Maggie Stiefvater - [Wolves of Mercy Falls 02]

by Maggie Stiefvater

  If only I didn’t have this persistent headache. Stil , the process of making dinner and having Rachel over was doing a pretty good job of making me forget about both my headache and the fact that it had gotten winter dark outside, the chil pressing in against the window above the sink, and Sam was stil not here. I kept repeating the same mantra over and over in my head. He won’t change. He’s cured. It’s over.

  Rachel bumped her hip against my hip, and I realized, al at once, that she had turned up the music insanely loud. She bumped my hip again, in time with the song, and then spun into the center of the kitchen, wiggling her arms over her head in some sort of demented Snoopy dance. Her outfit, a black dress over striped leggings, paired with her dual ponytails, only added to the ludicrous effect.

  “Rachel,” I said, and she looked at me but kept dancing. “This is why you are single.”

  “No man can handle this,” Rachel assured me, gesturing to herself with her chin. She spun and came face-to-face with Sam, standing in the doorway from the hal . The thumping bass must’ve drowned out the sound of the front door. At the sight of him, my stomach slid down to my feet, a weird combination of relief, nerves, and anticipation al in one, a feeling that never seemed to go away.

  Stil facing Sam, Rachel did a strange dance move with her index fingers extended; it looked like it had possibly been invented in the fifties, when people weren’t al owed to touch each other. “Hi, The Boy!” she shouted over the music. “We’re making Italian food!”

  Stil holding a piece of chicken, I turned and made a loud noise in protest. Rachel said, “My col eague informs me that I spoke too strongly. I am watching Grace make Italian food!”

  Sam smiled at me, his always sad-looking smile maybe a little tighter than usual, and said, “…”

  I struggled to turn down the radio with my hand that wasn’t covered with breading. “What?”

  “I said, ‘What are you making?’” Sam repeated.

  “And then, ‘Hi, Rachel.’ And ‘May I come into the kitchen, Rachel?’”

  Rachel swept grandly out of his way, and Sam came to lean on the counter next to me. His yel ow wolf’s eyes were narrowed, and he seemed to have forgotten that he was stil wearing his coat.

  “Chicken parmesan,” I said.

  He blinked. “What?”

  “It’s what I’m making. What were you up to?”

  Sam said, stumbling, “I—was—at the store.

  Reading.” With a quick glance toward Rachel, he sucked in his lips and said, “Can’t talk. My lips are stil cold from being outside. When wil it be spring?”

  “Forget spring,” said Rachel, “when wil it be dinner?”

  I waved unbreaded chicken at her, and Sam looked around at the counter behind him. “Can I help?”

  he asked.

  “Mostly I need to finish breading these eight mil ion chicken breasts,” I said. My head was starting to pound, and I real y was beginning to hate the mere sight of uncooked chicken. “I never realized what happened to two pounds of chicken when you pounded it flat.”

  Sam gently shouldered past me to the sink to wash his hands, his cheek leaning against mine as he reached behind me for the dish towel to dry his hands.

  “I’l bread the rest while you fry them. Does that work?”

  “I’l cook the water for the pasta,” Rachel volunteered. “I’m excel ent at boiling things.”

  “The big pot’s in the pantry,” I said.

  As Rachel disappeared into the smal pantry and began crashing through the pots and lids, Sam leaned over to me so that his lips pressed against my ear. He whispered, “I saw one of Beck’s new wolves today. Shifted.”

  It took a moment for my brain to shuffle through the meaning of his words: new wolves. Was Olivia human?

  Did Sam have to try to find the other wolves? What happened now?

  I turned sharply toward him. He was stil close enough to me that it put us nose to nose; his was stil cold from being outside. I saw the worry in his eyes.

  “Hey, none of that while I’m here,” Rachel said. “I like The Boy, but I don’t want to watch you kiss him. Kissing in front of the loveless is an act of cruelty. Aren’t you supposed to be frying something?”

  So we finished making dinner. It seemed to take an agonizingly long time, knowing that Sam had something to say and knowing that he couldn’t say it in front of Rachel. And there was guilt mixed in as wel , making the time drag. Olivia was Rachel’s friend, too. If she had known that Olivia might be coming back soon, she’d be over the moon and ful of questions. I tried to avoid glancing at the clock; Rachel’s mom was picking her up at eight.

