Counting Wolves

by Michael F Stewart

  “Yes, healthy fear,” Stenson says. “It can give us energy to flee, or strength to do amazing things like lift cars.” Red’s head snaps up at the mention of cars.

  “What other fears are healthy?” Stenson asks. There’s silence. “Is it important to have a healthy fear of other cars, so we don’t crash into them?”

  My mom used to do this to me. I recognize the cadence of Stenson’s questioning. She’s using the Socratic method. She’s going to keep asking questions until she reaches whatever reaction she really wants. Socrates was the father of all trolls.

  Red’s feet jerk off the ground and slam back down. Her arms are folded across her chest and her eyes tight shut.

  “Red?” Stenson probes.

  Red’s eyes open up, and she shakes her head at the nurse.

  If last night’s food discussion had been for my benefit, then I have the sense that today Nurse Stenson’s trying to draw out Red.

  Rottengoth starts blathering, “Crash, smash, fire, burn, choke, dead, rot, worms.” He looks down at his hands as if they’ve already decomposed.

  “When are fears unhealthy?” Stenson goes on and nods to me.

  Pig answers. “When they stop you from doing the things you should,” Pig says. “Like Milly and her counting. She can’t do stuff quick, because she’s scared.”

  I’m waving my hand around to get them to wait.

  “Milly?” Nurse Stenson asks.

  . . . “Listen,” I say. “It’s not like I can’t do stuff. I know my counting seems weird and doesn’t make sense to you, but it’s not a problem. I can still move around and text people and play video games.”

  The kids don’t look like they believe me.

  “Thank you,” Stenson says. “Compulsions are a little different from fears or phobias. Phobias are fears that started out as rational but have grown so that the amount of fear is far greater than the situation calls for. The phobia prevents us from doing things. Compulsions are things we feel forced to do even though they’re due to an irrational fear.”

  “Don’t be so irrational,” Pig says to me and chuckles.

  I’ll take irrational over crazy any day.

  “I’m scared of falling,” Peter says from the couch.

  “Yes, Peter, another fear that is based on rational fear,” Stenson replies over her shoulder.

  “Unless you’re a fairy,” Vanet objects. “Fairies shouldn’t ever fear falling. Fear of falling for them doesn’t makes sense—they can fly. It’s irrational.”

  Stenson holds her breath as if trying to maintain patience.

  “And wolves,” Peter adds. “I’m scared of the wolf.”

  My head whips around, but Stenson just smiles and continues on, which makes me wonder whether she’s avoiding the issue of the wolf on the ward or just anything Peter says.

  “What makes you frightened, Red?” she asks.

  Red swallows.

  “I know,” Vanet says, and before Stenson can stop him, he pulls out a toy car from his pocket and makes a sound like a bomb going off.

  Red leaps up, snatches the car from him and hurls it across the room. Then she bursts into tears and sprints out the door.

  “She’s scared of dinky cars,” Vanet says, nodding. “And for good reason: Thousands of people die every year choking on dinky cars.”

  Peter giggles. “Dinky.”

  Stenson’s mouth thins to a slit. “I think that’s enough for today.”

  Chapter 11

  Vanet and I are the last to leave the circle of chairs. Group was weird, but I actually get what Stenson was going for, that fear can be good or it can take over, it can be the mind-killer. Maybe she was talking about me too, not only Red. But I don’t run screaming to my room anytime someone brings stuff up.

  “That was mean,” I say to Vanet.

  “You know what’s really mean?” He pulls his sleeve up to his shoulder and flexes his bicep. Striated muscles cord and then smooth. “It’s dancing around the real problem. Like Red, like you and your wolf. That’s what you need to hunt down. People may call me manic because I don’t think enough before I do or say stuff, but I know it’s what everyone else wishes they could do.” He points to his bicep.

  “Nice,” I say. “Listen, if I don’t count, people will die.”

  “’Cause of the wolves. Last I heard wolves can be killed. You only need to give yourself the license—Wait!” He slaps me on the shoulder and races over to the craft table.

  I roll my eyes. He’s got markers out and a sheet of paper.

