by Jeff Sampson
“You guys ready for a bunch of reading?” Spencer asked.
“Yeah, reading,” Dalton said, thumbing at the cover of one of the books in front of us. “Can’t wait.”
I leaned down and dug through my backpack, producing the books I’d already found. While I did so, Spencer leaned back in his chair to address Dalton.
“So, man, you find her yet?”
Dalton shook his head. “Nah, but I’ve been sniffing, I promise. I think I can sort of smell her, but she’s not like Emily. Not as strong.”
“And she’s wearing some annoyingly common perfume or something,” Spencer said. “I keep smelling that, but never her. Whoever she is, she must bathe in the stuff.”
I looked between the two of them. “You guys have been looking for the other one of us?”
“Of course,” Spencer said. “I was going to talk to you about it, but you seemed zoned out today.”
I leaned closer to him, let his aroma waft into my nostrils. I smiled. “Sorry. I’m better now.”
“You recover from the big night?” Dalton asked me. Spencer reacted first. “Huh? Big night?”
“Uh, he means the whole weird confrontation with his dad,” I answered quickly.
Dalton started to speak again, but I kicked him under the table. He clamped his lips shut.
“Oh,” Spencer said, looking between the two of us. “Yeah, he was kind of harsh.”
A pen tapped against the table, and all three of us looked up to find the librarian glaring at us. She was skinny and frail, her wire-frame glasses askew on her nose and her hair a white pouf. But her stare was all business.
“If you want to socialize,” she said, her voice firm, “then I suggest the mall—” She stopped speaking, recognizing Dalton. “Oh! Dalton! Sorry, dear, I didn’t see it was you. It’s been so lonely around here without you to help me shelve.”
Dalton grinned up at her. “I missed you too, Ms. Levine. Maybe tomorrow I can come help out. That way you can get an early start on the weekend.”
A blush came to Ms. Levine’s cheeks, and she put her hand to her throat. “That would be lovely, Dalton, just—” Catching me giving her a strange look, the librarian cleared her throat. “Anyway, I know you are excited to be back at school, but please try to keep it down.”
Dalton nodded at her, still grinning. “Of course, Ms. Levine.”
The librarian left, and Spencer snorted, trying to hold in his laughter. “Dude, half the teachers here totally want to do you.”
Dalton slouched over the table. “Shut up, man, no they don’t.”
I smiled. “Okay, how about we get to work? Maybe? Unless you guys want to keep talking about which teachers you’d do.”
Neither did. We each grabbed a book.
There’s a surprising amount of information on shadowmen—or, at least, the folklore of them. They’re called lots of things—shadow folk, shadow beings, shadow ghosts. The paranormal-focused books say that maybe they’re ghosts or demons, summoned to haunt you out of the corner of your eye, making you see someone in the periphery, freak out—and turn to find no one there.
One of these books had an artist’s interpretation of a shadow being. It was an ink drawing, all intricate hashes and solid lines, indicating a figure standing in the corner of a bedroom. Doing nothing threatening. Just standing there. Waiting.
I turned from that page fast.
Then there were the scientific explanations, which I figured I should pay the most attention to. My own transformation turned out to be a science thing, not a paranormal thing. And ghosts are pretty much the definition of paranormal.
But the scientific explanations proved to be wholly inadequate. They went on about brain conditions causing you to perceive shadows in your peripheral vision as familiar shapes; about people who have sleep paralysis and are still dreaming even while partially awake, so that their subconscious summons up creepy images around them.
That last one sounded particularly terrifying, but it was easily explained as “not real.” And my shadowmen were very real. I saw them out of the corner of my eye, and then they would full-on lunge at me. I mean, maybe I could reason that this was all just part of my brain playing tricks, if it wasn’t for the fact that Spencer had seen them as well. Not to mention I’d touched one.
So, much like the werewolf books, these proved absolutely useless. I was back to knowing nothing. Again.
I shut the book I’d been reading and shoved it away. Beside me, Spencer had four books open, but he wasn’t looking at any of them. Instead he leaned on his elbows and stared into space. Dalton read his own book, brow furrowed in concentration.
