Running with the Pack Part 29

"I don't know. I'll think of something."

"It's too dangerous. You could be killed." May grabbed her sister's hand.

"Better that than live like this!" Gretchen shouted and s.n.a.t.c.hed her arm away.

May realized then just how deeply Gretchen's loathing of herself ran.

"And what of the wolf?" she asked quietly. "Would you leave it out there if you didn't have these crazy dreams?"

"They aren't dreams!" Gretchen said, eyes wild, but something in her sister's voice reached her. Would she do such a thing? It was true, it was not the plight of the wolf that moved her, pitiful as it was. Only the thought of the woman drew her back, again and again.

"Gretchen," May said softly, "if what you've seen is to be believed, that thing out there is somehow one of your kind."

"I am not a wolf!" Gretchen bared her teeth.

May sighed. Gretchen had to face this thing she was, but she was clearly not yet ready.

"What can I do to help?"

"Nothing. Do as you've always done. Do what makes you happy," Gretchen said and leaned into her sister. "Just once, May, do what makes you happy."

"You make me happy," May said as she left the room.

Gretchen watched the wolf, now almost too weak to stand. She watched the man until she knew his daily routine as well as she knew her own. She came to know the forest as only a wolf could, each tree, rock and thicket became her own. She practiced silence, she stopped wearing shoes. She almost thought the man had become aware of her presence, or a presence in the nearby wood. He came out of the cabin, gun in hand, and stood still, as though listening for some sound. This happened several times, but he never detected the shadow that was Gretchen.

Drop by painful drop, Gretchen came to love the creature in the cage. She wished, still, for her vision to clear, for she could not think of it as a wolf. She saw only the woman she was sure the wolf became beneath the moon. She wanted to see her face, she wanted to wash the sores on her body and comb out her hair. She wanted to hold her, to offer safety and to keep her from further harm. Drop by drop, Gretchen understood. She was going to kill the man.

At home, she thought of nothing else. May absorbed her silent sister into her routine as Molly's romance flourished. Neither were aware that Gretchen intended an action which would have at one time been unthinkable to her. It was the wolf within and the wolf without that forged this thing she had become. She considered weapons, poisons, traps and at last, she considered her own bare hands. She could think of no sure way to see the job done. Two weeks pa.s.sed, then three and she was no closer to a solution. Her bed was unmade, her laundry piled up, she ate as though she starved.

On the morning before September's full moon, she was rummaging through her closet in search of a clean shirt when she found her answer. Forgotten amidst the dust on the top shelf was a small shoe box. She pulled it down as though it was lost treasure and carefully removed the lid. Inside, wrapped in tissue, was the thorn she had plucked from the wolfweed just before they burned it. She lifted it out reverently, between two fingers. It had not withered in all the last ten years. The outline of an idea, cruel and terrible, formed in her mind.

"You're going into the forest at night?" May asked, home from work early in the evening.

"Yeah. I'll be fine." Gretchen was tired of repeating herself. She knew May would never stop worrying, but she also knew this thing had to be done.

At dusk, she left a pensive May in the kitchen and made her way into the woods. She and the wolf stalked as one. She felt its raw presence within her, she spoke to it, drew it forth, allowed it to breathe in the still air. Her eyes could not see as well in the night as the wolf's and so she let her knowledge of the wood be her guide. She heard the stream before she reached it; the water rushed lightly over rocks and limbs. She followed it until, at a tall oak, she branched off toward the clearing. Gretchen knelt behind her usual tree and was overcome by the eternal patience of the wolf.

She had no way to know if her plan would work. She had only her own experience to go by. Gretchen did not even know if the thorn retained its potency. All she had was hope, and though she tried not to think of how that hope lay in the thing she most hated, it had become too obvious to ignore. Gretchen relied on that which had changed her to change him.

The wolf was sprawled on the bottom of the cage, sides faintly rising and falling with its breath. An air of resignation emanated from the sad thing. At least she's still alive, Gretchen thought. I'm not too late.

Gretchen had never spent a night in the forest, but she had watched the man inebriate himself day after day and knew he would drink himself to sleep. Beer cans and bottles littered the clearing. Where he found the funds for his habit she could only guess. As she lay there, he staggered out once to relieve himself. She was grateful to see him so far gone.

