Liar (23 page)

HISTORY OF ME

Grandmother is right. When I am a wolf I cannot be in the city. When I changed that first time the pain of the change was worse than anything I'd ever experienced. The Greats had talked about the pain but they hadn't explained that changing back would be as bad.

Wolf to human. Curled wolf nails retracting into flesh. Everything in reverse, but every bit as searing, bone-breaking, cell-crushing. There is nothing of a human that is the same size as that of a wolf. Not our lungs, our toes, our livers, our teeth, not even the shafts of our hair. Nothing is the same. All of it has to change.

Going from one to the other and back is the worst pain I have ever experienced and yet being trapped in that tiny cage . . . I thought I would lose my mind.

I could not run.

I could not even pace.

There was no hunt, no play, no running. The smells were metallic and dusty and human but what I heard was worse: machine hums and rattles and beeps, electricity in everything, loud thuds and thrums, squeaks and squeals from the street below. The noise was unendurable. The wolf-me wanted to run. Had to run. Couldn't run. Couldn't close my ears either.

I was unjointed, jangled, discombobulated. Many more times in that cage and the wolf would go insane.

I was more than glancing at the forest. I longed for it with every cell.

I could not be a wolf in the city. But I could not be a human on the farm.

HISTORY OF ME

That's not entirely true. (You're shocked, I can tell.)

I don't spend summers upstate solely to make my grandmother happy. I
hate
being on the farm when I'm human, but I
love
it when I'm a wolf.

There is nothing better. Happiness is flat-out full-bore wolf speed. The taste of raw deer that I killed myself. The ease of sleeping, of waking, of being. Hanging out with Great-Uncle Hilliard.

The first summer I was there after the change was the first time I was a wolf without a cage. My second time as a wolf.

I loved it.

No, that's too weak a word. I adored it. Worshipped it.

After I changed, after the blood and hair and teeth of me shifted, after the pain, my universe expanded.

My hearing surged. Wolfish me can hear everything: the faintest movement of rabbit, fox, deer, even rays of sun hitting the ground. Good sounds. Because there's no electricity on the farm there are no buzzes and clicks to make my fur stand on end.

I ran.

When I run as a human I'm fast, but it's the faintest echo of how it is when I'm a wolf.

Hilliard knocked me over. Nipped me. Butted me with his head. Showed me how to run like a wolf. Taught me how to hunt.

Wolf life is cleaner, safer, happier.

When I want to play, I play. Sleep, I sleep.

There's no angst or hesitation or doubt or anxiety or madness.

Turning human, the world closes in. My perceptions dull. For a human my senses are sharp, but I don't smell or hear anywhere close to how I do in my wolfishness. When I'm human my head is hammered with dark thoughts and feelings and confusion.

When I'm the wolf I don't remember much of the human, but sometimes when I'm human all I can remember is the wolf.

I want it.

I want to throw the pills in the trash, flush them down the toilet. Never take one of those tiny pills again.

I want to run wild. I want falcons above, rocks, dirt, plants, and mulch beneath my paws. Trees all around. Drink from a stream, eat what I kill.

Wolf kin makes sense. Human? Not so much.

FAMILY HISTORY

There's one other thing that can (rarely) bring on the change: going into heat, rutting.

That's why I'm not allowed to have a boyfriend. Why my parents grounded me when they found out about Zach.

They don't want me to run any risk of changing in the city. Even so unlikely a risk has to be avoided, even if the precedent is rare and disputed.

Great-Aunt Dorothy remembers it happening; Grandmother says it's horseshit.

Great-Aunt also says that the same werewolf who changed when he went into heat also changed at the smell of blood—not menstrual blood,
any
blood—as well as at the scent of prey. In fact, the reek of fear—even anxiety—set him off, whether it came from prey or not. So many things triggered change in him that by the time he was twenty-five he had become a wolf permanently.

I am not like that.

My dad listened to all their tales but the only thing he took away was that I must not ever have sex.

My parents did not notice that blood does not set me off, prey neither, and the scent of fear? Of anxiety? The rooms and halls of my school exude it. So does every street of the city.