“So we sure they’re not ghosts?” he asked.
“I have no idea,” I muttered.
“One of my books talks about alien abduction,” Spencer whispered, snapping to attention. “So that could still be it.”
“I guess,” I said.
He leaned close to me, concerned. “You don’t seem thrilled.”
“I’m not.” Slouching in my chair, I crossed my arms. “On TV, it’s always easy to find some book in, like, the dungeon area of a library that has all the detailed answers. Just find yourself a middle-aged British man with a head for ancient lore and, bam, problem solved. But all of these are just collections of myths. That doesn’t help at all.”
“Does our library?” Dalton asked.
“Huh?”
“Does it have a dungeon?”
I suppressed a laugh. “I’m pretty sure those type of libraries only exist in, like, small New England towns or something. Unless Ms. Levine has some sort of secret lair.”
“Oh.” He nodded knowingly. “Gotcha.” He glanced up at Ms. Levine, back at her desk. She offered a smile and a wave, and he quickly turned away.
A shadow hovered over the table. I snorted in a breath and shoved myself back from the table, ready to toss back my chair and run for it, Ms. Levine be damned. If the shadowmen were here—
But darting my head to look up, I saw that this shadow was thankfully the normal type. Megan stood there with tall, brooding Patrick beside her. He of the black hair and the English accent and the mysterious stare. I remembered the awkward conversation we’d had in a convenience store when I thought he might be the werewolf that turned out to be Spencer. And watching him half-undressed through his bedroom window when I thought he was the killer instead. Turned out he was neither.
Heat rushed to my cheeks. I hoped he wouldn’t remember me.
“Hey Emily,” Megan said casually. “And friends.”
Spencer grinned at her. “Hey!”
“Hi,” I said, slamming my books shut. “What are you up to?”
She shrugged. “Patrick and I are doing some research for some homework assignment Mr. Philbrick gave us.”
“Yeah,” Patrick said.
I nodded slowly. “Oh. Neat.”
It was at once way too casual and much too awkward. My two worlds, colliding. I wanted to recede into my hoodie until I disappeared.
Megan crossed her arms and gestured at the books with her chin. “So what are you three doing? Secret projects?”
“Just research,” Dalton said. “Though I think we were supposed to talk about the party tomorrow, too. You’re Megan, right?” He held out a hand.
Megan looked Dalton up and down, then held out her own hand, limp. Dalton shook it anyway.
“A party, huh?” Megan said. “How fun.”
“Do you want to come?” Spencer asked.
I sat up straight. What were these two doing? Did they not understand stealth? We were supposed to be scoping out Dalton’s dad’s office; we weren’t really going to be partying.
“No,” I said. “Megan hates parties. Too much of a crowd for—”
“I’d love to come.” Megan strung her arm through Patrick’s. He looked down at her, his expression bored. “And Patrick, too. Actually, you know what, I’ll do you one better: I’ll get you a band.”
Dalton perked up at that.
“A band? Cool. Anyone I know?”
“Not yet!” Alarmingly perky, Megan jumped forward, snatched a piece of paper from one of our notebooks, produced a pen, and scribbled down a name and number. She slid it across the table to Dalton. “Give these guys a call. I’ll let them know to expect it.”
“Awesome.” Dalton held the note up to his nose. “ ‘Bubonic Teutonics.’ Cool name. What’s a ‘Teutonic’?”
“Okay, well, we have to go do science class stuff,” Megan said, ignoring the question and dragging Patrick away. “See you at the party.”
“Hey, Megan,” I said. “I’ll call you later.”
She didn’t, but I could tell she wanted to roll her eyes. “I’ll be waiting by the phone on pins and needles. Really sharp ones.”
“She seems nice,” Dalton said as Megan and Patrick disappeared into the stacks.
“Yeah,” I said softly. “She’s the best.”
Dalton left shortly after the run-in with Megan. Being the guy he is, he apparently had other responsibilities after school. Plus, I was pretty sure if he stayed too long with me and Spencer, Nikki would get on his case.