At least an hour had pa.s.sed with no sound from him before Gretchen dared to move. She knew she should hurry, but when she reached the cage, she paused. The wolf, scenting her approach, raised it ragged head. Gretchen grasped the bars with her hands and looked into its eyes. Had the wolf not been subjected to such excruciating cruelty, this closeness may not have been achieved. But close they were, faces two feet apart, and in other, less obvious ways. The wolf made no sound as Gretchen tried to convey her compa.s.sion and her love. She allowed herself to believe, for just a moment, that the woman inside the wolf understood.

The cabin loomed in the moonlight. She crept quietly to the door and pushed it open, holding her breath and listening for any motion from within. There was none. She entered slowly and saw the man sprawled across a rotted cot, his pants and his shirt all undone. Gretchen grimaced at the thought of touching him, but anger drove her on. She peered around, noted the location of the gun. It was propped against the wall beside him and was probably loaded. She gently lifted it and was surprised by how heavy it was. What to do with the thing? She placed it under the cot and, with her foot, slid it as far back toward the wall as she could. Fear raised the hair on her neck, but before she could reconsider she took the thorn from her pocket and jammed it in.

He rose with a roar as Gretchen ran from the cabin as fast as the dim light would allow. The man, confused, did not at first follow, but soon enough Gretchen heard his drunken shouting from the clearing. She, by the stream, stopped to listen. His voice was slurred, his curses struck out at the night, at demons invisible and at the helpless wolf. Gretchen feared he would take his rage out on her, but she could not linger.

Back home in her bed, adrenaline kept her awake for hours more. When she finally did sleep, her dreams were blood-soaked. When she woke, she was ravenous.

She had one last concern. Would she, the wolf, go to the cabin that night? Gretchen kept her mind fixed on it throughout the day, hoping to convey to the wolf the necessity of it, since the knowledge of what she had done would disappear. That night, as her sisters held her, Gretchen gave in to all of her fury as she changed.

The night swallowed the wolf. Never had the two sisters seen it run so quickly from them. They feared for Gretchen, always, but now they also feared for whatever or whoever was out there.

In the wolf's mind, confusion reigned. It wanted to hunt, it wanted to feast, it wanted to sprint through the trees, chasing down its unwary prey. It did none of these things. As though directed by forgotten instinct, it ran toward the stream. Northward it went by the bank, feet splashing in mud, body weaving between the reeds. It was stopped by a sudden awful scream. Nose raised, it smelled all of those things it had come to a.s.sociate with the cabin: old blood, iron, and pain.

The wolf growled; it did not like these things. And yet again it caught the scent of itself in the air: wolf, woman, and wolf again. There was danger and there was fear, but the wolf shook them off. Something moved it toward the clearing, some taint of another half-scented life. It had a purpose now and suddenly the wolf almost remembered.

Wolves do feel rage. They know the sudden anger of a hunt gone wrong, or of a mate killed by a farmer's bullet. They feel these things, not as a human would, but solidly in their bones. The wolf's eyes gleamed like stars at what it saw there by the cabin.

A grey and mangy wolf was throwing itself at the bars of the cage in which the woman who had so confused Gretchen was crouching. Gretchen, her sleek fur a testament to her fine health, leapt into the clearing and closed her jaws on the rival wolf's exposed throat. They spun, his hind legs flailing at her underbelly, and landed with a crack in the dirt. He broke free, they circled each other, hackles raised and open mouths drooling. Gretchen tensed and lunged at him again.

At that moment she was neither wolf nor woman. Some hybrid, a strange cross-breed, her agile body seemed to inherit all of her disparate elements as she launched at the male with her teeth fully bared. This was not a hunt; it was murder. The male went down.

Though he kicked and scrabbled, Gretchen pinned him with her bulk and he could not loosen her grip on his throat. He writhed and gurgled, he shuddered and bled, but her jaws clenched all the tighter. With one last jerk of his leg, he finally lay still.

Gretchen backed away from the carca.s.s, raised her head and let forth a slow howl. As she did so, the woman in the cage looked skyward. Two cries filled the night in unison, one of victory and one of relief.

When the chorus was over, the wolf snuffled around the clearing but was hesitant to leave it behind. Hunger was a.s.suaged with a haunch of venison found beside the cabin. The wolf ate, tearing flesh from the bone, as the woman reached her arm out through the bars.