I am not like that long-ago, hair-trigger wolf.

My parents do not listen. When they found me with Zach they went ballistic.

HISTORY OF ME

I have thought about not taking the pill in the city, not climbing into the cage. I'd like to see what would happen. How would a wolf hide in the city? Where would they hide? Central Park? Too small. Too overcrowded. Inwood? Maybe. In some ways it would be safer than upstate. Not so many shotguns and coyote-hating farmers in the city.

I would love to know if it's possible. I would love to try.

I imagine myself living off the ducks and turtles and rabbits in Central Park.

What about when I changed back? How would I—filthy, naked, most likely covered in dried blood—make it all the way back home? Even at four in the morning there are people on the streets. Would I be arrested? Probably not. I'd be confused, they'd think I'd been attacked. They'd take me to a hospital. Would my blood be tested? Would I be discovered? Locked up? Turned into an exhibit? I can see the headlines:

First Werewolf Discovered!
Stranger than Fiction: Miss Wolf!

I can never do it. The risk is too great.

But I would like to. I think of the challenge. I think of the fun.

Besides, I am
so
much faster than any police officer.

If it weren't for my parents, I would do it in a heartbeat.

BEFORE

Hilliard was ahead of the deer, me and Jessie flanked it. The fear it gave off was so pungent I would've gagged if it hadn't smelled so delicious, like swimming in chocolate.

We'd waited out of range of the herd's eyes, ears, and noses for so long that I'd forgotten what moving was like. Hilliard is strict about waiting for the perfect moment, for the wind to be in the right place for us to start moving without setting the deer off, for us to be able to cut off their exits. Healthy deer can outrun us. These were
very
healthy deer: glossy hides, sharp eyes, and musky inviting odors.

I waited, salivating.

Hunting is six-tenths waiting. That's the worst part. Then there's the three-tenths of running, and only one-tenth of bringing the animal down. That's the best part.

When the herd bolted, we'd already surrounded the slowest: an older doe. Hilliard went for the neck. I buried my teeth and claws in her belly. Jessie bit in deep on the deer's hindquarters. The deer went down.

I clawed the belly wide open, tore at the guts, the innards spilled out so hot they steamed, filling the air with the smell of blood, gas, and acid.

We hunkered down and ate everything: eyeballs, entrails, ears. When we were done the deer was nothing but hooves, bones, fur, and stringy bits of sinew. No carrion left for the birds, barely enough for ants and flies to nibble on.

HISTORY OF ME

I've made wolf life sound more romantic than it is.

When I'm a wolf I have ticks. Parasites suck the blood in my belly and mites breed in my ears. Tapeworms come from the deer I eat, fluke from the fish.

It's true that I hunt, that I run and play. Most enjoyable, all three. Except when they're not. When the prey gets away, which is most of the time. A part-time wolf is not as competent as a full-time wolf. A wolf as part-time as me? Three or four times in the summer. I am the least competent wolf of all.

Mostly I sleep. When I'm awake all I want to do is scratch and eat and play and go back to sleep.

When I'm a wolf I itch, I ache, I'm hungry all the time, and if I stray too far off the farm I get shot at. The farm is smaller to the wolf-me than our apartment is to the human-me.

But both are better than time spent in a cage.

PART THREE

The Actual Real Truth

HISTORY OF ME

Being a liar is not an easy business. For starters, you have to keep track of your lies. Remember exactly what you've said and who you said it to. Because that first lie always leads to a second.

There's never ever just one lie.

That's why it's best to keep it simple—gives you a better chance of tracking all the threads, keeping them spinning, and hopefully not propagating too many more.

It's hard work keeping all those lies in the air. Imagine juggling a thousand torches that are all tied together with fine thread. Or running the world's most complicated machine with cogs on wheels on cogs on wheels on cogs.

Even the best liars, even the ones with the longest memories, the best eye for detail and the big picture, even they get caught eventually. Maybe not in all their lies, but in one or two or more. That's the way it is.