This Is Not a Werewolf Story (28 page)

He takes five or six more from the box and makes them into a fan. “I appreciate her effort, you know, with the
code. But it's a little obvious, isn't it? She put sawdust in her biscuits, just because she needed that
W
.”

I reach over and bat the lighter out of his hand. It skids across the floor.

“Fine,” he says. “Let's read them together.” He squints at the cards. “ ‘He killed a deer. Above the deer I saw the shadow of the head of a woman. I refused to eat. He was angry.' ”

He tosses the cards onto the floor.

“I like her style. Good grammar. She gets right to the point, but there's attention to detail. And I
was
angry.”

I pick up the box. It's empty.

“Go ahead. I'm done with it now. You want to know why I was so angry when she wouldn't eat?”

I stare at him.

“Have you ever tried to reason with someone who's going crazy? You try to be patient. But it's hard. Especially when you love that person the way I love your mom. I
raised
her, Raul. We were all we had.”

He sighs and looks down. “So when she started to lose it, and I mean really lose it, it was hard for me. She always had a big imagination. When she was a little girl she thought she saw faces in trees.”

I'm listening. He's telling me about her again. Things only someone who loves her could know. I saw faces in the trees too, when I was little. I still do sometimes.

He keeps talking. “You, me, and your mom—we change. Once the change happened to her, she went berserk. She didn't know where her second skin ended and her imagination began. She thought she could see human faces in the animals we hunted. She wouldn't eat. She'd get weak. Yeah, it made me angry. I couldn't stand watching her starve.”

He stares at me. “Has she ever done that to you, Raul?”

It's been hard to get White Wolf to eat this spring. Is he telling some part of the truth?

“You don't trust me because of what happened with Bobo and Sparrow. I won't lie to you—when I'm an animal, I'm an animal. You go into my den, then that's what's gonna happen. I warned you, didn't I? I tried to put some fear in you so you'd stay away.” His eyes hold me. “Raul, you and me are a lot alike. I had to run like the devil when you chased me and Vincent at the lake. And I saw you turn on Sparrow, I saw you knock Vincent across the room. Thing is, sometimes you act like a wolf when you're a boy. That's gonna get you in trouble.”

I look down. He's not lying.

“Listen up. I've been tough. I've been nice. Now I'll be honest. You're younger than you should be. I've never known the change to happen so early. It wasn't until you went to my den that day Sparrow found the
bone. I smelled the wolf in you. And you're stronger than you should be. Look what you did when you shook my hand.” He stretches it out. On the back of it are four fingertip-shaped bruises.

He grins—like it's funny, like he's proud of me. “That's not normal. You can reach all your wolf strength in your boy skin.”

That's true too.

“It's gonna take the two of us to talk some sense into her. You gotta lead me to her, Raul,” he says.

My ears stretch at the sound of my name. I feel like I'm being called. “I need to think about it,” I say.

“Raul,” he says.

I look into his eyes. They're gold. I see a raised red scar in each of his pupils. But it doesn't scare me.

“Raul, I'm the only one that can help her. I know what she lost and I know where she lost it. I can take her back to the place where she can change.”

He can help me. He has her recipe.

I feel light for a second. Like I've been carrying a backpack full of bricks and someone just reached down and lifted it off of me.

“She won't come with me. She attacked me a few weeks ago—chewed up the back of my neck and forced me to take a swipe at her. You saw her that day at the picnic table. But she'll trust you, Raul. See, I can't track her. For some reason, I lose her scent in the
woods. I need you to tell me how to find her.”

It's true, everything he says makes sense. The words gather in my throat.

“Raul,” he says, “I got a question.”

I nod.

His face is strange. Not nice. Not mean. I can't think of the word, exactly. “Your mom wasn't white when I knew her. She was a gray wolf, like you. Are there any other white animals in the woods around here, Raul?”

Hungry. That's the word. His face is
hungry
.

I take a step back. Stop saying my name.

I know his secret.
That's what my mom wrote. I look at the ashes in the garbage can. He burned her words. What is he hiding?

“Bobo's going to live,” I say. I want him to go away. I don't trust myself with him.

He looks me up and down. He sighs. “Well, I guess some dogs never do learn,” he says. He stands up and brushes the ashes off his pants.

“We'll talk again later, Raul,” he says as he opens the door to leave. “I'll give you a chance to pack for the weekend and change your clothes.”

The last thing I see as he shuts the door are his eyes, laughing like it's a joke. It sends shivers up my spine.

I snarl at myself. What's wrong with me? Did he almost get me to take him to White Wolf?

I sit on the edge of the bed with my elbows on my
knees and my head in my hands. I keep talking to the wrong people.

At pick-up time I grab my duffel bag and join the rest of the kids on the front porch. The clouds are high and the sky is pale blue. Nobody comes near me. I don't blame them. I'm scaring myself lately too. Mary Anne looks at me sideways.

Did Vincent tell her? I swallow hard. Now that would be a rotten thing to do.

Sparrow's grandma is the first to show up. He jumps into her truck. At the bottom of the circle the truck lurches to a stop. Sparrow hops out and tears back to the porch.

