Grey Lore

by Jean Knight Pace

  “Yes,” Sam said, looking at his father.

  “Have you heard from her today?”

  Sam shrugged. “No.”

  “You should give her a call,” his dad said, looking down at the sketch, trying—Sam could see—to be casual, but not succeeding.

  The phone rang over fifty times. Her voice mail never picked up. Sam looked at his dad who’d been watching as he’d dialed over and over again. His father’s eyebrows dipped down. “I’m sorry, son.”

  Sam threw the phone, and ran.

  There had been a wolf at the door—that’s what her daughter had told her.

  A wolf.

  At the door.

  A wolf whose fur was gray and red and black—mixed, textured. Stone-cut eyes. Sarah had screamed and her father had run down the steps two at a time. But there was no wolf.

  A lie. A drama. Like all the other dramas that filled up her daughter’s life.

  But this time Fiona Price had refused to let it go. They’d taken her in for a consultation with one of the psychiatrists. And then everything had gone wrong.

  “She’ll have to be admitted,” the tech had said.

  Fiona and her husband had bulked and refused. But they couldn’t refuse. A new law had been signed—making it possible to hold children struggling with certain types of hallucinations, even without parental consent.

  Fiona had started to cry—the same as her daughter, but the tech had been calm. “Don’t worry,” he’d said. “It’s for her own good. Children with these hallucinations became a danger—certainly to others, but mostly to themselves. Often,” the tech had continued, “those with such hallucinations throw themselves off cliffs or in front of cars or shoot themselves in the heart just to escape the monsters they think they see.”

  The tech had pulled up several cases to show her.

  Fiona had looked away in tears. “How long?” she’d asked.

  The tech had smiled kindly, so kindly. “Not long, Dr. Price. It just depends on how well she responds to the meds and how quickly we can help her concede that these creatures of her imagining are not real at all.”

  She had agreed to let her daughter stay for observation. What else could she have done?

  And yet there was something—something that needled at Fiona Price. A tiny word the technician had used. Concede. They were going to help her concede that the creatures weren’t real. He should have used a term like “realize,” “recognize,” “understand”—something that implied a healing rather than a…a covering up.

  Quietly, Fiona Price typed in the password of her daughter’s phone and began to scroll down.

  Sam was not home. His father offered the woman who announced herself as Fiona Price toast, and together the two sat eating the odd meal in silence.

  When Sam burst through the door, it was like a clap of thunder. The boy even looked like a storm—hair sticking up at odd points, torn t-shirt, sweaty from running.

  “Where is she?” he asked without even pausing to say hello.

  “They’re keeping her for observation.”

  “They are not,” he said.

  The small, red-headed woman in front of him closed her lips tightly. “She said your name.” She paused. “As they took her away.”

  Chapter 48

  “Hey, Ella girl,” Lila’s voice rang down the hallway, “Looks like you don’t have to ditch your tagalong after all. Sam went and got himself suspended.”

  “What?” Ella asked, trying not to sound as shocked as she felt. “What’d he do?”

  “Punched Luther Bradberry in the mouth,” Lila said as Nicole and a girl named Kate came up beside them.

  “Sam?”

  “The one and super only,” Nicole said, inspecting her new manicure.

  “Why?” Ella asked, inspecting her own finger nails and trying not to sound like she cared.

  “Because,” Nicole said, “he couldn’t bear to hear that his beloved Sarah Price got doped up and freaked out on her parents.”

  “But Sarah’s not on drugs,” Ella said.

  “Whatever,” Lila said.

  “That’s what she gets for not sharing,” Kate added, ignoring Ella.

  “Who cares,” Nicole said. “The good news is that Sam isn’t here to stare at you all weird all the time. Maybe he’s on drugs, too.”

  “Sam?” Ella said again.

  “The one and super only,” Nicole said, laughing at her joke. “That kid is whacked. He’s probably the one selling them.”

