Jasper Lilla and The Wolves of Banner Elk

by C. S. Thompson

It was my phone, the phone I had dropped when the Dobermans chased me. The phone Benjamin was keeping.

  “I thought you might want it back. James Benjamin showed it to me last week. He wanted to use it to make an example out of you,” explained King”

  “An example,” said Wally. “An example for what?”

  King frowned and put on a mad face, and in a voice I took to be a mock of Benjamin he said, “Trespassing. We can’t allow any trespassing. We need law and order.” Then he grinned. “I told him to give it back to you.”

  I was in shock as I took the phone from him and said, “Thank you.”

  “By the way,” he said, “I saw the picture.”

  I looked up at him.

  He was grinning again. “Aren’t you supposed to make sure the David wearing the tuxedo T is in the picture?” He laughed. “You completely blocked it.” Then he took something from under his left arm and tossed it to me.

  It unraveled as he threw it, so it swerved and floated to the ground. It wasn’t clear to me what it was until I picked it up and saw the front. It was a brand-new tuxedo T-shirt.

  “If you’ve got a minute,” King said, “we can go put that on the David and I’ll take the picture.”

  Forty-Six

  Back to Banner Elk

  My phone rang.

  “What are you doing?” asked Riley.

  “Waiting for you to call.”

  “Where are you? You’re not here.”

  “I am too here.” I impressed myself with the line.

  She didn’t laugh.

  “I’m at the lab. How was the wedding?”

  “Okay, I guess. Mostly it was people I don’t know and relatives I never see, making promises to do better that all sound the same. And I was the odd age—that didn’t help.”

  “Odd age?”

  “Yeah. Old folks, young adults, and kids. I was the lone teen. I told Dad if he was going to drag me to another wedding I was going to bring you.”

  “Really?”

  “Really. How was your weekend?”

  I should have been prepared to answer that question, but I wasn’t. I was still thinking about going to the next wedding. I have to learn how to dance.

  “Exciting weekend?” she asked again.

  “Very,” I said. “I’ll tell you all about it when I see you.”

  “How about dinner?”

  “It’s Monday. Aren’t you working?” She had originally only worked at the Mountain Grounds Coffee and Tea Company in Banner Elk. on Saturdays, but that didn’t last long. Now on Mondays Riley got early release to go work.

  “I am, and my dinner break is at 5:30. I gotta go to class. Dinner?”

  “Dinner.” She may have been gone already when I answered, but she’d know I’d be there.

  * * *

  I got to Banner Elk early and went to a spot my mother had told us about. It was just outside of Banner Elk on the way to Valle Crucis. It was a tiny parking lot near a large picnic table in a clearing not too far off the road. Riley had sent a text. She’d bring smoothies.

  I pretended to be reading when she drove up. Actually I was reading when she drove up. I pretended to keep reading while I watched her make her way over to me.

  She handed me a strawberry-mango-pineapple smoothie as she sat down next to me. “Okay,” she said, “spill it.”

  “What?” I wasn’t sure how much I was going to tell her at that point, but I should have known. I was going to tell her as much as she wanted.

  She took a sip through her straw, looking at me over the top of her drink. She smiled at me with her brown Bambi eyes.

  When I still didn’t answer she put her drink down. “How’d you separate your ribs?”

  “How’d you know about that?”

  “When you weren’t in school I called your house. Carol told me.”

  “Of course,” I said, rolling my eyes.

  “What does that mean?” she demanded. She didn’t look like she’d let a nonanswer slide.

  “I mean she’s always in my business.”

  “Do you mean she shouldn’t have told me, because she shouldn’t have had to tell me? You should have told me when it happened. I have a right to know, I’m your—” She paused and let the rest of the sentence hang in the air. We just looked at each other without speaking. It got real awkward real quick. Finally she finished the sentence, “—friend. So tell me what happened, or wear this watermelon smoothie home.” She held up her drink, but her smile was too perfect for it to threaten me.

  “This is just between us, okay? It involves the wolves so I don’t want to have to explain.”

