Shiver

“Can I do anything for you? To make you any more comfortable?”

His voice was very small. “My head’s killing me.”

“I have some pain pills. Do you think you can keep them down?”

He made a vaguely affirmative noise, so I took the glass of water from beside the bed and helped him swallow a couple of capsules. He mumbled something that might’ve been “thank you.” I waited fifteen minutes, until the meds started to kick in, and watched his body relax a little.

Somewhere, Sam had this. I imagined him lying somewhere, brain exploding with pain, fever ravaging, dying. It seemed like, if something happened to Sam, I ought to know it, in some way: feel a tiny prick of anguish the moment he died. On the bed, Jack made a small noise, an unintentional sound of pain, a little whimper in his fitful sleep. All I could think of was injecting Sam with the same blood. In my head, I kept seeing Isabel pushing it into his veins, a deadly cocktail.

“I’ll be right back,” I told Jack, even though I thought he was sleeping. I went out into the kitchen and found Olivia leaning on the island, folding up a piece of paper.

“How is he doing?” she asked.

I shook my head. “We have to take him to the hospital. Can you come?”

Olivia looked at me in a way that I couldn’t interpret. “I think I’m ready.” She pushed the piece of folded paper toward me. “I need you to find a way to give that to my parents.”

I started to open it and she shook her head. I raised an eyebrow. “What is this?”

“It’s the note telling them I’m running away and not to try to find me. They’ll still try, of course, but at least they won’t think I was kidnapped or something.”

“You’re going to change.” It wasn’t a question.

She nodded and made another weird little face. “It’s getting really hard not to. And—maybe it’s just because it’s so unpleasant, trying not to change—but I want to. I’m actually looking forward to it. I know that sounds backward.”

It didn’t sound backward to me. I would’ve given anything to be in her place, to be with my wolves and with Sam. But I didn’t want to tell her that, so I just asked the obvious question. “Are you going to change here?”

Olivia gestured for me to follow her into the kitchen and together we stood by the windows to the backyard. “I want you to see something. Look. You have to wait a second. But look.”

We stood at the window, looking out at the dead winter world, into the tangled underbrush of the woods. For a long moment I saw nothing but a small, colorless bird that fluttered from na**d branch to na**d branch. Then another slight movement caught my eye, lower to the ground, and I saw a big, dark wolf in the woods. His light, nearly colorless eyes were on the house.

“I don’t know how they know,” Olivia said, “but I feel like they’re waiting for me.” I suddenly realized that the expression on her face was excitement. It made me feel oddly alone.

“You want to go now, don’t you?”

Olivia nodded. “I can’t stand waiting anymore. I can’t wait to let go.”

I sighed and looked at her eyes, very green and bright. I had to memorize them now so that I could recognize them later. I thought I ought to say something to her, but I couldn’t think of what. “I’ll give your letter to your parents. Be careful. I’ll miss you, Olive.”

I slid open the glass door; cold air blasted us.

She actually laughed as the wind ripped a shiver from her. She was a strange, light creature that I didn’t recognize. “See you in the spring, Grace.”

And she ran out into the yard, stripping sweaters as she did, and before she got to the tree line, she was a light, light wolf, joyful and leaping. There was none of the pain of Jack’s or Sam’s change—it was as if she had been meant for it. Something in my stomach twisted at the sight of her. Sadness, or envy, or happiness.

It was just the three of us then, the three of us who didn’t change.

I started the car’s engine to warm it, but in the end it didn’t matter. Fifteen minutes later, Jack died. Now it was just the two of us.

CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE • GRACE

22°F

I saw Olivia after that, after I’d left her note on her parents’ car. She moved lightly in the twilight woods, her green eyes making her instantly identifiable. She was never alone; other wolves guided her, taught her, guarded her from the primitive dangers of the desolate winter wood.

I wanted to ask her if she’d seen him.

I think she wanted to tell me “no.”

Isabel called me a few days before Christmas break and my planned trip with Rachel. I didn’t know why she called me instead of just coming over to my new car; I could see her right across the school parking lot, sitting in her SUV by herself.

“How are you doing?” she asked.

“I’m okay,” I replied.

“Liar.” Isabel didn’t look at me. “You know he’s dead.”

It was easier to admit on the phone, rather than face-to-face. “I know.”

Across the frosty gray parking lot, Isabel snapped her phone shut. I heard her put her SUV in gear and then she drove it to where I stood by my car. There was a click as she unlocked the passenger-side door and a whirr as the window rolled down. “Get in. Let’s go somewhere.”

We went downtown and bought coffee, and then, because there was a parking place in front, we went to the bookstore. Isabel looked at the storefront for a long time before getting out of the car. We stood on the icy sidewalk and stared at the display window. It was all Christmas stuff. Reindeer and gingerbread and It’s a Wonderful Life.

“Jack loved Christmas,” Isabel said. “I think it’s a stupid holiday. I’m not celebrating it anymore.” She gestured to the store. “Do you want to go in? I haven’t been in here in weeks.”

“I haven’t been here since—” I stopped. I didn’t want to say it. I wanted to go in, but I didn’t want to have to say it.

Isabel opened the door for me. “I know.”

The bookstore was a different world in this gray, dead winter. The shelves, blue and slate, had taken on a different hue. The light was pure, pure white. Classical music played overhead, but the hum of the heater was the real soundtrack. I looked at the kid behind the counter—dark haired, lanky, bent over a book—and for a moment, a lump rose in my throat, too thick to swallow.