Spencer and I spent another hour or so looking through books—well, I did anyway; he mostly kept wandering off. I was about ready to give up on finding anything useful, when I looked up to find that someone else had entered the library: Mai Sato.
She sat at a table a little bit away from me, her jet-black hair in a loose, messy ponytail. She hunched over her books, holding her head up with one hand against her cheek, barely seeming to pay attention to what she was reading.
“Spencer,” I hissed, turning to find him.
But he was gone. Again. Off in the stacks somewhere.
I turned back to Mai to see her closing up her books and putting them in her bag. She was about to leave. And it hit me then—I couldn’t let her. For whatever reason, I couldn’t smell the female werewolf, not like Spencer and Dalton could. But maybe being near her would give me that same gooey familial feeling I got with the boys.
The afternoon of shadowman research had turned out to be useless. But maybe if I could find another member of my pack, it would make all the time spent in the library worth it.
9
OKAY, YOU’RE NOT STALKING ME, ARE YOU?
Hands in my pockets, I sauntered over to Mai’s table as casually as I could. I did my best to look at anything but her, and then slid into a chair opposite her, pretending I spotted an interesting tome someone had happened to leave there. I flipped it open to see a cross section of a uterus, and my eyes went wide.
Mai side-eyed me as she continued to put her books in her bags. She was almost packed up, and then I was sure she’d leave. I darted my eyes over to my table to see if Spencer was back yet so I could get him over to smell the girl and confirm whether she was, in fact, who we were looking for.
Nope. He was still off on his blissful ADD trek somewhere.
Leaning forward onto the table, I breathed in slowly. That same heavy, flowery perfume I’d smelled the morning when Dalton first came back to school invaded my nostrils. But there was nothing else. No wolf scent that I’d come to associate with the two boys.
“Can I help you?” Mai asked, staring at me like I’d just shown up with my hair dyed the same color as hers and wearing her clothes.
Blinking, I looked up at her. “Oh. Hi, Mai. We have homeroom together.”
I have no idea why that was the first thing that popped into my head to say. Internally I was smacking my forehead.
Not taking her eyes off me, she bent down slowly to pick up her bag, then set it on the table to zip fully closed.
“Yeah, I know,” she said. “Did you need something?”
“Oh,” I said. “Uh, I just smelled that perfume. It’s pretty. You don’t really seem like the perfume type, though. But it’s nice.”
Closing her eyes, she stopped moving for a moment, her hands hovering over the zipper to her bag. “Emily gave it to me,” she said quietly. “She used to wear it. It reminds me of her.” Clearing her throat, she added, “Plus, if I don’t have time for a shower after PE, I can just douse myself in it.”
I smiled awkwardly. I’d almost forgotten it had been only a little more than a week since Mai’s best friend had been murdered. I should have left her alone. But I had to know.
My eyes darted once more to my table. Spencer still wasn’t there. I had to find a way to keep Mai from leaving.
“I’m so sorry about Emily,” I said. “I didn’t really know her, but I saw her art and stories after she…” I swallowed. “She seemed really talented. And like a really good person.”
Mai sat down, letting her backpack droop in front of her. Her lip trembled and her eyes glistened, became watery. But she didn’t cry.
“She really was,” Mai finally said. Shaking her head, she looked up at the ceiling. “I don’t even want to be here. I hate being here when she can’t be, you know? I still expect to go to lunch and see her there, but she never is, and then I can’t eat anything. Because she can’t eat anything either, ever again.”
I didn’t know what to say. The last thing I’d wanted to do when I came over here was to dredge up Mai’s memories like this.
Brushing a tear from her cheek, roughly as though mad at herself for letting it fall, Mai stood and pulled her backpack on. “Sorry, I don’t mean to whine to someone I barely know. I’ll let you get back to your book.”
She started to walk off then. I jumped to my feet and said, as loudly as I thought I could get away with, “Mai, wait.”
Turning, she stared at me questioningly.