  “I promise,” she said as she placed her drink against her chest and raised her left hand.

  “I found Dr. Dietrich’s laptop in the security office. They couldn’t get past the password, but Carol got it from Mrs. Dietrich. When I got in, the first thing I saw was a movie.” I looked at her. “It wasn’t suicide. He was murdered. I watched it happen.”

  Riley frowned and ran her hand across my forearm. “How awful for you.”

  I think I made her uncomfortable because I stared at her hand on my arm until she moved it. I wanted to tell her to put it back, but I didn’t.

  “I couldn’t tell who did it because his head was up out of the picture. I thought it was Aiden Cormac or one of the security guys at first. They caught me taking the laptop, and they took it away from me.”

  “But it wasn’t them?” she said.

  “No. It was Benjamin.”

  Her eyes lit up when I said that. “He disappeared,” she said.

  “I know. Mrs. Jennings told me this morning. Someone messed up his office, too. Anyway, I was on the way home, and he called me and asked me to come back.”

  “Who called you?”

  “Benjamin.”

  “And you went?” She had a how-stupid-are-you look on her face.

  “At that point I thought it was Aiden, remember.”

  She shrugged, “Even so.”

  “I know. He figured out that I had seen the movie, so he tried to poison me. When that didn’t work he took out a gun.”

  Her hand went back on my arm. This time I didn’t look.

  “I was able to knock the gun away and run. He caught me and threw me down. He drove his knee into my chest. That’s when my ribs got separated.”

  “The wolves came, right?” she asked, but it wasn’t a question.

  “Yeah. He went back to where the gun was, and the white wolf was standing on top of it.”

  “Wow,” she said. “That’s amazing.” She stared at my chest. “Hey,” her voice was high, “where’s your necklace?”

  “In the woods somewhere. Benjamin had it, but I’m hoping he dropped it trying to get away from the wolves.”

  “Do you think he got away?”

  “I don’t see how,” I answered. “Do you?”

  She shuddered. “I don’t want to think about it.” After looking at her watch she stood up. “I’m late.” She pointed a finger at me. “But you’re not done telling me this story.”

  I nodded.

  She turned and took a couple of steps toward her car before she stopped suddenly. She marched back toward me looking real serious. When she got right next to me, she put her left hand on the top of my head and cupped my chin with her right hand. Bending my head back, she bent over me and then, after a moment of me staring into her eyes, she kissed me. The smell of her strawberry lip gloss made me light-headed.

  It wasn’t a long kiss, but it was no peck either. I don’t remember if I kissed her back. I do know that I didn’t close my eyes. Later, when I told Carol about the kiss, that’s one of the things she said: “You’re supposed to close your eyes.” I didn’t know.

  Riley’s lips were the softest things I’d ever touched. I can still sort of feel them on mine when I think about it. I definitely remember how I felt—completely and utterly helpless. If someone had told me how incredible feeling utterly helpless would feel, I wouldn’t hav
e believed them.

  She was still holding my head when she pulled her head back and looked at me. I think she knew what that kiss would do to me, but she was looking at me to make sure. That’s when she smiled.

  I don’t remember her walking away. I was still seeing her smiling at me. It was like a dream, a hazy, strawberry-flavored dream. I’m not sure, but I think while she was walking away she giggled.

  Forty-Seven

  Aiden Cormac

  “Where are you at?”

  The question startled me. I wasn’t ready to return to earth, so I hadn’t seen him come and sit down where Riley had been. The strawberry smell was gone, and in its place was a musty salt smell. It was Aiden Cormac.

  “Where are you at?” he repeated.

  “I’m here.”

  He smiled. It was a weird smile. What else would I expect?

  “I think you must have questions for me,” he said. “And I think I must be having answers.”

  I could have asked why he talked so funny, but there were more important questions. “What are you?” I asked.

  He stood up. “Come with me. I have things to tell you, but I have things to show you also.”

  I stood up, too. I no longer thought he was a murderer, but he was still weird. “Where are we going?”

