Changeling Dream

by Dani Harper

  Douglas sat in the kitchen and poured a double shot of Jack Daniels into his coffee. Drank it down. Tried to reassure himself that it didn’t mean a thing when Jillian had said there were wolves. Of course wolves lived around here, just like bears and cougars did. Good God, he had even hunted wolves, ordinary wolves, when he was just a kid.

  But the woman had been looking for a white wolf. White. Maybe he didn’t hear her right. Maybe she was mistaken completely, maybe she saw just what she suggested—a dog or a calf or who knows? But he knew who she must be. He’d heard about the clinic’s new lady vet and figured that anyone who made it through seven years of veterinary college wasn’t stupid or prone to seeing things. If she thought she saw a white wolf, she likely did.

  “But so what?” He refilled his cup with more Jack Daniels than coffee and pondered the question. So what if she saw a white wolf? Wolves were known to come in a wide variety of colors, and white wasn’t uncommon. Hell, most of the wolves in the arctic were white for Christ’s sake. And none of them lived for thirty fucking years either. It wasn’t the same creature, it couldn’t be. It just wasn’t possible.

  But then he hadn’t thought it possible for werewolves to exist. And he wished for the millionth time that he had never seen one.

  Wished he hadn’t heard the back door close just after midnight. Wished he hadn’t been so fucking nosy, wished he hadn’t crept outside to find his father loading the Remington 12-gauge as if to go hunting—and hunting for something big too. Jesus, he’d all but begged to go along. After all, they’d stalked deer and moose since the boy was old enough to walk, sometimes even bear or wolf. Maybe the old man was going for the cougar their neighbor had spotted recently. His father had hesitated at first, tried to make him go inside. Then he relented—and told him a story that made his young blood chill. He’d grown up thinking his mom had simply left them. His sister, Rosa, was old enough to remember their mother, and said she had run away when he was still a baby. His father had never said anything at all. Roderick had refused to talk about her or answer any questions, had refused to even let the subject be mentioned. But now his father was telling him that his mother hadn’t run away at all, that she’d been killed, and not by anything ordinary. By werewolves. Holy fucking crap, werewolves for real, just like in the movies and the comics. It was terrifying and exciting at the same time. No way could Douglas stay home.

  But when they’d made their way to the Macleod farm, it wasn’t what he expected, not at all.

  “Dad, she don’t look like a wolf,” he had dared to say at last. He didn’t look at the crumpled figure in the middle of the bloody floor but saw it all too clearly in his mind. Douglas had owned a rifle since he’d been large enough to carry one, gone on countless hunting trips and had never once been squeamish. But this was different and his stomach felt like it had crawled into his throat. “Isn’t she supposed to turn into a wolf after she’s dead?”

  “That’s an old wives’ tale. They don’t change unless they want to. Don’t need a full moon either, but they’re stronger at the full moon. That’s why we had to come tonight, when the moon’s getting small.”

  “But she . . . she looks like Rosa. She looks like Rosa and you shot her anyways.” Dougie’s voice quavered in spite of himself. Rosa was married now and expecting his niece or nephew any day now. At fourteen, he thought it was going to be really cool to be an uncle.

  His father turned on him at once, shoved him hard into the wall and gripped the front of his shirt. The old man’s voice was a whip. “Don’t you go feeling sorry for these damned creatures. That’s how they fool you, by looking like us. You get it through your head that they’re predators, deceivers and predators through and through.” He gave the boy a sharp shake to underscore the words, then tossed him back to slam against the wall again. “Once a pair starts breeding like this, we’ll be hip deep in the bastards before you can blink. You want that, Dougie? You want them going after our livestock? Maybe going after Rosa like they did your mother?”

  “No, no, I didn’t mean—”

  “You watch, boy, you just stay right here and watch. You haven’t seen these animals like I have. That’s why you can’t believe. You wait. And then you’ll see and you’ll know. We’ve taken care of one and now her mate will have to come here. He’ll be drawn here and we’ll be waiting for him.” The man stood in the shadows of the darkened house, the pump action shotgun resting across his arm, watching both the front and the side windows.