  “Oh, hi, Rachel. Mmm, food.” My mother flowed through the kitchen, dropping her coat on one of the chairs by the wal as she did.

  “Mom!” I said, not bothering to hide the surprise in my voice. “What are you doing home so early?”

  “Is there enough for me? I ate at the studio, but it wasn’t very fil ing,” Mom said. I had no doubt. Mom was an excel ent food burner; ceaseless movement did a lot in the calorie-destruction department. She turned, saw Sam. Her voice changed to something knowing and not entirely pleasant. “Oh. Hi, Sam. Here again?”

  Sam’s cheeks reddened.

  “You practical y live here,” Mom went on. She turned and looked at me. Clearly it was supposed to convey some meaning, but it was lost on me. Sam, however, turned his face away from both of us as if it was clear enough to him.

  Once upon a time, Mom had real y liked Sam. She’d even flirted with him in her mom way and asked him to sing and pose for a portrait. But that was back when he was just a boy that I was seeing. Now that it was clear that Sam was here to stay, Mom’s friendliness had evaporated and she and I communicated in the language of silence. The length of the pauses between sentences conveyed more information than the words within them.

  My jaw tightened. “Have some pasta, Mom. Are you working more tonight?”

  “Do you want me to get out of your way?” she asked. “I can go upstairs.” She tapped my head with her fork. “No need to shoot me dagger eyes, Grace. I get it. See you later, Rachel.”

  “I didn’t have dagger eyes,” I said after she left, going over to hang up her coat. Something about the entire exchange had left a sour taste in my mouth.

  “You didn’t,” Sam agreed, his voice a bit mournful.

  “She has a guilty conscience.” His face was pensive, shoulders sagged, like he was carrying a weight he hadn’t been carrying that morning. Al of a sudden I wondered if he ever doubted that he’d made the right decision—if it had been worth the risk. I wanted him to know that I thought it was. I wanted him to know I’d shout it from the rooftops. That was when I decided to confide in Rachel.

  “You better go move your car,” I told Sam. He cast an anxious look toward the ceiling, as if Mom could read his thoughts through the floor of her home studio. Then toward Rachel. And then toward me, his unasked question clear in his expression: Are you really telling her? I shrugged.

  Rachel looked at me quizzical y. I made a gesture like, Wait and I’ll explain, and Sam went to cal up the stairs, “See you later, Mrs. Brisbane!”

  There was a long pause. Then Mom said, not in a nice way, “Bye”.

  Sam came back into the kitchen. He didn’t say that he felt guilty, but he didn’t have to. It was written al over his face. He said, a little hesitant, “If I’m not back by the time you go, Rach, see you later.”

  “Back!” Rachel said in surprise as Sam went out the front door, car keys jingling. “What does he mean

  ‘back’? What’s he doing with his car? Wait—has The Boy been sleeping here?”

  “Shhh!” I said hurriedly, with a glance toward the hal way. Taking Rachel by the elbow, I propel ed her over toward the corner of the kitchen and released her quickly, looking at my fingers. “Whoa, Rachel, your skin is cold.”

  “No, you’re hot,” she corrected. “So what’s going on here? Are you guys like— sleeping together?” />
  I felt my cheeks flush despite myself. “Not like that. Just like…”

  Rachel didn’t wait for me to figure out how to finish my thought. “Holy freakin’ holy freakin’ holy…I can’t even think of what to say to that, Grace! Just like what?

  What do you guys do? No, wait, don’t tel me!”

  “Shhh,” I said again, even though she wasn’t being that loud. “Just sleep. That’s it. Yeah, I know it sounds weird, but, I just…” I struggled for words to explain it. It wasn’t al about almost losing Sam and wanting to keep him near. It wasn’t al about lust. It was about fal ing asleep with Sam’s chest pressed against my back so I could feel his heart slow to match mine. It was about growing up and realizing that the feeling of his arms around me, the smel of him when he was sleeping, the sound of his breathing—that was home and everything I wanted at the end of the day. It wasn’t the same as being with him when we were awake. But I didn’t know how to say that to Rachel. I wondered why I’d wanted to tel her. “I don’t know if I can explain it. Sleeping feels different when he’s there.”

