Chapter 3

It’s just under a hundred miles to Grandma June’s. With traffic, we make it to her house in the foothills of the Cascades that afternoon. The sun pours light over the forest. Pretty. As soon as I open my door, the sweetness of pines tingles in my nose. Inside my rib cage, I feel an unclenching. I have an urge to swerve from the door and go into the forest for a good run, but that’s got to be the wolf talking.

Grandma June’s little wooden house hides behind giant rhododendrons and ivy. When Dad rings the doorbell, I stand behind him like I can possibly hide in his shadow; he’s a good six inches shorter than me, and not nearly as bulky.

“Kurt! Brock!”

Grandma June opens the door and bundles us both into a hug. She’s a tiny pewter-haired lady, but she still manages to do it. Dad squeezes her back; I pat her on the shoulder, trying to be extra careful, afraid of being too strong. Grandma June always smells like oatmeal soap, and when I close my eyes, I feel like a kid again.

“Let me have a good look at you, Brock,” says Grandma June.

I swallow hard. She hasn’t seen me since it happened.

She pulls back and studies my face. “Still handsome. Though a little bristly.”

I duck my head, my face hot. She always embarrasses me, never fails. When she looks away, I rub my cheek. Stubble already? Wow.

“Come in!” Grandma June sweeps us inside. “Turkey’s in the oven, rolls are next.”

I can tell. My nose quivers at the delicious aromas floating on the warm air, and my stomach growls even though we stopped at an Arby’s on the way here and I had two roast beef sandwiches and an apple turnover shake. Good thing Grandma June likes to serve dinner really early.

Grandma June’s house is infested by knickknacks, collectable plates, and other junk. One of these days, I’m going to accidentally break a porcelain kitten or something. Chris smashed a little figurine on purpose once, on a dare. It was this hideous little statue of toddlers kissing, but I still felt horrible not telling Grandma June.

Dad nudges me in the ribs. “Go help Grandma June with the rolls.”

“Okay.”

“Wash your hands first.”

“Okay.”

Grandma June bustles around the kitchen, doing a dozen things at the same time. I sidestep past her and start washing my hands in the kitchen sink. She scolds me for getting in her way but gives me some carrots to chop for salad.

Soon enough, she asks it. “How is Chris?”

“Still in the hospital.” I concentrate on the carrots.

Grandma June sighs. “I already know that. How is he?”

“Okay, I guess. Not really better.” I lower my voice. “He still isn’t healing.”

“After a month?” Grandma June whispers.

“Yeah. Doctors say he’d be healing better if he was… you know. But Dad told them to give Chris extra Lycanthrox so it doesn’t happen.”

I don’t need to say what “it” is. We both know Chris will become a werewolf, eventually.

“He’s still in our prayers,” Grandma June says.

I’m not sure who, besides herself, she means by “our.” Grandpa passed away six years ago, and I’m not sure anybody else in my family gives a damn about me, or Chris. We’re not really family anymore, are we?

The doorbell rings and in comes Aunt Martha and Uncle George and their matching blond-ponytailed junior high girls, Kaitlin and Jordan, followed by Uncle Jeff and his new girlfriend, Carla. All of them greet us with smiles and hellos, but I can tell by their tight jaws and sharp eyes that they don’t want to get too close to the beast inside me. Even Carla; she must be one of the lucky few who was told about my secret.

I shut up and keep staring at the cutting board and the knife in my hand. When I finish the carrots, Grandma June gives me some lettuce to wash. I hunch over the kitchen sink, rubbing the lettuce, trying not to shred it too much.

“Too rough, Brock!” Grandma June says. “You’re bruising the lettuce.”

“Sorry,” I mutter.

I doubt werewolves are built to handle lettuce. It’s so stupid, I laugh. Grandma June frowns and gives the rest of the lettuce to Kaitlin. I sidestep out of the kitchen, accidentally elbowing Jordan, who squeaks and leaps back.

“Sorry!”

I head for the door. Outside, it’s much more open. I can fit here, in the spaces between the trees and the sky. The mountains are beautiful now, the sun dripping gold syrup onto the vanilla-ice-cream snow. I stride into the forest, and I want to go farther, out away from the houses and the lawns and the fences. In the wilderness, there’s no one to point at me and whisper what I should and shouldn’t be doing. But I know the wilderness isn’t empty. The werewolf pack lives out here, running and hiding and killing.

What would they think of me? What would they do to me?

I fold my arms tight and dig my nails into my biceps. I wish I could tear the flesh from my bones and yank out the wolf inside me. I would chase it into the wilderness and it would never come back and I could get some sleep.

“Brock.”

I turn around. Dad stands behind me, looking tired, a glass in his hand.

“Is it time to eat?” I ask.

Dad nods.

I stare at pine needles, my shoulders rigid. “I don’t belong in there.”