  An hour went by in silence, then two. Finally his father spat in disgust. “It’s been too goddamn long. I don’t know where the son of a bitch is, but I’m not waiting any longer to destroy the den. We’ll have to go after the male another night.” He gathered up the gas cans and headed for the stairs. “You stay here and keep watching, hear me? I don’t want any of those bastards sneaking up on us.”

  The boy turned to the window again, feeling both older than his fourteen years and much, much younger. He was grateful that the smell of the gas covered up the stink of blood in the air, glad for the beginning crackle of flames above that almost drowned out the thoughts whirling in his head. His dad was nuts, completely and totally a nut case, shooting some poor lady thinking she was a werewolf. Using a shotgun of all things like she was dangerous, like in some movie. He should have stopped him, should have made his dad stop—but he hadn’t stopped him, oh Jesus, he hadn’t even realized what the old man was going to do before it was done . . . and neither had she.

  The boy welcomed the waft of smoke that stung his eyes, gave him an excuse for the tears that filled them. He rubbed them and tried to focus on the line of trees beyond the barn. The moon’s light was weak and the forest looked black and ominous. Suddenly there was a flash of white and a great silvery shape sprang from the darkness, running hard.

  “Hey—hey, there it is. I see it!” He stared at it, terrified and fascinated at the same time. “Holy shit! It’s big, it’s fuckin’ huge.”

  His father was beside him at once. Thick smoke was now hovering near the ceiling and there were loud popping and crackling noises as flames consumed the rooms above them, but the old man was determined to finish what he’d started.“Get back behind the wall over there. Let him come all the way through the door, then pull the trigger. Got it? Aim for the head if you can.”

  “But the fire—” It was getting hard to breathe.

  “There’s time, we can get him. We gotta get him. Listen to what I tell you.” The old man ducked back to the other corner of the dining room.

  Seconds later the front door burst inward as it was struck by the massive animal. Dougie flinched at the explosive noise of shattering wood and nearly dropped the gun. He swallowed and forced himself to peer around the corner, his heart pounding so hard it hurt his chest. A great white wolf stood in the doorway, nearly filling half of it. Then abruptly, instantly, it became a tall, blond man. It was almost more than the boy could do to remember to breathe and yet keep from gasping aloud. His throat constricted with the effort. Holy Jesus. Dad was right. He was fuckin’ right! The teen pressed his back to the dining room wall and gripped the rifle in one shaking hand and his crotch in the other, praying he wouldn’t piss his pants like a baby. That’s when he heard the sound—not a sound he’d ever heard in his life and not one he ever wanted to hear again. A wild keening of terrible grief, unendurable pain. The unearthly howl pierced his head, stabbed at his heart. He couldn’t stop himself from peering around the corner again. The blond man was kneeling on the bloody floor, cradling the woman’s body, rocking back and forth.

  Without warning the old man sprang out and fired twice in deafening succession. The son stepped away from the wall as well, but his .22 was slack in his nerveless hands. He watched as their quarry slumped to the floor in a strange kind of slow motion. Even dead, the man seemed to curl himself protectively around the woman.

  Dougie’s father shouted at him, urged him to shoot, shoot now, but the boy could only stand and stare through the thicken
ing smoke with helpless tears running down his face.

  Suddenly an ominous crash sounded right above them and a great shower of sparks and wood collapsed into the stairway. His father grabbed his arm and hustled him out the back door, both of them coughing and choking. Dougie nearly fell twice as they ran across the backyard and into the forest beyond where the truck was hidden. And all the way home he could still hear that terrible outcry of grief in his head.

  Thirty years later, Douglas Harrison still heard that howl in his dreams. Still woke up sweating, sometimes in tears like the boy he had been. Tears were running down his cheeks now, as he held his coffee cup in front of him with both hands as if in supplication, praying for forgetfulness.