The man must have changed there at the cage. His clothes were in tatters on the ground not a foot away. The woman fumbled with his trousers, using fingers unsure of their function, until she was able to pluck out the set of keys. She mimicked his earlier movements of inserting key into lock. The wolf c.o.c.ked its head as it watched the woman struggle. The top lock took the most effort, for she hardly had the strength to stand, but at last even that came undone. She fell to the floor as the door swung open and there she remained.

Dawn was coloring the horizon by the time the wolf had finished eating. It felt the urge to travel home, but a different need, one unfamiliar and yet somehow expected, kept it there. It sniffed at fallen limbs and drifts of leaves in the clearing as it slowly approached the cage. Warily, unsure of the creature inside, it touched its nose to her foot. She held out her hand and the wolf's breath came hot on her palm. At that moment the sun tipped the trees in golden daylight and the wolf changed.

Gretchen came to her senses and remembered. She pushed her aching body up from the ground and looked around her. Her eyes squinted at the body of the dead wolf, now a feast for ants and beetles. She saw the man's clothes, torn and wrinkled, by the cage. And then, as light filled the clearing, she saw the woman silently watching. Gretchen pulled her weary body close and wrapped her arms her. For one, sweet moment they embraced before the woman also changed.

Gretchen pulled away and watched the transformation. This must be what my sisters see, she thought. It was incredible, the woman stretched and bled, but Gretchen knew there was nothing she could do ease her. She watched with a sense of shared agony until the change was complete. Gretchen reached out a cautious hand and stroked the wolf as it lay with its sides heaving. She wanted to label her feelings for the creature unnatural, but so, she knew, was she. As she watched the animal breathe, wolf called to wolf. Her longing for the comfort of a kindred spirit proved too much.

Gretchen stretched out next to it and looked into its eyes, noting no difference between it and her. As morning broke fully around them, Gretchen curled up beside the warm body of the wolf. She relaxed as the animal gently washed blood from her face with its rough tongue. She threaded her fingers into the wolf's fur, mindful of wounds, both old and new.

"I won't leave you," she said, and the wolf lay her head down and sighed.

When they were unable to find their sister, May and Molly made the difficult decision to involve John. He knew the area and was as close to the authorities as the sisters were willing to get. Molly called him that morning, after they'd spent two hours calling for Gretchen in the woods with no response. She said only said it was a family emergency and asked him to please come. He was there within the hour, his maroon car easing neatly into the drive.

"What is it?" he said as they ushered him in, all business.

"Our sister is missing, but sit down. We have to explain something first," Molly said.

"When did you last see her?" he asked as he made himself comfortable, accepting May's offer of a cup of coffee, black.

"Last night, but listen. She's not . . . " Molly looked to May for a.s.sistance.

"She's a wolf." May didn't see the need to delay the issue. "She'll be a woman by now, but she's gone."

John eyed the two sisters oddly, but kept quiet. They were obviously stressed and he was used to unusual situations. As a police officer, he thought he'd seen it all.

"Look, I know it sounds crazy, but our sister is a werewolf. She changes during the full moon," Molly hoped he wouldn't end it with her right there.

He did something far worse. He laughed.

As Molly turned away, disgusted, he pulled himself together and apologized. "I'm sorry. It's just so unlike you to tease me this way."

"I'm not joking."

The look in Molly's eyes warned him that this was not a matter she took lightly. May's face was stern and her arms were crossed at her chest.

"This is not a game, John," May said. "We need your help. Last night, Gretchen went into the woods. She does it every full moon. Normally she comes back in the morning and we get her at the edge of the trees. She's not there and we need your help to find her. You know those woods, we don't."

Okay, John thought. I'll go along with this. I'll treat it as any other case. "What do you mean, get her?"

Molly rolled her eyes. "She can't walk very well after changing. We have to help her home."

"Changing."

"Yes, changing. You don't have to believe us about the wolf, but if we do find her, you must promise not to say anything about her condition. Just do that much, will you? Now, can we go?" May was anxious. Perhaps they shouldn't have told him, but they didn't know what else to do.

John gathered up some gear from his car as the sisters bundled their usual a.s.sortment of bandages and cloths in a blanket. When he asked them what the items were for, they explained. As they made their way into the woods, the sisters attempted to describe what had happened to their sister. They told him of the wolfweed, the long years of watching their sister become something other than human and finally, they told him of what she had seen in the forest.

It upset him that they hadn't mentioned this before they left-he would have brought his gun. Off duty that day, he hadn't even considered it. The sisters made him promise again and again that he would let them handle whatever it was they found. He was there only to lead them through the forest, not to rush in and be an unwanted hero on their behalf.