“Wait, Grandma,” he hollers.

“Look, Raul,” he says when he gets to me. “I saved it.” He stretches his hands out to me.

I smile at him even though I don't feel like it. I look at his little treasure.

It's part of the busted-up fishing pole I made him. The best part. It's the carving I did, of the wolves chasing each other around, tail to mouth. I trace the grooves with my finger. I was wrong. Vincent wasn't my only friend. He wasn't my best one either.

“I'll make you another one, but even better,” I promise.

“No.” He shakes his head and runs to his grandma's truck. “Not better. The same. The same is the best,” he calls as he climbs in.

The bitter bad feeling goes away. Sparrow's forgiven me.

His grandma reaches over and hugs him like seeing him is the best thing that's happened to her all week. Then she hits the gas and the brake at the same time. The truck jerks and peels away. Blue smoke pours from the tailpipe.

I remember how Sparrow used to lie about the bruises his mom gave him. Back then I had a bad feeling about it all, but I never said anything to anyone. Sparrow's mean mom hit him a lot more times before the dean figured it all out.

I gotta use my brain here. Bobo almost died this week. Things could get even worse if I wait much longer to get help. I don't know what Tuffman wants or who he really is, but I do know one thing—I've got a bad feeling about it all.

I've got to tell Dean Swift.

I don't know why I've waited so long.

The words won't stay down anymore. I can tell they're important, because I feel them in my throat like the sounds I make when I wear my wolf skin.

Once all the other kids have gone, I'll walk up to him. I'll say,
Dean Swift, I have a secret I've been keeping. Can you help me?

While I'm waiting for everyone to leave, I keep Bobo company. The tip of her tail moves gently while I
stroke her side. Forty-five minutes to sunset. I press my forehead against Bobo's and tell her I'll see her soon.

I feel jumpy and nervous. I don't know where I'm going to begin the story. Does it start with White Deer? Or Tuffman?

But when I go into the living room, Mary Anne is sitting on the sofa, writing in her notebook. She doesn't look up at me. My hands are sweating and I can't sit still. Come on, Mary Anne's dad, come get your kid.

Out of the blue, Mary Anne starts talking.

“Some individuals are uncivilized. They do not understand the most basic elements of the
social contract
,” she says to her notebook.

I'm pretty sure Mary Anne is just thinking out loud until she says, “I can't believe you told everyone his secret.”

It's like she ripped the last of a hangnail off. It stings.
I didn't,
I almost say, but I can tell she's not in a listening mood.

“He's broken,” she says. “He looks up to you.”

I shake my head, because I don't know what she's talking about.

“Vincent doesn't know who he is or where he fits in. That's why he lies so much. He's hoping if he tells enough stories about himself, he'll finally tell one that's true.”

She wants me to feel
sorry
for Vincent?

“You're not like everyone else. You
know
who you are. You're the strong one,” she says.

My throat hurts. How can she be disappointed in me when she doesn't even know what happened?
I didn't tell.

“And then you go and hit him? There's an expression.
Noblesse oblige
. It means that the stronger you are, the greater your obligation to take care of the weak.”

She's wrong about most of it, but she's right about that. I
hate
her.

I hear a car honk.
Just leave, Mary Anne.
I need to talk with the dean.

The car horn honks again, louder and longer this time.

Mary Anne shoves her notebook into her bag and zips it up so quick that she catches the corner of her skirt in the zipper. She looks at the door and tries to undo the zipper. I hear the fabric rip.

A week ago I would have felt sorry for Mary Anne for having parents who can make their car horn sound like they're irritated with her when they haven't even seen her in a week. I would have felt sad to see her rush around and act nervous for making them wait for her for two minutes when she's been waiting for them for an hour.

You're just a kid like the rest of us, Mary Anne.
You've got to love them too, no matter what they do to you.

I don't feel sorry for her today.

I hear a car pull into the driveway. The front door slams. Mary Anne must have forgotten something. But it's Sparrow.

“I forgot!” he yells, even though he's standing in front of me. “I forgot and then I remembered. Here. Dean Swift couldn't find you. He says this is yours. He says it fell out of your box.”

He hands me a card. Then he hugs me and runs out the door.

I look at it. I smile.

Skagit Oatmeal.

She must have been running out of cards. It's the longest recipe of them all and the craziest. Is
haggis
part of a healthy breakfast? And the seventh ingredient isn't food at all, it's just a number. 1750 what? Oat flakes?

But this is what it says:
Born in 1750. Preys on white ones. Their flesh makes him immortal. His power is your name.

It's the last piece. And the picture the puzzle makes is a nightmare so bad, nobody's ever had it yet.

Ms. Tern was right. Tuffman is the spirit-animal hunter. Tuffman's the guy in her photo.

And the dean was right too, even if he meant to be sarcastic. Tuffman is ageless.

But neither of them could ever guess the secret my mom knew: that the hunter is one of our kind, and that he's ageless because he eats us.

Only one thing makes me feel better. It's awful, but it makes me feel better. He gets power over you by repeating your name. That's why I kept telling him stuff—whenever he'd say my name, I'd turn into his slave.