  Chapter Six

  Connor had every intention of hunting down his brother for an explanation. But when night came, the tall vet was tied up for hours with an emergency surgery on a boxer that had been struck by a car. By midnight, the anxious owners had gone home, and the dog was recovering from the anesthetic in a kennel. By one a.m., Connor was sure the dog would live, but he was less certain that he would. He didn’t dare try to Change, not until he had eaten and slept and eaten again. Changing burned up an ungodly number of calories. Add a rapid metabolism to that, and the need for rest and nutrition became paramount. Two things he hadn’t had enough of in well over a week. The hunt for James would have to wait.

  It didn’t prevent him from thinking about his brother, however. As Connor drove home, he wondered how on earth Jillian had encountered the white wolf. She would never hurt the wolf, of course, that wasn’t the danger. But was James being deliberately careless? It shouldn’t be possible for Jillian to find James by accident. Even the Pack couldn’t find James if he didn’t want to be found—the white wolf simply seemed to melt into the forest and disappear. Connor wasn’t completely certain he could find his brother either.

  Why would James reveal himself to a human? He was still mulling that question when he climbed into bed and fell into a dreamless sleep.

  Far on the other side of Dunvegan, James was wondering the same thing. He had submerged himself beneath the animal persona from the time he left the woman on the trail. He didn’t want to think about her, didn’t intend to see her again. He resolved to stay away from the clinic, the trails, anywhere he might encounter her. It was safer that way. He was unconcerned about possible danger to himself. But he was all too aware that he could bring danger to this woman. Associating with Changelings had proved perilous to humans throughout history. They had nothing to fear from the Changelings—it was forbidden among them to harm humans—but everything to fear from their fellows. James was certain that death had visited Evelyn, had taken her because she was married to him, and someone had known what he was. Humans as a whole tended to be suspicious of those who were different, fearful of anyone not like themselves, and their fears sometimes erupted into violence.

  Yet the wolf resisted James, refused to take shelter in the deeper forest even though it was broad daylight. Refused to do anything but lie barely hidden under a spruce canopy, head on its paws, facing in the direction of the town. James began to wonder if he had finally lost his mind. He was the wolf; how could he be so at odds with himself? It felt uncomfortably like the wolf was becoming a separate entity and surely that way lay madness.

  Maybe if he figured out who the woman was, he could solve the puzzle and be able to leave it alone. If he could just get some answers, maybe then he could stop struggling with his animal self and slip comfortably into oblivion again.

  Jillian signed up for a post office box, transferred her eastern bank account to a local branch, and explored a few shops, but was unable to achieve any kind of distraction. There was a poster for a new wolf stamp at the post office. Wolves ran along the front of her complimentary wildlife-themed checkbook cover. The faces of wolves stared out from greeting cards, puzzles, T-shirts and framed wildlife pictures. A poster in a DVD rental outlet advertised a movie with wolves. A child in a stroller held a stuffed wolf—okay, it was supposed to be a husky, but it had blue eyes for God’s sake.

  Jillian knew that on any other day, she would barely have noticed these things. Okay, maybe she might have noticed some of them because she liked wolves. But last night she had met a real wolf, her wolf. And there was just no way to rationalize away that experience even if she’d wanted to. When she’d undressed to shower, she’d discovered white hairs on her clothes—a few black ones from the enthusiastic Buster but dozens upon dozens of pure white hairs. Evidence that she had not only seen a white wolf, but touched and even hugged a white wolf. And it had permitted the contact. The whole idea was exhilarating and terrifying at the same time. By some accident of fate, she’d somehow stepped outside the bounds of normalcy and made a connection with the unknown for the second time in her life.

  There was no proof, of course, that the wolf had communicated with her, had spoken in her mind. She would allow that she might have imagined that in the grip of emotion. But all the rest was absolutely, completely true.

  Her brain was churning as she walked along Dunvegan’s red brick sidewalks. Maybe a little research was in order. Jillian stopped at the public library and signed up for an hour on the Internet. Three hours later, she was still there. There were still no wolves over 175 pounds on record anywhere in the world. Her wolf was far bigger than any canine she’d come across, and she’d had experiences in college with very large dog breeds such as the St. Bernard and Great Pyrenees, both of which easily topped 200 pounds. Plus, there were the eyes . . . Wolf eye color typically ranged from yellow to brown, occasionally green. But not blue. Not clear, brilliant blue. Conclusion One, she thought, was that the wolf was physically unusual, unique among its kind.

