Running With the Pack (34 page)

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 associate 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 carcass, 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 assuaged 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 cocked 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 assistance.

“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 assortment 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 God, 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 fucking 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, massaging 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 sportfuck—he loved sex 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 assuring 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 balls, 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 space 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 cock 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 hell. 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 balls. 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 raccoons: 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 sportfuck, 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.

The vet likes dogs. She also knows wolves from wolfhounds. She looks at you, hard, and then looks at Jonathan. “Gray wolf?” she asks.

“I don’t know,” says Jonathan. “She could be a hybrid.”

“She doesn’t look like a hybrid to me.” So Jonathan launches into his breezy story about how you were the runt of the litter at the pound: you wag your tail and lick the vet’s hand and act utterly adoring.

The vet’s not having any of it. She strokes your head; her hands are kind, but she smells disgusted. “Mr. Argent, gray wolves are endangered.”

“At least one of her parents was a dog,” Jonathan says. He’s starting to sweat. “Now, she doesn’t look endangered, does she?”

“There are laws about keeping exotics as pets,” the vet says. She’s still stroking your head; you’re still wagging your tail, but now you start to whine, because the vet smells angry and Jonathan smells afraid. “Especially endangered exotics.”

“She’s a dog,” Jonathan says.

“If she’s a dog,” the vet says, “may I ask why you haven’t had her spayed?”

Jonathan splutters. “Ex
cuse
me?”

“You got her from the pound. Do you know how animals wind up at the pound, Mr. Argent? They land there because people breed them and then don’t want to take care of all those puppies or kittens. They land there—”

“We’re here for a rabies shot,” Jonathan says. “Can we get our rabies shot, please?”

“Mr. Argent, there are regulations about breeding endangered species—”

“I understand that,” Jonathan says. “There are also regulations about rabies shots. If you don’t give my
dog
her rabies shot—”

The vet shakes her head, but she gives you the rabies shot, and then Jonathan gets you out of there, fast. “Bitch,” he says on the way home. He’s shaking. “Animal-rights fascist bitch! Who the hell does she think she is?”

She thinks she’s a vet. She thinks she’s somebody who’s supposed to take care of animals. You can’t say any of this, because you’re on four legs. You lie in the back seat of the car, on the special sheepskin cover Jonathan bought to protect the upholstery from your fur, and whine. You’re scared. You liked the vet, but you’re afraid of what she might do. She doesn’t understand your condition; how could she?

The following week, after you’re fully changed back, there’s a knock at the door while Jonathan’s at work. You put down your copy of Elle and pad, bare-footed, over to the door. You open it to find a woman in uniform; a white truck with “Animal Control” written on it is parked in the driveway.

“Good morning,” the officer says. “We’ve received a report that there may be an exotic animal on this property. May I come in, please?”

“Of course,” you tell her. You let her in. You offer her coffee, which she doesn’t want, and you tell her that there aren’t any exotic animals here. You invite her to look around and see for herself.

Of course there’s no sign of a dog, but she’s not satisfied. “According to our records, Jonathan Argent of this address had a dog vaccinated last Saturday. We’ve been told that the dog looked very much like a wolf. Can you tell me where that dog is now?”

“We don’t have her anymore,” you say. “She got loose and jumped the fence on Monday. It’s a shame: she was a lovely animal.”

The animal-control lady scowls. “Did she have ID?”

“Of course,” you say. “A collar with tags. If you find her, you’ll call us, won’t you?”

She’s looking at you, hard, as hard as the vet did. “Of course. We recommend that you check the pound at least every few days, too. And you might want to put up flyers, put an ad in the paper.”

“Thank you,” you tell her. “We’ll do that.” She leaves; you go back to reading Elle, secure in the knowledge that your collar’s tucked into your underwear drawer upstairs and that Jessie will never show up at the pound.

Jonathan’s incensed when he hears about this. He reels off a string of curses about the vet. “Do you think you could rip her throat out?” he asks.

“No,” you say, annoyed. “I don’t want to, Jonathan. I liked her. She’s doing her job. Wolves don’t just attack people: you know better than that. And it wouldn’t be smart even if I wanted to: it would just mean people would have to track me down and kill me. Now look, relax. We’ll go to a different vet next time, that’s all.”

“We’ll do better than that,” Jonathan says. “We’ll move.”

So you move to the next county over, to a larger house with a larger yard. There’s even some wild land nearby, forest and meadows, and that’s where you and Jonathan go for walks now. When it’s time for your rabies shot the following year, you go to a male vet, an older man who’s been recommended by some friends of friends of Jonathan’s, people who do a lot of hunting. This vet raises his eyebrows when he sees you. “She’s quite large,” he says pleasantly. “Fish and Wildlife might be interested in such a large dog. Her size will add another oh, hundred dollars to the bill, Johnny.”