And the two joyous concepts together left him feeling better about the future than he ever had. Anything unrelated to the new turns his life had taken was entirely meaningless and practically nonexistent. Homework, nosebleeds, unpleasant relatives, stubbed toes, acne, awkward conversations, horrible things in the news… None of them were left after last night. Had they even really been there before? They now seemed rather impossible in such a world as this.
The thought of shedding his own skin and becoming a creature of another world again, intentionally, at his very will, almost made him shake in his chair. It was all he could do not to jump up and run to the woods right this second.
He would have to wait, though. He would have to wait many long hours before class was through and dinner was eaten and his homework was done (though how he was going to be able to focus on such a thing was beyond him) and the sun was finally down and all the residents of his house and his town were finally asleep. That would be his time. That would be when this other world became his.
He didn’t know why it was happening. He didn’t know how it could happen. But for some reason, that didn’t matter either. The sheer magnitude of the concept seemed to completely overshadow the mystery lying behind it. He couldn’t even begin to imagine what would cause any of this, so he put it out of his mind. Maybe answers would come tonight. For the moment he didn’t really care.
Somehow Patrick lived through Mr. Vincent’s class, and the rest of the day as well, Rachel walking with him and sitting beside him in every remaining class they shared.