  Ella stepped uncomfortably back and forth, not sure what to say. Brandt came up to the group and flipped Ella’s ponytail. “You guys talking about Sammy.”

  “Who else?” Nicole said. “Ella says he’s selling drugs.” She laughed at herself again.

  “I did not,” Ella said, laughing uncomfortably. Brandt looked at her, and Ella added, “Although he does act a little doped sometimes.”

  Ella felt the guilt flow in as soon as the words left her mouth. She pushed it down her throat.

  “More like dopey,” Lila said.

  Ella laughed again. She looked around. Sam wasn’t there. No one else was. There was no chance he had overheard and even if someone else had, who was going to tell Sam? No one. So why did she care that she was joshing on him with some kids?

  Brandt smiled and said, “I might have texted you sooner if you hadn’t always been with him.” He put a hand on her shoulder, letting his finger graze the back of her neck when he did.

  “Seriously,” Lila said. “It was high time to dump him.”

  “He wasn’t my boyfriend,” Ella said, surprised at the weak tittering laugh she produced.

  “Didn’t have to be; some friends need dumping just as bad,” Nicole said.

  Everyone laughed again. Ella smiled, but couldn’t make another laugh come out. Ella had been a lot of crappy things in her life, but she’d never been mean.

  Further down the hall, Mr. Witten began to walk toward them. Her friends scattered and Ella gathered up her books for the night. As her teacher passed her, he paused and said, “See you tomorrow, Ella. Enjoy your reading of Snow White. Remember, the essay is about the multiplicity of the queen. I think it’ll make for a good discussion, don’t you?”

  Ella was sure that it would make for a very good discussion—one in which she didn’t plan to participate.

  The black wolf had lain near the barn for two weeks—long enough that the chickens had forgotten the threat and now pecked happily around the black animal as though she was nothing more than an old broken tractor.

  Foxy was not quite as bold or stupid as the chickens, but she was a good deal kinder. She made her way to the barn and lay down near the black wolf, staring into the dark eyes.

  Loco followed a ways behind the small dog, watching. He was worried at first that Foxy had gone to confront the wolf, to face her fears. But as she stopped in front of the wolf, he realized that Foxy pitied the animal, pitied her with an understanding deeper than the rest of the dogs possessed. Losing a leg was not an endgame for a canine, but it cost you speed, dignity, and beauty.

  The black wolf had not yet spoken to any of the dogs. Now she raised her head to stare at Foxy. Loco stood around the corner of the barn and listened.

  “It’s rude to stare,” the black wolf began.

  “It’s ruder to sulk,” Foxy replied.

  Loco was ready for the black wolf to lunge or snap at Foxy, and was surprised to hear a low teetering sound at the bottom of the wolf’s throat, a sound Loco realized was a laugh.

  “I know it’s bad,” Foxy said. “But it’s not the end of the world.”

  “I wish it was,” the wolf said.

  “Well, then, I suppose the end of the world is why you’re all here,” Foxy replied in her careful, quick way.

  Again, the wolf laughed. “What do they call you, blunt one?”

  “For many years I was one of the un-named. Now they call me after the small red foxes that sometimes hunt these parts.”

  “Fit
ting,” the wolf replied.

  “And yours?” Foxy asked.

  “Ezazh,” the black wolf answered.

  Loco stepped closer. The black wolf sniffed the air, sensing him, and laid her head again against her paw, silent.

  “Hmm,” Foxy said, also sniffing the air. “You hungry? I’ll find you a scrap or two. Perhaps some garlic. Doesn’t do much for the breath, but it helps with recovery.”

  The black wolf turned away as Foxy left and Loco stepped forward, sitting on his haunches, unwilling to lie down as Foxy had in order to be level with the wolf.

  “I see that you begin to recover,” he began.

  The black wolf did not even look him in the eyes. “Do not think that you saved me, sheep dog, just because you were the first to notice I was there.”

