Memoirs of a Girl Wolf (26 page)

The local news covered the story all day. They interviewed every member of the family. The mom couldn’t even verbalize words she was so upset. The dad called for volunteer hunters to track down the wild animal to shoot it. That made me nervous. Now people wanted me dead, except they still hadn’t identified the type of animal. Someone said a bear, another said a wolf, and another said it was a satanic cult, but that was ridiculous Petoskey has no demonic cults that I knew of, but then again if I was told a few months ago about Morphics, I would say Petoskey had nothing like that either. Clearly, the attacker was me. It made the most sense. I hoped with every ounce of my heart that it was a bear, or a drifter, or a deer . . . anything, but me.

Around early afternoon, they made the announcement that the kid was going to be okay. He had made it out of surgery, and except for a couple scars on his back and legs, he was going to be just fine. It wasn’t as bad of an attack as they first predicted, but that didn’t change anything. It didn’t change that the poor kid was mauled in the first place, and it didn’t change my decision to train with Phoenix, so I started packing a bag for my first night with him.

According to the address Phoenix put in my phone, it would take an hour to drive wherever I was going. I didn’t recognize the location, but it was in the Upper Peninsula over the bridge. I had never really been to the UP, despite living in Petoskey my whole life. There just wasn’t anything over there worth seeing. A lot of empty space and trees and Lake Superior and bears but that’s about it.

Because it was a long drive, I headed out way before night fall. I’m glad I did because once I crossed the bridge into the UP the sky was starting to get darker and I was still miles from my destination. I was in the middle of nowhere. Long stretches of rolling hills surrounded me and for most of the drive I was on a two lane dirt road until I came to a dead end. According to my GPS, I was to turn left into a pasture and drive straight into a patch of woods for five miles.

As if he detected my hesitation and confusion, after a couple minutes of me staring out the window to my left, Phoenix appeared, startling me.

Opening the door, he said, “That’s what we need to work on first.”

I pressed my hand to my chest to calm my racing heart. “What?”
              “Using your senses. Didn’t you hear me approaching you?”

I shook my head, embarrassed. Maybe I wasn’t the great powerful wolf after all. He instructed me to get out of the car and follow him. I was hesitant to leave the car. Mom would kill me if something happened to it. I didn’t like the idea of being stranded in the Upper Peninsula, but he reassured me that it would fine till morning, so taking my bag from the back I followed him into the pasture and into the patch of woods were we walked for five miles until we reached a clearing. In the center of the clearing was a wooden cabin the size of my bedroom.

              The cabin wasn’t in the best shape. The roof was sloped and when I entered the one room cabin it was apparent the roof was also leaking. The floor of the cabin was weak, splintered, and rotting. In the corner of the cabin was a cot covered in ratty blankets. There was a little kitchen in the front of the cabin: an old oven that looked to be the size of an easy bake oven and a little, white fridge. There was an arm chair that was faded red and badly torn along the back. I wondered what he did for entertainment with no technology, but then I noticed piles of books behind the cot along the wall. The cabin didn’t have electricity. He used candles that hung in glass lamps along the walls.

              He lit them as I stood taking in the little room. I couldn’t tell if he was ashamed or proud of the home, but he seemed to smile a little when he told me this was where he stayed. It seemed so far out. I couldn’t understand how he could possibly be happy in such a cramped place with no one to talk to or nothing to do, but read.

                I dropped my bag to floor and took a seat in the arm chair. I sank a little into the cushion as I sat. “Where will I sleep?” I asked.

              “Sleep? We’re not sleeping.” He sat on the floor and instructed me to do the same. Crossing his legs he placed both his hands in front of him and bowed his head. I watched him until he opened one eye and looked at me, disappointed. “Do as I do,” he said.

              I dropped to the floor and crossed my legs, lifted my hands to my chest and bowed my head. When he noticed I was staring at him he opened his eyes again and frowned.

