I looked at the photo she had handed me. A wolf looked back at me, wearing my eyes, a still wolf watching from the woods, sunlight touching the edges of its fur. I looked and looked, waiting for it to mean something. Waiting for a prickling of recognition. It seemed unfair that the other wolves’ identities were so clear to me in their photographs, but that mine was hidden. What was it in this photo, in that wolf, that made Grace’s eyes light up?
What if it wasn’t me? What if she was in love with some other wolf and she only thought it was me? How would I ever know?
Grace was oblivious to my doubts and misread my silence for fascination. She unfolded her legs and stood up, facing me, then ran a hand through my hair. She lifted her palm to her nose, inhaling deeply. “You know, you still smell like you do when you’re a wolf.”
And just like that, she’d said maybe the one thing that could’ve made me feel better. I handed her the photo on her way out.
Grace stopped in the door, dimly silhouetted by the dull gray morning light, and looked back at me, at my eyes, my mouth, my hands, in a way that made something inside me knot and unknot unbearably.
I didn’t think I belonged here in her world, a boy stuck between two lives, dragging the dangers of the wolves with me, but when she said my name, waiting for me to follow, I knew I’d do anything to stay with her.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO • SAM
62°F
I spent too long after dropping Grace off circling the parking lot, frustrated with Jack, frustrated with the rain, frustrated with the limitations of my human body. I could smell that a wolf had been there—just a faint, musky trace of wolf odor—but I couldn’t pinpoint a direction or even say for sure that it had been Jack. It was like being blind.
I gave up finally and, after sitting in the car for several minutes, decided to give in to the pull of Beck’s house. I couldn’t think of anywhere else in particular to start a search for Jack, but the woods behind the house were a logical place to find wolves in general. So I headed back toward my old summer home.
I didn’t know if Beck had been a human at all this year; I couldn’t even clearly recall my own summer months. Memories blurred into each other until they became a composite of seasons and scents, their origins obscured.
Beck had been shifting for more years than I had, so it seemed unlikely that he’d been human this year when I hadn’t. But it also felt like I should have had more years of changing back and forth than this. I hadn’t been shifting for that long. Where had my summers gone?
I wanted Beck. I wanted his guidance. I wanted to know why the gunshot had made me human. I wanted to know how long I had with Grace. I wanted to know if this was the end.
“You’re the best of them,” he had told me once, and I still remembered the way his face looked when he said it. Square, trustworthy, solid. An anchor in a churning sea. I had known what he meant: the most human of the pack. That was after they’d pulled Grace from her tire swing.
But when I drove up to the house, it was still empty and dark, and my hopes dissipated. It occurred to me that all of the other wolves must’ve already shifted for the winter; there weren’t many young wolves left. Except for Jack, now. The mailbox was stuffed with envelopes and slips from the post office advising Beck to pick up more at the main office. I took all of it out and put it in Grace’s car. I had a key for his post office box, but I’d get it later.
I refused to think I wouldn’t see Beck again.
But the fact remained that if Beck wasn’t around, Jack hadn’t been shown the ropes. And someone had to get him away from the school and civilization until he stopped the unpredictable shifting that came with being a new wolf. His death had done enough damage to the pack. I wasn’t going to let him expose us, either through shifting in public or through biting someone.
Since Jack had already paid a visit to the school, I decided to operate under the assumption that he had tried going home as well, and so I headed over toward the Culpepers’ place. It wasn’t any secret where they lived; everybody in town knew the gigantic Tudor mansion that could be just glimpsed from the highway. The only mansion in MercyFalls. I didn’t think anybody would be home at this time of the day, but I parked Grace’s Bronco about a half mile away just in case and cut through the pine woods on foot.
Sure enough, the house was empty, towering over me like a massive structure out of an old folktale. A quick poking around the doors turned up the unmistakable odor of wolf.
I couldn’t tell whether he’d gotten inside already, or if, like me, he’d come while everyone was away and returned to the woods already. Remembering how vulnerable I was in my human form, I whirled around and sniffed the air, scanning the surrounding pines for signs of life. Nothing. Or at least nothing close enough that my human senses could pick it up.
In the cause of thoroughness, I broke into the house to see whether Jack was there, already sequestered in a locked room reserved for monsters. I wasn’t tidy about my breaking- and-entering job, either; I shattered a window in the back door with a brick and reached through the jagged hole to turn the knob.
Inside, I scented the air again. I thought I smelled wolf, but it was faint and somewhat stale. I wasn’t sure why Jack would smell that way, but I followed the scent through the house. My path led to a massive set of oak doors; I felt sure the trail was leading to the other side.
Carefully I pushed them open, then inhaled sharply.
The massive foyer in front of me was filled with animals. Stuffed ones. And not the cuddly kind. The dim, high-ceilinged room had the feel of a museum exhibit: Animals of North America, or some sort of shrine to death. My mind snatched for song lyrics, but could only settle on a single line: We bear the grins of the smiling dead.
I shuddered.
In the half-light that filtered through the round windows high above my head, it seemed as though there were enough animals to populate Noah’s ark. Here was a fox, stiffly holding a stuffed quail in its mouth. There, a black bear, rising above me with claws outstretched. A lynx, creeping eternally along a log. And a polar bear, complete with stuffed fish in his paws. Could you stuff a fish? I hadn’t ever considered it.
And then, amidst a herd of deer of all sizes and shapes, I saw the source of the smell I had detected earlier: A wolf stared over its shoulder at me, teeth bared, glass eyes menacing. I walked toward it, reaching out to touch its brittle fur. Under my fingers, the stale smell blossomed, releasing secrets in my nostrils, and I recognized the unique scent of my woods. I curled my fingers into a fist, stepping back from the wolf with crawling skin. One of us. Maybe not. Maybe just a wolf. Except I’d never met a normal wolf in our woods before.