  “I’l sure bet it does,” Rachel said, her eyes wide.

  “Rachel,” I said.

  “Sorry, sorry. I’m trying to be reasonable here, but my best friend just told me that she’s been spending every night with her boyfriend without her parents knowing it. So he’s sneaking back in here? You’ve corrupted The Boy!”

  “Do you think I’m doing the wrong thing?” I asked, wincing a little, because I thought maybe I had corrupted Sam.

  Rachel considered. “I think it’s awful y romantic.”

  I laughed, a little shakily, with something like giddiness and relief. “Rachel, I’m so in love with him.”

  But it didn’t sound real when I said it. It sounded corny, like a commercial, because I couldn’t quite invest my voice with the truth and depth of how I felt. “Swear not to tel ?”

  “Your secret is safe with me. Far be it from me to break up the young lovers. God! I can’t believe you break up the young lovers. God! I can’t believe you real y are young lovers.”

  My heart was thumping with the confession, but it felt good, too—one less secret I was keeping from Rachel. By the time her mom arrived a few minutes later, we were both fairly giddy. Maybe it was time to tel her some of the other secrets, too.

  • SAM •

  It was eighteen degrees outside. In the bright light of the moon, a flat, pale disc behind a tangle of leafless branches, I folded my bare arms tightly across my chest and stared at my socks, waiting for Grace’s mother to vacate the kitchen. I softly cursed icy Minnesota springtimes, but the words swirled away in puffs of white in the darkness. It was strange to be standing in this cold, shaking with it, unable to feel my fingers or toes, my eyes burning with it, and to be no closer to being a wolf than I had been before.

  Through the cracked sliding-glass door on the deck, Grace’s voice was just audible; she was talking with her mother about me. Her mother wondered gently if I would be coming over tomorrow night as wel . Grace mused vaguely back that I probably would be, as that’s what boyfriends did. Her mother commented as that’s what boyfriends did. Her mother commented to no one in particular that some people might think that we were moving too fast. Grace asked her mother if she wanted any more chicken parmesan before she put it away in the fridge. I could hear the impatience in her voice, but her mother seemed oblivious, effectively holding me prisoner outside by her presence in the kitchen. Standing on the frigid wood of the deck in my jeans and thin Beatles T-shirt, I contemplated the possible wisdom of marrying Grace and living a young hippie life in the backseat of my Volkswagen, without parental constraints. It had never seemed like such a good idea as now, my teeth starting to chatter and my toes and ears going numb.

  I heard Grace say, “Wil you show me what you were working on upstairs?”

  Her mom sounded vaguely suspicious as she said, “Okay.”

  “Let me just get my sweater,” Grace said. She came over to the glass door of the deck, silently unlocking it as she got her sweater off the back of the kitchen table with her other hand. I saw her mouth Sorry to me. A little louder, she said, “It’s cold in here.”

  I counted to twenty after they’d left the kitchen, and let myself in. I was shuddering uncontrol ably with the cold, but I was stil Sam.

  I had al the evidence I needed that my cure was real, but I was stil waiting for the punch line.

  • GRACE •

  Sam was stil shaking so badly by the time I met him in my room that I completely forgot about my lingering headache. I shoved my bedroom door shut without turning on the light and fol owed the sound of his voice to the bed.

  “M-m-maybe we need to rethink our lifestyle choices,” he whispered to me, teeth chattering, as I climbed into bed and wrapped my arms around him. My fingers brushed against the goose bumps that covered his arms; I could feel them even through the fabric of his shirt.

  I tugged the blanket up to cover both of our heads and pressed my face against the frigid skin of his neck. It felt selfish to say it out loud. “I don’t want to sleep without you.”

  He curled into a tiny bal —his feet, even through his socks, were freezing against my bare legs—and mumbled, “Me neither. B-but we have our whole—” His words piled up on top of one another; he had to stop and rub his hand over his lips to warm them before he went on. “Our whole lives ahead of us. To be together.”