“Why?”

It’s fucking awkward. Out loud, I say, “You know I don’t like social stuff.”

“Me neither. But we have to. For Grandma June.”

So I go back inside, even though I hate sitting in my too-small chair with my too-big appetite, listening to them chatter and laugh like nothing’s wrong at all, like my brother’s not in the hospital and I’m not thinking about splintering the arms of my chair in my hands, claws just waiting to slide out of my fingertips. Grandma June’s food tastes amazing—it always does—so I concentrate on wolfing down turkey and potatoes and gravy and green bean casserole. But not so fast that they stare.

Do any of them notice how they gossip and pretend to be human, but underneath their words there are yips, whimpers, and growls? They fight and play dominance games while pretending not to, and Grandma June is the silver alpha watching over her little pack. I blink. I’ve been reading too much about wolves.

After dinner, Dad switches on the TV, and we all lounge on couches and chairs, overstuffed except me and Jordan, who’s on a diet. Dad flips through the channels rapid-fire, and Aunt Martha complains that’s what all men do. Laughter. I lurk in the flickering shadows-and-light, feeling like a gargoyle in some forgotten corner.

A lady with gold hair and nice boobs delivers today’s news on the TV.

“…residents on the outskirts of Klikamuks remain concerned, particularly for their children and pets. Sheriff Royle spoke with us earlier today.” The shot cuts to a beer-bellied, bald guy with his thumbs hooked in his belt. “In light of recent events, we can understand why the folks of Klikamuks might be a little apprehensive about the continued presence of the werewolf pack in the Boulder River Wilderness Area, but we urge citizens to remain calm and lock their doors at night only as a precautionary measure.”

In light of recent events. I remember those events. Hell, I was part of them.

It all started with the werewolf pack. Me and Chris couldn’t stand those gick curs in our backyard, pissing on fence posts like they owned the place. We got together with some friends, Josh and Mikey, and decided to do something about it. With Blackjack and a borrowed shotgun, we went out into the woods to scare some curs. What happened instead? This red-headed gick bitch got in our way, along with her tree-girl friend.

We were pissed, to say the least, but then this guy, Benjamin Arrington, offered to help us out. To make a long story short, it turned out he was killing gicks. He got caught by the police and thrown in jail for murder. Yeah, the law counts gick-hunting as murder now. Josh and Mikey chickened out way earlier than that, so they escaped, but me and Chris had to deal with a load of shit from the police before they let us go.

I realize everybody in the room is staring at me, as if I should make some wise comment.

“Damn gicks,” I say.

Grandma June clucks her tongue, disapproving of my language, approving of my attitude.

On the TV, Sheriff Royle is gone. Now they’re showing a fuzzy home video of a silver wolf loping alongside a fence. A ball of rage tightens in my gut. Is it him? The wolf who bit me, still running loose out there when he should be dead, bones in the dirt and a pelt on the wall? Someone touches at my arm, and I nearly whirl and snarl.

It’s Grandma June. “Are you all right?”

I exhale shakily. “Yeah.” I’m not going to let myself become one of them.

“You sure?” she asks, and I don’t know how to reply.

~

The next day, I ride my bike down the back country roads, trying to burn off extra energy. I whiz past sunflowers, fields dotted with dairy cows, bigleaf maples dropping floppy yellow leaves that whirl in the wind I make.

Up a really steep hill, I stand so I can push harder on the pedals, the muscles in my legs burning. On the way down, I coast, picking up speed, wind whistling past my ears. I shut my eyes for a second and imagine what it would be like to run this fast, to be able to rocket through the forest on muscle-power alone. Humans have a top running speed of about twenty miles per hour. Wolves, a bad-ass forty.

A car horn blares. My eyes snap open. I’m swerving into the opposite lane and oncoming traffic. I yank my bike back to the edge of the road. I’m getting close to downtown Klikamuks now. The glittering Stillaguamish River twists through farmland and poplars, crossed by the old bridge that looks like something made out of a kid’s building kit. Fog floats from the water and joins the clouds of steam billowing from the sawmill. My nostrils widen at the wet sweetness of wood: cedar and maple, mostly.

I bike over the bridge, pumping my legs, passing the cars that crawl along. There’s Christina’s Seafood Cave, right on the water, leaking the smell of smoked salmon into the air. My mouth waters. And nearby, there’s the BBQ Hut, also smelling delicious. Dammit, why do I have to be so hungry all the time?

Ahead, in the intersection, red and blue lights whirl. Cop car. I brake and scuff my foot on the sidewalk to steady myself. None other than Sheriff Royle himself leans toward the open window of an all-too-familiar silver Toyota sedan that makes my stomach do an all-too-familiar somersault. I’ve seen it before, driven by her—Cynthia Lopez. Just her name makes me feel unsteady, even after almost six weeks apart.