  The wolf had appeared on two similar occasions, both times when she was alone on a trail at night and was injured in some way. Okay, that first time she had been near death. The skinned knees barely counted as an injury by comparison, but still it seemed too much of a coincidence. How had the wolf known that she was in trouble? Why had it come to her? And how about the fact that the first time had been in eastern Ontario, while this latest visitation was nearly two thousand miles west of that province? How had the wolf known where she was? And just what would motivate a wolf to travel so far? Conclusion Two, she decided, was that the wolf possessed unusual abilities, could do things that couldn’t be explained by normal means.

  Those conclusions led her to expand her fields of research. She found articles and stories suggesting that the wolf could be a metaphysical being, a totem animal, a spirit guide, even an Irish pooka. But it didn’t seem likely that such a mystical creature would leave hair on her clothes.

  She looked at the facts again and decided to scratch Conclusions One and Two. Wolves simply didn’t live that long, not in the wild. She had been attacked, what, fourteen years ago? Fifteen? The white wolf that had driven off her assailants had been unquestionably full-grown at the time. Although zoos reported wolves living close to twenty years in captivity, a wild wolf typically had a lifespan of only five or six years. Ten to thirteen at most. And an aged animal wasn’t difficult to spot. Its muscle mass would be diminishing, its coat dull, its teeth worn. There was a look, a feel to the body that no veterinarian could miss. And the wolf she had just encountered on the trail seemed to be very much in its prime.

  So which was more far-fetched, that it was the same wolf that saved her years ago, or that there were two completely identical wolves, and both of them seemed determined to protect her?

  Jillian had a pounding headache and not a single answer by the time she headed home. She had a stack of books beside her on the seat of the truck, but there was no way she was going to open them tonight. Instead, she picked up a container of chocolate pecan fudge ice cream and resolved to eat it in front of the TV until she forgot all about wolves for a while.

  Within the wolf, James padded silently through the shadowed clinic. Dogs and cats slept in kennels, a cow and two horses dozed in the livesto
ck wing. None stirred as the Changeling passed by them in the darkness. He wasn’t hunting them. Instead, he inhaled deeply, drinking in the woman’s unique scent, and followed it unerringly. Doors presented no impediment. Every door in the clinic had levered handles that were easily pawed open. Connor had done that on purpose, no doubt. Bet he didn’t expect me to use them. Within minutes, the white wolf stood outside the room where a small, blond woman thrashed in the grip of restless dreams.

  James could sense the tension as he pawed open the door. Was she having a nightmare? Operating with both wolfen instinct and human caution, he moved silently until he stood by her bed, his nose nearly touching her arm. Her blankets were tangled, her skin shiny with perspiration. She moaned, then suddenly went still as if on some level she sensed the wolf’s presence. Her eyes didn’t open, but her fingers coaxed him closer, her lips murmuring soundlessly. To his surprise, her thoughts shone clearly in his mind. I missed you. I’m so glad you came back. She stroked the great animal’s head, buried her hands in the snowy ruff. The doctors tried to tell me you were just a hallucination, but I knew you were real. I knew it inside. I hung onto that, knew I wasn’t alone. I knew you’d come.

  She smiled broadly, her eyes still closed, relaxed and drifting down into a deep and peaceful sleep. James watched her for a long time, puzzled by this new development. He shouldn’t be able to hear her thoughts. Changelings could usually only hear the thoughts of other Changelings. And he was confused by the feelings she stirred in him, confused even to have feelings. He had spent so many years buffered from emotions. As a wolf, he instinctively wanted to guard her, protect her. Not like a cub or even a member of its Pack. More than that. It was important to keep her safe, if only from her dreams. But deep within the wolf, James himself was restless. He wanted something else, something more, something he didn’t recognize.