  He looked toward the woods, “Not far. Let’s go now.” Then he raised his hand to stop me, which was unnecessary because I wasn’t moving. He held out his fist. There was something in it, but I couldn’t see what it was. “This is for you,” he said.

  He opened his fist. The wolf’s-tooth necklace dropped into my hand.

  I stared at it. I didn’t think I’d ever see it again, and there it was, in my hand. “Where did you get this?”

  “I think you know,” Aiden said. He nodded his head for me to follow him, and he began walking.

  He walked faster than I was comfortable with, but I managed to keep up with him. After ten minutes he was about twenty yards ahead of me. “How much farther?” I yelled to him.

  “Soon enough,” he answered.

  “What does that mean?”

  He didn’t answer.

  I started to wonder if I was in danger. That was my signal to hold the wolf’s tooth, which was back home around my neck. If Aiden Cormac meant me harm, he was going to learn what Mr. Benjamin learned.

  The path turned to the right. Aiden disappeared but returned to view almost immediately. “Soon enough,” he repeated.

  When I got to the turn in the path, I could see where we had been headed all along. It was a small clearing. There were split-log benches laid out in a circle. Aiden Cormac was sitting on the bench to my left. I sat across from him.

  “Is this what you wanted to show me?” I asked.

  “First, we talk,” he said. “You have questions, yes?”

  “‘Questions,’” I repeated. “What kind of questions?”

  “You want to know about the wolves,” he said.

  It shocked me. I had never mentioned the wolves to him. Why would I? “How do you know about the wolves?”

  “I think you know,” he stared at me, his head tipped slightly to the right. He looked like he expected some flash of wisdom to suddenly hit me. What was flashing in me was fear. I clutched at the wolf’s tooth.

  He laughed. It was a forced laugh. “You call them, yes?”

  I stared back, trying not to look afraid. “They come when I call them,” I bluffed.

  “Call them,” he said, laughing harder. “They will come.”

  I wasn’t going to tell him that I didn’t know how. They didn’t appear if I didn’t hold the wolf’s tooth, but they didn’t always appear when I held it either. It seemed I needed to be in danger, too. I felt frightened with Aiden, but I’d felt frightened by him before without the wolves appearing, so I held on to the wolf’s tooth without knowing what to expect.

  “They will come,” he said again.

  And they did. The first one walked up to the clearing from the path. He, like the other times, just stood and stared. He wasn’t baring his teeth, nor was the brownish-gray hair on the back of his neck up, nor was there any other sign of aggression aside from simply being a wolf and blocking our way out. He glanced at me, but mostly his eyes were on Aiden.

  Aiden didn’t seemed alarmed at all. His eyes were focused to his left. When I looked in that direction, I watched a second wolf make his way through the brush and stop just the other side of the bench on that side of the clearing.

  I heard the next two enter the clearing behind me—one on either side of me.

  Aiden was drawing their attention. Although none of them looked angry, I felt a little concerned for him. If he acted aggressively toward me, he was a goner. If he got scared and ran, he was a goner.

  “Be calm,” I told him. “I don’t think they’ll hurt you as long as they don’t think you’re a threat to me.”

  He smiled at me. “Thank you, Jazz-barr. I will be careful to not make threatening at you.”

  “They have a leader,” I explained. “He’s a white one. I don’t know where he is.”

  “I think you do,” said Aiden.

  “You keep saying that,” I said. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  He looked down at the space between us, his eyebrows knit together as he considered what I just said. He looked up at me and said, “I will show you.”

  After that he looked from wolf to wolf, making eye contact with each one. He said nothing as he scanned the circle. When he was done, he tipped his head backward once, and the circle came alive. The wolves charged him. It was sudden and silent. The two behind me leaped across the bench on either side of me. I felt the fur of the one on my right brush lightly across my arm as he jumped.

  Leaping to my feet I yelled, “No!” I thought he was in danger.

  He wasn’t.