  “Our whole lives, starting now,” I said. Outside my bedroom door, I heard my dad’s voice—he must’ve gotten home just as I came into the room—and listened to my parents’ voices as they climbed up the stairs to their room, noisy and jostling against each other. For a brief moment, I envied their freedom to come and go as they pleased, no school, no parents, no rules. “I mean, you don’t have to stay here, if it makes you uncomfortable. If you don’t want to.” I paused. “I didn’t mean for that to sound so clingy.”

  Sam rol ed over to face me. I couldn’t see anything but the glint of his eyes in the darkness. “I’l never get tired of this. I just didn’t want to get you in trouble. I just didn’t want you to feel like you had to ask me to go. If it gets too difficult.”

  I touched his cold cheek with my hand; it felt good against my skin. “You can be pretty stupid sometimes for such a smart guy.” I felt his smile curve against my palm as he pushed his body closer to mine.

  “Either you’re real y hot,” Sam said, “or I’m real y cold.”

  “Duh, I’m hot,” I whispered. “Soooo hot.”

  Sam laughed soundlessly—a little, shaky, exhaling sound.

  I reached down to clutch his fingers in mine; we held them like that, smashed between our bodies in a knot, until his fingers stopped feeling so frigid.

  “Tel me about the new wolf,” I said.

  Sam went stil beside me. “There’s something wrong with him. He wasn’t afraid of me.”

  “That’s weird.”

  “It made me wonder what kind of person would choose to be a wolf. They must al be crazy, Grace, every one of Beck’s new wolves. Who would choose that?”

  Now it was my turn to go stil . I wondered if Sam remembered lying beside me last year, just like this, and me confessing that I wished I changed, too, to go with him. No, not just to go with him. To feel what it was like, to be one of the wolves, so simple and magical and elemental. I thought about Olivia again, now a white wolf, darting between trees with the rest of the pack, and something inside me felt a little raw. “Maybe they just love wolves,” I said final y. “And their lives weren’t so great.”

  Sam’s body was right beside me, but his hand in mine was slack and I saw that his eyes were closed. His thoughts were far, far away from me, untouchable. Final y, he said, “I don’t trust him, Grace. I just feel like no good wil come from these new wolves. I just…I wish Beck hadn’t done it. I wish he’d known to wait.”

  “Go to sleep,” I told him, though I knew he wouldn’t.

  “Don’t worry about what mi
ght happen.”

  But I knew he wouldn’t do that, either.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  • GRACE •

  “Back again, Grace?”

  The nurse looked up as I walked into her office. The three chairs that sat opposite her desk were ful

  —one student’s head lol ed back in a sleep posture too embarrassing to not be real, and the other two kids were reading. Mrs. Sanders was pretty famous for letting kids who were overwhelmed with life hang out in her office, which was fine until someone who had a pounding headache and just wanted to sit down walked in and found al the waiting chairs ful . I came around to the front of her desk and crossed my arms across my chest. I felt like humming along to the throb of the ache in my head. Rubbing my hand over my face—a gesture that suddenly and fiercely reminded me of Sam—I said, “I’m sorry to bother you for something so dumb again, but my head is just kil ing me.”

  “Wel , you do look pretty miserable,” Mrs. Sanders agreed. She got up and gestured to the wheeled chair behind her desk. “Why don’t you sit down while I track down a thermometer? You’re a little flushed, too.”

  “Thanks,” I said grateful y, and took her place as she headed into the other room. It felt odd being here. Not just in her chair, with her solitaire game stil up on the computer and the pictures of her kids looking back at me from the desk, but in the nurse’s office at al . This was only the second time I’d been here, and it was only a few days since my last visit. I’d waited outside the door for Olivia a few times, but never actual y been inside as a patient, blinking under the fluorescent lights and wondering if I was getting sick.

  Without Mrs. Sanders there, I didn’t feel like I needed to appear stoic, and I pinched the top of my nose, trying to put pressure on the center of the headache. It was the same as the other headaches I’d been getting recently, a dul , radiating pain that burned along my cheekbones. They were headaches that seemed to threaten more: I kept waiting to get a runny nose or a cough or something.