“Um,” I said. Straightening my shoulders back, I went for it. “Look, I’m here for you if you need to talk about anything. Any … changes you might be going through since last week.”
She blinked. “Changes?”
I nodded at her knowingly. “You know … personal changes. I’ve been going through it too.”
Her eyes darted down to the book I’d sat in front of. And to its brightly drawn diagram of the female reproductive system splayed on the page. Her lips twitched up into a smile.
“Thanks for the offer,” she said. “But I think I already know all about those changes.” Shaking her head, amused despite her grief only moments earlier, she headed out of the library.
I looked around, desperate for some way to get the answers I needed. And I spotted Spencer leaning against the librarian’s desk, casually trying to chat with an annoyed-looking Ms. Levine. Catching his eye, I waved frantically for him to come over.
“What is it?” he whispered as he came over to me. “Did you find anything useful about the shadowmen?”
“No,” I whispered back. “Mai Sato was here. She just left.”
Spencer looked between me and the exit to the library. “You want me to run after her?”
“Uh, no. I don’t want to freak her out any more than I already have. Just … smell the air here. What do you smell?”
Placing both hands on the table, Spencer leaned forward and inhaled. “It’s that perfume again,” he said. “But I don’t smell any wolf-girl, so—Hey, why are you reading about lady parts?”
I slammed the book shut. “You know me, always curious about the cycle of life,” I said. “So that’s it, then? If you don’t smell the other werewolf…”
Spencer grinned at me and put his arm around my shoulder. His personal scent floated around me, mingling with Mai’s lingering perfume.
“Maybe it just faded,” he said. “Don’t worry, Em Dub. If it’s Mai or someone else, we’ll find her.”
I looked into his kind brown eyes. “Promise?” I asked.
He squeezed me closer. “I promise.”
Spencer dropped me off at home. We hugged again, and I took in one last whiff of his scent to carry me through the evening. It wasn’t even the musky smells so much anymore, really. I was starting to picture him idly in my thoughts, and even that was enough to give me a brief respite from the rest of my crazy-town thou
ghts.
I left the minivan just as Dawn pulled up in her car. She raised her eyebrows at me as we both reached the front door.
“New friend?” she asked as she pulled out a jangling bunch of keys and stuck one in the door.
Heat rushed to my cheeks. “Yeah. His name’s Spencer.”
Dawn couldn’t help but grin. “Go, you! I’m glad to see that you haven’t let last week’s escapades keep you from losing that shell.”
She pushed open the door, and I followed her in. “Well, what can I say, you’re an inspiration.”
Laughing, she dropped her bag and wrap on the dining room table. “Oh, by the way, Em, I’ve been meaning to ask—you keep leaving your window open. It’s letting in a draft and, I’m sorry, but I’m not a girl who does cold well.”
“Oh,” I said, setting my own backpack by the front door. “Sorry.”
She shrugged. “It’s not a huge deal. I just remembered because I noticed it was open again when I pulled up.”
I scrunched my forehead. “It is?” I coughed. “I mean, yeah, it is.”
Thing was—I knew I hadn’t left it open when I went to school.
Leaving Dawn behind, I swallowed and crept up the stairs. They creaked beneath me as I took them one at a time, slowly, eyes on my bedroom door. It was slightly ajar, and daylight seeped into the hallway.
Reaching the door, I held my breath. Poked at it so that it opened a little. Then, I kicked it all the way open and jumped into my room.
And nearly screamed at the sight of the dark figure at the edge of my bed.
“Whoa!” Dalton said, jumping to his feet, arms raised. “Don’t yell. It’s just me.”
I smacked his chest, and he fell back down onto the bed. “What are you doing? Why are you in my room?” I reeled back. “Okay, you’re not stalking me, are you? I told you last night, it’s just pheromones.”
He barked a laugh. “No. Not stalking. I just… I wanted to see you. Because I think you didn’t get what you wanted done today.”
I peered out my doorway to make sure no one noticed, then shut my door. I sat on the bed opposite Dalton—and noticed my open window.