  “I do not claim that I did,” he said, annoyed. “And I am not a sheep dog.”

  “Pardon me,” she said. “Mutt.”

  “I believe the term you’re looking for is ‘mixed breed,’” Loco said.

  “Very well then, mixed breed, do not now come to me as though you are one of my own.”

  Loco felt his temper flare. He certainly hadn’t come to her as one of her own. “Your own left you to die.”

  “There is dignity in that,” she replied, her voice like shutters snapping. “Not that the dogs would know anything about that.”

  “Neither, it seems, do you, having been just as ready to take food from the hand of a human.”

  “Death is a door that swings only one way,” she said, her voice quieting. “I was not ready.”

  “Nor did you need to be ready. Accepting help from another is not weakness.”

  “Accepting help from a human is treason to the Alpha.”

  “Who did not himself extend help.”

  “Help I would not have needed were it not for the savage traps of the humans.”

  Loco looked into her face, the eye teeth draped down over the perfectly black skin of her muzzle. Without the maimed foot and mutilated chest, she would have easily risen in rank among her kind.

  “But my injuries are no business of yours.”

  “Fine,” Loco replied. “Keep your injuries and your business.”

  The wolf’s eyes were as black as her fur, blending into that face of perfect darkness. Ezazh closed her eyes, a long blink that did not wish to remember, but would not forget. “It was a claw—metallic. Not created to capture those of my kind. But used as such nevertheless.”

  A bear trap, Loco realized. One of the neighboring farmers must have put it out. There were no bears in these parts. The trap had been intended for the wolves.

  “And why do you come, running through these lands that are not your homes, risking the ire and the fear of the humans, the danger of their tools?”

  “We come when the Alpha calls.”

  “And he has called?”

  “Of course.”

  “Of course,” Loco said with a sigh. “The Alpha. Ready to destroy us and those we love.”

  “The wolves are not against you, foolish dog.”

  “Are they not?” Loco asked,

  “Of course not. They are simply for themselves. They don’t care one way or another for the dogs.”

  “How comforting.”

  “Comfort was not my intent, only understanding. The wolves wish you no ill. They wish only to protect and empower themselves, their packs, and their young. To do this, they follow the call of the Alpha.”

  “They,” Loco asked.

  “We,” Ezazh corrected.

  “Except that they have now abandoned you, as is their way.”

  “What else should they do? I cannot hunt. I will slow them, endanger them. Of course I can no longer roam among them—lower even than the omega.”

  “A lone wolf,” Loco said.

  “Yes,” she replied. “For now.”

  “And you will not now join us—even as our Keeper tends to your wounds?”

  “Your Keeper is not my Alpha—nor, I think, is he yours.”

  “The dogs do not bow under the weight of an Alpha in the same way the wolves do.”

  At that Ezazh laughed, but not with the friendliness she had shared with Foxy. “You may not bow to an alpha, but you bow in ways much less dignified than that. You bow to those who call you pet, to those who auction off your young for others to call pet.”

  Loco bristled, but did not reply.

  “You have come to love them—your captors—like maidens stolen from themselves when too young.”

  “Only because most of the humans have come to love us. Which is more than can be said for your Alpha.”

  “Love is not necessary, only fidelity. I know what to expect from the Alpha.”

  “You question our lack of alpha, or pack. We have both, though in different form than the wolves.”

  “In human form,” she spat.

  “Yes,” he said.

  They fell silent as the farmer came into view, moving toward them with a change of bandages for Ezazh.

  Just like Foxy, the farmer sat level with the wolf, preparing an ointment, then donning his thick shoulder-length gloves.

  Ezazh growled and snapped, but the farmer held firm, dabbing the wound, then re-wrapping it.

  Loco walked to the edge of the fields.

  Ezazh’s words sat heavy in his stomach. The Alpha was not good, but it was true—he was consistent. Humans were not. Ella had not come back since the full moon. She was busy, distracted. Young. Loco paused. And perhaps she was also worried. Worried that she thought she could hear a dog talk.

