Linger

So, finally, I said the thing that had been bothering me since I’d gotten to her house. “Grace, you smell. Like that wolf we found. You know this has to do with the wolves.”

She rubbed a single finger back and forth on the rim of her plate where the decorative swirl was, as if she would rub it right off. “I know.”

The phone rang, just then, and we both knew who it was. Grace looked at me and her fingers all went perfectly still.

“Don’t tell Sam,” she said.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

• SAM •

That night, because I couldn’t sleep, I made bread.

Most of my sleeplessness was because of Grace; the idea of going up to bed and lying there alone, waiting for sleep again, was completely intolerable. But part of it was because Cole was still in the house. He was so full of restless energy—pacing the floor, trying out the sound system, sitting on the couch, watching television, then jumping up—that I was, too. It was like being in the presence of an exploding star.

So, bread making. It was something I had learned from Ulrik, who was a tremendous bread snob. He refused to eat most store-bought bread, and combined with the fact that when I was ten, I refused to eat anything but bread, a lot of baking got done that year. Beck thought we were both impossible, and wouldn’t have anything to do with our neuroses. So that meant plenty of mornings were spent in each other’s company, me on the floor leaning against the kitchen cabinets, curled around the guitar that Paul had gifted me, and Ulrik pounding some dough into submission and swearing pleasantly about me being in the way.

One day not long into the year, Ulrik pulled me to my feet to have me make the dough; it was also the same day that Beck had found out about Ulrik’s doctor’s appointment, a memory I’d been considering since I’d seen Victor struggling to stay human. Beck came storming into the kitchen, clearly furious, while Paul drifted in behind him, hovering in the door, looking less like he was concerned and more like he was hoping for an interesting collision.

“Tell me that Paul is a liar,” Beck announced, while Ulrik handed me a can of yeast. “Tell me you did not go to a doctor.”

Paul looked like he was about to bust out laughing, and Ulrik looked pretty close to that as well.

Beck raised his hands up like he wanted to strangle Ulrik. “You did. You really went. You crazy bastard. I told you it wouldn’t do any good.”

Paul finally started laughing as Ulrik grinned. Paul said, “Tell him what he gave you, Ulrik. Tell him what he wrote you.”

But Ulrik seemed to realize that Beck wouldn’t get the punch line, so, still smiling, he just pointed toward the fridge and said, “Milk, Sam.”

“Haldol,” said Paul. “He goes in for werewolfism, comes out with a script for antipsychotics.”

“You think this is funny?” Beck demanded.

Ulrik finally looked at Beck and made a so what gesture with one hand. “Come on, Beck. He thought I was crazy. I told him everything that was going on—that I turned into a wolf in the winter, and the—the—what is it?—nauseous? nausea?—and the date I turned back into a human this year. All the symptoms. I told him the honest-to-God truth, and he listened and nodded and wrote me a script for a crazy drug.”

“Where did you go?” Beck asked. “Which hospital?”

“St. Paul.” He and Paul hooted at Beck’s expression. “What, you thought I marched into Mercy Falls General and told them I was a werewolf?”

Beck wasn’t amused. “So—just like that? He didn’t believe you? Draw blood? Anything?”

Ulrik snorted and, forgetting that I was supposed to be making the dough, started adding flour. “He couldn’t get me out the door fast enough. Like crazy was catching.”

Paul said, “I wish I could’ve been there.”

Beck shook his head. “You two are idiots.” But his voice was now fond as he pushed past Paul, out of the kitchen. “How many times do I have to tell you, you want a doctor to believe you, you’re gonna have to bite them.”

Paul and Ulrik exchanged looks. “Is he serious?” Paul asked Ulrik.

“I don’t think so,” Ulrik said.

The conversation drifted to something else as Ulrik finished the dough and put it in to rise, but I never forgot the lesson for the day: Doctors weren’t likely to be any help in this particular battle of ours.

My mind returned to Victor. I couldn’t shake the image of him sliding effortlessly from human to wolf and back again.

Apparently, Cole couldn’t, either, because he walked into the kitchen and hiked himself up onto the center island with an annoyed expression. He wrinkled his nose at the heavy yeast scent in the kitchen and said, “I should be surprised that you’re baking, but I’m not. So, I’m again struck with the unfairness that Victor can’t stay human and I can’t stay wolf. Should be the other way around.”

I tried to keep the irritation out of my voice as I replied, “Yeah. I get it. You want to be a wolf. You do not want to be Cole. You want to be a wolf. You’ve made it really clear. Well, I have no magic formula to make you stay a wolf. Sorry.” I noticed that he had a bottle of whiskey sitting on the countertop next to him. “Where did that come from?”

“Cabinet,” Cole said. His voice was pleasant. “Why does it bother you so much?”

“I’m not really crazy about you getting drunk.”

“I’m not really crazy about being sober,” Cole replied. “I mean, you never really said what your big problem was with me wanting to be a wolf.”

I turned away from him to the sink to scrub the flour off my hands; it became gluey between my fingers as the water hit it. I considered what I wanted to say, while I slowly scrubbed both hands clean. “I went through a lot of trouble to stay human. I know someone who died trying. I would give anything to have the rest of my family back right now, but they have to spend the winter in those woods, not even remembering who they are. Being human is a…” I was going to say extraordinary privilege but thought it sounded too grandiose. “There’s no meaning to life as a wolf. If you don’t have memories, it’s like you never existed. You can’t leave anything behind. I mean—how can I defend humanity? It’s all that matters. Why would you throw that away?”

I didn’t mention Shelby. Shelby, the only other person I’d ever known who wanted to be a wolf. I knew why she had abandoned her human life. Didn’t mean that I agreed with it, though. I hoped she’d gotten her wish and was a wolf for good now.