  Tink is ushering everyone out to start schoolwork, but I don’t have any yet, so she leaves me be.

  “Vanet—now,” she orders.

  As he passes, he presses a folded paper into my hand. When everyone’s gone I open it.

  Hunting License

  Milly is licensed to kill one wolf for forty-eight hours by any means necessary.

  I press the sheet against my stomach, before refolding it and shoving it into my pocket. By any means. There’s the problem. No one has prescribed me my bow and arrows.

  I read while the others do math and English exercises. You could hear a paw step. Only the staff chats at the nursing station, and every once in a while that goes quiet and Stenson pokes her head into the rec room and smiles at me.

  After lunch I try ping-pong with Peter. Peter’s not very good. In the corner, Vanet throws tennis balls into the air. He can manage two, but whenever he adds a third ball, they all come tumbling down. A few minutes go by before Vanet comes over to watch us play. He sits on the arm of the couch. His eyes never leave me.

  “It’s not going to happen, Vanet,” I say. “I’m so not interested in finding a boyfriend on a psych ward.”

  Rottengoth looks up from his book. “Shh.”

  But it’s wishful thinking, because Pig joins us, wringing her hands and rubbing her bald head.

  “This is more like it,” Vanet says, looking around. “No Stenson.”

  Peter knocks a serve over, but to his great disappointment and my surprise, I slam it back.

  “What’s the worst thing that’s ever happened to you?” Vanet asks everyone.

  Rottengoth says, “Group’s over. Leave us alone.”

  It’s the most coherent thing I’ve heard from Rottengoth. The stack of pills I watched him take at breakfast must be doing something.

  “Did I ask you?” Vanet replies. “You’re not invited, you just happen to be here.”

  Peter knocks a second serve in and it’s such a rare event that I let the ball zing past. He hoots.

  “I’ll tell you,” Pig says. “You all know I’m rich and if I had my hair you’d probably even recognize my mother because she’s pretty famous. She couldn’t keep me. If she had, she’d have lost her modeling contract and her engagement to a prince. A Saudi prince. Wait . . . I guess that’s the worst thing to happen to me, not being recognized as a bastard of the Saudi Kingdom. It’s not what I was thinking, though. Someone stole my backpack while I was sleeping in a bus shelter once. That was bad. Everything gone.”

  Vanet whistles. “Lucky she dropped you off at the local McDonald’s for adoption, heh?” Then he pokes me with a finger. “You counting? ’Cause I’ll talk first, if you’re still below fifty.” I wave him on. “The worst for me was when I was boning this chick and she’s like all screaming because it’s so good—”

  Pig’s giggling and snorting.

  “What?” he says. “I’m like huge.”

  “Prove it,” Pig says, her eyes lingering below his stomach.

  Vanet stands up and starts circling his hips in a striptease.

  “Duh-nana-na-NA! Duh-nana-na-NA!” he sings.

  Pig starts jiggling with laughter. I have my hands over my face, but I’m peeking through the fingers. A nurse checks on us just as Vanet’s wrestling with the fly of his jeans.

  “Vanet, keep it to yourself.” It’s Nurse Abby, the one with the red-hair streak. She’s wearing a top covered with crows rather than cats toda
y.

  “We’ll finish this later, Pig,” Vanet continues. “Like I said, though, this chick, she’s screaming and suddenly she goes rigid, completely like-a-boner-straight, she told me afterward that the orgasm had been so big that she’d had a seizure. But I didn’t know that, I figured I’d pounded her so hard that my shlong had gone through her. Right along her spine and I had killed her with my massiveness.” He stares back at me. “How about you? Anything that bad?”

  I put the ping-pong paddle down and shake my head. . . . “My mom died.”

  “Yeah, I heard, but sometimes it’s tough to know if you’re better off or not. Maybe you’d just have two people disappointed in you like Wesley has,” Vanet says.

  Rottengoth lifts a fist and then pretends to crank his middle finger up. Vanet’s an asshole. Suddenly the hunting license in my pocket doesn’t feel like anything more than a sheet of paper.

  “All right, next question for the group,” Vanet says. “What’s your dream?”

