Liar. Part 32

Here I don't have to lie to anyone. I can be the wolf that I am.

I stand up. The boy does, too. He puts his hand in mine. His is smaller and all bones, but his squeeze is firm.

"Promise me you'll stay," the boy says.

I laugh. "They'll look out for you better than I will." I'm tempted to tell him that he's breeding stock. "I hate you, remember?"

"Stay."

"Fine," I say, feeling something break inside me. "I'll stay." I don't have anywhere else to go.

"You promise?"

"Sure," I say. "Why not?"

We head back to the house. It really is dark now. But our night vision is good-we're wolves, after all. Most everyone is in bed already. Here on the farm they go to bed early and rise earlier. Not much else to do once the light's gone.

Grandmother and Great-Aunt Dorothy are still awake. Great-Aunt leads the boy away.

Grandmother stands up and stares at me for what feels like minutes and then, for the first time in my life, she pulls me into her arms, mud and all, hugging me hard before pushing me away and kissing my cheeks. "We love you, child," she says.

She's never said that either. Maybe I do belong here.

It occurs to me that it was not the white boy who was the puppy being abandoned in the woods, it was me.

AFTER.

I wash the mud off in a metal tub in the kitchen. Grandmother heats the water over the wood-and-coal-fueled stove. She doesn't say anything. Hands me soap and a washcloth. Then a towel to dry me and a coa.r.s.e nightgown that's probably a hundred years old. She dumps my muddy clothes into the tub and starts washing them.

She pats my cheek with her wrinkled, scarred fingers. "We're glad to have you here at last," she says.

"Thank you."

I climb the stairs to the bed I share in the summer. I slide under the covers, pushing the nearest cousin farther in so there's room. She stirs but doesn't wake. I curl inward, holding my knees and resisting the impulse to suck my thumb. Instead I cry as quietly as I can.

I wake up aching and swollen-eyed. I've never cried that much before. I vow never to do it again.

When I crawled into the bed there were two girl cousins in it. Now there's light streaming in through the window and just me. They're all up and working already, but this city girl has slept past dawn. I wonder how long they'll let me get away with that.

My chest feels tight and sore. Like my heart is broken.

My heart is broken.

I dress in the clothes I arrived in even though they're still damp. There's a suitcase full of my things but I haven't touched it. It's proof that my parents knew from the outset they were dumping me with the Greats.

They packed that suitcase.

It's their biggest one. They probably crammed everything I own into it. I'm not opening it. I don't want to see what they thought I would want. I'm not wearing any of those clothes. I don't want to see more evidence of how much they do not love or understand me. I'll wear the clothes I came in till they disintegrate.

I don't care that the suitcase is my last link to the city, that Zach's sweater might be in it, his jersey.

My resolution holds until I realize I have to take a pill.

I open the case, relieved to find several months' worth stashed at the bottom. I take one and put the rest of the pill packets in my pockets. I don't trust Grandmother not to find them and get rid of them. It's a miracle she hasn't already. I have no idea how I'm going to get hold of more. In a few months I'll change with the rest of them.

All control of my own body gone.

HISTORY OF ME.

I'm not sure where I start and where I end. Is the human the real me? Or the wolf?

Every time I change from one to the other I lose bits of myself.

Or all of myself.

I don't know if the cells I start with are the same ones I end up with when I return to being human. Does the wolf-me destroy the human-me? And then does the new human-me destroy the wolf-me? How many Micahs have there been?

How can I know if I'm the same me I was back when I first started changing?

There are very few organs of the same size and dimension in both wolf and human. As I go from one to the other and back again my liver, kidney, eyes, ears change. Everything changes. What happens to the human cells when I'm a wolf? Are they hidden or are they gone?

If they're gone, then every time I change I lose more.

I become less me.

I am afraid of changing.

I am afraid of changing back.

AFTER.

The breakfast is made up of farm produce: eggs, b.u.t.ter, milk, bacon, bread. This is a working farm. Even my littlest cousins lend a hand at churning b.u.t.ter, pulling weevils out of flour. There's wool to be spun, animals to be fed, canning and pickling, meats to be salted. Cleaning, washing, baking. Repairs to be made. I learn over breakfast that two of the barns need their roofs fixed before the first snows. .h.i.t.

I try to be interested. This is my life now.

The eggs taste like slimy dirt. The bread is heavy and scratchy. It's the worst breakfast I've ever had.

Not that it's breakfast for them. They broke their fast around dawn with bread and cheese and pickles. This is the day's second meal. The one after they've already been hard at work for several hours. About half the family's there: Grandmother, Great-Aunt, an uncle, two aunts, and most of the kids. They eat steady and fast. The rest will come in and grab what's left on their own time.

