I’ve asked Grandmother, Great-Aunt Dorothy. They have a few answers, but not enough. Most of the time they don’t even understand my questions.
I asked Grandmother why she’d tried to breed the werewolf out of her children.
She denied it.
“But your story?” I asked. “About finding someone who wasn’t a werewolf to have a baby with . . . about marrying out so you could weaken the family illness?”
Grandmother clucked. “That was a story for your father. I’m proud of the wolf in me. In you. I would never try to kill it. Why do you think I work so hard to keep this place the way it is? To make it bigger? Why do you think I want you here?”
“Then why?” I began. “Who, I mean. Who was my grandfather?”
“You won’t tell your father?”
I thought of all the lies he’d told me, everything he’d kept hidden. “No. I promise I won’t tell him.” I thought of the lies Grandmother had told me. I could break my promise.
“Your father’s not a wolf. He doesn’t understand.” For a second her eyes seemed yellow. “Your grandfather was a local boy. Never saw him more than once or twice. He wrote me letters. I never answered. That was that.”
“Is he still alive? My grandfather?”
Grandmother didn’t answer at first, looking at her bony hands, her scarred knuckles. “He’s long gone.”
HISTORY OF ME
Grandmother said that taking the pill to stop the change was an abomination. That we were killing an essential part of me. That if we kept the wolf in me down it would eat away at the human. It was too dangerous. I could explode. I would explode. Her arguments were not rational.
Grandmother says it gets easier. That putting it off only makes the next change worse.
I didn’t care. I would not live on the farm. Not for more than the summer. I could not be a wolf in a cage. Even if it was possible, which it wasn’t. The neighbors might not have called the police that first time, but it was unlikely they’d refrain twice. What would happen when the cops found a wolf in a cage? It’s not legal to keep a wolf as a pet in New York City. What if they came and it was human me in the cage waiting to change? What if they saw me change?
Never again, Dad decided. Never again would he deal with me changing in the city.
They decided to send me to the farm.
Forever.
Living without electricity, without hot water, without my parents, without anything I cared about. With my grandmother, my great-aunt Dorothy, my aunts and uncles and cousins who could barely read and write, let alone do calculus or trigonometry. Who know as little about fast-twitch muscles or mitochondrial DNA as they know about how to catch a cab or how to order a pizza.
No college. No future. No life. I would never unlock werewolf DNA. I would never understand what I am.
I would rather die.
I cried for two days straight. While Mom and Dad told me in turns why my living in the city was impossible.
I would not listen. There had to be another way.
Dad found it.
He learned that the pill can be used to suppress menstruation. He figured it would stop me turning into a wolf, too.
It did. It does.
But the first time we tried it was on the farm where it wouldn’t matter if it went wrong. I refused to go up unless they promised I’d get to go home. No matter what happened.
They promised, but I’m not sure what would have happened if it hadn’t worked. It wasn’t as if Dad had never broken a promise to me before. My hopes were pinned on Mom. If she let me down, then I was going to run all the way back to the city. I would not stay on the farm.
Didn’t come to that because it worked. I didn’t bleed, I didn’t turn into a wolf. I can keep the wolf inside. One pill a day.
My life wasn’t over. Though Grandmother kept telling me that it should be, about the terrible mistake I was making, Dad was making. That this would rebound on me a hundredfold.
She calmed down a bit when we agreed to my returning each summer. Not taking the pill, being a wolf, running wild. It makes her and Hilliard happy. I can give away three months of my life each year. For their sake.
HISTORY OF ME
Grandmother is right. When I am a wolf I cannot be in the city. When I changed that first time the pain of the change was worse than anything I’d ever experienced. The Greats had talked about the pain but they hadn’t explained that changing back would be as bad.
Wolf to human. Curled wolf nails retracting into flesh. Everything in reverse, but every bit as searing, bone-breaking, cell-crushing. There is nothing of a human that is the same size as that of a wolf. Not our lungs, our toes, our livers, our teeth, not even the shafts of our hair. Nothing is the same. All of it has to change.
Going from one to the other and back is the worst pain I have ever experienced and yet being trapped in that tiny cage . . . I thought I would lose my mind.
I could not run.
I could not even pace.
There was no hunt, no play, no running. The smells were metallic and dusty and human but what I heard was worse: machine hums and rattles and beeps, electricity in everything, loud thuds and thrums, squeaks and squeals from the street below. The noise was unendurable. The wolf-me wanted to run. Had to run. Couldn’t run. Couldn’t close my ears either.
I was unjointed, jangled, discombobulated. Many more times in that cage and the wolf would go insane.
I was more than glancing at the forest. I longed for it with every cell.
I could not be a wolf in the city. But I could not be a human on the farm.
HISTORY OF ME
That’s not entirely true. (You’re shocked, I can tell.)
I don’t spend summers upstate solely to make my grandmother happy. I hate being on the farm when I’m human, but I love it when I’m a wolf.
There is nothing better. Happiness is flat-out full-bore wolf speed. The taste of raw deer that I killed myself. The ease of sleeping, of waking, of being. Hanging out with Great-Uncle Hilliard.