  It’s weird, because I feel lighter being allowed to think about an answer. Everyone seems to lean back and look to the ceiling. It reminds me that these people may all be crazy, but they’re still people. With dreams and fears.

  Pig’s first to reply. “After I’m out of here, I’m going to start a chain of restaurants called Pig’s. They’re going to compete with my family’s chain—McDonald’s.”

  “My dream is to go to fairy world,” Peter says. “I want to fly to fairy world. Everyone is happy.”

  “Yeah, that sounds nice, Peter,” Vanet says. “Jump off another building and you may get there sooner rather than later.”

  If my counting were finished, I’d leap on him.

  “That’s a stupid thing to say, Vanet.” Pig shakes her head at him and turns to Peter. “Don’t worry, Peter, fairies have to master short jumps before they can do big ones. Vanet doesn’t want you to see fairy land.”

  “Sure I do! It’s his dream,” Vanet says. “Who doesn’t want to get their dreams? Think of me as your fairy godmother, offering sage advice and wish fulfilment.”

  Vanet’s like some stoned fairy godmother who’s as liable to kill you as help you.

  “I don’t have any dreams. There’s nothing left to do,” Rottengoth says, and it’s as though his darkness shrouds him tighter again.

  . . . “What do you mean?” I ask, having hit one hundred just as Rottengoth spoke.

  “We’re not at war. The mountains have all been climbed. There isn’t anywhere that hasn’t been mapped. Why bother doing anything again?” Rottengoth replies.

  “You could do it better,” Vanet says. “Well, try anyway.”

  He shrugs. “Better, faster, bigger, that’s why we’re in this mess.”

  “What mess is that?” Vanet asks, swinging an arm around the room as if it’s the height of opulence. “This place is awesome.”

  “The world, doorknob. If everyone relaxed and didn’t worry so much about the next iPhone, we’d stop making things no one needs.”

  . . . “I agree with Wes,” I say, having counted fast. “Everything sucks. Climate change, terrorism, no jobs. I mean our parents really dealt us a crappy hand. And we can’t do anything about it.” It’s a Dark Wood.

  “You can find a cure for cancer,” Pig adds.

  “I suck at science. What’s the chance I’ll do anything useful for the planet?” Rottengoth replies.

  I happen to agree with Rottengoth on that too, but stay silent. Bide my time.

  “Well, you’re not going to do anything, if you don’t try,” Vanet says.

  If I don’t go out into the Dark Wood, my life will never begin.

  “What if I don’t care to try . . .” Rottengoth says.

  “I guess tough noogie,” Peter says. And everyone looks to him and bursts out laughing. Peter gives a proud smile.

  “How about you?” Vanet asks me.

  Everything quiets as they wait.

  . . . “I don’t have dreams. I only have nightmares,” I say.

  It must have weirded everyone out, because they all sober.

  “Buzzkill,” Vanet says. “Save that for the Stenson group.”

  And I guess I am a buzzkill, because everyone leaves. I head for the bathroom. But when I finally open the door, there’s Vanet on the toilet with his pants down, stall door wide. He’s jerking off. He’s forgotten to slide the sign to “In Use,” or maybe this was what he wanted.

  I can’t even cry out. I slam the door shut. Doesn’t he ever stop? I take the hunting license from my pocket and crumple it into a ball before tossing it in the garbage.

  Chapter 12

  While the other kids go back to homework, Nurse Abby ushers me into interview room one. Doctor Balder’s there with his notepad and his wolfish teeth. He pushes a book my way, The Rock-on Anxiety Workbook. Great. I trade him my crazy-map, which he scans.

  “This is good. This is very good. Take a chair, Milly. How’s your first full day with the group going?”

  . . . “I’m not sure I belong, Doctor Balder,” I say. “I mean, there’s nothing really wrong with me.”

  “I agree,” he says and I look up in surprise. “Nothing’s really wrong with you. Nothing so wrong that we can’t help pretty quickly with the problems you do have. Once you come onside with a combination of drug treatment and behavioral therapy, we’ll get you fixed up.” His smile shows each of those giant teeth.