Pete sits next to me, eating even faster, demolishing three helpings, then reaching across to grab more bacon.

"No," Grandmother says, pulling the plate of rashers away from him. "You're not the only one who needs to eat."

Pete shrinks into the bench.

"There'll be more food," I say. "Two more meals today."

"Really?"

"They eat four times a day."

"Every day?" Pete asks. He doesn't quite believe me, but he wants to. Across the table Lilly and one of her brothers giggle. Pete flushes. He'll have to get used to everyone's ears being as good as his own.

"Every day," I tell him. "Four meals. You'll have to work for them, though."

"I picked apples."

"Ate most of them, too," Grandmother says. "That'll stop."

Lilly waves at Pete and giggles again. Pete can't decide where to look.

I push my plate at him. I've eaten an egg and half a slice of the murky bread, my hunger muted by heartache. Pete inhales what I've left. "It's good," he tells me.

"Micah, clear the plates," Grandmother says, which means the meal is over. Most of my cousins are gone before Grandmother says plates. Not Pete though.

Lilly waves at him again. "More apple picking?" she asks.

Pete mumbles no and starts grabbing some of the plates and cutlery ahead of me. I busy myself stacking the cups. Some of wood, some of clay. All made on the farm.

I look across to Grandmother, who nods. "Slops go in the bucket in the kitchen."

Pete sticks to my side. I guess he wants to make sure I stay like I promised. Today the Greats let him. It's his first day. They'll get tougher on him soon.

After we sc.r.a.pe the plates into the bucket I wash, Pete dries (slowly), and Grandmother puts away. Great-Aunt sits at the kitchen table peeling and coring apples. Pete nudges me and whispers, "See? I didn't eat all the apples."

"You ate enough," Grandmother says, taking the now-dry plate from his hands.

Pete jumps and I laugh.

"Wolves," I say, "have really good ears. You might want to remember that."

Pete nods. "Good ears, fast legs, sharp teeth. Like me."

"Because you're a wolf," Grandmother says. "You're strong, too. But you be careful about eating so much. Keep going like you're going and you'll puke it all up."

"Won't."

"Can't fit that much food in such a skinny human. When you're a wolf, eat as much as you can. But you're human for the next few weeks. Got to act like one."

"Why are we wolfs?" Pete asks.

"We come from wolves is all. Most people come from monkeys."

I try not to groan. Then Great-Aunt launches into the tale of the man and the wolf and the deal they made.

Pete believes every word.

I want to say that none of it's true and launch into my theory of horizontal gene transfer, but they won't understand. I doubt any of them knows what a gene is. Pete can't even read. Besides, I don't have any proof. It's an untested hypothesis.

If I stay here I will never get to test it. I might be able to gather more data but what will I do with it?

I can't stay.

I can't stick around till I run out of pills. Till my body is no longer my own.

It doesn't matter what I promised Pete.

I don't care if I have to hitchhike back, or ride a freight train, or walk. I'm going back to the city.

AFTER.

But I don't have anywhere to go.

No home, no money, no nothing.

My parents don't want me. They cut and ran without looking back. If my own parents don't want me, who in the city does?

Tayshawn?

I have to laugh. His parents are as broke as mine. Tayshawn's on a full scholarship. There's no way his parents could afford anyone else in the house. Especially not someone who eats as much as I do.

Sarah?

Well, she's rich. Or at least her parents are. But no. I embarra.s.s her. What happened between us embarra.s.ses her. Having me in the house, giving up one of her rooms? Not likely. And if she said yes? I wouldn't be comfortable in a place like that. I'd be afraid of breaking something, doing things the wrong way, saying the wrong thing. I'd never belong there.

Besides, what would I tell them? My parents threw me out because . . . because they don't want a wolf in the house anymore. Oh, yeah, that's right, I'm a wolf. You didn't know? Well, it's like this . . .

I don't think so.

How I could prove it to them? The only convincing proof I have no one wants to see.

My DNA test. The one I never opened. What if there's something there?

But that won't mean a whole lot to Sarah or Tayshawn or their parents.

Then I realize who it would mean something to: Yayeko Shoji. My biology teacher.

FAMILY HISTORY.

My parents stopped loving me long before they dumped me at the Greats'.

Their love was already tempered by the fur I was born with, by the way I run, because those were both signs of what I was going to become.

Then, after my first change at the age of twelve, their love was gone completely.

That was the year Jordan died.

My parents still said they loved me, still kissed me good night, still let me live in their home and eat their food, but it was pretend: they were waiting for the right time to get rid of me.