  In a town where any mention of a gift like that would get you thrown into an institution, that made sense.

  Still, Loco was hurt. Ella was the She—the one with the power to stop the changing of the suns, or to complete it. But power did not equal courage.

  For the first time, Loco wondered if Ella would have enough strength to do what was best for her kind. For both of their kinds, and the mutual bonds they had spent generations developing. All of that would be lost if the suns changed and the worlds ticked back to that ancient time.

  Loco walked in the cornfields beyond the spot where the Keeper had found Ezazh. Loco knew the farmer wasn’t sure if what he had done was right. Loco wasn’t sure either. It was hard, he was learning, to be sure when what you’d done was right and what you’d done was wrong.

  The last night he’d seen Ella she had heard him speak, heard him like only she could when the moon hung full and the world ticked back to a time before this time. A time when their voices could connect with those of her race, a time from a world of monsters and children and powerful songs. She was the last of her kind. That was why the Alpha needed her so badly.

  Loco hadn’t sung for ages; it was too dangerous. But that night when she’d left the window cracked, he had sung to the moon—his fears, his hopes, his history. The others had joined in, a tapestry of voices that wove together in a way the howling of the Gevudan never would.

  Most couldn’t hear it. Even on the night of the changing. But there were those who could. The Grey One had come to him after midnight and opened the window.

  “Take me to her,” he’d said. “Or The Rogue will get her first.”

  Loco had led the Grey One to Ella, spoken to her in the shadows just before the Grey One had covered her mouth with a rag of chlorophyll in an effort to protect her, in an effort to help her forget. Loco had run all the miles back to the farm.

  The Gevudan and their masters had not followed. No. Another of their council had been shot. Shot toothless. The council had been too concerned with that to send anyone after a stray dog. The council was used to being the hunters, not the hunted. They were used to walking away from those who wished them harm.

  Loco continued to pace. As dusk settled, Foxy joined him in his walk, staying close, limping faster than many dogs could run. If it weren’t for those like her, it might be tempting to turn back the sun and return to the time when their kind ran free through the woods,
singing and scavenging. But looking at Foxy, it was easy to see that the Alpha and his council did not have the dogs’ best interests at heart, no matter what pretty promises they tried to make.

  “Was it a mistake?” Loco said to Foxy. “To let one such as Ezazh remain among us?”

  “If it is, it is a mistake that has already been made,” Foxy replied. “You cannot now undo it with your thoughts or worries.”

  “I worry about more than that,” Loco said.

  “And those worries are likely just as ineffective,” Foxy replied, stretching her rear legs.

  “Do you think,” Loco said slowly, “that our associations with the humans make us a lesser animal, repressed or used?”

  “At times,” she said, “yes. But they also make us more civilized, interconnected,” she replied.

  “But civilized is not necessarily free.”

  “Nor is wildness,” Foxy replied. “Look at Ezazh. She is deformed and has been cast out. It is the way with their packs. They consider themselves so superior with their order and supposed emancipation. But it comes at a cost.”

  “As does our interaction and co-habitation with the humans.”

  “Correct,” she said in her small, precise voice. “There is a cost—there is always a cost no matter your choice.” She looked down at her maimed leg. “But with the cost, there is also, always, a benefit. I have not been cast out and left to die. I have been granted an asylum with the Keeper; and with you. Ezazh has too. And though she will likely not stay, I believe she will always remember. Our kind and theirs share one great commonality—we are loyal—fiercely so. She will not join us, but she will not betray us either. Watch.”

  With that, Foxy lay near Loco, scooting her good front paw under his belly. For many minutes, Loco did not relax into her touch, sitting up straight and still, looking at the moon until gradually his breathing slowed and he laid his head near her face—feeling her warmth, breathing to the rhythm of her steady soft sleep.