              “What am I supposing to be doing?” I asked.

              “Clear your mind. We’re starting with the basics. You have to learn to control your emotions and the first step is clearing your mind. Close your eyes and focus on your breathing,” he said.

              “Are we meditating?” I laughed, but when he didn’t respond I stopped asking questions and did as he told me to do.

              The majority of the night was spent learning how to meditate. Every time I wanted to fall asleep he woke me by instructing me to do yoga. It was not at all what I had expected and I started to miss my little panic room because I, at least, got some sleep during the night, but the deep guilt I felt about the teenager I had hurt kept me determined to learn all I could from Phoenix.

              When the night turned to morning and the sun stared to rise, Phoenix told me I could go home. I gathered my overnight bag that I hadn’t even needed, but I realized my car was miles away where I had left it parked at the end of the road the night before. I asked Phoenix to walk me back to my car. He made a big deal about it. Although he didn’t show a lot of emotion, I could tell I annoyed him. His face tightened and his eyes widened. He told me I should be able to get back to my car by myself by using my instincts.

              “I don’t know how to,” I said.

              “You do. It’s natural,” he insisted.

              “C’mon. I’m gonna be late. I don’t want to get lost,” I pleaded.

              He groaned a little, but obliged. At first, he walked at a quick pace ahead of me and I had to jog to keep up. Once we were embedded in the woods, he stopped and twirled around to face me. It had suddenly occurred to him that this walk could be another lesson, so he started instructing me on how would I use my senses and instincts to find my car. I was tired and not really paying attention which caused him to snap at me a couple times until I actively participated in his tutorial. By the end of the walk, I was leading the way through the woods until we broke through tall trees and I could see my car covered in a fresh layer of snow.

              Before he could turn to leave, I stopped him by asking him something that had been bugging me, “What if I change out here? Meditation can’t possibly keep it under control.”

              “You’re not gonna hurt anyone. It’s just me out here for miles and miles. I’ll handle it if you do change a lot better than your mom would be able to, and you’ll learn fast. I know you will,” he said.

“But it’s so unpredictable. It could happen when I’m not out here,” I said. “If it’s getting stronger, like you think, it could happen during the day couldn’t it? You can change whenever-”

He placed his hands on my shoulder and looked deep into my eyes, calming me down.  “When you feel it happening, do your breathing. Clear your mind and relax-keep breathing until it settles down,” he said.

I was pretty certain he had tried giving me a reassuring smile, but it was wiped off his face in a second. I started walking back to my car and when I turned to say goodbye to him, he was already gone. Despite the long night, I was feeling pretty good and my feelings about Phoenix were changing as well. He wasn’t so bad, and with that kind of smile he gave me, I felt confident I could melt his hard exterior some. He was so adamant about controlling emotions and not showing any, but surely he still had them.

25

              Every night I drove into the Upper Peninsula and worked with Phoenix. I got used to sleepless night and napped when I could. Mom returned from Peru with nothing. She had been scammed and lost a few thousand dollars in the process. She kept quiet mostly. The entire trip had left her feeling humiliated and discouraged. Then when I told her I had decided to train with Phoenix she was more upset, but tried to hide it. I could tell she was disappointed in my choice even after I showed her the busted door and chains. I didn’t tell her about the teenage boy. I knew she would be devastated, and I was ashamed. Ashamed in what I was becoming. If I had told her, maybe she would have been more favorable to me leaving every night to meditate with Phoenix, but it was better to not tell her the full truth.

I had to lie to Reign as well. He noticed how tired I was all the time. He also noticed he wasn’t seeing as much of me. I only saw him during school hours. It took an hour to drive out to Phoenix’s little one room cabin buried in the woods. As soon as Reign dropped me off after school, I wouldn’t even bother to go inside the house. I would just get in the car and drive right out to Phoenix’s to make it before night fall.