He almost believed them by the time they reached the stream. "Would she have come here for water?"

The sisters looked at each other. Did the wolf drink? They didn't know.

"Wait a minute, look here," John suddenly said, pointing at the ground. There, at his feet, was the clear track of an animal. He gazed at them, astounded. "That's a wolf."

"And?"

"There hasn't been a wolf seen around here for twenty years."

"There was a wolf around here last night, we told you," Molly said. "Can we follow the tracks?"

"We can try," he said. "There used to be an old hunters' cabin nearby. The tracks are headed that way. We'll check it out."

It was after noon when they reached the clearing. Molly saw them first. "Oh my G.o.d, look."

May put a hand on John's chest before he could react as Molly grabbed her arm. "Don't scare them."

It was too late. The wolf raised its head and in doing so, woke Gretchen. She stared out at her sisters as though she didn't recognize them.

"Gretchen, we're here," May said. She slowly knelt on the ground, pulling John and Molly down with her.

Gretchen focused her eyes on the three of them. The wolf didn't move.

"She's hurt. We have to help her. I'm not leaving her here." Gretchen finally responded.

"Gretchen," May spoke slowly, as though to a child, "that's a wolf."

"Yeah," Gretchen said. "So am I."

GESTELLA.

SUSAN PALWICK.

Time's the problem. Time and arithmetic. You've known from the beginning that the numbers would cause trouble, but you were much younger then-much, much younger-and far less wise. And there's culture shock, too. Where you come from, it's okay for women to have wrinkles. Where you come from, youth's not the only commodity.

You met Jonathan back home. Call it a forest somewhere, near an Alp. Call it a village on the edge of the woods. Call it old. You weren't old, then: you were fourteen on two feet and a mere two years old on four, although already fully grown. Your kind are fully grown at two years, on four feet. And experienced: oh, yes. You knew how to howl at the moon. You knew what to do when somebody howled back. If your four-footed form hadn't been sterile, you'd have had litters by then-but it was, and on two feet, you'd been just smart enough, or lucky enough, to avoid continuing your line.

But it wasn't as if you hadn't had plenty of opportunities, enthu-siastically taken. Jonathan liked that. A lot. Jonathan was older than you were: thirty-five, then. Jonathan loved f.u.c.king a girl who looked fourteen and acted older, who acted feral, who was feral for three to five days a month, centered on the full moon. Jonathan didn't mind the mess that went with it, either: all that fur, say, sprouting at one end of the process and shedding on the other, or the aches and pains from various joints pivoting, changing shape, redistributing weight, or your poor gums bleeding all the time from the monthly growth and recession of your fangs. "At least that's the only blood," he told you, sometime during that first year.

You remember this very clearly: you were roughly halfway through the four-to-two transition, and Jonathan was sitting next to you in bed, ma.s.saging your sore shoulderblades as you sipped mint tea with hands still nearly as clumsy as paws, hands like mittens. Jonathan had just filled two hot water bottles, one for your aching tailbone and one for your aching knees. Now you know he wanted to get you in shape for a major sportf.u.c.k-he loved s.e.x even more than usual, after you'd just changed back-but at the time, you thought he was a real prince, the kind of prince girls like you weren't supposed to be allowed to get, and a stab of pain shot through you at his words. "I didn't kill anything," you told him, your lower lip trembling. "I didn't even hunt."

"Gestella, darling, I know. That wasn't what I meant." He stroked your hair. He'd been feeding you raw meat during the four-foot phase, but not anything you'd killed yourself. He'd taught you to eat little pieces out of his hand, gently, without biting him. He'd taught you to wag your tail, and he was teaching you to chase a ball, because that's what good four-foots did where he came from. "I was talking about-"

"Normal women," you told him. "The ones who bleed so they can have babies. You shouldn't make fun of them. They're lucky." You like children and puppies; you're good with them, gentle. You know it's unwise for you to have any of your own, but you can't help but watch them, wistfully.

"I don't want kids," he says. "I had that operation. I told you."

"Are you sure it took?" you ask. You're still very young. You've never known anyone who's had an operation like that, and you're worried about whether Jonathan really understands your condition. Most people don't. Most people think all kinds of crazy things. Your condition isn't communicable, for instance, by biting or any other way, but it is hereditary, which is why it's good that you've been so smart and lucky, even if you're just fourteen.