The first summer I was there after the change was the first time I was a wolf without a cage. My second time as a wolf.
I loved it.
No, that’s too weak a word. I adored it. Worshipped it.
After I changed, after the blood and hair and teeth of me shifted, after the pain, my universe expanded.
My hearing surged. Wolfish me can hear everything: the faintest movement of rabbit, fox, deer, even rays of sun hitting the ground. Good sounds. Because there’s no electricity on the farm there are no buzzes and clicks to make my fur stand on end.
I ran.
When I run as a human I’m fast, but it’s the faintest echo of how it is when I’m a wolf.
Hilliard knocked me over. Nipped me. Butted me with his head. Showed me how to run like a wolf. Taught me how to hunt.
Wolf life is cleaner, safer, happier.
When I want to play, I play. Sleep, I sleep.
There’s no angst or hesitation or doubt or anxiety or madness.
Turning human, the world closes in. My perceptions dull. For a human my senses are sharp, but I don’t smell or hear anywhere close to how I do in my wolfishness. When I’m human my head is hammered with dark thoughts and feelings and confusion.
When I’m the wolf I don’t remember much of the human, but sometimes when I’m human all I can remember is the wolf.
I want it.
I want to throw the pills in the trash, flush them down the toilet. Never take one of those tiny pills again.
I want to run wild. I want falcons above, rocks, dirt, plants, and mulch beneath my paws. Trees all around. Drink from a stream, eat what I kill.
Wolf kin makes sense. Human? Not so much.
FAMILY HISTORY
There’s one other thing that can (rarely) bring on the change: going into heat, rutting.
That’s why I’m not allowed to have a boyfriend. Why my parents grounded me when they found out about Zach.
They
don’t want me to run any risk of changing in the city. Even so unlikely a risk has to be avoided, even if the precedent is rare and disputed.
Great-Aunt Dorothy remembers it happening; Grandmother says it’s horseshit.
Great-Aunt also says that the same werewolf who changed when he went into heat also changed at the smell of blood—not menstrual blood, any blood—as well as at the scent of prey. In fact, the reek of fear—even anxiety—set him off, whether it came from prey or not. So many things triggered change in him that by the time he was twenty-five he had become a wolf permanently.
I am not like that.
My dad listened to all their tales but the only thing he took away was that I must not ever have sex.
My parents did not notice that blood does not set me off, prey neither, and the scent of fear? Of anxiety? The rooms and halls of my school exude it. So does every street of the city.
I am not like that long-ago, hair-trigger wolf.
My parents do not listen. When they found me with Zach they went ballistic.
HISTORY OF ME
I have thought about not taking the pill in the city, not climbing into the cage. I’d like to see what would happen. How would a wolf hide in the city? Where would they hide? Central Park? Too small. Too overcrowded. Inwood? Maybe. In some ways it would be safer than upstate. Not so many shotguns and coyote-hating farmers in the city.
I would love to know if it’s possible. I would love to try.
I imagine myself living off the ducks and turtles and rabbits in Central Park.
What about when I changed back? How would I—filthy, naked, most likely covered in dried blood—make it all the way back home? Even at four in the morning there are people on the streets. Would I be arrested? Probably not. I’d be confused, they’d think I’d been attacked. They’d take me to a hospital. Would my blood be tested? Would I be discovered? Locked up? Turned into an exhibit? I can see the headlines:
First Werewolf Discovered!
Stranger than Fiction: Miss Wolf!
I can never do it. The risk is too great.
But I would like to. I think of the challenge. I think of the fun.
Besides, I am so much faster than any police officer.
If it weren’t for my parents, I would do it in a heartbeat.
BEFORE
Hilliard was ahead of the deer, me and Jessie flanked it. The fear it gave off was so pungent I would’ve gagged if it hadn’t smelled so delicious, like swimming in chocolate.
We’d waited out of range of the herd’s eyes, ears, and noses for so long that I’d forgotten what moving was like. Hilliard is strict about waiting for the perfect moment, for the wind to be in the right place for us to start moving without setting the deer off, for us to be able to cut off their exits. Healthy deer can outrun us. These were very healthy deer: glossy hides, sharp eyes, and musky inviting odors.
I waited, salivating.
Hunting is six-tenths waiting. That’s the worst part. Then there’s the three-tenths of running, and only one-tenth of bringing the animal down. That’s the best part.
When the herd bolted, we’d already surrounded the slowest: an older doe. Hilliard went for the neck. I buried my teeth and claws in her belly. Jessie bit in deep on the deer’s hindquarters. The deer went down.
I clawed the belly wide open, tore at the guts, the innards spilled out so hot they steamed, filling the air with the smell of blood, gas, and acid.
We hunkered down and ate everything: eyeballs, entrails, ears. When we were done the deer was nothing but hooves, bones, fur, and stringy bits of sinew. No carrion left for the birds, barely enough for ants and flies to nibble on.
HISTORY OF ME
I’ve made wolf life sound more romantic than it is.