Just as he predicted, I was learning fast. We moved from meditation to trying to gain consciousness. This was harder, dangerous, and frustrating. It involved clearing my mind and entering as best I could a relaxed, blank state and then feel the bubbly, warm sensation of myself morphing. I had to slowly allow the sensation to take over, but it wanted to come over me rapidly. Controlling this seemed to be almost impossible for me. A series of black outs occurred with me waking up in the morning evidently having changed the night before and failing at gaining consciousness. I was growing more discouraged and frustrated. I had slipped into a pretty bad mood that I couldn’t come out of, and Reign noticed this too.

On the first day of Christmas break, Reign invited me over to his house to help decorate their Christmas tree. At first, I was reluctant, but when he mentioned his dad wouldn’t be there, I quickly agreed that I’d not only come over, but that I would bring homemade cookies for us as well.

I walked the trail between our houses, holding a tin of fresh baked sugar cookies that I had surprisingly been able to keep my brothers out of. Reign’s house was much more inviting and warm this time and I figured it was because Orgon wasn’t there.

Their large Blue Spruce tree was set up in the living room near the fire place. It was a nice morning; spending time together, and decorating the tree. It was the first time in weeks that I was in a good mood.

              “Where’s Phoebe?” I asked, looking around the room for the dog.

              “With my dad,” Reign said.

              “Where’s your dad?”

              “He went on a short trip with my grandparents to Canada,” he replied.

              “Is this them?” I asked. I held up a round ornament with a picture glued to the front of Reign as a small boy in the lap of an older couple with grey, iron hair. The woman, whose hair was in one long French braid, looked down, smiling into Reign’s face.

              Reign stood behind me, pointing to the picture. “Yeah, Maude and Thrice,” he said, taking the fragile ornament from me and hanging it on a high branch.

              “Maude is more like my surrogate mom. She,” Reign paused a moment before continuing. He licked his lips as his jaw tensed, “she’s the one who found my mom.”

              “Found your mom?” I asked.

              “After the attack, right back there.” He pointed out the window. “She heard my mom yelling for help and by the time Maude got to my mom it was too late. She saw a white wolf standing over my mom’s body and once it saw Maude the wolf ran away. Maude carried mom back to the house and told my dad about the wolf. He’s been tracking it ever since,” Reign said, but he must have felt embarrassed for the way his voice cracked while telling the story because he straightened up and added, “but I don’t even remember her.”

              I know he said it to show me that it didn’t upset him, but I could feel his pain, so I knew the loss of his mom had more of an effect on him than he was willing to share with me verbally. I could also feel his pain mixed with the loving affection he felt for Maude. I asked him a couple more questions about Maude and Thrice and soon we were sitting on his couch looking at photos of his trips with the older couple.

              Mixed in the photos were pictures of Orgon standing next to animals he had hunted. I couldn’t look at these. Reign was embarrassed of them as well and tried hiding them from me. After the fifth picture of Orgon kneeling next to a bloody black panther, I stood from the couch and mentioned that I should be getting home.

              “Come over tomorrow?” he asked.

              “When will your dad be back?” I asked, shrugging on my coat.

              “I don’t know. They’re tracking that animal, you know, the one that mauled that kid a few weeks ago.”

              My blood turned cold and I froze slightly staring at the zipper of my coat. “What?”

              “Yeah, I know and dad said he was retired. Well, I guess not,” Reign said.

              He was too annoyed with his dad to notice how much I was freaking out. I quickly left, kissing him on the cheek, and running from his house and along the trail to my house. Once home, I calmed myself by reassuring myself that I was going to be fine as long as Phoenix was looking out for me and I was learning to control myself—there was no way Orgon would be able to hunt me because I wasn’t a normal wolf. I had made a mistake, yes, but I wouldn’t make that mistake again. Even though I comforted myself and with the help of my breathing and I calmed down, it still bothered me to think that my boyfriend’s father was tracking me. Although, clearly he wasn’t doing a good job of it, if he was in Canada.