Well, no, not fourteen anymore. It's about halfway through Jonathan's year of folklore research-he's already promised not to write you up for any of the journals, and keeps a.s.suring you he won't tell anybody, although later you'll realize that's for his protection, not yours-so that would make you, oh, seventeen or eighteen. Jonathan's still thirty-five. At the end of the year, when he flies you back to the United States with him so the two of you can get married, he'll be thirty-six. You'll be twenty-one on two feet, three years old on four.

Seven-to-one. That's the ratio. You've made sure Jonathan understands this. "Oh, sure," he says. "Just like for dogs. One year is seven human years. Everybody knows that. But how can it be a problem, darling, when we love each other so much?" And even though you aren't fourteen anymore, you're still young enough to believe him.

At first it's fun. The secret's a bond between you, a game. You speak in code. Jonathan splits your name in half, calling you Jessie on four feet and Stella on two. You're Stella to all his friends, and most of them don't even know that he has a dog one week a month. The two of you scrupulously avoid scheduling social commitments for the week of the full moon, but no one seems to notice the pattern, and if anyone does notice, no one cares. Occasionally someone you know sees Jessie, when you and Jonathan are out in the park playing with b.a.l.l.s, and Jonathan always says that he's taking care of his sister's dog while she's away on business. His sister travels a lot, he explains. Oh, no, Stella doesn't mind, but she's always been a bit nervous around dogs-even though Jessie's such a good dog-so she stays home during the walks.

Sometimes strangers come up, shyly. "What a beautiful dog!" they say. "What a big dog! What kind of dog is that?"

"Husky-wolfhound cross," Jonathan says airily. Most people accept this. Most people know as much about dogs as dogs know about the s.p.a.ce shuttle.

Some people know better, though. Some people look at you, and frown a little, and say, "Looks like a wolf to me. Is she part wolf?"

"Could be," Jonathan always says with a shrug, his tone as breezy as ever. And he spins a little story about how his sister adopted you from the pound because you were the runt of the litter and no one else wanted you, and now look at you! No one would ever take you for a runt now! And the strangers smile and look encouraged and pat you on the head, because they like stories about dogs being rescued from the pound.

You sit and down and stay during these conversations; you do whatever Jonathan says. You wag your tail and c.o.c.k your head and act charming. You let people scratch you behind the ears. You're a good dog. The other dogs in the park, who know more about their own species than most people do, aren't fooled by any of this; you make them nervous, and they tend to avoid you, or to act supremely submissive if avoidance isn't possible. They grovel on their bellies, on their backs; they crawl away backwards, whining.

Jonathan loves this. Jonathan loves it that you're the alpha with the other dogs-and, of course, he loves it that he's your alpha. Because that's another thing people don't understand about your condition: they think you're vicious, a ravening beast, a fanged monster from h.e.l.l. In fact, you're no more bloodthirsty than any dog not trained to mayhem. You haven't been trained to mayhem: you've been trained to chase b.a.l.l.s. You're a pack animal, an animal who craves hierarchy, and you, Jessie, are a one-man dog. Your man's Jonathan. You adore him. You'd do anything for him, even let strangers who wouldn't know a wolf from a wolfhound scratch you behind the ears.

The only fight you and Jonathan have, that first year in the States, is about the collar. Jonathan insists that Jessie wear a collar. Otherwise, he says, he could be fined. There are policemen in the park. Jessie needs a collar and an ID tag and rabies shots.

Jessie, you say on two feet, needs so such thing. You, Stella, are bristling as you say this, even though you don't have fur at the moment. "Jonathan," you tell him, "ID tags are for dogs who wander. Jessie will never leave your side, unless you throw a ball for her. And I'm not going to get rabies. All I eat is Alpo, not dead racc.o.o.ns: how am I going to get rabies?"

"It's the law," he says gently. "It's not worth the risk, Stella."

And then he comes and rubs your head and shoulders that way, the way you've never been able to resist, and soon the two of you are in bed having a lovely sportf.u.c.k, and somehow by the end of the evening, Jonathan's won. Well, of course he has: he's the alpha.

So the next time you're on four feet, Jonathan puts a strong chain choke collar and an ID tag around your neck, and then you go to the vet and get your shots. You don't like the vet's office much, because it smells of too much fear and pain, but the people there pat you and give you milk bones and tell you how beautiful you are, and the vet's hands are gentle and kind.