  . . . “But that’s just it. I don’t need drugs, or therapy even. Fainting was annoying, but you have me drinking those meal replacements, and I promise to keep doing that. So can I leave?”

  “That’s for you to decide with your father and . . . guardian. I think you can really benefit from a few more days here. I want to help you during this stay in hospital so that you never need to return here again.” He holds up my crazy-map.

  But Balder doesn’t understand the stakes. He doesn’t know about the wolf. About how the ward is bringing us face-to-face, forcing a confrontation that doesn’t need to happen. A showdown when I’ve never felt weaker. My mother can’t even hold it back. If Balder knew, he’d keep me here for even longer and that would be worse.

  . . . “I don’t want people to know I’m here.”

  “Milly, mental illness is very, very common. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. Were you ashamed of your mother for having cancer?”

  . . . “That wasn’t her fault.”

  “And this is not your fault either.”

  I swallow. Mental illness, mental illness, mental illness.

  “Can you tell me a bit about your parents, about your stepmother?” he asks.

  . . . “Okay, well, my dad isn’t around much. He’s in sales and has to travel all the time. My mom was a stay-at-home mom—that made her crazy . . . sorry, I didn’t mean crazy crazy. But I’m an only child. She had so much time, so everything had to be perfect, and she did everything she could to make sure I had everything I needed and was, like, the safest kid in the whole world. She was pretty amazing, I guess. Then she got breast cancer when I was twelve and died really quickly, faster than normal.”

  I flush.

  “And what about Adriana?”

  . . . “She’s a total bitch. I mean, she says she’s trying to help, but she doesn’t really care about me and is just annoyed by my presence. I know she’s trying only to impress my dad. If I don’t do what she wants, she flips out.”

  “All right, Milly, we’ll help you work through some of these issues.”

  What issues—aside from the need for Adriana to disappear?

  “Often we have some mistaken beliefs that are created by our familial relationships. The workbook will help us uncover them. You did a great job on the worksheet I gave you. Soon we can begin working on lowering those ratings.”

  . . . “There’s a Halloween dance at school Friday. I want to go.”

  He smiles. “That gives us something to work toward. Let’s see how the next twenty-four hours go with the goal of rewarding yourself with the dance,
if you achieve a milestone we set together.”

  I nod, feeling like I’ve at least won something. He pauses, checks my lips to determine if I’m counting and have something more to say, and then continues. “I’d like you to take a look at the workbook. We give it to all our anxiety disorder patients and in it are some exercises. To start, I’d like you to fill out the one I’ve marked off with purple tabs.”

  Anxiety disorder. He thinks I have an anxiety disorder. Vanet was right.

  Following his pointed finger, I can see small purple tabs marking off a couple pages in the book. Other tabs are yellow and green.

  I shrug; he can’t make me do anything. And he checks my lips again.

  “Great. Now, I’m going to ask a few more questions. Why do you count?” he asks.

  The wolf. I can picture it tracking the wingless fairy and me through the woods, skulking by the side of the cottage. . . . “Thank you for waiting to see if I wanted to talk. Conversations can be all messed up otherwise. Why do I count? Because something bad will happen, if I don’t. Something terrible.”

  A part of me wants to tell him about the wolf. But I already know what he’ll think—that I’m crazy, and then he really will drug me and my head will be too fuzzy to use my magic count and the wolf will have triumphed.

  “What will happen?” His pen is dancing over his clipboard, and he doesn’t look up with each question.

  . . . “I dunno.” I’m shaking my head. “Terrible things, anywhere.” It’s not smart even to talk about this sort of thing.

  “You mean terrible things like earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, for instance?” He meets my eyes.

  I shrug. How does he know?

  . . . “Maybe to my friends, maybe anywhere and to anyone,” I say.

  “Why one hundred? Why not ten?”

  That’s the magic, the spell; the wolf’s banished by a hundred, but he seems to expect a specific reason. . . . “One hundred percent. If I count to one hundred, there’s a one hundred percent chance that nothing bad will happen. If I count to ten, there’s a ninety percent chance that something bad will happen.”