When I’m a wolf I have ticks. Parasites suck the blood in my belly and mites breed in my ears. Tapeworms come from the deer I eat, fluke from the fish.
It’s true that I hunt, that I run and play. Most enjoyable, all three. Except when they’re not. When the prey gets away, which is most of the time. A part-time wolf is not as competent as a full-time wolf. A wolf as part-time as me? Three or four times in the summer. I am the least competent wolf of all.
Mostly I sleep. When I’m awake all I want to do is scratch and eat and play and go back to sleep.
When I’m a wolf I itch, I ache, I’m hungry all the time, and if I stray too far off the farm I get shot at. The farm is smaller to the wolf-me than our apartment is to the human-me.
But both are better than time spent in a cage.
PART THREE
The Actual Real Truth
HISTORY OF ME
Being a liar is not an easy business. For starters, you have to keep track of your lies. Remember exactly what you’ve said and who you said it to. Because that first lie always leads to a second.
There’s never ever just one lie.
That’s why it’s best to keep it simple—gives you a better chance of tracking all the threads, keeping them spinning, and hopefully not propagating too many more.
It’s hard work keeping all those lies in the air. Imagine juggling a thousand torches that are all tied together with fine thread. Or running the world’s most complicated machine with cogs on wheels on cogs on wheels on cogs.
Even the best liars, even the ones with the longest memories, the best eye for detail and the big picture, even they get caught eventually. Maybe not in all their lies, but in one or two or more. That’s the way it is.
I hate when that happens. When people figure out that what you were saying wasn’t true and your elaborate construction crumbles.
The lies stop spinning, there’s no lubrication, gears grind on gears. That’s the moment when Sarah stared at me after I laughed, and said, “You’re a girl.”
That moment could have lasted a week. A month. A year.
I was ashamed and angry and hating being caught and already spinning more lies to explain it all away.
But it was also a relief. It’s always a relief.
Because the air is clear, now—at last—I can tell the truth. From this moment on everything will be true. A life lived true with no rotten foundations. Trust. Understanding. Everything shiny and new.
Except I can’t, not ever. Because my truth is so unbelievable—
What did you do over the summer?
Turned into a wolf, tore deer and rabbit apart . . .
—lies will always be easier.
Spin, spin, spin.
I have been through the moment of being found out a hundred times, a thousand times, maybe even a million. I’m only seventeen, but I’ve already seen that look of shock—she lied to me—so many times I have lost count.
It never gets any better.
Yet that’s not the worst danger of being a liar. Oh no. Much worse than discovery, than their sense of betrayal, is when you start to believe your own lies.
When it all blurs together.
You lose track of what’s real and what’s not. You start to feel as if you make the world with your words. Your lies get stranger and weirder and denser, get bigger than words, turn into worlds, become real.
You feel powerful, invincible.
“Oh sure,” you say, completely believing it. “My family’s an old family. Going way way way back. We work curse magic. Me, I can make your hand wither on your arm. I could turn you into a cat.”
Once you start believing, you stop being compulsive and morph into pathological.
It happens a lot after something terrible has happened. The brain cracks, can’t accept the truth, and makes its own. Invents a bigger and better world that explains the bad thing, makes it possible to keep living. When the world you’re seeing doesn’t line up with the world that is—you can wind up doing things—terrible things—without knowing it.
Not good.
Because that’s when they lock you up and there’s no coming back because you’re already locked up: inside your own head. Where you’re tall and strong and fast and
magic and the ruler of all you survey.
I have never gone that far.
But there are moments. Tiny ones when I’m not entirely clear whether it happened or I made it up. Those moments scare me much more than getting caught. I’ve been caught. I know what that’s like. I’ve never gone crazy. I don’t want to know what that’s like.
Weaving lies is one thing; having them weave you is another.
That’s why I’m writing this. To keep me from going over the edge. I don’t want to be a liar anymore. I want to tell my stories true.
But I haven’t so far. Not entirely. I’ve tried. I’ve really, really tried. I’ve tried harder than I ever have. But, well, there’s so much and it’s so hard.
I slipped a little. Just a little.
I’ll make it up to you, though.
From now on it’s nothing but the truth.
Truly.
LIE NUMBER ONE
Yayeko Shoji, my biology teacher, did not describe the decomposition of Zach’s body.
I made that up.
Yayeko did not tell us about the pooling of Zach’s blood, his calcium ions’ leak, his rigor mortis, the breakdown of his cells. She did not tell us about bacteria, flies, eggs, or maggots.
I told you what I wished she’d told us. Because I wanted to know. Because I wanted to understand. How Zach could go from living, breathing . . . from how he was to . . . bacteria, flies, eggs, maggots.
Everyone lied.
They talked about him being gone but not what that meant. I heard Principal Paul say that Zach had “passed on.” He didn’t “pass on.” Zach died. Like we all will. Only he went sooner and more violent, with blood pooling inside and outside his body.
So I read about death and decomposition and I try to understand.
But I don’t.
The first thing that happens after death is that blood and oxygen stop flowing through the body.
The body falls apart. Slowly.
Liar Page 14