  The wolves surrounded him like a pack of puppies around a bowl full of bacon. He scratched their ears and rubbed their heads. They climbed all over themselves trying to lick him or nuzzle him. He laughed. They whined. It was an incredible display. I was mesmerized.

  “Okay,” he said firmly. “Go.”

  Immediately they went back to their respective places around the edge of the clearing.

  They still looked puppyish as they took their posts. Their eyes, still focused but no longer staring, looked like they were waiting for me to say, “Roll over,” or “Go fetch.” I swear, the wolves were smiling. The one to my right had his tongue draped out of the left side of his mouth.

  I looked at Aiden. I don’t know why I said it, but I said, “You’re the white wolf.”

  “You see, Jazz-barr. You did know.”

  Then it hit me. “When you were chasing Benjamin I could smell the Axe as you ran by me.”

  He smiled.

  “That’s why my dog, Kitty, got so freaked out when you came over. She could tell.” The more I rethought about things, the faster the truth became clear to me. “She could smell it on you.” I wondered if that would be insulting to him, but he showed no sign of being bothered by it. “That’s why,” I continued, “you cover yourselves up with so much Axe. You’re hiding your scent.”

  He nodded.

  I thought about Graham and how indifferent they had all seemed to me. “That was you the night I took the flowers to where Graham got shot.”

  He looked sad. “It was.”

  “You all went back to grieve as wolves.”

  “We did.”

  “So Graham was a werewolf, too.”

  “No,” he declared emphatically. “We are not werewolves. A werewolf is a man who can become a wolf. Werewolves are not real. They are fantasy.”

  “But you are a man who can become a wolf, aren’t you?” I questioned.

  “It is natural for you to think this way.” He laughed again. “You are a man, are you not?”

  I was stumped.

  “We are wolves,” he said proudly. “We are wolves who became men.”

  I w
as dumbfounded.

  “He probably thinks we like being men.” It was Quinn Weylin.

  I did a double take when I looked in his direction. He was standing behind the bench to my right. His hands were on his hips. He stood there like it was perfectly natural for him to be completely naked. I suppose it was.

  “Quinn,” I said.

  He nodded yes.

  I looked at the other wolves. “Duncan . . . Gavin . . . Malcolm,” I said as I moved from my right to my left.

  “That is Duncan,” said Aiden. “But that’s Malcolm, and that’s Gavin,” he corrected me.

  “Sorry,” I said to Malcolm.

  “He’s okay,” said Quinn, sitting down. “We prefer being wolves.”

  “Does that surprise you, Jazz-barr?” asked Aiden.

  “No,” I said, “not at all.” I was well beyond being surprised at that point.

  “Clothing is unnatural,” observed Quinn. “How do you tolerate it? And your food,” he shuddered. “We wouldn’t eat what you eat if we found it.”

  “Quinn,” said Aiden sharply.

  Quinn slumped slightly and bent his head down.

  “We are wolves,” said Aiden. “We prefer being wolves. Being anything else is an abomination to us. We are not meaning to insult your ways of living. They are just not our ways.”

  “We like thumbs,” said Quinn.

  “Yes,” agreed Aiden. “Thumbs are very useful.”

  “So is music,” said Quinn.

  “Yes, music is nice as well,” said Aiden.

  “So, why?” I asked.

  “It is soothing,” Aiden answered.

  It took a moment for me to figure out that he was explaining why they like music. “I mean, why do you become men?”

  Aiden nodded. “That is the question I have been sent to answer.”

  “Sent?” I repeated. “Who sent you?”

  “The mother,” answered Quinn in a tone that implied that there could be no other answer.

  “The mother wolf?” I asked.

  “The mother of earth,” said Aiden.

  “Mother Nature made you become men,” I said.

  “Mother Nature,” they both said, nodding at each other.

  “Why?”

  “We are her servants. We do as she desires,” explained Aiden. He tipped his head to the right, and the wolves scampered off in that direction. I watched them go. When they were out of sight, I looked to the bench where Quinn had been sitting. It was empty.